Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)

Andrew J · May 10, 2018

caliph95 said:
I'm playing Tales of Berseria and while I enjoy it Velvet outfit makes no sense

I love how people keep pointing out how ridiculous her outfit is because how cold it is and is justified that she doesn't feel cold and she is broken and she scrounged from a dungeon

Yeah, that "haphazard rags" argument stops holding up once you realize how the outfit artfully frames her underboobs.

Dmax3901 · May 10, 2018

cosmicblizzard said:
That's certainly part of why I'm holding off until it's cheaper, or rather it contributing to the overall tone being a far cry from the original trilogy. Over the top hypermasculinity is exactly what I want out of GoW starring an unapologetic asshole that will kill innocent people to solve puzzles. It's just ridiculous fun that's impossible to take seriously and I've grown fond of it over the last decade. Like for me, it worked extremely well as a parody of "look at me, I'm a brooding MANLY man!" narratives. The ridiculous nature of sex mini-games in something like that certainly contributed, though it's nowhere near the most missed aspect of the (imo) snoozefest that is new GoW.

I think calling the old God of War a parody is generous, and calling the new one a snooze fest is incomprehensible, but opinions and all that.

Syril · May 10, 2018

Dary said:
Yeah, but it's "iconic", y'know? Main characters have to wear completely unique clothing to make them stand out!

...it's Saturday Morning Cartoon mentality, isn't it? They've got to design them like that because it's meant to sell merchandise, or something.

Yeah it really bugs me. A lot of character designers seem to think that main characters can only stand out by looking completely distinct from every other character in the history of creation, but they really just need to look distinct from the other characters within their own world. Velvet already has three very visually distinctive characteristics in her gigantic hair, shredded cape, and bandaged arm. She doesn't need to have the most ridiculous design everywhere else to stand out from the other characters.

esserius · May 10, 2018

Syril said:
Yeah it really bugs me. A lot of character designers seem to think that main characters can only stand out by looking completely distinct from every other character in the history of creation, but they really just need to look distinct from the other characters within their own world. Velvet already has three very visually distinctive characteristics in her gigantic hair, shredded cape, and bandaged arm. She doesn't need to have the most ridiculous design everywhere else to stand out from the other characters.

Yeah, the fact that the rest of her outfit is so ridiculous actually makes the bandaged arm stand out less, even though it's a huge part of her character.

Once again, just another instance of sexist design getting in the way of characterization.

Dary · May 10, 2018

Syril said:
Yeah it really bugs me. A lot of character designers seem to think that main characters can only stand out by looking completely distinct from every other character in the history of creation, but they really just need to look distinct from the other characters within their own world. Velvet already has three very visually distinctive characteristics in her gigantic hair, shredded cape, and bandaged arm. She doesn't need to have the most ridiculous design everywhere else to stand out from the other characters.

How "unique"/"distinct" do they need to be really, though? You rarely see this sort of design approach in live-action shows, and when you do, well...

Morrigan · May 10, 2018

cosmicblizzard said:
That's certainly part of why I'm holding off until it's cheaper [...] nowhere near the most missed aspect of the (imo) snoozefest that is new GoW.

A snoozefest that you haven't played? thinkingemoji.gif

cosmicblizzard · May 10, 2018

Morrigan said:
A snoozefest that you haven't played? thinkingemoji.gif

Hey, I'd be more than happy to be proven wrong and end up pleasantly surprised. One of my favorite recent series started with me being skeptical about it and new GoW could very well fall into that category. It's just that everything I've seen screams "this game wasn't made for you" to me, and not just due to tone but what I want out of a character action game in general. I'd like to try it and would have by now if there was a demo, but since there's not, it's gonna have to wait. I'm no longer at a point in my life where I can justify dropping full price on a game that has a high probality of not appealing to me.

