Seperae the Artist from the Art

What does it mean to seperate the art from the artist? It seems to have two meanings which are used as one and the same:

• "Am I allowed to enjoy media from bad artists?" Yes, I have made peace with the facts that most creators probably disdain me in one way or another, and abusive behavior is not exclusive to a small group of evil people. Worrying about making good customer choices is an endless pit of misery that helps nothing. One should also keep in mind that for every despicable artist out there, there are many marginalized creators deserving more support; but I think this is a seperate issue which shouldn't be conflated with customer activism.
• "The critique of art should be seperated from the artist." Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. Audience has a deeply personal relationship with art, and art critique should always prioritize this relationship over the artist.  I have discussed this on detail before(click here), so won't do so here again.

Thus, my answer to the regularly re-heated debate : We should seperate the art from the artist. There is a more interesting question however: What happens when we can't?
Sometimes we reach our personal limits. Everyone can understand creating good art doesn't make a creator morally uptight. Yet still, creators leave a part of themselves in art, so when they cross the line, their mere association might feel to much. Sometimes it's just not the same anymore.
Sometimes, the artist and a fanbase works hard to make sure the art from its artist inseperable. Perhaps the most salient example of this is Harry Potter.
If you have observed how people tend to talk about Harry Potter in media, you would certainly caught the weird tone the discussions have. HP discussions often has. Characters are mentioned as if they are real, the plot is discussed as it is a piece of world history. This is not exclusive to HP, and its wish-fulfillment aspect might make people to indulge in its world and lore a little too much, but what's unique about HP is how this behavior is enabled and endorsed to the staggering degree by the author. The author drops lore bits, celebrates characters' birthdays and muses about events in the story. This is actually nothing too absurd in itself, it could be even cute and tounge-in-cheek. However, the author and fans constantly do this, frequently referencing HP when talk about real politics. To someone lacking any context, it would actually seem like these people are in a very involved role-play, or worse, believe Harry Potter is non-fiction.
No, what's happening here is not that simple. Harry Potter fandom and the author denies the series' from existing as fictional novels, or literature at all. It is treated as a documentary, a reality TV show, and a political manifesto. This attitude is so widespread that even the critics sometimes do this. They say: "The author is no doubt such a reactionary, look at Harry Potter, it is filled with so much of this!" Such critiques fail on two fronts:

• Harry Potter as a whole is not a series with a consistent world-building. It takes many assumptions as granted. For example, for a series so much focused on death, most related concepts left blank. The series only make sense if you already know and agree with Christianity, which is notable bacuse series never once discuss religion. Harry Potter is a magic-decorated world from the view of a cis-straight middle-class-turned-rich Brit. What "political themes" present in the book are mostly a cluster of truisms flowing from it. Of course all characters would end up being married at the end of the book, what else are "normal healthy adults" supposed to do?
• Harry Potter, or any other art piece, is completely irrelevant to the author's behavior. If the series were just uplifting children's tales, this wouldn't change anything about author being a raging transphobe. Conversely, if the author was the truly vagely progressive person a lot of people thought as, that should have no relevance to HP as piece with neoliberal-misogynst themes.

This shows how truly difficult is to seperate HP from its author. If you have read any Harry Potter content in English, the author's shadow seem inescepable.
Still, it is not impossible. When I read the series when I was a kid, I didn't know anything about the author. As much as knowing about the beliefs of the transphobic author makes me see some parts in the series in different light, I never really needed that knowledge.  No one really does. People merely has a habit of thinking literary criticism as something mostly applies to art from the artists they don't like.
I wish people stopped talking about that transphobic millionare when there are much more important issues even in the scope of trans struggles. However if they want to talk about that person so much, they should leave Harry Potter, Fantastic Beast or whatever fiction the author have involved in. Not as a respect to sancity of nostalgia or anything of the sort, but because personal criticism and art critique are entirely different matters. If you are unwilling to seperate art from the artist, then at least try to seperate the artist from the art.
This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Laura Watson, MasterofCubes, Makkovar, Otakundead and Spencer Gill.

