It Never Ends

[Ukomba]

What irks me is that all the other characters designs are being ignored because of one OTT female character in a game filled with OTT characters. Here's a picture of all the characters:

Spoiler

The other two female characters are a pretty, but relatively un-sexualized archer and a MASSIVE amazonian woman.

Another thing that irks me is the fact that because of this one character the game hasn't had any other discussion about it, and to be honest it doesn't even look that good anyway.

The Amazon is wearing basically no clothing, and the Archer is clearly displaying Absolute Territory, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ZettaiRyouiki
So yeah... they're still pretty sexualized.

Time to bring out the burkas! Oh wait, those are sexist too... how do you win here exactly? Dress the character as a conservative librarian or something?
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HotLibrarian
Blast!

Movie Bob once calmed that the extremely attractive male characters are 'self image fantasies for men' and female characters are image fantasies also for men. The thing is, the Male self image fantasies are to be attractive to females. That is also true for Women. The idealization of any character is not only for the opposite gender, but also a self image fantasy for that gender. Just look at the female cosplayers wearing who attempt some of these costumes.

I understand the portrayal is imbalanced, it's impossible for that not to happen since men and women are so different.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

My problem with the kotaku article is that he says the sorceress is a male fantasy, that's fine, she kinda is but then he goes to say that the half naked dwarf isn't any kind of counter balance since he just represents a male empowerment fantasy. If the dwarf being all naked and buff as hell can only represent a male empowerment fantasy then why can't the sorceress be a female empowerment fantasy?

Actually what would a female empowerment fantasy even be? A male one seems to just be bigger and stronger then anyone else or that's the impression I get anyway.

The Arrow television series or just any television, every ad I see these day's seems very focused on women.

 

[Harker067]

And I'll just leave this over here.... http://www.socialjusticeleague.net/2011/09/how-to-be-a-fan-of-problematic-things/

 

[shadowstriker86]

i'm not sure why people are making a big deal out of this, yet again making a mountain out of a pimple. i can't imagine what kind of miserable lives these people have that get butthurt over the design of a FICTIONAL character. If women these days are really trying to compare and compete with cartoon characters, then there is something SERIOUSLY WRONG with society today.

 

[axlryder]

I have to admit: I'm rather partial to the design. Usually oversexed female characters don't sway me one way or the other, but I think there's a nice aesthetic here that works. Completely unrelated to the topic at hand, but I feel like a lot of other people also like her design, so that's probably generating more vehement defense of the art than usual.

TBH, if they just threw in a hot bishi or two then everyone could be happy.

 

[Scarim Coral]

The whole Dragon Crown Sorceress fiasco is like the latest version to FOX reporting on the whole Rapeplay game. The game was announce a year or so ago including that chraracter can be seen beforehand and they are now pulling the whole sexist controversal card all over again. What make the Sorceress any different from any other female game characters in the past other than being the latest installment onto the list of sexualise characters?

 

[Redd the Sock]

The funny part is that all this did was give free marketing to a game that was destined to be overlooked and will now have a lot of perverts looking into it, and I'm one of them.

As for the gender debate itself, I won't say it needs to go away, but we do need to get to a point where it isn't the "boys club" on one end, and its "victims" on the other, and all this drawing attention to a niche game just shows to me that some people have less interest in debate than in sqashing anything that makes them uncomfortable or appears juvenile. If anything, any sign that we'd happily like to know what they like to see so they can have enjoyment too is a strong sign of maturity and understanding that the medium is a big place and other demographics need to be served and can be without dismantling or censoring the likes of other demographics. On the manga rack the yaoi sits next to the yuri, which is next to the shonen action, the reverse harem adventure, the fanservice and the classics (and in my bookstore right across from the books on religion and Christianity.)

Video Games can be the same thing, but they won't be if all the one side seems to want to do is ***** about patriarchy instead of showing financial support for the (probably more niche) games that fall into what they approve of. Strong sales for Remember Me or even some $5 indy game will do far more than all the forum posts and kickstarter funded videos ever could.

 

[Nurb]

So what?

Really, so what?

Women get their "mommy porn" with the likes of 50 shades of gray with powerful, assertive men, girls get their "romance porn" with many shows/movies/books now of hunky, shirtless forever-teen-looking creatures fighting for their love and attention... Can't us guys have our own fantasies? It's sexualized like everyone elses escapism, just a different medium, so why do we have to have to catch so much shit for enjoying the sight of pretty girls in various situations? It's no different. (I didn't even mention the yaoi fangirls and their own fantasy escapism).

