I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite post in this thread.
I just spent a month with a real life version, and wish there were a lot more where she came from.
I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite post in this thread.Mass Effect
MASS EFFECT
They gave us a female space marine that is a space marine first. Femme Shep is my favorite female protagonist in a game because the fact that she is female isn't ignored, but it doesn't define her. Her stupendous bada$$ness defines her.
It's my new bar.
Heh, Cressida Kroft as FemShep. Works for me.
A pretty compelling female character that I enjoyed playing recently was E'lara from Hunted. I thought the whole game was super well-written, and the characters really interesting but.... could they have dressed her worse? ;_;
Oh good call Jedejane! My Borderlands friend appreciated that the developers actually provided suitable fan service/beefcake for her tastes in Caddoc. I can't recall how long we laughed after E'lara tried to explain away her outfit as practical after giving the sorceress hell for her scanty outfit. A lot of good tongue-in-cheek humor in that game. "Hello... ears?!" :D
Another female character we thought to be strong and admirable was Andriel the Loremaster from LotR: War in the North. Unlike the much younger E'lara, Andriel certainly knew how to get dressed for battle.
EDIT: Also, what about Zoey and Rochelle from the Left for Dead series? No superpowers or magic, but they stand toe-to-toe with the guys and give as good as they get — believably attired too.
Rochelle's utterly abysmal AI kind of ruins that.
COMPLETELY ruins that argument.
"Hey Rochelle look I'm kinda grabbed by a Smoker and you're standing right there could you just...help? Please? OH COME ON!"
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"Ah well I see yer problem raight here. Ya'll was thinkin' ya could run this here game without a full set a players? Yeeeaaah, that'll git cha every taime."
;)
Yeah but then you run just as much of a chance of getting some real life moron playing Rochelle that makes the AI look downright godlike by comparison. =p
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The thing that bores me most about female characters is that they are all pretty and most have only one purpose, to be eyecandy for nerds that probably never will have real female-contact in the real world.
I'm really done witch such female characters, pretty characters ok, in the form of nymph, succubus and maybe some spoiled princess, but in my opinion the really truly beautiful people are mean and arrogant because people worship them as gods. (same in the real world) A truly beautiful person (on the inside and outside) is hard to find, and so should it be in the game/movie world. (everybody hates the twilight saga right? Well beautiful people are the reason I really hate that movie, apart from the extremly boring lines and plots of course)
I'd rather play as a ugly/normal looking farmers daughter that has a real goal other than to be pretty and drooled over by horney teenage mutant nerd males.
Really? You think its usefull to have beautiful, little-wearing woman all over because you think they are hot even tho they are not real and drawn/animated? :p
There's only a couple of RPGs I can think of with a lone female character on the front without a male one. One is Macho Women with Guns. The other is 1st edition Exalted.Mass Effect 3 actually had two separate covers on release, one with Male!Shep and one with Fem!Shep. Either that or it was two sides to the same cover.
Anyway, I think it counts.
The case on my Collectors' Edition has ManShep on one side and FemShep on the other, and I think it counts. Though I was forgetting Runequest, where both 2nd and 6th edition have a woman fighting on the cover - though the UK 2nd edition put her in a bikini for some reason.
Two-sided covers... but always started as manshep.
Two-sided covers... but always started as manshep.
What do you mean by that?
to be eyecandy for nerds that probably never will have real female-contact in the real world.
Those guys have it hard enough. Is it really fair to lead a witch hunt against them?
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I'm really done witch such female characters, pretty characters ok, in the form of nymph, succubus and maybe some spoiled princess, but in my opinion the really truly beautiful people are mean and arrogant because people worship them as gods. (same in the real world) A truly beautiful person (on the inside and outside) is hard to find, and so should it be in the game/movie world.
Your experiences and mine differ.
Also, who says a character has to be beautiful on the inside to be a compelling character? And it's also not like being beautiful means that you're doomed to a shallow and arrogant existence. Not only that, but being beautiful has pitfalls all its own. This is an interesting study.
The real problem with beauty is when it becomes all that defines a character, which is in agreement with the first sentence of your statement. Well, up until you started getting mad at nerds.
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I don't mind evil female characters being all pretty, at least that makes sense to me.
A heroine that is beautiful on the other hand (and not elf, because tolkien cursed the elves into a lifetime of beauty) is less likely for me.
I guess I just have bad experience with beautiful people in my life, the ones I know/knew all were the tirans of the classrooms, the workplaces, the gym, the family, the bar (beautiful gay people are even worse) and even on the streets, followed by hordes of stupid mindless soccer-player boyfriends who "killed" everyone that disagreed with their highness opinion, with that kind of army everybody becomes a tiran because its so easy.
That's why I never had beautiful people on posters on my wall, I don't want anything to do with beautiful characters and moviestars.
