What about female narrators?

[freaper]

So after staring into the Darkest Dungeon for far too long I've had this question bubble up in my cerebral spawning-pool. Many games like Darkest Dungeon or The Stanley Parable are praised for their phenomenal narration. In many cases the narrator is the same character as the protagonist (Thief, The Witcher, Half-Life 2, etc.) or a different one, like in the two aforementioned games. So my question is the following: why aren't there more, or any, female narrators? Does this go back to "not enough female protagonists" or does it go deeper? I've also never seen this topic discussed, so maybe it's tied to something we subconsciously don't even question. The closest thing I can come up with for a female narrator is GladOS, but she is a non-playable protagonist.

What do you people think?

 

[sageoftruth]

Wow. I've never really noticed, but now that you mention it, the idea of a male narrator is so ingrained in my head that I'm actually having trouble picturing a story being narrated in a woman's voice. I'd certainly be interested to see how it plays out.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Isn't the narrator in God of War female? It's been a while since I played those games, but since that's all I've got, you're probably right.

 

[Evonisia]

I think it's probably related to the whole issue with female characters in general. I imagine if you got a mythical God figure to count the ratio of male and female narrators the results would be equal to male and female characters. Personally I just don't question it because I don't tend to think of the gender in narrators. Well I don't for characters in general, but especially so in this situation. Saints Row IV had a narration, but I was thinking "is that supposed to be Jane Eyre?", not really thinking about the sexual characteristics of the speaker. The narrator in Saints Row IV is supposed to be Jane Eyre by the way.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

So after staring into the Darkest Dungeon for far too long I've had this question bubble up in my cerebral spawning-pool. Many games like Darkest Dungeon or The Stanley Parable are praised for their phenomenal narration. In many cases the narrator is the same character as the protagonist (Thief, The Witcher, Half-Life 2, etc.) or a different one, like in the two aforementioned games. So my question is the following: why aren't there more, or any, female narrators? Does this go back to "not enough female protagonists" or does it go deeper? I've also never seen this topic discussed, so maybe it's tied to something we subconsciously don't even question. The closest thing I can come up with for a female narrator is GladOS, but she is a non-playable protagonist.

What do you people think?

The Stanley Parable has a female narrator as well, at the end of the game. She's there to mock the male narrator.

 

[FC Groningen]

Haven't noticed it myself. Maybe Cate Blanchett is willing to do some narratives?

 

[Asita]

Do we want to count the Bioshock games? Because on the one hand the endings do seem to fit the bill, but on the other hand it's pretty much just the endings that would qualify as 'narrated'.

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones was narrated by Sarah Carlsen (in character as Kaileena). I don't remember, did Final Fantasy X-2 have narration like its predecessor?

 

[MysticSlayer]

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones and Saints Row IV both had female narrators, but those are the only two games I can think of with a female narrator that actually is given a decent amount of time to narrate. I guess the first Portal counts as well to an extent.

Anyways, I think it has more to do with characters in general, not just protagonists. Narrators are, at their core, just one type of character in the world (especially when they also play a role in the story), and if you aren't giving much thought to having female characters in general, then you probably won't put that much thought into having a female narrator.

 

[The Madman]

It's not uncommon in adventure games as there are quite a few of those out there with female protagonist who serve double duty as narrators. The Longest Journey series is notorious for its protagonists long ramblings over seemingly inconsequential details, for example:


Does that have any relevance to the plot? Not at all. Just a fun little story you get if you click on a billboard.

 

[Mezahmay]

I only allow the games I play to have disembodied female narrator voices if they're essentially male disembodied voices with boobs or die to motivate the actual male narrator or exist for the male narrator to protect and guide throughout the whole game. Although I guess it's okay if female narrators get their own little indie games to narrate so the marketing trailers don't have be burdened with the lost sales involved by having the female narrator speak.[/sarcasm]

 

[freaper]

The Stanley Parable has a female narrator as well, at the end of the game. She's there to mock the male narrator.

I was hesitant to include her because her part in the overall play time was too short to call her a proper narrator. That's why I'm hesitant to include games like Trine, where there is a female character who talks every now and then, but she's only one of three (excluding the actual narrator).

I figure that in recent narrative-driven games the narrator is there to fit a certain aspect of a theme or setting (Amnesia or Dear Esther), which ties it once again to the lack of femtagonists[sup]TM[/sup]

It's very likely I'm missing a ton of games with female narrators who aren't also the main protagonist.

 

[Dizchu]

Games don't tend to have voiced narration the same way films do. Unless you count inner monologues, though it's questionable if that's the same. But if it's inner monologues, the gender disparity is about the same as the gender disparity in player characters, maybe even less skewed towards males seeing as games with prominent inner monologues like point-and-click adventure games have traditionally had a more even split between male and female protagonists.

But if we're only counting "narration" as spoken lines that aren't aren't "inner-monologue" (say, narration over an intro cinematic for example) there are quite a few examples of female narrators. Here are a couple of very prominent examples:

Spoiler: Female Narrators

(Terri Brosius has a scary voice)

I think it's because the narrator needs to have big, pleasant voice. If you want a lot of narration, either have an older woman or man.

I'm not sure about that. Plenty of great narrations have featured women with quite haunting voices (see The Lord of the Rings' prologue sequence for a great example).

Maybe big, booming male voices are better for announcers (because they're more attention-grabbing) but narrations don't necessarily have to be as bombastic, they can be quite relaxed or sombre.

 

[Evonisia]

Haven't noticed it myself. Maybe Cate Blanchett is willing to do some narratives?

Fitting as the opening narration of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor was so arsingly obviously trying to be like Blanchett's opening from The Lord of the Rings film.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

The narration in the recent Wii U title Hyrule Warriors is done by Esra Guler [http://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/Esra-Guler/], who is most certainly female. She doesn't have too many projects under her belt, however. I can't really name anything else she has been in or heard of her since looking up her name just now.

I think she does a great job though, if her performance stands for anything.

 

[mad825]

I was hesitant to include her because her part in the overall play time was too short to call her a proper narrator. That's why I'm hesitant to include games like Trine, where there is a female character who talks every now and then, but she's only one of three (excluding the actual narrator).

I figure that in recent narrative-driven games the narrator is there to fit a certain aspect of a theme or setting (Amnesia or Dear Esther), which ties it once again to the lack of femtagonists[sup]TM[/sup]

So what, you're screaming misogyny because there aren't many exclusive and padded roles? Stay classy. The Stanley parable example is an legitimate one.

You know, you can be a sexist by discriminating men....Well unless of course you've been listening too much to Sarkeesian.

 

[DOOM GUY]

I can't really think of too many, I know Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers did.

 

[josemlopes]

There are a lot of female narrators with the typical british accent, something like in Dark Souls.

Usually when its a narrator for a story that is presented as a legend its a women.

In many cases the narrator is the same character as the protagonist (Half-Life 2, etc.)

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Linda Hunt narrates the entirety of the God of War saga (also voices Gaia), and to be honest she's as much of an icon as Kratos at this point.