Dincht
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On Final Fantasy XV and female characters
- Thread starter pashmilla
- Start date
Dincht
LegendofDragoonLives
Member
Who says this is the only way? Was that the only case in FFXIII, FFXII, FFX? Where are the cases on jRPGs where this happens? Has this happened 8/9 of the last 10 jRPGs to come out of Japan? Is it a bad trope? I'd say this all matters on execution, but nothing like people who have the mentality that something that is used often = always bad.
I think the biggest issue i had with 13 is that lightning's outfit was supposed to be a police uniform...
Some of vanille's voice lines(?) are really bad
I'm still sad that Jihl got cut off the game so soon, she had a fanservice-ish outfit but i think she would make a great boss fight @-@
I think it would be nice to see a recap through feminist lenses because i have mixed feelings about FF's female characters overall...there are a lot of well written ones, but there's always something off about how they are handled in game
YianGaruga
Banned
wow rude
The Emperor
Member
My main regret with XIII's female portrayal was for them to have had the guts to make FangxVanille a couple instead of little sister/big sister dynamic. Fang was initially a man...dunno if there was ever meant to be a romantic relationship with Vanille but I always felt like hints of it came through in certain scenes in XIII.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
You have never, nor will ever, see a mechanic even remotely dressed similarly like Cindy Ito. Unless they're a pornstar playing the role of a mechanic. Get this "but women in real life with actual agency who aren't designed by a bunch of men for the male gaze sometimes dress provocatively too" shit out of here. Bayonetta also wasn't designed slowly by women, she was designed by a woman being directed by a team of men to draw something specific. And by god, blatant sexualization is not a character display in her sexuality. Bayonetta never does anything that has to do with sex and the camera angles don't have anything to do with sex either.
Gai Murakumo
Member
I do agree with your argument about Cindy since she is really there as a sex symbol. Unless there is some hidden side quest that really fleshes out her character we do not know. With Luna she has quite a bit of character flaws and lack of a strong character shown thus far (Kingsglaive Luna is quite terrible). Iris so far appears to be the stereotypical childhood friend (who is a girl) that has secretly a crush on the main protagonist, but the main protagonist is clueless to their advances.
YianGaruga
Banned
He's not covered in grease, but I don't think Gladiolus is meant for straight dudes
Being barely dressed in skin tight black leather is my power fantasy
Neoleo2143
Member
I think I'm going to make a thread on what actually makes a "Strong Female character". The classification itself is an issue because "Strong Male Character" is not a term utilized on a daily basis. Feminist theory should point out this difference and I'm sure there are articles covering this topic far better than I could.
Now, what makes a strong character? It is conveying a rational sense of Agency to the audience. What is Agency? Agency is the control that characters or people have over their own actions within the narrative, the story occurs as a result of the outside forces and the force of the character's action interacting. This means the agency of one character can invade the agency of another character. But that's what creates conflict and conflict is the heart of a story, with the balance of the character agencies at stake.
Cindy and Luna utterly fail this, they do not push the plot along, their agency in their actions is not conveyed and definitely not made meaningful. That is why they are weak characters as they stand currently.
Now, what makes a strong character? It is conveying a rational sense of Agency to the audience. What is Agency? Agency is the control that characters or people have over their own actions within the narrative, the story occurs as a result of the outside forces and the force of the character's action interacting. This means the agency of one character can invade the agency of another character. But that's what creates conflict and conflict is the heart of a story, with the balance of the character agencies at stake.
Cindy and Luna utterly fail this, they do not push the plot along, their agency in their actions is not conveyed and definitely not made meaningful. That is why they are weak characters as they stand currently.
Gai Murakumo
Member
He's not covered in grease, but I don't think Gladiolus is meant for straight dudes
Generally does the whole main cast look like a Japanese boy band which seems like an attempt to appeal to girls.
This brings me back to the reason why in Gundam Wing the male Gundam pilots are drawn a certain way to appeal to the female audience/yaoi fan girls.
orthodoxy1095
Banned
I think Luna looks like she's not going to live up to the "strong" billing, but I'll withhold final judgement for now. Cindy has no excuse.
