Calibanbutcher said:
Ramza Beoulve - Final Fantasy Tactics.
The way the game is set up and Ramza is presented to you, as an heir to a noble house etc, with his sister and his relationship with her being important to the plot, it becomes quite apparent, that in this very game world, Ramza could not be a female, not because females can't kick ass (Agrias anyone?), but because it seems to be very apparent that his is a very traditional upbringing, and since the game already centers the plot on his revolution, adding to that by having him be a her revolting against the traditional role set for her by society, as would be necessary to make it possible to have a female character in the game, would feel kinda weird, like having one too many plots, seeing as the plot is already quite complex as is, also the dynamic between the player character and the sister would have to be changed drastically, with the sister sticking to a more traditional role and the PC being an "unconventional" rebel, as would the dynamic between the player character and the older brothers of house Beoulve, which in turn means that the plot would have to be drastically altered to accomodate for giving the player the option to choose their gender.
Disagree on this one. While tradition and propriety are big themes in FFT, I don't get the impression that their society's gender roles are as strict as ours, and certainly nowhere near medieval Europe's. Nameless female enemies of all classes are plenty common, the queen was the real power in the land (and the council wanted to disenfranchise her because she was a tyrant, not because she was a woman,) and no mention is made of any of the female characters' being women as any reason they shouldn't be doing what they were doing. Algus, the archetypal jerkass noble with a fetish for tradition, never says a word about Miluda being a woman when he's shit-talking her--it's all about how commoners are scum. The entire War of the Lions is predicated on the fact that Ovelia is a legitimate pretender to the throne in her own right. She needs a regent not because she's a woman, but because she's a minor, and Delita marrying her is about a commoner ascending to nobility, and any implication that he'd be the true power on the throne is based on Ovelia's weakness and naivete as a person rather than her sex.
Basically, based on the way the game presents its world, I don't see any reason the story would be changed by the protagonist being female, and Ramza's enough of a reactive cipher that allowing him to be a her wouldn't be out of place.
I don't think Deus Ex: HR's tone/pacing precludes a female protagonist either, but that game makes more sense with a distinct, predetermined character than it would with a customizable one, so no objection to it being Adam rather than Eve. Agree on Batman for obvious reasons and on Big Boss/Solid Snake since MGS1 was meant to be a deconstruction of the 80s action hero.
Akratus said:
norashepard said:
Akratus said:
So you'd rather all fantasy worlds be completely free of sexualized characters or female stereotypes? Good luck finding one.
And could I not also be offended that they decided to make Geralt a boning grump?
Yeah, and how is it so terrible that I would like to see that, when a great many fantasy universes don't have any traces of the same objectification and stereotyping of male characters? It can be done, and it has been done in quite a few fantasy novels. So when people don't bother to do it, it's just silly and lazy and I'm sorry if I don't want to play a game made by silly lazy people who don't care to acknowledge my gender in a way that is more than what is in my pants.
And yes, you could entirely get pissed off that Geralt is a boning grump, especially because he is essentially committing adultery every time he bones grumpily (the game constantly points out that his one true love is missing and he wants to find her, but not enough to keep is pants on evidently). You could also get made that they changed the source text, where Geralt wasn't nearly so sex hungry. You could get mad a whole host of things. But judging by your question, you weren't. So until that hypothetical offense becomes real, well, it isn't real.
Yes, because all fanntasy worlds should be held to our modern moral ideals.
Besides the fact that you seem to have completely missed her points...
On the other side of the coin, why should all fantasy worlds be held to regressive medieval moral ideals? (Not that all are or that all are "held to" modern ones.) It's
fantasy. Writers can build any world or society they like. It's frankly creepy that the "fantasy" presented in the Witcher 2 seems to be a world in which practically everyone's white, except for a few token exceptions women know their "place" (
especially the casual domestic abuse,) and many of the female "characters" are sex objects presented for the (assumed male) player's enjoyment.
(And, no, "But it's based on medieval Europe!" is not a defense. A) It's based on
Tolkein, B) It's "based on," not "set in," and C) Considering the Cyberpunk 2077 teaser, I get the feeling that I'll be listening to "But it's supposed to be a dystopia!" if/when that game ends up being just as misogynistic.)
OT: I generally pick a female character when the option is given, partially because I prefer to play as a woman, and partially because games with good female protagonists are such a rarity to begin with. There's a lot to be said for the narrative cohesion that having a specific person as the lead can bring, so I don't necessarily think more games need to have the option. But I
do think more games should feature female protagonists.
Also, you know what game would make the most sense with a male/female option? Call of Duty. The protagonist literally doesn't matter. They wouldn't even need to add new assets--no voice, no art, nothing--to the singleplayer, and creating female meshes for the multiplayer would be trivially cheap and easy. It says a lot about the state of the industry when tons of games that could
easily accommodate simple character customization shun it in favor of a featureless white male.
Good points. It might be a passion combined with disgust thing. I'm good though - no major crisis, just muddly about my video game library. I... also might have been (and still am) procrastinating writing a really short but disgustingly stupid paper for my last semester of college which I am just about done with and still stuck churning out 5-6 pages about inane crap, y'know, that sort of thing. No counsellor required, just the next few months to go the hell by already (preferably with some sleep thrown in here and there).
