I really like the look of Amira. I may draw her for the fan art thread, and be criticized into oblivion. 
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âŚor be okay with things the way they are, or be angry if the sexualization of females is toned down, or want every character in game to be a dragon or an amorphous blob or whatever so sexuality is absent, orâŚ
Itâs unfair to the subject matter to present the options as black and white.
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The issue originated from peoples discomfort with the sexualisation of female troops. It should be black and white for them.
Doubt many of the rest of us care tremendously after that.
While I would say you are right in the sense that Samus was the first iconic heroic female lead in a video game, I would argue that the ârevealâ at the end of each game is as objectifying as it gets. You basically are trying your damnedest to complete the game perfectlyâŚin order to see her standing around in lingerie, instead of the tough-girl space suit sheâs wearing all game long. (And later games had segments where you fight with her in her skin-suit.) Donât get me wrong â I love that series â but sheâs not exactly the spokeswoman for female empowerment, either.
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Piggy backing on female empowerment, who is a female character youâre proud of in the game space?
Commander Frigginâ Shepard. Not only did I get to be a bad-ass, non-sexualized female lead, I got to make decisions and form her personality. And Jennifer Hale could have my babies, if that were possible.
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Lol, right on
Maxine Caulfield from âLife is Strangeâ. She was a three dimensional character that reminded me of someone I could come across in real life. She wasnât Mother Theresa in a nunâs habit nor was she busting out of a smutty outfit in every scene. In other words, you could focus on the character not her clothing or lack of one.
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The Final Fantasy series, while hit or miss, does a remarkably good job of portraying (most) women as fully-realized three-dimensional characters with strengths and flaws that are not at all tied to their sexuality. (Occasionally theyâll have a ridiculous designed-for-males costume, but many are quite demure and understated.)
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slut-shaming. Noun. (uncountable) (uncountable) An act of making any person feel guilty or inferior for certain sexual behaviors or desires that deviate from traditional or orthodox gender expectations, or that which may be considered to be contrary to natural or religious law.
I think the characters are fine, they are resisting the male dominated patriarchy society by resisting orthodox gender expectations by expressing their sexuality.
Yeah using the keyword there PERSON. We canât respect a cardâs feelings, but we can a person or peoples. In this case the cards are making PEOPLE feel a certain way. Disrespected for some, being one.
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@Personette addressed this in a post prior. The issue isnât specifically with what theyâre wearing, itâs why. If theyâre doing it as a natural extension of their personality (and thatâs hard to gauge in a game where most of the non-quest characters have at most a paragraph of injected characterization) then itâs fine â itâs who they are. The issue is if the character is dressing scantily for the audienceâs (male audienceâs) sake, at which point the character in question is no longer a character in her own right, but a masturbatory exercise from artist to player. And to repeat myself, that line is hard to see, and varies from observer to observer (which is why this discussion is happening at all).
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As @Lyya says, doubt weâre likely to reach any consensus hereâbut for my part, no, I have no desire to see men presented as toys or objects.
I really donât think the solution to squicky behavior is more squicky behavior.
+1 for Shepherd. Though all the Bioware games let you play w/ a female protagonist. Female Hawke is pretty great, too. And Leliana has one of the most interesting character arcs Iâve run across in a game series.
I really love the Witcher 3 ladiesâYennefer and Triss and Ciri. All three really different, all three really wonderful. There are some serious criticisms to be made about The Witcher 3 in the way it neglects diversity & stuff about rando female NPCs but the women they really pay attention to? Superb. Blood & Wine had a bunch of great ones, too.
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Go complain to the female editors of the female centric magazines Cosmopolitan and Vogue about all their covers. They should stop body shaming by putting homely flat chested women on their covers more fully clothed.
As a woman and a visual artist, I find these sorts of discussions interesting since they are usually far less black and white than people make them.
From the fine arts side, I delight in capturing the beauty, rawness, sexuality and depth of the female and male nude. Sometimes, itâs stereotypical beauty, but many times itâs the beauty of body types you rarely see captured in Hollywood. At the end of the day, what Iâm really trying to mimic on the canvas is the character of the person in his or her truest form.
From the commercial arts side, sex sells. Cliches and tropes are king. When a client comes to me to draw âthe princessâ, âthe ogreâ, âthe heroâ, and âthe evil queenâ, that client already has a stereotypical image in their mind. That image is what they want to pay for. Generally, that image is an oversexualized woman and an idealized heroic man when it comes to lead characters. The sad truth is that many of the people with the money behind media arenât people who want to go against type and innovate when it comes to visually representing characters.
As for GoW, I canât complain about the art for the most part. I think they do a âdecentâ job of representing a variety of fantasy character tropes. My biggest complaint is bad designs like âShadow Hunterâ. Her boobs look ridiculous and misshapen. They really should have gone without them or had small ones. That design just tries too hard to push a stereotypical fantasy breast type.
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Iâm not sure how that has anything to do with the discusion at hand. Is that an attempt to straw-man this into a non-issue?
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Cosmo and Vogue in no way portray feminist ideals. They have articles that sexualize men with âwe can do it because men do it to usâ. Nobody in here shares that mentality. You canât âexcuse squicky behaviour with more squicky behaviourâ like @Personette said.
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I love the Witcher series! I am so glad we have some gamers that love compelling stories.
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The Witcher 3, and all of the DLC, is the best game Iâve ever played in the last 5 years. Easily.
Imlerith is my favourite character.
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Amen to that.
You couldnât get less feminist than Cosmo or Vogue.
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