Sexualized characters that were done right.

[Erttheking]

I think there's something in the gender debate that's not brought up enough. Making it so that a female character is sexualized is not inherently a bad thing. It's a bad thing when it's only there for titulation that makes no sense within the context of the narrative. When it fits the tone of the plot or the personality of the character, it can be a very enjoyable experience. The problem is that we see it done wrong more than done right, but I think the ones that got it right deserved to be honored.

My personally favorite sexualized character is probably gonna have to be Bayonetta. Yeah I know, it's reaching for the low fruit, but she really is a shining paragon at how sexualization can be done right, and even be empowering. The fact that she constantly strips naked doesn't detract from how much of a badass she is (In fact it enhances it considering when she does this she tends to summon massive jaws of black void from her body that would make Alucard from Hellsing blush) and it fits with the overall goofy tone of the game. Seriously, she has a sidekick that said "Fuhgeddaboudit" with a (relatively) straight face, a game that does that is one that is willing to be goofy as all hell.

So what about you? What's your favorite sexualized character? And how does she (Or he) make it work?

 

[Chris Tian]

Inb4: This turns into a gigantic, massive, apocalyptic gender-sexism-feminism-debate-shitstorm.

I have to say Miranda from Mass Effect. Everybody complains how sexist her ass is or whatever, I have to admit I pay zero attention to such debates, but she is just super bad ass (no pun intended). She is smart, strong, skilled, resourcefull and of course crazy hot. She is genetically designed to be the perfect specimin of a human female, and attractiveness is of course part of that.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

Eva in MGS3? I mean it was literally part of her character after all.

 

[Padwolf]

Lulu from Final Fantasy X. That woman has it all. She has magic power, her overdrive is incredible and very powerful, she is mature, caring, she knows what she wants, knows what she is doing. She has great views on the world around her, she has a great wit. One of my favourite female characters of all time! Yeah she has huge boobs, but it just suits her. Hopefully going to cosplay as her next year. She makes her sexual attributes work, and work damn well. She is also a badass. She needs more praise. All hail Lulu!

Edit: Does Dante from Devil May Cry count into all this? Because hot damn I love that man. Bad ass and sexy. The best part? He only got more sexy with age, well, in my opinion, he looked great in DMC4.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

Seeing as 'sexualised' is deeply subjective that's kindof impossible to answer. There's a big difference between a character who's objectified, or those who are allowed their own sexuality/sexual agency.

So wouldn't something along the lines of 'which characters expressing sexual desire/interest have been done well' is a better or more accurate phrasing of the question?

Juliet Starling could perhaps count for both, as her design services fanboys, comments on fanservice, and yet she's also generally allowed to be sexual whilst not having that be her defining trait.

...and I'm not sure Bayonetta's design needs to be "honoured", or that such a design or character is the least bit "empowering". That's surely just a male projection as a way of justifying the aesthetic. (btw, I think she's an awesome OTT character, it's just I don't think the industry really needs more of her)

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Bayonetta is always mentioned in these types of threads, so I'm going to throw in someone else:

Christie from Dead or Alive. This woman, unlike all the others in the series, is aware that she is smoking hot. She knows that she turns heads when she walks into a room. And she uses that. She lets that empower her. We see it in her ending in Dead or Alive 3. She dresses up as an exotic dancer to get close to her target, and when she walks out on stage, she uses her sex appeal. She knows exactly how to act to draw the attention of the man she's been sent to kill, what entices him, and makes him come right up to her without a second thought. She then kills him with a needle and walks away, still strutting her stuff to keep his bodyguards from realizing anything happened. Once she's out of sight though, you can bet that she was long gone, leaving everyone wondering what the hell just happened.
That woman wields her sex appeal like a weapon. She knows it's a part of herself, but she doesn't let it define her. It's just another tool for her to use in her job as an assassin.

 

[IllumInaTIma]

Basically any female from Dead or Alive, surprisingly. Once you get to know their backstories, they are all incredible individuals. Tina, one of the most sexualized fighters in franchise, wanted to become a model, then an actress, and at some point even wanted to get into politics. And guess what? She managed to complete every single goal that she set for herself, no matter how ambitious. Or Lisa, the masked wrestler whose outfits could put any other fighter to shame? She's one of the head scientists of local "Big Bad Co."

