Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)

BorkBork said:

I just picked up Darkest Dungeon for the Switch and I have to give props to its female character designs. The Grave Robber is just aces, whipping daggers and pickaxing fools in the face.

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Have fun it's a great game !

Funny enough with the news of the Switch release I considered starting a new playthrough and because I saw something weird in a .gif about the game I checked mods for it, and yeah speaking of the Grave Robber... someone had to ruin it ... >_>

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Okay to be totally fair the same mod has an interesting take on the Vestal that doesn't go too far, but when I saw this one I was like WHY ??

Now oddly enough as much as this modification of this character annoys me, the stuff I saw I was looking for is a series of very NSFW classes with a very cutesy, yet disturbing creepy look that's absolutely not shy about what it is and just silly and weird enough for me to really like it.

That being said, for people on PC that want a little bit of variety, if you're willing to browse through some questionable stuff there is also some very good alternate artwork like this female Crusader

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psychowave said:

Don't forget the Plague Doctor!... Aaaaand of course, looking for her artwork made me run into a bunch of fetishy/moe art. Sigh.

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I always forget that the plague doctor is supposed to be a woman until someone brings it up, which definitely proves that in the end it doesn't really matter.

Regarding fan-art, and mods while I talk about them, the thing is that even if you find them extremely weird or offensive, they don't really take away from your own personal experience with the game as, for instance a questionable decision by an artist or dev working on the game would.
As far as I'm concerned those are both categories of content around games (and other media at large) where I don't necessary take offense when I see things I find disturbing.

psychowave said:

That thread about fat people in gaming... isn't it funny how many people think depicting fat characters in a positive light is a bad idea because it could encourage unhealthy habits, yet the same people will turn around and claim that representation of female characters in video games doesn't affect the "real world"?

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BOOM.

Absolutely.

It's also funny how many people equate fat with an unhealthy lifestyle. There is a whole lot of misinformation out there about body types, the way different sexes grow and age with respect to body fat and musculature, and the way culture affects our perception of what is healthy, attractive, and normal. Not only are they holding fast a double standard, they're cleaving to a flexible, entirely amorphous ideal and acting as if "health" were a valid cornerstone for building that ideal up.

I know it's a complicated and flawed book, but I wish more people would read something like The Beauty Myth to get an idea of just how much influence capital, culture, and time have changed our perception of what counts as healthy, beautiful, and worthwhile. It might help loosen up some too rigid conceptions. If anyone has reading suggestions along that line, I'd personally appreciate it. I'm reading that book now, so this conversations feels especially timely, but I'm not always impressed or satisfied by Wolf's approach to the subject matter.

Gotdatmoney said:

Well the blade driver relationship is kind of a big point of discussion in the game. It's like you're just criticizing the game picking a theme and exploring it. That's fine and all if you dont but its not really about character designs.

As far as Pyra is concerned. Like its been stated its simply a combination of wanting his help and liking the guy. It's not that odd. She can function outside him but there is 0 chance she would make it without support.

And even then, slave master is a point of the game. How you treat them matters. It's not an equal partnership, it isn't meant to be. The game shows all sorts of relationships between the pairings. Romantic, comraderie, hate, family structure, rebellion. Its a vehicle to push interesting character dynamics. It isn't about men owning women. That's such a weird conclusion to reach.

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I'm criticizing it for picking a theme that's extremely complicated in the real world and exploring it in a juvenile fashion, while only at points touching on the larger underlying problems inherent in such an imbalanced power structure. You're right, it's not about the character designs specifically, but they certainly undermine a lot of character agency (and creative goals). I don't think my intent was to argue about the problems of who does the "owning" in the relationship, but of the concept of ownership of sentient life more generally. And these characters are objectified in their designs, and then objectified again by the plot of the game by making them tools to be used.

I'll just say this - there are a lot of good ways to move your characters forward, and a lot of bad ones. And if you choose a bad one, you're probably going to need to do it with an extraordinary amount of care. And I didn't see that while I was playing XC2. I saw children trying to approach or address issues they simply did not have the wherewithal to understand.

psychowave said:

That thread about fat people in gaming... isn't it funny how many people think depicting fat characters in a positive light is a bad idea because it could encourage unhealthy habits, yet the same people will turn around and claim that representation of female characters in video games doesn't affect the "real world"?

