Continuation of "How many positive and well-made female characters can you think of?"

[Skynstein]

Joanna Dark was a feminist dream before feminism got trendy.

[deltanine]

And before feminism got hijacked.

[Ebony]

Personally my top pick for strong female characters would be Alphys from Undertale. She doesn't start off strong. In fact, she's downright annoying, socially awkward and unhelpful.

[spoiler=Undertale]In the true ending where you finally get her to open up to you and reveal why she's always so down on herself, you realise what a horrifying burden she's shouldered alone for so long. And then she accepts that she needs to face her fears. She doesn't fear the Amalgamates, she only fears that the families she gave hope to would turn on her when they find out her experiments went wrong. In the end, she is far more confident in herself, no longer ashamed and no longer hiding from the rest of the world. And there as so many things she has done to make others happy too. She built Mettaton's dream body. She introduced Undyne to anime. She does her best when she can. Her arc is what really sold me on Undertale being one of the best games I've ever played.

thank you she needs more love

Off the top of my head? Lady (at least in DMC3, in DMC4 she... didn't really do anything), Tsubaki Yayoi, Naoto Shirogane, Minako (femc for Persona 3 if she counts?), and Aigis come to mind... Oh, and Terra Branford.

[deltanine]

A video game character does not have the ability to choose the clothing that they wear, because they are fictional.

It's called "characterization." If we were to look at this from inside the perspective of the narrative, (which you should) then yes, they DO choose to wear the clothing they wear, and yes, they DO have agency!

The point is that wanting to expand the possibility space of female designs beyond "Empowered and Sexually Liberated" is not sexist

But body shaming is and you should know the difference between the two.

Edited January 30, 2016 by deltanine

[deltanine]

...

Edited January 30, 2016 by deltanine

[Tamanoir]

thank you she needs more love

Off the top of my head? Lady (at least in DMC3, in DMC4 she... didn't really do anything), Tsubaki Yayoi, Naoto Shirogane, Minako (femc for Persona 3 if she counts?), and Aigis come to mind... Oh, and Terra Branford.

If we count Terra, we should also count Celes.

She is the main heroine of the second part after all (Locke saved both at one point, but still...)

[Masked And Dangerous]

It's called "characterization." If we were to look at this from inside the perspective of the narrative, (which you should) then yes, they DO choose to wear the clothing they wear, and yes, they DO have agency!

But body shaming is and you should know the difference between the two.

I can't body shame a pile of pixels. I thought I already made that clear.

I can shame lazy designers who decide to add titillation in place of actual characterization. And people who are inches away from bingo on my rhetoric card. What characterization does a bikini give, beyond that they are going to the beach? What narrative reason is there for a CIA agent to wear a dominatrix outfit in a life threatening situation? And flimsy reasons such as "Breath through her skin" or "needs to have skin exposed to use magic" don't count, because they are retroactive reasons for the thing at the beginning of this paragraph.

If you want characterization through costume design in female characters, go play Darkest Dungeon. Those designs are wonderful, filled with character from head to toe. My favorites are the Arbalest and Gravedigger, but all are good, sometimes great designs. And the Mike Mignola style visuals add depth to the world, showing the insanity that those foolish adventurers are diving into.

Or on that note, how about Eileen the Crow? Tough old bird in a world gone mad. If you help her, she can even survive the night to retire. Eileen blends right in with the gothic horror of Bloodborne, and her costume is an extra dimension of that. The plague doctor outfit in the lycanthropy filled streets of Yharnem tells you her purpose. The beasts are the plague, and she is the cure.

Or go look at Alicia's design in Valkyria Chronicles. Lo and behold, it (mostly) looks like something that an actual soldier from the anime psuedo-WWI world that game depicts would wear. Which makes sense, considering she's a soldier. Her arc is a tragedy, a story of the desperation on the battlefield.

[Ebony]

If we count Terra, we should also count Celes.

She is the main heroine of the second part after all (Locke saved both at one point, but still...)

Oh Hell how could I forget Celes. I love that lady. I use to want to be like her when I was a little kid! (Even over Terra actually.)

[Leif]

What about the female version of the protagonist in Dragon Quest 3? She saves the world just like her male counterpart and is dressed rather conservatively.

We have had examples of strong females in gaming in the past; I think feminists, who criticize games that seemingly objectify women, haven't dug deeply enough.

http://cdn.wikimg.net/strategywiki/images/thumb/d/d9/DQ3_artwork_Hero_F.jpg/131px-DQ3_artwork_Hero_F.jpg

Look, she's actually pretty muscular too.

