UPDATE: Video of Females on Female Characters Panel

[Manji187]

You have a point, but even if Bayonetta isn't a triumph for females in games, I think may be viewed in the future as proof of concept. Coming on the heels of X-Blade and Heavenly Swords it points to a different way forward. Investors are understandably risk adverse, and I don't think it's unreasonable to think Bayonetta may in someway contribute to even more well developed female leads down the road.

I would even go as far as saying the setting and atmosphere enhance her...empowerment, for lack of a better word. I recently played Bayonetta for the first time, because I enjoy (and suck at) the spectacle fighter genre and I heard it was more accessible. Frankly I was anxious that constant fanservice would overwhelm any positives the game might have. I found that because her character was played mostly straight, when I expected 20 hours of fan service, it stood out in sharper relief from the game's environment. Only a couple hours into the game I was able to almost completely ignore the fanservice moments and focus on Bayonetta the character, not the cartoon centrefold.

Does Bayonetta the character (as opposed to Bayonetta the fanservice provider) add anything other than empowerment (by accepting her sexuality without seeking approval?) to female character development, according to you? Was there anything that made her interesting to you that was not only external? Does Bayonetta at any point become more than a cheeky/ witty barrel of "fetishist" references?

Was she able to surprise you with her character? Made you think about things? Do you think she will be remembered in 10 years?

Sorry for asking so many questions...just curious.

 

[shiajun]

I really wish more people would play The Longest Journey and Dreamfall, and take points from it at how to write characters. Hell, if those are too old, Gray Matter, Samantha Everett is a great character.

Thank you! For all this uprise in talks about female characters I'm starting to be really confused as to why people are not talking more about April Ryan, Zoë Castillo, Samantha Everett, Jade (from BG&E) and freaking Grace Nakimura. I expect it from the people in the audience since the games are not that know or played, but I'm beginning to find it really unacceptable for the panelists not to draw attention to these games. They're not just great female characters, they are great characters, period. I don't think the conversation is going to get anywhere new if we all keep rehashing the same examples (samus, bayonetta, lara croft, multiple FF characters) when for most of them their development and depth pales considerably when compared to those other characters that keep getting shunt. The examples are there to be used as comparison. Call upon them as the goal to reach over and over again, not to the lower step in the process.

 

[4173]

Does Bayonetta the character (as opposed to Bayonetta the fanservice provider) add anything other than empowerment (by accepting her sexuality without seeking approval?) to female character development, according to you? Was there anything that made her interesting to you that was not only external? Does Bayonetta at any point become more than a cheeky/ witty barrel of "fetishist" references?

Was she able to surprise you with her character? Made you think about things? Do you think she will be remembered in 10 years?

Sorry for asking so many questions...just curious.[/quote]

Perhaps nothing else uniquely female, but I found some old cliches more interesting because they were wrapped in a novel (female) package. When she first calls Luka by name, instead of Chesire was heartwarming. In fact their entire arc was at least a little fresh. Luka is obsessed but not in a sexual and/or stalker manner. He isn't a nerd, a James Dean rebel or an angry ex-boyfriend. She taunts him with sexual overtones because that is her nature, but his pursuit is completely gender neutral.

The best part of her relationship with Luka is that though they become friends, and he shows up at her "funeral" they aren't shown to begin a romance, or have fucked. There isn't even the slightest hint of "bad girl is really just looking for a man to set her right."

Evolving some mother-like concern for Cezera is cliche, but not unreasonable, and probably uniquely feminine. But those mothering feelings develop in a manner in keeping with the character. Just like she didn't "just need a man" she doesn't "need a child," there wasn't a buried June Cleaver just waiting to emerge on the sight of a kid. And perhaps what I found most interesting, there wasn't a hidden Sarah Connor either, that did surprise me. She clearly wants Cezera to be self-reliant, but doesn't appear to think that means absolute self-reliance or emotional deadness. I didn't expect her to fix Chesire (the doll).

Even her sexuality is interesting, because her entire world seems to be about 6 people and the Angels. Luka and Cezera I've covered, Enzo is a non-entity and Rodin is a cipher. Did she learn it with the Umbra Witchs, or since she re-awakened? Because we don't even know her real feelings on relationships or physical sex, her sexuality really is only an aspect of her being. Depth!