And my wish is that female characters get the same treatment as males in the future, to make sense, understood and usefull instead of only eyecandy and boring sex-symbols.
Many people commit suicide each year because they find themselves ugly, that is not so strange as everything you see (in books, movies, commercials and games) is so damn pretty.
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There's a lot to be said for not putting people on a pedestal or vilifying them for their appearance. Falling into the "beautiful people are evil" trap is just as bad as the "beauty equals goodness" trap; it's an equally shallow way of looking at people. You just see the latter more often, but both are fallacious.
Stigmatizing another group of people is no way to help those that are already hurting. It just perpetuates a nasty cycle.
And that's coming from someone that agrees with some of your wishes. I do want to see female characters get the same range in appearance and portrayal as males. I do want sexualization to not be considered a must for female characters. I do want our standards of beauty to expand and become healthier. I want our culture to stop marginalizing people to the point of self-destruction because some unhealthy standard is being pushed on them 24/7.
But flipping from one dysfunctional extreme to another is no way to get there.
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I think you are on to something there; people have been fooled into hating who they are, and the anxiety kills some of them every year, because they can't match the standards of beauty. I found myself hating some shows for similar reasons and inaccurate portrayal.
I do find I emphasise the physical a bit more in female characters, no chain-mail bikinis though. The most recent three female characters deserve mention:
Sorceress: racially/culturally somewhat of a mix of medieval Hungarian and warring states Japan. A powerful and determined sorceress, no sense of honour but loyal and a monster-hunter for the good of the less powerful (NG), slow to develop relationships, short and low in weight, fine pale features but low personal hygiene (sorcerers in this setting really live on the fringes, swamps, that sort of thing).
Witch: the all powerful soccer mom. A village leader, 40s, forceful, dangerous, proud, evil but not totally unreasonable (LE). Quick-thinking, skilled in politics, good appearance with the wealth to spend on looks but not physically fantastic since she is mostly village bound these days.
Ranger: grim forest hunter, thrilled at the taking of lives, loves an ambush and the clash of steel (favours the shotel and shield). Cruel, and has respect for the powerful and those that kill well and fast (CE). Somewhat sexual and suggestive. Rough looks, strong shoulders, a body hardened by combat, so her most attractive physical feature would be her wheat coloured short hair.
Many people commit suicide each year because they find themselves ugly, that is not so strange as everything you see (in books, movies, commercials and games) is so damn pretty.
I would argue that it still is very strange but as my opinions on suicide and self-esteem in general are usually met either with acceptance or gigantic WTF fireball explosions of anger, I will refrain from stating them here.
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I do want to see female characters get the same range in appearance and portrayal as males. I do want sexualization to not be considered a must for female characters. I do want our standards of beauty to expand and become healthier. I want our culture to stop marginalizing people to the point of self-destruction because some unhealthy standard is being pushed on them 24/7.
Sometimes I think Terry Pratchett should be mandatory reading.
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I do want to see female characters get the same range in appearance and portrayal as males. I do want sexualization to not be considered a must for female characters. I do want our standards of beauty to expand and become healthier. I want our culture to stop marginalizing people to the point of self-destruction because some unhealthy standard is being pushed on them 24/7.Sometimes I think Terry Pratchett should be mandatory reading.
"People are people, no matter what they are" has been a phrase I've tried to live and write by ever I read how he put it into words. :)
They have to be people, not just boobs.
Well I am not white knighting, but I do want to play a female character once in a while. As a dm I want them to be compelling and have some depth.
I don't think is about prize winning, only game improving.
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I love playing female characters in computer games, isn't it only because male players give stuff for free to female-players, even if the character is female and you lie about being a female. Very easy.
And pathetic of course, but I don't really care about gender at all, but if it gives me free loot and armor, i'm in for it. ;)
Sincubus is clearly tricky. What bugs me in some games, is when a female character sounds so male and masculine it hurts. I wonder if "I must be man, I must be man! Grognard man-man flex man." would be going through the head of such a character (or the writers). Some female players will play their female characters very manly/brutish; we are all playing an escape I suppose.
So dialogue should not be overlooked. I have found it a challenge when playing a female character, but it can be pretty fun.
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I saw a wonderful article somewhere online recently where a lady who grew up in an all women's woman empowerment household ended up having a son...
Firstly she was surprised in retrospect that when he was born her first thoughts were 'he's going to be a domineering little cur. Can't be helped. He's a man. What am I going to do? How am I going to handle this? Decades of woman empowerement hadn't prepared her for even the thought of how to approach not just the possibility of, but also the idea of encouraging her son to grow up as empowered as all the women in her household had been.