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Wait...what? People are really doing that? *Groan*

Choppasmith said:

The frustrating thing about Dragon's Crown for me is that the proportions are so exaggerated, it's disgusting,I'd totally be more open to play something that looked like Boris Vallejo's art. Otherwise I agree with the other posts above me.



Haven't seen this thread yet, but yeah Holy Hypocrisy Batman! It's like the whole Mobius character design change all over again.

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Hypocrisy is the name of the game here. Another example is cosplayers like I mentioned earlier. So many are quick to go "What if someone dresses like this, are you slutshaming them?" then will abandoned the same women when the talk about being constantly harassed because of their body.

ReaperXL7 said:

I guess this is as good as any a place to ask even though it's not directly about gaming depiction of women specifically.

I've always wondered if the art style of Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell is considered to be sexist or misogynistic? I'm asking because I've always been a big fan of this type of fantasy art and settings, the somewhat gritty sword and sandals style fantasy. There aren't very many games out there that really evoke this artsyle, the most recent one I can think of is Dragons Crown which I know many look down on because of the female art.

Stuff like this

In this situation I've seen many say that stuff like this is still considered to be misogynistic because the dude isn't designed to be sexy to women even if some would find the male character attractive, but this is a topic that I'm still attempting to educate myself on in a way that I can understand so some of the nuances are lost on me at times.

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Well, at first glance there's cohesive aesthetic that is applied to all the characters in the picture, as opposed to the man being in full plate armor and the woman wearing lingerie. It is clearly communicated by the art that this is a low-technology fictional world where you totally go to battle in your underwear, and accordingly both characters are dressed ridiculously. I guess her outfit is dumber in that it would immediately fall off in the context of any physical activity, whereas his would not, and his outfit is "rugged" whereas hers is "fancy". But at least she's not wearing heels!

The man's pose emphasizes his broad chest, and, I guess, crotch, while the woman's is emphasizing her boobs and butt. That's a bit silly, but her anatomy isn't being ridiculously distorted in order to do so the way you see in some comic book covers, and her positioning makes sense with what is going on in the rest of the picture. And while the woman isn't as swole as the man, she still looks powerful and muscular. Look at dem thighs!

But sexism/objectification isn't really about the properties of any single picture; it's more about how people are represented across an entire body of work. In this picture the man's underwear looks rugged and battle-ready, whereas the woman's is fancier and less battle-appropriate. That doesn't bother me in the context of this individual picture; maybe it's because this woman is from a different social class than the man! But if this is how every woman is dressed across all of this artist's pictures, well then I'd criticize the body of work for echoing cultural assumptions that women should always look "fancy" and never "rugged".

In short, it's complicated. Instead of asking "is this picture sexist", I find it more helpful to start by asking, "what choices did the artist make about how to portray men versus women, and why?"

Zipzo said:

*shrug

I will continue to buy games with character designs I like, and that's really all there is to it.

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You not caring does not mean there isn't a problem.

esserius said:

I'm criticizing it for picking a theme that's extremely complicated in the real world and exploring it in a juvenile fashion, while only at points touching on the larger underlying problems inherent in such an imbalanced power structure. You're right, it's not about the character designs specifically, but they certainly undermine a lot of character agency (and creative goals). I don't think my intent was to argue about the problems of who does the "owning" in the relationship, but of the concept of ownership of sentient life more generally. And these characters are objectified in their designs, and then objectified again by the plot of the game by making them tools to be used.

I'll just say this - there are a lot of good ways to move your characters forward, and a lot of bad ones. And if you choose a bad one, you're probably going to need to do it with an extraordinary amount of care. And I didn't see that while I was playing XC2. I saw children trying to approach or address issues they simply did not have the wherewithal to understand.