 

[gargantual]

Bout damn time we started threads on the flip side of the coin. responding to sensationalism all the time is nauseating, and the sheer amount of responses for every one of these gender politics in fiction threads. *Facepalm*. Its supposed to lead to a common understanding. I hardly see it.

See we can look at these characters personalities and not just raise red flags at their appearance, judging parts of them, and by proxy the presumed mentalities of their arists. Ada Wong, Chloe from Uncharted, even Devil May Cry's Trish & Lady ( yeah I said it )

these arent pushovers and feature females often get somewhat stronger characterization than males do. We take it too easy on ourselves w/ the whole grizzled john wayne approach to everything.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

I'd say pretty much any of the female characters from Witcher 2. They are all pretty sexual in tone and appearance, yet they are still well written characters with plenty of other traits and their own ambitions. Basically, they aren't just tits and pretty faces. They have them and show them off, sure, but they also have personalities, goals and other assets. Sexuality is a part of their characters, not their defining arcs which I think is the best way to do a female character (unless the character is a prostitute or porn star, as obvious exceptions).

 

[Chris Tian]

I'd say pretty much any of the female characters from Witcher 2. They are all pretty sexual in tone and appearance, yet they are still well written characters with plenty of other traits and their own ambitions. Basically, they aren't just tits and pretty faces. They have them and show them off, sure, but they also have personalities, goals and other assets. Sexuality is a part of their characters, not their defining arcs which I think is the best way to do a female character (unless the character is a prostitute or porn star, as obvious exceptions).

I really loved Ves, she was so bad ass. And tattoed women make me weak

Your last sentence reads a little bit like sexuality has still to be part of a good female character arc. I'm assuming I misunderstanding you, but if I'm not I would meniton the Knight Lady that is no knight from Game of Thrones, as a counter argument.

 

[Vegosiux]

Inb4: This turns into a gigantic, massive, apocalyptic gender-sexism-feminism-debate-shitstorm.

That's just a fad these days. Eventually, we'll start flooding the forum with day 1 DLC threads again.

I'll just go with Katarina from LoL. Skimpy leather outfit? Check. Massive rack on display? Check. Being one of the greatest practitioners of blademastery in the setting? Check. Cunning and respect-inspiring? Yup, check.

 

[Khanht Cope]

Eva from MGS3, although it's not handled flawlessly. Basically what justifies a femme fatale is the level of complexity.

While the game doesn't shy away of ogling with fan-service shots of her body, she uses a fairly broad range of tricks including humour, teasing, misdirection, flirting, mystery, intelligence that are not just within sexual contexts and displays a quite robust emotional range; she shows seduction is a skill and she's not a ***** with a zipper who only turns sexy when it's open.

She doesn't attempt to explicitly extend any satisfactory reason to trust her; infact the game does the opposite on numerous occasions, where it's on the character/player who sideline the nagging questions and become complicit in their own deception.... and the game wraps up with her own understanding with the Boss, making it crystal clear that she does have a heart.

I agree Lulu from FFX is a pretty good call. There are a few fan-servicey angles within the game that I think I could count on one hand; but she still just comes across as a cool companion that's nice to look at more than anything else. I think her VA may have helped toward that to some degree. Her VA did a pretty darn good job in all.

Juliet Starling's kind of interesting; because she plays in this meta where she's frequently teetering on the edge of where things could go against her, but doesn't quite go over; showing she mostly knows what she's doing and she's entirely safe while being risque.

Can't think of others right now; but I'm sure I'll recall a few more.

 

[Ninmecu]

Clearly our very own Jim Sterling, god bless, constantly displaying lewd acts of depravity in an overtly sexual way while shining upon us the very light our starving souls need to justly smite his enemies. THANK GOD FOR JIM!

 

[Daniel Janhagen]

Princess Kenny from South Park (the Console Wars episodes and the Stick of Truth game).

 

[Khanht Cope]

I guess Maria from Silent Hill 2 might count. There are still one or two pretty dumb gaffs with her, but

Spoiler

she's supposed to be a subversive construct of the male psyche anyway

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

I'd say pretty much any of the female characters from Witcher 2. They are all pretty sexual in tone and appearance, yet they are still well written characters with plenty of other traits and their own ambitions. Basically, they aren't just tits and pretty faces. They have them and show them off, sure, but they also have personalities, goals and other assets. Sexuality is a part of their characters, not their defining arcs which I think is the best way to do a female character (unless the character is a prostitute or porn star, as obvious exceptions).

