La Belle Dame Sans Merci -
December 6, 2000 - Chris Jones
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot. The title doesn't have that much to do with the topic, it
was just the only literary ref I could think of that kinda, sorta, fit.
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Before we get into today's discussion of female roles in RPGs, I
thought it might be cool to take a look at female names in
RPGs. Heck, make that all names in RPGs. This link
here points to
the most common US women's names according to the 2000 Census, and
this link here
points to the most common men's names. (Yes, I admit it, I got the links from
the Brunching Shuttlecocks.)
I'm sure you'll want to do your own thoroughly exhaustive searches,
but it's immediately clear that you won't be meeting a fetching young
woman named Quistis anytime soon. Near as I can tell, none of the female
characters in FF7 or 8 are listed. Garnet from FF9 is in
there, and Terra from FF6 just barely squeaks in to the top 1000.
Game Arts seems to do ok,
since Luna, Lucia, and Sue are on the list, but no Feena. The guys seem to
fair little better - no Locke, Cloud, Squall, or Zidane, although
Barrett's in there. Interesting.
Onward.
| Like water and oil,
they are |
| Chris, oh lord and master,
Women. RPGs. Mix? Not very well, apparently.
Since the dawn of modern gaming, back when Mario pulled himself out of the
primordial ooze that was Donkey Kong, women have been portrayed as the
weak, helpless individual, needing a strong, macho man to come to her
rescue. True, there have been games with female main characters, but these,
too, shamelessly depict women as sex objects in one way or another. (Lora
Croft, Tifa, Parasite Eve, even)
So far, the only games that I have seen at least attempt to combat such a
situation has been FFVI (or FFIII, if you like), as well as a scant
lesser-knowns. At least in FFVI you had women with intriguing backgrounds
and great personalities, equal to and sometimes better than that of the
males'. Sure, there were sexists remarks, but only in a
roll-your-eyes-give-me-a-break kind of way. Wait, I'm not sure if there's
any other kind...
In any case, I'd like to see a game that consists of a completely female
cast, but knowing the current demographic, it would end up some twisted
lesbian H-game.
These are sad, dark, stupid times, my friend.
-Banjax. The other white gamer. |
To be fair, at least in PE1 Aya wasn't merely a sex object.
Yeah, you get introduced to her wearing a low cut evening gown and
improbably high heels (which a friend of mine was greatly amused by:
"She's wandering around in the sewers wearting that?") But
she's more capable than any other character in the game, and spends the
majority of it in jeans and a t-shirt. Ironically, as much as anything
it was the short skirt on the cover of PE2 that convinced me not to
get it; sure, it looks great, but it feels stupid to be controlling a
character wearing a garter holster.
But other than that, not a lot to argue against here.
How sophisticated is a
rose?
*FF7, Grandia spoilers* |
| Wow, like I haven't heard this question before.
Well I think with the type of game you get the type of player and therefore
the type of girl.
For the short attention span of Duke Nukem fans you have topless dancers in
a garage that you can throw money at. The guys who have yet to talk to a
woman generally are more attracted.
The audience for RPG's is not only growing with Graphic Freaks but with
girls as well. I for one do not mind at all swapping my opinion with my
female friends who play RPG's and I feel that the change in female
characters is partially responsible for the growing interest among females.
I think that RPG's are able to mix in both accomplished female figures as
well as the not so bright lookers.
I think nowadays that female characters are getting more and more important
roles and these are some examples:
Celes is one of my favorite characters she was strong, intelligent and
within her cold exterior lies her gentle femininity as sophisticated as a
rose. A long way from the early empty headed Peach (Mario should just find a
new girl).
Tifa is quite controversal in this kind of arguement. A lot of girls hate
her because of her bust and they are just as bad as the guys who like her
for it. The girls (and some guys) that do like tifa can relate because they
had a guy (in a guys case a girl) that they couldnt express their feelings
to and lost him or they like her because of her ass kicking despite the
looks. I think that if they kept the bust but gave her better clothes shed
get more respect from girl gamers. Aeris was something people never expected
she was the outgoing one that looked more like the quiet one plus she
died!!!!!! Now that made her popular. (Except for the fact that I took her a
lot before that in ff7 my first time around and realized I wasted some
time)
Feena from Grandia was like martha stewart meets xena only better looking.
Kinda bubbly but girls like her. If yer looking for someone who can do it
all its her.
The prime example is Lucca from Chrono Trigger. She is hardly a filler
character or the T&A. She IS, however, a vital part of the game and without
her they wouldnt have made such a great game and such a so-so sequel. No
transporter to get messed up and lavos would have run rampant all over 2000
AD. No robo (good or bad? its up to you) or time key and the Fire Whirl
would have been just whirl.
