Topic: Warren Ellis is cancelled

[GuyStarwind]

Eh, I wasn't a fan of his vision of Castlevania anyways.

[xscientist5000]

Let's ease off on calling other members "white knights" and "SJWs."

Agreed, and agreed that Ellis’s actions were not respectable or in what I consider good taste. But fired? Certainly if they were women in his direct work-place or customers. Musicians espically hook up with fans all the time, where is their backlash? Or do the women hold those as fond memories, but not with Ellis? Apparently some people don’t realize that not all men and women are going to have the morals of mr. Rodgers, and think every content creator should. If I’m getting this right, in 2020, if a man wants intimacy with a woman, he better make sure shes flirting with him for his looks and personality - If it’s his status, then he is a predator who has taken full control over her actions and owes her a relationship (no ghosting). One woman at a time too, or the internet says you don’t get to do your job anymore.

[Gunlord]

Well, sex with groupies on the road is one thing, but a lot of Ellis' behavior was just bizarre. Like, some of the complaints mention him answering every person's post on a forum and whatnot. Even if it's not directly related to work, that sort of obsessive behavior with a fan (as opposed to a one-off fling) is just bizarre and speaks of extremely questionable judgement. I'd be wondering how much time my employee could spend on work if he was getting so close to fans, and doing all the other weird stuff Ellis was described as doing. At this point, such a sustained pattern of misbehavior becomes more than an individual's lack of morals but proof of an unbalanced person it's wiser to get rid of sooner rather than later. Again, many places will fire you for stuff you did off of work just if you make the brand look bad. If an endeavor thinks one of its creators is getting so close and spending so much time with fans of the project it might bleed into their work, it makes business sense to let 'em go.

[Belmontoya]

Agreed, and agreed that Ellis’s actions were not respectable or in what I consider good taste. But fired? Certainly if they were women in his direct work-place or customers. Musicians espically hook up with fans all the time, where is their backlash? Or do the women hold those as fond memories, but not with Ellis? Apparently some people don’t realize that not all men and women are going to have the morals of mr. Rodgers, and think every content creator should. If I’m getting this right, in 2020, if a man wants intimacy with a woman, he better make sure shes flirting with him for his looks and personality - If it’s his status, then he is a predator who has taken full control over her actions and owes her a relationship (no ghosting). One woman at a time too, or the internet says you don’t get to do your job anymore.

Can you leave Disney princesses and Mr Rogers out of this?

We get it why cancel culture can be bad and over reaching. You're not the only one who listens to Joe Rogan.

You seem to be missing the part where, aside from being disgusted by him, a lot of us want him gone because we don't like the way he handled the writing of the show or ever bothered to actually play the game to get a deeper understanding of it.

Thee are so many talented writers out there who could put more heart into it and not prey on their fans whilst doing this.

[xscientist5000]

Even if I hated the show, I’d be the first to condem a real “predator” with actual proof, but this is not the case here. It’s an artist with a sex addiction. There is no evidence of a victim except those of broken hearts. What I’m hearing is that muscians are in the clear because they don’t exchange messages with the women and listen to their problems first. His managers can fire him for any reason they want, sure. Anyone can be a better writer, but how many tried to bring CV to Netflix? The show is not perfect, but looking at its ratings, it’s definitely doing something right by a good amount of people. You’ll never please all fans. Impossible. I’m lucky this time, if it was like a typical anime with those facial expessions and all, I’d be the one complaining. We’re lucky that amongst all the pure consumers we have a content creator taking action. It doesn’t surprise me at all that people who would use the phrase “you’re cancelled” won’t enjoy the same entertainment as me. There are plenty of PG movies with wholesome creators for these people to not get offended over. David Choe is another artist who may seriously offend them.

[VladOfWallachia]

There is no evidence of a victim except those of broken hearts. What I’m hearing is that muscians are in the clear because they don’t exchange messages with the women and listen to their problems first.

Just follow the golden rule of being 100% upfront with your intentions beforehand. Plenty of people wan't casual sexual relationships... but it's not okay to manipulate others into something they are not okay with. Just follow that rule and you won't ever have any problems. 

Also, you can be a fan of someone's work without being an apologist for their bad behavior. We are all fans of work created by people that have done awful things. Every single one of us. I doubt I could list my favorite works without naming someone that's worse than Ellis.

For me, just purely as a fan, before these allegations came out, I felt like Ellis needed to be replaced after watching season 3. I stand by the positive things I originally said about season 1, a much more focused and composed adaptation of the game, but it rapidly became something unrecognizable to me afterward, especially with season 3. After watching that, and before the allegations, it was my wish to keep the artists but replace the writer. Personally, I would be far more excited about a new Belmont paired with a new writer than anything Ellis could offer at this point.

