Jimquisition: Vertigo

AdrianRK

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Female Sheppard is a great female protagonist. I only played her in ME and she made the game wonderful (especially the voice actress)
 

Canadamus Prime

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Ukomba said:
Pat Hulse said:
Ukomba said:
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.
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.
 

RJ Dalton

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Jimothy Sterling said:
Vertigo

Let's look for a playable woman protagonist in a videogame that doesn't rely on the same pool of restrictive stereotypes as every other playable woman protagonist.

Watch Video
Hang on a sec, how do you know Vertigo isn't attractive? She could be very sexy according to the standards her own species would judge her by.

This obviously is a joke. You made me laugh though, mostly because I think you might be right. I can't think of anyone else, either.
 

Don Dorscha

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Mcoffey said:
Daystar Clarion said:




I like to think that The Boss and Ammy fall into this category.

Have you seen The Boss? She's built like a fucking horse, and Ammy is...

Well she's Ammy!
The Boss isn't a playable character nor a protagonist. She's a great character, to be sure, but not quite what Jim's talking about. I've got nothing on Amaterasu though. :)

In this thread I expect plenty of people to say that plenty of male characters are sexualized, completely ignoring the fact that they are male empowerment fantasies ( something to aspire to, rather than something to desire), where few-to-no female characters are female empowerment fantasies.
Do you know what a female power fantasy looks like? Here's a hint: it probably doesn't involve being burly, grizzled, or scar-seamed; whereas many male power fantasies do. Do you really think that the only time women dress in revealing clothing or wear makeup to make themselves more attractive is so that they can please men? That's bullshit. Ask any woman why she wears sexy clothes, and you will hear "because I like how I look" or something similar. As such, that means that in general, women like to look sexy, and hence when they are playing idealized versions of themselves they want to look MORE sexy. If the only playable female character in a game was a Kane-and-Lynch-style ugliness, or a Marcus Phoenix burly and butch, then even the female gamers wouldn't want to play as them. As such, it makes sense for those characters not to be made. Diversity is good blah-blah-blah that's all fine and dandy, but in the end if you make a game with a character that nobody wants to play as so nobody buys your game, that diversity just ran your studio into the ground, because even the audience you are pandering to is uninterested in your product.

The only real differences that I can see between an objectifying sexualization and sexualization to create a female power-fantasy is the sense of agency the character has. If the female is a means to move the male-driven plot forward, then yes she is being objectified. If she is attractive and uses that to promote her own ends and agenda, then it is a power-fantasy and is the males playing the game choose to objectify her in their own minds, then that is their problem and their ignorance and there is literally nothing that you or anyone in the game industry can do about it.

This is the sad truth of any one of these "diversity in games characters" arguments. Even the people arguing for diversity wouldn't buy the game that deviates from what they feel is normal and comfortable. Does that mean that alternate sexualities and minorites are going to be excluded? Probably. Is that sad? Certainly. However, in the end even if games were made to include them, they would only fail miserably because the very people who are arguing for them to be made wouldn't buy them.
 

the Dept of Science

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Machine Man 1992 said:
the Dept of Science said:
Little Duck said:
Would broodmother count? Giant spider in Dota 2? She wants to kill all the heroes of the world to stop them trampling her baby spiders.
Except that protecting her large brood of babies can be as problematic a motivation as doing it for a man.
CITATION NEEDED.

Could you elaborate on this?
Older women are often portrayed in media as good for nothing but making babies or are defined entirely in relation to their children. Much the same way that young women are viewed as sex objects. This trope is less common (arguably not quite as bad), but is still harmful to women. It is part of the reason why women are expected to give up their careers in order to raise children.
This is one of the reasons why people had a problem with Other M.
 

Erttheking

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Monxeroth said:
erttheking said:
Monxeroth said:
erttheking said:
Monxeroth said:
erttheking said:
Monxeroth said:
Tombsite said:
Monxeroth said:
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?
First of all, yeah we have been getting some non-attractive males in gaming. I'd like to see someone flat out say that they think that Kratos is attractive. Come to think of it we have a lot of butt ugly guys in gaming. Marcus Fenix, Geralt of Rivia, Kratos as I mentioned before and that bloke from Asura's wrath. And yes ideals vary from person to person, I personally think that manly women are very attractive, but that's not the point. Here is one image of wolverine.

http://www.eastside-online.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/wolverine1.jpg

And here is another

http://wallpaper-share.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/the-wolverine-handsome-wallpaper-1024x576.jpg

It's pretty obvious which one had the intention of being attractive in it and while some people may find the second one ugly and some of them may find the first one attractive, that's not the point, it's about the intent, and intent is very obvious.

