Female Protagonists In Gaming

[Strangelove]

a game focused on the boss would probably bring about the apocalypse when god decides that they is the pinnacle of human achievement and there is no further need for the universe

 

[jazzflower92]

Remember that Rampage game it turns out one of its main monster characters is a female.The expy of Godzilla is named Lizzie and is only revealed to be a woman when she is defeated and transforms back into her original form.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampage_(arcade_game)

 

[Octo]

As a no-tail myself I can honestly say I don't really care if a protagonist is male or female, as long as the game is enjoyable. I'm more interested in how people are portrayed in games in general. Like most games are ridiculously over the top with male and female stereotypes, so I prefer it when things are a little more realistic, and in regards to females I'd rather not see them portrayed as mary-sues, damsels in distress, sex objects or combinations thereof. I also don't like it when they try and overcompensate the other way by creating a character artificially devoid of any femininity. Yes, I want the moon on a stick

Nobody should be put off playing a game because the protagonist doesn't share their genital/sexual configuration.

I honestly think its mainly male players, or rather the perception of male players held by developers that is to blame. I think they still try and cater to cootie-phobic 12 year olds that don't exist. Most rational people don't give a shit as long as the game is good. I've yet to hear of a female gamer bothered by having to play a game as a male character....unless she's like 5 or something.

 

[Fangu]

I've yet to hear of a female gamer bothered by having to play a game as a male character....unless she's like 5 or something

No, 3

 

[Danseru-kun]

Well truth to be told, when I was 7-ish I only use female characters in fighting games, and it seems like in my whole childhood I never used a male character. Of course, this does not apply to games with a single main character to control.

 

[Lex]

I don't think I've ever really noticed/ bothered about male/female leads in games at all. I don't prefer them one way or the other. I suppose the only time I've ever cared about it is in Mass Effect - being able to create your own character and finally having that character with a substantial gay male partnership is a big deal for me. Playing as a straight woman just isn't the same.

But that's a tangent. Point is, I don't tend to notice gender. I couldn't imagine Summoner 2 or Heavenly Sword with a male lead, maybe that says something about the games industry moving forward at least?

 

[Cthulhu]

Funny how Summoner 2 / Heavenly Sword both have skimy-clothed sex symbols as main characters (I only know the covers), just like the older Tomb Raider games and the aforementioned fighting games. Percentually, there's still very few games with decent female leads out there. I do approve of Bioware giving the player the choice of the protagonist's gender, and giving equal attention to the story, voice acting and overall quality and choices of both chosen genders.

 

[Mage]

Spoiler: This is a great game

Can't say I get upset about male/female roles in games, although I always played SoulBlade as Taki. If I had to be a dude, it was Lei Long (sp?) or Voldo.

Also, Zelda needs her own game!

 

[Octo]

I always used to play as Chun Li in SF2, but then again so did nearly everyone I knew male or female. Probably because she was fast and IIRC was the only character other than Vega who could bounce off the walls. (My second choice was Dhalsim)

 

[Hisako]

As for Starcraft, I've always found Kerrigan to be the most popular character and I love her.

I totally missed this.

Kerrigan, on top of being a great female protagonist and antagonist, is one of the perfect examples of (imo) a tragic villain. Bar the all-round hamminess of Wings of Liberty, her dialogue, backstory and character development is my all-time favorite heel-face turn I've ever seen.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

This YouTube series looks like it'll be useful / very relevant to the topic. It'll be interesting to see what she brings up in Part II.

Also, pretty much every main character in the original Parasite Eve is female - and it's one of my favorite games ever (I haven't played P.E. II or The Third Birthday, but it looks like they pretty much ruin everything). Between her and Kerrigan, you've got some of the most influential, main ass-kicking female characters of my childhood.


X

 

[ForceStealer]

It seriously does not matter at all to me. A good character, especially a badass one, will appeal to me completely regardless of gender. And I'm tipsy so I'm more than likely telling the truth

Honestly, I would wager most gamers don't care, companies are just too freakin cowardly to try. Yes, most people prefer male Shepard for stupid freakin reasons, but if your only option is a chick and it's a good game, people are gonna play it.

 

[jazzflower92]

It seriously does not matter at all to me. A good character, especially a badass one, will appeal to me completely regardless of gender. And I'm tipsy so I'm more than likely telling the truth

Honestly, I would wager most gamers don't care, companys are just too freakin cowardly to try. Yes, most people prefer male Shepard for stupid freakin reasons, but if your only option is a chick and it's a good game, people are gonna play it.

I don't know sometimes I think its fun to let us girls have our power fantasies.I always kinda of wanted an Aerith like main character in an RPG game.Then again one thing I like about Pokemon is that you can get to play as a girl or boy.

 

[Abortedj]

Female character seen to come in only 3 flavors (most of the time). You got your victims, Princess Toadstool. You got your overt lesbians, Cammy. And you got your superficially female, Samus.

This is more than little shitty. Sure, sometimes, in an RPG you might get a little more. The girl in Dragon Quest 8 actually seemed like a complete character. Sadly characters like that are the exception.

 

[ForceStealer]

I'm not sure "complete" male characters are any more proportionally common. They get more opportunities, certainly, but good solid characters are always the exception. For every Cloud or Vivi there's a thousand Marcus Fenix's or Kratos'.

