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.