...What does that have to do with anything?

A protagonists in a video game is the character you play as, the main character that the story revolves around. End of story. Dom is not the protagonist of Gears of War, the Arbiter isn't the main character of Halo 2 even though he is playable, he is the deuteragonist, Clementine is not the protagonist of the Walking Dead, Elizabeth is not the protagonist of Bioshock Infinite, Ellie is not hte protagonist of the Last of Us.
So then what the creator intends nullifies all opinions on what people believe, what they think and what they interpret?
Hmmn ok then..i guess...

Well by that definition kane and lynch are protagonists, walter white is a protagonist, and hitler was the protagonist of ww2, but of course, how could i have been so foolish to think otherwise haha.

Again, you may find someday that what is true isnt important or urgent, its trivial at best and hey, if we can get more people who dont spend their time complaining and instead actually helping in their selected category or artistic medium then all the better, but if they dont then thats not exactly the end of the world either.
If a good games comes along with a nontraditionally attractive female protagonist then i would like said game to be praised for how good the game part actually is, not how the protagonist looks or doesnt look, thats all im saying anyway. Id like to enjoy games for..yknow, being games, but i guess thats too much to ask for some people i suppose :L
Um, yeah kinda. If a creator flat out creates a work with the intention of insulting all Asians everywhere, you can't really argue that his work isn't racist. If it has buck toothed yellow skinned Asians, author intent really wins out over personal interpretation. You can have your views on it, but author intent matters a lot.

Walter White and Jane and Lynch are protagonists...YES! THEY ARE! Did anyone ever claim otherwise!? The protagonist is the leading character in a story and the antagonist is the character who opposes him. At no point was it ever stated that the protagonist had to be a good guy or the antagonist a bad guy!

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeroAntagonist

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainProtagonist

Also, no Hilter was not the protagonist of WW II because WW II was a real life event and not a story and didn't have a protagonist.

...You're putting a lot of words in my mouth here. Do you honestly think I would cheer if a female character was ugly just because of that alone? No I wouldn't. Briene of Tarth isn't well liked just because she's not a beauty queen, she's loved because she's a well rounded character and has an interesting relationship with Jaime. Remember Me had a female characted but people weren't jumping all over it saying "Female character! Love it!" because it had problems.

Also it's not the end of the world if this problem doesn't get solved...so? It's a problem I care about because it represents stagnation in gaming, and I am tired of games churning out the same bland character over and over again and I want story telling in gaming to evolve because I care deeply about story telling and gaming. It's not a big problem but it's still a problem. That statement of yours just feels like the Children Starving in Africa argument. And you're tired of people complaining? Well, here's the thing. Complaining gets results. People complained about the X-COM shooter, they got X-COM Enemy Unknown, people complained about the lack of a Dark Souls PC port, they got one, people complained about the Mass Effect 3 ending, they got the extended cut, people complained about the Xbox One, Microsoft reversed half of their policies, people complained about SOPA way back when, it got killed. Don't criticize people for complaining. It isn't just pointless whining. It gets results because any developer worth their salt listens. As for helping...what would you have us do? Most people aren't in a position to fund their own games and the "Let's see you do better argument" just infuriates me. What? Am I not allowed to criticize movies until I make a movie of my own?
*Sigh* why did you even bother getting into a debate with me if you were just going to abruptly end it like that?
 

Karadalis

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What about the fat princess from fistfull of cake? Or etna and flonne from the disgea series? True the last two do fall into the "pretty" category but i think female chars in the disgea universe (not the obviously oversexualized and clearly a prody succuby) do have pretty strong characters.

Etna is a powerhungry scheming ***** that loves to torture her incompetent prinny underlings.

And flonne... well shes an airhead that wants everyone to be happy?

So okay Etna it is then.. but shes a fav of mine in every disgea game where shes playable. Shes also clearly not all ass and boobs since shes flat as a washing board... wich even laharl commented on in the first game. Shes selfish and powerhungry and the reason shes even on the players team have nothing to do with any love story or opressed females. Heck in Disgea you will find alot of female protagonists who dont fall into the usuall stereotypes.