You as a male have always been the default and most video games have been, in history and now, designed to appeal to you. If a criticism arises, you whine, "Do tits nullify what is good in a game?" If a game is sexist, even if it plays fantastic, we should criticize it. You are free to critique Twilight. I will not whine like you did if you complain about the male characters in that series. Given the amount of hate Vaan from FF12 suffers, I'm quite certain there are a number of insecure guys who do exactly that. If that's the case, why is it wrong to complain about Cidney and Luna, and Aranea and Crowe? Why is it so unbelievable to you that people would complain about Cidney? Because you're fine with her design, so therefore no one else should complain about her?
Moreover I find it stupid that you think that the design of the male characters were aimed at females, when it's clear that there's a more universal appeal in mind for Noctis and co. It is this universal appeal that lacks in the female character designs, so holding up the male designs as some sort of argument is really blind. You might note that every single named female character features cleavage, but not every named male character is showing abs. I think it's very fair to consider that the female characters were designed with the intent to appeal to males, because they fit into nice 'waifu' slots rather than having motivations and stories of their own. Luna speaking about helping Noctis in every bit they show, Cidney and Aranea with their 'sexy' animations and design, and Crowe whose role in the movie was classic disgrace to female characters.
The difference in having a lot of Cidney-type characters is because people like you make the same excuse "it's just one out of a whole cast" but every single game there's that one character, over and over and over again, and it boils down to wanting fanservice for your own eyes. It's in your interest to keep this status quo, even though there's no equivalent in male characters. It makes a difference because the can keeps getting kicked down the road, the sex object design keeps getting excused, and at some point we could probably draw a line. That female characters in games should no longer exist just be sex objects.
FF mainline games nowadays sell less than what other big games sell. The reason all of the above matters, that you want to appeal to a broader demographic, that you want to remove garbage like Cidney instead of asking "what is wrong with that", is fairly simple: there is a market to tap out there, and they are the female audience. If FF wants to continue making big budget, high production value games, they need to sell better and they need to sell more, and they can do that by appealing to a broader audience. In the past decade FF sales have only stagnated, while all these new IPs in the west have grown and become juggernauts bigger than FF. They grow by hunting for new demographics, by listening to feedback and changing up the content of their casts and games. If FF cannot do it and regresses on this front, then you might as well sit back and wait for FF to backpedal to the otaku market, because Cidney? She's basically there.
To take it a step further, agency also can factor into how they are dressed and presented to the audience.
Way too often - even in Final Fantasy games - the women are dressed rather impractically. Now, I know, I know... impractical clothing in a Final Fantasy game, right? But often the women are designed in ways that emphasize their sex appeal over their personalities or professions. As good a character as Tifa is, she's not dressed remotely close to anything sensible (unlike, say, Cloud or Cid or Barret). Or how Yuna went from dressing like a priestess in FFX to hotpants in FFX-2, and Lulu's outfit is... weird. It was designed with a specific focus that is at odds with her actual personality and role in the story. Or how most of the men in FFXII are dressed appropriate to their professions as knights or thieves or pirates, and then you have Ashe in her micro-mini-short skirt (enough to even see some cheek) and Fran is just a walking playboy bunny in a metal bikini.
Rydia in FFIV is one of my favorite characters, but her dress is basically "the dress" that J-Lo wore, complete with double-sided tape to keep it from blowing away, unlike most of the men who are fully decked out in battle armor. Some forms of Celes in FFVI have her as a "general" in nothing but swimwear and shoulder-pads. Lightning in FFXIII is decent, but by the time Lighting Returns hit and they gave her a boob job and an overload of "sexy" outfits to dress her up in, she loses a lot of her luster.