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I mean to be fair, it's half that and half having two different directors with two wildly different visions. Like, the director for Chapter 4 (otherwise known as the Nopon Maid Otaku chapter) was developed by someone different than the one doing chapter 10 and it shows. It's also weird creative decisions like having a bunch of guest artists when a game such as this needed a set art style of it wanted to sell its main point instead of now pandering against it. Gah, there is actually a good lesson here and a decent story but its buried under such rubbish!

esserius said:

I'm criticizing it for picking a theme that's extremely complicated in the real world and exploring it in a juvenile fashion, while only at points touching on the larger underlying problems inherent in such an imbalanced power structure. You're right, it's not about the character designs specifically, but they certainly undermine a lot of character agency (and creative goals). I don't think my intent was to argue about the problems of who does the "owning" in the relationship, but of the concept of ownership of sentient life more generally. And these characters are objectified in their designs, and then objectified again by the plot of the game by making them tools to be used.

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So yeah its not about character desigms which is the main point. Whether we agree about whether the game was good at its depictions or not is more for a discussion thread. (Personally it was hit or miss for me but by the end of the game you're suppose to be left with a genuine understanding that humans are flawed so shrug)

I'll just say this - there are a lot of good ways to move your characters forward, and a lot of bad ones. And if you choose a bad one, you're probably going to need to do it with an extraordinary amount of care. And I didn't see that while I was playing XC2. I saw children trying to approach or address issues they simply did not have the wherewithal to understand.

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I don't feel like there was anything particularly egregious (plot wise) in this game personally. A lot of the game is about companionship and the game highlights the divide between these are our friends, these are weapons, these are sentient beings deserving of respect and the blades themselves have free will. A lot of the driver blade relationship exists to allow these characters to be close by design.

I personally enjoyed it. We got something that was self aware which is already a plus for me. I suggest you finish the game though. I dont really wamma derail more about this topic since it isnt design related.

Xaszatm said:

I mean to be fair, it's half that and half having two different directors with two wildly different visions. Like, the director for Chapter 4 (otherwise known as the Nopon Maid Otaku chapter) was developed by someone different than the one doing chapter 10 and it shows. It's also weird creative decisions like having a bunch of guest artists when a game such as this needed a set art style of it wanted to sell its main point instead of now pandering against it. Gah, there is actually a good lesson here and a decent story but its buried under such rubbish!

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I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if there was, and I'm sure at some point I'll go digging for it, but my initial impression just made it really difficult for me to keep going after a while. I tend to play the game in starts and stops now, though much like a Transformers movie I feel like I erase a good portion of it from my mind before approaching it again (maybe because I have a hard time approaching it again otherwise).

Gotdatmoney said:

I personally enjoyed it. We got something that was self aware which is already a plus for me. I suggest you finish the game though. I dont really wamma derail more about this topic since it isnt design related.

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I really, really don't think the game is terribly self aware, and that's one of its major flaws. Or rather, that the game undermines its own self-awareness by also being incredibly dense in very specific ways.

Kentsui said:

Regarding fan-art, and mods while I talk about them, the thing is that even if you find them extremely weird or offensive, they don't really take away from your own personal experience with the game as, for instance a questionable decision by an artist or dev working on the game would.
As far as I'm concerned those are both categories of content around games (and other media at large) where I don't necessary take offense when I see things I find disturbing.

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I guess I just don't understand the necessity to sexualize Darkest Dungeon of all things. It's a game about crawling around in dirty caves and fighting Lovecraftian abominations in the dark. Like... do people need their sexy so much that they can't play a game like goddamn Darkest Dungeon without adding tits to it? Do they really need to be horny 24/7? Idk, the oversexualization of everything just weirds me out. It's like taking Amnesia and replacing the monsters with anime waifus, which I'm sure is also a thing that exists.

Kentsui said:

Have fun it's a great game !

Funny enough with the news of the Switch release I considered starting a new playthrough and because I saw something weird in a .gif about the game I checked mods for it, and yeah speaking of the Grave Robber... someone had to ruin it ... >_>.

