Jimquisition: Vertigo

[Silent Protagonist]

Suggestion: Try to come up with some male protagonists that fit Jim's criteria and debunk them like this thread has been doing with possible female character candidates that Jim might have missed. I couldn't think of one off the top of my head. The guys from GTAV don't even fit his criteria. Might be worth a separate thread

 

[RJ 17]

Hmmmm....I wonder if this thread will get as big as White Guy Defense Force.

Still a long ways to go, but at this rate...it just might make it!

AvP; the alien.

I really like this example. If Vertigo is the benchmark by which the standard for this topic is being set, I'd say that the aliens you play as in any of the applicable AvP games would definitely count.

Ruthless "villain-like" character? Check.
Not conventionally attractive? Check.
Not motivated by trauma or in some way owes her strength to a man? Check.

Fits the bill quite nicely if you ask me. :3

 

[Pat Hulse]

Hmm, well here's a list of characters I think meet that criteria:

Amazon in Dragon's Crown.
Lucca from Chrono Trigger.
Okami from Okami.
Peacock from skull girls.
Double from skull girls.
Macha from Chrono Cross.
NeoFio from Chrono Cross.
Poshul from Chrono Cross.
Sprigg from Chrono Cross.
Shale from Dragon Age.
Kreia from Knights of the Old Republic 2.

That's just what I could come up with off the top of my head from games I've played.

Amazon - Sexualized, impractical outfit. While not "traditionally" attractive from a mainstream attraction, she definitely fits within fetishistic character design tropes popular in certain niches within Japanese entertainment. She may not be everyone's cup of tea, but trust me, she's designed for sex appeal. Plus none of the characters in that game have interesting or unique character motivations or identities, so even if you could argue that she isn't designed with sex appeal in mind, she fails to meet Jim's criteria for that reason as well (though at least the male characters in the game are equally as uninteresting and under-developed).
Lucca - A supporting character, not a protagonist. Jim was specifically looking for playable protagonists.
Okami - The character is actually named Amaterasu, but I'd say that's probably a fair example that Jim may have overlooked.
Peacock - Her motivations center around being used as a test subject, which Jim would justifiably qualify as "power from trauma".
Double - See above.
Macha/NeoFio/Poshul/Sprigg - Not protagonists.
Shale - A DLC character and not a protagonist.
Kreia - Not a protagonist.

One example I thought of that Jim may have overlooked is Kazooie from Banjo-Kazooie, who could be argued as a supporting character, but I'd argue that she's the more active participant in the duo, particular in regards to gameplay, though obviously she has less at stake in terms of plot since it's not her sister that's been kidnapped. But it does seem a bit silly that we have to keep looking at non-humanoids to find valid examples.

And it may seem like splitting hairs for discounting many of your characters for not being protagonists, but part of the issue is that women would like to be able to directly identify with the character they has the most agency and direct focus within the story. They may like to see well-crafted female supporting characters, but when it's all they have, it starts to make them feel ignored, marginalized, and underestimated. It seems like there's an underlying hesitance to make a woman the central protagonist either due to concerns regarding whether or not their young male demographic would enjoy playing as a female character they don't find attractive, as though we would be afraid of identifying with a woman. As a dude, I find that assumption pretty demeaning. I don't need to find a female character sexy to want to play as her and I don't need to play as a male character to identify with the protagonist. I think game publishers need to stop overthinking it so much.

For starters, look up the definition of 'protagonist'. Here let me help:

protagonist: the leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text.

So Kreia, Macha, NeoFio, Poshul, Sprigg, Lucca, and Shale are, in fact, Protagonists. Any Party member would be. Even non playable characters, like Joker from Mass Effect, would count as a Protagonist. Lucca especially, since Chrono dies half way through the game. Is there just no Protagonist at that point?

A character being DLC is entirely irrelevant.

The Trauma thing, well you might have me for those two.

