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[scriver]

SOME of the Races have an excuse. Not seeing a female Krogan is justified in the game's narrative (they are far far too important).

I don't really think you can say they are excused by the narrative when the narrative only is like that because they don't want to bother implementing the females in the first place.

[Neonivek]

SOME of the Races have an excuse. Not seeing a female Krogan is justified in the game's narrative (they are far far too important).

I don't really think you can say they are excused by the narrative when the narrative only is like that because they don't want to bother implementing the females in the first place.

They didn't need an excuse for anyone else. Krogans are just the ones with an excuse.

[Loud Whispers]

Well Protoss are all genderless but are clearly masculine in nature. While the Zerg are all female but are masculine in nature.

Not really. The Protoss just don't have faces. If you look at their models, the female Protoss are slightly feminine whereas the male protoss are quite [BRIT DEFINITION] masculine. The only Protoss we see are the zealots [predominately males] or the protoss who have been interred in robots, or the templars [who are either invisible or wearing a curtain]. But when we see female protoss, most often as commanders or captains of their various ships, it's noticeable [enough]. The Zerg are more Zerg in nature, though Kerrigan has made them look more human [and like women for that matter. Very spiky women]. So I think the latter is also a deliberate art choice.

[Max White]

SC1 and brood war had protoss as genderless, more sexually ambiguous in appearance, blue people.
SC2 and especially HoTS realized that they could still use gender roles for appeal.

So I've been thinking about the trope of women asking to be killed in games. Now normally I am standing for the trope in question, as long as it doesn't become a requirement for a game to be published, however there is a line. Does the appearance of a woman asking to be hurt actually make violence against women in real life not seem so bad? I mean I don't think anybody is going to play such a game and decide to beat up their girlfriend because of it, but we become more comfortable with things that become more familiar.

Now I know where that line of reasoning is going. Games are also very violent and I haven't seen any studies yet actually showing an increase in violence in people who play games, so it would be dishonest for me to say for certain that games with scenes of women asking for it cause an increase in violence against women, but I'm still going to wonder if any link exists.

[Rolan7]

Not that I remember Brood War well, but... there was a Protoss Matriarch.  I got the impression that females were like ant queens: rare, leaders, and in charge of procreation.  Guess I was mistaken.

But I'm *pretty* sure the Matriarch was mind controlled and had to be mercy-murdered by one of her subjects.  Tassadar maybe. (Edit: Nope it was Zeratul, and I forgot that she was ruler of all dark templar)

[Max White]

Raszagal, "she" was the oldest living Dark Templar. Zeratul was the one who killed her when she was mind controlled by Kerrigan.
She had am more feminine voice and a feminine title, but was otherwise exactly the same as the "male" protoss in appearance. SCII Seems to have two distinct gender castes.

[Neonivek]

So do they have Gender?

Or are they like the Pinata in Viva Pinata in that they are a genderless race but with gendered identity?

[Max White]

They are pretty much plant people, so perhaps large green butterflies are involved?

[scriver]

SOME of the Races have an excuse. Not seeing a female Krogan is justified in the game's narrative (they are far far too important).

I don't really think you can say they are excused by the narrative when the narrative only is like that because they don't want to bother implementing the females in the first place.

They didn't need an excuse for anyone else. Krogans are just the ones with an excuse.

Neonivek. The authors are the ones coming with that excuse. And they came up with that half arsed excuse so they wouldn't have to implement Krogan females.

[Vector]

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?

[Neonivek]

they came up with that half arsed excuse so they wouldn't have to implement Krogan females

How may I put it... They didn't come up with an excuse not to implement Krogan females. They are just the only race that has an excuse.

Which in Mass Effect is fine given that they are just one race.

Never seeing a female Krogan is perfectly legit in Mass Effect.

Now why none of the other races you see their females... Is another question.

[Kansa]

Neonivek. The authors are the ones coming with that excuse. And they came up with that half arsed excuse so they wouldn't have to implement Krogan females.

Isn't that kind of like saying they came up with a half assed excuse with Asari so they wouldn't have to implement Asari males, besides there wasn't any need to come up with an excuse not to implement them considering there are several races that do not have female combatants which do not have a similar excuse.

[Vector]

*shrug*

I don't have any problem with single-gender races.  My problem is that

a. When the gender is female, usually the race becomes a "prostitute race"
b. When the gender is male, usually the race becomes a "warrior race"
c. Usually we have races called sexually dimorphic but we don't see the female-marked elements much; this is more frequently the case the less human the race is (volus vs. quarians).  This is not even remarked upon, most of the time.

Isn't that kind of like saying they came up with a half assed excuse with Asari so they wouldn't have to implement Asari males, besides there wasn't any need to come up with an excuse not to implement them considering there are several races that do not have female combatants which do not have a similar excuse.

I can't understand what you're trying to say here.

[Kansa]

I'm trying to say that if you say that the only reason that Krogan females are rare is because it is a half assed excuse to cover up the fact that there aren't any warrior females, you could easily apply the same logic to the Asari saying that the only reason they are entirely female is because it is a half assed excuse not to include males.

[Loud Whispers]

SC1 and brood war had protoss as genderless, more sexually ambiguous in appearance, blue people.
SC2 and especially HoTS realized that they could still use gender roles for appeal.

I was talking about Wol, since gameplay aside and the brilliant cinematics, they messed up a lot; the hilariously forced romance between Reynor and Kerrigan after two games of natural chemistry and basically the entirety of the expansion is spent undoing everything in Wol. Never forget that the female protoss captured sounds more human than protoss.