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That's a bit misandrist. I think you have a very low opinion of males.Xena is cool, but males are afraid of women with power, they rather see females who are pretty, stupid and who they can control.
I have. Sorry, but time and time again i'm proven right in my own environment, starting with my father, arab guys and the guys from my class to random guys on the streets.
Of course there are good ones as well, but in my opinion they are too rare.
I played through Knights of the Old Republic as a female Revan twice - once as a full-on good-gal Jedi Knight, and again as a vicious backstabbing Dark Sider. Now, KotOR didn't feature the best writing and voice acting in the history of games or anything, but by no means was it bad. The only limiting elements to it were the hetero-leaning story choices (i.e., unless I missed something, you couldn't, say, seduce Bastila after turning her to the Dark Side if you played as a female PC).
Beyond that, though, I can't think of many major female protagonists in video games that were heroes first and women second. Terra from Final Fantasy VI springs to mind; less so Celes, who starts out being portrayed as a Magitek-wielding tank but quickly degenerates into the love interest who needs rescuing (the opera house sequence didn't help things much either).
With regard to tabletop games, the nice thing about role playing is that you get to make your own heroes in whatever image you so choose. My ongoing Carrion Crown game sports a party of five players (two males, three females) running four female PCs and one male one. Although the modules have presented several reasonably strong female NPCs to date (or at least, provided me opportunities to do so with some deviation from the way they were originally written), none of them hold a candle to the PCs themselves, who are far from being over-sexualized and are quite dangerous people to cross indeed (as the Whispering Way will likely learn soon enough).
I played through Knights of the Old Republic as a female Revan twice - once as a full-on good-gal Jedi Knight, and again as a vicious backstabbing Dark Sider. Now, KotOR didn't feature the best writing and voice acting in the history of games or anything, but by no means was it bad. The only limiting elements to it were the hetero-leaning story choices (i.e., unless I missed something, you couldn't, say, seduce Bastila after turning her to the Dark Side if you played as a female PC).
I would not have liked to see you be able to "turn" someone homosexual. I'd rather a different character have that orientation. My thought was always that Juhani would have made a good choice for a female homosexual to hook up with and Canderous for a male one.
Lol, there is nothing more boring for a homosexual male than lesbian sex scenes, i'll always skip them in Lost Girl and video games. ;)
And while male gay-sex scenes are rare and forbidden especially in America, I rather have the lesbian variants forbidden too, as they make me sleepy. :p
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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.
After the bombing of Catwoman and Electra in the movies, Marvel movie mogul, Avi Arad, said that, 'The genre audience doesn't want to see strong women.' when, if he were sane, he would have said, 'The audience doesn't want to see movies that suck.'
After all, 'the genre audience' loved Ellen Ripley kicking ass in the first two Alien movies, and Buffy for seven seasons, and Alias, and various other totally awesome female heroes, including the tons of butt-kicking comic book superheroines. There've been what, three movies and two different TV series based around La Femme Nikita?
If, in your experience, men are afraid of confident women and want weak and controllable women, I'd strongly recommend hanging out with a better class of men.
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, yes.
A better example would've been the Wonder Woman from all those poorly written Frank Miller comics.
I have. Sorry, but time and time again i'm proven right in my own environment, starting with my father, arab guys and the guys from my class to random guys on the streets.
Of course there are good ones as well, but in my opinion they are too rare.
You ever think that your early bad home life experience may have artificially colored your future experience by making you see everything in the worst possible manner?
No, i'm corrupted by both MTV, movies, games and my direct environment, in which all males are bullies, sex-driven maniacs or tirans.
Female characters?
One of the best games franchises for characterisation was Baldur's Gate (and BG2).
Baldur's Gate had Imoen, whose narrative arc started as annoying little sister type trickster and developed into tortured fellow Bhaal-spawn Mage.
Jahiera likewise, was sarcastic and politically motivated (a Harper) as well as ending up on a revenge trip after she lost her husband (the romance element was a bit iffy in my opinion).
The other female characters were perhaps less memorable (Safana, Shar-Teel) or a little more stereotyped (Aerie, Alora, Viconia, etc).
The point being (aside from the Romance element in BG2) these were female characters who had a seperate identity and some degree of back-story that also develop through the games in conjunction with the main pc's. Yes, the pc is the main hero but these were not just an eye-candy side-kick.
Ahh cruel Viconia, you knew where she stood. She will always have a place in my party alongside Korgan and Edwin. Morrigan of dragon age was a near copy past of old Viconia. Like old times.
Xena is cool, but males are afraid of women with power, they rather see females who are pretty, stupid and who they can control.After the bombing of Catwoman and Electra in the movies, Marvel movie mogul, Avi Arad, said that, 'The genre audience doesn't want to see strong women.' when, if he were sane, he would have said, 'The audience doesn't want to see movies that suck.'
