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[Solifuge]

Do you mean to imply that the majority of games should have a 'Select gender' button?

Hmm. No, more that games need to focus more on female heroes being heroes than being Female, which is of course only part of the issue. The other part being that games should be able to have a female hero without it being treated as anything other than whatever that game is.

Say we had a Legend of Zelda style game with a female protagonist instead of a male protagonist. The gender of the hero should, for most purposes, but irrelevant. Part of the problem right now is that the very fact that the main character is female in a game tends to have an effect on the game far beyond the effect that having a male main character has.

I guess I'm implying that more games need to be made in such a way that if there was a 'Select gender' button it wouldn't really change the game too much.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, Zelda no Densetsu is a pretty excellent example of that concept. It was basically a quirky form of satellite-broadcasted DLC for the Superfamicon, which was a remake of the NES Legend of Zelda, only you had the option to play as either Zelda or Link on your quest to defeat Gannon and save the realm.

Though graphics differed, I'm pretty sure the story was identical. It even makes sense; Gannon is after all 3 pieces of the Triforce, and Link has the Triforce of Courage, so naturally he'd want to capture him. And it's up to Zelda, keeper of the 3rd piece, to save the day.

A simple case where symmetry of characters and plot elements makes gender selection irrelevant to the story, and doesn't marginalize anyone but horrible blue pigmonsters.

[GlyphGryph]

Classic Zelda, Genderswapped
Donkey Kong: Pauline Edition

[Max White]

Shouldn't it then be 'The legend of Link'?

[Neonivek]

if you were to make a collage of all of the ways women are represented in video games the overwhelming majority would tend towards "Helpless sex object" with a little bit of "Bad-ass warrior heroine" thrown in.

We would have a lot more "bad-ass warrior heroine" then that video would have you believe. When I think of Suikeoden 2 for example absolutely no woman in that game actually played the part of a damsel. Suikeoden 3 the closest thing to a female damsel were two small children, but one of them was a willing host to her capture because it wasn't something she could escape (In that, she was hostage because she had to do something important).

Every single fighting game female I can think of holds her own and it is only noncanon movies that change that a lot of the time.

In fact in Streetfighter the issue isn't that Chunli is a damsel but rather that the plot always gets to the point where Chunli cannot save the day and conceeds that she needs Ryu to do it. (Admittingly... everyone else does it... and Ken's major source of anguish is that he feels he has fallen so far behind Ryu that he cannot catch up)

To me it is far more common to have a competent sex object then an incompetent one... and that is somehow even worse (DANG IT SOUL CALIBUR! Stop making Talim's pants see through)

I know it can seem a lot of the time that women have absolutely no role but that isn't true. What is true however is that their role is often subserviant to a male character's role "I know I am a competent fighter, but clearly you the male protagonist is far supperior to me".

[Max White]

That is right folks, we can reduce all women to two categories! Either helpless sex object, or Bad-ass warrior heroine.
Helpless sex objects are any female that displays any sort of weakness, depends on a male in any way, or has emotions beyond burning rage. These are sexist. The Bad-ass warrior heroine beats up bad guys and isn't afraid of anything, instead running around, hitting things with a spear and shouting 'My name is Crystal!', these are non-sexist and all games need one.


Once again, I with to reiterate. Helpless, frail, dependent, weak, incapable, these aren't sexist. These are part of the human condition and can be a part of any character, male or female. In fact good characterization will make use of both weaknesses and strengths, and I'm not talking about about a very superficial fire > leaf > water > fire system. Deciding these are inherently feminine is sexist, however.

[chaoticag]

It prolly is worth mentioning she's going to be doing a video series. As in, she's not going to address everything ever from now to the end of time on women being represented in gaming in this one video. She's not even done with the topic at hand, she just didn't mention things since they're out of scope for the subject she set herself on this video.

[Max White]

Well paint me unimpressed with her current performance, and open minded to success in future videos.

[Glowcat]

That is right folks, we can reduce all women to two categories! Either helpless sex object, or Bad-ass warrior heroine.
Helpless sex objects are any female that displays any sort of weakness, depends on a male in any way, or has emotions beyond burning rage. These are sexist. The Bad-ass warrior heroine beats up bad guys and isn't afraid of anything, instead running around, hitting things with a spear and shouting 'My name is Crystal!', these are non-sexist and all games need one.


Once again, I with to reiterate. Helpless, frail, dependent, weak, incapable, these aren't sexist. These are part of the human condition and can be a part of any character, male or female. In fact good characterization will make use of both weaknesses and strengths, and I'm not talking about about a very superficial fire > leaf > water > fire system. Deciding these are inherently feminine is sexist, however.

It's not that helpless characters are necessarily bad, but rather how often women are associated with and placed in these roles whereas men are placed in roles that most people want to take part in at least somewhat. Maybe not all men want to be musclebound destroyers of lesser things but most do appreciate the feeling of victory against insurmountable odds which most game protagonists allow male gamers to play through with an exclusively masculine avatar. The thing is, women also want to feel that sense and yet their options to appreciate that through a avatar that even remotely resembles them are limited. This article was posted recently and it shows that the problem persists even into modern times.

The Damsel trope is merely one of the few limited roles female characters are typically placed in. I wouldn't be surprised if Anita waited until the end (either of the Damsel episodes or the entire Women in Tropes series) before she came out with actual arguments and suggestions. For now she's focused on giving examples of certain iconic characters and explaining some of the history behind their placement in certain roles. In Part 2 she said she was going to show more modern examples and efforts to subvert the trope.

[DJ]

Baldur's Gate, Imoen. Is she a helpless sex object, or a bad-ass warrior heroine? What about Tandi, of Fallout fame?

[chaoticag]

Well, in Baldur's Gate, it depends on whether we're talking about the game or the book. Not that I ever read the book mind you, or acknowledge that it exists. Still, in the Original Baldur's Gate, she was added as an afterthought, and people just grew to like her. Haven't gotten to the second, where she's more involved in the plot, but we'll see when I get there (no spoilers, please.)

[DJ]

I'd say she's a pretty important actor in the plot. I would've brought up Jaheira, but she does kinda fall into the badass warrior trope, even if there's more to her personality than just that.

[chaoticag]

Well, as it stand, while it's important to have examples of games where women are important actors in the plot, I do think that for the most part these examples are not entirely representative of the state that things are in. So yeah, it's nice to know which games are good about things, but that doesn't mean all games are like them. That we can remember them says quite a bit about their exceptionality, whether that's gameplay or plot or what have you.

[Vector]

*cough* Aerie *cough*

[DJ]

Ah, so it's not allowed to have on single weak female character, because females are naturally exempt from being weak? Even if there's a perfectly reasonable backstory that explains her personality? But there's no problem with weak male characters (Minsc is pretty weak in his own kind of way)? Isn't that a bit sexist?

[chaoticag]

Aerie?

And I have no idea why you're talking about that DJ. Can you elaborate?