Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)

Xaszatm · Jan 22, 2018

Redcrayon said:
There are a lot of poor GW novels, but I've always liked Dan Abnett's 'Gaunts Ghosts' books. They follow an Imperial Guard unit that goes from being a men-only crowd from a forest world to absorbing survivors of other regiments as they are ground down over the years. There are female soldiers, snipers, NCOs, officers etc, and they use the same kit as the guys. Perhaps as the Administratum doesn't give enough of a shit to supply sexy combat lingerie when life expectancy is measured in weeks :D

The Enforcer series stars a female Arbitairtor and is pretty good, all things considered. Now if they would finally make a plastic Sisters of Battle army again...I'm also glad that their Age of Sigmar line is trying to put women front and center. The Stormcast Eternals are unisex unlike the man-only Space Marines. Multiple new female models are being introduced. Many of the surviving characters from the old Warhammer Fantasy are the women characters. It's not perfect (the new Drokath Chieftain model is...meh at best) but it's still a step in the right direction. They also tend to alternate between a good design and a stupid one so at least it's not completely terrible.

Keasar · Jan 22, 2018

Redcrayon said:
There are a lot of poor GW novels, but I've always liked Dan Abnett's 'Gaunts Ghosts' books. They follow an Imperial Guard unit that goes from being a men-only crowd from a forest world to absorbing survivors of other regiments as they are ground down over the years. There are female soldiers, snipers, NCOs, officers etc, and they use the same kit as the guys. Perhaps as the Administratum doesn't give enough of a shit to supply sexy combat lingerie when life expectancy is measured in weeks :D

Commissar Ciaphas Cain travels with the Valhallan 597th for a long time in his books, a new mixed gender regiment mashed together of a male and female regiment who both suffered heavy losses, they became quite a damn scary force against whatever they were thrown against.

The thing with Games Workshop is that while their lore have a pretty excellent female representation, especially in the Imperial Guard where there are mixed gender regiments, all female regiments, famous soldiers of all genders, sexes, skin colors and sexuality (the Emperor is not picky with who dies defending the Imperium, just as long as they die defending it):

The problem comes when asking Games Workshop to represent these women in their actual main miniature game. So far among the humans, the only female characters are Inquisitors and Sisters of Battle (or the Flamethrower Nuns more commonly), whom still lack a new update to the army (and being sold in cheaper plastic, their popularity was hampered a lot because every single miniature is metal and therefore expensive). The Imperial Guard line up is still 99.999% male. This being honestly more weird considering that their main line-up of figures represent the Cadian forces, who basically drafts everyone ever born on the planet for the army. As for the other races they are snuck in (without anyone really noticing) among the Eldar, Tau and as sexy witches in the Dark Eldar.

I can see why people demand Games Workshop to work on this.

Valkyr1983 · Jan 22, 2018

Mizavari said:
My biggest gripe with sexualized designs is that it seems to be a whole lot of excuse to not come up with imaginative designs and races. Look at the awesome weird designs in ARMS. Or the inklings in Splatoon, it's a whole other race.

But no, generic sexy girls. Generic sexy girls e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e ffs.

I think arms was fantastic, male and female designs

Just so cool, like Splatoon

Twintelle in particular, loved the heels and hair being used as arms. My personal favorite

HyperFerret · Jan 22, 2018

4Tran said:
I think that this stereotype comes from a lot of female characters being archers. Obviously, since it's a job suitable for women, strength can't be a major requirement! The funny thing is that archers were probably the strongest men on the battlefield. Constantly pulling a heavy-draw bow is so strenuous that it would actually warp an archer's skeleton!

Gotta love the Hollywood movies that give their actors a ten pound bow and through the magic of special effects suddenly the bow can pierce through things with over 80 pounds of force! :P

I think the woman = archer thing comes from the fact that people tend to give women ranged classes like healer and mage. For some reason you never really see a woman in a melee class.

