Ain't No Place for a Hero: Borderlands
A deep dive into the groundbreaking and bestselling video game series

The critically acclaimed first-person shooter franchise Borderlands knows it’s ridiculous. It’s a badge of pride. After all, Borderlands 2 was promoted with the tagline “87 bazillion guns just got bazillionder.” These space-western games encourage you to shoot a lot of enemies and monsters, loot their corpses, and have a few chuckles while chasing down those bazillion guns. As Kaitlin Tremblay explores in Ain’t No Place for a Hero, the Borderlands video game series satirizes its own genre, exposing and addressing the ways first-person shooter video games have tended to exclude women, queer people, and people of colour, as well as contribute to a hostile playing environment.

Tremblay also digs in to the way the Borderlands game franchise — which has sold more than 26 million copies — disrupts traditional notions of heroism, creating nuanced and compelling storytelling that highlights the strengths and possibilities of this relatively new narrative medium. The latest entry in the acclaimed Pop Classics series, Ain’t No Place for a Hero is a fascinating read for Borderlands devotees as well as the uninitiated.

About the Pop Classics Series

Short books that pack a big punch, Pop Classics offer intelligent, fun, and accessible arguments about why a particular pop phenomenon matters.
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Ain't No Place for a Hero: Borderlands
A deep dive into the groundbreaking and bestselling video game series

The critically acclaimed first-person shooter franchise Borderlands knows it’s ridiculous. It’s a badge of pride. After all, Borderlands 2 was promoted with the tagline “87 bazillion guns just got bazillionder.” These space-western games encourage you to shoot a lot of enemies and monsters, loot their corpses, and have a few chuckles while chasing down those bazillion guns. As Kaitlin Tremblay explores in Ain’t No Place for a Hero, the Borderlands video game series satirizes its own genre, exposing and addressing the ways first-person shooter video games have tended to exclude women, queer people, and people of colour, as well as contribute to a hostile playing environment.

Tremblay also digs in to the way the Borderlands game franchise — which has sold more than 26 million copies — disrupts traditional notions of heroism, creating nuanced and compelling storytelling that highlights the strengths and possibilities of this relatively new narrative medium. The latest entry in the acclaimed Pop Classics series, Ain’t No Place for a Hero is a fascinating read for Borderlands devotees as well as the uninitiated.

About the Pop Classics Series

Short books that pack a big punch, Pop Classics offer intelligent, fun, and accessible arguments about why a particular pop phenomenon matters.
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Ain't No Place for a Hero: Borderlands

Ain't No Place for a Hero: Borderlands

by Kaitlin Tremblay
Ain't No Place for a Hero: Borderlands

Ain't No Place for a Hero: Borderlands

by Kaitlin Tremblay

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Overview

A deep dive into the groundbreaking and bestselling video game series

The critically acclaimed first-person shooter franchise Borderlands knows it’s ridiculous. It’s a badge of pride. After all, Borderlands 2 was promoted with the tagline “87 bazillion guns just got bazillionder.” These space-western games encourage you to shoot a lot of enemies and monsters, loot their corpses, and have a few chuckles while chasing down those bazillion guns. As Kaitlin Tremblay explores in Ain’t No Place for a Hero, the Borderlands video game series satirizes its own genre, exposing and addressing the ways first-person shooter video games have tended to exclude women, queer people, and people of colour, as well as contribute to a hostile playing environment.

Tremblay also digs in to the way the Borderlands game franchise — which has sold more than 26 million copies — disrupts traditional notions of heroism, creating nuanced and compelling storytelling that highlights the strengths and possibilities of this relatively new narrative medium. The latest entry in the acclaimed Pop Classics series, Ain’t No Place for a Hero is a fascinating read for Borderlands devotees as well as the uninitiated.

About the Pop Classics Series

Short books that pack a big punch, Pop Classics offer intelligent, fun, and accessible arguments about why a particular pop phenomenon matters.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781770413641
Publisher: ECW Press
Publication date: 10/17/2017
Series: Pop Classics , #8
Pages: 136
Product dimensions: 4.70(w) x 6.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Kaitlin Tremblay is a writer, independent game developer, and narrative producer in video games. She is the co-editor of the speculative fiction anthology Those Who Make Us: Canadian Creature, Myth, and Monster Stories and has written about video games for Playboy, Vice, and the Mary Sue. She is a narrative design mentor in video games and can always be found ranting about video games and storytelling on Twitter at @kait_zilla. Kaitlin lives in Toronto.

Table of Contents

Introduction: No Rest for the Wicked
The Lay of the Land
Making History of Myths
“I Fart Rainbows”: The Humor
“A Day without Slaughter Is like a Day without Sunshine”: Megacorporations and Violence
“Something Something Hero Stuff”: Killing Your Heroes
Fictional Worlds, Real People
Sirens: “Fear Me, Bitches”
Like Mother, Like Daughter: Moxxi and Ellie
“Called Me Mad, They Did”: Madness, Survival, and Psychos
Forgiveness, Death, and Mourning
“My Siren’s Name Is Brick and She Is the Prettiest”: Toxic Masculinity
Conclusion: Come at Me, Bro
Acknowledgments
Endnotes

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