Feminists have the inherent ability to suck the joy out of everything. People believing they are on a some kind of crusade are just not fun. I do search for things with female leads myself, though. However I don't have any kind of warped criteria of the ultimate gender neutral super woman (The Boss?). I just find them slightly more fun and lively than most of their male counterparts. I play games in order to enjoy myself, not in order to feel justified. And as much I like characters like Kenshiro, it is more about half parodical cheesefest and certainly doesn't make me feel like I'm somehow empowered as a male. Empowering stories are stories about success and effort, a sense of personal growth, which doesn't necessarily mean eliminating your enemies in 700 ways.
Dear sir,
You've missed the entire point of feminism.
But more than that I'm wonder what specifically you're targeting about what's been said.
Do you think I'd be here if I were trying to suck the joy out of gaming? I've got 9,000 posts on you that say I've talked a great deal about games here at RPGfan, so I'm not averse of livid at the state of gaming -- I enjoy them a lot and have been gaming since before I could walk. And most games I play has a male lead and I'm not
trying to suck the joy out of them or to suck the joy from gaming. I love a male lead as much as I'd like a female one -- it's about how the role itself is played. I love clothes and makeup so I doubt I'd be burning bras in front of parliament any time soon either. But I got into the discussion because someone brought up Other M which, in my opinion (and many others) their portrayal of the titular character felt different (ie; less independent and more stereotypically 'girly') than what the series has led us to believe.
Please try to reverse roles here. It's not necessarily a matter of "gender" as much as "portrayal" that bothers me.
Such as Samus' role in Other M as a "whiny, codependent dishrag" to Marcus Phoenix (GoW) who probably snorts testosterone when he isn't on screen.
So to say "It's how we're built" is incredibly misogynistic and reifies a lot of negative gender norms about women and their place with men (please don't use an anecdote to reflect greater masses; I'm glad your friend is a "powerful lady" to you, but I don't need to hear that it's innate that she turns into from a "lioness" into a "labradoodle" for her husband). And you're also giving few options for how we should "do it" otherwise.
Sorry if it came out wrong, but you completely misunderstood that anecdote by projecting a gender bias onto it. My point was that people are inconsistent, not archetypal. Even strong PEOPLE, male, female, transgender, asexual, etc. have frailties. It has nothing to do with gender. Badass tough guy types who have penises are just as frail in some respects. We're built that way.
I'll just say this: gender behavior is determined socially. While hormones affect emotion, the assumption that men and women
are a certain way or behave a certain way in relation to each other is negated just by looking at the prevailing reversals taking place in society today.
The only differenes between male and female are physical; the rest is learned.
Also, I was never discussing the subjective effects of a female badass--I don't deny that importance to female gamers. But I still qualify gender as irrelevent to the games themselves pre-story. Samus' vagina didn't contribute to the gameplay any more than Mario's penis. Even in plot driven stories, gender can be easily interchanged, because behavior is not correlate to sex. Gender roles are perceived, not innate.
I'm sorry for my misunderstands and appreciate the feedback and response.
I agree with all of it up until the last point. Samus being a girl was a pretty big deal when the series was new (I actually hate that they've taken away from the "surprise" and "mystery" since is so much more of a 'matter of fact' these days... before it was "hard to find" images of her without her gear, while today it's everywhere); and even now being able to pick a gender for a character (Mass Effect, Pokemon, whatever else) still arouses quite a bit of attention. I also get a bit bothered that women can't be
as marketable... Maybe not bothered, but it does make me pretty sad because I think of myself as the "leading lady" of my own life.
I think the point is where on a scale of Masculine---Feminine, it sucks when any character swings *completely* to one side (like I mentioned above with MOM:Samus and Marcus). This is becoming rarer, but it's not completely absent (nor do I expect it will be).
I *hated* the Samus in Other M because it took what I liked about early Samus and changed it to something I never saw (like a movie being different from the book version of something). One of the offences here is that the cutscenes were simply too long and too boring. For her, silence was golden to the "myth" that was Samus' past than some turgid chronicle of what she felt every moment she felt it. Her crew didn't help much either.
But I'm not upset if a "girly character" is required in other instances.
Estelle from Tales of Vesperia is literally dressed head-to-toe in
pink and is both lady-like, adorable, and pretty clueless; but I love her for being smart and sweet.
One of Lenneth's main goals (from Valkyrie Profile) is to kill the gods and reunite/save her first love (in this case, I don't think succumbing to her emotions of "love" made her a weak character)
Kainé from NieR sported an extraordinary and really ridiculous-looking outfit... but her characterization was more about attitude than sex-appeal (which, after hearing her potty-mouth, was probably a second-thought)
Oh snap... forgot to respond to this one:
That's what everybody thought Skyward Sword was going to be, before it turned out to be a WiiMotion+ demo. Sure it had its moments, and introduced the Stamina Gauge for aLBW to make better use of, but the progression, the overworld obstacle course, and the general lack of variety really held it back.
Anyways, finally finished The Legend of Zelda Heroes: Trails in the Sky: First Chapter. Overall, a by-the-numbers affair with its greatest asset being the sheer amount of fleshing out of its setting and general world building it does over the game. Its kinda amusing to take in just how much it focuses on this aspect, until the final dungeon, where it goes full on JRPG (like suddenly, you go from penny pinching means such as completing guild requests, subsisting on food items instead of general purpose healing items, and saving up enough Septh to purchase the latest Quartz, to swimming in Mira, stuffing your cheeks in high end general purpose healing items since only the very best food items can barely keep up, and everybody's bringing in their own Quartz to fulfill any need you might have with your party loadout, and then there's FC's final boss and its three forms). Now to join the 'waiting for Second Chapter' club (and to start, I'll load up another game in my PSP backlog).
Glad you liked Trails for what's it's worth. Definitely one of those titles where Falcom took what it does well and did it to perfection.
I always felt weird about the "final dungeon" and I think you're spot-on why. I did catch that while the whole game was pretty much about a coup d'etat, the endgame turns into a good ol' save the world romp (but I like how you attached it as symptomatic of JRPGs in general xD )
Stupid fact: I loved cooking because the SFX sounded so delicious
@Clueless How/why did you fall asleep during a game? xD Work late?
I don't think I've ever dozed off in front of something but I'd love to see it happen.
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