279: Wussy RPG Girls

[Azaraxzealot]

still doesnt account for the cheesy story-telling where angsty giant-haired tweens save the universe. many JRPG "Characters" and "stories" are chock-full of interchangeable tropes that could be in ANY videogame and it would have the exact same story
almost everyone is a complete stereotype (especially when its someone who is apparently not japanese... damn are they xenophobic)
also (if you read the article) women are most usually shoved off to the side as either super-girly helpless things or super-manly-must-punch-male-protagonist-in-the-balls-every-second things.

the only JRPG i like is pokemon, and that's purely for its metagame, not for its story

It seems that you WANT to see something wrong with Japanese... not only in games, but probably in everything. Pardon me, but you are also being extremely xenophobic.
It seems that for you, unless it is not in accordabce to your western biased view, it is not good.
The same way you feel about the japanese characters, I feel sometimes about the western characters. They are also stereotypes, western ones, and because you are on this side, you don`t realise it.
They are only in accordance to what you what to see. Your arguments also shows that you are extremely unreceptive and ignorant: you don`t see what you don`t want to see. In other words, you are only being prejudist.

Now, just to end this conversation, let me ask you something: do you really think that only because it`s an ARTICLE on the INTERNET it has to day the truth? I mean, come on, an article states a opinion, it does not mean it the right thing... she didn`t even strong arguments to prove, just her opinion and some shallow arguments.
Do you really accept everything you read?

not just what i've read, what i've experienced has been this, and the western games have a lot of stereotypes like with Gears of War and Uncharted

but our characters are not usually so one-dimensional as people like in all those JRPGs they do in Unskippable (seriously... thats a LOT of JRPGs)

take into account Resonance of Fate's characters and compare them with characters from Red Dead Redemption...

or compare The World Ends With You characters to characters from Mass Effect...

obviously western stereotypes are to be fully-fleshed out multi-faceted characters that are unpredictable and genuinely interesting? yeah. you have no argument there.

this article just happened to hit on a point that i had been trying to put into words for a long time, that's why i believe it, if you don't (and obviously you're just a fanboy who shuts out all criticism by plugging his ears and going "LALALALALALA WESTERN GAMES ARE ALL STEREOTYPES LALALALALALA!" and i can say that about JRPGs because ive experienced enough of them AND anime AND actual japanese people to understand that many of them have a distorted view of us thinking we're all a bunch of swearing, blond-haired, blue-eyed, tanned, obnoxious individuals who they want to be)

so don't go saying im biased against japanese. i have probably experienced enough of it to know that i have no bias against them, it's just what i've observed in my life. get over it and stop accusing me of racism (accusing me of bias is the same as racism)

EDIT: Done feeding troll.

 

[clarissa]

not just what i've read, what i've experienced has been this, and the western games have a lot of stereotypes like with Gears of War and Uncharted

but our characters are not usually so one-dimensional as people like in all those JRPGs they do in Unskippable (seriously... thats a LOT of JRPGs)

take into account Resonance of Fate's characters and compare them with characters from Red Dead Redemption...

or compare The World Ends With You characters to characters from Mass Effect...

obviously western stereotypes are to be fully-fleshed out multi-faceted characters that are unpredictable and genuinely interesting? yeah. you have no argument there.

this article just happened to hit on a point that i had been trying to put into words for a long time, that's why i believe it, if you don't (and obviously you're just a fanboy who shuts out all criticism by plugging his ears and going "LALALALALALA WESTERN GAMES ARE ALL STEREOTYPES LALALALALALA!" and i can say that about JRPGs because ive experienced enough of them AND anime AND actual japanese people to understand that many of them have a distorted view of us thinking we're all a bunch of swearing, blond-haired, blue-eyed, tanned, obnoxious individuals who they want to be)

so don't go saying im biased against japanese. i have probably experienced enough of it to know that i have no bias against them, it's just what i've observed in my life. get over it and stop accusing me of racism (accusing me of bias is the same as racism)

Easy boy. I said you were being "predujist". That is not racist, it is different. Biased and racist are two different things. I just said that, undeniably, you judge games from your western perspective (bias). As you say you "studied" japense games a lot, you are not racist, as racists tend not to get even in contact with things they hate. You are being prejudist because the arguments you are using to prove your point sound like one: the examples you gave are offensive ones, generally shallow. That's why. I'm sorry to re-use you arguments, but you were the one who seemed to shut the years and go "lalala". Despite what I argued, you insisted in your point as if you didn't want to accept anything different from what you think. Prejudist and bised people usually consider reality only what they want.