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I just started playing this again and was admiring the design last night. "Look! The female characters aren't scantily clad and they're portrayed on basically the same level as the male characters, even though there are some classes that follow relatively ancient ideas about women's proper roles, RE: healers. Amazing!" So... you know, holy cow are those "sexy" fan edits bad. Grave Robbers must look sexually appealing in an obvious way when they're, you know, robbing graves and driving pick axes into the eye sockets of undead warriors. Hahaha.

esserius said:

I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if there was, and I'm sure at some point I'll go digging for it, but my initial impression just made it really difficult for me to keep going after a while. I tend to play the game in starts and stops now, though much like a Transformers movie I feel like I erase a good portion of it from my mind before approaching it again (maybe because I have a hard time approaching it again otherwise).

I really, really don't think the game is terribly self aware, and that's one of its major flaws.

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Oh no I completely understand that. One should not have to dig around the boring stuff or stuff that honestly is very offensive just to get to any interesting point. I like nearly threw my switch out of utter "wtf is wrong with this game!?!" like three times so people stopping long before the game finally gets to its point is probably the sane choice all things considered.

ThankDougie said:

BOOM.

Absolutely.

It's also funny how many people equate fat with an unhealthy lifestyle. There is a whole lot of misinformation out there about body types, the way different sexes grow and age with respect to body fat and musculature, and the way culture affects our perception of what is healthy, attractive, and normal. Not only are they holding fast a double standard, they're cleaving to a flexible, entirely amorphous ideal and acting as if "health" were a valid cornerstone for building that ideal up.

I know it's a complicated and flawed book, but I wish more people would read something like The Beauty Myth to get an idea of just how much influence capital, culture, and time have changed our perception of what counts as healthy, beautiful, and worthwhile. It might help loosen up some too rigid conceptions. If anyone has reading suggestions along that line, I'd personally appreciate it. I'm reading that book now, so this conversations feels especially timely, but I'm not always impressed or satisfied by Wolf's approach to the subject matter.

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I think that it's pushback against the extreme parts of the Fat Acceptance Movement, the people who argue that being overweight/obese is the proper build. However, it's an awful lot of pushback and an awful lot of vitriol against a fringe group that isn't even represented in that thread.

psychowave said:

I guess I just don't understand the necessity to sexualize Darkest Dungeon of all things. It's a game about crawling around in dirty caves and fighting Lovecraftian abominations in the dark. Like... do people need their sexy so much that they can't play a game like goddamn Darkest Dungeon without adding tits to it? Do they really need to be horny 24/7? Idk, the oversexualization of everything just weirds me out. It's like taking Amnesia and replacing the monsters with anime waifus, which I'm sure is also a thing that exists.

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It looks like you haven't explored the depths of Darkest Dungeon mods. There are ones out there that add new classes, and surprise, surprise, they have a tendency of being scantily-clad waifus. It gets really bad.

ReaperXL7 said:

I guess this is as good as any a place to ask even though it's not directly about gaming depiction of women specifically.

I've always wondered if the art style of Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell is considered to be sexist or misogynistic? I'm asking because I've always been a big fan of this type of fantasy art and settings, the somewhat gritty sword and sandals style fantasy. There aren't very many games out there that really evoke this artsyle, the most recent one I can think of is Dragons Crown which I know many look down on because of the female art.

Stuff like this

In this situation I've seen many say that stuff like this is still considered to be misogynistic because the dude isn't designed to be sexy to women even if some would find the male character attractive, but this is a topic that I'm still attempting to educate myself on in a way that I can understand so some of the nuances are lost on me at times.

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Speaking personally, that specific image bothers me less than usual, 'cause the woman actually looks muscular. Well, maybe not muscular, but definitely fit. Though it's hard to tell 'cause she's got that typical "show the boobs and ass at the same time" pose.

It's mostly her clothes that make it a problem, though. Like why is her entire side visible. Why not give her a complete loincloth like the dude. Why the side boob.

So, yeah, it's got problems. But, as I said, personally, it bothers me less than usual.

esserius said:

I really, really don't think the game is terribly self aware, and that's one of its major flaws. Or rather, that the game undermines its own self-awareness by also being incredibly dense in very specific ways.

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You'd have to be specify examples. I personally found that the game knows when its being clown and knows when it needs to be more serious. But I mean you havent finished it so I already have to take certain aspects of our story interpretation with a grain of salt here.

