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Strong (not sexualised) female characters in this generation?

EricDiesel said:
It depresses me what some of you consider "non-sexualized". Not that there's anything wrong with sexy characters, but at least recognize them as such. They don't have to be Ivy or Bayonetta style caricatures to be meant to be seen as sexually desirable.

Sexy != Sexualised

Jesus, some days I feel like GAF is exclusively populated by the Amish.
 

ghst

thanks for the laugh
perryfarrell said:
Valve has the best ones. Alyx from HL2, Rochelle from L4D2. They're funny, strong-willed, irreverent. A welcome change from the usual, cheesy immaturity.
and both of them are almost entirely without flaws. valve are in a perfect place to do something special with alyx's character, i just hope it's something more interesting than infinite bravery and compassion.
 

Zerokku

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
ghst said:
and both of them are almost entirely without flaws.

And if they have any flaws, then someone will come in and say "look at how they're portraying the girl as weak". Its a lose-lose.
 

g.r.e.

Member
berserkerub5.jpg


She's one of the strongest non oversexualized females I've ever seen in a videogame.
 

Opiate

Member
ghst said:
i'm glad to see videogames have finally progressed from representing females as magical pixie t&a enablers to a parade of kick ass paper thin mary sues.

we're getting there. soon as devs drop the scrappy doo complex maybe we'll actually have female characters worth giving a fuck about. or male, for that matter.

I'm not sure that's likely. There was financial incentive to transition from magical, innocent women to kick ass mary sues. I'm not sure there will ever be financial incentive to make the females more complex.
 

Lesiroth

Member
jim-jam bongs said:
Sexy != Sexualised

Jesus, some days I feel like GAF is exclusively populated by the Amish.
You mean those who pretend to be Amish, because no one wants to give off a creepy impression. And to allow for White Knighting opportunities of course.
 

Kinyou

Member
NullPointer said:
I'll see your berzerker and raise you a Titan.

rksspf.jpg
Nah, the Titan has some huge titays and wears not even a single piece of cloth.

Now Aphrodite on the other hand has some great and big personality!:

244woph.png
 

Lesiroth

Member
Kinyou said:
Nah, the Titan has some huge titays and wears not even a single piece of cloth.

Now Aphrodite on the other hand has some great and big personality!:

http://i55.tinypic.com/244woph.png[IMG][/QUOTE]
How can a personality be bi- Oh.
 

Shtof

Member
Kurod said:
Not even an over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder.

Shameful
That made me laugh because my mind somehow mixed in the final level of RE5. You know, the one with the boulder.
 
Moira is just a fucking annoying character. She may be non-sexualised but that doesn't mean that every character needs to be like Moira to be so. The same goes for female characters like Shale and the Titan on this page, since they're indistinguishable from male characters.

Maybe it would help if I explained this from the perspective of a friend of mine. She's a smart, attractive 25 year old career woman who works in a male dominated industry. When she first started her career she used to try to be "one of the boys" because she thought it would help her to fit in. That meant emphasising the parts of her personality which are either masculine or gender neutral to the detriment of her feminine side.

The end result was unhappiness. What became clear was that she would only ever be "one of the boys" in name alone. They would never accept her fully, and no matter how many times she tried to suppress her femininity it didn't stop the comments about her gender or appearance coming out in professional situations. For example, she was once introduced to a client by a male colleague with this incredibly detailed list of her achievements, which was then capped off with "and she's pretty easy on the eyes too", basically undermining all of the other things he had mentioned.

So now she has a different attitude. Now she embraces the fact that she is sexy, which gives her power. She draws a very sharp line in the sand which she won't step over; the idea is to use the fact that she's a woman as a means of gaining power, not to fuck her way to the top. If she is meeting with a male client who obviously finds her attractive she will smile and be nice to that guy because she knows that will make the meeting more pleasant, but she will never lead him on and make him think that she'd trade sex for business.

These are all issues of power-dynamics. The most interesting part of the recent blog post condemning the sexist response to the Gizmodo/Magic date scandal was the part about how the worst thing a man fears when interacting with a woman is being laughed at, while a woman's worst fear is being raped and murdered. The point I'm making here is that, if you take the above dynamic at face value, that fear which men have coupled with our innate tendency towards trying to please women we find appealing can be easily exploited by a smart woman who isn't afraid to be sexy.
 
Bonnie from RDR is the best in the thread, by far. Great character.
I really enjoyed Morrigan in Dragon Age too. Zelda has been great in the Zelda games lately. I liked her portrayal in Spirit Tracks.

And if we're counting Twilight Princess, Midna was an extremely good female character, along with Zelda and... well, really most of the Zelda females are strong without being about the sex appeal.

I think it's possible for female characters to have sex appeal without "sex appeal" being the only reason for their presence in the game.