Edited January 31, 2016 by Leif

[Zerosabers]

I didn't see anyone mention PoR!Titania yet which kinda surprises me. Another one is Red from Transistor.

If you want characterization through costume design in female characters, go play Darkest Dungeon. Those designs are wonderful, filled with character from head to toe. My favorites are the Arbalest and Gravedigger, but all are good, sometimes great designs. And the Mike Mignola style visuals add depth to the world, showing the insanity that those foolish adventurers are diving into.

Darkest Dungeon's designs are amazing. Plus, you have their simple comics to provide a little extra background. I'm still waiting for the Gravedigger one.

[deltanine]

I can't body shame a pile of pixels. I thought I already made that clear.

I can shame lazy designers who decide to add titillation in place of actual characterization. And people who are inches away from bingo on my rhetoric card. What characterization does a bikini give, beyond that they are going to the beach? What narrative reason is there for a CIA agent to wear a dominatrix outfit in a life threatening situation? And flimsy reasons such as "Breath through her skin" or "needs to have skin exposed to use magic" don't count, because they are retroactive reasons for the thing at the beginning of this paragraph.

Okay, titillation in place of actual characterization may be one thing, but titillation in addition to characterization is another and either way, your rhetoric card is a pile of sexist, body-shaming dog shit. It amounts to nothing more than "if you see something that makes you feel uncomfortable, shit all over anything that may justify it." You are just one of those people who just whines about a female character in a video game or any other medium having sexy clothing or a good-looking body, and yes, I'm not faulting you for praising those alternatives you mentioned, but you're acting like you want women in real life to be comfortable with your sexuality and you're also demonizing a man's sexual preferences, you misandric pig.

Edited February 2, 2016 by deltanine

[Pixelman]

Okay holy fuck let's just calm down before this thread goes to shit

Calling someone a misandric pig is not really a nice thing to say to someone with a different opinion, now is it?

Edited January 31, 2016 by Pixelman

[deltanine]

Even if said different opinion is as harmful as it is biased? Okay, I can conceive that Masked and Dangerous, "can shame lazy designers who decide to add titillation in place of actual characterization." Okay, fair enough. But I pointed out eight female characters on my first post on this thread and only two of them were the busty, half-naked type, and both of them were actually titillation in addition to actual characterization, which means, as sexy as they were, they were still well-characterized and had great backstories and personalities, not that people like Masked and Dangerous are going to care.

Edited January 31, 2016 by deltanine

[Pixelman]

Even if said different opinion is as harmful as it is biased?

You can at least try to debate his opinion calmly, instead of resorting to name calling

[deltanine]

Good point.

[Masked And Dangerous]

I had more of a response here, but Pixelman covered it. I much prefer good faith debating to name calling.

And yes, I do whine about female characters in the entertainment medium. I whine all the time, because I am tired of seeing the same three designs over and over. I'm tired of sexy or childish being the only two things a female character can aspire to, and often both with the same character. I'm tired of games falling into bad habits when designers fixed this crap way back in the beginning. I feel that the medium which is constantly asking to be taken seriously needs to stop shying away when anyone looks at them with a critical eye. That includes how it treats women.

Alis Landale from Phantasy Star I was the lead, the star of the whole show. Maybe her outfit was kind of pink, but she at least dressed for the fight she was picking up to get revenge for her brother. This was 1987.

Speaking of Phantasy Star, Alyss from Phantasy Star IV. Ends up being the Obi-wan to Chaz's Luke Skywalker, but she definitely earned her rep as the best monster hunter there was. 1993

Chrono Trigger wrote the book on how to make female characters in an RPG: namely, put a lot of them in all of whom are distinct. I'm perfectly fine with Marle getting kidnapped because Lucca and Chrono are the ones to go rescue her. And that's not even getting to Ayla. Ayla gets to be sexual, because she's going to be the mother of the whole human race. Together, they almost form a freudian trio, which TvTropes would describe as the Three Faces of Eve. 1995.

[Leif]

I had more of a response here, but Pixelman covered it. I much prefer good faith debating to name calling.

And yes, I do whine about female characters in the entertainment medium. I whine all the time, because I am tired of seeing the same three designs over and over. I'm tired of sexy or childish being the only two things a female character can aspire to, and often both with the same character. I'm tired of games falling into bad habits when designers fixed this crap way back in the beginning. I feel that the medium which is constantly asking to be taken seriously needs to stop shying away when anyone looks at them with a critical eye. That includes how it treats women.

Alis Landale from Phantasy Star I was the lead, the star of the whole show. Maybe her outfit was kind of pink, but she at least dressed for the fight she was picking up to get revenge for her brother. This was 1987.