I think her character is hugely enhanced by that lack of actual sex/love/whatever. In a sense, almost everything she did was surprising because she was a blank slate in my mind [besides the 1 trait].

I think whether or not she made me think about things is answered, and I've tried to be concise. Two last things: the presence of Jeanne is nice because it works to affirm the lifestyle as at least somewhat valid in that world. And though the big bad is her father, there are no daddy or abandonment issues.

Will she be remembered in 10 years; I don't know. I'm not even 100% of some of my own arguments (I am arguing in good faith, just not always 100% certainty). And my perspective on these topics is somewhat limited as a white male. And there's little reason to think many people share my thoughts on the game, so I really don't know. If Lara Croft is still remembered 15 years later, then I suppose yes, I think Bayonetta should be remembered in 10 years. I'm not holding her up as a feminist icon, but she does have enough positives, IMO, to be a step forward.

edit: I suppose part of this goes back to author intent, and maybe this whole post is the same as saying Lord of the Rings is about the Industrial Revolution.

 

[Stefan Eriksson]

The only thing that really stood out to me in this panel was, unfortunately, the extreme case of Completely Missing The Point when it comes to Enslaved. Seriously. I could see the point of the hatred flying by a quarter of the inch over the head of Every. Single. Member. Of. The. Panel. and instead they started talking about completely unrelated issues like "it's not usual to play such a commanding female".

I mean, seriously? THAT'S what every one of you think the issue is about???

Other than that... The theoretical discussion is fun, but as usual I have no clue who 90% of the games or characters are. I am from Sweden, wheren JRPGs are not that big to begin with, and I have never owned a console, so if we are talking RPGs it's Bioware and Bethesda. Basically.

 

[Stefan Eriksson]

Everything Enslaved does, FalloutNV: Dead Money does better.

Quite possibly so; I have only briefly looked at both of them (I don't have time for another RPG).

Anyway something else that popped into my head: Regarding Female / Female romances in Bioware games... Over here the female critics go the opposite way: WAY too many lesbian relationships, clearly pandering to the male fanbase, and not at all too many gay male relationships.

 

[4173]

And my perspective on these topics is somewhat limited as a white male.

I am wholly insulted by this statement. You're stating that anyone who is white an male cannot have more than any perspective outside of their personal bubble. Which is fucking bullshit in every sense of the phrase.

You just demonstrated the inherent problem with this whole debate. Congratulations.

I was asked direct questions about my personal feelings. In order to improve communication (because this internet) I included that I was a white male because I felt it will influence how I view these topics.

That's all it was. If this was in person, I would not have said it. I am not saying a woman's perspective is right or more valuable on this topic, just that it may be different.

There is no supplication, unless you take issue with the idea that life experiences influence how an individual thinks, or the idea that white males may have had different life experiences than females?

And my perspective on these topics is somewhat limited as a white male.

I am wholly insulted by this statement. You're stating that anyone who is white an male cannot have more than any perspective outside of their personal bubble. Which is fucking bullshit in every sense of the phrase.

You just demonstrated the inherent problem with this whole debate. Congratulations.

No, I'm saying that white males do not have the same experiences as females, or even white females. Hell, I don't even have the same life experience as many other white males. Or white males from twenty years ago.

Clearly I think I can have some perspective on things outside my bubble, I just wrote a long post about it. However, I don't think I can have complete understanding either.

I would elaborate, but I think I'll just go with the pithy response instead.

You just demonstrated the inherent problem with being an idiot. Congratulations.

Vintage Balderdash!

I guess the next time I write a story it should contain nothing but white males, because that's all I can relate to, right? Or better yet, make sure the story is nothing but one character who is me. The difficulty of writing is putting yourself in the mind of someone other than yourself, it's also the reward of it. However, when you allow stupid shit like political correctness to handcuff your creativity, your writing suffers along with it. People imposing this shit are no better than the censorship advocates they claim to hate so much. And you still don't address how utterly insulting it is that you claim that white males must supplicate ourselves to this viewpoint. Instead you insult me directly.