Witcher 3: A Long Game That Fell Short

 

 

Complaining about game-length feels weird, as my favorite games often have play-times surpassing one-hundred hours. I've played at least two games which lasted three-hundred hours. A good part of my childhood has been spent replaying a couple of games over and over. Even when I am busy, spending time on them isn't an an issue in and of itself. However, games like Trails In the Sky (2004), Europa Universalis 4 (2013) or even The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011) simply feel good to play, whereas something like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015), is not, to me, good enough of a play experience to justify its 200-hour length. I feel, this is often the heart of the issue in most video game critique around length. (The other being people literally not having enough time.) Witcher 3 would be quite amazing if it was a couple dozen or even around sixty hours. The game is good, it can be even considered excellent on all the broad strokes. Taking the role of an expert monster hunter in both action and words is rather promising. Its world isn't a stock medieval-fantasy setting, it often feels right out of a fairy tale. Its dialouge is enjoyable to witness and participate in. The game can present true morally-grey questions and wacky adventures alike with the same grounded, tasteful writing, backed by the might of its top-level production. However as a bridge collapsing under excess weight, it simply does not have the fundamental structures to support hundreds and hundreds hours of fun play. The game isn't lacking in any easily noticable or quantifiable terms, the devil is in the details.

Inventory Mismanagement

What is the purpose of an inventory management system? Usually it's one of the two: Either resource managing is central to the game, as it is most survival games or it acts like a brake in games built on hoarding a lot of stuff, like Bethesda games. In Witcher 3, the inventory is way to small to do hoarding but the resources are so easy to replenish that it is not limiting in a tactical sense. The only thing inventory really achieves is to make you selective in what to take and drop your load regularly. It makes you spend more time in the menu, without being actually engaging in the slightest. A lot of RPGs do not have inventory management at all, and they can just do fine at preventing the player from being too powerful too early. In theory, Witcher 3 also supports such a system. You will not get rich easily by loot, nor there are too many things obtained by gold. And most importantly, critical resources like potions and materials are already either stockable or easily replenishable. Limited inventory feels like it is there mostly because that's what a "western-RPG" typically does.

A Big World You Shouldn't Explore

Witcher 3's game world is huge.  And it often feels picturesque as well. However, there isn't too much to do in the world itself. Despite how large it might look from above, the points of interests are actually rather distinct and clear. There isn't much point to wonder around. Quests are neatly structured around your level, which itself is gained mainly by doing quests. As stated previously, there isn't much looting to do, actual important treasures are also tied to levels, and as Witcher 3 is not a game about outlandish armors and weapons, what you will find is mostly similar besides the numbers they number. Random encounters don't give much experience, they worsen the quality of your gear and cost food. Fast travel is quite limited and only useful when you start a destination, but not when you return to towns, which is arguably where fast travel is actually neccesary. A lot of time is spent on foot or horseback, going from point A  to point. Skyrim is sometimes criticised for having fast travel because it is said to discourage exploration but it has been always the opposite for me. I feel very different when I want to explore vs when I simply want to get things done, Skyrim respects this difference and supports both approaches. Witcher 3 does neither, the world is mainly consists of story segments but you have to spend a lot of time between those segments. It has many things to collect, many places to arrive, many enemies to fight; but they add up to so little in the end.

Little Room for Growth

Most important things in the game is gated away with levels, but grinding on your own pace is not very doable, and leveling up doesn't feel important. What it mostly does is to make numbers larger, adding slight improvements to your combat skills and opens some dialouge options in minor scenarios. Witcher 3 is not a game about wacky magic or wild combos. This is a game where you are encouraged to fight like Geralt the Rivia, with his tools, his skills and his methods. It actually makes complete sense that he doesn't change much with leveling, by the time the game starts, he is already at the top of his game. Then why leveling exists at all? Why Geralt needs to arbitrarily wait before he is strong enough to hunt some of the monsters, in the trailer he is triumphant against an extremely dangereous monster. Why does he always get bothered with hordes of wolves, bandits and random lake monsters?  In a typical RPG, leveling often symbolises ia young adventurer's growth. It doesn't say meaningful about Geralt. I truly feel the game would be infinitely more interesting if you were just restricted by your toolbox instead. It would certainly beat obtaining a simple spreading-flame magic after twenty hours or so.

Conclusion

In truth, Witcher 3 is two games mashed together: One is the story of Geralt, his encounters, his hunting, his choices. And the other is an "triple A huge map game". These two games are fundementally at odds with each other Most of the play exist mainly as a chore to you have to get through in order to emjoy the juicy parts. There is too much downtime in the game to properly maintain a consistent sense of excitement, but also too little that actually feels impactful. What broke the deal for me was not the amount of time spent, it was the feel of accomplishing so little. It was quite disheartning to see clocking at thirty hours and just having finished the first chapter.  I strongly believe, if the game was entirely designed in the spirit of Ciri segments; mainly focusing on planned combat sequences, scenery and dialouge, it would reach its true potential. Unfortunately, no matter how creative or impactful they might be otherwise, Witcher series as a whole are weighed down by the conventions of their times; needlessly complex combat, weird quest systems or, in our case, a huge open world map.
This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Laura Watson, MasterofCubes, Makkovar, Otakundead and Spencer Gill.