I'm sorry if I sounded like a fanboy. I am not. Actually, I am pretty much fond of WRPGs, because they are really good games. I just said that, undeniably again, those games also have stereotyped charaters. We have to face it, one time or another, a stereotype will appear. But I never said "all of them", the same as I am not saying that japanese characters are all different.

And please, accept that I am not a troll. Do you think a troll would drag so much this point? I really respected what you said and argued, so please, respect me in return. If I hadn't, I would have never answerd you. You seemed a pretty decent guy... if I had shut my ears, I'd say so (I already did this and ended up with a warning).

I just could not understand your generalisation that JRPGs are backwards, that's all. Narratively speaking, they are not. Instead, WRPGs and JRPGs seems to be evolving more and more in narrative.
If this character-thing affects you so much to the point that you make a generalisation, well...

I am really sorry if I offended you. I'll be pretty sure to know your nickname by heart, so I won't bother you anymore.

 

[UltraStationJin]

The Japanese are one of the last cultures (but not the only one) to still consider women second class citizens. Women are to be placed on a pedestal and protected while the males go around doing the important things. It's why young girls are still sexually exploited, women are told by their face that they're too ugly to work somewhere and why there are next to no women in Japanese politics or corporate leadership.

Of course, the West wasn't too different than this even a few generations ago, but considerable progress has been made, while the Japanese seem stuck with a very 19th century mindset at best.

"So stuck" that their technological advances make America look like a woman. Perhaps they have the right idea.

(Joking) ( '-')

 

[Sarah_Tonin]

Hi, this is the author, Eileen Stahl. I know it's almost a month after the fact, but so many good points have been made here that I wanted to address a few.

I want to start out by admitting I am not entirely happy with my argument in this piece, and the final draft does not represent the original intent of the article. Originally I was going to compare the Wussy RPG Girl to the scantily-clad-but-powerful women in video games that the media delights in decrying as "sexist," and how in my opinion the modestly-dressed Wussy RPG Girl was more offensive than the latter. It was also going to be a more personal article, touching on my experiences with these characters growing up, which is why it deals so heavily with a phenomenon that peaked in the 90s and early 2000's. But throughout numerous drafts the editors decided the article would work best in this direction. I think it's a good piece, but as I originally intended it as a personal retrospective and not an analytical "this-is-the-way-things-are" piece, things got a little confusing.

That said, a few things I wanted to clarify.

- It is not about how "masculine" or how "feminine" a character is -so don't accuse me of being one of those feminists who starts sharpening her axe every time a girl likes cooking! It's about the characters' ability to actually DO things. This is, as some of you rightly guessed, why I didn't include Aeris in this article. Yes, she wears pink and loves flowers and goes teehee, but she always has her own agenda and doesn't give a darn whether Cloud and Co. like it. Even though she falls to the trope of being a sacrificial lamb, she is never POWERLESS, which is why I like her.


- I wasn't trying to claim that Japan is the only country who has damsels in distress -the West is certainly no slouch. My point was to call attention to the fact the WAY in which it does so has been consistent for hundreds of years. And yes, some kabuki women own -there's exceptions to almost everything, though

- Just because the plot SAYS a female character is powerful and competent doesn't mean she is. This is article does a better job of explaining what I'm talking about than I could: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FauxActionGirl


-Those of you pointing out there have long been strong women characters in JRPGs are absolutely right. My problem is that, at least in the 90's and early 2000's, the character they called the "heroine" was almost INVARIABLY one of these wusses. Why was the HEROINE rarely someone who could actually kick evil's butt, like Rydia or Jessica, but someone who just sat there and let it fart all over her? The Wussy RPG Girl is the lead because she is pretty and vulnerable, not because she can get anything done, and that's why she makes me grind my teeth. I can't imagine a male character being called a hero if he behaved like the Wussy RPG Girl.


Honestly, my only criterion for thinking a heroine is good or bad is simply: Does she actually DO anything that could be constituted as heroism? And I hated Wussy RPG Girls because, nine times out of ten, the answer is "not much." Thankfully they're a rarer breed than they once were, but they're still cranking out "heroines" who sit around feeling bad for themselves because vulnerability is considered "cute."

Anyway, thanks for reading my piece -I'm grateful to the Escapist for giving me the opportunity to write for them. And if you're wondering why I took so long to respond... I know from experience that any article that touches feminism with a 50-foot pole will ignite some pretty vicious flame wars in the gaming community. Why, I have no idea -feminists really aren't the band of man-hating crazies that pop-culture makes them out to be. Writing this piece was quite frankly exhausting, and I just couldn't bring myself to deal with the fallout right away.