Morrigan · May 10, 2018

cosmicblizzard said:
Hey, I'd be more than happy to be proven wrong and end up pleasantly surprised. One of my favorite recent series started with me being skeptical about it and new GoW could very well fall into that category. It's just that everything I've seen screams "this game wasn't made for you" to me, and not just due to tone but what I want out of a character action game in general. I'd like to try it and would have by now if there was a demo, but since there's not, it's gonna have to wait. I'm no longer at a point in my life where I can justify dropping full price on a game that has a high probality of not appealing to me.

But that's not what you said. "I'm not interested in this game at full-price because it doesn't look like it appeals to me" is fine. Calling a game you haven't played a "snoozefest" is quite another. t be shocked if people dismiss your

cosmicblizzard · May 10, 2018

Morrigan said:
But that's not what you said. "I'm not interested in this game at full-price because it doesn't look like it appeals to me" is fine. Calling a game you haven't played a "snoozefest" is quite another. t be shocked if people dismiss your

That's why I put an "imo" there. It wasn't an absolutist statement about how people should feel about it or even how it plays.

I didn't think what I said was that ambiguous, but if it was, I'll rephrase it to exactly what I meant: God of War (2018) looks boring to me compared to the original God of War trilogy. That's really all I was saying and I apologize if it wasn't clear.

Morrigan · May 10, 2018

cosmicblizzard said:
That's why I put an "imo" there.

Hmm, OK. So long as you understand that we know exactly how much value we should put into this opinion.

cosmicblizzard · May 10, 2018

Morrigan said:
Hmm, OK. So long as you understand that we know exactly how much value we should put into this opinion.

I wasn't expecting anyone to put any more value into my opinion than they wanted to. I was just answering Dmax's post and explaining my reasoning behind my stance. Was never meant to be more complicated than that.

Antiwhippy · May 10, 2018

That's actually one of the things I was curious about when I was reading feminist critique of the new gow. The have died reckon with Kratos violence past, but chooses to entirely ignore the sexual violence and misogyny in the previous games. Do they get to give him a redemptive arc but ignore those parts of his history?

ClickyCal' · May 10, 2018

Antiwhippy said:
That's actually one of the things I was curious about when I was reading feminist critique of the new gow. The have died reckon with Kratos violence past, but chooses to entirely ignore the sexual violence and misogyny in the previous games. Do they get to give him a redemptive arc but ignore those parts of his history?

I'd say they kind of do

Kratos in multiple parts of the game praises Faye and even says she was better than a God. She also ends up giving a lot of credit to freya.

Antiwhippy · May 10, 2018

That's not the same as

having hel sequences where he was confronted by his past murdering Zeus or him being afraid of atreus learning of his violent past, and in turn becoming more like him.

Opa-Pa · May 10, 2018

Dmax3901 said:
I remember something that came up in the XC2 discussion: say in another timeline Pyra was designed in a completely reasonable way, not sexualised at all. Would the people that defend her sexualisation so adamantly in this timeline even notice? Would they not buy the game due to the lack of boob?

Like are there people out there not playing the new God of War cause there's no QTE sex scenes?

I know it sounds crazy and I couldn't believe it myself at first, but I remember people back in the old place (and maybe even here, I don't remember clearly) stating in GoW threads that they weren't interested in the new game because it was dropping those QTEs... Completely unironically too, no kidding.

Ironically the reason I'm not into the new GoW is that it's a continuation of games that featured those!

A.J. · May 10, 2018

Dary said:
The question I'd like to ask about this alternative reality, however, is would better designs have affected the overall sales figures? Would a more...mature aesthetic hurt the sales figures, or improve them? Is there a peak weeb audience, a figure a game can't sell beyond until it stops being so "anime"? And is it better to cater to that loyal, but narrow audience, or try to reach beyond it?

That depends. The controversy from the designs definitely seemed signal boost it and got people talking about it on multiple levels. That and I believe an anime aesthetic automatically turns people off due to expectations of bad designs whether they actually have bad designs or not.

Deleted member 35077 · May 10, 2018

Dmax3901 said:
I remember something that came up in the XC2 discussion: say in another timeline Pyra was designed in a completely reasonable way, not sexualised at all. Would the people that defend her sexualisation so adamantly in this timeline even notice? Would they not buy the game due to the lack of boob?