Speaking of Phantasy Star, Alyss from Phantasy Star IV. Ends up being the Obi-wan to Chaz's Luke Skywalker, but she definitely earned her rep as the best monster hunter there was. 1993

Chrono Trigger wrote the book on how to make female characters in an RPG: namely, put a lot of them in all of whom are distinct. I'm perfectly fine with Marle getting kidnapped because Lucca and Chrono are the ones to go rescue her. And that's not even getting to Ayla. Ayla gets to be sexual, because she's going to be the mother of the whole human race. Together, they almost form a freudian trio, which TvTropes would describe as the Three Faces of Eve. 1995.

I want your thoughts on some Shin Megami Tensei human females.

For me, the heroines of SMT 1+2 were products of the time. They both took a back seat because the two titles were so focused on philosophy and alignment.

Chiyaki from Nocturne, despite going nuts later in the game, shows some character development (not for the better). She starts as a girl who is scared and trying to survive a hellish world, then becomes a resolved but merciless killing machine. She isn't sexualized and reacts like any normal human would if they were thrown into her situation.

Then we have Sera from Digital Devil Saga. Ugh, I didn't like her. She was the damsel in distress and

the reason why everything went to hell in the first place. In her defense she is 7 years old.

She was "ok" in DDS1, but horrid in DDS2. Kidnapped left and right and rather weak minded.

Argilla was the best female in the DDS series because she had the most character development, like Gale, and was very likable to begin with. She isn't sexualized and is rather muscular, as noted by Cielo in DDS1. The only thing that was sexualized about her design was her Atma Avatar having mouth breasts and high heel feet.... yeah. >_>

I am not sure if I should count Seraph or Jenna Angel because

they are hermaphrodites.

Edited January 31, 2016 by Leif

[Tamanoir]

What about the female version of the protagonist in Dragon Quest 3? She saves the world just like her male counterpart and is dressed rather conservatively.

We have had examples of strong females in gaming in the past; I think feminists, who criticize games that seemingly objectify women, haven't dug deeply enough.

http://cdn.wikimg.net/strategywiki/images/thumb/d/d9/DQ3_artwork_Hero_F.jpg/131px-DQ3_artwork_Hero_F.jpg

Look, she's actually pretty muscular too.

And then we have DQIV which is kind of a mix bag.

It has both Maya (who is quite cliche) and Alena

The DQIV Heroine is also strange.

(Dragon Quest is kinda wierd because the reason girls ends up better than the male counterpart is thanks to sexy costumes...)

DQVI has Lizzie, but I doubt she counts since she isn't human. Ashlynn and Milly are pretty fine.

[Masked And Dangerous]

I want your thoughts on some Shin Megami Tensei human females.

For me, the heroines of SMT 1+2 were products of the time. They both took a back seat because the two titles were so focused on philosophy and alignment.

Chiyaki from Nocturne, despite going nuts later in the game, shows some character development (not for the better). She starts as a girl who is scared and trying to survive a hellish world, then becomes a resolved but merciless killing machine. She isn't sexualized and reacts like any normal human would if they were thrown into her situation.

Then we have Sera from Digital Devil Saga. Ugh, I didn't like her. She was the damsel in distress and

the reason why everything went to hell in the first place. In her defense she is 7 years old.

She was "ok" in DDS1, but horrid in DDS2. Kidnapped left and right and rather weak minded.

Argilla was the best female in the DDS series because she had the most character development, like Gale, and was very likable to begin with. She isn't sexualized and is rather muscular, as noted by Cielo in DDS1. The only thing that was sexualized about her design was her Atma Avatar having mouth breasts and high heel feet.... yeah. >_>

I am not sure if I should count Seraph or Jenna Angel because

they are hermaphrodites.

SMT's strength has never been it's human drama. It's characters aren't characters so much as vessels for biblical metaphor. Female Hero is Eve, Hiroko is Mary. Their paths in the story reflect that, and they actually manage to have a more solid arc then Isabeau did in IV. Which isn't hard, considering how much of a mess IV was alignment wise, but I digress.

I'm inclined to forgive Sera for her weakness, considering it isn't until late in the story that she becomes able to fight. And the story ends on her enlightenment and ascendance. You already pointed out that Argilla was probably the best female character out of the DDS plot.

I feel a special mention should go to Tamaki, who is the only canon female protag in mainline SMT, namely SMT: IF. What little we see of her post IF (In SMT 1 & 2) shows that she got her life together after the horrible circumstances of that game.

[Sasori]

I can't say i'm an expert on what makes a female character a good female character or if we should discuss good characters who happen to be female or good female characters.