For instance -- the chick in Heavy Rain is literally ONLY there to fulfill Cage's fetishes. But what's worse is she not only is a boring, stupid character that is only there for sex appeal, but she actually makes the story worse by opening up giant plot holes.
 

linko9

Member
I'm sure this has been discussed to death, but I find the topic title a bit amusing considering that I'm now playing Bayonetta, who is one of the strongest AND most sexualized female game characters in recent memory.
 

Shtof

Member
Kyoufu said:
Shepard. Not sexualised and tough as nails. Renegade FemShep, hells yeah.
Renegade FemShep reminds me of Ke$ha. Sorry, but she's terrible and there should be no FemShep.
 
BigJiantRobut said:
Highly sexualized. Not that that's a bad thing.

The pics certainly portray them as sexualized which I think comes from the fact that their line was first created during the early 90's/late 80's and suffered from bad model syndrome but I'm not sure if that carries over to the fluff (Luckily this looks to be resolved in the upcoming update next year). In the fluff they have been portrayed as everything from linguists, archaeolgists, diplmats, and docters in addition to their combat duties. Their normal wear has been described as monastic than titlating. Their organization is one of the more powerful in the in the Imperium and one of the scariest. In fact, in universe they seem more feared than sexualized.
 

Aeana

Member
Shtof said:
Renegade FemShep reminds me of Ke$ha. Sorry, but she's terrible and there should be no FemShep.
I would certainly enjoy the game a lot less if I couldn't play as her.
 
Sneaky Gato said:
The pics certainly portray them as sexualized which I think comes from the fact that their line was first created during the early 90's/late 80's and suffered from bad model syndrome but I'm not sure if that carries over to the fluff (Luckily this looks to be resolved in the upcoming update next year). In the fluff they have been portrayed as everything from linguists, archaeolgists, diplmats, and docters in addition to their combat duties. Their normal wear has been described as monastic than titlating. Their organization is one of the more powerful in the in the Imperium and one of the scariest. In fact, in universe they seem more feared than sexualized.

Character-wise, absolutely, but let's be real here:

john_blanche_adeptus_sororitas.jpg


Their visual design was totally designed to be sexy (terrible old official art as it may be) in a dom kind of way. This kind of character design pops up in male-oriented fiction a lot, and video games are no exception. It ain't a bad thing, but let's not pretend they wear black metal boots for no reason.
 

Kiiji

Banned
fernoca said:
  • Zelda (Twlight Princess)
PJE2D.png

You realize that TP shows Zelda surrendering her entire kingdom to Zant in order to save her own life, right? She's also kept as a prisoner for the majority of the game. Not to mention that many of the characters in the game (especially Midna, and Zelda herself included IIRC) constantly remind you that she is completely detached from the average citizen and can't understand suffering (especially the Twili's). The only heroic things she does are at the very end of the game.
 

Ratrat

Member
BigJiantRobut said:
She's also weak and entirely submissive, and helpless without the male lead. The game revolves around leading her everywhere. I think you could make a stronger case for sexism here than the other characters people are bitching about.

EDIT - not that I'm saying it is sexist, but I'm just playing devil's advocate here.
except he'd never make it out alive without her opening the doors. In fact, she is really the one helping him escape the castle.
 
Kiiji said:
You realize that TP shows Zelda surrendering her entire kingdom to Zant in order to save her own life, right? She's also kept as a prisoner for the majority of the game. Not to mention that many of the characters in the game (especially Midna, and Zelda herself included IIRC) constantly remind you that she is completely detached from the average citizen and can't understand suffering (especially the Twili's). The only heroic things she does are at the very end of the game.
WRONG.
 
My Dragon Age heroine...though she did sleep with everyone in the party and then dump them like a hot potato when achievement was unlocked. Oops.
 

TeK-DeLorean

Neo Member
People find lightning sexualized?? really??
anyways my list
Seth from Lost Odyssey, easily my favorite character in the game
agwcn_47012868.jpg

Lightning
Nariko
Kat
Faith
Flemmith
tumblr_lo38gz1WCd1qfoasdo1_400.jpg

Morrigan

I think people who disagree with Nariko have probably not played the fucking game. Are we just going by outfits or the character?
 

Kalnos

Banned
BigJiantRobut said:
Character-wise, absolutely, but let's be real here:

Their visual design was totally designed to be sexy (terrible old official art as it may be) in a dom kind of way. This kind of character design pops up in male-oriented fiction a lot, and video games are no exception. It ain't a bad thing, but let's not pretend they wear black metal boots for no reason.

If your definition of highly sexualized stops at physical appearance and is calculated as the sum total of attractive feminine traits, then yes, I can see your point. Not all Sisters of Battle wear black boots (depends on Order IIRC) and not all of them are attractive, especially if you look at some of the tabletop models.

They're zealous space nuns, their isn't much to not like about them.
KuGsj.gif
Also, lots of artwork in 40k seems to be propaganda and exaggerated (like much of universe), just look at some of the artwork of the Emperor.
 
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