From a narrative perspective, you may be right, but we're talking about video games here. It's possible for a game to have multiple protagonists, but in my mind, that would mean those characters would have to share all of the same means of control and prominence within the game and gameplay. To put it another way, the protagonist in Dragon Age is the main character because you can walk around as them, talk to people, and do a bunch of other things, but since you cannot do most of those things as Shale, she is rendered a supporting character. Shale is a character you talk to and command in combat. She only sticks around so long as she has a relationship and commitment to the main character. If she leaves, you don't get to play as her and see what happens on her solo adventures.

To put it yet another way, all those characters may be critically important to the plot, but you can't play as them in the same way you can play as the "true" protagonist.

That said, I had forgotten that Lucca was actually a playable character with no real significant gameplay differences when compared with Crono, so yeah, I guess she probably would fit Jim's criteria. However, while I haven't played "Chrono Cross", my understanding is that Serge is the central character throughout the whole game and the one used for navigation and managing the other playable characters, clearly making him the protagonist.

 

[Steve2911]

Suggestion: Try to come up with some male protagonists that fit Jim's criteria and debunk them like this thread has been doing with possible female character candidates that Jim might have missed. I couldn't think of one off the top of my head. The guys from GTAV don't even fit his criteria. Might be worth a separate thread

Elaborate on this, because quite a few examples were given in the video. And I don't see how the GTAV protagonists don't count.

 

[Stabby Joe]

This was great episodes about female characters since it's something that get's left out as their role, rather than appearance is always the point of debate. It's like the bechdel test in film, when you try to think of an example it's shockingly few in examples compared to the known mainstream. Kind of wish films would get questioned to even the slightest degree games do. Yes I know games are arguably the bigger offenders with genders (like this episode shows) but that doesn't let everything else off the hook...

...and this episode took ONE WEEK and didn't even require a Kickstarter.

 

[shrekfan246]

Well, the only thing left to do now is for the internet to accept Jim's challenge and Rule 34 the s*** out of Vertigo to prove a point.

Nobody ask me what that point would be.

EDIT: OMG, it's already been done.

You're not actually surprised about that, are you?

I mean, you know what Rule 34 states, don't you?

OT: I'm a bit shaky about the suggestion, but I do think Amaterasu could potentially be a pretty good example.

 

[deathjavu]

Suggestion: Try to come up with some male protagonists that fit Jim's criteria and debunk them like this thread has been doing with possible female character candidates that Jim might have missed. I couldn't think of one off the top of my head. The guys from GTAV don't even fit his criteria. Might be worth a separate thread

Ah yes, [link]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/9966-The-Counterpoint[/link] this argument.

Wow, it hasn't gotten any more sensible in the interim time since that comic.

 

[Hagi]

I think Maria Theresa is worth a mention, I mean I get that she'd be overlooked when compared to protagonists from games where the story and character development is central. But compared to Jim's conclusion of a dinosaur, whose not in any way visually female, I think she wins hands down. Even if she's based on a real world person she's undoubtedly a developer created character, she's not conventionally attractive and she definitely has unique motivations that aren't just about hardship or doing something for a man ( on the contrary, her special ability is about making a man do something for her ).

I get why she wasn't chosen as she's a real person. But all the same I think she'd have been the better choice whilst still proving the overall point, by virtue of being taken straight from the pages of world history whilst actually being a human woman instead of a dinosaur.

 

[Ukomba]

Hmm, well here's a list of characters I think meet that criteria:

Amazon in Dragon's Crown.
Lucca from Chrono Trigger.
Okami from Okami.
Peacock from skull girls.
Double from skull girls.
Macha from Chrono Cross.
NeoFio from Chrono Cross.
Poshul from Chrono Cross.
Sprigg from Chrono Cross.
Shale from Dragon Age.
Kreia from Knights of the Old Republic 2.
Bombette from Paper Mario.
Lady Bow from Paper Mario.
Watt from Paper Mario.
Sushie from Paper Mario.
Goombella from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.
Flurrie from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Vivian from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.
Ms. Mowz from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.
Toadette from Mario Kart.
Birdo from Mario Kart.
Baby Daisy from Mario Kart.

That's just what I could come up with off the top of my head from games I've played.