I haven't finished Xeno2 yet but I'm pretty far now and yeah, the slave master treatment is, so far, kinda weird. It's not the case for Pyra and Rex, as the relationship for Aegis is unique compared to regular Blades, but Rex and Pyra are so bland it's hard to say much about their dynamic together. Rex is generic hero boy who wants to protect his friends, especially Pyra. Pyra is the shy, polite, innocent space stripper who goes along with it. Mythra at least has a few teeth. As for the rest of the Blades, only the villain crew seems upset about their lot in life as you don't really see their concerns reflected in other Blades ( though I'm sure there might be stuff buried in a side quest). The messaging is kinda weak so far: "blades as slaves is a bad thing, but most Blades seem fine with it."

Gotdatmoney said:

You'd have to be specify examples. I personally found that the game knows when its being clown and knows when it needs to be more serious. But I mean you havent finished it so I already have to take certain aspects of our story interpretation with a grain of salt here.

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Yeah, and I'd probably have to look for them in a game I already don't enjoy all that much. I'll get back about it when/if I do finish. I just remember the side-quests and Nopon being more frustrating than the main quest was, typically (the main quest also benefits from Morag though).

4Tran said:

It looks like you haven't explored the depths of Darkest Dungeon mods. There are ones out there that add new classes, and surprise, surprise, they have a tendency of being scantily-clad waifus. It gets really bad.

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B-but it's Darkest Dungeon. Darkest Dungeon. Why does anyone need Darkest Dungeon to be sexy oh my god

esserius said:

Yeah, and I'd probably have to look for them in a game I already don't enjoy all that much. I'll get back about it when/if I do finish. I just remember the side-quests and Nopon being more frustrating than the main quest was, typically (the main quest also benefits from Morag though).

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You gotta wade through a lot of bullshit to get to the good on the game so I dont blame you frankly.

4Tran said:

I think that it's pushback against the extreme parts of the Fat Acceptance Movement, the people who argue that being overweight/obese is the proper build. However, it's an awful lot of pushback and an awful lot of vitriol against a fringe group that isn't even represented in that thread.

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I feel like that's a generous interpretation of what's going on, but I don't have anything to back it up other than the fleeting posts people leave in the thread. Most of them make no distinction between FAM (never actually heard of that until now) and people who might just have extra fat on them, or a thyroid problem, or whatever else counts as damnable and overweight (and therefore ugly, or diseased, or out of proportion or whatever the negative standard is).

DragonKeeper said:

I haven't finished Xeno2 yet but I'm pretty far now and yeah, the slave master treatment is, so far, kinda weird. It's not the case for Pyra and Rex, as the relationship for Aegis is unique compared to regular Blades, but Rex and Pyra are so bland it's hard to say much about their dynamic together. Rex is generic hero boy who wants to protect his friends, especially Pyra. Pyra is the shy, polite, innocent space stripper who goes along with it. Mythra at least has a few teeth. As for the rest of the Blades, only the villain crew seems upset about their lot in life as you don't really see their concerns reflected in other Blades ( though I'm sure there might be stuff buried in a side quest). The messaging is kinda weak so far: "blades as slaves is a bad thing, but most Blades seem fine with it."

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It's like it's too afraid to tackle any of the genuine questions/concepts it could have tackled because it doesn't want to alienate the otaku crowd. That might well be one of my biggest issues with the game overall: it's sheer cowardice.

psychowave said:

I guess I just don't understand the necessity to sexualize Darkest Dungeon of all things. It's a game about crawling around in dirty caves and fighting Lovecraftian abominations in the dark. Like... do people need their sexy so much that they can't play a game like goddamn Darkest Dungeon without adding tits to it? Do they really need to be horny 24/7? Idk, the oversexualization of everything just weirds me out. It's like taking Amnesia and replacing the monsters with anime waifus, which I'm sure is also a thing that exists.

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I won't tell you that I have an answer but I feel like 'being horny 24/7?' might be selling it a bit short.
People have a wide range of attitudes towards sexuality and everything surrounding it, whole different topic, whole other can of worms.

