Without even reading this story (and I did) I see the real problem.
Maybe I am so far out of The Loop that I no longer realize there is a loop and am unprepared to defy gravity going around it, but why is it expected that a Zelda game should provide a female hero? Apart from Wand of Gamelon, one never has up to this point. Many series do provide them, but it is not a reasonable expectation that everybody now do that. This is not like restaurants having clean restrooms; it is a made up waste of time. A female chief executive or president might be revolutionary, and take steps that a man never would, but a video game character still obeys the whims of the developers, who are still mostly men.
We can make the industry more inviting for women developers, I suppose, but I do not believe we are entitled to play video games with protagonists that remind us of ourselves, and I do not believe that would even be an ideal turnout in many cases.
I suppose the difference is that this is supposedly a customizable character beyond just the red link, blue link and original recipe link in the picture, but considering the childlike figures and Diana Prince circa 1968 outfits, I would still say testosterone isn’t what’s winning the war here. if you had told me those were female links, I could not have challenged it. You can claim the Link in the first game is female, since the art is vaguer and nobody in the game indirectly refers to the hero. You could claim Megaman was female were it not for the second half of his name. Obviously if Capcom were to designate a female Megaman it would have long skinny legs, bambi facial features and hair flowing out of the helmet even though as a robot it is neither male nor female
exactly.
And I would say that misses the point, if there is one, which there might not be. I think hyrule’s hero could very easily be designated female, but it wasn’t, and oh well.
Nintendo’s original female hero, Samus, was stripped of her armor and sent out into space dressed like an aerobics instructor/mermaid (depending on the in-game time taken) the second the “this is a woman” reveal was made, because we really cannot trust male game developers to develop a female hero that is not a tightly-bound sex object. I am not saying “give up on female heroes,” just to treat the ones we have better and not take an affirmative action approach to producing new ones. I am sure our noble fan-artists can “fix” any that they find inadequately-insufficiently-covered afterward.
I have never heard anybody say “I like the Metroid series and do not like the Zelda series at all because I identify with female heroes better.” Anyone who did would be an absurd person. That nobody knew Samus was female at first shows that on a fundamental level, this is irrelevant to the game portion of the game. But maybe “game as game” is going out of style.
This reminds me of the situation a year or more years ago around Game-I’ve-Never-Heard-of-That-People-Assume-I’ve-Heard-of-#739 where presumably prospective players were disgruntled that the game did not permit homogayxual relationships. It came at me in crumbumblr, which studies have shown nothing that I respond to positively will come at me in.
Does the mii system even let you choose to be neither? I bet it doesn’t. That would mean no personal representation in ANY game that used them. Although again I would probably never play any of those games, and if I did I would rather my figure look like someone else. Still hardly ideal, but it is my own problem.
I think gay people have a right to complain about lack of representation, and in many ways their fight is my fight, but I do not have a huge heap of sympathy on this one. I do in the sense that it seems like this would be a basic thing to change and to have it not changed is frustrating, but I can handle if it never is changed, and it probably will be anyway.
And if you got through that, it was probably the first time anybody read it. You get popular on tumblr either by being widely liked or widely hated. I am too angry to be liked but not angry enough on the right topics to be hated. I know of somebody who gets regularly abused for having an uncommon sexual preference, but he also responds passively to the abuse as he posts the evidence. You get support online by looking weak and exhibiting your weakness. The dominant culture thinks this is enough; criticizing a consciously weak person for not taking any step in the direction of self-defense is “victim-blaming” and worse than actual abuse.
Then a long interlude here about Shia LaBoeuf that got too complicated, but it ended with pudding.
I used to let scumbags push me around on [every] forum [I used between 2002 and 2007], enduring mobs of people I hated to follow one or two that I liked that wouldn’t even tell their friends to cut it out, and I hate myself for it. “Oh you’re gay because ha ha you’re gay fag (smiley face.)” They would say this when I had usernames like “cupcake” and used a butterfly for my avatar, thinking “gay” is a good insult.
Now I stand up for myself and explain my points in detail, and “detail” is not a fun reaction for anyone to read, so they give up. My personal ambiguity leads to tiresome situations but is ultimately not interesting enough for anyone to try and victimize deliberately. Now this here seems like it wants to present me as a victim because it might seem like I imply someone else’s situation is easier, but I am GLAD I don’t respond passively to antagonism. I am glad people don’t think I will let them tear off my clothes and dump pudding on me. That remark no longer makes sense now that I have removed the interlude I mentioned earlier.
And my existence needs some work but I am glad I don’t need an imaginary human on a computer screen to be said to do sex a certain way to validate it. While you have a gay pride parade I will have an ambiguous repressed sexuality shame walk inside my house that I am afraid to leave in the daytime. My skin burns easily. However, I can go out, and when I do, I cover my vulnerable regions instead of cursing the sun.
Reflecting back on this matter a full summer month after the initial posting, I think that I would indeed curse the sun, but I would still protect myself first.
More to the point, I probably need to make real friends and be less aware of ones who play video games all day every day, or worse, just watch video of someone else playing poorly, and then chain-complain about aspects of them that really aren’t important. A multiplayer Zelda game would necessarily have most of the depth cut out of it, and a “life-simulator” isn’t a game at all so I welcome people to be dissatisfied with them for any reason they can get, and so give up playing them faster.