[xscientist5000]

Just follow the golden rule of being 100% upfront with your intentions beforehand. Plenty of people wan't casual sexual relationships... but it's not okay to manipulate others into something they are not okay with.

If only putting all your intentions on the table worked in dating. At least reality TV and soap operas would be gone. For all we know he could have been serial soul searching, and none of these women met the mark. They were infatuated with him and did what he asked. Later, regretted the decisions. A tale as old as time. Otherwise what youre saying is totally fair, you can think hes a dirtbag and boycott the show. I support you on that. If you think it sucks boycott the show. I only have a problem with the OP declaring his opinions are gospel, looks like he even tried to tell someone how to feel about it. Then calling people creeps and disgusting for pointing out it takes two to tango. Aren’t these the bullying behaviors these kind of people won’t tolerate?

Season 3 had  weird moments, but for me the pros outweighed the cons. When I first realized they put Legion in the show, I was on the edge of my seat. Also the fly mans story was a nice touch imo. The characters are pretty fleshed out considering they came from 8 bit sprites with a basic plot. Even if Ellis never played a single game in the series, he saw enough potential to make a show out of it when noone else would.

[Gunlord]

I think Adi Shankar doesn't get enough credit for the tone of it and for putting the show to Netflix, actually. IIRC, Ellis hadn't actually played Castlevania before he was approached to write a treatment for IGA back in 2007, but according to some interviews (like this one: https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/19/15998770/castlevania-netflix-adi-shankar-interview) Shankar was "one of us" for a while.

[BLOOD MONKEY]

If only putting all your intentions on the table worked in dating. At least reality TV and soap operas would be gone. For all we know he could have been serial soul searching, and none of these women met the mark. They were infatuated with him and did what he asked. Later, regretted the decisions. A tale as old as time. Otherwise what youre saying is totally fair, you can think hes a dirtbag and boycott the show. I support you on that. If you think it sucks boycott the show. I only have a problem with the OP declaring his opinions are gospel, looks like he even tried to tell someone how to feel about it. Then calling people creeps and disgusting for pointing out it takes two to tango. Aren’t these the bullying behaviors these kind of people won’t tolerate?

Season 3 had  weird moments, but for me the pros outweighed the cons. When I first realized they put Legion in the show, I was on the edge of my seat. Also the fly mans story was a nice touch imo. The characters are pretty fleshed out considering they came from 8 bit sprites with a basic plot. Even if Ellis never played a single game in the series, he saw enough potential to make a show out of it when noone else would.

ah yes. the thing necessary for all men. women.

[Chernabogue]

I wish this thread was cancelled too.

[VladOfWallachia]

This thread should be locked. I almost regret trying to reason with xscientist, but I like these forums and I don't want them to become a toxic dumping ground for abhorrent incel nonsense.

[Gunlord]

Urrgh...alright, a couple of things. First, the insults towards xscientist are uncalled for, I think. He did acknowledge he oughtn't have called people "white knights" and such, so if he was willing to apologize we should meet him halfway. And he was agreeing with folks that Ellis was doing sleazy, dirtbag things, so I think being too harsh towards him is a case of us "firing on our own side," so to speak. Bloo and Vlad, please try to be more charitable in the future.

However, I do think this thread should be locked--IMO, we've said all we needed to say. The problems with these sorts of things are twofold--first, in the case of really sordid matters like sexual abuse, creeping, etc. even discussion of them can really pollute the atmosphere of a forum like this. People generally come here to discuss games they have fun with, and being reminded of this sort of sleazy thing one way or another ruins the vibe for a lot of people. Secondly, the Castlevania fandom in particular has a really bad history with whenever its prominent creators leave it for one reason or another. This would be the case *even if Ellis had been let go for entirely non-sexual reasons.* For instance, back in the Lords of Shadow days, I remember one guy would just rag on Dave Cox incessantly, and it got to be such a humongous pain in the ass that even people who disliked LoS got tired of it (and this particular guy's caused me trouble in the Bloodstained community as well). I REALLY don't want the same thing to happen with Ellis. He was let go, apparently due to his personal problems with sex and boundaries, and that's the end of it--let's hope Adi Shankar can pick up where he left off, or if not, Castlevania gets revived some other way. But I think that's as far as it needs to go. xscientist, bloo, Vlad, or anyone else, please PM me if you have any questions or issues about this, but I think this thread has ran its course.