But in short Lovecraft -> Chtulhu -> Tentacles

psychowave said:

B-but it's Darkest Dungeon. Darkest Dungeon. Why does anyone need Darkest Dungeon to be sexy oh my god

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Its like the people who make the Berserk doujins. They really don't need to exist but you can't stop them.

psychowave said:

B-but it's Darkest Dungeon. Darkest Dungeon. Why does anyone need Darkest Dungeon to be sexy oh my god

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It happens to anything that manages to be popular. I'd bet you'd even see sexed up version of the Silent if Slay the Spire gets to that level. And the Silent isn't even a character - she has no face, no interactions, and you can't see her body.

ThankDougie said:

I feel like that's a generous interpretation of what's going on, but I don't have anything to back it up other than the fleeting posts people leave in the thread. Most of them make no distinction between FAM (never actually heard of that until now) and people who might just have extra fat on them, or a thyroid problem, or whatever else counts as damnable and overweight (and therefore ugly, or diseased, or out of proportion or whatever the negative standard is).

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I feel that it's much like Lindsay Ellis' apology to Stephenie Meyer video that was posted earlier. The original criticism isn't entirely unfounded, but it gets to extreme levels and for no particularly good reason.

Kentsui said:

I always forget that the plague doctor is supposed to be a woman until someone brings it up, which definitely proves that in the end it doesn't really matter.

Regarding fan-art, and mods while I talk about them, the thing is that even if you find them extremely weird or offensive, they don't really take away from your own personal experience with the game as, for instance a questionable decision by an artist or dev working on the game would.
As far as I'm concerned those are both categories of content around games (and other media at large) where I don't necessary take offense when I see things I find disturbing.

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It doesn't take away from my enjoyment of the game, DD is brilliant. But it's just so out of place you wonder why it was even considered. Is plague doctor upskirt some fetish I'm unaware of, or is everything inevitably sexualised just because?

I've literally never wondered about the gender/sex of the Plague Doctor. I'm similarly perplexed by the need to know or establish this, though at the same time I appreciate the female Crusader that someone up-thread posted. It's nice to chip away at assumptions (Crusaders were mostly men, therefore this Crusader is a man too - nope!), but it's also nice to exist in a space where the human behind the mask could be any human and it wouldn't matter... because they're human.

ThankDougie said:

I've literally never wondered about the gender/sex of the Plague Doctor. I'm similarly perplexed by the need to know or establish this, though at the same time I appreciate the female Crusader that someone up-thread posted. It's nice to chip away at assumptions (Crusaders were mostly men, therefore this Crusader is a man too - nope!), but it's also nice to exist in a space where the human behind the mask could be any human and it wouldn't matter... because they're human.

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Damn right

A hoonter must hoont!

psychowave said:

That thread about fat people in gaming... isn't it funny how many people think depicting fat characters in a positive light is a bad idea because it could encourage unhealthy habits, yet the same people will turn around and claim that representation of female characters in video games doesn't affect the "real world"?

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I touched on this hypocrisy in that thread, it's kinda relevant here so I hope no one minds me quoting myself:

I don't think anyone is objecting to positive healthy examples of body image, games protagonists are overwhelmingly athletic/thin. It's more that, when fat characters do appear, it's also associated with being lazy, greedy, morally weak and disgusting (and occasionally highly explosive too). You can have the former without needing the latter to make people who are overweight feel like shit, mainly by treating them like normal people rather than monsters. They don't have to be pole-vaulters to not be a weirdo. I'd also argue that girls being ridiculously thin and with little muscle tone considering the armour and weapons they drag around is also a common thing, but doesn't get associated with its own health issues or have a load of people on the internet queue up to get their digs in as a girl with arms like pipe cleaners swings a sword the size of a lamp post due to beauty standards.

Either we can base character depiction on realistic approaches to health and body image, which actually fits both our 'good examples for young people' and 'lets not demonise people' arguments, or we can base them on attraction and disgust, which is what we have now. Using 'healthy body image' as an example to demonise fat characters would mean addressing the way young women are depicted too, but I think a fair few players really don't want to get into that as opposed to just laying into the fat people.