Like are there people out there not playing the new God of War cause there's no QTE sex scenes?

Otaku really hate change, especially if it is done in features that was heavily promoted before hand. Series can live and survive without fanservice designs, and a recent example of this is the winter cour of anime where the two biggest shows, "Yuru Camp" and "A Place Further than the Universe", had little to no fanservice. A harder sell in Japan would be for a game to release with no cute characters.

Dmax3901 · May 10, 2018

Antiwhippy said:
That's actually one of the things I was curious about when I was reading feminist critique of the new gow. The have died reckon with Kratos violence past, but chooses to entirely ignore the sexual violence and misogyny in the previous games. Do they get to give him a redemptive arc but ignore those parts of his history?

Kratos' bond with the mother of his son is truly touching throughout the game, so there's that.

But in terms of his past, it never explicitly states *this is the one thing Kratos is ashamed of more than anything else* and rather points to everything that happened prior to him leaving Greece. So, in my head canon at least, the treatment of women and juvenile sex scenes are included in what Kratos refuses to address with his son.

I also kinda saw Kratos' whole struggle as a parallel for Santa Monica growing as artists and regarding parts of their earlier work with shame.

pauloshinobi · May 10, 2018

IMO Inomata didnt even intended on making Velvet "sexy", but edgy and savage.

That said, it is indeed a pretty dumb design regardless of the intention. What are the chances of finding remains of skimpy outfit instead of...I don't know...plain fabric clothes lying around, or a dirty blanket or something like that.

Well, gotta boot up that suspension of disbelief to abide to the rule of cool i guess

Antiwhippy · May 10, 2018

Dmax3901 said:
But in terms of his past, it never explicitly states *this is the one thing Kratos is ashamed of more than anything else* and rather points to everything that happened prior to him leaving Greece. So, in my head canon at least, the treatment of women and juvenile sex scenes are included in what Kratos refuses to address with his son.

Uh, they do get in detail though.

Kratos killing Zeus was explicitly shown, and the middle conflict between atreus and Kratos were explicitly about atreus using unwarranted violence.

Dmax3901 · May 10, 2018

Antiwhippy said:
Uh, they do get in detail though.

Kratos killing Zeus was explicitly shown, and the middle conflict between atreus and Kratos were explicitly about atreus using unwarranted violence.

Sure, but my read on that was while it was the most relevant aspect of his past - given the central father son relationship - it didn't encompass everything Kratos was ashamed of.

Antiwhippy · May 10, 2018

Which is kinda my point in that they never really reckon that aspect of his last.

Dmax3901 · May 10, 2018

Antiwhippy said:
Which is kinda my point in that they never really reckon that aspect of his last.

Mmm. Wonder if it will be touched upon in later games.

pauloshinobi · May 10, 2018

Does Kratos sexually harass/rape any woman in the series? Legit question, I only played part of the first one and only know about that mini game, where it seems like the sex is with mutual consent...unless I am not recalling this correctly, then apologies.

If it is not the case, if he didn't raped/molested/sexually harassed anyone, why he should repent for other things than...well, slaughtering the entire Greece and being a major asshole?

cosmicblizzard · May 10, 2018

pauloshinobi said:
Does Kratos sexually harass/rape any woman in the series? Legit question, I only played part of the first one and only know about that mini game, where it seems like the sex is with mutual consent...unless I am not recalling this correctly, then apologies.

If it is not the case, if he didn't raped/molested/sexually harassed anyone, why he should repent for other things than...well, slaughtering the entire Greece and being a major asshole?

Unless something in Ascenion happens I'm not aware of, no. Any sex Kratos has is consensual.

caliph95 · May 10, 2018

pauloshinobi said:
Does Kratos sexually harass/rape any woman in the series? Legit question, I only played part of the first one and only know about that mini game, where it seems like the sex is with mutual consent...unless I am not recalling this correctly, then apologies.