.....I guess you might say I'm a bit of a wuss!

 

[Cherensamurai]

Did you ever heard about The Witcher [http://bestpcrpg.net]. In this game your charachter may sleep with diferent kind of heroines by the way

 

[Darkauthor81]

This is a satire right?

Let me be brutally honest here, there have been strong women in JRPGs for as long as I've been playing them. The issue that seems to be at the root of this article is that not *all* female characters or heroines are presented as being "strong" or "adventurers". Sure there are plenty of "traditionally" (and by this I don't just mean in the Japanese sense) feminine characters in games, but then again there is nothing wrong with that because there are plenty of women with very similar traits. Like it or not women do *tend* not to be as aggressive or combative as men, and to gravitate towards certain kinds of professions. Nobody holds guns to the head of young girls and says "play with dolls", "enjoy Barbie Horse Adventuers", and similar things despite what feminists might imply. Sure there are plenty of exceptions, tomboys and the like who are interested in all the same thing guys are, but there is some truth to the simple fact that where boys are interested in action, combat, and adventure, you have girls enjoying their "Disney Princess" products.

Over the years I remember seeing studies talking about how without any real goading from adults, kids gravitate towards specific things instinctively based on gender. It does cross over so you see exceptions, but the definate tendencies are real.

As such, why wouldn't there be a proliferation of women in RPGs that follow these tendencies, tend to be fairly non-aggressive, and gravitate towards more nuturing roles? Why wouldn't you have a princess that acts like a sheltered princess?

I think the roles are pretty proportionate overall, and a lot of it had to also do with the world being developed at various times. Some games even include rosters like "Final Fantasy VII" that featured more than one take on the female RPG character. You did indeed have Aeris who played the "Damsel In Distress" role, but in comparison you also had Tifa who was the opposite, and then Yuffie who was somewhere in between.

I mean sure, you can point fingers at specific RPGs for having passive female characters, and if that was all there was I could see the point, but even going back to like the SNES days you still had games like "Chrono Trigger", "Secret Of Mana", and others which were mixing it up.

As far as Japanese culture goes, well that's a mixed bag to be entirely honest. On one hand it can be argued that a lot of the female super heroes they have produced were intended to be funny (the fact that it's a girl is intended to increase the ridiculousness). On the other hand even going back as far as like the late 1980s you had things like the original "Bubblegum Crisis" that were treating the subject of female heroes seriously. Not to mention the entire "Sailor Moon" thing which arguably turned into it's own genere, and was in part successful because it managed to do a good job of blending a lot of elements, including a fairly feminine portrayal of the girls involved with their super-heroism. In a counterpoint to people who would make "Cagney and Lacey" type jokes like "okay, now it's time for the Knight Sabers to put on their Hard Suits and pretend they're men".

I'm hardly a Weeaboo, but to me this seems like a feminist rant, jousting with an issue that isn't there, and hasn't been for decades.

Oh sure, Japan has a lot of problems with sexism in it's society, but when it comes to their fandom community (video games, comics, etc...) it's been pretty progressive for a while now, it just doesn't present things one way continually. You still have the damsels and distress, fairly "passive" female leads, and the like, but you've also got plenty of female action heroes.

Oh, and let's be honest... guys have taken a beating in Japanese culture as well. There are more than a few series where the guys are pretty much dishrags. I won't get into "harem anime" (though it presents more than a few examples), but look at things like say "Neon Genesis Evangelion", or even "Gantz" before the last few episodes, just to name a couple. In "Valyria Chronicles" Welkin starts out as pretty much a complete dweeb, and for a good portion of the game your pretty much going to be using a tomboy named "Alicia" as Audie Murphy if you want high rankings.

There are a great deal of "pretend strong" female characters I've noticed. Characters that initially come across as being capable and strong but end up being helpless and needing saved anyway. Tetra from Zelda The Wind Waker is a perfect example of this. She goes from being a bad ass pirate feared by the world to just another princess needing saved by the end of the story. Once you weed those out there are significantly fewer "strong" female characters.

Also, have the children in those studies you mentioned never been exposed to the media? They would have to be completely sheltered from the media in order to say with any scientific conviction that the genders gravitate on their own. Because, let's be frank, when was the last time you saw a Barbie commercial where it was a boy playing with the doll? Or a cleaning product ad that didn't feature a house wife? Or an GI Joe action figure being played with by a girl? Children pick up on these cues from the earliest ages.