Because, ultimately, the "agency" of women - however fictitious - is that they're stuck in outfits that are ill-suited to their character traits and narrative roles in the story. They're not there to compliment the characters, like so many of the men; they're exclusively there JUST to be sexy, to the point of outright fetish-wear in some cases. It's dissonant in a way that if you were to describe the characters' personalities, you would think they would be smart or sensible enough not to dress the way they do, and that's because the will of the designers or the fanboys (in some cases) overrode whatever agency they had as characters or whatever sense they might have had all so they can be stuck in varying degrees of skin-bearing clothing and high heels, no matter how at odds those outfits are with their established professions, goals, personalities, history, or combat roles.
Neoleo2143
Member
Absolutely, it really detracts from the believable setting which is a key aspect of story telling. Aesthetics tell the story as much as the words spoken do, and as much as the mechanics and level design utilized do for videogames. I shouldn't have to ask, did she pick out that dress herself? If so why? And if it's impractical for the task at hand (like combat most often), why is she alive?
Also this thread is more of an excuse to post more of this blog I like so have a tangentially relevant article.
http://exploringbelievability.blogspot.com/2013/03/youll-want-to-protect-new-lara-croft.html
The whole Fang/Vanille thing was clearly not the director's original intent and clearly a case of embracing whatever goodwill the community was willing to throw at XIII.
"Uh, yeah, sure! We planned that all along!"
djplaeskool
Member
#TeamCidney
It's now 3 of you guys making arguments divorced from reality. Luna and that women both she and Noctis talk to separately have a universal appeal. That's 2 out of the 3 female characters. Honestly I find the female villain who isn't in this video to be tasteless. For all the faults surrounding Cid about when she chooses to wear what she does and the camera shots there are women who dress like her IRL. That villain otoh you won't find anywhere.
Ganon Dragmire
Member
My post from the TGS trailer thread:
I got every type of response in the book, including the burka one. Haha
Then there are comments like "every criticism is because of secretly wanting Versus or Stella".
Or people want another Lightning. Not every strong female character has to be like her. I like Aerith. Guess what? She got slapped by a villain too and gets kidnapped. Doesn't mean she's weak, because we know the things she does.
The game isn't out yet so we don't know Luna's complete story, but SE has been constantly hammering how strong she is. Fine. Where is the marketing that shows this? There have been two official renders of Luna and both with the same pose. Where are the renders or scenes of her doing anything aside from what we've seen so far: Leviathan scene, speeches about devotion to Nocto's destiny, pushed around.
I got every type of response in the book, including the burka one. Haha
Then there are comments like "every criticism is because of secretly wanting Versus or Stella".
Or people want another Lightning. Not every strong female character has to be like her. I like Aerith. Guess what? She got slapped by a villain too and gets kidnapped. Doesn't mean she's weak, because we know the things she does.
The game isn't out yet so we don't know Luna's complete story, but SE has been constantly hammering how strong she is. Fine. Where is the marketing that shows this? There have been two official renders of Luna and both with the same pose. Where are the renders or scenes of her doing anything aside from what we've seen so far: Leviathan scene, speeches about devotion to Nocto's destiny, pushed around.
That contest was NA only
In Luna case, it's not like we can't discuss this topic, but to keep in mind the unknown context of these scenes. Like, what if what happen is Ardyn strolling to Luna in her weakened state, mocking or goading her like his usual self. But despite that Luna keep her composure and deliver speech that sting him, so much that he lost his cool and slap her? If that is what happen then it will highlight her nerve instead of the slapping. Of course there's a possibility that the opposite is what will happen, like she just sit there moping and Ardyn slap her just because. The point is, we still don't know. Arguments can be made for both side. But some people may think it's too early to form a solid opinion just yet, me included.
Though I do agree that what they choose to show so far are less than convincing. Looking back at how they handle promotional materials, maybe they simply don't think about them too much..
For Cindy, I kinda agree with OP. I don't mind her clothes that much. It's the way she was presented and animated that make her feel like walking fanservice. Will the developer redeem themselves with how they handle women representation in game? Who knows.
Dark_castle
Junior Member
I'm interested in seeing how you defend Jihl Nabaat. Make it rain.