After all, 'the genre audience' loved Ellen Ripley kicking ass in the first two Alien movies, and Buffy for seven seasons, and Alias, and various other totally awesome female heroes, including the tons of butt-kicking comic book superheroines. There've been what, three movies and two different TV series based around La Femme Nikita?
If, in your experience, men are afraid of confident women and want weak and controllable women, I'd strongly recommend hanging out with a better class of men.
I think how people remember Ripley can be a bit skewed. I just saw Alien the other night, and Ripley is at times tough and trying to take control, but also absolutely terrified for the most part, weak and helpless for so many minutes. Flee Ripley, flee!
Aliens, different kettle of fish.
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No, i'm corrupted by both MTV, movies, games and my direct environment, in which all males are bullies, sex-driven maniacs or tirans.
I don't think you're unbiased enough to make that judgement, is my point.
Saying all men are bullies, sex crazed maniacs, and tyrants is just as close minded, short sighted, and bigoted as saying all women are weak helpless victims.
I'm not talking about all men, just the soccer loving, car loving ones. I was not talking about homosexual males to begin with and also not about the more nerdy species, just the sport heroes and the man you see on television and in games as prototype, many heterosexual males are like that in my direct environment so that's why I think there are indeed many (not all) males who think that way about females.
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It is. Unfortunately, it's based on an attitude that really does exist among men. It's not ubiquitous, but it's a lot more common than it should be.
I know a lot of men. A real lot. I have yet to hear one of them even suggest anything of the sort.
I suggest to you that the view is actually rather uncommon, but then I'd agree that even rather uncommon is more common than it should be.
Again, no, someone's choice of hobby (sports, cars, whatever) does not influence their attitude towards women.
It is their upbringing that does that. You've heard of the term correlation does not equal causation, correct?
Assuming your premise is true (Many males are misogynistic as a simplistic explanation), and a corollary is also true "many males like sports and cars. And Sportscars.", that does not mean "Men who like cars and sports and sportscars are misogynistic.
Now the problem being that many men are brought up not being taught these values, per se, but sort of absorbing them. If their dad is a wife beater, even if his dad says "Never beat your wife" the kid is going to be influenced by that, usually either seeing it as completely okay (and thus probably doing it himself at at least one point in his life), or turning away from it completely. And they happen to generally fall into the category of people who like sports and cars. And Sportscars.
And I would go on to say that it is not all men, or even many men, that are brought up this way today. I personally have never come across anyone in my generation who has that "women are inferior" attitude, and I've hung out with my fair share of "sports heroes", because they're not seeing it as much any more. Though people with similar values do seem to congregate, which is why you'll find entire communities like this in some places, and in others you won't find any under the age of 40 or so.
Of course all of this is is just conjecture on my part (probably should've said this first but whatever), and I'm no psychologist or statistician for that matter, but I personally believe it's the most likely explanation over "The majority of 'mainstream accepted' males are misogynists".
Dodgy dog-men are out there!
Not all should be tarred with the same brush though.
I love sports. I love cars. & Yet I would never treat a woman as if she was weak. What does that mean Sincubus?
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Damnit. Threads like these often make me feel like I'm a horrible person.
I'm a woman. I like sexy women. I like playing sexy women in games. I'm allowed to, right? No? Is that evil now?
Edit: Whoops. This was meant to be in that other thread. Oh well, I guess it applies reasonably well to this one, too.
It's less common than it used to be. Or maybe I just know a better crowd these days. I don't usually hang with a$!*+%@s.
I certainly saw it in college.
Not quite sure how you see men 'doing it', especially as you also point out that you saw it once upon a time, and now you don't.
Twenty years ago I think attitudes were as you say, but times have changed. Your current friends reflect the norm.
The problem here is that so many people want to talk as though the attitudes and culture from two decades back is still the societal norm, when it clearly isn't (at least not here in Australia anyhow)
Things have moved a looooong way.
So... men should be strong and muscular, and women should be frail and pretty? Is that what you are saying?
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.
What I'm saying is that in my personal experience the ability to create and present an image of a strong, intelligent, capable multicultural woman is not just complete. It's overwrought. The new normal thats flowing through my eyeballs anymore through every billboard, commercial, tv show or internet ad says that if you're a woman you're a rockstar. You can do it. Whatever it is. Rock on, kick a$$. You don't gotta be slim. You dont gotta be sexy. Girl you sexy on the inside so when you see somethin you want you just [neck wag][three snaps] reach out there an take it girlfrennn. You own this rock already so TAKE it girl! Mmmm hmmmm. (laugh if you like but the only reason you recognize this is because i'm not the first one to say it). Look at honey boo boo. Criminey the fact that you can become famous just for having frighteningly overdeveloped sense of southern deep fried country 'sass?' It makes me a little nauseous.
