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Sekiro (And Miyazaki games as a whole) deserves props for its female representation
- Thread starter CenturionNami
- Start date
DS3 lore is awesome, people who say it's some schlock hodgepodge of fan service are silly.
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Sister Freide is the anti-Gywn. Whilst Gywn was a King of Flame, Freide is a scion of Darkness. Their both obsessed with keeping their age alive (Gywn the Age of Fire, Freide her painted world's age of darkness) Whilst Gywn decided to Sacrifice himself, Freide does this by tricking Father Ariendel to torture himself with a whip daily to keep flame from entering the Painted World.
All right, sorry. I shouldn't have been so harsh.
Think of "Father" and "Sister" as religious titles. He's basically the head priest of the Corvians's who live in the painting. As their world began to rot he was supposed to set it on fire, so it could be painted over.
Friede is an outsider. She came to the painting after some failure in the real world. She likes the painting and wants to stay, she does not want it to burn, so she talked the Father into keeping the fire at bay.
That's why he's strapped to that chair and requesting that Friede bring her his flail: whenever the flame starts up in his bowl, he whips himself to snuff it out with his own blood. That's how subservient he is to her.
This is what I get for rushing that DLC to get to the Ringed City, holy shit, time for a DS3 replay, thanks everyone, my Friede respect just went up a notch, no wonder she was goddess difficult
Yeah that even though it was super short, the Ashes of Ariendale DLC was packed with interesting lore
Agreed.
It was really awesome encountering lady butterfly only to find out it is an old lady. Before the Sekiro came out I thought it would be some beautiful young lady but instead I was treated to an cool looking old lady with tons of Personality. You also have Bloodborne which has hoonter encounter some cool looking ladies like Eileen or an actually tastefully done sex worker.
From has done an amazing job and I can't wait to see what they do next.
It was really awesome encountering lady butterfly only to find out it is an old lady. Before the Sekiro came out I thought it would be some beautiful young lady but instead I was treated to an cool looking old lady with tons of Personality. You also have Bloodborne which has hoonter encounter some cool looking ladies like Eileen or an actually tastefully done sex worker.
From has done an amazing job and I can't wait to see what they do next.
Absolutely. With the exception of Gwynevere, I can't really think of an bad examples.
And even in the that case, there'sin-world justification enough for designing her the way they did.
And even in the that case, there'sin-world justification enough for designing her the way they did.
They've got some S tier character design (hell, art design in general). Wish I had time to "git gud" at these games.
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I dont think it's anywhere near offensive when you take into account it's an inaccurate illusion created by a someone with a huge sister complex.
There's also Queelag, her sister, and Desert Sorceresses in DS2 (and 3). Perhaps to some extent Rosaria, but I don't think she's meant to be sexy.
I think it's good to have the occasional character like that, anyway. There are women who look and dress that way in the real world and they're valid, it's the variety of representation that's important.
Yeah, that was some of the in-world justification I was hinting at. That and being a fertility goddess...
Okay, this thread needs more references to Armored Core. Any discussion of Miyazaki's female characters should have some mention of Armored Core: for Answer and Wynne D. Fanchon. She and her mech Reitterpallasch are really important to the game, and she is a big part of the final story paths and final battles. We never actually see her, so there is nothing to say about her character design, but her characterization is great.
I was going to mention, there's a fair few tough female characters in his two AC games, but you don't get to see them outside of their mechs / everyone generally has not that many lines.
One of the reason why I like Miyazaki so much is because he doesn't oversell sex.
Of course we (straight males) all love some titties and asses but at the same time we also don't want it to be a design focus, it absolutely kills world building.
Quiet from MGSV breaks the world for me more than that goddamn fire whale.
Of course we (straight males) all love some titties and asses but at the same time we also don't want it to be a design focus, it absolutely kills world building.
Quiet from MGSV breaks the world for me more than that goddamn fire whale.
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I feel like you've completely misread their interaction. It's so much more the opposite.
She controls him. That's literally what it's about. She uses a pretense of care to keep him under her control so that she can keep the painting going. That's why she's a villain. She has the pretense of being a good nurturing person, and uses that for her own gain....I didn't think it was possible to be fooled by that as it is made pretty clear.
She's created a dependency on her so she can control him, and cajoles him into that dependency. It's supposed to be creepy and make her appear as intelligent, powerful, manipulative, and scary. She knows how the world works and is manipulating a master player in that space in order to gain dominion. You're....not supposed to think she actually cares about him. It's like a toxic relationship where a manipulative person keeps the other person dependent on them for their own gain. They don't...care about them....
Also... dude...he's not her dad. What the fuck...have you ever heard of church titles...
Man I'm sorry I'm just kind of dumbfounded at your reaction. I've never seen someone interpret the situation that way.
There's nothing weird about this either. It's...a thing manipulative people do... just projected onto a fantastical setting...like most fantasy is...
Bruh you don't need to know anything about the lore to see this.
I feel like I'm in crazy land right now. I don't usually read lore my first time through these games and it was clear to me what she was doing...
Like, the game could not have made it more obvious without outright telling you.
(..which it does in the lore)
I'm not trying to insult anyone I'm just... I dunno.
Oh yeah right. How an NPC literally spells it out for you.
Not to mention the game clearly using Friede's own dialogue to tell you she is trying to hide something. The game does everything to explain to you that she is the bad guy.
