Tropes vs. Women

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Whipstitch
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Post by Whipstitch »

Kaelik wrote: (Well, they basically are, but as above, we basically do make fun of them worse, because they deserve it.)
Yeah, my comment wasn't intended to be particularly critical of anyone here but rather those crazy wilds of the internet where Count Arioch is deemed to be fishing for poon with his overt and transparently self-serving chivalry.
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Post by OgreBattle »

Chamomile wrote:Penny Arcade, which is apparently journalists now, did some digging and games with female protagonists typically dramatically undersell games with male protagonists...And they also receive half the marketing budget. So this was kind of a chicken and egg problem. If the publishers released and properly marketed big-budget games with female protagonists, would they work?

This was a chicken and egg problem, but then Tomb Raider came out
Yes, they work. It's been proven long before the New Tomb Raider, Square Enix has been doing this for over a decade (and S-E published Tomb Raider too)

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Final Fantasy XIII
sold 6.9 million

(For comparison, Final Fantasy XII sold 6 million on the much much more popular PS2 platform.)

This is Square-Enix's flagship title. Female protagonist, right on the cover. XIII is now a trilogy, all with female protagonists.

Previous FF titles...
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Final Fantasy X, sold 5.5 million


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Final Fantasy VI, 3.5 million sales
Though arguably there is no single protagonist, Terra is the one you start as and the character who interacts most with the plot.

Other titles they've published with female protagonists...
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Valkyrie Profile series. They aren't huge budget titles but have a cult following

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Parasite Eve series, 1st one sold 2 million, 2nd one sold close to 1 million

Square Enix has done lots on this subject. Final Fantasy games are popular among women across the world. They deserve credity


... but they did this before 'women in games!' was a trending topic in games journalism. That's what bugs me, I get this yellow journalism feeling that people are just aiming for sensationalist headlines and jacking each other off instead of acknowledging what real accomplishments have been made in the past... particularly by non-Western companies.

Capcom's had female leads in their titles for a long time too
Image
They could have very easily made Chris the only playable character, but they added Jill too and she just went around stomping zombie ass too.
Last edited by OgreBattle on Mon Apr 22, 2013 9:12 am, edited 5 times in total.
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Post by OgreBattle »

Koumei wrote:Yeah, if people complained that "she used Kickstarter to get a bunch of money from making youtube videos" and "she needs to put more research in, there are better examples to use" then they'd have decent points. But the kind of people I've seen screaming about it spend most of the rest of their time masturbating to pictures of guns.
Yes, it was very disappointing for me to hear her criticism of Bayonetta's looks, without ever mentioning Mari Shimazaki, the artist behind the game:
Image

She's also worked on Okami. Bayonetta was designed by a woman who wanted a powerful, sexy character. Hideki Kamiya said he fell in love with the design right on the first shot.

Image


Like, would Anita give a scathing criticism of how Lady Gaga and Beyonce (both female icons with huge female fanbases) show too much skin? Is Anita even AWARE that Mari Shimazaki designed Bayonetta's characters?

That's what bothers me about Anita, her videos are mostly sensationalist and don't really say anything. Her 'white knights' can also be really dumb.

Seriously, her dream game of a Strong Female Badass Princess Reversal concept was already made. It just didn't come out in America.
Last edited by OgreBattle on Mon Apr 22, 2013 11:42 am, edited 6 times in total.
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Count Arioch the 28th
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Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

Well, Wand of Gamelon starred Zelda. It just sucked.
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Post by OgreBattle »

Oh I didn't mean an actual Zelda game, I just mean "Princess rescue YOU"

That game is Princess Crown.

Here's the intro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6MrKchH-po
Image
Demon tries to kidnap queen. Knights are fighting the demon and dying, then you hear "Bow before the Queen, demon!" and the Queen jumps in, full battle regalia, and strikes the demon down in one blow. It then goes 25 years into the present, where the young Princess is beginning her royal duties and she wishes to be a Brave Queen like her mother.

This game is presented as a storybook that a little girl gives to her grandmother to read to her:

Image

Image[/img]

It's a fantastic game. Vanillaware made it in 1997, long before "girls in games!!" became a trendy word for games journalists to repeat.
That's what really bugs me, people are either ignorant or ignoring the history of previous games to make these big soapbox statements to make themselves feel like they're the first to do something... but the history of games has many gems in there, these are things that should be celebrated.

So that's why I'm celebrating them, I've been doing a writeup on it for my blog.
Last edited by OgreBattle on Mon Apr 22, 2013 1:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Count Arioch the 28th
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Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

I'd give that game a go if I had the option.

EDIT: Whoah, a woman was the character designer for Bayonetta? That actually makes a lot of sense, because I can't imaging a man finding a character that exaggerated sexually attractive. Kind of like a man designing a sexy character makes a half-nakkid roided-out hulk when most women don't really care for that sort of thing.
Last edited by Count Arioch the 28th on Mon Apr 22, 2013 1:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by icyshadowlord »

Jesus fucking Christ, I see a new section on the forums and this is what gets a whole thread dedicated to it?

I've seen and heard enough of Tropes vs Women to know that Sarkeesian was spouting out bullshit for the most part.