Stop the world, I want off...

My claim was people are different. I thought those differences may be more relevant on this topic compared to many others. I provided information as to how I may differ from someone who responds to my post. I used the term "white male" as shorthand for a certain type of life experience. I only included this shorthand because the internet is anonymous.

I feel no pressure to give a female voice more weight on this topic. I'm not trying to tell anyone how to think, I'm explaining (in part) how my thoughts came together.

I used the word limited, because in this context, it is more likely a woman has first hand experience with sexism than I do. If we were having a conversation about urinals, I would say a woman's view was limited. This has nothing to do with right/wrong or valid/invalid.

tl;dr --- Because the discussion was anonymous and in text, I was making certain to portray my writing as my thoughts and not an attempt to tell anyone how to think.

 

[4173]

My claim was people are different. I thought those differences may be more relevant on this topic compared to many others. I provided information as to how I may differ from someone who responds to my post. I used the term "white male" as shorthand for a certain type of life experience. I only included this shorthand because the internet is anonymous.

I feel no pressure to give a female voice more weight on this topic. I'm not trying to tell anyone how to think, I'm explaining (in part) how my thoughts came together.

I used the word limited, because in this context, it is more likely a woman has first hand experience with sexism than I do. If we were having a conversation about urinals, I would say a woman's view was limited. This has nothing to do with right/wrong or valid/invalid.

tl;dr --- Because the discussion was anonymous and in text, I was making certain to portray my writing as my thoughts and not an attempt to tell anyone how to think.

So a poor white male will have the same life experience as a rich one? A white male living in Paris, France will experience the same things as one living in New York? A white male raised by entrepreneurs will see the same life as one raised by soldiers?

Hiding behind internet anonymity doesn't make that statement any less insulting.

No, of course they won't. It is simply shorthand; the whole white male 19-45 demographic cliche.

I wouldn't use white female, or black man etc. in the same manner. I wasn't saying I was white and also a male. I was saying I'm a "white male."

I apologize for not being clear enough. Ironic I would create internet confusion while trying to avoid it.

 

[4173]

My claim was people are different. I thought those differences may be more relevant on this topic compared to many others. I provided information as to how I may differ from someone who responds to my post. I used the term "white male" as shorthand for a certain type of life experience. I only included this shorthand because the internet is anonymous.

I feel no pressure to give a female voice more weight on this topic. I'm not trying to tell anyone how to think, I'm explaining (in part) how my thoughts came together.

I used the word limited, because in this context, it is more likely a woman has first hand experience with sexism than I do. If we were having a conversation about urinals, I would say a woman's view was limited. This has nothing to do with right/wrong or valid/invalid.

tl;dr --- Because the discussion was anonymous and in text, I was making certain to portray my writing as my thoughts and not an attempt to tell anyone how to think.

So a poor white male will have the same life experience as a rich one? A white male living in Paris, France will experience the same things as one living in New York? A white male raised by entrepreneurs will see the same life as one raised by soldiers?

Hiding behind internet anonymity doesn't make that statement any less insulting.

No, of course they won't. It is simply shorthand; the whole white male 19-45 demographic cliche.

I wouldn't use white female, or black man etc. in the same manner. I wasn't saying I was white and also a male. I was saying I'm a "white male."

I apologize for not being clear enough. Ironic I would create internet confusion while trying to avoid it.

Demographic cliches are at the heart of this problem.

Looks like I missed a comma. The white male 19-45 demographic (i.e. the thing advertisers target) is the cliche. We get income thrown in with color and sex, that way.

That doesn't change your point however, which I agree with.

 

[WaderiAAA]

11:07-11:33 on the second video.

Am I the only one who finds this offensive? They are basically assuming that all the critique towards Trip is because they are sexist and they don't like strong female characters. That's bull shit. People have a legitimate reason to dislike Trip because she ENSLAVED him. It is against human rights and it is a really nasty thing to do to a person. There is a big difference between being someone's assistant and being someone's slave. At least the first option is a choice.

Don't try to tell me that no one would be mad if the roles were switched and a male character put a headband on a female to make her his slave and follow his orders to help him survive. While not everyone would call it sexist, most people would at least consider the guy a massive jerk.

