Putting Jade on Ice: DE’s Misstep with the Jade Shadows Update

[ChangelingRain]

10 hours ago, Xaero said:

Serving as Orokin executioner? Posessing a legendary weapon mentioned in different parts of the game (Jade even executed Margulis with it)?

This is conjecture at best, as we know that the Jade Light was not at all specific to Jade herself - the Myrmidon(Ivara Leverian) used it, and Archimedian Yonta was capable of using it on herself on the Zariman(notably, before warframes were even developed). Which makes it far less likely that Jade herself served as executioner in any significant capacity.

Edited Tuesday at 03:09 AM by ChangelingRain

[Perrierite]

14 hours ago, ChangelingRain said:

This is conjecture at best, as we know that the Jade Light was not at all specific to Jade herself - the Myrmidon(Ivara Leverian) used it, and Archimedian Yonta was capable of using it on herself on the Zariman(notably, before warframes were even developed). Which makes it far less likely that Jade herself served as executioner in any significant capacity.

Parvos acknowledged her as Orokin executioner in Ascension lines, in fact knowing her in that way drove him to have Jade light for himself.

Although I agree that her character is underdeveloped, being Orokin executioner doesn't add much to who she was without episodes to tell her character.

Edited Tuesday at 05:52 PM by Perrierite

[(XBOX)mommyapples]

i wholeheartedly agree, i also think it would be a good idea to change the content warning, as a trans woman it hurts to conflate motherhood and giving birth and i realise me saying im trans will make a lot of people instantly disagree with my point, im just putting it out there. trans men can give birth, that is not motherhood, trans women cant give birth but can still have children, that is motherhood (and non binary people could apply to either).

[NineChameleon]

So... I'm going to come at this from a different angle. Not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing but just wanting to add a talking point to this discussion.

As someone who has hated the design of most of the female frames for a long time now, for being stagnant and over-sexualised. Seeing Jade, and what she represented was a breath of fresh air. She's not made overly sexual with a giant rear or a pronounced chest. She's not got patterning on her that makes it look like she's wearing a bikini when using certain colours. 

The one thing that bothered me about Jade and initially made me ignore the frame and the Dev Streams showcasing her. Where that yet again her design felt stagnant. "Yet another woman in a dress." I thought. And I was never more happy to be wrong. Because I hadn't watched any devstreams or primetimes about her. I was completely blindsided by everything in the quest. So, I got the experience on a blank canvas so to speak. 

A heads up that I identify as non binary but you know, female at birth and all that. I'm quite a sensitive person anyway and have my own mother related trauma. So the popup worried me when I saw it. 

I see all the points you're putting forward OP. And while I can certainly agree with where you're coming from. What's the alternative? That we only ever get hyper-sexualised female frames that are uber powerful with pages and pages of lore that isn't really all that compelling? (dagath looking at you) 

For a long time i felt that the design of the female warframes, was stagnating. And it was leading to a lore problem because no one really had any ideas for fear of being misogynistic. So we end up getting the same premise for most of them. aka Hyper-competent and bad ***.

So here we have Jade.

Yes, narratively she's an accessory to stalker on the face of it. We do know she's very powerful. Parvos tells us in the ascension mode. Hints about "jade light" have been dropped for years. We're told in the quest introduction that she never held back on executing her enemies. Until Sorren. When she recognised him, her priority became rescuing him. Throwing all caution out the window to spirit him away somewhere safe. Only to have her warframe body fail in the process. Why? It's unclear. Perhaps seeing him again re-awakened memories she'd begun to forget. Including the child still technically inside her. We know it didn't bother her or drain her for years. Until she remembered it. Then it starts to drain her strength. And a warframe, unlike a person, doesn't really have a way of recovering that strength effectively on her own. 

So here is Jade. Her humanity re-awoken by remembering Sorren and her Child. A cold killing machine that remembered she used to be something else. And when she remembered. She chose that something else. She chose to be something more than what she was turned into. And in turn, to upend everything the orokin tried to do. They tried to take her humanity. They tried to take her memory. They tried to take her free will. So she saved someone at not benefit to herself. So she remembered. So she chose. 

Warframe, increasingly lately, has been about overcoming the role you're told you fit into. The mould you're placed in. The walls of reality. 