If it is not the case, if he didn't raped/molested/sexually harassed anyone, why he should repent for other things than...well, slaughtering the entire Greece and being a major asshole?

Yeah I'm confused by that I only remember the dumb sex mini games and nothing else

There's probably some casual misogyny I forgot but all I remember is the horrible murders he rid and necessary deaths he caused

cosmicblizzard · May 10, 2018

I didn't think being indiscriminate in brutal murdering counted as misogyny. If anything, seems like it would be the opposite. "Men are the more expendable gender" is a trope based on toxic masculinity, so going against that seems like it would be a good thing.

Antiwhippy · May 10, 2018

But that's the thing, it's not about consensuality. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the person Kratos fucks in those sequences are pretty much treated As sexual objects with not much recurring character to them right? It's about a history of testing women as objects that somehow turned into this really sensitive guy who is respectful to the women around him? Without confronting his, and the series in general, past history?

I mean how do you never address this.

NSFW btw.

Dmax3901 · May 10, 2018

Yeah it's less an issue with Kratos as a person, as the sex is consensual, and more to do with the creator thinking a QTE sex scene is a sensible thing to include.

EDIT: At work so can't watch the above, I reserve the right to change my mind!

Opa-Pa · May 10, 2018

Yeah it's more about how the games themselves treat women as literal sex objects. Kratos may not be a horrible rapist, but the fact that there are sex mini games in games that don't even revolve around sex at all on top of all the violence and male rage is just... Ew. Old GoW were the physical representation of toxic masculinity and how the industry panders to young men first and foremost.

caliph95 · May 10, 2018

I feel like that's more of a problem with the games than Kratos besides him being a bloodthirsty shit the sex stuff is attempt for the that edgy ratings and I don't remember him treating women differently especially when he's order around by Gaia and Athena

Kratos is still a piece of shit

Antiwhippy · May 10, 2018

But the thing is the games are about Kratos, if you say that the new game is also more about his the developers look back into their past work too then they need to address them through how they envision the new Kratos. And again, they do confront the past.

A.J. · May 10, 2018

Most of the games have different directors though. Wouldn't Corey only need to address 2 since that was the only other one he worked on?

cosmicblizzard · May 10, 2018

Antiwhippy said:
But that's the thing, it's not about consensuality. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the person Kratos fucks in those sequences are pretty much treated As sexual objects with not much recurring character to them right? It's about a history of testing women as objects that somehow turned into this really sensitive guy who is respectful to the women around him? Without confronting his, and the series in general, past history?

I mean how do you never address this.

NSFW btw.

People have pointed to that scene before and I don't get it. That isn't gendered violence, it's Kratos doing exactly what he would do if she was a man; using her as a means to complete a puzzle. It's no different from him pushing that guy in the box on top of a flaming switch in hell (or whatever it was, it's been a while since I played GOW1). I fail to see the misogyny. It's just Kratos being a prick.

Antiwhippy · May 10, 2018

But it's an overall picture of Kratos treating the women around him as nothing but objects.

A Strong Latte · May 10, 2018

Antiwhippy said:
But that's the thing, it's not about consensuality. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the person Kratos fucks in those sequences are pretty much treated As sexual objects with not much recurring character to them right? It's about a history of testing women as objects that somehow turned into this really sensitive guy who is respectful to the women around him? Without confronting his, and the series in general, past history?

I mean how do you never address this.

NSFW btw.

Yeah, it was purely consensual when he strapped her onto that cog to keep a door open. got a real masculine power fantasy trip when he chained her there with her tity out, just some real feel good touch guy fun and not at all gross sadistic bullshit /sarcasm

how is it gendered? because she tied up there with her tity out. developers chose to kill a woman there, they chose to have her naked and they chose to do it with a vaguely sexual torture method. it's even more ludicrous watching that where the guys beating the monster into bored submission for 30 minutes- couldn't just cram his head in there instead kratos?

caliph95 · May 10, 2018

I think that's a history of Kratos not giving of shit about innocents

He once torched a guy to get his bow instead of just doing what he said politely and freeing him, he's also willing to listen to Athena and Gaia and follow their orders (granted if it's benefits him but I don't think he mentions their gender)

I can't believe I'm defending Kratos

cosmicblizzard · May 10, 2018

Antiwhippy said:
But it's an overall picture of Kratos treating the women around him as nothing but objects.