Good panel all in all. I'd say the main thing to take away from it is that the chatacters should be developed better, whether they are male or female.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

I too don't get the hate on Lightning. I think people who hate her tragically misunderstand the character (maybe because of the length of game in which it develops ) People think she's meant to be a strong female character because she's always lashing out at people and we're meant to like that.

But it couldn't be clearer that that's just her personal flaw. Not a flaw of women, but a woman who can't trust people. Over the course of the game she softens up, loses her war wounds, becomes quite maternal (and in a lovely softly softly manner) with hope and in the end realises that her violence is hurting other people, instead of other people hurting her and comes to terms with it.

So yeah.

Thank you. This is true of most of the characters from that game. But no one seems to be able to get over the characters' flaws to see that overcoming those flaws is what drives character development and growth in the game.

Oh thank god, someone actually had the guts on this site to bring that up in the midst of a majority of haters. Thank you.

We need this quoted more often.

 

[urahara75]

Curious to know whether female Commander Shepard came up during the panel. I find her to be an excellent video game character, and I believe her strong portrayal is due both the to the writing and voice acting. Also an interesting situation as, to the best of my knowledge, male Commander Shepard has largely (if not entirely) the same diologue options. But I never got the sense that female Commander Shepard was overly masculine. So there's a case where they've taken one character, given it two possible genders, and (I feel) managed to make them both come across well. At least, the female comes across well. I haven't played as male Shepard, so don't really know for sure.

Male Shepard's voice acting comes across very flat and emotionless. It's kind of painful to listen to. The dialogue options are the same, but the presentation, while I suppose could be construed as more masculine, just lacks dimension. I guess there's a lot more to read between the lines in Fem Shep's dialogue than Male Shepard's, stuff I honestly can't imagine not being there, which makes Male Shepard's performance all the more jarring. Anyways, she's a great example of a female character, of a character in general. She's multidimensional in a way I haven't seen much of outside of good movies.

Agree almost 100% with you on Male Shepard. In addition to generally sounding totally aloof and disinterested during interacting with NPCs during the game, I gradually realized that Shepard's dialogue, while completely convincing on a logical end (thank you, Bioware ), personally sounded "gender neutral" in overall tone. It's noticeable to me, after a number of play-through hours, that male Shepard doesn't genuinely sound quite like a male human being. In contrast, human NPCs have satisfactory characterization, motivation, and emotional depth. Joker, Jacob, Miranda, Jack, Kelly, Zaeed, Kasumi, Dr. Chakwas, etc., all sound like what we, the human players, can identify as "believable human characters". They all have little "gender tells", emotional, psychological and behavioral mannerisms that the player audiences can consciously, and unconsciously, relate the character as being male or female.

Even being guided to to have the "renegade" demeanor (pragmatic, total villain-protagonist, "I/HUMANZ RULE ALL" player behavior), Shepard is almost a "TNG movie-Picard on Ambien". He has the stark, blind, dehumanized attitude you can relate a person of that character archetype as possessing, but little in the way of gender-specific mental/emotional/psychological qualities. Shepard isn't close to being void of emotion, but those specific "gender tells" that help me ID him as a "male" Shepard are either absent, or so sparsely applied that while it's believable in a butch, seasoned, no-nonsense female "Space Marine" commander, it's jarring after a period of time in a male commander.

--------------------------------------

Oddly, even after several hours contemplating their reasoning behind it, I still couldn't get behind the panel's take on Enslaved and (specifically Escapist) male gamers' hate-rage feedback for the game. On the "forced/coerced slavery" bit -- the fact that the male lead didn't have much of a persistent problem with being "the muscle" of the pair IS NOT what the male gamers were angry about. It's the "slavery" itself that was the problem. Even if both main characters would've eventually suffered a "meaningless" death if they went their separate ways in the storyline, how can female gamers justify what amounted to (at the least or most overtly) slave labor for the sake of escaping captivity, and still be considered an example of a "strong female protagonist"?