Not really .
cm osi
Member
she changed hairstyle a couple of time, i give you that
not sure how her giant bouncing(?) breast is a issue now
Flame Lord
Member
Like I said, Twilight and the like are clearly aimed at women, so if I were to watch it I wouldn't complain about it because it's like, yeah this is aimed at women, so clearly there will likely be a lot of dudes with no shirts on, but whatever. And I don't have a problem with people criticizing a character, but around here no one ever just does that, they get angry, upset, and talk about the character being redesigned or just straight up removed, that I do have a problem with.
I haven't seen every FFXV trailer, but the only people i remember with noticeable clevage are Cidney and the Dragoon lady. And even if that isn't that case, I don't think clevage is always meant to be fanservice. I mean you see women having clevage every day, to the point that I don't really think about it unless it's real extreme. And I don't even understand about your argument of that dude showing his abs design having universal appeal. I'm not interested in it, and I have to imagine that goes for any other straight dude, just as any straight women aren't interested in Cidney.
So what if it's in one game? I mean if you have a whole cast of people, it's just statistics that one person would have somewhat revealing clothing. And how are there no male equivalents? Again there's Gladio, and you even named Vaan from FFXII. Final Fantasy in general is filled to the rim with pretty boys, so I don't see how you could make that argument.
You make it sound like females run at the sight of any women with bare skin showing. Go look at any of the big blockbuster movies and you will find at least one moment of pandering to the male audience, just as you'll probably find a moment of pandering to the female audience. One example, Transformers, Megan Foxx, I can't remember her doing a single thing in that movie besides leaning over the car.
I definitely think the concerns are valid, but I'm gonna try to reserve judgment and remain optimistic until I play the game.
Yes, at least we have Gladio and dem glorious abs help balance the scales a little. Well shit, I guess the whole point of the Cindy argument is that characters shouldn't be objectified... *continues to stare at abs* Huh? What was I saying?
But yeah, I doubt the camera's wandering eye will favor Gladio as much as Cindy lol
He's not covered in grease, but I don't think Gladiolus is meant for straight dudes
Yes, at least we have Gladio and dem glorious abs help balance the scales a little. Well shit, I guess the whole point of the Cindy argument is that characters shouldn't be objectified... *continues to stare at abs* Huh? What was I saying?
But yeah, I doubt the camera's wandering eye will favor Gladio as much as Cindy lol
cm osi
Member
apparently is an assault to women, according to Ganon Dragmire
Vincent Grayson
Member
Good point. I somehow always forget all the extra FF7 stuff.
You need to pay $350 for the FFXV-branded gimp suit to get the download code for Gladio's skintight leather outfit, though.
the problem with luna and most people will agree with is that tabi and his team is that taking a tell and dont show aproach which i hate when direitor do that i dont hear form mouth form someone to say she a srong one ill learnd that form the characther itself like aqua not once i heard nomura aqua a stong one the way she care for her friends and do whetever it takes to save them that what a storng woman is not from someone mouth but the charachther actions show dont tell
Luna's design and content exemplifies the sort of 'perfect waifu' type of character: has special unique ability that is no good for combat but is somehow very important to the world, has a 'nice' personality so she wouldn't be a girl that yells at you, has a pretty face, and the writer invests a pretense of importance into her character while she does nothing of actual note. At a shallow glance one might say she has universal appeal. On deeper look, Luna is a troubling character from a female point of view. She's an example of a 'Yamato Nadeshiko', the kind of female that would be popular among Japanese guys because of their culture, but with her excessive focus on Noctis, Luna becomes a female character whose supposed inner strength exists just to serve the main male character. A satellite, not the center of even her own story.
Gentiana has only been presented properly in the recent trailer, as a lore sprouting machine. There's a claim by the developers that she is an important character. These same developers claimed that Luna is a strong character. Plenty of doubt for what the developers have to say. Gentiana's visual design is Japanese-style clothing with the same old 'female servant' posture and attitude. Universal appeal? To who?
One of those obligatory excuses for Cidney, "there are plenty of women who dress like her IRL", but do working female mechanics dress like her IRL? No.
Ganon Dragmire
Member
Hahaha.
