There have always been loads of Octocat variations[1] of "violent" cartoon characters, such as Wolverine[2]. I don't think anything is intended literally.

1 http://octodex.github.com/

2 http://octodex.github.com/xtocat/

Ah, that is a neat collection. Xtocat may be a bit extreme for my taste, but no worries.

I understand that this stuff is all in fun and shouldn't be taken literally, I just had a rather negative gut reaction to the sword and shield and scowling. Maybe it's useful for people to know that this kind of thing will bring up negative reactions in some people. Or maybe not.

The Octocat used here and in the API control panel[1] reminds me of robot anime (Gundam Wing, etc.) or perhaps Speed Racer. I don't think it's meant to be warrior-like, but futuristic.

[1] https://a248.e.akamai.net/assets.github.com/images/modules/b...

the octocats here are a reference to gundam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/gundam

I seriously doubt the reference is meant to be violent.

Thanks, I appreciate knowing the cultural reference. I figured it must be something along those lines, but wasn't familiar with the specifics.

But... Not meant to be violent? Even if the robocats themselves are not meant to be violent, how could the introductory language about "your sword" and "your shield" be interpreted as anything but violent?

The only time I can imagine needing a sword and shield would be in a rather violent situation. Quite the opposite of the experience one might hope to have on GitHub.

I see no reference to a shield or a sword. Where do you see that?

It's on the page this post was linked to:

https://github.com/blog/1517-introducing-octokit

and on the project page:

http://octokit.github.io/

"Is Cocoa your sword? Let this kit be your shield."

Look, I don't mean to read too much into any of this. I just found it a bit unpleasant, that was all. If that observation is useful for anyone, great, if not, my apology for the distraction.

I missed it entirely. I tried using ctrl + f, but I found nothing because it's an image.

they'll save the nice imagery for the Javascript library.