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ThankDougie said:

I've literally never wondered about the gender/sex of the Plague Doctor. I'm similarly perplexed by the need to know or establish this, though at the same time I appreciate the female Crusader that someone up-thread posted. It's nice to chip away at assumptions (Crusaders were mostly men, therefore this Crusader is a man too - nope!), but it's also nice to exist in a space where the human behind the mask could be any human and it wouldn't matter... because they're human.

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Somewhat related I was looking up some stuff on Samurai Shodown a few days ago, and never realized Yumeji from SS V and VI is officially genderless

SNK Wiki said:

Yumeji is unique to the roster due to having no definite canon gender; the developers to the game, Yuki Enterprise, entreated players to "believe whatever you believe Yumeji to be". To add to the confusion, Yumeji speaks in gender neutral Japanese in both official story and in-game text, and Yumeji's voice actor is known for voicing both genders. Due to the openness of the statement, players still argue over Yumeji's gender to this day.

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I still say going that route with Link in a Zelda game would be a good call.

Just to go back to Xenoblade 2 briefly (amongst others), aside from the various problems with '1,000 year old child/adolescent entering relationship with actual adolescent/adult', one of the other things that's always bothered me about it is that it's just a way of keeping the cast very young. It affords characters the ability to jump between adult experience/knowledge, childlike wonder and adolescent 'first love is strongest' traits as the plot demands, rather than actually allowing some older characters. The minute a character acts like a child that has never seen the ocean before one minute, a retired anthropologist the next and a lovesick teenager ten minutes later, it just becomes obvious that everything is manipulated to keep the party skillset within a narrow age band, so that any experience actually gained by aging or by decades of hard work is disregarded in favour of just waking up with arcane/ancient knowledge instead. This seems to affect female characters more than male as they seem more likely to get hit by the 'ancient race in a cryochamber' plot device (there's got to be a gag about fridging in there somewhere) than the'teenager from rural village' one.

Choppasmith I love characters like that. One of the two in my avatar, Uesugi Kenshin from Sengoku BASARA, is like that too. Gender neutral pronouns, voice actress known for voicing men and women, the creators never gendering them (though the English release does make him a man, likely because the historical figure Kenshin is based on is academically understood to have been a man).

Leo from Tekken is much the same.... Including that the English release made them a boy, lol.

There are other examples as well. I see no reason Link can't be done like that. No need to choose a gender in game. Just never give one, leave it to the audience.

4Tran said:

There's nothing wrong with a kind female love interest. But it gets problematic when she's virginal and shy, yet she still dresses to show off her sexual availability at all times.

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She's not really that shy though. And despite how she dresses she's not actually sexually available to anyone.

My biggest problem with XC2 other than the designs was the handling of Nia.

Oddish1 said:

Well, it's how it's executed as well. And I'm also not sure what character archetype you think Pyra fits into? I don't think kind, female love interest is particularly problematic even if it is common.

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The incredibly meek and innocent ancient all-powerful being who is hyper-sexualised, is known for her cooking and acts like a 14 year old at her first school dance when it comes to the player character.

psychowave said:

I guess I just don't understand the necessity to sexualize Darkest Dungeon of all things. It's a game about crawling around in dirty caves and fighting Lovecraftian abominations in the dark. Like... do people need their sexy so much that they can't play a game like goddamn Darkest Dungeon without adding tits to it? Do they really need to be horny 24/7? Idk, the oversexualization of everything just weirds me out. It's like taking Amnesia and replacing the monsters with anime waifus, which I'm sure is also a thing that exists.

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Some people feel the need to sexualize nearly everything. And considering all of the rampant oversexualization in games, anime, etc. it really isn't all that surprising that it happens. This sort of thing is fostered and encouraged by the gaming community as a whole, especially the modding community.

It's funny how the two characters with designs that people initially don't mind in X2 end up looking as bad as Pyra.

Dmax3901 said:

The incredibly meek and innocent ancient all-powerful being who is hyper-sexualised, is known for her cooking and acts like a 14 year old at her first school dance when it comes to the player character.

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See also Skies of Arcadia and Wild ARMs 5, both of which used the exact same setup. I'm sure there are others...