Amazon - Sexualized, impractical outfit. While not "traditionally" attractive from a mainstream attraction, she definitely fits within fetishistic character design tropes popular in certain niches within Japanese entertainment. She may not be everyone's cup of tea, but trust me, she's designed for sex appeal. Plus none of the characters in that game have interesting or unique character motivations or identities, so even if you could argue that she isn't designed with sex appeal in mind, she fails to meet Jim's criteria for that reason as well (though at least the male characters in the game are equally as uninteresting and under-developed).
Lucca - A supporting character, not a protagonist. Jim was specifically looking for playable protagonists.
Okami - The character is actually named Amaterasu, but I'd say that's probably a fair example that Jim may have overlooked.
Peacock - Her motivations center around being used as a test subject, which Jim would justifiably qualify as "power from trauma".
Double - See above.
Macha/NeoFio/Poshul/Sprigg - Not protagonists.
Shale - A DLC character and not a protagonist.
Kreia - Not a protagonist.

One example I thought of that Jim may have overlooked is Kazooie from Banjo-Kazooie, who could be argued as a supporting character, but I'd argue that she's the more active participant in the duo, particular in regards to gameplay, though obviously she has less at stake in terms of plot since it's not her sister that's been kidnapped. But it does seem a bit silly that we have to keep looking at non-humanoids to find valid examples.

And it may seem like splitting hairs for discounting many of your characters for not being protagonists, but part of the issue is that women would like to be able to directly identify with the character they has the most agency and direct focus within the story. They may like to see well-crafted female supporting characters, but when it's all they have, it starts to make them feel ignored, marginalized, and underestimated. It seems like there's an underlying hesitance to make a woman the central protagonist either due to concerns regarding whether or not their young male demographic would enjoy playing as a female character they don't find attractive, as though we would be afraid of identifying with a woman. As a dude, I find that assumption pretty demeaning. I don't need to find a female character sexy to want to play as her and I don't need to play as a male character to identify with the protagonist. I think game publishers need to stop overthinking it so much.

For starters, look up the definition of 'protagonist'. Here let me help:

protagonist: the leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text.

So Kreia, Macha, NeoFio, Poshul, Sprigg, Lucca, and Shale are, in fact, Protagonists. Any Party member would be. Even non playable characters, like Joker from Mass Effect, would count as a Protagonist. Lucca especially, since Chrono dies half way through the game. Is there just no Protagonist at that point?

A character being DLC is entirely irrelevant.

The Trauma thing, well you might have me for those two.

Ok, but Lucca is still pretty conventionally attractive, I mean except for the big-ass glasses and the goofy helmet she's still got the whole smooth skin, slender body thing going on.

I thought she was cute, but not exactly conventionally attractive since she's, eeeeeew, NERDY. If Old Snake is considered not conventionally attractive then so is Lucca. I know plenty of girls who think the grizzled, or older men are quite attractive. Harrison Ford won People's Sexiest Man Alive at 56 after all.

Yes, but she's still got the whole smooth skin, slender body thing. I think Jim's point was that you don't see any female protagonists that look like the amazons from Futurama. A better example you could've brought up from Chrono Trigger would've been Ayla.

I guess it all depends on your definition. It's that 'Not Another Teen Movie' thing where the unattractive nerdy girl just needs a quick makeover to make her attractive. Her in game sprite isn't designed to make her look attractive, unlike Marles. Ayla is a little more on the line so I left her off.

 

[RJ 17]

Well, the only thing left to do now is for the internet to accept Jim's challenge and Rule 34 the s*** out of Vertigo to prove a point.

Nobody ask me what that point would be.

EDIT: OMG, it's already been done.

You're not actually surprised about that, are you?

I mean, you know what Rule 34 states, don't you?

OT: I'm a bit shaky about the suggestion, but I do think Amaterasu could potentially be a pretty good example.

I was about to point that out to Gennadios as well: the fact that by definition there would obviously already be Rule 34 of Vertigo.

As for Amaterasu, I'm pretty sure that one of the criteria (though I don't think he specifically mentioned it in the 3 that he lists, but he does talk about it a fair bit in the beginning of the video) is that the character in question has to be bad, or at least morally questionable. As such Ammy wouldn't count.