But he's treating men as objects as well. Literally EVERYTHING in the trilogy is a stepping stone for his revenge. Anyone that's even remotely helpful for him gets killed when he has no more use for them. The guy's a villain protagonist through and through. The women aren't special on that front.

caliph95 · May 10, 2018

To be clear I'm not defending the games direction I just don't think Kratos was supposed to be a misogynist and not just a general asshole

A Strong Latte · May 10, 2018

It doesn't matter about intent, you might not intend to make something racist or sexist, that doesn't mean it isn't. When our society's media keeps showing women as nothing more than objects to be used for man's benefit or tools for sexual satisfaction, restraining a half naked woman up so she can die to keep a door open is disgusting misogyny and takes on a very different meaning to if than it were a man or monster being used to do the same thing.

sexism in gaming is so bad i bet if there was a dog being thrown in there instead there'd probably be more outrage

Opa-Pa · May 10, 2018

Man, those games were so fucking embarrassing. It's still surreal to me that these were smash hits and old Kratos an industry icon less than a decade ago.

A Strong Latte · May 10, 2018

Opa-Pa said:
Man, those games were so fucking embarrassing. It's still surreal to me that these were smash hits and old Kratos an industry icon less than a decade ago.

god of war 3 being this "amazing cinematic showcase" when it had shit like that in made me reconsider my hobbies

caliph95 · May 10, 2018

remz said:
It doesn't matter about intent, you might not intend to make something racist or sexist, that doesn't mean it isn't. When our society's media keeps showing women as nothing more than objects to be used for man's benefit or tools for sexual satisfaction, restraining a woman up so she can die to keep a door open is disgusting misogyny and takes on a different meaning to if it were a man or monster being used to do the same thing.

sexism in gaming is so bad i bet if there was a dog being thrown in there instead there'd probably be more outrage

I don't doubt that

Antiwhippy · May 11, 2018

Chained with her arms up and tits out is also an entirely different framing than kratos jamming a monster into a cog.

It's a very specific imagery.

sensui-tomo · May 11, 2018

its easy to remember what god of war was about

caliph95 · May 11, 2018

I don't think anyone is defending the games objectification of women or treatment just that Kratos probably isn't sexist

caliph95 · May 11, 2018

sensui-tomo said:
its easy to remember what god of war was about

I remember that stupid achievement
It doesn't even make sense in context

atomsk eater · May 11, 2018

I was about to say, does anyone in the original GOW trilogy wear a top? Her tits being out for that entire sequence of being pushed and pulled around and finally chained up and pulled apart was super uncomfortable. If GOW 2018 did away with that, all the better.

caliph95 · May 11, 2018

atomsk eater said:
I was about to say, does anyone in the original GOW trilogy wear a top? Her tits being out for that entire sequence of being pushed and pulled around and finally chained up and pulled apart was super uncomfortable. If GOW 2018 did away with that, all the better.

Besides Athena and I think Hera I think tops are banned in the old trilogy

duckroll · May 11, 2018

caliph95 said:
I don't think anyone is defending the games objectification of women or treatment just that Kratos probably isn't sexist

Kratos is a fictional character. Whether Kratos himself is "sexist" or not is less important than the intent of Kratos' creation and continued design. A sexist character can exist in a game that isn't offensive in itself depending on intent. Kratos doesn't have to be sexist for the games to be problematic if we have clear evidence that there the intent behind his actions as designed in the game are driven by misogynistic mentalities. The achievements and the way the game frames the actions give enough context. Kratos banging chicks is COOL. Kratos sacrificing a naked sex slave to solve a puzzle is BADASS. Etc.

Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)

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