Lotus · Jan 22, 2018

Valkyr1983 said:
I think arms was fantastic, male and female designs

Just so cool, like Splatoon

Twintelle in particular, loved the heels and hair being used as arms. My personal favorite

Twintelle was my favorite design last year

Also dat avatar change D:

psychowave · Jan 22, 2018

Speaking of cool female characters getting fucked up in newer renditions, the Radiant Historia remake has this atrocity ;_;

Redcrayon · Jan 22, 2018

Keasar said:
Commissar Ciaphas Cain travels with the Valhallan 597th for a long time in his books, a new mixed gender regiment mashed together of a male and female regiment who both suffered heavy losses, they became quite a damn scary force against whatever they were thrown against.

The thing with Games Workshop is that while their lore have a pretty excellent female representation, especially in the Imperial Guard where there are mixed gender regiments, all female regiments, famous soldiers of all genders, sexes, skin colors and sexuality (the Emperor is not picky with who dies defending the Imperium, just as long as they die defending it):

The problem comes when asking Games Workshop to represent these women in their actual main miniature game. So far among the humans, the only female characters are Inquisitors and Sisters of Battle (or the Flamethrower Nuns more commonly). The Imperial Guard line up is still 99.999% male. This being honestly more weird considering that their main line-up of figures represent the Cadian forces, who basically drafts everyone ever born on the planet for the army. As for the other races they are snuck in (without anyone really noticing) among the Eldar, Tau and as sexy witches in the Dark Eldar.

I can see why people demand Games Workshop to work on this.

Agree with all of this, and I like the Cain books too (primarily as they are a homage to Flashman). If I recall, he ends up having to merge a Male-only and a female-only regiment, both of whom are proud of their regiment numbers, and does so by adding the numbers together than than keeping one of the originals. Thus making everyone join together in blaming him equally, making them more effective (which them improves his chances of survival while also claiming the credit as a far more fair and gracious chap than he may-or-may-not be). What's even funnier in a meta kinda way is that the covers are of an insanely muscled guy in typical GW stance, which is then exactly the kind of PR poster rubbish that Cain (who is tall, with a fencer's build and barely ever uses the heavy bolt pistol he is depicted with) spends his career hiding from and Inquisitor Amberley laughing about a century later!

Most of the books I gave up on long ago as there's only so many stories about space marines born to fight you can tell before it all gets a bit samey, but anything that depicts the poor Imperial Guard and the citizenry in general, surviving in a totalitarian world where everyone has a boot on their necks unless they are the Inquisition, I find far more interesting. Helps that they tend to get the better writers too, whereas those written by the games developers tend to be much poorer in comparison.

Redcrayon · Jan 22, 2018

psychowave said:
Speaking of cool female characters getting fucked up in newer renditions, the Radiant Historia remake has this atrocity ;_;

Oh FFS, I liked her short-haired design, now she's gone all generic anime heroine.

Such a shame, I liked Aruca and Stocke because they were different, have they turned him into a teenage boy with a hero complex too? :D

Xaszatm · Jan 22, 2018

Keasar said:
Commissar Ciaphas Cain travels with the Valhallan 597th for a long time in his books, a new mixed gender regiment mashed together of a male and female regiment who both suffered heavy losses, they became quite a damn scary force against whatever they were thrown against.

The thing with Games Workshop is that while their lore have a pretty excellent female representation, especially in the Imperial Guard where there are mixed gender regiments, all female regiments, famous soldiers of all genders, sexes, skin colors and sexuality (the Emperor is not picky with who dies defending the Imperium, just as long as they die defending it):

The problem comes when asking Games Workshop to represent these women in their actual main miniature game. So far among the humans, the only female characters are Inquisitors and Sisters of Battle (or the Flamethrower Nuns more commonly), whom still lack a new update to the army (and being sold in cheaper plastic, their popularity was hampered a lot because every single miniature is metal and therefore expensive). The Imperial Guard line up is still 99.999% male. This being honestly more weird considering that their main line-up of figures represent the Cadian forces, who basically drafts everyone ever born on the planet for the army. As for the other races they are snuck in (without anyone really noticing) among the Eldar, Tau and as sexy witches in the Dark Eldar.