So it's gratuitous, not all games are.

However, people liking "This" doesn't magically lock some door that keeps other gamers from getting "That" made, and there is no "boys only" mentality in general, there are lots of girls in the clubhouse so gender isn't the problem here; It's a vocal group with different opinions that are trying to turn it into a gender issue and polarize everyone.

What I've noticed is that Bob tends to side with the Anti-sex feminists point of view, where women/female characters can't be sexual or exposed to anything sexual outside of a relationship without it being seen as a negative (boothbabes just being another example they don't like), and some sort of exploitation.

That is a real thing by the way, feminism has many groups supporting different ideas, look up "feminist sex wars". Also, read stuff by Ellen Willis (a bigwig from the orginal women's rights movement), her books shed light on how one group has cropped up since the 80's she calls "neo-victorian", which is what I was mentioning above. I learned a lot about feminist history because of internet arguments XD

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I am so very happy, this has been the only place I have seen that acknowledges the other characters and how the over the top art applies to each of them. It annoys me greatly that people pick one character and tear the game apart. Imagine if people took Velvet and condemed Odin Sphere, you'd miss out on how she's a deep, complex charater who is amazingly strong.

My other problem is that people are flat out saying 'all women should hate this' I, as a woman, do not hate it. I might be annoyed if she's a shallow, bubblehead, with no character (which seeing as who's making this, I highly doubt). I showed another woman friend the amazon and she loved the design. She really liked how the thighs and legs were so muscled. As she put it 'I was afraid it'd be some skinny twig with an ass' but she liked how the charater was muscled, powerful looking, and is giving Chun Lee a run for her money.

In short, I think not enough people are looking at the big picture when it comes to this game. I will play and likely enjoy this game, as I did with Odin Sphere and Muramasa.

Thing is the Amazon and Sorceress are kinda in the minority with playable protagonists in Vanillaware's titles. In Odin Sphere, Velvet was the only truly sexualized character (with CHAINS as a weapon to boot) as Gwendolyn and Mercedes were actually very conservative (though admittedly Gwen did have that ballroom gown). Momohime was also very traditional, save for her stylized (and anachronistic) stockings and...hot springs.

Also, amusing bonus points for the Japanese voices. The Amazon is Major Kusanagi (Atsuko Tanaka), the Sorceress is I-no (Kikuko "Big Sis" Inoue) and The Elf is Tsubaki Yayoi (Asami Imai)

 

[irishda]

At this point, I really have to ask: if game characters were oversexualized for women instead of for men, then what would they look like? I'd imagine I would still find a woman's idea of a sexy woman attractive, and the men I could probably get over as long as they could wear a shirt.

They would look like Skyward Sword Link, Pyramid Head and/or Solid Snake. I've seen legions of women fawn over those three characters. What women find attractive is either not entirely noticeable or seen as a power fantasy for men. But if you really want to see examples of male characters that were definitely made exclusively for the straight teen-young adult demographic to love look at both Fifty Shades of Grey's and Twilight's male leads. We all know how shit those two were, though.

Not to mention how much shit male and female communities threw because the male characters were dangerous representations of borderline sociopathic behavior in order to satiate a power fantasy to an extreme. They were hyper-sexualized for a female audience, and people threw a fit about it. That to me says the "double-standard" a lot of people bring up in regards to what can or can't be hyper-sexualized doesn't really exist the way they think it does.

 

[Reeve]

There is an easy answer to this. Instead of complaining about the games other people are making, people should make games that promote their own ideals so that it balances out. Almost every other art medium has grasped this concept. Why are video games having a hard time?

Captcha: glass ceiling

Captcha is best AI

 

[Uhura]

Yeah, for me the problem is the prevalence of sexualized female characters in gaming. There really is much more to women than sexiness and it would be nice to see more characters that demonstrate these other aspects of women.

I would love to see more this type of female designs in video games:

Spoiler

 

[Tanis]

This is just another 'non-issue' being brought up by people who feel the need to 'white knight' for the ladies.

Looks...ALL THE CHARACTERS ARE EXAGGERATIONS.
I know it's hard for some of you to 'get this', but that's kind of the style of the game.

It's like bitching about Madworld being 'too violent', when that WAS THE POINT.