The role Jade was forced into wasn't motherhood. It was that of a warframe. It was that of an executioner. She was made into something so completely. And yet she still chose to be the thing she wanted to be. A mother. Exercising her freedom even if it meant her death. And though that journey of hers that isn't explicitly stated. We see a mirror of it in stalker. Turned into a killing machine. Filled with hatred. Robbed of his true memories. Only existing to hunt Tenno. And in this moment. This quest. He remembers Jade. He finds his humanity that has been lost by showing mercy becoming our ally. And he choses to be the thing he wanted to be before it. A father. 

Because of all that implicit lore. This quest brought me to tears. It was beautiful. To see two beings created for death, instead creating life. Putting aside the things that bound them into roles they didn't want to be in. And learning to be human again. Even if it's in their last moments.

Should Jade have survived in some way? Perhaps. Should stalker have died too? Maybe. 

We can't avoid the tropes associated with Misogyny. They will always exist. It's part of life. Being able to chose. While some women will chose to be bad ***. Some may want to be vulnerable. Some might want to be mothers. Some might not. And the same goes for men. A man might want to be vulnerable even though the world tells them not to be. But equally some men might want to be Some men might want to be a breadwinner. Others might want to be a househusband. Taking away one choice because it's misogyny is no better than misogyny itself. Because they both take away our right to define our lives. They both try and force us into behaving in a way we might not want to. 

So, while I do agree the quest could've been better. I think sometimes a lighter hand when it comes to lore, and being less explicit can be a strength. I'd rather figure it out myself with my own interpretation, than be handed a multi-page novel like i was for Dagath.  

[Helianthus_Arum]

Here's my 2 cents on the situation: Jade as the concept, As The Name Of The Warframe SHOULD have more based on her VERY DEEP NOTES IN THE LORE.
for me personally it's about the fact that they had So much frame-work in lore and what we know.
In my opinion lore should come in pairs, not adding on so much to a single character.

the pregnant warframe desighn was out of left feild and probably an attempt to represent more aspects of life than what we're used to.
this obviously can and did trigger people with certain traumas, and while it's all good to say "then don't play her/dont play the game" its actively disregarding the time, effort and community they have built up.

the plot itself was a shallow attempt at rounding out stalker and a waste of a VERY powerful/hidden character whispered about for years "jade light" is quoted as somthing like an inevitable death. 
this was probably a case of "making quick content while we bide our time." (1999)
the plot itself is literally 2 '3' quick missions and doesn't explain his hatred, WE didn't make them warframes. torturers, killers, the orokin did.

As for the poor representation of the frame, in all its too much bundled in one character + a theme that wasn't even in her name.
the pregnancy should be represented, but, for me, it feels a shallow thing to hold a characer to. "you are a person who was pregnant" 
her themes as originally presented was an angel of death. an inevitable fate you cant run or hide from. her design doesn't convey that as much as her abillities, and so theres this.. confusion. and her dying at the end feels shallow and a poor representation, dying for ones child is a mixed bag but in all it feels like a shallow way to say "oh noo.." and plays into other poor themes as stated by the OP

and for her apperance? id say have a toggle that locks her dress closed or a re-work on desighn choices.
its good that DE wants to represent aspects of life we dont usually see.
its NOT good when they dont account for basic facts of said choices and decisions. they didn't account for the people who have trauma, they put the warning there. but that should have been clarified and shouldn't have to come with the full charater.

then there's fixing plot. maybe they should expand it abit. Stalker says "I remember what you did, I remember the day" why not have a flash-back quest?
same with Jade, show her impact on history? was she one of the ones who fought back? what about the execution of Margulis, or the countless others.

however for the "mirror of stalker" part. thats where I disagree, stalker should be his own thing, she already has implications in lore and in all I thought she'd be SIMILAR not just a carbon copy, she's probably meant to be his opposide, Angel and a Demon. thats the idea I oroginally got from the two. 

I think a thing to remember is we're all human, everyone has bad and good views, morality is a subjective concept and opinionated topics can devolve into arguing.
and I'm no exception, I tried to make this as logical as possible, in all honesty I'm abit off with the design of the character and animations being so focused on her stomach and thats why I even looked for posts about this.

