More Female Enemies

[Emperor Hardin]

So outside of Genealogy of the Holy War, which had a lot of throwaway recolored female bosses pictured above, its noticeable minor enemy bosses like Batta and Gromell are always male.

And before anyone states Clarisse or Pheros, those characters are not minor bosses with no story importance like Lumel or Campari are. I'm talking about bosses that just walk into a map and die with no fanfare. 

This is speculation but it is quite possible the lack of minor enemy female commanders could be due to the developers not wanting to design female characters with the ugly/evil look that minor bosses have.

Similarly outside of the aforementioned Genealogy of the Holy War, Thracia 776, and Tear Ring Saga which occasionally sprinkled female generics among the otherwise male enemy forces, generic enemy units are almost always male outside of female exclusive classes like Pegasus Knight or Troubadour. We know lore wise, nations like Macedon, Grado, Plegia, Bern ETC have female soldiers and commanders from the recruitable characters those locations, but the rank and file enemy grunts and lowranking commanders are always male. Several games like New Mystery of the Emblem even punish the player for attacking female generics the rare times they appear.

This is again another guess, but I speculate that the developers avoid female generics to avoid making the player feel bad.

I''m asking everyone what do you think the reason for this is and would you like this to change?

*My original version of this post was deleted when my browser glitched so I had to retype the whole thing.*

Edited February 18, 2019 by Emperor Hardin

[eclipse]

. . .you have half an hour to do more with that first post, or this topic will be locked.

[Emperor Hardin]

27 minutes ago, eclipse said:

. . .you have half an hour to do more with that first post, or this topic will be locked.

My wi-fi glitched and I lost my opening paragraph when trying to  a minor edit of the post.

Is there any way I can retrieve the past version of the post? 

EDIT: I retyped the whole thing.

Edited February 18, 2019 by Emperor Hardin

[Hanes]

Female generics are fine, female bosses are nice too, female mini-bosses sure. Maybe ugly looking bandit women no, but mini bosses that are female, like ok? Why not?

[omegaxis1]

I don't think even back then, they made female characters have ugly mugs. Even Hilda doesn't look ugly. 

This could be more due to how it's highly unlikely for a woman to be able to hold onto power without some man backing them up in those time periods. A woman leading a group of bandits? That's only if the woman is so scary or so ruthless or so strong that the other men cannot hope to oppose her, which doesn't seem very likely. But the men would ultimately hate being pushed around by a woman and would likely try to overthrow them. 

And even if they do make a female character like that, they would try to make them special or something, really drive home that they are girls, hence why they make female villains always seem presentable, and even potentially sexy. 

[Interdimensional Observer]

From an old (1996) but very recently translated interview about Genealogy you can find here (SF has a topic for it in the NES/SNES section):

Tsukamoto: Another thing that caught me by surprise this time round was the presence of women in the enemy ranks. I think this was the most refreshing part of the game to me, actually. Till now, any female enemies you saw were usually recruitable units, but women that stay as antagonists throughout is a first.

Kaga’s comment: I didn’t do that on purpose, I just didn’t like the idea of completely irredeemable women…but I guess no one does (laughs). I didn’t want to make a female character that was completely evil, but then I also wouldn’t be surprised to find that women like Hilda exist in this world. But it feels so overly unpleasant that I don’t really like doing it. Among the enemies in this game, many of whom have their own circumstances and some of whom even have their likeable points, Hilda is the very definition of villainous. She’s like an evil witch; you’d want to kill her if she were your enemy. I like real world history, which is why I base my works on it, but the killing of women is something that doesn’t happen so much even in real life. That’s why I don’t really like to include it.

 

 

Personally, I'm open to more female enemies of any kind.

[omegaxis1]

1 minute ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

From an old (1996) but very recently translated interview about Genealogy you can find here (SF has a topic for it in the NES/SNES section):

Tsukamoto: Another thing that caught me by surprise this time round was the presence of women in the enemy ranks. I think this was the most refreshing part of the game to me, actually. Till now, any female enemies you saw were usually recruitable units, but women that stay as antagonists throughout is a first.

Kaga’s comment: I didn’t do that on purpose, I just didn’t like the idea of completely irredeemable women…but I guess no one does (laughs). I didn’t want to make a female character that was completely evil, but then I also wouldn’t be surprised to find that women like Hilda exist in this world. But it feels so overly unpleasant that I don’t really like doing it. Among the enemies in this game, many of whom have their own circumstances and some of whom even have their likeable points, Hilda is the very definition of villainous. She’s like an evil witch; you’d want to kill her if she were your enemy. I like real world history, which is why I base my works on it, but the killing of women is something that doesn’t happen so much even in real life. That’s why I don’t really like to include it.

