Older women in the Final Fantasy series

This is something I randomly started thinking about last night while I was trying, and failing, to fall asleep.

Women are underrepresented in almost any pop culture medium you could care to mention, be it movies, TV shows or video games. Older people are similarly underrepresented. The intersection of these two groups, older women, have it particularly rough. One study found that only 11 percent of speaking roles in the top U.S. films of 2015 went to people aged 60 or over, and that only 27 percent of that 11 percent were women.

Older women also suffer from being portrayed in very clichéd ways. Focusing on the Final Fantasy series now, almost every older woman in the series falls into one of three categories: the sage old lady (Mother Matoya), the cranky old lady ("Stay away from the summoner") and the stay-at-home mother (Elmyra). There are exceptions, of course. Judge Drace is one, and she's one of my favourite characters in XII. Queen Brahne is another. I do not consider Ultimecia, Adel, or Lightning in Lightning Returns to be exceptions, however, because they are still portrayed as being young despite their games' time-twisting plot devices.

Compare that to the older men in the series: there are also sages (Chocobo Sage), but then there are veterans (Cyan), badasses (Auron), amnesiacs (Tellah, Galuf), evil overlords (Garland in I), evil architects (Garland in IX), summoned gods (Ramuh), masters/mentors (Zangan), engineers (Cid from IV), mad scientists (Cid from XII), high-ranking executives (President Shinra), kings or other types of rulers (Regis), judges (Cidolfus), and so on. Even the men who are only old by Final Fantasy standards, like Basch, Sazh, and Cid from VII, get to be cool.

Besides the fact that older men massively outnumber older women in Final Fantasy games, and besides their much greater variety, you may have noticed something else from my examples: older women are usually minor non-playable characters (NPCs), while older men are usually important and are often playable. The "why" of this has been debated extensively already – there's even a trope for it, Men Get Old, Women Get Replaced – so I want to ask a different question: should it change?

I'll start off by saying that I'm not asking for "diversity for diversity's sake". I'm asking for diversity because it's interesting. As long as we are going to continue to apply real world age and gender paradigms to video games (which I'm also not a huge fan of, but that's a discussion for another time), I want to see all aspects of those paradigms explored. Since most Final Fantasy characters fall into the 16-20 age range, anyone who doesn't brings something different to the table in terms of their back-story, character development, worldview, and interactions with the other members of their party – and isn't that a good thing? Almost all of the men I mentioned above tick those boxes but I'm struggling to think of a single female playable character over the age of 30 (which is not old, I keep telling myself, as someone turning 30 next month). For a series that's been going for as long as Final Fantasy has, that's astonishing. Are there any at all? Who is the oldest female playable character in the series?

Probably Edea.

Auron's only 35, by the way ...

Not sure about Adel (not that she's a playable character), but I never really thought of her as young. They certainly make a distinction between Adel in the present and her younger self in the past.

How old is Edea? She looks quite young to me, though I accept that could be due to PS1 graphics limitations:



And I guess I should have moved Auron into the "only old by FF standards" category, then. His grey hair always made me think he was older.

Edea, Fran, Shantotto (she's exactly the kind of veteran general you mention despite being a woman), I think Fang is in her 30s in Lightning Returns, physically. Auron died when he was 25, he just chooses to look old.

Minato said:

Fran

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Nice, Minato. Surprisingly rude. Try to grow up please.

We have no idea how old Fran is except that she's at least 50. But again, and this is really a key point, she's a woman whose mathematical age is old but who still looks very young to the audience. Fang, for example, is said to be 21 physically, and Shantotto pretty much has the body of a toddler.

Notice how the "old" women in the series are almost always portrayed as being much younger than they actually are, while men are often portrayed as being older. It comes back to the (horrible) idea that a woman's worth is tied to her physical appearance.

Shantotto's mannerisms, voice, bio and role in the story betrays her age, height isn't everything.

Flintlock said:

How old is Edea? She looks quite young to me, though I accept that could be due to PS1 graphics limitations:

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It's never really said. All we know is that she's noticeably older than the other women in FFVIII central to the plot, her husband is 40 in the present, and she was running an orphanage at least 17 years prior.