I can see why people demand Games Workshop to work on this.

To be fair, Forgeworld has the Sisters of Silence army ready now and we do have the new Sister of Silence from GW and Celestine got a plastic model and the most badass buff in the history of buffs. Also, you can play as the Kabalite warriors as female, though their still "sexy". Still has a LOT of ground to cover though in the mini department.

We need some more black models as well, but given the fact the horror that was the Pygmies, I don't know if I want them to go down that road again.

Redcrayon · Jan 22, 2018

I love this thread. Women who are part plant. Xenoblade 2. Self-impaling heavy armour on the medieval battlefield. Warrior nuns in the year 40,000. Terrible character designs. Awesome character designs. It's the discussion that gets back on track just by someone posting a new example for critique. Great stuff.

psychowave · Jan 22, 2018

Redcrayon said:
Oh FFS, I liked her short-haired design, now she's gone all generic anime heroine.

Such a shame, I liked Aruca and Stocke because they were different, have they turned him into a teenage boy with a hero complex too? :D

I'll admit I'm not much of an expert in art or character design, but Eruca always seemed like a genius character design to me. The first thing that stands out are the poofy shoulders (what are those called? :D), which instantly reminds me of Disney princesses, which to me evokes images of innocence and femininity. But this sits in stark contrast with Eruca's boyish short hair, the sharp armor on her arms and, well, the fact that she wields a gun. And the lack of a skirt, of course. This works perfectly for Eruca's character, who is a princess, but also part of a rebellion.
In contrast, the new Eruca just looks like one of those "bitchy" ojou characters in every anime ever. Bleh.
Of course, I could be overthinking the meaning of her original design, but it makes sense to me so I'm sticking to that interpretation :D

I don't know how Stocke looks in the new one... probably a lot more generic anime-like, lmao.

Deleted member 5535 · Jan 22, 2018

Redcrayon said:
Oh FFS, I liked her short-haired design, now she's gone all generic anime heroine.

Such a shame, I liked Aruca and Stocke because they were different, have they turned him into a teenage boy with a hero complex too? :D

It's probably because it's a new artist doing it. And it's not like it's worse than the original, it's just a different depiction of the same character but with a new artist doing it.

Ferrs · Jan 22, 2018

The new one is totally a bad re-design. It's pretty clear when you look at it and think you have already saw that girl dozens of times. These kind of designs just all blends together at this point (and I'm not saying necesary the design itself but how they are drawn).

psychowave · Jan 22, 2018

The new design just completely works against her character. The original design gives the impression of a serious and dignified character. The new design gives the impression of a "rich bitch" anime girl. No prizes for guessing which description suits her personality more in the actual game.

The original art style is also a lot more unique, whereas the new one is full of flat, generic anime faces.

Kentsui · Jan 22, 2018

Nemesis162 said:
It's probably because it's a new artist doing it. And it's not like it's worse than the original, it's just a different depiction of the same character but with a new artist doing it.

The style of the drawing itself has a lot less character in the way it is drawn though, don't know how to put it properly otherwise in English than maybe saying it is more 'generic' it definitely takes away from the drawing.
At least it doesn't seem they touched the outfits of the charachters but I agree with psychowave on this one the style and the long hair definitely give a different feel to the character.

Deleted member 5535 · Jan 22, 2018

Ferrs said:
The new one is totally a bad re-design. It's pretty clear when you look at it and think you have already saw that girl dozens of times. These kind of designs just all blends together at this point (and I'm not saying necesary the design itself but how they are drawn).

Eh, I wouldn't say that. I never saw a girl drawn exactly like that and I watched and read a big number of anime/manga from different decades.

Kentsui said:
The style of the drawing itself has a lot less character in the way it is drawn though, don't know how to put it properly otherwise in English than maybe saying it is more 'generic' it definitely takes away from the drawing.
At least it doesn't seem they touched the outfits of the charachters but I agree with psychowave on this one the style and the long hair definitely give a different feel to the character.

I agree, the original art is more unique but the new one doesn't seem bad to me at all, just not the same of the first one.