But if you're a white man then you be dumb.
And if you're an old white man you be dumber.
I never used to notice such things but now that i'm aware of it I'm surprised at the sheer saturation of it. And at least to a certain degree its because white men don't think about such things, and to another degree its because the ones who see it don't say anything. But its as shameless and clear as day and has been going on a long time.
The article I mentioned just highlights the fact that somewhere out there is a little boy who wants to be a princess because little boys are all wrong dumb a-holes and even as a little boy he's noticed it enough to mention it to his mama. And that says something. Something not good. She tried placating him by saying he could be a prince instead. He saw a commercial about the disney princesses and he's like 'where's all the princes?' and she's just like uh... maybe they're off making their own commercial.
Or maybe nobody gives 2 shakes about the message we're sending out to young boys. In america at least it's not hard to find an image or a commercial or a show that doesn't say 'look at the old white man dancing doofus'. Lets bring in a woman to explain to him how dumb he is ... 'canned laugh track'.
IMHO it's gone just a shred too far. Rarely does anyone say anything about it. When they do it's like 'what you talking about hitler? you telling me the dumb old man commercial is opressin you? Dont come at me with that while your richest ceo's are all white men and blah blah blah...'
I hate to break it to you but me and Bill Gates don't hang out on the weekends. The fact that he's successful doesnt mean I have been an opressor and deserve to be called an old dumb white man for the rest of my life. Any more than it was right when it was common to do it to anyone else. We might be on the path to making a generation of boys with serious issues if we keep showing them how dumb they are just for being male and how wonderful and right and successful you are just for being a princess.
There was an article a few years back where disney made an official announcement that too many girls were growing up expecting to be princesses, and not 'taken care of by a prince' but just flat out adored and respected and happy and always getting what they want all the time just for being a princess, so the official decree from disney was 'no more princesses'... It was a huge deal. It made the news. Then nothing changed.
It's wierd and not right and it's been going on longer than most people realize. As a single white man dad of a white boy I'm bothered by the possibility that my son is going to grow up in a world where every woman is a tigress and every male is a whipped scrawny dumb silly fool with self esteem issues because we've spent 20 years broadcasting that to him and nobody's said anything.
Deep down I have nothing against strong women. My wife was a strong woman and I'd even go so far as to say she was stronger than I. But I've noticed how 'natural' it is for media to throw out the 'dumb white guy' joke far more often than I feel is appropriate.
@Vincent Takeda: Perfect Avatar for that post...
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@Vincent Takeda: Perfect Avatar for that post...
I have become quite the died-in-the-wool grumpy white man codger, thats for sure.
I never used to be this way. The world has a way of changing your plans for you.
Anymore I'm not sure I have enough 'sass' to get it back.
Nice. If it helps...
I am 19 and have had people tell me I act like a Grumpy Old Man.
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Heheheh. I think i was a grumpy old man at 19 too. On my best days I'm george carlin. On my worst days i'm any role Tommy Lee Jones has played in the last 10 years. No country for old men comes to mind.
TLJ didn't seem to bad in MIB 3...
But I have been told I am an Anachronism and that I belong in the Middle Ages or some Fantasy world.
Nice. If it helps...
I am 19 and have had people tell me I act like a Grumpy Old Man.
Well it's nice to know there's at least one person on these boards that's at least roughly my own age (I'm 20).
I was beginning to think everyone here was over 40. And in the service.
I was actually refused by the Service do to failing a Psych Eval. I was deemed to Self-Destructive in my Protectiveness. Though they did say I might make a good Security Guard.
Most on these boards are well under 40, and not that many servicemen.
That said, the 40 something servicemen on these boards are just rather prone to making their opinions known :)
I guess its because there are many soccer loving hooligans and young arab streetscum in my city (rotterdam) that I see man beat up women on the streets and i'm being called names/being spit on only if I pass them on the street.
You clearly have better love for humans, I don't really trust many of them as I think everything most do is for themselves, money and self concern, so that's why I probably have such a bad human-knowledge, and most of all male knowledge. I'm sorry for that, but I can't change that on this moment, I should have shut up here cuz my view on them is corrupted, I probably live in the wrong city.
Lol, there is nothing more boring for a homosexual male than lesbian sex scenes, i'll always skip them in Lost Girl and
I skip the ones in Lost Girl too, its like oh yay Bo is baing taudry again. I get it her character feeds on sex, I'm just not that into watching it. I'm no prude but its not as though we are going to see the interesting bits anyway so why do I care?
On Xena, I found her to be masculine despite the generous bossums of Ms Lawless. To me the more interesting character was Gabriel, she started as a passifist, to using a staff to defend herself only, to using sais and having the conviction to strike against things she believed to be evil. You watch a sidekick evolve into a hero in her own right, and struggle with ethical questions and her sexuality. Xena was a force of nature to begin with, not much of a character, Gabriel was compelling.
