Well, Max White, the thing about violence narratives is that I think they do influence how we think about things, but I very much don't think that that's something that should be especially looked at in games. We used to critique comics; then they became more mainstream and we now critique games in particular. We should look at media in general.
And the reason why we should do this is that people make sense of things with stories. You know what they say--if you want to learn some piece of information, make up a story about it. Make it emotionally relevant. And what we think is possible, what we think is likely, what we can expect, especially around social and romantic situations, is often picked up from narratives. People don't talk about that stuff scientifically.
And the fact is, that in video games a lot more than other media (in my experience), there's a lot more of women asking to be hurt. I can tell you that I personally put up with a lot of stuff in romantic relationships I shouldn't have, and part of the explicit justification was "well, it was like this in all these comics and they said that a truly loving person would stick this out, so okay, I figure they're speaking from their morality and experience." Not so much for the video games, but what I'm trying to say is that I have experienced a direct movement from what I've read to how I've reacted.
This is one of the MAJOR problems with not having female-focused narratives, written by women, targeted to women. The dissemination process for information from woman to woman remains more personal, less public, less accessible. Men tell men about the world through purchasable, widely disseminated media. Women historically tell women about the world behind closed doors--and more newly, the internet. The internet has actually changed my life for that reason... it's gotten me in contact with people who will be more supportive of specific things I experience, which media often gives me exactly the wrong answer for. Like, pretty much everything I might want to know about romantic relationships. Or about what women are really like.
Does that help?