Kotaku Senior Editor Alyssa Mercante continues to play the victim as she launches attacks against gamers.
Alyssa Mercante via Blerd Without Fear! YouTUbe
In an article published by Kotaku on April 19th, Mercante attempts to argue that character attractiveness in Stellar Blade and Hades II is “fundamentally different.”
She writes, “Despite what certain corners of the internet might believe, there isn’t a lack of attractive people in modern video games—Baldur’s Gate 3 just set a GOTY award record, and that game was full of hotties. But when compared to something like Stellar Blade’s Eve, the standard bearer for the latest gamer culture war, the manner in which Hades depicts its characters (and their attractiveness) is fundamentally different.”
Eve in Stellar Blade (2024), Shift Up
She goes on to argue, “Hades characters’ sexiness is woven into their personalities, as much a part of them as their wants, needs, and emotions—and their bodies, however scantily clad or salacious, are not in motion, they cannot be manipulated or posed or peered at from different angles. Instead, it’s like you’re looking at statues or paintings of these gods and their eternal, infinite sexiness. There is desire here, sure, but there is also power and reclamation, there is longing because you only get a tiny little taste of their beauty.”
Conversely, she describes Eve from Stellar Blade as a “sex doll.” She wrote, “Conversely, as Issy Van Der Velde writes for Inverse, a character like Stellar Blade’s Eve (like Lara Croft before her) is hot, but she doesn’t seem to be aware of it: ‘she’s sexy but doesn’t know it; she’s athletic and acrobatic but entirely controllable.’ She is a blank slate, a poseable sex doll, her bountiful chest heaving during idle animations.”
She then contrasts this with Hades II, “In Hades 2, everyone is horny for each other, and thus it feels far less leery and creepy for us as players to be horny for them, too. These are sexual people, gods who are infamous for their rampant and often unchecked desires.”
Eve in Stellar Blade (2024), Shift Up
This argument is wrong and shows that Mercante is creating scandal by attempting to lead people down a very destructive, evil path. Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin explains the difference between admiration of beauty and lust back in 2018.
Akin states, “Beauty is something that exists in the human form, and God created it and that’s great. … So we’re not supposed to not recognize it or not appreciate it, so it’s perfectly fine to note the qualities, the good qualities, that another person has and to appreciate them. … So if you see a beautiful woman and you think, ‘Wow, that’s a beautiful woman,’ that’s okay. You’re not committing a mortal sin. You don’t need to worry about that.”
He then contrasts with this lust, “And so it doesn’t become a sin–mortal or otherwise–until you start to voluntarily respond and say, ‘I think I’m gonna indulge this, and I think I’m gonna start thinking about what it would be like to have sex with this person.’ When you start getting voluntary about it, when you start going beyond appreciating the beauty, and deliberately engaging in lustful thoughts, well that’s where it does become sinful. And even then it doesn’t mean it’s a mortal sin because people–and this is true of both sexes, but it’s especially true of guys at a certain point in their lives–it’s very easy to unintentionally slip into some thoughts of that nature, and in those situations there may be some sin, but it’s not a mortal sin because what’s lacking is full deliberation.”
Eve in Stellar Blade (2024), Shift Up
Nevertheless, Mercante doubled down on her argument on April 27th. She wrote on X, “Baldur’s Gate 3 is an RPG in which you can have sexual relationships. Customizing your entire character’s body, even the genitals, makes sense. You can’t one-to-one compare that to other games and the bodies depicted in them that are not RPGs. Yet, they’re trying it!”
She added, “One gust of wind and their house of cards falls every time. Then they get another deck, a new issue to screech about, and build a new one. Rinse and repeat. I draw attention to it because I’m still being endlessly harassed for an article even tangentially related from nearly two months ago.”
Alyssa Mercante on X
Mercante then concluded her thread, “‘Just ignore them.’ Okay sure, and last time we largely ignored them as an industry they took it as tacit approval, so, just saying!”
Alyssa Mercante on X
Mercante’s argument makes absolutely no sense given you compare anything to other things. That’s the whole point of comparisons.
And even if you wanted to get into the nitty gritty of her argument and the claim that you can’t make one-to-one comparisons, well, she did it first. As noted above she compared Hades II to Stellar Blade, and by her own admission that’s not really a one-to-one comparison.
Eve in Stellar Blade (2024), Shift Up
What do you make of Mercante’s latest attack on gamers?
NEXT: Gamers Begin Cancelling PlayStation Network Subscriptions To Free ‘Stellar Blade’ From Censorship
This girl is nuts. She pick her enemies, especially Mark Kern, and she’s going to take the opposite side no matter what. However I’m not picking sides on this one. They should be able to make pretty much whatever game they want to make but I’m not going to pretend that I would let my sons or even myself play this game. I know I’m weak and some of these outfits are absolutely crazy in all of the best and worst ways. Now I know Kern and company are not making the argument that this game is somehow kid friendly or wholesome. I’m just giving my personal perspective that some of these outfits are pretty titillating to say the least.
There is a surplus of crzy in this woman’s eyes. I can’t wait for that garbage website to crash ans burn.