The Unfriending

A couple of days ago, I was unfriended on Facebook.  This is not a unique occurrence; on more than one occasion I've been a casualty of someone clearing people they don't talk to very often out of their friends list.  It's never a big deal - hell, most of the time I don't even notice.  This one was different though, this time it's because someone decided they really, really didn't like me anymore.

A little backstory is order.  This person, who I shall refer to as "G," is an acquaintance from the amateur theatre group I belong to.  Quite by chance I learnt that his view of the world - and particularly of ethnic minorities -  falls somewhere "skewed" and "deeply paranoid." According to G, "tinted people" - yes, that was the expression he used - are taking over Britain, and something needs to be done before it is too late.  He also posited that the legal system of the UK was biased in favour of ethnic minorities and that judges would bend over backwards to let them off.  (It's worth mentioning that G was a police officer during the 70s, so he claims to have seen it first hand. albeit, 40 or so years ago.)

I've never been a police officer, and I'm not as old as G, but even so, his claims sounded a little far-fetched - which is a nice way of saying, "crazy and racist" - but not wanting to get into a argument with him (we were doing a volunteer shift on the theatre bar together at the time) I politely told him I disagreed with him, challenged him a little, but largely left the matter alone.

Kinda like I should have done when he started saying things about Diane Abbot.

If you don't know, Abbott is the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington and has been since 1987.  She has a history of voting based on her beliefs rather than the party line.   She also recently made a couple of comments that got people rather steamed.  The first was this tweet: "white people love playing "divide and rule". We should not play their game #tacticasoldascolonialism."  People were up in arms, making the case that had the race roles been reversed - ignoring for a moment that that wouldn't *quite* be the same thing - then we'd be after the unwitting tweeter's head. This is probably true, and there's no denying that Abbott could have phrased her remark better.  In fact, she probably should have done, considering that she is an MP, and therefore a public figure.

What the remark wasn't, however, was racist, particularly not when looked at in its proper context.  It was a reply to another tweet about black people feeling disenfranchised and disillusioned with their leaders, who, in the Tweeter's eyes, didn't properly represent their black constituents.  Her second comment, which suggested that black people find it hard to get taxis is again, not racist.  Uncomfortable to hear maybe, but not racist.

So, when G said that these comments were "blatantly" racist, I piped up an noted that they'd been taken out of context and she'd since apologised.  He responded saying that he supposed her comment about taxis had been taken out of context as well, to which I said no, but that is wasn't really a racist comment anyway.

And that, gentle reader, is where I should have left it.  Unfortunately for me, he replied with how he thought she had an agenda unbecoming to her position and posted a quote that Gordon Brown had made about a voter, calling her a bigot.  I knew what he was getting at, but I wanted to get a reaction out of him, to hear him express his views - which he is well aware are unpalatable to most people -  out loud in his own words.  So I asked him what he thought this agenda was, and pointed out that the quote he had used was not about Abbott at all, something that he hadn't mentioned in his own post.

I wanted to get a rise out of him, and boy did I succeed.  This is the response:

"I'm fully aware of that Logan - it was a simile and that you should think that I was not aware of whom this comment by Brown was made about is an insult to my intelligence. Her position is that of an MP - she is to serve the people, without bias, no matter what their colour, race, creed or religion. Her comments have been found to be deeply offensive by many people - whatever their colour, race, creed or religion. I find your obvious 'defense' of this woman to be offensive against my colour, race, creed and religion - does that make me a racist - or you? My suggestion to you is that you keep your obviously Labour-orientated nose out of my business and my freedom of speech! When you have grown up and realised just what this world is about then we may be able to have a sensible, adult, discussion - until then - go away!"

That's quite the rise.  For the record, I don't think I'm the racist, especially not if he's saying, as he seems to be saying, that he's upset that I sided with the blacks against the whites.  Maybe I'm reading that wrong, but that's what "I find your obvious 'defense' of this woman to be offensive against my colour, race, creed and religion - does that make me a racist - or you?" says to me.  Unfortunately, the impact of this rant was rather lost on me because he unfriended me before I had a chance to read it.  I only have it because I asked another friend to grab it for me so I could have a look.

So yay me, I win - I guess.  I got him mad and he posted a long huffy rant for all his Facebook friends to see.  Mission accomplished, right?  Well no, not really.  What have I actually achieved?  I've vindicated G's world view that there are liberal thought police, for one.  I've also precipitated a really awkward moment in the theatre if and when he and I are there at the same time.  Oh, and I managed to upset my girlfriend who was completely baffled as to why I was picking fights with people who weren't going to change their minds.

What I did was the equivalent of arguing about evolution with someone who is convinced that dinosaur skeletons are a test from God for the faithful.  That is not an argument you are going to win.  At best, the person you're talking to thinks you're deluded because you believe that giant lizards roamed the earth, and at worst they try to banish as the demon you very clearly are.

I will say this though, I have learnt at least one important lesson.  I really need to pick my battles better.  I am in no way sad that I have upset a paranoid, near-delusional, racist, but if I'm honest with myself - something I should strive to be a little bit more often - I've not really made the world a better place.  I whole-heartedly believe that people should think about issues of race and gender more often, and I think that now we've largely eliminated overt racism and sexism, we've got the much harder and less pleasant task of tackling the more subtle stuff.  That said, attacking people who, as I mentioned before, aren't going to change their mind, is a fool's errand.  It's like triage, you focus your attention on those you can actually help.