Dmax3901 said:

My biggest problem with XC2 other than the designs was the handling of Nia.

Spoiler: Late Game Spoilers

With very little build up she turns into a sexy moth in a leotard, professes her love for Rex, get's friend-zoned pretty hard, laughs it off and then becomes usable as a blade. Literal objectification. Completely our of nowhere they turn an interesting, albeit tropey, female character into a weapon who OF COURSE loves the protagonist. And this development is thrown out immediately after and pretty much never comes up again.

The incredibly meek and innocent ancient all-powerful being who is hyper-sexualised, is known for her cooking and acts like a 14 year old at her first school dance when it comes to the player character.

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Regarding your spoiler that's not objectification. Nia is always meant to be seen as a person and not an object.

And I don't think that's an actual archetype.

Oddish1 said:

And I don't think that's an actual archetype.

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It's definitely a character type in JRPGs.

And regardless of objectification or not, they definitely turned Nia into a different character in terms of perception with her second design. Just like with Poppi.

Oh god, they got to Nia too?

SieteBlanco said:

It's definitely a character type in JRPGs.

And regardless of objectification or not, they definitely turned Nia into a different character in terms of perception with her second design. Just like with Poppi.

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Well, Nia was pretty consistent character wise to me. I guess agree to disagree.

Lotus said:

Oh god, they got to Nia too?

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I don't think either is any better than Pyra.

Oddish1 said:

Well, Nia was pretty consistent character wise to me. I guess agree to disagree.

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I don't mean her personality.

That's upsetting as fuck. Also that's the first time I'm seeing Poppi's final form.

Oddish1 said:

Regarding your spoiler that's not objectification. Nia is always meant to be seen as a person and not an object.

And I don't think that's an actual archetype.

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I was making a joke about the nature of blades being weapons/objects, but my point still stands even when considering the sexualised kind of objectification.

She goes from this:

to this:

It's worth mentioning that neither she nor Rex really comments on how much she changes in appearance and how weird it is.

Dmax3901 said:

My biggest problem with XC2 other than the designs was the handling of Nia.

Spoiler: Late Game Spoilers

With very little build up she turns into a sexy moth in a leotard, professes her love for Rex, get's friend-zoned pretty hard, laughs it off and then becomes usable as a blade. Literal objectification. Completely our of nowhere they turn an interesting, albeit tropey, female character into a weapon who OF COURSE loves the protagonist. And this development is thrown out immediately after and pretty much never comes up again.

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I haven't played the game yet, but isn't Nia explicitly 14? I recall people stating that before.

Also that fat representation thread is uh, not great.

Salty Rice said:

Spoiler

Totally disagree. There was build up through out the game and it made sense in that moment since she is now "free". Also in japanese her confession is more vague.

Also why would they comment on the new outfit? If anything that would lead to objectification.

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Got any examples of said build up?

Them not commenting on it just reinforces the fact that it's purely for the player, and makes no sense within the world the writers have created. If any of the characters were like yo Pyra do you want like a pair of slacks or something? it would force the writers to address the fact that what she's wearing makes no sense.

Salty Rice said:

Also why would they comment on the new outfit? If anything that would lead to objectification.

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What? It's actually most common in anime and games these days that nobody really pays attention to the heroines' skimpy attires.

Oddish1 said:

She's not really that shy though. And despite how she dresses she's not actually sexually available to anyone.

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Whether Pyra is actually available isn't really the point; her outfit is telling the world that she is. If there is any dichotomy of what her character is and what her costume communicates, then that's exactly why she's a prime example for the purposes of this thread.

CannonFodder52 said:

I haven't played the game yet, but isn't Nia explicitly 14? I recall people stating that before.

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At this point, in order for nerds to consider a female character sexually attractive, she has to be no older 14.
It's almost always 14, too. It's the magic anime pedo number or something.

CannonFodder52 said:

I haven't played the game yet, but isn't Nia explicitly 14? I recall people stating that before.

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Nope. She's probably floating around 18 or so. Rex is around 16. Nothing explicity stated about their ages though. A lot just has to be inferred.

Also that fat representation thread is uh, not great.

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Dumpster fire. So crappy.