4Tran · Jan 22, 2018

psychowave said:
Speaking of cool female characters getting fucked up in newer renditions, the Radiant Historia remake has this atrocity ;_;

I think that the worst change is that the nose and mouth are so understated that Eruca doesn't look like she has a face any more. It's one of the uglier trends in otaku-esque design.

psychowave said:
The new design just completely works against her character. The original design gives the impression of a serious and dignified character. The new design gives the impression of a "rich bitch" anime girl. No prizes for guessing which description suits her personality more in the actual game.

The original art style is also a lot more unique, whereas the new one is full of flat, generic anime faces.

Uniqueness is less of a concern for me. I thought that the originals were pretty well designed - you could read a bit of their characters just by the way they looked. It's most apparent with Stocke, but you can still see something from the rest (except for Marco). The new designs don't have that flavor, so they'd be worse even if everything else was equal.

Redcrayon · Jan 22, 2018

Nemesis162 said:
It's probably because it's a new artist doing it. And it's not like it's worse than the original, it's just a different depiction of the same character but with a new artist doing it.

Hmm, opinions and all that then, it looks worse to me. I've seen a lot more princesses with long blond hair and that almost featureless 'clean' art style than I have those with short hair. I played RH back on DS, perhaps it's that I associate her with the old design more easily because of that, but the new design definitely looks less distinctive and thus less interesting to me.

What is this thing with girls not allowed to have noses/mouths etc, can someone kindly explain it to me?

Deleted member 5535 · Jan 22, 2018

Redcrayon said:
Hmm, opinions and all that then, it looks worse to me. I've seen a lot more princesses with long blond hair and neutral expressions than I have those with short hair and a more determined look. I played RH back on DS, perhaps it's that I associate her with the old design more easily because of that, but the new design definitely looks less distinctive and thus less interesting to me.

Compared to the original? I agree, it's worse since it lost it's uniqueness in the artstyle. What I don't agree is that it's bad.

Redcrayon · Jan 22, 2018

Nemesis162 said:
Compared to the original? I agree, it's worse since it lost it's uniqueness in the artstyle. What I don't agree is that it's bad.

I see. It looks generic and thus dull and thus bad to me, but if you mean 'no worse than any other similar design' then fair enough. I don't mean 'bad' as in 'terrible' or 'badly drawn', more that for a fantastical game about magic and time travel and elemental disaster, 'dull' and 'generic' isn't a good new look when the previous design was unique and gave more of an indication of the charaxter's personality. In that sense, it's a poorer design for Aruca, if not technically a bad design.

psychowave · Jan 22, 2018

4Tran said:
I think that the worst change is that the nose and mouth are so understated that Eruca doesn't look like she has a face any more. It's one of the uglier trends in otaku-esque design.

Redcrayon said:
What is this thing with girls not allowed to have noses/mouths etc, can someone kindly explain it to me?

I can't say for certain, but I get the feeling that it has a lot to do with designers wanting their female characters to be as flawless as possible, and maybe they're not confident that they can draw an actual female face that will look attractive. The less features you draw, the less likely that the character will look ugly, perhaps? That, and infantilization.

norealmx · Jan 22, 2018

Not to add to the pile, but funny thing that happened last night.

I was playing Xeno2, when my wife had her first full glance at Pyra. Her reaction? "Wow, I should cosplay as Pyra".

Then there was a pan to the rest of cast, including the "true form" of one of the blades. "I should cosplay as all of them!".

I just found that amusing.

Then again my wife is a burlesque performer, so she may be a bit biased.

Valkyr1983 · Jan 22, 2018

Lotus said:
Twintelle was my favorite design last year

Also dat avatar change D:

Got sick of the avatar quotes for Quiet *shrugs* lol

I loved min min as well, and Lola pop was up there but Twintelle in particular just really struck me. Her stage with the cars was great too

4Tran · Jan 22, 2018

psychowave said:
I can't say for certain, but I get the feeling that it has a lot to do with designers wanting their female characters to be as flawless as possible, and maybe they're not confident that they can draw an actual female face that will look attractive. The less features you draw, the less likely that the character will look ugly, perhaps? That, and infantilization.