 

[Ghost X]

@X-Soldier: You and others might find this video interesting then. A rebuttal:

 

[Drax]

Lin from Days of Ruin is a pretty strong character, haven't beaten the game yet, but I like how she's written

Spoiler

especially during the chapter where she confronts Greyfield. Yeah, she keeps handing off the leadership so far to everyone else, but that's because she says she's way too harsh for people to follow her, like a badass.

Plus she has a lot of random funny moments, especially during those mission tutorials. An all around fleshed out character.

 

[Abortedj]

I'm not sure "complete" male characters are any more proportionally common. They get more opportunities, certainly, but good solid characters are always the exception. For every Cloud or Vivi there's a thousand Marcus Fenix's or Kratos'.

Didn't say they were. Male characters do have a little more variety. Even if that variety amounts to just what kind of douche bag they are.

 

[Hisako]

X-SOLDIER GODDAMNIT I WAS GOING TO POST THAT. FUCK.

And to be honest I think in terms of portrayal, both females and males are represented with roughly the same spectrum of archetypes and quality of writing. People perhaps tend to scrutinise female protagonists more because we have the preconception that they're a minority of protagonists in videogames, and thus need extra attention? idk

 

[Danseru-kun]

@X-Soldier: You and others might find this video interesting then. A rebuttal:

I have to admit I didn't watch the whole video but at least I can say I agree to the first five minutes.

Games where women are damsels in distress aren't necessarily sexist. I think many men has a fantasy of being a hero for their girl, not because they want to be macho and worshipped. As a woman I can say I also have damsel fantasies where a man will rescue me ala knight in shining armor. Of course, those are just fantasies.

What I find sexist is when all women in a certain story are damsels in a context where there is gender equality, or there's a disproportion between the men's abilities to the women in a universe where magic exists. I also find it an issue if the only purpose of women in a story is to be the men's motivation/love interest and they have no stories of their own. They don't need to be single and uninterested in romance, but at least they can tell us a story aside from loving a man.

 

[HylianMogget]

@The second video posted, the RE: Damsel in Distress one

I didn't watch the first video yet and he makes a number of good points, but I just wanted to comment on a couple of things:

*Again, I dunno how the fist video presented it, I see the damsel in distress trope as problematic from a somewhat meta standpoint - in its purest form it's extremely lazy storytelling and gets pretty boring. I dunno if he was being tongue-in-cheek, since he does seem to parody critical over-analysis, but he sort of oddly/ridiculously focuses on the reality of needing help - like she's talking about the narratives but he's talking about what if someone was actually kidnapped. Also, in terms of gender you can't really ignore that, as a whole, throughout history women had far less agency than men, and so I don't think it's necessarily over-analysis to say that damsel in distress stories risk having unfortunate implications as a result (though they definitely may not be intentionally trying to make a statement about gender), at least when the sole purpose of a character is to be rescued. But back to storytelling, there are games that make the girl-in-trouble formula a bit more complex, like Team ICO's games. To some extent both are damsel in distress stories but in SotC Wander isn't presented as necessarily righteous, and Ico and Yorda need each other to escape.

*The last bit with the comparison of academic articles on upper body strength via Wikipedia's footnotes seemed kind of unnecessary and he came off as taking the idea about women being the weaker gender way too literally. Also, protip, if you want to compare academic literature and scientific studies you need to actually read all of the texts in question, see what studies they're responding to and referencing, analyze their methodology, ect.

But yeah, I haven't watched the first one so I can't really properly compare the two yet.

 

[Splintered]

I was thinking about how much I kind of didn't quite buy the feminists vs tropes video because it feels like cherry picking arguments, but I disagree with the rebuttal even more- especially when it feels like one big ad hominem like criticizing the way she dresses as anti feminist.

If this is the same thing I am thinking about (the one when the woman started a kickstarter project and got an unnecessary amount of money- and then got death threats by angry gamers for making a pro feminist game video) then the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

 

[Fighter]

The second video doesn't actually criticize her for her appearance, it's trying to say that you could by looking at it with the same feminist eyes as she looks at games. Granted he goes out and lists all the details.

 

[HylianMogget]

Watched the first video. Nothing groundbreaking, really, seemed more like an overview of the trope than anything else, but it was presented quite well. Having watched them both, the rebuttal doesn't really hold up that well at all, IMO - it comes off as trying to show that feminist analysis is useless without truly understanding it or the point of the first video.

About Zelda specifically, I was kind of hoping the first video would talk more about how great TP Zelda was. Yeah, she had to surrender the kingdom and she gets possessed, but iirc there was never a super clear connection between when she helped Link and Midna and ending up trapped in Hyrule Castle, unless I'm totally forgetting something. She helps out at the end with the light arrows again, too. And yeah, it would be nice if Zelda had her own game (beyond the cd-i one ), I mean if Tingle can get a spinoff game, surely Zelda should too.

@ the general thread topic, I don't think there's necessarily a lack of female protagonists overall, although it's true that not as many have a long running series, but that it's more an issue of having well written ones. Personally, I tend to like it when there's not a big deal about the main character's gender, like with Samus (ignoring Other M's existence), since trying too hard to make a strong female character runs the risk of ultimately being really annoying.

 

[Kermitu Kleric Katie]

Speaking of the Tingle games, I wish they'd released those in America. I don't care what anybody says, I fucking love Tingle. He's hilarious.