I agree that that doesn't define them, and that they're very well written characters. But come on, those designs got tedious, fast. Almost every single female character has a cynical, exploitative design. I mean, hell, even fully armoured Saskia is flashing a notable amount of cleavage for no apparent reason.

It's still an incredible game (whose plot is largely defined by the female characters), but I don't think it quite purged The Witcher's outright sexism. For TW3 they surely need to change how they depict their female characters.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

I really loved Ves, she was so bad ass. And tattoed women make me weak

Your last sentence reads a little bit like sexuality has still to be part of a good female character arc. I'm assuming I misunderstanding you, but if I'm not I would meniton the Knight Lady that is no knight from Game of Thrones, as a counter argument.

Nah, I didn't mean that. Sexuality can be completely absent from characters and that's fine. In fact, I can think of many cases where sexuality is completely unneeded for a character given their surroundings (such as horror, for example). Sexuality in general does not need to be expressed as far as I'm concerned. So it certainly isn't a requirement for a strong character.

 

[Khanht Cope]

Another one I'm thinking of is possibly Fran from FFXII, although I'm not sure if she even qualifies for 'sexualized'.

On the one hand her design is somewhat silly and almost asking to be fetishized; but on the other, her presence and the tone of the game is so innocuous about it that it's just like "I look/dress this way", and the player's like " 'kay" and it's not really a thing beyond that. (unless the player fetishizes her, I guess)

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Let's see here:

-Aya Brea from Parasite Eve (though it was mostly in promotional art)
-Sylvia Christel from No More Heroes
-Tifa Lockhart from FFVII (though not overtly)
-Trish from Devil May Cry
-Syrenne from The Last Story
-Tharja from Fire Emblem: Awakening

Sexuality is one of those things I've noticed games have a very arrested development with. It seems a lot of them either A) Forgo it entirely and reduce the game to being very sexless and dull B) demonize it or C) overblow it and make it ALL a character's identity. It's why I find Bayonetta to be a TERRIBLE example of it as her sexuality is ALL SHE IS. Sexuality should be a compliment, though it can be a major focus but it should never be a character sole identifying trait.

For example Syrenne in TLS is a VERY flirtatious character, being the female counterpart to the other party member, Lowell. She's very open about her personality, she flirts, she drinks, she teases, she cracks joke, she dresses very provocatively. She's a party girl who's unashamed about herself. However, she's also a caring friend, a brave warrior, and shows emotion and depth beyond her very bubbly, fun-loving personality.

Tharja is another example. In her supports with the Tactician, she's VERY sensual and forward about her feelings. She's clearly trying to seduce them, but trying to make it so the Tactician wants her WILLINGLY. Though oddly that's kinda it with her, as most of the time she's a snarky smartass with a very amusing sense of humor grounded in black comedy. She dresses outrageously, but it feels like she WOULD legitimately wear that just because she felt like it instead of it clearly being fanservice on the part of the character designer.

That is the thing about sexuality; it's a balancing act. You have to make it interesting and clear without making it exploitative. There is something interesting to be said about sexual matters, though gaming is still clearly struggling with it.

 

[AntiChri5]

Without a doubt Isabella from Dragon Age 2. Her sexuality is a core component of her character without it being an all defining, singular character trait.

Inb4: This turns into a gigantic, massive, apocalyptic gender-sexism-feminism-debate-shitstorm.

I have to say Miranda from Mass Effect. Everybody complains how sexist her ass is or whatever, I have to admit I pay zero attention to such debates, but she is just super bad ass (no pun intended). She is smart, strong, skilled, resourcefull and of course crazy hot. She is genetically designed to be the perfect specimin of a human female, and attractiveness is of course part of that.

I gotta disagree with this. She states that her looks are a part of her genetic tailoring and that she uses them to get what she wants, but all she does is state it. Her characterisation is extremely nonsexual. Even when she seeks out casual sexual encounters she is cold, formal and professional, treating potential bedmates like job applicants. Her outfit makes no sense.