Personally, I'm open to more female enemies of any kind.

2

In the end, even Kaga is not able to avoid this. And though he made Hilda, we have others that are like her post Kaga as well, such as Sonia. And before others mention how FE7 and TRS connection, Karla was given sympathetic story. Sonia had none. She was evil to her core.

[eclipse]

IRL, people can be horrible, no matter what gender they are.  I'm all for evil people of both genders, and ranging from "hit repeatedly by the ugly stick" to "extremely good-looking and unsympathetic".

[Emperor Hardin]

6 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

In the end, even Kaga is not able to avoid this. And though he made Hilda, we have others that are like her post Kaga as well, such as Sonia. And before others mention how FE7 and TRS connection, Karla was given sympathetic story. Sonia had none. She was evil to her core.

Funfact, a Sonia  lookalike boss was one of the many cut character from TearRing Saga.

In the regular game, there was a slaver NPC who was an old woman similar to Mystery of the Emblem. Just like in Mystery, she wasn't fightable though.

9 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

From an old (1996) but very recently translated interview about Genealogy you can find here (SF has a topic for it in the NES/SNES section):

Tsukamoto: Another thing that caught me by surprise this time round was the presence of women in the enemy ranks. I think this was the most refreshing part of the game to me, actually. Till now, any female enemies you saw were usually recruitable units, but women that stay as antagonists throughout is a first.

Kaga’s comment: I didn’t do that on purpose, I just didn’t like the idea of completely irredeemable women…but I guess no one does (laughs). I didn’t want to make a female character that was completely evil, but then I also wouldn’t be surprised to find that women like Hilda exist in this world. But it feels so overly unpleasant that I don’t really like doing it. Among the enemies in this game, many of whom have their own circumstances and some of whom even have their likeable points, Hilda is the very definition of villainous. She’s like an evil witch; you’d want to kill her if she were your enemy. I like real world history, which is why I base my works on it, but the killing of women is something that doesn’t happen so much even in real life. That’s why I don’t really like to include it.

 

Personally, I'm open to more female enemies of any kind.

That interview was very helpful, thank you for enlightening me about it.

I guess the current people at Intelligent Systems feel that way even more then Kaga.

Edited February 19, 2019 by Emperor Hardin

[Tetragrammaton]

16 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

This could be more due to how it's highly unlikely for a woman to be able to hold onto power without some man backing them up in those time periods. A woman leading a group of bandits? That's only if the woman is so scary or so ruthless or so strong that the other men cannot hope to oppose her, which doesn't seem very likely. But the men would ultimately hate being pushed around by a woman and would likely try to overthrow them.

They oppose Bridget so she switches side.

[omegaxis1]

3 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Funfact, a Sonia  lookalike boss was one of the many cut character from TearRing Saga.

Interesting. Then again, is it that surprising? Kaga is not the only one that designed the characters. Others had too. Meaning that others could very well have shared similar designs that had remained at IS. So I wouldn't say that Sonia is a Kaga original just cause there are things that note that it exists there. It's basically the chicken or the egg.

 

[Acacia Sgt]

Yep, they should go for it.

3 minutes ago, hanhnn said:

They oppose Bridget so she switches side.

Adding on this: To their credit, they oppose her not for being a woman, but because she's not letting them loot and pillage as they'd please. Briggid was more in line in turning the Orgahil pirates into Robin Hood style thieves, iirc, which they didn't wanted to.

[Emperor Hardin]

23 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

I don't think even back then, they made female characters have ugly mugs. Even Hilda doesn't look ugly. 

She does look old and evil though, while she isn't super ugly as say Gerrard.

23 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

This could be more due to how it's highly unlikely for a woman to be able to hold onto power without some man backing them up in those time periods. A woman leading a group of bandits? That's only if the woman is so scary or so ruthless or so strong that the other men cannot hope to oppose her, which doesn't seem very likely. But the men would ultimately hate being pushed around by a woman and would likely try to overthrow them. 

And even if they do make a female character like that, they would try to make them special or something, really drive home that they are girls, hence why they make female villains always seem presentable, and even potentially sexy. 