I feel like honestly that I run into this a lot with souls' story telling. The game will set something up and heavily imply it and sometimes outright say it, but people say it's confusing. I don't know how to explain it other than just list the stuff the game tells you.
You don't need to go filling in blanks like many lore nerds do. Literally none of these stories require any of that for understanding them. Some things are left ambiguous and that's okay.
This though like...nothing is left ambiguous here.
Everything dies. Worlds must end so new ones can start anew. Literally the entire trilogy up to this point has tried to say this and this DLC is a micro reinforcement of that and every single NPC tells you that. Rot is the result of not letting the world die. Everything tells you this. Father Ariandel was convinced not to let the world die so this is why we have Rot. Everything is diseased and sick because this isn't the nature of the world, same as on the outside with the dark sign. The proper and good thing to do is to kill the thing keeping the world alive, and let it burn away. Every inch of Ashes of Ariandel from the world to the NPC dialogue to the creature design to the environment design to the literal short cuts being diseased trees to the visual design of the NPCs clearly denoting characters like the painter as angelic and good and Sister Friede as a wolf in nun's clothing -- before we even bother talking about the item descriptions -- it all reinforces and explains the theme and message and "plot" of the expansion. It's probably FROM's most straight forward story, comparable probably to Bloodborne.
Hatayama: Can I ask about Gwynevere, because compared to the other female charters she's very different, almost glamorous.
Miyazaki: …. You don't like the design?
Hatayama: No, I just wanted to know what the original idea behind it was.
Otsuka: As a fan of the character I'd be interested to hear that too. Haha.
Miyazaki: Well, the truth is, I just wanted to make a really big woman. I think it was a Fujiko F. Fujio manga, (Yasuragi no Yakata, literally Tranqil Mansion), there was a company president who joins an exclusive club to escape his stressful work life, and there's a giant woman who takes care of the club members, almost like a mother… don't you think that's just a perfect situation? A giant, considerate, caring woman. The kind we all lost when we grew up, that's what I wanted to make. Originally I also wanted to put a mouth in the palm of her hand, and we made all of the animations, but it didn't make it into the final game. Talking of glamour, her breasts are nothing to do with me, they happened without my knowledge. It's all the artist's fault. I think I mentioned it earlier but I always seek a certain refinement in all my designs.
Waragai: Really? Haha
Miyazaki: Yes, But the artist had such a happy look on his face that I didn't have the heart to stop him.
Everyone: Haha
Sometimes you gotta let the team do what they want to keep them happy. Miyazaki a good boss confirmed.
Agreed. It is a breath of fresh air to have women represented who don't exist just to be oogled. At this point, I'd love for them to have an actual female lead in their next game.
To my knowledge none of the protags in dark souls/bloodborne have canonical genders.
Could be wrong tho
If it weren't for Gwynevere in Dark Souls 1 I would tend to agree with the rest of the comments on here. She's just a bit... much
I don't agree. You can make some fairly nice looking characters, provided you have some patience. They're cumbersome tools, no doubt (especially in the earlier games), and it can be annoying when the in-game character looks different from the final preview due to altered lighting, but you can nonetheless get some good results from them.
The fact they don't make their female characters "sexy" and make them brave, strong and have them play great parts of the stories is top notch.
It goes unnoticed a bit, but it's very welcome.
It goes unnoticed a bit, but it's very welcome.
Shoutout to Lady Butterfly as well
Women in fighting games tend to have lower health than men (even from what the have considered middle of the road characters).
Size aside there is no reason to believe she's any different. There's statues of her and all statues of characters match their looks.
Hell Fillianore is also huge so even her size could be real.
After SEKIRO, can't wait for them to make another colorful and bright game.
Even before Souls and Miyazaki, traditional protagonist or not their design is always based on the world they create.
Essentially, Miyazaki thought it was ridiculous, but the artist behind it was so proud of it, that he allowed it to remain.
There is an interview of it with Miyazaki and his art team.
Shout outs to the people who are using the spoiler tag. Still playing Sekiro so I was hesitant to click on this thread but glad I can enjoy it too.
What's this from? That art style looks great.
After SEKIRO, can't wait for them to make another colorful and bright game.
Even before Souls and Miyazaki, traditional protagonist or not their design is always based on the world they create.
What's this from? That art style looks great.
He does such a good job at it, it never crossed my mind that he does a good job at it.
Not even kidding, it never crossed my mind.
Like that one saying "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."
Not even kidding, it never crossed my mind.
Like that one saying "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."
Ahem!
Surprised there haven't been many (any?) mentions of Mephistopheles from Demon's Souls. One of my favourite NPCs in any of From's games.
Easily missable NPC from the least played Souls game tbf
Surprised there haven't been many (any?) mentions of Mephistopheles from Demon's Souls. One of my favourite NPCs in any of From's games.
Evergrace, an early PS2 From game, and a game that I can only think to describe as proto-Souls. It's not especially good, but might be worth checking out if you're curious.
I'm not too bothered by that. I was aware of FROM when they were known for making weird janky games instead of just Dark Souls.
Kind of hope they go back to do some more experimental stuff now.
I always loved Maiden Astraea from Demon Soul's. May not quite fit the subject, but her tragic destiny with her knight got to me.
You know, in a thread about positive representation, it would be nice if we could avoid waifu fetishizing and objectification. Thanks.
i appreciate it alright. desert sorceress build can be really cool too. fun to use tool in ds3!