In conclusion (i could go on forever) if they didnt put important female
characters into a game, games would suffer (and the love stories would be
impossible or really lame).
Yer annoying email sender guy,
Swordy |
Martha Stewart meets Xena? What have you been smokin', dude?
Seriously, I think Feena's a great example of how RPGs downplay women,
even as they're portrayed as strong, capable characters. I dunno what
the exact ages of the characters were supposed to be, although I thought
it was bloody obvious that Feena was way too old for Justin, and
wouldn't take him seriously in a million years. But I forgot a primary
rule of RPGs is that there must always be some damned romance
around, and lo and behold, by the end of the game they get married.
Feena's a perfectly interesting character in her own right, with her
own back story and drama - there was no need to throw that away by
making her an accessory to some punk teenager.
Ok, end of rant. On the other hand, Lucca's an excellent character, one
of a type which I'd like to see more of in RPGs. Had Chrono Trigger been
the type of game where people are allowed more than one motivation, we
might have seen some real fireworks between her and Marle over Chrono,
but as it is Lucca was still easily the most realistic, rounded character
in the game.
| Don't worry, ladies,
the guys are complete stereotypes as well |
|
In general I'd have to say that female characters in RPGs are as well
developed as the male characters, just because the vast majority of male
AND female RPG characters are underdeveloped. It's true that a lot of
female characters in RPGs may be designed as eye-candy, but I don't see any
problem with that - when you're making up an imaginary character, they may
as well be cute, whether female, male, or fuzzy sidekick. And in some
recent Square RPGs, the female leads have seemed more developed than the
male ones - the best example is probably FF VIII, where Squall had no real
personality and seemed completely apathetic even when he was acting like a
jerk. So in general, I don't have much of a problem with the way females
are portrayed in RPGs, but I'd just like to see all of the characters in
general developed a little (or a lot) better. The games I think of as
having the best main characters, like Lunar and Suikoden II, seem to
portray the women just as well as the men.
David (Kaxon) |
Somebody else pointed out that many guy characters are just
as much eye candy for female gamers as women characters are for male
gamers... I dunno if I'd go that far, but there's definitely an
element of fantasy to all the characters in an RPG, which tends to
explain a lot about how these games work. Women in games have large
breasts, narrow waists, impractical clothing and long hair that remains
clean and bouncy even in the middle of a battle for the same reason
characters can level up with no real limit to their abilities - it's
an enjoyable lie. The question is, is it a fair lie, for the character
or for us?
| No need to complain -
Tifa takes Advil for her back problems |
| Hey Double Agent,
You had to go and open that can of worms, didn't you? :(
The short answer is: hell yes, female characters in games are still pretty stereotypical.
The typical formula for female RPG characters goes somewhat like this: you have
your female character who's thrown in there to make the hero (and the player)
drool and think less than coherent thoughts; the innocent, helpless victim,
who happens to have her own understated kind of beauty; and a carefree, tomboyish
girl, who'll probably grow up to be beautiful too. This comes as news to no one.
Of course, old hands like the people at Square will mix it up a bit... Sometimes
the sex-object type girl still seems innocent enough (Tifa)... Or they the carefree
girl is very girly looking (Selphie)... Or the innocent victim's understated
beauty is thrown out the window, and her measurements are rounded up (Garnet:
in practically every CG she's in, you get the feeling that the artists creating said movies
were shooting for a Rinoa-type girl with a more Tifaesque look)...
I should't even get started on female stereotypes in some popular action and
adventure games... From the grotesquely shaped (Lara Croft), to the "I get caught
and killed if I'm separated from the hero, even though I supposedly have military
training" (Meryl), to the "I can kill things, but I need simpler equipment than the
guys in the game, 'cause I wouldn't be able to use a real gun" (Why, oh why is it that
Jill/Claire gets the useful lockpick, and her weapons are usually cheesier than
whatever male counterpart in the game??? Make her shoot the damn locks in with
a police issue weapon!!!)
It doesn't bother me as much as it should, though, since I beg to differ with
the (implied) premise that male characters are more often than not fully realized.
The only reason some videogame characters who happen to be male are more fully
realized *is* because they're leads, not because they're male (let's face it, in many
games, the hero is the only character that is not completely idealized into an extreme of sorts...).
If there were more games that had female leads (i.e. if the lead designers'
and/or the plot writers' heads weren't packed with typical male fantasies when
it comes to women), then you would have some examples of fully realized female
characters. I don't see that happening any time soon, though.
Princess Jemmy, who would settle for mere touches of realism such as Tifa complaining
about chronic back pain due to her uncharacteristic figure at least once in
the entire game...