I'm gonna go ahead and bring up a character from one of my favorite games:

Freya Crescent

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111128011906/finalfantasy/images/a/aa/Freya_at_Burmecia.jpg

She's female, she's playable and she is definitely not any conventional type of "sexy".

She's a skinny, anthropomorphic rat, wearing knight's armor (with raincoat influences) that covers almost all of her body.
She's got disproportionally long legs;
long, sharp nails on both hands and feet;
no big breasts or wide hips;
and again, even if she had, her clothing wouldn't give it away.

The only argument you could possibly have, is than one of her arcs revolves around her boyfriend (Sir Fratley), but I don't really think it counts because of the way it is handled:

SHE is the one who's been searching for HIS ass, because he was dumb enough to go and pick a fight with Beatrix. And when she finally finds him, the fucker can't even remember her, because Beatrix handed his ass to him so hard, he got amnesia. And you know what? She takes it. She's been spending the last two years of her life looking for this asshole, he can't even remember her when they finally meet, but she doesn't let it keep her down. Shit just hit the fan, there's a war between nations, so she just leaves it at that and continues the fight.

Hell, in the hours that follow...
...the entire nation of Cleyra gets vaporized. She does break down a bit after this (which would be logical), but when they realize they aren't in the clear yet, she gets her act together. Soon after, she is confronted (for the third time) with the aforementioned Beatrix. The woman who kicked her boyfriend's ass and helped destroy an entire nation. But then certain things are revealed to her and she decides to switch sides. So does Freya whine and protest? No! She simple says that it's too late for Beatrix to ask for forgiveness, but she'll fight by her side for a higher cause.

So that's Freya Crescent, a dragon knight who doesn't look like a Playboy model, gets the respect she deserves from her peers, goes to hell and back, and fucking deals with it.

The only thing I disagree with, is her scene at the end of the game.

As with Amaterasu: Freya isn't a bad person/morally questionable.

That, and I'm pretty sure that if you were to ask someone who's into furries they'd tell you that Freya is pretty cute/attractive.

 

[Pat Hulse]

If looks doesnt matter, why cant women be "attractive" so to speak?
Why is the concept of Saints Row and other types of games such as MMOs completely discarded because theyre our creation not the developers?
Can then only good female characters exist if they're created by the developer and not the player?

They can, Jim doesn't have a problem with that. The problem is that apparently they can't be anything else than attractive. That is a problem.

Thats up for debate however and not an objective fact, especially if you just consider that to be the one part that matters to a player, regardless if its being marketed to you as such. Its a woman, shes attractive.
I like to compare this debate to the new steam controller rage:

oh my god look how bad this controller looks it must be shit.

While im thinking instead: I wonder what it feels like to use it for play though since i will use my controller for a game and not to look at.

Look you can split hairs as much as you want, but it's pretty hard to deny that a massive majority of female characters are designed with the intention of people trying to make them look good in mind. And a good looking character isn't a bad thing, a lot of people really like Mitsuru from Persona 3 and she's hardly lacking, but good looking for female is become ing what "White, brown haired thirty something" is for male. There is nothing wrong with a character like that but the sheer number of them is ridiculous and something ELSE would be nice.

Truth=/=Urgency

While its debatably somewhat true, the impact it has or the urgency of said subject isnt objectively problematic in itself, because again i must ask the question in that case: Does the opposite matter/not matter, and if so, why/why not?

I havent denied anything but neither am i so gullible to simply accept a black and white scenario without contrast.
First of all the fallacy that appearently then according to most arguments vs this, is well, we get a "non-traditionally attractive female protagonist" and then to break it down first of all. Well what constitutes one ideal over another, as you must be aware both male and female gamers find some "non-traditionally attractive males" to be appealing in games. The other problem comes with ambiguous genders and well, if it is a female but we cant tell, is it a female? If a tree falls in the forest without anyone around to hear it does it still make a noise, basically?
Then the third question of course becomes, protagonist, according to me? you? what about anti-heroes then or npcs or other characters in a game that have equal amount of impact on the game as you the player does?