I'd guess 35-40 seems like a reasonable guess. Certainly old enough to make her the oldest playable character in the series.


Depending on what happens with FFXV: Comrades, though, we may eventually get to play as

This makes me think of Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle, she is probably my favorite 'old woman' in media that I've ever see.

Seems like the criteria you're looking for is more 'older looking women' than just older, since there have been some examples of middle aged (or 'older') women but they're all usually quite youthful in appearance, usually due to strange time paradoxes or long life span.


There's Hope's mom from XIII, she's middle aged. Not much screentime but I liked her personality from the brief glimpses you do get to see.

Before I think about this any further, I wonder if the lack of older women relates to something about Japanese culture itself? A lot of FF games put emphasis on the father of the main characters, and the father/son dynamic is pretty popular. Or even father/daughter. The mother isn't often mentioned or focused on.

You get a glimpse of both of Terra's parents (but her father is still more emphasized). Garnet is one of the few female protagonists that I can think of who has her mother in the spotlight, which I love. Aerith actually does have a mother that's still alive (shocker XD).
According to the wiki, Aranea Highwind from XV is exactly 30 years old, but that's not even middle age yet, so. There's also the secretary of Altissia in XV, she doesn't get a lot of screentime but you do have to chat with her at one point and she looks to be in her 50's or older. Quite a shrewd, strong person.


I wouldn't mind seeing more middle aged or older women, but it's not a big deal for me in the long run. It just boils down to if the character is unique and interesting, and for more diversity it's nice to see that spread across men and women both in the games. Still though, a fair amount of people put emphasis on age, and age can definitely add flavor to a character (making them a child or above 60 can really affect perception from the players). So I'd say it would be, from a storyteller's viewpoint, a good thing if they gave characters more diversity in this way (I mean I find it fun to mess around with factors like this when I write characters), but at the same time I don't think it has to be diverse in every aspect.

General Beatrix might be one of the older playable (if temporary playable characters are being counted) female characters I think, and even then she is only 28 IIRC? Or if spin-offs are being counted, Rydia and/or Rosa in The After Years?

Also Harley from After Years. Dunno what her age is but she definitely looks and acts like a more mature woman.

Well you have struck a nerve here Flint as far as I'm concerned. I would love to see some badass older women - sages, mages, tricksters, villains....

I have been watching The Expanse recently. Chrisjen Avrasarala is a great character. We need more like her. Women need to be reminded that their life doesn't end just because their youth and beauty fades. In many ways, it gets better.

edited to add: I've just been reading the Guardian article linked below. I don't really know if "You are your looks: that’s what society tells girls" is true, since I happen to know a lot of girls and women who don't seem to have taken this message on board. But it does seem in video games as if no one can even conceive of an older woman as an interesting playable character - whereas in real life, the truth is the opposite. And I could go off on a rant about women only being valued for their looks, but personally, I think the really unfortunate thing is that young girls don't understand how getting older means your life keeps getting better. It would be interesting to see a video game try to tell that story.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...s-looks-teach-children-appearance-stereotypes

I'm of two minds of this. The first part of me thinks that yes, more diversity is always better.

The second part of me wonders what physical appearance has to do with maturity/the phase of life someone's in. Although I'm pretty sure that has more to do with how I am very much aware that most people I meet think I'm 10 years younger then I am. How young/old people look isn't that much of a diversity stat to me. And the "you are your looks" thing? Yeah, there's a lot of truth in that. Or maybe it's more like, "you are how old you look". If I want to be treated my age (as opposed to an older teenager) then I need to put the work in to look like a woman in her late 20s or young 30s. Which I rarely do.

What honestly bugs me more is that most female sterotypes in games tend to be from a phase in life when none of them have kids to deal with. It's like there's an assumption that if a woman has kids, then she's too busy with them to do anything traditionally "interesting" from a video-game perspective. Unless she's supposed to be a bad parent anyway... Although, this one kinda goes for guys too. Woman just have it even worse.

