I haven’t had a lot of free time lately, but what little I’ve had on the weekends has been devoted to my Zen-relaxation hobbies of sleeping, watching baseball, reading blogs and playing computer games. I’m not big on the kill-em-all-let-fictional-dieties-sort-em-out ones, I much prefer the puzzle games like Atlantis Quest or Bejeweled or Chuzzle (I got my mom addicted to Chuzzle!) or Bookworm. But I do confess to a soft spot for a little phenom from Blizzard Entertainment known as Diablo.

Being cursed with a pretty bad memory for entertainment ephemera, I can’t remember if I ever played the first version of Diablo. I suppose I must have, way back, but it never really caught my interest except as a spectator sport. I loved to watch Robin play it, and he was was quite the fan, so when Diablo II came out I decided to learn its ins and outs and play alongside him. It wasn’t easy, neither of the two computers we had at the time had really fast processing speed, so when we played a round together either or both or our monitors would be pretty messed up, would freeze then go into fast-motion, all the stuff that tells you This Game Is Beyond Your Machine’s Puny Capabilities. Nonetheless, we persisted, more apart than together, and there was a stretch of some months when Diablo II took up most of our computer time, particularly with the debut of the expansion set, entitled “Lord of Destruction” (or as Robin and I, and apparently the creator of the above illustration, preferred to think of it, “Lord of the Dance”).

And I mean, it’s weird to like Diablo so much, not only as a woman who does tend to fall into the stereotypical story preference trends (i.e., preferring characterization to explosions, the evolution of relationships and personal growth to battles and gore, participation of interesting female characters in their own life stories rather than objectification and “love interest” secondary leads), but as someone who just isn’t into entertainment violence, period. I can look at sex far more easily than I can look at violence. Sexual parity is nowhere near accomplished, so most of the stuff in that realm still caters to the male gaze, as I’ve previously observed, but violence as entertainment (at least to me) really seems to cater to the male gaze. I just don’t find it fun. Even when it’s at the level of embarrassment comedy, I still feel for the victim. Maybe it’s because I’m something of a klutz, and the atmosphere around the Riggs Residence often resembles a slapstick sitcom. When I go to give my husband a mock smack on the head and wind up hurting my hand (and wrist, and elbow) instead, it may be amusing at the time in a karmic-justice kinda way, but I know my arm’s going to be killing me the next couple days and I’ll have all these “where did I get those?” bruises and, oh kiddies, it’s just not worth the pain. (more…)