Gonna play devil's advocate here, but... how do you think contemporary female gamers... no, hell, gamers in general, would respond to a game where a socially &/or politically under-served male lead has a clearly more physically capable female lead under his thumb to the same extent as Trip, hm? Short Answer: there wouldn't be such a game; or if it did get developed and published, there would be MASSIVE, world-crushing levels of controversy and criticism about it where both the devs and publishers would probably face levels of scorn and persecution previously unseen from both gaming industry and world at large.

 

[Disembodied_Dave]

I'm a little disappointed that none of the women from The Longest Journey were mentioned.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Ivy? Crappy? I own people with Ivy in SC4, so I dont know what SHE was talking about.

Ivy has been in 4 games now and most people are used to dealing with her. Also she is massively easier to use than she was. If you could use Ivy in SC1 people would give up before you started because she was so hard to use, so they thought you were the soul calibur god. Protip: This also applied to Voldo, and has done since Soul Edge, and he wears even less.

Anyway, there's something from this panel that I think needs clearing up, and it was addressed in the questions but not particularly well. It's Howl's Moving Castle. It was written by a woman, and it wasn't really about the expectations of a woman in fiction (though there's a part of it that's about the place of the eldest in fiction, if you've read any Discworld you'd be right at home...) as much as it was about the sudden feeling of vulnerability that was brought on by health problems in the author's life.

The book is quite different from the film, and significantly better (srsly, Ghibli is better at original animation than adaptation), read it.

 

[Callate]

I feel a little sheepish to repeat what's already been said, but I have to weigh in a bit on "Enslaved" too.

First, I should note that while I've prepared myself to comment on this about as well as I reasonably could without owning a PS3 (read the forums, watched an hour of Let's Play), I haven't played the game.

Secondly, Susan Arendt says a lot of interesting and worthwhile things on the panel, and I don't want for a moment to suggest otherwise.

But the criticism- her criticism- of the Escapist forum's response to Enslaved seems both exaggerated and off base.

In the first hour of gameplay, Trip nearly gets Monkey killed three times- twice in simple callous disregard for his life, and once out of what seems like nothing more than a petulant unwillingness to follow direction from her "slave" despite acknowledging his greater competence in matters of combat.

The first two, one could argue, are human. Yes, she doesn't know Monkey's intentions towards her, and no, she doesn't know him, so putting her life before his is not difficult to understand. That said, he's also a fellow prisoner with a common cause in getting off the ship and escaping the beings who have taken them prisoner, so going beyond "not helping" to "actively endangering" doesn't put her in the best possible light. (Never mind how many unknown others might have been on that ship.) And refusing to retreat out of the line of fire despite the possibility of getting both of them killed? Human, yes, possibly- but not in any sense admirable. Remember that we're not merely talking about her as a deep character, but as an admirable character, a likable character, a protaganist who we're going to be following for the next several hours and someone who's been set up here as an examplar of what more female characters should be like!

All this without even getting into the issue of her forcing Monkey to go with her.

In looking back through the forums- the threads accompanying Arendt's review, Yahtzee's review, and various other news items regarding the game, I don't see anything like a majority of people spewing hate about Trip as Arendt describes. I see a fair number of people admiring and defending the game, wishing it had done better. And yes, a few who hate Trip and/or her actions.

But that's not, in my evaluation, an entirely unreasonable or unjustifiable point of view, nor one that can be casually forced into being about its handling of a dominant female/submissive male relationship. I'm willing to believe that Trip develops into a more likable character over time, and the relationship between her and Monkey has been admired in some of the reviews I've read for its depth and complexity. That doesn't change that her early actions in the game fall somewhere in the spectrum between callous and despicable.

More to the point- I'm sorry to say it- the evolution of female characters doesn't merely demand changes in the thinking of male players and game designers. It also requires female players and reviewers to allow male players to make criticism of female characters without reflexively calling the people who make those criticisms sexist and/or immature. Which feels like what has happened here.

One last point- while I agree that homosexual and bisexual relationships deserve a place in games, making every significant character in every game bisexual to give the players more choices is the exact opposite of creating deeper characters. It's forcing every character into a niche that has nothing to do with how the writer might envision them, and anyone who really values character depth ought to oppose the idea.