Cid P, Barret, Sazh, Tellah and Shadow are fathers, Strago and Galuf are grandfathers, of those only Shadow is a complete deadbeat. No playable moms except Rosa.

I have been watching The Expanse recently. Chrisjen Avrasarala is a great character. We need more like her. Women need to be reminded that their life doesn't end just because their youth and beauty fades. In many ways, it gets better.

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Preach. She's my favourite character by far from that show. Phenomenal actress too, she also voices characters in video games (most notably Mass Effect).

Flare said:

Seems like the criteria you're looking for is more 'older looking women' than just older, since there have been some examples of middle aged (or 'older') women but they're all usually quite youthful in appearance, usually due to strange time paradoxes or long life span.

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Obsidian Fire said:

The second part of me wonders what physical appearance has to do with maturity/the phase of life someone's in. Although I'm pretty sure that has more to do with how I am very much aware that most people I meet think I'm 10 years younger then I am. How young/old people look isn't that much of a diversity stat to me. And the "you are your looks" thing? Yeah, there's a lot of truth in that. Or maybe it's more like, "you are how old you look". If I want to be treated my age (as opposed to an older teenager) then I need to put the work in to look like a woman in her late 20s or young 30s. Which I rarely do.

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To clarify, I'd like to see more older women in video games full stop, regardless of their physical appearance. I'd like their age to be a meaningful part of their character as it is with so many older men in games. The reason I have brought up appearance a couple of times is because it's kind of a loophole that game developers use to include older women while still making them look young and physically attractive (which I know is a subjective thing, but I'm talking stereotypical attractiveness), presumably because that is what they assume gamers want to see. But it's not what I want to see, and the responses in this thread so far suggest I'm far from the only one.

LicoriceAllsorts said:

I have been watching The Expanse recently. Chrisjen Avrasarala is a great character. We need more like her.

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I might be starting this series up sometime soon, my parents have been watching and enjoying it, and as soon as you said the character's name I didn't even have to look it up, I knew who played her, just from catching glimpses of the show (I did however have to look up her name, Shohreh Aghdashloo). She has this one-of-a-kind amazing voice, I love it. o___o

I'd like to see less twelve-year-olds running around saving the world, full stop.

Also, agreed with the fact that there's an absurd obsession with making women look young even when they're supposedly old.

Oh, and my favorite character from FFVI was Cyan, mostly 'cause he was badass, but also because he was a reasonable age. xD

Dawnbreaker said:

I'd like to see less twelve-year-olds running around saving the world, full stop.

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This so much omg.

Totally agree that older women are often thrown under the bus, and 'looking young' completely negates the importance of having older women in a story because it's the same thing as erasing their presence.

But it also is absolutely a Japanese cultural fixation on female youth and beauty and 'innocence'. And women dropping everything to raise children is also a symptom of that and an unsupportive legal system for working mothers. It's unfortunate and so very, very slowly changing but it may be a while until we see a complex, fleshed out female playable character over the age of... 30.

Dawnbreaker said:

Oh, and my favorite character from FFVI was Cyan

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...Thou?

What age is Beatrix? She's a (somewhat) older, highly respected woman with a facial disfigurement, although FF9 is relatively good about this kind of thing. Then again, I just googled Freya and found out she's 21, I'd always thought older than that.

This is something I actually care a lot about, and the next question is of course What do we do about it? Serious question. Arguing just creates a backlash (warranted or otherwise, it's a waste of time) because there's always a backlash when you criticise something people love, be that the Communist party or CidVincent.

The best I've got is... create content. It's a very long term thing, but I feel like as is, there's not enough people creating content with wide representation of women, and a lot of the stuff that's out there is...pointedly so, which hurts its mass marketability, and quite often the story is about 'breaking out of the box', rather than just doing something as a character in a situation.

Thoughts?

Clement Rage said:

quite often the story is about 'breaking out of the box', rather than just doing something as a character in a situation.

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This is probably one of my biggest pet peeves in media. And the hard part about it is, when it's done well (character in a situation) nobody notices.