Infantalization is certainly a thing in otaku circles, and it's one that's easy to understand. But surely there must be more than that going on. People without noses and mouths look weird and the ideal female face can't possibly be a cueball with eyes and hair! It's really the oddest fetish.

Redcrayon · Jan 22, 2018

psychowave said:
I can't say for certain, but I get the feeling that it has a lot to do with designers wanting their female characters to be as flawless as possible, and maybe they're not confident that they can draw an actual female face that will look attractive. The less features you draw, the less likely that the character will look ugly, perhaps? That, and infantilization.

4Tran said:
Infantalization is certainly a thing in otaku circles, and it's one that's easy to understand. But surely there must be more than that going on. People without noses and mouths look weird and the ideal female face can't possibly be a cueball with eyes and hair! It's really the oddest fetish.

Thanks both. Maybe it's something about looking more demure/elegant, like a character with a small mouth looks less expressive, less likely to shout, yawn, make stupid big grins etc.

psychowave · Jan 22, 2018

4Tran said:
Infantalization is certainly a thing in otaku circles, and it's one that's easy to understand. But surely there must be more than that going on. People without noses and mouths look weird and the ideal female face can't possibly be a cueball with eyes and hair! It's really the oddest fetish.

Well, when our brain sees a face with large eyes and a tiny nose and mouth, it thinks "baby", and then "cute, must protect". So that's a super easy way to make an attractive female character: give her a baby face and then draw some boobs, which are easy to draw when your audience doesn't care about what real women's bodies actually look like.
Churn out a few designs like these, change their hair style and eye color slightly, paste them on a handful of tired character tropes (tsundere! ojou! dojikko!), and bam, you have the entire otaku niche eating from the palm of your hand. It's actually pretty ingenious.

Redcrayon said:
Thanks both. Maybe it's something about looking more demure/elegant, like a character with a small mouth looks less expressive, less likely to shout, yawn, make stupid big grins etc.

Interesting, I hadn't thought about this, but it makes a lot of sense!

Deleted member 5535 · Jan 22, 2018

Redcrayon said:
I see. It looks generic and thus dull and thus bad to me, but if you mean 'no worse than any other similar design' then fair enough. I don't mean 'bad' as in 'terrible' or 'badly drawn', more that for a fantastical game about magic and time travel and elemental disaster, 'dull' and 'generic' isn't a good new look when the previous design was unique and gave more of an indication of the charaxter's personality. In that sense, it's a poorer design for Aruca, if not technically a bad design.

I see. Now I understand more what you said. I can agree with what you said before, then.

Dary · Jan 22, 2018

Manga artists have had a bias against noses for a long time - it's just getting taken to further and further extremes (as is their fetish for large eyes, oversized breasts, and pencil-thin waists, amongst other things).

You could probably put together a satirical take on what "anime girls" will look like in 2025 - and they will likely end up looking worse.

N_Cryo · Jan 22, 2018

Pop Culture Detective talks about this kind of predicament to a lesser degree in his Born Sexy Yesterday video.
Also don't know if this was posted but one the people I follow posted this:

Talk about fashion nightmare.

Deleted member 401 · Jan 22, 2018

Nah, she skates around on those cogs.

Redcrayon · Jan 22, 2018

N_Cryo said:
Pop Culture Detective talks about this kind of predicament to a lesser degree in his Born Sexy Yesterday video.
Also don't know if this was posted but one the people I follow posted this:

Talk about fashion nightmare.

I think my local shopping centre banned kids from wearing shoes like that a long time ago. As for the shuttlecock dress, I suspect somewhere on a battlefield Fire Emblem's Lissa is thinking 'yes! I'm now a trendsetter!' At least she remembered to put a dress on too though. Just to go back a page, I think we can also file Lissa's combat cage/shuttlecock/...thing in the 'female costumes likely to severely injure the wearer' subfolder too.

