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Framing, Agency, and AAA Female Protagonists | Semi-Ramblomatic

STARSBarry

Gold Member


This is a topic I recently (I'm talking literally yesterday) where I put it as "yanks seem to mistake pain & suffering for good writing" when we where discussing the fact I had dropped the Fallout TV show recently with a friend. However lo and behold I'm watching cynical Yahtzee Croshaw video today and the same sentiment is echoed in a "did you just say what I was trying to say but smarter" way.

worth a watch but it actually answers why I feel uncomfortable around many of these titles. It reminds me of one of my ex's who was really in the SAW films, and I just fucking hated them, pain and violence for the sake of it... and again as someone who fucking LOVED DOOM 2016 its not the violence but the context of the violence I find off putting.
 
suJipEy.jpeg


Hit it on the nail for me
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Yeah, all these characters always felt really dry when i watched them, or straight up stupid. Its not a feeling i get in JRPGs or non-AAA games.
 
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that last of us 2, for me, is the embodiment of a game mistaking gratuitous & explicit cruelty, suffering & violence for 'mature storytelling'. after really loving the first game, i was genuinely disgusted (tho i did finish it, giving it every chance to prove me wrong), the final fight being the almost perfect laughably drawn out, grotesque way to bring it to an end...

there really does feel like there's an element of subliminal misogyny in this approach to 'strong' female protagonists. it's weird that the women now working in the industry don't seem to pick up on this. or maybe they do, & just keep their mouths shut?...
 

Generic

Member
Sorry but showing the characters suffering is a good way to show they are, you know, suffering.

that last of us 2, for me, is the embodiment of a game mistaking gratuitous & explicit cruelty, suffering & violence for 'mature storytelling'. after really loving the first game, i was genuinely disgusted (tho i did finish it, giving it every chance to prove me wrong), the final fight being the almost perfect laughably drawn out, grotesque way to bring it to an end...

there really does feel like there's an element of subliminal misogyny in this approach to 'strong' female protagonists. it's weird that the women now working in the industry don't seem to pick up on this. or maybe they do, & just keep their mouths shut?...
The Last of Us 2 has an optimistic ending.
 
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Guilty_AI

Member
Sorry but showing the characters suffering is a good way to show they are, you know, suffering.
But there is no proper context for this suffering, its literally just "stuff happens on the way that hurts them". It ends up feeling like a slasher movie where gore, violence and misery exist for their own sake.
 
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Generic

Member
But there is no proper context for this suffering, its literally just "stuff happens on the way that hurts them". It ends up feeling like a slasher movie where gore, violence and misery exist for their own sake.
The context is to show they are suffering. Also all these games (Last of Us 2, Tomb Raider reboot) are extremely tame compared to torture porn genre of movies.
 

BbMajor7th

Member
Agree with Yahtzee - the fact the Nathan Drake laughs off various ass-kickings while Lara excruciating suffers them spells out the under-lying misogyny of people trying hard to go the other way: they still think women are fragile and that men can take it.

My counterpoint to this is Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. Two female protagonists with agency (and even a little charisma) who take the punches with good humour, stick it to the bad guy and win the day without any 'men amirite?' subtext derailing things.
 
The new Lara Croft doesn't have a believable evolution. She's a gender studies graduate who turns into a killing machine by the power of plot.

Nathan Drake is a bastard with a beautiful smile, but a bastard nonetheless. As "good" as Jack Sparrow in my book. Chloe is the real old Lara Croft. Those are well-written characters.

In TLOU 2 I have two complaints:

- Ellie is made TOO obnoxious so we see Abby in a better light when comparing the two (Abby is in good terms with her dad, she loves dogs, has great friends and a social life). They turned the alleged protagonist into a kind of villain and that's not cool.

- The world is more or less consistent except for one thing: there's no fucking way a pregnant woman would go out to hunt zombies in a society ruled by martial law. IMPOSSIBLE. I can't believe nobody mentions this stupidity. This is a clear example of ideology getting in the way of good worldbuilding.
 

Woggleman

Member
The new Lara Croft doesn't have a believable evolution. She's a gender studies graduate who turns into a killing machine by the power of plot.

Nathan Drake is a bastard with a beautiful smile, but a bastard nonetheless. As "good" as Jack Sparrow in my book. Chloe is the real old Lara Croft. Those are well-written characters.