Edited Tuesday at 10:12 PM by Helianthus_Arum

[Helianthus_Arum]

19 hours ago, ChangelingRain said:

Which makes it far less likely that Jade herself served as executioner in any significant capacity.

thats where I'd counter. Jade Light IS the end all be all execution method of the Orokin. Archimedian Yonta said it was a mercy for her and Myrmidon killed 3 warframes with it.

do you think they'd equip a Warframe with one of their greatest weapons and not give them the job to be sent as their own personal incarnation of death to knock on the doors of the enemy?
even Parvos Granum said Jade was the "Boogyman of the Orokin Empire"
1 person almost killed a full squad of warframes with that. 

sure there were other methods (see Lavos lore) but it still applies that it was reserved for the ellete and most dangerous, either quick and painless or powerful enough to kill whatever needed that firepower

it even plays into the Orokin Ego: sending down a vengeful Angel to whoever "angered the gods"

Edited Tuesday at 10:39 PM by Helianthus_Arum

[Hexwater]

1 hour ago, Helianthus_Arum said:

the pregnant warframe desighn was out of left feild and probably an attempt to represent more aspects of life than what we're used to.
this obviously can and did trigger people with certain traumas, and while it's all good to say "then don't play her/dont play the game" its actively disregarding the time, effort and community they have built up.

Yeah. Most people playing warframe are veterans playing for several years now. I myself have been playing for 8 I think.

You don't move houses cause suddenly there's mold in a basement. You fix it the best you can.

1 hour ago, Helianthus_Arum said:

and for her apperance? id say have a toggle that locks her dress closed or a re-work on desighn choices.

A toggle between pre-quest and post-quest Jade would be nice, and I'm advocating for it.
If that's too difficult for DE to do so (flattening out the mesh and applying a texture shouldnt be too difficult...unless they have a massive, elaborated, and complicated process of doing so), and they wanna make money out players like me (weirded out by giving birth minigame that is constnatly reminded by perma-preg Jade) then a deluxe skin that retains angelic theme

My next hope is a TennoGen skin that makes Jade not visibly perma-pregnant.

[ChangelingRain]

1 hour ago, Helianthus_Arum said:

thats where I'd counter. Jade Light IS the end all be all execution method of the Orokin. Archimedian Yonta said it was a mercy for her and Myrmidon killed 3 warframes with it.

do you think they'd equip a Warframe with one of their greatest weapons and not give them the job to be sent as their own personal incarnation of death to knock on the doors of the enemy?
even Parvos Granum said Jade was the "Boogyman of the Orokin Empire"
1 person almost killed a full squad of warframes with that. 

sure there were other methods (see Lavos lore) but it still applies that it was reserved for the ellete and most dangerous, either quick and painless or powerful enough to kill whatever needed that firepower

it even plays into the Orokin Ego: sending down a vengeful Angel to whoever "angered the gods"

This is a fair point! It's just kind of funny that all of the known executions with Jade Light weren't done by Jade - it kind of contributes to the feeling that she Didn't Do Anything.

[Teletric]

On 2024-06-22 at 3:20 PM, ChangelingRain said:

'Admitted' and 'subjective' are doing a lot of work here - the facts of the quest and Jade's use in it are very clear, the timing is very clear(both pride month and father's day), and Hanlon's Razor is when it's not deliberate malice but still comes across very badly. That they didn't do it like this on purpose is, in fact, our point.

I know what Hanlon's Razor is — my point was that it "comes across very badly" because of the lens you view the quest through.

On 2024-06-23 at 12:49 PM, ChangelingRain said:

Damn, pointing out how a woman has no narrative role other than to die in childbirth is misogyny now...

Oh, wait. No, that's not true.

I mean, I wouldn't call it misogyny but you are definitely undermining the significance of her choice if that is all you view her as. Her role was that she loved Stalker greatly, and it was that which motivated Stalker to accept her choice rather than resent it.

I do agree with the sentiment that the quest needed to focus more on Jade (tell us more about who she was, show her in action, etc.), and that Jade's base design should not have included pregnancy (especially since it doesn't have anything to do with her abilities). However, I am still unable to understand how her death being a central plot point is misogynistic.