Deleted member 5535 · Jan 22, 2018

N_Cryo said:
Pop Culture Detective talks about this kind of predicament to a lesser degree in his Born Sexy Yesterday video.
Also don't know if this was posted but one the people I follow posted this:

Talk about fashion nightmare.

This is a terrible design. I don't even need to think.

psychowave · Jan 22, 2018

Honestly the cog heel thing isn't that bad imo, it kinda looks like the kind of wacky artsy design you'd see on a runway. Everything else about that design is a nightmare tho

Redcrayon · Jan 22, 2018

She actually reminds me of a lot of Games Workshop's designs in the use of a single icon over and over again.

Let's see what her theme is. She has cogs on her shoes, cogs on her pants, cogs on her... shuttlecock, cogs on her staff, cogs on her hat, cogs on her wing, cogs on her hips, cogs on her bra, cogs on her spine.

There's less cogs on that robot girl from Persona that is partly made of cogs.

If I was to guess, if she was to wear a ring, I wonder what shape it would take.

4Tran · Jan 22, 2018

Redcrayon said:
Thanks both. Maybe it's something about looking more demure/elegant, like a character with a small mouth looks less expressive, less likely to shout, yawn, make stupid big grins etc.

There might be something to that, but I feel it's not really it. Invisible noses are more common than invisible mouths, and tons of expressive characters still look like that. It may have something to do with the the fact that the Japanese beauty ideal is a small face, but that's been around for forever while the noseless look is much more modern.

psychowave said:
Well, when our brain sees a face with large eyes and a tiny nose and mouth, it thinks "baby", and then "cute, must protect". So that's a super easy way to make an attractive female character: give her a baby face and then draw some boobs, which are easy to draw when your audience doesn't care about what real women's bodies actually look like.
Churn out a few designs like these, change their hair style and eye color slightly, paste them on a handful of tired character tropes (tsundere! ojou! dojikko!), and bam, you have the entire otaku niche eating from the palm of your hand. It's actually pretty ingenious.

Maybe, but it just seems more purposeful than that. It's like someone decided that having no nose was a good look the way that high heels have become standard for female characters.

I do like your point about not caring about anatomy though. There's a reason why sites like Escher Girls exist!

Xaszatm · Jan 22, 2018

N_Cryo said:
Pop Culture Detective talks about this kind of predicament to a lesser degree in his Born Sexy Yesterday video.
Also don't know if this was posted but one the people I follow posted this:

Talk about fashion nightmare.

Uh...wat. What happened to Cosmos?

psychowave · Jan 22, 2018

4Tran said:
Maybe, but it just seems more purposeful than that. It's like someone decided that having no nose was a good look the way that high heels have become standard for female characters.

I do like your point about not caring about anatomy though. There's a reason why sites like Escher Girls exist!

This is just my experience, and I'm not much of an artist so take this with a grain of salt, but I always found that noses were the hardest part to draw when drawing faces, and the most likely to make the whole face look ugly if I messed up even a little. But perhaps that's just me.

Small noses are also definitely a female beauty standard, so there is that.

esserius · Jan 22, 2018

HyperFerret said:
Also, when they make women archers. Archers literally need so much back strength... I sort of doubt the average woman could handle using a bow for a long period of time without a large amount of weight lighting and training. A woman in medieval warfare is better suited for a spear or long sword due to how light they are. The bows always make me laugh.

Archery was a common practice for men and women in history, though it was far more prolific among nomadic tribes due to the necessity of hunting. I don't think it's unrealistic at all, especially for the many forced into fighting who were previously civilians, to use bows. Historically very few civilians would have any sort of formal training in swords, spears, or longswords (including upkeep, given that weapons are quite likely to break without proper maintenance!). Also, metal of any kind, whether for weapons or otherwise, was extremely expensive, making archery much more economical and readily available. Archery makes quite a lot of sense from a historical standpoint. It's also a much better weapon when you're attacking a fortified position, as it's one of the few weapons that could actually reach an enemy in fortified positions. Setting fire to castles by using archery to attack over the walls was also an extremely common practice. Formal wars were also far less common than rebellions due to local lords taxing the citizenry literally to death.

psychowave said:
Speaking of cool female characters getting fucked up in newer renditions, the Radiant Historia remake has this atrocity ;_;

Eugh. That's atrocious.

