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"Strong" female characters: This is not the representation we're looking for
- Thread starter pashmilla
- Start date
Lights and Waves
Member
If u think I'm making money off this then that's adorable honestly
DrunkShogun
Member
Kiriyu is actually a great contrast to generic action man because the guy isn't afraid to cry and act goofy which is what most developers are afraid to show their main character do. Kat portrayal is why she's my favourite new character from last gen. Op clarified why I would roll my eyes whenever lightning of ff13 would come off so poorly thought out.
The most important element I look for is humanizing. The way people could relate and empathize with the character instead of simply admiring her badass trait. Human's flaws are aplenty, pick anyone of those and have a rational development on the back of it would be my ideal.
I have to feel that the person herself could exist in the real world rather than being an archetype that resides strictly in a fictional realm.
I have to feel that the person herself could exist in the real world rather than being an archetype that resides strictly in a fictional realm.
Avallon
Member
My bad. didn't realize that rule only applies to monetized content.
JonnyDBrit
Member
I remember a point I saw raised years ago, can't remember from where (possibly if not probably tumblr), on how the expectations of a 'strong female character' can at times undermine the creation of strongly written female characters, whatever their flaws may be.
The example in question was that Guybrush Threepwood wouldn't be 'allowed' to be (or rather, wouldn't be positively welcomed as) a female character, in the current cultural climate.
By which it was meant that Guybrush's cavalcade of flaws - including being physically weak, an idiot in almost every fashion that doesn't involve solving bizarre puzzles, cowardly, lacking confidence, and a touch of a pervert - are only collectively acceptable as a character because he's a guy. We presume these flaws are part of who he is, and are not meant to be reflective of or would be found commonly in all other characters of the same gender or race. If you made a female equivalent, many people would deride them as too weak, as a harmful example, so instead you'd get a 'strong female character' to try and avoid any such criticisms, and would probably fit one of the archetypes as defined in OP's essay. My guess would be femme fatale because that's how female pirates work apparently.
There's a need for nuance when it comes to representation, because people don't easily slot into single archetypes, or have all the same interests and beliefs.
The example in question was that Guybrush Threepwood wouldn't be 'allowed' to be (or rather, wouldn't be positively welcomed as) a female character, in the current cultural climate.
By which it was meant that Guybrush's cavalcade of flaws - including being physically weak, an idiot in almost every fashion that doesn't involve solving bizarre puzzles, cowardly, lacking confidence, and a touch of a pervert - are only collectively acceptable as a character because he's a guy. We presume these flaws are part of who he is, and are not meant to be reflective of or would be found commonly in all other characters of the same gender or race. If you made a female equivalent, many people would deride them as too weak, as a harmful example, so instead you'd get a 'strong female character' to try and avoid any such criticisms, and would probably fit one of the archetypes as defined in OP's essay. My guess would be femme fatale because that's how female pirates work apparently.
There's a need for nuance when it comes to representation, because people don't easily slot into single archetypes, or have all the same interests and beliefs.
While I agree, for the most part, I'd say that most games do write women in the same way they write white male protagonists, mostly because the people in charge of the narrative in most games do such a poor job, there may as well be no actual character distinction from one protagonist to another beyond physical makeup. Everyone acts the same because the notion of "hero" is so milquetoast, the personal beliefs and values of the character rare factor into the actions they take.
The lack of personalized consequence is the bigger problem, because it allows the narrative structure for game characters to be the same, regardless of gender, sex, race, creed or ability. In most games, if you change any one of those things, the narrative structure doesn't shift in the slightest, everything is the same, which makes the idea of having a female character or a black character or a disabled character more of a visual nuance than a meaningful form of impact on the world. This is what needs changing. More games need characters and stories that are defined by more than the agency they have over the gameplay. When that happens, then perhaps being male and weak, or female and strong, or transgendered and steadfast, or gay and depressed will have real meaning in the worlds said characters inhabit.
TL
R - I agree with you, and inclusion is important, but let's get real, games need better writing across the board because you could replace almost every protagonist in every game out there with an inanimate steel rod and have the same outcome.
Astral Dog
Member
lol. Its true it also affects the guys. They can be a walking stereotype too. cough Nate.
However its far worse with women. Guys are at least more diverse. You can have buff bald space marine on one end and sensitive anime guy on the other. With varying degrees in between
However its far worse with women. Guys are at least more diverse. You can have buff bald space marine on one end and sensitive anime guy on the other. With varying degrees in between
Solid Raiden
Neo Member
99% of AAA developers don't know how to write a complex person, period. They believe men should be "badass' as much as they believe women should be 'strong'.
They are aiming at the lowest common denominator.
They are aiming at the lowest common denominator.
That's still a rather narrow set of qualities for male characters.