For everyone else. Shiva's DOA style breasts(not what she is wearing) are a minor issue, but it just adds to the issues XV has.
Zoe
Member
You may be. Other people obviously aren't.
Ganon Dragmire
Member
I'm still fairly certain they're withholding details about Luna's powers.
The strongest argument is the teasers with her and Leviathan. Leviathan is lunging at her, she's holding a staff, it's obvious the next scene (which is often cut away) is that she repels Levi with a magic spell or something.
As for the slap, notice how frustrated Ardyn looks before he hits her. Either he's learned something about Luna's true purpose and is frustrated that she could hinder his plans, or she said something that caused the same level of frustration. I won't make the claim that she'll immediately counterattack, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility either.
So, my own theory on the whole thing....
So no, I don't consider the slap to be demeaning to Luna's gender. Yes, it's a stronger villain taking advantage of a weaker person and it's often a cliche associated with women, but I don't feel that the context is "shut your pie hole, woman! Strong man is talking here!"
If you want to recall a moment in the series where a heroine getting slapped WAS demeaning for the character, look no further:
The strongest argument is the teasers with her and Leviathan. Leviathan is lunging at her, she's holding a staff, it's obvious the next scene (which is often cut away) is that she repels Levi with a magic spell or something.
As for the slap, notice how frustrated Ardyn looks before he hits her. Either he's learned something about Luna's true purpose and is frustrated that she could hinder his plans, or she said something that caused the same level of frustration. I won't make the claim that she'll immediately counterattack, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility either.
So, my own theory on the whole thing....
Luna is short for Lunaria (perhaps not literally, but metaphorically), and she is the reason you end up on the moon.
So no, I don't consider the slap to be demeaning to Luna's gender. Yes, it's a stronger villain taking advantage of a weaker person and it's often a cliche associated with women, but I don't feel that the context is "shut your pie hole, woman! Strong man is talking here!"
If you want to recall a moment in the series where a heroine getting slapped WAS demeaning for the character, look no further:
I feel that part if the reason Lightning was disliked so much is because she had agency and didn't defer to others (even when it might have been better to do so). It's unusual to see a female hero make her own choices outside of the player's control. It often felt like she was fighting against the plot -- and I think that what we've seen of women so far in XV is women that are tools in service to the plot or the male gaze. That's what makes them feel so much weaker.
DR2K
Banned
I'm still fairly certain they're withholding details about Luna's powers.
The strongest argument is the teasers with her and Leviathan. Leviathan is lunging at her, she's holding a staff, it's obvious the next scene (which is often cut away) is that she repels Levi with a magic spell or something.
As for the slap, notice how frustrated Ardyn looks before he hits her. Either he's learned something about Luna's true purpose and is frustrated that she could hinder his plans, or she said something that caused the same level of frustration. I won't make the claim that she'll immediately counterattack, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility either.
So, my own theory on the whole thing....
Luna is short for Lunaria (perhaps not literally, but metaphorically), and she is the reason you end up on the moon.
So no, I don't consider the slap to be demeaning to Luna's gender. Yes, it's a stronger villain taking advantage of a weaker person and it's often a cliche associated with women, but I don't feel that the context is "shut your pie hole, woman! Strong man is talking here!"
If you want to recall a moment in the series where a heroine getting slapped WAS demeaning for the character, look no further:
It's hardly demeaning since she got to fight back her captor.
Suzushiiro
Banned
For one thing, it's a little much to jump to these conclusions before the game is actually out.
Beyond that... it pretty much comes down to the difference between the otaku market that constitutes the overwhelming majority of the series' audience in Japan (and a sizable portion of the international fanbase as well) and the more "mainstream" parts of the western audience. Thinking in terms of the otaku/weeaboo audience, the women are most likely A-OK with the game because the core party is composed entirely of yaoi-bait pretty boys, and the male-pandering aspects like Cidney are, if anything, the devs throwing a bone to the male audience. More generally speaking I feel like women who are deep into otaku/weeb culture are more tolerant of male-pandering fanservice because there's plenty of stuff in that space with female-pandering fanservice as well.