NICHIJOUDENSETSU · Jan 22, 2018

norealmx said:
Not to add to the pile, but funny thing that happened last night.

I was playing Xeno2, when my wife had her first full glance at Pyra. Her reaction? "Wow, I should cosplay as Pyra".

Then there was a pan to the rest of cast, including the "true form" of one of the blades. "I should cosplay as all of them!".

I just found that amusing.

That is amusing.

Then again my wife is a burlesque performer, so she may be a bit biased.

I'd hate to see people disregard her opinion.

Dary · Jan 22, 2018

N_Cryo said:
Pop Culture Detective talks about this kind of predicament to a lesser degree in his Born Sexy Yesterday video.
Also don't know if this was posted but one the people I follow posted this:

Talk about fashion nightmare.

I think this is the first time I've seen a Final Fantasy character cosplay a goth singer, rather than the other way around...

Deleted member 5535 · Jan 22, 2018

Redcrayon said:
I think my local shopping centre banned kids from wearing shoes like that a long time ago. As for the shuttlecock dress, I suspect somewhere on a battlefield Fire Emblem's Lissa is thinking 'yes! I'm now a trendsetter!' At least she remembered to put a dress on too though. Just to go back a page, I think we can also file Lissa's combat cage/shuttlecock/...thing in the 'female costumes likely to severely injure the wearer' subfolder too.

Lissa have a great design tho and it makes sense when she's a healer and not a combatent.

Kentsui · Jan 22, 2018

esserius said:
Archery was a common practice for men and women in history, though it was far more prolific among nomadic tribes due to the necessity of hunting. I don't think it's unrealistic at all, especially for the many forced into fighting who were previously civilians, to use bows. Historically very few civilians would have any sort of formal training in swords, spears, or longswords (including upkeep, given that weapons are quite likely to break without proper maintenance!). Also, metal of any kind, whether for weapons or otherwise, was extremely expensive, making archery much more economical and readily available. Archery makes quite a lot of sense from a historical standpoint. It's also a much better weapon when you're attacking a fortified position, as it's one of the few weapons that could actually reach an enemy in fortified positions. Setting fire to castles by using archery to attack over the walls was also an extremely common practice. Formal wars were also far less common than rebellions due to local lords taxing the citizenry literally to death.

The issue people have with the bow as I've come to understand it is that it seems like the concept of giving a bow to a female characters in games or any other fiction usually revolves around 'they're less strong, more agile - let's give them a bow' which is completely wrong as drawing a bow (and particularly any form of medieval-type bow) requires quite a bit of strength.
Which means it's assigned for the wrong reasons rather than real considerations like the reasons you're giving.

esserius · Jan 22, 2018

psychowave said:
I'll admit I'm not much of an expert in art or character design, but Eruca always seemed like a genius character design to me. The first thing that stands out are the poofy shoulders (what are those called? :D),

They're called Gigot sleeves.

Kentsui said:
The issue people have with the bow as I've come to understand it is that it seems like the concept of giving a bow to a female characters in games or any other fiction usually revolves around 'they're less strong, more agile - let's give them a bow' which is completely wrong as drawing a bow (and particularly any form of medieval-type bow) requires quite a bit of strength.

Indeed, but both women and men in medieval times had a lot of upper body strength. They had to in order to simply survive (well, aside from royalty, but royalty was literally less 1% of the entire population - and even a lot of royalty learned archery at some point).

Redcrayon · Jan 22, 2018

Nemesis162 said:
Lissa have a great design tho and it makes sense when she's a healer and not a combatent.

Oh, sure, I like it too, I really like the subdued, earthy colour scheme. Not too sure a cage dress with spikes on the bottom makes sense for a healer though- if I was critically injured and lying on the ground, I'd prefer the healer whose outfit didn't plant spikes into the ground twelve inches out in front of them in all directions when they kneel :D

Non-combatant? My Lissa goes War Cleric as soon as she can!