Isn't part of this issue tied into the game design itself? If you're making a shooter the main character is kinda limited. Nathan Drake pushes the situation to the limit by already feeling out of place but he's still a tough guy. Leaning further away from action man would just make the gameplay itself feel even stranger, right? I would make a terrible shooter character, for instance. It's a dilemma in the AAA space in many ways since there aren't exactly that many different types of games being made. Once you jump into indie titles and the like there is much more variety in characters and game design, right?
It's almost less about characters and more about "tell more interesting stories" and "make different types of games"
I think to solve that more people of other races outside of white men should be designing games cause a lot of designers just design what they are most familiar with. If you look at a lot of Japanese games, most of the characters are essentially Japanese.
I'm glad some companies do strive for diversity and openness like Game Freak does, but I think more people who want these things should be trying to create these experiences and saturate the market to where it becomes more normal.
I like FFXV, but a bastion of well-written female characters, it is not.
For all the crap I tend to give Capcom for their business decisions, I also think they're one of the very best at giving us "strong" female characters - or, more accurately, female characters that are treated by and large with the same importance and agency as the men in their line-ups.
From the women of Resident Evil (Jill, Claire, Sheva, etc.) to the combat gals of Street Fighter (Chun-li, Cammy, Juri, etc.) to leading ladies of many of their own titles (Tron Bonne, Regina in Dino Crisis, Vanessa in P.N. 03, Nilin in Remember Me, Amatarasu in Okami, etc.) to having equal spotlight with the male leads (Sylvia in Viewtiful Joe 2, Maki in Final Fight 2, etc.) or having massive and well-developed supporting roles (Lady and Trish in Devil May Cry, etc.)
Everything from Rival Schools to Breath of Fire to Darkstalkers to so many other games, for whatever their strengths and flaws, has not just a surprisingly above-average representation of women included, but a surprising number of them are treated as fairly equal to their male counterparts in ability, exposure, and prominence.
I don't really praise Capcom that often, but I have a long list of games I've played starring great female leads, and I can't think of many other publishers or companies out there that have done nearly as good a job. Not flawless, of course, but certainly ahead of the curve.
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
Some of you may think it's also done to male characters but female characters have it worse. I understand that we need better writing all together but we are seeing improvements being done to male characters while female characters are still lagging behind.
I thought this was one of the things FFXV did nicely, where the 4 guys had no real issues expressing their feelings to one another. I wish it would've been expanded, but there were a handful of scenes where I thought it was well done.
Haha yea, they had a lot of nice moments, like that one time when Raven made a joke about her weight, or that one side quest where she willingly went out of her way to make Kat happy. It's the little things, but they matter nonetheless. Actually, pretty much of all the female characters in the game were handled rather well.
Also this is funny, as I was about to make a thread asking if blogs were still in style, or if they've become outdated due to YouTube-style essays.
I have a Wordpress blog I haven't updated in ages, but I've been in the mood to write more gaming-related essays. I was just debating whether to do that or go the YouTube route. I've edited videos before when I had a brief commision with a gaming site, but that option is much more time consuming.
I have a Wordpress blog I haven't updated in ages, but I've been in the mood to write more gaming-related essays. I was just debating whether to do that or go the YouTube route. I've edited videos before when I had a brief commision with a gaming site, but that option is much more time consuming.
Dark_castle
Junior Member
And that is a problem. I was watching an anime reviewer channel the other day and he talked about how certain writers write a tsundere character for the sake of writing a character with tsundere archetype, instead of writing a character with personality and situations that lead to her developing this tsundere tendencies as part of her character but not necessarily her main defining trait, which should have been the way to go about it. And there is a big difference in the end despite both characters are essentially tsunderes.
Why are they still mad with Amir0x? Not only was he demodded, he hasn't been posting in ages.
shadowsdarknes
Member
I'm guessing the over emphasis of a strong female characters is an over compensation for the damsel in distress that we have been trying to move away from.
I agree, I have tried to say this in other threads and got nowhere. I think my phrasing has been a problem though, people seem to think i'm a guy trying to excuse flimsy female characters when I say they can be weak and that's fine.
I'm a woman, and i'm all for better female characters in games. I'm just not sure that all women have to be 'strong' to be a good characters. I want to see some complexity, not everyone is perfect and immune to fear, jealousy and anger, yet these emotions don't seem to be tolerated. A strong woman has to be an emotionless badass, and i'm not sure thats a positive thing either.
That's very true too. I think good example of a more complex character in games is Joel from the Last of Us. He is not a 'nice' man, and many people did not agree with the decision he made at the end of the game, I like that they were not afraid to do that with him.