P.S. I could have said much more, but the topic really isn't suited for a letter: it merits essay
lenght commentary, not a quick rant ;) |
To paraphrase Robert DeNiro in "Heat": "I do what I do best. I
open cans of worms. You do what you do best. Try to stop guys like me
from opening cans of worms."
That last paragraph makes no sense, it's just a cool movie.
It seems clear that the only way to address your concerns is to get
more women involved with making games... but here we get into something of
a catch 22, because to get women involved in making games we have to get
women involved in playing games, and there aren't enough of those because
of the stereotyping that we get because there aren't any women making games
to begin with.
Therefore, the only way around this problem is swift, bloody revolution.
I say we storm Enix and Square's corporate headquarters in Japan,
eliminate Sakaguchi, and put Jemmy in charge of making the next FF! Who's
with me?
Anybody?
Er... I don't suppose you remember the St. Crispin's Day speech from
Henry V by any chance, Jemmy?
| RPG characters are
fine, it's Chun Li who's dragging the gender down |
|
I think the way female characters are portrayed in games depends on the
game and which character you're talking about. Example: in most of the
fighting games I've seen, yes the chicks can whoop your ass, but
wouldn't you think their, uh, chests would get in the way sometimes? Any
game geared mostly for the guys (like the fighting games, Tomb Raider,
etc.) are going to have female characters that fulfill the role of
"T&A," because they are surely not helpless victims.
The "helpless victim" female characters were mostly what I saw in much
earlier games (think Princess Toadstool!), but nowadays as women are
rising up in power and doing a lot more stuff, nearly equal to men,
that's also taking shape in games. I don't think game designers these
days would want to offend what could possibly be half of their audience
by portraying the image that girls can't do anything except scream
bloody murder and wait for their hero to rescue them.
So take for example Celes in FF6. She was strong and independent and not
some "love-starved twit." She was as strong of a fighter as any of the
guys. Although it has always seemed like female characters in any RPG's
were primarily magic users, they were just as important to the game as
the guys who took to their swords, fists or whatever.
So I think that maybe the female characters in fighting games could be
portrayed a little less... busty. Make them look more realistic and not
like they just got a boob job done! (This way, maybe the guys who don't
get out too much because they play so many games won't be too
disillusioned when they do go out into the real world and discover
they're not going to find too many gorgeous, 34D kick-butt fighters out
there.) Female characters in RPG's are doing just fine, at least when
they do exist. I was a little disappointed the first time I played FF1,
named my white mage Lucy, and learned later on that the white mage was
supposed to be a boy. Who knew? |
It's a little unfair to judge fighting game characters, I think,
because in comparison to RPGs they really are just eye candy. As a
rule, they lack dialog, much of a back story, and anything coming close to
character development - their primary contact with the player is how
they look, and how they fight. In comparison, RPG characters have the
opportunity to speak, to interact with other character in more ways
than beating their brains out, and to represent something other than
"cute but deadly".
The problem is, they don't... and your last
comment is an interesting illustration of that, because there's no
reason the white mage in FFI couldn't have been a girl. Heck, there's no
reason Ashley Riot in Vagrant Story couldn't have been a girl too,
given the general lack of romance in that game. The real question here
is, why do the characters get relegated to being healers and
magic users - support staff, in other words?
| The exception that
proves the rule... yeah, that's the ticket |
|
Chris, If you want a female character, check out
Valkyrie form Valkyrie Profile. Brains, Looks and
Strength, and she's not just somebody for T&A shots
too, like some characters that I can name.
David |
Yet another argument for why I need to play more RPGs: so
counter-examples like this one don't end up blindsiding my rants.
| And now for something
completely different |
|
Chris,
This may have very little to do with games, but, #%!&?*(*&!, Graph Isomorphism
algorithms are a PAIN to code.
-Alex |
Yes. Yes they are.
Closing Comments:
I meant to bring up the link below a while back, but one thing or
another just got in my way. Suffice it to say, Ebert's not anywhere
near the final word on movies (that would have been Pauline Kael) but
this kind of exposure could make things much more interesting. Give me
your thoughts on what's below, if you'd be so kind, and also consider
this: if the limited FMV in FF 7 drove old schoolers up the wall,
what's an entire movie-full gonna do? See you tomorrow.
-Chris Jones, has an unlisted
middle name
| Topic for Thursday,
12/07/2000 |
| Just thought I'd give a head's up to everyone following
the development of the Final Fantasy movie. Roger Ebert saw the trailers
at the Hawaii Film Festival and gives his impressions:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/eb-feature/clear30.html
Decently interesting, and evidence the movie is staring to catch the
public's notice.
-MeekayD |
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