Your question regarding "urgency" of this kind of representation discrepancy drudges up the dreaded Tumblr-abuse word of "privilege". Because you and I do not lack for representation in our favorite form of media, we cannot empathize with someone who has no high-profile representation in said medium. So the urgency of this sort of discrepancy may seem trivial to us, but as there are so many gamers clamoring for this sort of representation in games, one would assume they find it rather urgent.

To put it another way, your question seems to be "Yes, there probably is a discrepancy regarding the prominence of non-traditionally-attractive female protagonists in games vs. the male equivalent, but is that a serious problem?" Well, my feelings on the issue are that if a lot of people have a problem with it, their complaints seem reasonable, and changing things would require very little sacrifice from a practical or social perspective and our community stands to gain from it, I think whether or not it is "urgent" is a moot point. Rather, I think the more "urgent" matter is that people within our community seem hard-wired to resist this sort of observation and criticism as though it potentially threatens something.

It's really no different from when a person complains about how shooters are too generic or how single-player experiences are diminished to favor tacked-on multiplayer experiences. We complain about aspects of the industry that we don't like, hoping that they will change and improve our overall experience. That's exactly what those arguing for equal representation are doing. They dislike something in the industry, so they're pointing it out and complaining about it so it can change and improve their enjoyment of it. And unless someone thinks those changes will lessen their enjoyment of it, then I don't really understand why people bother to take it so personally as if they are accused of being called sexist just for enjoying video games.

Yeah but thats all subjective however and up to me or you to decide not one collective, since that pretty much voids all form of individuality which is yknow, fucking terrible. Once more, its not really urgent and may not even be all that important, trivial at best but hey, if creators come along with creations of said things to counter that then hooray for them *golfclaps* but it wont be the end of the world if they dont.
Then again i would like games to be appriciated for games and not for other things like how the controller looks or if my protagonist happens to be a nontraditionally attractive female or not, and if does come to that, then i would like the game to actually be praised and reviewed on the basis of it BEING A GAME, but appearently thats too much to ask from some people i guess :L

Well a lot of religious fundamentalists also have problems with todays world yet we can hopefully all agree that theyre far from reasonable, as is the case with this debate that, while perhaps a vocal but very stupid part of the debate, argues for one thing, doesnt by default make it valid or reasonable based simply on numbers, but rather how well their arguments hold up against their counterarguments, which they dont, not all that much exactly anyway...

Eh, i guess some people do but theyre usually stupid, i may not like what you like but i wont hate you for liking what i dont like, if that makes any sense, since i objectively cant tell you: what you enjoy is shit. because yknow, enjoyment is subjective and all that

The difference is that appeasing religious fundamentalists who complain would severely negatively impact several individuals who do not share those beliefs by restricting LGBT rights and affecting women's health issues. Whereas turning, say, Trevor from GTA V into a woman and basically changing next to nothing else about him probably wouldn't have negatively impacted the game or anyone's enjoyment of it in any significant way. You'd basically just have to slightly alter the character design and get rid of the scene where he shows off his dick. And it would have had the added bonus of engendering good will from gamers who wish to have more diverse examples of female protagonists in video games.

There's also the fact that religious fundamentalists are not in any way marginalized members of society (tax breaks, tons of representation in media as well as air time, a great deal of political influence and representation), but I don't think that's a necessary argument to make regarding this particular issue, valid or not.

But even so appeasing this type of crowd just for the sake of appeasement actually would have a negative effect on the industry since the act of acting for the sake of action has and always will be incredibly anti-intelligent.
Its a secondary priority and should always be.
You make your game first and then if your game has room for a nontraditionally attractive female protagonist then go right ahead, i havent argued against anything else, just that id like my game primarily to be..well a game, and then that whole feminist thing can be shoehorned in if it wants to as long as it doesnt affect my enjoyment of the game really

Entertainment industries are exclusively about appeasement. That's pretty much the entire definition of entertainment. It can be used to enrich lives, sure, but it is first and foremost used to be fun and distracting and give us something to do with our idle time. The better question is who we're appeasing, why we're appeasing them, and how that appeasement would negatively impact the appeasement of others.