But anyway here are some that I quite liked.

The first is Titania from Path of Radiance. A proper second command and while she has some motherly traits it isn't anything that defines her as a character or her position as deputy. Other then that I like that she's usually not portrayed as wrong during her arguements with Soren, despite her taking a more moral stance.

The second one would be Luca from Final fantasy the after year.Mostly because i'm surprised the game did't treat her like a complete joke since many of her traits are usually used for 'comedy'. she has the more traditionally manly hobby of a mechanic, she's not conventionally attractive and because she's a dwarf she's a bit on the chubby side too. Despite that the game has no fun at her expense and she's portrayed as a strong and kind character who's also good with machines.

Edited January 31, 2016 by Sasori

[deltanine]

There isn't anything wrong with wanting to expand the possibility space of female designs beyond "Empowered and Sexually Liberated" ​but you could at least do it in a way that doesn't sound like body shaming. If you read the first post I made to this forum, you'd know that I listed eight examples of who I consider to be positive women in gaming and only two of them were the busty, half-naked type. In fact, literally the first example I gave out was Blaze the Cat from Sonic the Hedgehog, who is fully clothed. I also find it disheartening when a person dismisses a female character's depth, personality, or significance to the plot just because she wears sexy clothing, because it feels petty and shallow. And it is just demeaning to the character to simply not look past the clothing and instead just rant about it all the while ignoring her character.

http://misty-reeyus.tumblr.com/post/119799415832/donesses-well-developed-female-characters-who

http://metaleater.com/video-ga...

http://metaleater.com/video-ga...

Edited February 4, 2016 by deltanine

[deltanine]

In other words, Everything I am saying is summed up right here:

[secondworld]

"Sexualized" and "good character" are not mutually exclusive

Tifa as mention in the above video is a good character

I'd say Bayonetta is a good character too

I think this whole situation is overblown and over-complicated by many people when really it's as simple as "is this character written well"

A princess that happens to be designed as very attractive and is captured by the bad guy and has to be rescued by a male hero can still be a well written character because any trope and good writing are not mutually exclusive

That's what I think anyway

[Raybrand]

I like Bayonetta, its easy to argue that she acts inappropriate but the way I see it, the designers weren't afraid to make a female Dante with a bit of her own spin.

Off the top of my head I do think Yennefer from The Witcher is a well written character (only played Witcher 3 and bits of Witcher 2), shes very intelligent, earned a lot of respect and she carries herself well, she is always the alpha. (When you go on quests with her she is usually leading the conversations and giving commands, I know in a lot of rpg games its normal for the npc to narrate to the player what to do but The Witcher 3 is written well enough that its not like that, with other companions on quests the conversations and decision making is usually mutual).

[Samias]

I personally like Tifa, I didn't really find her outfit out of the realm of imagination or character-breaking, considering her 2nd job was a barkeeper and it's generally acknowledged that service workers are often also meant to be titillating (how you feel about *that* is another matter). I also like Bayonetta. Even Camilla from Fire Emblem Fates is quite popular although personally I wish she'd put on pants as I'm sure riding a dragon in panties is very uncomfortable. I think there's very few people here who are completely against sexy women who are sexually forward but the question people are asking is this:

Is the sexiness essential to the character or is the costume pointless to communicating the character's personality?

I feel like being attractive is a staple of video games, as people have a hard time finding ugly people "cool". However, most women are saddled with outfits that are impractical or compromising with little reason to exist. Let's take the upcoming Star Ocean 5 for example.

[spoiler=Embarrassing outfit ahoy!]

The game isn't out yet, but what about this outfit is going to be essential to her character? What would be lost by filling in all the diamond cutouts? Or even half of them and just leave them open in key places? How does this stay on? I realize Star Ocean always has a token sexy mage and at least this isn't AS bad as Meracle from SO4 (which makes me feel like I'm going to go to jail for looking at her), but the game has gone from "plausible sexy" to "How is this even an outfit" ever since Star Ocean 3. SO4 also happens to have taken a huge decline in quality from SO3 so I feel like the over the top sexiness of the outfits is being used as a crutch. Meh, currently Star Ocean is an easy target for "bad RPG with bad characters".

More relatably, in Fire Emblem you can just point at Nowi and all the knights. People just don't like Nowi's outfit and it has nothing to do with her character which leads to people crying about sexualized children. Sully and female great knights and generals being pantsless also rubs people the wrong way. It doesn't add to anyone's character, it's just bad design for characters who are supposed to be taken seriously in combat yet wore their shortest booty shorts to battle.

Edited February 10, 2016 by Samias