Three years later he's running around in dresses saying he wants to be a princess because girls are always nice and sweet and strong and right, and boys are always wrong and mean and stupid. The punchline of the article trails off into this half hearted 'perhaps the saturation of female empowerment is having a detrimental effect on little boys...' and 'I hope it's just a phase'...
There were some advertisements for healthcare in my office building recently, and in those adds were depicted an athletic black woman, a latin woman in a suit running a board room meeting, and a black female doctor shining a light into an old white man's ear... And the look on his face made him look like a retard and there was literally light coming out the other ear. I couldnt help mentioning to one of the female bosses (and nearly all of the middle managers in my building were female... like 95%) that if that doofus with the light shining through his empty head were a black woman someone would have complained by now. The advertisements disappeared pretty quick.
I've never been against female empowerment, and I've always considered myself a pretty open minded guy, but when it starts to be at another group's expense, or when it gets so bad that genders start to reverse and we wind up with Xena and Hansen and Bieber, I can't say it hasn't started creeping me out just a bit. IMHO.
Good post.
I've never been against female empowerment, and I've always considered myself a pretty open minded guy, but when it starts to be at another group's expense, or when it gets so bad that genders start to reverse and we wind up with Xena and Hansen and Bieber, I can't say it hasn't started creeping me out just a bit. IMHO.
So... men should be strong and muscular, and women should be frail and pretty? Is that what you are saying?
So... men should be strong and muscular, and women should be frail and pretty? Is that what you are saying?
Here, since you seem to have missed it the first time, read the rest of his post.
I saw a wonderful article somewhere online recently where a lady who grew up in an all women's woman empowerment household ended up having a son...
Firstly she was surprised in retrospect that when he was born her first thoughts were 'he's going to be a domineering little cur. Can't be helped. He's a man. What am I going to do? How am I going to handle this? Decades of woman empowerement hadn't prepared her for even the thought of how to approach not just the possibility of, but also the idea of encouraging her son to grow up as empowered as all the women in her household had been.
Three years later he's running around in dresses saying he wants to be a princess because girls are always nice and sweet and strong and right, and boys are always wrong and mean and stupid. The punchline of the article trails off into this half hearted 'perhaps the saturation of female empowerment is having a detrimental effect on little boys...' and 'I hope it's just a phase'...
There were some advertisements for healthcare in my office building recently, and in those adds were depicted an athletic black woman, a latin woman in a suit running a board room meeting, and a black female doctor shining a light into an old white man's ear... And the look on his face made him look like a retard and there was literally light coming out the other ear. I couldnt help mentioning to one of the female bosses (and nearly all of the middle managers in my building were female... like 95%) that if that doofus with the light shining through his empty head were a black woman someone would have complained by now. The advertisements disappeared pretty quick.
TL;DR: Equality good, reversing the inequality bad.
TL;DR: Equality good, reversing the inequality bad.
Rynjin, don't be mean.
I am asking an honest question by what is meant by what I highlighted. That part doesn't fit with the rest of the comment. I am asking what is meant. Why is it bad to ask that?or maybe those people have done specific things to reverse equality?
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I have no idea who Hansen and Bieber are so I assumed he was talking about some guy named Hansen and Justin Bieber who were literal opposites of what is generally considered "male" by the majority of the populace.
Though I think Xena was a bad example in that case, I'm pretty sure he was just saying he doesn't want "Generic Amazon Man hater #6" to become the new normal.
Seems I have the opposite problem... I have a hard time with Compelling Male Characters... At least unless they have some goofy gimmick...
I have no idea who Hansen and Bieber are so I assumed he was talking about some guy named Hansen and Justin Bieber who were literal opposites of what is generally considered "male" by the majority of the populace.
Though I think Xena was a bad example in that case, I'm pretty sure he was just saying he doesn't want "Generic Amazon Man hater #6" to become the new normal.
And if Xena was the default female stereotype and Hansen/Bieber the default male, then there would be valid point. I don't want things to reverse to that state either.
But they're not. They're not anywhere near that. Both are still outliers. So I'm not really worried about it.
I am still confused as to if we are talking about how someone looks, or how they act. The original comment talked about people's behavior, so what have these people done to reverse equality?
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I don't think they have done anything. As I read it, they're examples of types he doesn't want to see become more common.
The result, not the cause.
I think we would benefit from more Xenas in the mix, personally.
And more Bowies. (Because pairing Xena with Bieber or Hanson in terms of positivity is just wrong)
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Xena is cool, but males are afraid of women with power, they rather see females who are pretty, stupid and who they can control.
Xena is cool, but males are afraid of women with power, they rather see females who are pretty, stupid and who they can control.
That's a bit misandrist. I think you have a very low opinion of males.
How the hell did Xena become a negative? I'm at a loss on that one too.
When she refused to explain the continuity error regarding the winged Appaloosa and the winged Arabian.
Wait, that was Lucy Lawless, not Xena.