Morrigan · Jan 22, 2018

cosmicblizzard said:
If we're talking killing off a playable character, I struggle to think of many villains besides Sephiroth that do that. There's that one guy in Legend of Dragoon and I know a few Fire Emblem games do that, but IIRC those aren't done by main antagonists.

If we're just talking characters that do unambiguously evil stuff which may or may not include killing important characters without remorse, Sephiroth is actually pretty tame even when accounting for female villains. A certain ADV/visual novel series has two of the most vicious and disturbing main villains in gaming, both of which are female.

Yeah, never thought of Sephiroth as particularly grim. Luca Blight on the other hand...

Regarding female villains, well, one thing is that they're often sexualized like crazy too. The whole "Evil is sexy" / evil temptress cliché, and of course there's the common demonization of female sexuality (using their assets or their sexuality as a weapon and all that). Most blatant recent example I can think of is Cia in Hyrule Warriors, she's the evil

counterpart/persona/whatever of Lana, who is of course all wholeselome and cute because she's good

. *eye-roll* It's either that or they're hideous/monstrous I guess. Whatever happened to the good ol' regular women who happen to be nasty? xD (Nasty women represent!)

Demon's Souls had Executioner Miralda, at least, who was dressed like what you'd expect a real executioner to be dressed. She was nasty and sadistic. You just know that in a typical JRPG she'd be sporting massive cleavage and shit. (e.g. Ursa in Ys Seven)

Deleted member 5535 · Jan 22, 2018

Redcrayon said:
Oh, sure, I like it too, I really like the subdued, earthy colour scheme. Not too sure a dress with spikes on the bottom makes sense for a healer though- if I was critically injured and lying on the ground, I'd prefer the healer whose outfit didn't plant spikes into the ground twelve inches out in front of them in all directions when they kneel :D

Yeah, that part with the spikes doesn't make any sense but her dress makes sense for me because: She's a princess and at the same a healer so the is outfit is really great combining those elements.

psychowave · Jan 22, 2018

Lissa is another example of a character design working against the actual character. Her pose and expression say "shy" and "demure", while she's anything but. And the dress is ugly as fuck, not to mention the stupid button headdress thing, but opinions and all that.

esserius said:
They're called Gigot sleeves.

Thank you! Learn something new every day.

esserius · Jan 22, 2018

psychowave said:
Lissa is another example of a character design working against the actual character. Her pose and expression say "shy" and "demure", while she's anything but. And the dress is ugly as fuck,

It really is. God I hate that dress. Why can't more females wear capes? Capes are cool (impractical sure, but rule of cool and all that).

cosmicblizzard said:
If we're talking killing off a playable character, I struggle to think of many villains besides Sephiroth that do that. There's that one guy in Legend of Dragoon and I know a few Fire Emblem games do that, but IIRC those aren't done by main antagonists.

If we're just talking characters that do unambiguously evil stuff which may or may not include killing important characters without remorse, Sephiroth is actually pretty tame even when accounting for female villains. A certain ADV/visual novel series has two of the most vicious and disturbing main villains in gaming, both of which are female.

This was actually pretty common in SRPGs 20 years ago or so. In Langrisser and Fire Emblem, as well as Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics, important playable characters could die (sometimes it changed the plot, sometimes it didn't).

psychowave · Jan 22, 2018

esserius said:
It really is. God I hate that dress. Why can't more females wear capes? Capes are cool (impractical sure, but rule of cool and all that).

You know, Fire Emblem has a lot of cool cape wearing male characters, but for some reason women have to settle for tiny-ass capes that only reach their knees. Like, off the top of my head, I remember Canas, Erk and Pent wearing cool long capes, while Nino gets stuck with a tiny one. Same with Ephraim and Eirika. What's up with that?

cosmicblizzard · Jan 22, 2018

Come to think of it, 4 of my top 10 for 2017 had either main female antagonists or at least one very prominent female antagonist. Each one was far more fascinating and developed than even the best male antagonists of the year with the possible exception of Kamoshida.

Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)

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