But when you take it out of the lens of that particular culture and into the lens of more "mainstream" games, yeah, it looks like yet another game with a white dudebro cast and women who only serve as fanservice. It's certainly important for Squeenix to be aware of how audiences outside of their core otaku/weeb fanbase view these things if they want those people to buy their games, but I think it's also important for those audiences to be aware of the otaku/weeb audience for this game and what it wants as well. The FFXV team clearly does care about giving female gamers what they want, it's just that the female gamers they have in mind aren't necessarily the female gamers you have in mind.
This also applies to race, too, since some people are bringing that up- America views race through a very unique lens because we have sizable populations of every color in God's crayon box and the ones that aren't white (and some of the ones that are) have various histories of being treated unfairly. Meanwhile, most other countries in the world are 90-99%+ one race, so obviously they're not going to think of race in that way. Should developers in those countries who want to sell their games in America consider how Americans see race and want it to be portrayed in video games? Sure. But it's ludicrous to call the FFXV team (or the Witcher 3 team, while we're at it) bigots because they don't think about race as much or in the same way as someone who grew up in a completely different part of the world does.
Beyond that... it pretty much comes down to the difference between the otaku market that constitutes the overwhelming majority of the series' audience in Japan (and a sizable portion of the international fanbase as well) and the more "mainstream" parts of the western audience. Thinking in terms of the otaku/weeaboo audience, the women are most likely A-OK with the game because the core party is composed entirely of yaoi-bait pretty boys, and the male-pandering aspects like Cidney are, if anything, the devs throwing a bone to the male audience. More generally speaking I feel like women who are deep into otaku/weeb culture are more tolerant of male-pandering fanservice because there's plenty of stuff in that space with female-pandering fanservice as well.
But when you take it out of the lens of that particular culture and into the lens of more "mainstream" games, yeah, it looks like yet another game with a white dudebro cast and women who only serve as fanservice. It's certainly important for Squeenix to be aware of how audiences outside of their core otaku/weeb fanbase view these things if they want those people to buy their games, but I think it's also important for those audiences to be aware of the otaku/weeb audience for this game and what it wants as well. The FFXV team clearly does care about giving female gamers what they want, it's just that the female gamers they have in mind aren't necessarily the female gamers you have in mind.
This also applies to race, too, since some people are bringing that up- America views race through a very unique lens because we have sizable populations of every color in God's crayon box and the ones that aren't white (and some of the ones that are) have various histories of being treated unfairly. Meanwhile, most other countries in the world are 90-99%+ one race, so obviously they're not going to think of race in that way. Should developers in those countries who want to sell their games in America consider how Americans see race and want it to be portrayed in video games? Sure. But it's ludicrous to call the FFXV team (or the Witcher 3 team, while we're at it) bigots because they don't think about race as much or in the same way as someone who grew up in a completely different part of the world does.
The reason Lightning is disliked is that she's such a bland archetype that her gender literally makes no difference whatsoever. People like to call her "Female Cloud", when in reality she'd be closer to Female Firion or Female Warrior of Light: just a stoic character who barely develops beyond her initial character trait.
Lightning Returns only makes this worse by conveniently stripping her of emotions. I'll take a well-developed "weaker" heroine like Terra or Yuna any day of the week, or a character who is physically strong but can still retain feminine traits like Tifa.
Many of you are blowing things out of proportion, making drama over things you have only partial information about. Why not wait until you've played the actual game, and seen the characters develop fully and then make educated comments about all of this?
Some people in here comment in absolutes despite being ignorant about the actual end product. That's annoying as hell and narrow minded..
Some people in here comment in absolutes despite being ignorant about the actual end product. That's annoying as hell and narrow minded..
The scene where she brushes aside the gun someone holds into her face seems like a strong moment to me. Aside from that short scene there really isn't anything else though.
UltimaPooh
Member
I think it's best to break down FFXV and its gender roles once the game is finally released... Outside of Cidney we still don't have a lot of context.