My argument is simply that unless you can think of a counter-argument, changing a male protagonist in a game whose gender identity is not critical to their character (of which there are many) into a female protagonist whose gender identity is not critical to their character without changing much else would be trivially difficult, have a positive impact on communities who ask for such representation, and wouldn't have a significant negative impact on those who aren't asking for it. In my mind, if doing something is easy and would have a positive effect that outweighs the negative effect by a significant margin, it ought to be a no-brainer. We shouldn't FORCE people to do this, obviously, but there's nothing wrong with attempting to convince people to make this decision voluntarily if they find the arguments compelling and if they want to make work that's accessible to a wider audience.

 

[bdcjacko]

What about Helga from Clayfighter. Well she does have tits and ass, but ugly as sin and chunky.

 

[Tombsite]

If looks doesnt matter, why cant women be "attractive" so to speak?

Can we all stop with the "If 'X' doesn't matter..." defense? It's completely ridiculous.

'X' does matter, else we wouldn't have so many examples of one subset of 'X' yet so few of the other. It clearly matters yet it damn well shouldn't, and the only way we're going to stop it from being important is to have more diversity.

And diversity matters.

Why should I stop pointing out the flaws in your argument?

Also you failed to explain why we need more diversity when people clearly don't want more diversity. Even the female game developers don't want to make anything other than pretty females.

Source? Where did you see that "people" do not want more diversity? I've seen quite a few forum threads and opinion pieces stating otherwise.

 

[DrOswald]

Lucca from Chrono Trigger.

Possibly fits, although from what I read, it does sound like she may be doing things for Chrono or her father. Not sure, didn't play the game.

Having played the game many times through I can tell you that the three women characters in that game are all very well written and generally don't fall into the female stereotypes. The discussion below has a few spoilers in it, but that isn't really possible to avoid when talking about the motivations and progression of a character in a story driven game.

Spoiler

Lucca is supposed to be a nerdy and generally plain looking girl. So, not conventionally attractive. And none of her motivations are "doing something for a man." Lucca is perhaps the most proactive character in the game (with the exception of Magus.) The whole plot starts because she roped Chrono into demonstrating her teleport device. And while chrono is the party "leader" because he is the strongest warrior and brave to a foolhardy degree Lucca and Marle tend to make all the actual plans and decisions. If anything Chrono does what he does because Lucca told him to. And when Chrono is jailed and to be executed it is Lucca who saves him.

Marle is another example of a great female character. She is independent and thinks for herself and her whole character progression is based around how she is unwilling to be a figurehead queen. While she is conventionally attractive and the love interest of the main character she is in no way a "prize" for the male lead. Marle and Chrono get together because she chooses to advance the relationship. And the only time Marle ever needs Chrono's help is (without spoiling too much) when she accidentally erases herself from existence, making it so not only does she no longer exist but she never existed in the first place. And even then Lucca is the one who figures out what happened and how to solve it, not Chrono.

And then we have Ayla, who is by far the physically strongest character in the game, even more so than the robot designed for the express purpose of bludgeoning things to death with it's titanium fists. She is the leader of her tribe and the leader of early humanity at large in a war to overthrow their dinosaur overlords. Her motivations are political and military in nature, hoping to advance her objective of overthrowing the Dinos by combining forces with Chrono and his friends. Only after this objective is complete does she join in the fight for the world at large because it is a natural extension of the goals she has been working towards the entire game.

 

[Spearmaster]

Wait, so now this mythical female protagonist has to be a deep, emotional, intelligent, never relies on a man ever, is never affected by a man, and now has to be conventionally ugly on top of that. Good luck selling that game.


Put out an APB for a 4'6" tall, 350# woman with severe burn scars all over her face and body and missing one leg and make a game about her...what.... oh that's right real people are boring and nobody gives a shit accept the PC hookers who have to appeal to their base by vilifying the very thing they make their living from...shameful.