It depends on the nation. Like Altea is implied to be patriarchal, on the other hand, Macedon has a strong female military presence, so it makes sense for there to be some enemy female soldiers or even bandits.

I liked how in FE4, the majority of enemies in Silesia were female.

3 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Interesting. Then again, is it that surprising? Kaga is not the only one that designed the characters. Others had too. Meaning that others could very well have shared similar designs that had remained at IS. So I wouldn't say that Sonia is a Kaga original just cause there are things that note that it exists there. It's basically the chicken or the egg.

Though it might've been they were both based off Sonia, though both were slightly younger then the Sonia of generation 2, looking more like Lamia(who I'm sure was Hilda at one point).

Edited February 19, 2019 by Emperor Hardin

[Interdimensional Observer]

5 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

In the end, even Kaga is not able to avoid this. And though he made Hilda, we have others that are like her post Kaga as well, such as Sonia. And before others mention how FE7 and TRS connection, Karla was given sympathetic story. Sonia had none. She was evil to her core.

Maybe I'm just as soft as Corrin/Seliph/Sigurd/Marth/Chrom/Eliwood/Roy/Eirika/Character X I will admit, but I did offer Sonia a moment of pity when Limstella came for her (Nergal if you didn't do Night of Farewells) disposed of her. I really shouldn't have, but her "What? No! I'm hu...man...." kinda was pitiful. I'm not sure if I offered the same to Petrine (who matches Sonia in bluster) when Ashnard threatened to feed her to his dragon, it wouldn't surprise me if I did.

Not to say I hesitated about ramming a Silver/Brave/Killer Lance through Sonia's heart, I didn't, she deserved it. For Nino's sake, and being the one who sent Lloyd/Linus to their battle with HEL, and then because they're weakened at the end, Limstella kills them, then leading the other to die enraged. Not to mention everything else.

 

5 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

That interview was very helpful, thank you for enlightening me about it.

Just spreading the word for all who are interested! Whether you find this gives you more grounds to call Kaga a blight or a blessing, that is irrelevant to me. I just found it fascinating and hope it contributes to FE discussion.

[Ertrick36]

I'd want them to go all the way with female enemies.

I won't give them the standard of "they shouldn't look evil" because then I'd be giving them a different standard than the males.  No, they can look like villains if we're gonna accept the males as such.

And I really wouldn't count it as much extra work, particularly since they've been more given to using 3D models instead of sprites as of late.  Heck, even if it was 2D sprites, if they held fast to the older standards of sprites then all they'd really need to do is swap their palettes, give them different mugs, and tick a few switches then call it a day.  Plus, in terms of budget and time, the art department of game companies are honestly kind of an afterthought anyway unless they're huge games that want to use all the latest in graphical tech, which is definitely not FE's style.  Reason so many microtransactions are cosmetic is because they're quick, easy, and cheap to make.

1 hour ago, Emperor Hardin said:

We know lore wise, nations like Macedon, Grado, Plegia, Bern ETC have female soldiers and commanders from the recruitable characters those locations, but the rank and file enemy grunts and lowranking commanders are always male.

I've always found it weird that female enemies would surround themselves with men in games.

Usually people have a tendency to hire people like themselves.  Unless there's a shortage of female combatants, they should be surrounding themselves with other female combatants.  That's one minor detail I liked about Genealogy; Lamia had herself a band of exclusively female fighters, all the twin and triplet generic mid-bosses would operate as single units on their own, and of course the fliers of Silesse would all be female-only detachments.  The exceptions were usually pretty major characters and Vaha, who mostly was just an afterthought and a checkpoint between two much more major enemy positions.

21 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Kaga’s comment: I didn’t do that on purpose, I just didn’t like the idea of completely irredeemable women…but I guess no one does (laughs). I didn’t want to make a female character that was completely evil, but then I also wouldn’t be surprised to find that women like Hilda exist in this world. But it feels so overly unpleasant that I don’t really like doing it. Among the enemies in this game, many of whom have their own circumstances and some of whom even have their likeable points, Hilda is the very definition of villainous. She’s like an evil witch; you’d want to kill her if she were your enemy. I like real world history, which is why I base my works on it, but the killing of women is something that doesn’t happen so much even in real life. That’s why I don’t really like to include it.

Interesting.