So... men should be strong and muscular, and women should be frail and pretty? Is that what you are saying?
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.What I'm saying is that in my personal experience the ability to create and present an image of a strong, intelligent, capable multicultural woman is not just complete. It's overwrought. The new normal thats flowing through my eyeballs anymore through every billboard, commercial, tv show or internet ad says that if you're a woman you're a rockstar. You can do it. Whatever it is. Rock on, kick a$$. You don't gotta be slim. You dont gotta be sexy. Girl you sexy on the inside so when you see somethin you want you just [neck wag][three snaps] reach out there an take it girlfrennn. You own this rock already so TAKE it girl! Mmmm hmmmm. (laugh if you like but the only reason you recognize this is because i'm not the first one to say it). Look at honey boo boo. Criminey the fact that you can become famous just for having frighteningly overdeveloped sense of southern deep fried country 'sass?' It makes me a little nauseous.
But if you're a white man then you be dumb.
And if you're an old white man you be dumber.I never used to notice such things but now that i'm aware of it I'm surprised at the sheer saturation of it. And at least to a certain degree its because white men don't think about such things, and to another degree its because the ones who see it don't say anything. But its as shameless and clear as day and has been going on a long time.
The article I mentioned just highlights the fact that somewhere out there is a little boy who wants to be a princess because little boys are all...
The article you posted...was an anecdote. It like me reading an article on a wolf attack in Alaska, and then envisioning that 20 years for now humans will be reduced to prey to the great wolf menace throughout every city in the nation.
The reason you see all those "female positive" posters and such is that historically and up to today, there is an incredibly low participation of women in sciences and other traditional male endeavors. I remember my first vert paleo meeting, maybe six years ago. You could count the number of female grad students on both hands. It's gotten better, but there is still very much an undercurrent that women are not good at math, science, and athletics, and shouldn't try. It's gotten a bit better in my field, but for every female researcher there is probably 2 or three guys.
And don't even get me started on minorities. There are something like 1000 people at the big meetings, and I have only ever seen two people of African American descent.
As for "stupid old white guy" jokes, I have heard far more dumb blonde jokes...
As for "stupid old white guy" jokes, I have heard far more dumb blonde jokes...
.
Your head.
I guess its because there are many soccer loving hooligans and young arab streetscum in my city (rotterdam) that I see man beat up women on the streets and i'm being called names/being spit on only if I pass them on the street.
You clearly have better love for humans, I don't really trust many of them as I think everything most do is for themselves, money and self concern, so that's why I probably have such a bad human-knowledge, and most of all male knowledge. I'm sorry for that, but I can't change that on this moment, I should have shut up here cuz my view on them is corrupted, I probably live in the wrong city.
Yeah that situation in Europe, the treatment of women by minorities is frequently terrible. Rotterdam isn't the only place to pick up such a view.
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137 posts, and no one's said it.
April Ryan?
and the upcoming Dreamfall Chapters.
April doesn't really factor much into Dreamfall: The Longest Journey or Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey, that's Zoë Castillo's story. However, April is going to return as the protagonist in The Longest Journey Home, assuming that Red Thread Games reaches their $2M benchmark.
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Damnit. Threads like these often make me feel like I'm a horrible person ...
You're not alone. My wife does nothing but play this type and she enjoys it too. She designs her characters the way she likes, including in MMOs and they're often done in the same style people derail on but she doesn't care. I don't care either so long as she's playing what she WANTS to play. I'm just as bad with my male characters in fantasy games and MMOs. Not a fan of armor, even in the fantasy genre.
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First completely badass female character I encounter in games was in 1986: Samus Aran . Though, sadly I've not followed up on her exploits much since.
-TimD
Samus Aran is a still Badass. Unfortunately the Games are Horribly Repetitive... Or at least all the ones I have played. I haven't played Other M though...
I still love how the reveal of her being a Woman shocked gamers.
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The First is Cool but not my Favorite.
The Second is one of my favorite.
The Third is awesome.
I liked Kristen Stewart in The Runaways and Snow White & The Huntsman. She gets way to much Flak from being in Twilight.
The Twilight Saga is Meh. The Host is better.
She did well in Snow White, didn't see Runaways (that band is sacred!) nor the Host.
She isn't in the Host AFAIK.
And I snuck in an Edit.
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Samus is a badass, and she's in great games. I don't know that she can really be considered a compelling female character, though...until Other M, she was a COMPLETELY blank slate. Link, famous for not having much in the way of character so as to let the player envision themselves in the role, is far FAR more fleshed out as a character than Samus.
There's also some fantastic female roles coming out of Game of Thrones.
Some of the best characters imo.
The Metroid Manga & Light Novels help with her Characterization.