Edit: Didn't she disable comments and send her fangirls after people who said anything that disagreed with her views? It's what I've heard as well.
Last edited by icyshadowlord on Mon Apr 22, 2013 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Count Arioch the 28th
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Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

icyshadowlord wrote:Jesus fucking Christ, I see a new section on the forums and this is what gets a whole thread dedicated to it?
You know me, always lending a helpful hand to make the internet a worse place.
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Post by Kaelik »

icyshadowlord wrote:Edit: Didn't she disable comments and send her fangirls after people who said anything that disagreed with her views? It's what I've heard as well.
Unless you have specific statements telling people to attack dog, I imagine her fangirls attack people because they are fan girls, not because she told them to. I seriously doubt Sony tells people to wage war against the Xbox or whatever.

As to disabling comments, yeah, she did. But frankly, while I personally am a tremendous asshole who loves arguing, I could see not wanting everything you produce to be followed by a wave of graphic rape threats. I don't fault her much for that, as it just turned out that actual conversation was made impossible by other people before she disabled comments.
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Post by OgreBattle »

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:I'd give that game a go if I had the option.

EDIT: Whoah, a woman was the character designer for Bayonetta? That actually makes a lot of sense, because I can't imaging a man finding a character that exaggerated sexually attractive.
Yup.


Bayonetta's actually got the same proportions as Mary in Michelangelo's La Pieta

Image
Look at the size of Mary's hand on Jesus much larger). Look at the size of Mary's head compared to Jesus (same size). Look at the length of her legs compared to Jesus (much longer). If Mary stood up, she would be a towering amazon of a woman with a small head and long limbs.

Like this:
http://static.zerochan.net/Bayonetta.(C ... 775718.jpg
Last edited by OgreBattle on Tue Apr 23, 2013 1:49 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Lokathor »

OgreBattle that's the second broken link you've posted :(
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Post by Ted the Flayer »

I'm just going to leave this here...

http://www.dorkly.com/comic/51297/samus ... nty-hunter
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Post by Whipstitch »

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Post by crasskris »

ckafrica wrote:See I prefer female protagonists though for perfectly sexist reasons. If I'm going to spend dozens of hours watching someone traipsing around my screen, I'd prefer it to be something easy on the eyes.
Amen. That is also my favorite argument when me playing a woman creates bewilderment in my fellow players.

"When I have to look at someone for hours on end I'd rather look at a nice female behind, but if male butts are more your thing, heh, more power to you."

Works like a charm.
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Post by squirrelloid »

I agree that the lack of interesting things she has to say is shocking. And sometimes she just fails to do the research, on topics that are trivial to investigate, from which *even stronger* claims could instead be made, and I just have to facepalm.

Take her Women in Refrigerators video, a topic its hard to fuck up because Gail Simone already did the fucking research. Specifically, take the brief examination of Gwen Stacey.

(1) Gwen Stacey is not an example of women in refrigerators. She dies onscreen, to realistic physics, in a failed rescue attempt. She exemplifies other tropes (example: Damsel in Distress), but she isn't killed offstage, and she isn't killed in some terribly grotesque fashion.

(2) Stacey also isn't killed to give Peter Parker more depth, which is a claim she makes during the video. He doesn't need *another death* for depth, they're already milking the crap out of Uncle Ben's murder. (Not only does he establish the entire tone of the hero from his first appearance, but they kept bringing back the robber every 10 years or so).

Not only that, we know *exactly* why Marvel killed off Gwen Stacey. The writer and editors have told us. It had nothing to do with character building whatsoever, and in fact it was done *to avoid character growth*. To paraphrase: Peter and Gwen had broken up and gotten back together so many times that further stories in that vein were beyond plausible. It was time for them to either get married or to kill off Gwen Stacey. Since the writer and editors didn't want Peter to be married, they killed off Gwen Stacey. (This is the same underlying motivation behind the One Day More storyline which retroactively removes Peter's marriage to Mary Jane).

Now, this is deeply problematic and mysogynist. It's arguably even more problematic than fridging her would have been - it isn't like I'm justifying her depiction! But she is most definitely not an example of a woman in a refrigerator.

When pointing out problematic depictions of women in mass media, it helps to be *right* about why they're problematic. Being full of shit blows your credibility out of the water, even if the thing you're discussing is problematic for other reasons.
Last edited by squirrelloid on Fri Apr 26, 2013 12:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by OgreBattle »

Solid Snake wears the Zero Suit by default

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Post by Juton »

Someone did an analysis of Annita Sarkeesian's thesis here.

I can't comment on whether this is a good thesis for a humanities major. What I can say is that it's bullshit the disparity of work between a masters in arts and a masters of science.
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Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

Stupid sexy Snake.
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Post by wotmaniac »

Juton wrote:Someone did an analysis of Annita Sarkeesian's thesis here.
Good find, sir.
I want to shake that man's hand.
What I can say is that it's bullshit the disparity of work between a masters in arts and a masters of science.
No shit. :tsk:
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Post by JigokuBosatsu »

I'm confused. Does she not have any teeth?
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