Well, I don't think the bit about killing of women not being something that happens often is right.  Maybe he's trying to say there aren't many who are killed that deserve it?  But then I wouldn't say that's correct either because there are plenty of evil, horrible women in the world just as there are despicable men.

But I like having irredeemable female enemies, precisely because of those like Hilda.  She's a more hateable villain than a lot of her male counterparts in the series.  And I love that.  Just a despicable witch that you enjoy taking down.

Kaga's position on this sounds like something my gramps would say, which makes it kind of endearing.  Like I get how he feels that way, he must actually have a rather high opinion of the women he's known in his life.  Must've taken a lot for him to come up with such a despicable female villain as Hilda.

Edited February 19, 2019 by Ertrick36

[omegaxis1]

9 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

She does look old and evil though, while she isn't super ugly as say Gerrard.

It depends on the nation. Like Altea is implied to be patriarchal, on the other hand, Macedon has a strong female military presence, so it makes sense for them to be some enemy female soldiers or even bandits.

I liked how in FE4, the majority of enemies in Silesia were female.

Hilda looks aged, but not really old. And I wouldn't even say evil looking either. Though this may be due to tech limitations.

Also, though you raise some good points, note how they end up being treated. Archanea ends up with Nyna, despite being a princess and royal heir, needing a husband. And Minerva, despite trying to rule, ends up not being in Michalis's league and gets overthrown. 

The Silesia enemies were female, but ultimately it was the male enemies that backed them up that was the true threat. I mean, the one that likely kills Erinys's sister is Andorey and his bow knights.

7 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Maybe I'm just as soft as Corrin/Seliph/Sigurd/Marth/Chrom/Eliwood/Roy/Eirika/Character X I will admit, but I did offer Sonia a moment of pity when Limstella came for her (Nergal if you didn't do Night of Farewells) disposed of her. I really shouldn't have, but her "What? No! I'm hu...man...." kinda was pitiful. I'm not sure if I offered the same to Petrine (who matches Sonia in bluster) when Ashnard threatened to feed her to his dragon, it wouldn't surprise me if I did.

Not to say I hesitated about ramming a Silver/Brave/Killer Lance through Sonia's heart, I didn't, she deserved it. For Nino's sake, and being the one who sent Lloyd/Linus to their battle with HEL, and then because they're weakened at the end, Limstella kills them, then leading the other to die enraged. Not to mention everything else.

 

Having a moment of sympathy for them is well and good, but we have no qualms in killing them. Petrine was more sympathetic, but its hard to feel too much sympathy for Branded when I have never seen them suffer. 

 

Edited February 19, 2019 by omegaxis1

[Acacia Sgt]

9 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

I liked how in FE4, the majority of enemies in Silesia were female.

Actually, even there the majority are still male. Only the pegasus knights and Lamia's squad are female.

[Azz]

I guess the lack of enemy females comes from how traditionally there are few women in the army (though that's not as true today) but also, there is always kind of a stigma around killing women present in society (which Kaga pretty much displayed in the above interview).

I think they should add more female generics (and I'm pretty sure in the Three Houses trailer I did see some in the brigades that follow your units) just for to be equal though I wouldn't be too peeved if they didn't since at the end of the day, they are generics. However I would like to see more actual female villains because I feel like that may spice things up a bit for the villain side.

[Tetragrammaton]

5 minutes ago, ΔZZ said:

I guess the lack of enemy females comes from how traditionally there are few women in the army (though that's not as true today) but also, there is always kind of a stigma around killing women present in society (which Kaga pretty much displayed in the above interview).

I think they should add more female generics (and I'm pretty sure in the Three Houses trailer I did see some in the brigades that follow your units) just for to be equal though I wouldn't be too peeved if they didn't since at the end of the day, they are generics. However I would like to see more actual female villains because I feel like that may spice things up a bit for the villain side.

I think it is still true today, you don't have many female presidents or more importantly, female army generals/admirals.

[Emperor Hardin]

16 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Just spreading the word for all who are interested! Whether you find this gives you more grounds to call Kaga a blight or a blessing, that is irrelevant to me. I just found it fascinating and hope it contributes to FE discussion.

I appreciate that Kaga tried to have incredibly evil female villains as well as enemy female soldiers despite not personally enjoying creating them.

10 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Hilda looks aged, but not really old. And I wouldn't even say evil looking either. Though this may be due to tech limitations.

The Silesia enemies were female, but ultimately it was the male enemies that backed them up that was the true threat. I mean, the one that likely kills Erinys's sister is Andorey and his bow knights.