Playing to Win (When You Shouldn't)

RPGs are a team sport, as much as sitting round a table pretending to be wizards can be considered a sport.  But unlike something like hockey or football, it's not about one person beating everyone else, it's about everyone coming together to have a good time - a good time that may include beating the snot out of an Orc Chieftain or outwitting the Midnight Princess.   Yes, there are victories, but if the game's being played right, they're everyone's' victories.  That's the idea anyway; it all falls apart is when people start playing to win.

In an activity with as much scope and freedom as role-playing games, there's lots of different avenues for "victory."  Some people like to go on and on about how their bad ass magical dude, who can spit acid and destroy entire villages with their laser vision, would win in a fight against someone else's not-quite-so-bad-ass-and-slightly-more-rounded magical dude.  Indeed, some people build their characters expressly for that purpose so they can feel like the baddest motherfucker in the room, even if it is all just imaginary.  Others like to mess the group over in one way or another.  Sometimes it's just getting the party into trouble by being impulsive or reckless, while other times it's a case of one player actively trying to undermine the other players with intrigue and schemes.  Occasionally it all gets incredibly meta, and players try to win outside the game by  derailing it or making ridiculous characters just to piss off the GM.

(As someone who is quite easy to annoy, this has happened to me quite a bit, although I'm much better at knowing when someone is messing with me now.  Also, learning to say no is a vital skill.)

There's probably a ton of psychological facts that explain this behaviour, but as nice as it would be to know why one of my Shadowrun players thought an agoraphobic weakling with a potentially lethal allergy to sunlight was a good idea, I'd rather that he just stopped doing it.

It's even worse when the GM is playing to win.  When the GM does it, the players might as well pack up their dice and go home, because nothing they can is going to make a jot of difference.  Just as it is for players, there's lots of different avenues for GMs to mess with their players, with the added bonus - for the GM that is - that he or she will always win in the end.  If a GM wants your character dead, then he or she has countless ways in which to make it so.  I've played with GMs who have cheered when they score critical hits against their players.  Even as a joke, that's quite the dick move.

Possibly my least favourite expression of this - and this is a very personal thing, because there are people who really enjoy this kind of game - are the GMs who play "fair," by letting the dice fall where they may and not showing any favouritism towards the players over the imaginary monsters.  Personally, I think an RPG is better when the players win in the end.  That's not to say the GM should make things easy for his or her players - winning without a challenge is boring - but sometimes fudging a dice roll is the right way to go.  To put it another way: Lord of the Rings wouldn't have been a better story if Elrond had fluffed his healing check in Rivendell and doomed Frodo to life as a Ring-Wraith.

Poor Donna Noble...

I really hate the end of season four in the relaunched Doctor Who. Yes, I know I'm about three years too late, but I caught the episode "Turn Left" the other day, and it reminded me just how infuriating that season was.

What bothers me is the rough treatment that Donna Noble gets. Donna is easily one of the best companions the Doctor has ever had - at least in my limited experience - and at first glance, the writing staff seemed to know it too. “Turn Left” even says that she's the most important being in the universe. This comes after about half an hour of misery for the human race because Donna never saved the Doctor's life in "The Runaway Bride," meaning that he wasn't around to deal with all the other threats that attacked the Earth during season three. So yeah, Donna seems pretty important, especially considering that without the Doctor, the Dalek's plan to annihilate all non-Dalek life in the universe would have gone ahead without a hitch.

But here's the problem: If saving the Doctor's life makes Donna the most important being in the universe, then it's an accolade she shares with a lot of other people. There are nearly 800 episodes of Doctor Who and Donna is not the first person/robot/sentient plant to save the Doctor's life. Don't get me wrong, saving a Time Lord's life is nothing to be sneezed at, but “Turn Left” makes it abundantly clear that it's the Doctor, and not Donna, who's really important.

I'm probably being a little unfair here, as the "most important being in the universe" bit more properly refers to Donna at the end of the season, after she has become part Time Lord and uses her new-found abilities to defeat Davros and the Daleks, put the various stolen planets back where they should be, and save all of creation. But even that is a little bit sketchy when you really look at it. Ignoring for a moment the fact that the way the Doctor Donna thing comes about is one of the most ludicrous deus ex machinas I've ever seen, what makes Donna so important is not anything to do with her, but rather where she was standing. It's a case of her being in the right place at the right time, and had Martha or Jack or Sarah Jane been in Donna's place, the outcome would have been largely the same. Defeating the Daleks needed some of the Doctor's mojo, and it just so happened that this time it was Donna in the driving seat.

There's also the matter of the deeply unsatisfying - not to mention unsettling - way that season ended, with Doctor sealing away Donna's memory of their time together and forcing her to live the life she left behind in order to prevent her mind from burning out. A life, I might add, that she really didn't want to go back to. Watching her plead with the Doctor, begging him not to take her memories away was heart-breaking. David Tennant and Catherine Tate did a great job with that scene, but the fact that it exists at all has me scratching my head.

If the plan was to write Donna out of the series in a way that meant she could never come back, why not kill her? Why not have her give her life to save the entire universe, giving her a hero's death, rather than force her to live a miserable existence as someone she hates. Hell, why make her part Time Lord at all? Why not give her her moment in the sun, and let her succeed because she's Donna. Not because she saved the Doctor, and not because she became the Doctor, but because she thought of something that no one else did, or she could do something that no one else could.  Pretty much anything would have been better than the send off that she got.

Goodbye Donna, you deserved better.