So i guess that makes 2 female chars?
 

Steve Waltz

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I can't blame Jim for missing this character because she's in a fighting game with a rep for exposed female designs. But Ashra from the Mortal Kombat series isn't necessarily sexy, looks to be in her 30's, (according to the wikia) isn't motivated by men in any way, and isn't exposed. :O Ok, yea she had big breasts, but that's not disqualification, right?
 

Tombsite

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Monxeroth said:
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
Then I do not think anybody here really disagrees with you. Nobody want anything shoehorned in. People just want the barriers (publisher forced appeasement of 15-30 year old with males in particular) removed from the developers so that they can make the best games.
 

Ukomba

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canadamus_prime said:
Ukomba said:
Pat Hulse said:
Ukomba said:
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.
 

deathjavu

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Machine Man 1992 said:
Oh not this crap again.

I swear, Garme Jernolists are more predictable than the fucking tide.

We get it, there aren't as many female protagonists in games as there are men. The question is, who besides the histrionic SJW's of the world even care?

You say men aren't as conventionally attractive, and I have to ask, do you even know what women look for in men? What seems like a pile of grizzled manliness to us could be a steaming pile of attractive man-meat to a female.

Men and women have differing standards of attractiveness, and attempts to compare the two as if they were the same comes off as ignorant.
Actually, they've done studies on this. Generally the muscly roidbros of games are viewed as not terribly attractive.

Can't be arsed to go find it though. I get the feeling it would be a waste of time.
 

fwiffo

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Does bandage girl from super meat boy count?

I guess you can see her as "cute", but definitely not sexy or curvy in general.

She's got the same powers as meat boy, and takes on the hardest levels of the game.
 

Rabidkitten

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I'm gonna go out on a limb of assumption and say that the things that make men attractive to women are not the same things that men look for in women. While Old Snake isn't "hot" he maybe very appealing, he's fit, confident, smart, and clever. Women tend to be a good bit less driven by pure visual aesthetics then men are when it comes to choosing a mate. I mean even then whole "bad boy" persona is a big plus in the eyes of many girls so even playing evil characters wouldn't technically remove their sex appeal. While men are terribly shallow when it comes to choosing a mate and want nothing but nice child bearing hips and plentiful milk producing boobs. So the number of playable male characters lacking sex appeal might be smaller then originally assumed. Because again, just being young and hot isn't the only thing that drives sex appeal through the other end of the spyglass.

Now you are totally right about the women who aren't doing shit for men. Women's roles in games from a playable perspective are almost laughable. But again I'm not sure that women give two shits about those games in general. They generally

This is the whole issue with this debate, a big triple A video game with an unattractive female protagonist wouldn't sell a copy. Actually games with women protagonists sell less in general, and that IS an issue because these games cost TONS to make. So its an issue with society and game purchasing demographic, NOT the developers cause they try A LOT more then they should to appeal to a demographic that just does not exist, thus Beyond Good and Evil and its like will remain cult hits that would never pull profitable numbers.
 

Crazy Zaul

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So after it was agreed last week that Lizzie from rampage is the only evil female protagonist, the next best answer is still a dinosaur.
 

MrBaskerville

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One could also look at a game like King of Fighters where the characters might not be repulsive, but there's a great variation in female character types. Actually you could look at several japanese titles and it would pleobably feature interesting female characters, they have gotten a bad rep but in the grand scheme of things, it really isn't that fair considering how often they get it right.

But if we are looking for villians it starts to get a bit more difficult, though i did notice that MGS 4 features female soldiers, which you only really notice because of their voices
 

Arqus_Zed

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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.
 

Costia

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Bayonetta rulz!1!!11
I haven't finished the game so I don't know if something happens to her at the end.
She is a strong female character. She's looks good as well, but most men in current video games are very masculine/macho as well. I don't remember ever seeing a fat and short protagonist.
So I suggest separating this to 2 different discussions:
1) How strong and well portrayed male/female characters are in games
2) Are the appearances of said characters is sexulised/macho for no good reason
 

Canadamus Prime

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Ukomba said:
canadamus_prime said:
Ukomba said:
Pat Hulse said:
Ukomba said:
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.