As for guys taking the same beating. The reason why so many male anime protagonists are dishrags are because the cynical pandering of anime writers to who they believe their target audience are. Sexually and socially dysfunctional permanent virgins. Which is why I don't like most anime. I find the dishrags guys extremely annoying and the assumption by anime creators that they're someone I can relate to is very insulting.

 

[Darkauthor81]

I'm not saying the author of this article is wrong exactly, but I don't think she speaks for as much of her gender as she thinks she does. I mean, Bella from Twilight is widely regarded as a very poor role model but that hasn't hurt her popularity with women around the world.

No offense to her no doubt very strong, independent, empowered, decisive female attitude, but some women *like* being the simpering damsel in distress who is saved and swept away by the hero. I'm sorry if that makes people uncomfortable, but truth is the mother of hatred. Romance (in the Shakespearian sense) always simplifies and exaggerates these things into archetypes. Where is the cultural gender police every time a man is portrayed as a dimwitted buffoon or sex-crazed maniac?

The idea that women need to be portrayed in such-and-such manner so as to be a proper role model implies that women are natural fuck-ups and require such things to tell them how to properly behave. How is that any different from the old kabuki theater princesses?

Women do need proper role models just like everyone else. My role model, for better and for the much worse, was 80s television because my father figure was a raging abusive douche. I've noticed the impact of having 80s shows as role models has had on my life. Women are told their whole lives certain inalienable "truths". A woman can't take a man in a fight. A woman is bad a math. etc etc etc.

These types of messages set up a sub-conscience block inhibiting people. Let's take the example of "women are bad at math". In a study I read once they took several groups of women and gave them math tests. Half of these groups were shown a video telling of the contributions women have made to the field of math. The women who weren't shown the video still believed, at some level, that women are bad at math. The women who were shown the video felt emboldened by it and scored better on the test.

My sister leads a self defense class and has had such jobs in her life as a bar bouncer. A job she earned when she broke a drunk's nose, then grabbed his broken nose, twisted it, and pulled down bringing the guy to his knees. When the bouncer finally reached the two of them she had the man in tears and she was offered a job on the spot. As a self defense teacher, she says the greatest difficulty in teaching women to defend themselves is beating out of them the belief that they've already lost before the fight even begins. Which is another example of the conditioning they've grown up with.

 

[Therumancer]

[
There are a great deal of "pretend strong" female characters I've noticed. Characters that initially come across as being capable and strong but end up being helpless and needing saved anyway. Tetra from Zelda The Wind Waker is a perfect example of this. She goes from being a bad ass pirate feared by the world to just another princess needing saved by the end of the story. Once you weed those out there are significantly fewer "strong" female characters.

Also, have the children in those studies you mentioned never been exposed to the media? They would have to be completely sheltered from the media in order to say with any scientific conviction that the genders gravitate on their own. Because, let's be frank, when was the last time you saw a Barbie commercial where it was a boy playing with the doll? Or a cleaning product ad that didn't feature a house wife? Or an GI Joe action figure being played with by a girl? Children pick up on these cues from the earliest ages.

As for guys taking the same beating. The reason why so many male anime protagonists are dishrags are because the cynical pandering of anime writers to who they believe their target audience are. Sexually and socially dysfunctional permanent virgins. Which is why I don't like most anime. I find the dishrags guys extremely annoying and the assumption by anime creators that they're someone I can relate to is very insulting.

Speaking for the children in those studies, as I understand them that is the case. Typically it's done with parental consent, or by simply using children who are not from societies with the same level of media saturation. When I was learning about this, it was learning psychology in college so it was admittedly almost (but not quite) two decades ago, so I might not remember all of it perfectly.

The bottom line is that men and women are wired differantly. The reason why gender roles are more or less universal (with the occasional exception of course) is because of this. It isn't a matter of society forcing stereotypes. What's more if you look at things at the most primitive level, the gender roles make sense for the survival of the species. Women bear children and are vulnerable during that period, not to mention being weaker due to the way their bodies are put together as a result, what's more child birth is a slow process. Men on the other hand are stronger, and can impregnate numerous women, so are less vauable to the species as a whole from a survival perspective, and thus are wired to be aggressive and the risk takers. You generally see this with animals as well, though like anything there are again exceptions.