Getting more pissed off about how some characters breasts bounce, while ignoring real issues like the racism in the CoD series, makes you look foolish.

If her specials attacks involved 'boob slap' and 'death by handjob', ya might have a case.
But, as it stands, not really 'feeling it'...bro.

 

[WiseBass]

The Frazetta stuff was pretty sexualized as well, so I'm not sure that appealing to that is really an excuse. Especially when it fits a pattern of female characters being drawn in heavily sexualized ways not because that's how the character's been set-up, but because for eye-candy purposes (I read a good essay [http://exploringbelievability.blogspot.com/2012/08/getting-to-root-of-sexist-design.html] on this a while back).

No one can stop you from doing that, but you don't have ground to get defensive if female gamers say that it's ridiculous, or that it turns them off the game.

I'm not offended by how the sorceress looks but seeing her boobs flop around like that makes me cringe with sypathy pains. Why couldn't they have had her wear a bra or some thing?

That's my point. There's no real reason in-character reason she's dressed like that, particularly when two of the three male characters are dressed in more practical clothing and armor (only one of them is wearing the Conan-esque clothing). It's just eye-candy, and all three female characters look like that.

 

[Fleaman]

Bob, are you the secret identity of Switzerland? After the FLAGRANT DISAPPOINTMENT that was Ben Kuchera's one-sided pruderant (and it was that, completely; he came this close to saying "think of the children"), you have risen up as the scion for the forces of even-handedness.

ToastiestZombie and Sosa Star bring up a good point here that reinforces the comment on diversity. Is the Sorceress sexy? Yes, to some (Clearly Bob's cup of tea, but a lot of guys have been pretty fucking eager to chime in on how unappealing she is to their refined sensibilities). Is she a lazy, cynical industry standard? That seems to be the consensus (although if we're just talking about the Ivys, Kasumis, and Shiranuis, I would think Sorceress rather overshoots the usual mark to a fairly distinguishing degree).

But is all of Dragon's Crown's art design industry standard? Well I don't know. Why don't we ask the Amazon, COLOSSEA, CHAMPION OF ALL BLADES?

Do you see those muscles? Does that look like samey design to you? Does she look like that same character you see in every game? Of course she fucking doesn't. She's going to wrestle a fucking planet. This isn't your Diablo 2 Amazon, a Barbie doll in a bronze boobplate. This is the Diablo 3 Barbarian, capable of filling out the armor of a Chaos Space Marine Terminator Lord. And it is no one else, because this is a fucking uncommon design.

So, yeah. I come down on Vanillaware's side on this. If you're talking taste, then that's fine; I get that the style doesn't have to be your thing (I confess, I'm not actually that into the Sorceress; I'm into the Elf, whose design is, of course, hopelessly conventional). And I get if, as a woman (or a dude with manboobs), watching the Sorceress move makes you empathetically uncomfortable, because, wow, yeah. But, man, this is NOT the argument about the rut the gaming industry's art department is in, or the one about how cynically market-driven it is. There really are giants, but this one's a windmill.

 

[JamesBr]

This article essentially sums up my thoughts. Individual works of "objectifying" design I have no problems with (Boris Vallejo has been around forever), it's the sheer omnipresence of it that I find disturbing.

 

[Fleaman]

Oh and speaking of Soul Calibur, if you pry yourself away from Ivy for a minute you'll notice that they have a lot of shirtless men with dashing good looks that are clearly meant to appeal to women. They aren't there for a power fantasy either, that's what heavy hitters like Astaroth and Nightmare are for. I'm talking about the people like Maxi and ZWEI and to a lesser extent yun seung.

Ahh, exactly! How many male characters in the Soul series wear shirts?! Raphael, Nightmare sometimes, and Cervantes sometimes? Beefcake and cheesecake are provided in equal measure! I'm cool with it!

I think the thing to do here when you have multiple characters is you have to have AT LEAST SOME of the characters of each sex have attractive designs that provide sexual appeal and AT LEAST SOME characters of each sex who are cool and badass and/or are relatably human. Preferably these sets overlap, but I understand that while I think Taki's stoic character is cool (insofar as characters as underdeveloped as Soul characters can be), having to constantly look at her autonomous attack boobs could be kind of uncomfortable.

Incidentally, Ivy herself, as a villain-turned-antihero, is cunning, educated, and driven; ironically, she's one of the most developed characters in the franchise.