I'm a woman, and i'm all for better female characters in games. I'm just not sure that all women have to be 'strong' to be a good characters. I want to see some complexity, not everyone is perfect and immune to fear, jealousy and anger, yet these emotions don't seem to be tolerated. A strong woman has to be an emotionless badass, and i'm not sure thats a positive thing either.
That's very true too. I think good example of a more complex character in games is Joel from the Last of Us. He is not a 'nice' man, and many people did not agree with the decision he made at the end of the game, I like that they were not afraid to do that with him.
Tomeru
Member
I'd say that its open for interpertaion, and not so much a problem. The issue is representation that collides with rl standards.
Oh gonna save this to read in full later. Also stop slacking off. Seriously, whoops on XD
Yes it is but as the mods have said before that some, small is OK. If it was because no money was involved I don't know but as they usually say. If you have a beef pm/mail/burn an effigy.
Yes it is but as the mods have said before that some, small is OK. If it was because no money was involved I don't know but as they usually say. If you have a beef pm/mail/burn an effigy.
Finale Fireworker
Member
This is eye-opening to me because, for all the time I've spent discussing female characters and feminist character representation, it was never apparent to me that people have been using "strong female character" to represent some kind of badass or power fantasy.
I come from a writing/film background and "strong characters" have to do with the strength of the writing. What you are describing (characters with depth and nuance) are exactly what I thought everybody on this green earth was talking about when they referred to "strong female characters." It never crossed my mind that such an ordinary concept left any room for misinterpretation.
So, at first, I thought the thesis of your essay seemed extremely obvious and unnecessary. I thought nobody could possibly be misconstruing the notion of a strong character as you described. Then I started reading the comments in this thread and maybe I'm the one who has been wrong all this time. How many people have I been arguing against who had a completely and totally different understanding of a codified and commonplace literary term? How many people have been writing bad female characters but making them a mech pilot or something and thinking they were answering appropriately to their critics?
The misunderstanding you're describing to me makes about as much sense as somebody saying a "strong supporting character" is a character that provides great financial support to another one or is always there for the main character emotionally. It's such a literal misunderstanding of what a "strong female character" is supposed to mean.
And as much as I loved the Hark, a Vagrant comic about "sexism being over", it never occurred to me that it was in response to this misunderstanding. I thought it was in response to disingenuous and insincere writing exemplified by characters like Quiet.
Man. So many people's stubborn insistence that their favorite anime has a "strong female character" because they have a giant sword or something makes so much more sense to me now.
I am in disbelief. I guess I am grateful for your essay for giving me the perspective I was lacking on the other side of a conversation I have almost every day.
I come from a writing/film background and "strong characters" have to do with the strength of the writing. What you are describing (characters with depth and nuance) are exactly what I thought everybody on this green earth was talking about when they referred to "strong female characters." It never crossed my mind that such an ordinary concept left any room for misinterpretation.
So, at first, I thought the thesis of your essay seemed extremely obvious and unnecessary. I thought nobody could possibly be misconstruing the notion of a strong character as you described. Then I started reading the comments in this thread and maybe I'm the one who has been wrong all this time. How many people have I been arguing against who had a completely and totally different understanding of a codified and commonplace literary term? How many people have been writing bad female characters but making them a mech pilot or something and thinking they were answering appropriately to their critics?
The misunderstanding you're describing to me makes about as much sense as somebody saying a "strong supporting character" is a character that provides great financial support to another one or is always there for the main character emotionally. It's such a literal misunderstanding of what a "strong female character" is supposed to mean.
And as much as I loved the Hark, a Vagrant comic about "sexism being over", it never occurred to me that it was in response to this misunderstanding. I thought it was in response to disingenuous and insincere writing exemplified by characters like Quiet.
Man. So many people's stubborn insistence that their favorite anime has a "strong female character" because they have a giant sword or something makes so much more sense to me now.
I am in disbelief. I guess I am grateful for your essay for giving me the perspective I was lacking on the other side of a conversation I have almost every day.
Silver Arrows
Banned
They don't sell quite as well though without straight white males as lead.
Almost every AAA franchises from the Japanese developers are white male centric. Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, metal gear solid, Zelda etc.
I personally think there's a strong perceived bias for it where everyone is receptive to straight white males leads but that said group is only mostly receptive to seeing themselves on screen. And I have no idea when that will change.
In fact, I think it's only getting stronger with the current rise of nationalism across western nations.
TC McQueen
Member
There's a bunch. A few of them are now dead though.
Didn't Rhianna Pratchet say that most game scripts/stories are basically designed to string together the protagonist's journey from one level/set piece to the next, way after development of those assets are done? I don't think you could write a good story or good characters in that kind of process. You'd need to come up with the script and the assets simultaneously and let them influence each other, which is what RPG devs tend to do (well, maybe not Bethesda).