The situation today is largely influanced by politics, and the nature of a society where everyone not only wants to be powerful, self-sufficient, and an earner, but society has developed around it with the nessecity of two income households and the like. Not to mention being sentinent creatures, there is self awareness and resentment of being in what is perceived to be an "inferior" role. You'll notice that when it comes to issues like gender roles, psychology, and similar things it's more two faced than Janus. On one hand you have the whole "society forces women to be feminine" camp, but on the other you have all of the stuff like "Men are from Mars, Women are From Venus" and it's various sequels, and of course books all about Grrrrl power and feminine relationships like the "Ya Ya Sisterhood" and "The Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants". Like anything when your dealing with people and what benefits they can get, the point is always argued from the most favorable position at the time. When the differances are presented in the context of some kind of "sacred feminine" logic, then of course women are differant and that way inherantly, when it comes down to arguements about them being instinctively suited to be housewives or homemakers using the same logic, well then things change.

The issue is unusually nasty today on a lot of fronts because of the problem of unattended youth. Simply put with both parents working, there is nobody around to raise the kids, even when the parents are home they are frequently exhausted. This is at a root of a lot of the problems with "latchkey kids" and parents simply not doing their job as parents. The "traditional" family structure of a guy who goes out and wins the bread for the family, and a girl who stays home to raise the kids and keep the house evolved for a reason based on aptitude and instinct. As sentinent beings however both genders CAN do both roles, and in some cases the situation has been reversed, though that is a tiny minority of cases. Right now there are a lot of arguements for one parent being made to stay home, but then again nobody wants to be the one that gives up the power/freedom/independance of working their own job (even one that they hate). Feminism has gotten paticularly militant recently because of the fear this might go from a buzz to someone trying to make a reality out of it again, and that has included a lot of propaganda directed at women to not act traditionally feminine no matter how they might gravitate towards thinking for that reason. I do think there is actually more counter-feminine propaganda nowadays than the other way around.

I know many are going to disagree, but that's how I see things, and (in some of the basics) how I learned them a long time ago.

I'll also be honest in saying that I don't think that advertising generally creates it's own market, rather it responds to the trends that are out there to maximize profits. It works off of sociology and the understanding and exploitation of stereotypes (which exist and are accurate if you understand what they actually are, hence why Marketing people make big bucks). You see the boys playing with action figues and stuff, and girls with dolls, because all politics and attempts to change things aside, that's the target audience that already exists. What's more, things HAVE gone cross gender in the past for very specific products. "Cabbage Patch Kids" during the height of their popularity were marketed both at boys and girls, ditto for things like the "My Buddy" and "My Pet Monster". These represent exceptions, but the point is that they do exist, a lot depends on what the exact product is and what it's gimmick is.

 

[uzo]

Wussy RPG Girls

The heroines of many JRPGs are anything but heroic, instead shrinking into the background as the boys step into the fray - a tradition that traces its roots back to ancient Japanese theater.

Read Full Article

Nicely and elegantly put, Eileen.

I do have some issues with the interpretation of women in kabuki, however.

I personally am a huge fan of kabuki, yet bunraku is an abhorrent act of public torture to me. But I don't want to bother everyone with my ramblings on the topic as it would be of only limited interest.

I'm not sure of your Japanese language level, nor the level of your exposure to the culture, however, but for what it's worth I may be able to assist with any general queries on the topics. Or just ignore this completely. No pressure either way.

 

[Kashrlyyk]

...The last one I played was Final Fantasy 9, the characters in that game annoyed me so much that I couldn't get more than half way.
...

I AM NOT ALONE! HURRAY! I stopped at the start of the second CD. That princess and that idiot knight and above all that FAT bastard creature. I hated Cait Sith, or whatever, in FF VII and I hated that one.

...And she frequently suffers from low self-esteem, fretting that she's a "burden" on the party or blaming herself for events that are beyond her control....And she frequently suffers from low self-esteem, fretting that she's a "burden" on the party or blaming herself for events that are beyond her control.

All of that is actual human behaviour, and whether it is bad or not depends on if the given reasons for it explains that behaviour.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

I'd just like to point out that in feudal Japan women were trained in martial arts and even armed combat, mostly with bows and the naginata, as the added range was thought to make up for the lack of strength compared to men.

Women samurai were fully expected to defend the fort if it got attacked while the men were away, and there even are records of women successfully defending a castle. Recently, the skulls of 600 samurai found at the site of an old battle were researched and about 30% of them turned out to be female, it might seem that the female warrior was more prevalent in ancient Japan than first thought.