In TLOU 2 I have two complaints:

- Ellie is made TOO obnoxious so we see Abby in a better light when comparing the two (Abby is in good terms with her dad, she loves dogs, has great friends and a social life). They turned the alleged protagonist into a kind of villain and that's not cool.

- The world is more or less consistent except for one thing: there's no fucking way a pregnant woman would go out to hunt zombies in a society ruled by martial law. IMPOSSIBLE. I can't believe nobody mentions this stupidity. This is a clear example of ideology getting in the way of good worldbuilding.
The thing is that the pregnant woman was not expecting to have to fight. It was supposed to be a simply ride to wherever they were going but they were ambushed so she had no choice but to fight. Abby even says herself that she shouldn't be out. How is this anymore unrealistic than a game like RDR2 where Arthur Morgan on the verge of death from a horrible disease is still a badass gunslinger in combat?
 
i dunno my dude. I remember watching a video from a woman YouTuber talking about a capcom game about hunting grounds, her perspective was very insightful. I'm playing Silent Chill 3 and I can have a very interesting experience as a man that can elicit its feminine side.
 

Humdinger

Member
Interesting video, but I see things a bit differently, especially with respect to his examples. He mentions the Tomb Raider reboot, Hellblade, and Plague Tale: Innocence.

In the Tomb Raider reboot, the rationale for showing Lara suffering was to illustrate how difficult the transition was from her old, comfortable life to this new one. If you ask me, they jumped through that process far too quickly. Within the first hour or two, Lara is slashing and killing people like it's no big deal. Character arc complete! I think they should have stayed with it a lot longer. I think they squandered an opportunity.

He also complains about Lara "still being a wank doll," only this time the wank is supposedly elicited by seeing her suffer and wanting to rescue her. That seems like a weird way to frame things.

Hellblade is about mental illness; it's about someone who suffers from schizophrenia. A game like that has to show the character suffering, and as a victim at least to some degree. That's how schizophrenia works. It seems like he's asking the game to be something it was never intended to be.

As for Plague Tale: Innocence, I finished that a month ago, and I don't remember any gratuitous suffering piled on Amicia. Sure, she suffers along the way, but so does everyone. She and most of the female cast survive, whereas several of her male compatriots die, often very painfully. How is this piling gratuitous suffering on women?

So I don't agree with several of his examples. I don't think it's nearly as widespread as he seems to think.

Also, the trope in Hollywood action movies, which has infected some games, is the opposite of what he's saying. The trope is for the female character to shrug off violence as if it's no big deal, especially when it comes from men. She plows through waves of opposition without mussing her hair, and then she cracks a joke. Captain Marvel would be one example. I suspect you can find these sorts of counterexamples in games, too.
 

Loomy

Thinks Microaggressions are Real
Not going to comment on the specific topic of the video.

But I will say that I find it interesting that he finds it hard to "go along" with the female characters and the decisions they make in these narrative driven games because they make no sense and they should make better decisions, but has no issues with Martin Walker from Spec Ops. Dude could have "chosen"not to do any of the shit he did in that game. Nate could have chosen not to lie to Elena about what he was doing in Uncharted 4.

A question he should ask himself is why is he willing to go along with dumb decisions male characters make, but can't seem to find the same leeway for female characters.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Not going to comment on the specific topic of the video.

But I will say that I find it interesting that he finds it hard to "go along" with the female characters and the decisions they make in these narrative driven games because they make no sense and they should make better decisions, but has no issues with Martin Walker from Spec Ops. Dude could have "chosen"not to do any of the shit he did in that game. Nate could have chosen not to lie to Elena about what he was doing in Uncharted 4.

A question he should ask himself is why is he willing to go along with dumb decisions male characters make, but can't seem to find the same leeway for female characters.
Because these dumb decisions these male characters were grounded in their own character and tied to character development.

Martin did dumb things because he genuinely believed he had some type of higher mission, and the whole plot is about how destructive this kind of attitude can be. Nate lied to Elena because he was conflicted between being a "normal family man" and his old life of adventure, and that inner conflict is more or less the central aspect of character development in the game. They were dumb but they made sense in the context of the story and character.

On the other hand, these other games with female protagonists don't seem to put much effort in explaining why they do the things they do. "Oh i have to get revenge" "Oh i have to do justice to my father's memory" "Oh i have to save these people because... i'm a good person?", then stuff happens, generally unrelated to these, as if they're just excuses to have a call for adventure. Then they get hurt a lot because god hates them apparently.
 
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