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
Sometimes it can but the whole ludonarrative dissonance thing shouldn't stop you from writing a complex character. Obviously in a perfect situation you'd want the gameplay creators and story creators to work together and find a middle that suits both interest.
What reviewer was? If you don't mind
I've always taken "strong female character" as a shorthand for saying that the character has agency and depth, not necessarily physical strength.
I think that games do ok at this, but genre plays a big role.
RPGs or Adventure will usually have more nuanced characters and i think there is a decent variety of female characters there and plenty of women with agency that aren't physically powerfull.
But in an action game, the vast majority of characters with agency are those who are good at killing people. Especially the protagonist. Many will also have a barebones story with barely any characterisation or nuance beyond: "you are badass, go kill people". Any character not able to will be percieved as "weak" or not important.
I think that games do ok at this, but genre plays a big role.
RPGs or Adventure will usually have more nuanced characters and i think there is a decent variety of female characters there and plenty of women with agency that aren't physically powerfull.
But in an action game, the vast majority of characters with agency are those who are good at killing people. Especially the protagonist. Many will also have a barebones story with barely any characterisation or nuance beyond: "you are badass, go kill people". Any character not able to will be percieved as "weak" or not important.
Back-In-Black
Banned
Agreed. Write females as people, they don't need to be "strong."
Solid Raiden
Neo Member
I didn't state my opinion in my previous post, but to clarify, I agree 100% that it's a problem. We need more female leads and stronger written characters overall.
I was only pointing out the reality of it.
So I could make a similar thread about an article if I wrote it?
I just like the increased exposure/awareness. Sure it would be nice if I got enough attention that the views lead to dosh, but that's a pipe dream. I do it just for fun.
This. Like there's this one character in the Berserk manga that is by far one of the most cowardly characters I've ever come across, but at the same time, that's what makes her interesting.
But yea, I think the issue for some people is when you have only like one or two prominent female characters. So it's like, what personality or attributes they have, if they aren't "strong" in the traditional sense, then people get all in a tizzy over them, when it may not always be warranted. Whereas if you have a bunch more, and they all have varying personalities and traits, then people will find it much harder to be pressed over it.
geordiemp
Member
Although I agree with this, the issue I can see is that in video games, especially popular western action games, is that nearly every lead character that is in player control is a mass killer of some sort - whether thats Nate Drake, Zelda , Lara Croft or even Mario and Knack lol.
Heck Ellie in last of us racks up a mass of kills when you play her....
Most action games revolve around beating things, and so any lead character in these games is going to kill / beat 100 or so enemies in a game. Every lead will be badass by definition, whether male, female, robot, animal etc
I think your essay is well-thought out and written well too, however I have to wonder why you linked us to your blog instead of just writing this in the OP? Don't mean to be a stickler, but isn't that self-promotion?
In any case I largely agree with what you wrote, however I'd like to know your reasoning for picking Elizabeth Comstock as an example of "best female character". I agree she is well written and all, but she largely is pushed to the side as an ammo/salt feeder for Booker.
EDIT: Nvm, doesn't appear to be a monetized site.
In any case I largely agree with what you wrote, however I'd like to know your reasoning for picking Elizabeth Comstock as an example of "best female character". I agree she is well written and all, but she largely is pushed to the side as an ammo/salt feeder for Booker.
EDIT: Nvm, doesn't appear to be a monetized site.
Weltall Zero
Member
Excellent and very informative writeup. It really helps a lot to put names to these archetypes, to be able to identify their use and also overuse.
I admit I raised an eyebrow at the mention of Aqua as one of your favorite female characters. I played through Birth By Sleep and I couldn't tell you much about Aqua beyond "has blue hair". Granted, pretty much every Kingdom Hearts character has about as much characterization as the average potato, but is there something I'm missing?
I admit I raised an eyebrow at the mention of Aqua as one of your favorite female characters. I played through Birth By Sleep and I couldn't tell you much about Aqua beyond "has blue hair". Granted, pretty much every Kingdom Hearts character has about as much characterization as the average potato, but is there something I'm missing?
Back-In-Black
Banned
Yes. What is confusing? Strong characterization does not mean a character with great physical strength. In LOTR, Frodo is a great character but he's not "strong" in any typical sense of the word. His strength relies in his will and inner goodness.
Kingdom Hearts 0.2
Aizo
Banned
The rule is...
"Do not create new threads promoting a product or service you have any involvement in, or paste PR materials for promotional purposes, or attempt to embed referral links in your posts to generate revenue. If an existing discussion is taking place directly involving something you are associated with, you may participate in order to answer questions, clarify details, and otherwise engage with the community, but as a person, not an advertisement. "
I don't believe the OP is generating revenue, nor is she promoting a product or service.