Her expression looks pretty evil, I'd say.

Ingame, Both Pamela, Andorey, and Daccar are credited with killing Mahnya. In game, it can be Pamela or Andorey. Pamela even taunts Erinys and Lewyn about killing Mahnya. Similarly Deetvar says she'll decapitate Erinys and take her head as a trophy, whilst Lamia is one of the few characters to call themselves evil.

So I'd say FE4 was pretty good.

12 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Actually, even there the majority are still male. Only the pegasus knights and Lamia's squad are female.

Outside of a scant few Wind Mages, Bishops, and Donovan's fighters, those were all the enemies in the chapter though. 

[omegaxis1]

1 minute ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Her expression looks pretty evil, I'd say.

Ingame, Both Pamela, Andorey, and Daccar are credited with killing Mahnya. In game, it can be Pamela or Andorey. Pamela even taunts Erinys and Lewyn about killing Mahnya. Similarly Deetvar says she'll decapitate Erinys and take her head as a trophy, whilst Lamia is one of the few characters to call themselves evil.

So I'd say FE4 was pretty good.

Does it? I guess it's a matter of perspective. Knowing a character is evil tends to make someone look evil at times.

Given how in-game, it's more likely that the bow knights coming in is what kills the Silesian knights, it stands to reason that it was less Pamela and more Andorey.

Agreed. They did handle a much wider cast. Credit given where it is due. 

[Acacia Sgt]

6 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Outside of a scant few Wind Mages, Bishops, and Donovan's fighters, those were all the enemies in the chapter though. 

Nope.

In total, there are 63 male enemies, and 32 female enemies.

The only way you can have more female enemies appear is by reinforcement triggering, becase only the female bosses (Deetvar, Pamela, and Lamia) do this in the chapter.

[Emperor Hardin]

1 minute ago, omegaxis1 said:

Does it? I guess it's a matter of perspective. Knowing a character is evil tends to make someone look evil at times.

Given how in-game, it's more likely that the bow knights coming in is what kills the Silesian knights, it stands to reason that it was less Pamela and more Andorey.

Agreed. They did handle a much wider cast. Credit given where it is due. 

At the very least Pamela played a part in Mahnya's death.

Funny thing I've heard is that its rare, but possible for Mahnya to kill Pamela, in which case her leaderless troops will start attacking the yellow units and Andorey will have a conversation with Pamela's ghost.

1 minute ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Nope.

In total, there are 63 male enemies, and 32 female enemies.

The only way you can have more female enemies appear is by reinforcement triggering, becase only the female bosses (Deetvar, Pamela, and Lamia) do this in the chapter.

Female enemies are so rare in Fire Emblem, even numbers like that feel much closer to gender equality.

Kudos for telling me the unit count.

[Shadow Mir]

15 minutes ago, ΔZZ said:

I guess the lack of enemy females comes from how traditionally there are few women in the army (though that's not as true today) but also, there is always kind of a stigma around killing women present in society (which Kaga pretty much displayed in the above interview).

 

9 minutes ago, hanhnn said:

I think it is still true today, you don't have many female presidents or more importantly, female army generals/admirals.

Pretty much. Going off on a tangent, even in other games, female-dominated armies are rare (the only instances I can think of where a military is mostly or entirely female are Troia in Final Fantasy 4 and Alexandria in Final Fantasy 9, as well as the Gerudo in the Zelda franchise [not really a military, but nonetheless, other than Ganondorf, the race is entirely women]). To get back on topic, I doubt it'll happen. Even Fates, which removed gender restrictions on non-DLC classes, still had male units be the staggering majority of what you fight (barring named characters, the only female enemies were in classes that were typically female-only in other games, and Invader villagers). That's... not encouraging.

[Acacia Sgt]

2 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Female enemies are so rare in Fire Emblem, even numbers like that feel much closer to gender equality.

Kudos for telling me the unit count.

That's certianly true. Amusingly, because of the reinforcement thing, the amount of female enemies can pretty much be infinite. Then again, that's assuming the bosses only summon female units. I'd think the Pegasus Knights would bring more PK's, but I'm not fully sure what Lamia brings out of a castle, if either more female swordmasters, or male ones. I'd still guess the former, though.

It was nothing. Stuff like this is easy to check thanks to War of Dragons, as they have maps with all enemy placements, and with exact amounts of enemy reinforcements and stuff.