And then get back to drawing idiotic fanart for better games.
And a gay man drew that.
RSS feed for comments, for they hunger.
This here`s me trackback!
PurpleSpace sez:
No one mentions that your main character in Unreal, the game where you go around and shoot aliens because they are blocking your way, is actually female. They probably don’t care because the only way to see the character are a few hidden places where there are mirrored surfaces, where otherwise the character is largely unseen and therefore can’t complain about it being over-sexualized. Your character looks incredibly tough and not someone you’d want to say ridiculous things around.
I don’t understand the focus on Samus in a skin tight suit because it seems silly. Why would Samus want to go around in this when all the planets she visits are made of acid and lava and acid-lava, and the air is acid too.
Indighost sez:
I’m glad you’re not complaining that “games are offensive to women/gamers hate women/game makers hate women!!”. Those people are annoying.
Overall though it really depends much of a customizeable character you want in your games. Japanese games, which you seem to tend to prefer, tend to give players fixed, premade characters with predetermined storylines. European & American games do that a lot but also contain some that allow you a lot of customization such as the Baldur’s gate series, knights of the old republic series, mass effect series, and many others you should try. Many more games make it irrelevant.
A fun and free game also exists that lets you play as a literally infinite number of genders is “Corruption of Champions”, although I stopped playing it once it leaned too heavily towards hermaphrodites which ain’t my cup of tea. Still, you should google it.
If you would like me to stop advertising video games you should play, you should probably ban me from this web site.
Relatedly, using one’s imagination either alone or in combination with other games is a wonderfully fun way to pass time.
Frimpinheap sez:
spack: what about Ridley? Ridley is NAKED and does just fine!
ghost:
I think some male “gamers” DO hate women, but the games didn’t make them that way. There are male snake charmers who hate women, too. Every big money item in our society is potentially offensive to women, or to men who resent that certain things are meant to appeal to them, and it undoubtedly has a negative affect on people who cannot or will not consider the content’s validity. It is worth fighting back about, since our society PERMITS fighting back, but “traditionally, consistently male hero cannot suddenly become female” is not discrimination. People who fight in silly ways only start fights.
Maybe I care so little about newish games in part because stuff that isn’t important to me: grittiness, inventory management, voice acting, supposed social awareness, have become more important than the stuff I actually do in the game, and hardly recently. Also I do not have much time to play them.
You may recommend what you like, but my list grows faster than it is trimmed.
Indighost sez:
Agreed. (I think.)
Prescription Pudding Pinged With:
[…] was in a previous entry, when I got temporarily on to the topic of passive acceptance of victimhood, but it was not […]
pzkfw sez:
have a character that after a long time you decided best would be male?
SEXIST
put a female character in the game and have different clothes to show she’s female?
SEXIST
sjws are a smelly fad and hopefully will run out of gas soon and toxify some other medium
Frimpinheap sez:
WHY AREN’T THERE MORE FEMALE TRAIN CONDUCTORS???!
pzkfw sez:
By the way, it is the most pleb and buttbabby thought to think that changing or having a choice in gender in a character instantly adds depth to it. The reason why this is a dumb maymay is because “anti-sexist” feminists actually are sexist themselves against men and assume that all male characters are dumb wastes of space (even if they are controlling them in the game but SJWs do not really play games), they are too intellectually dumbed down to identify with another gender, and by looking at the same version of the character but now with a few female features they think “this character is me and me is smart so this character = me = smart”. Unfortunately if you actually go through the effort to make this supposed girl character interesting, it will inevitably be more interesting than the SJW, and the same person will instantly cry SEXIST again. There are tons of lame games out there that think they are unique and witty and smart by writing two paragraphs about the gay lesbian tranny obscure gendered queerophile nobody and how they are so gay because I said so.
It is the worst and most childish form of character development to just say what your character is. If you’re going to do that, at least have it in a history format. “X used to be normal but then she went through some relationships and now etc” is much better than “HEY EVERYONE! THIS GIRL IS GAY BECAUSE I SAY SO!” And most of these “characters” are pixel hipster garbage or square minetism nothings. That is because SJWs know themselves and know SJWs won’t actually see the game because SJWs don’t really like video games and will blindly support it based on the fact it has an “sjw-tier “character””.
When you just say your character is gay in an intro paragraph, you are essentially no better than the 12 year old deviantartlet going full mary-sue and saying “MY (stand-in) CHARACTER IS PERFECT IN EVERY WAY THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A MORE PERFECT PERSON” and is quite possibly the worst type of character development. Because there is no development. They were just that way to start out with and nothing changes.
Frimpinheap sez:
All I can say is that my favorite video games are about people brutally killing other/monsters. If somebody can put a woman in a game like that and not have the focus be: “look, there is a woman,” then I welcome them to do so. Otherwise it need not be my problem. And if they don’t talk, then I never need to know who is gay.
Spamster too sez:
Am I the only one who is not touched by this mass hysteria? My gameplay, my imagination, my experience!
Frimpinheap sez:
My guess is that the most vocal parties are not representative of the whole, who have more important things to worry about. Even I do; I write out of obsessive compulsion. Also, I do not own any of these computer game systems so my opinion should be of little consequence.