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Sinister Seductress - Tropes vs Women in Video Games

Gestault

Member
But what really annoys me about this trope is that I cannot think of a single time in real life where a woman has used her sexuality to get what she wants without a man benefitting. However, women's sexuality is absolutely exploited by men in exchange for favours, particularly in the entertainment industry.

That's well put. The gender "exchange rate" of our society is broadly slanted to male benefit.
 

DemWalls

Member
But that Lords of Shadow scene.... lel. I was a big fan of the first one but never ended up picking up the second one.... good thing I didn't.

Well, if you liked the first one, you should still give it a try, now that you can buy it for a few bucks.
That scene (which, as I said, I'm not really sure was meant to be read that way) is the only one of that kind. Though the game in general has a quite weird B-movie atmosphere to it, especially when compared to the first episode. Wonder why Alvarez did that.
 
Context matters but it's still gross and still embodies the trope, so is worthy of critique.

But even when we get heterosexual female protagonists we don't get lustful male characters.

Trails in the Sky has a female protagonist and a lustful male character in Olivier. Virtually every otome game has the same.
 

Mesoian

Member
Otome games are niche as fuck and irrelevant to the discussion.

Eeh....

It should be a consideration considering they're starting to pierce their way into the mainstream, albeit in a very muted state.

Never thought I'd see an Otome game be a PS+ game, but here we are.

That's well put. The "exchange rate" of our society is broadly slanted to men's benefit.

I mean, the only thing I'll say about that is that when the woman is the sole beneficiary, you generally never tend to hear about it ever happening at all. When you find out about such dealings happening, it's usually because something went very wrong.
 
Otome games are niche as fuck and irrelevant to the discussion.

These discussions should be qualified with "issues with western AAA design" then and not across the games industry.

People complain about poorly designed mainstream games urging them to change while ignoring the less heralded games already doing exactly what they want. Why?
 

Gestault

Member
I mean, the only thing I'll say about that is that when the woman is the sole beneficiary, you generally never tend to hear about it ever happening at all. When you find out about such dealings happening at all, it's usually because something went very wrong.

I wasn't able to follow the way this was phrased.

These discussions should be qualified with "issues with western AAA design" then and not across the games industry.

People complain about poorly designed mainstream games urging them to change while ignoring the less heralded games already doing exactly what they want. Why?

It's about cultural relevance; how widely visible a specific work is. A game which only moves [a low number] units in its lifetime is almost pointless for discussion about its influence compared to something that moves [high number].
 

Mesoian

Member
I wasn't able to follow the way this was phrased.

When there's a dealing that involves sexual favors that has both parties benefiting, we only generally find out about it because something went wrong. In terms of scandals that get revealed, the man generally gets the better deal, but I'd guess that the deals that benefit women through sexual congress are the ones that don't get revealed to the masses in messy ways.

But any proof I have supporting that ideal would be both anecdotal and unfit to share with the public.

I wasn't able to follow the way this was phrased.



It's about cultural relevance; how widely visible a specific work is. A game which only moves [a low number] units in its lifetime is almost pointless for discussion about its influence compared to something that moves [high number].

Let's say prospective moves. Dante's Inferno and LOS2 didn't exactly set the world on fire, though their publishers spent marketing money as if they would.
 

petran79

Banned
Morrigan is a little tough because she's always been kind of an anti-hero, and the moment you get outside of Darkstalkers, where she has the most appeal, you get into really odd territory where Morrigan spends more time just being glamours girl who likes video games than actually being a succubus. The only time her being a succubus mattered was in the early 90's. Now a days, she's basically just an unused mascot in Capcom's portfolio. That pretty much rings true with the entire Darkstalkers female cast, sexualized monsters who may have had some pretty negative connotations in their own lore, but once their lore dried up, they became more fun, neutral, likable characters

Regardless, even Morrigan's backstory is that she seizes their life force through sex, which in turn murders them. It's still rape, it's just....culturally acceptable. Or rather, it was. Like I said, Morrigan hasn't slept with anyone in an official compacity in any sort of Capcom product since 1995.

Couple of years ago Devil's Playground, a major Vampire Savior tournament in Japan, used this advertising poster. It was featured throughout the tournament, even during the winners ceremony.
You dont see that kind of Morrigan very often

images
 

MoonFrog

Member
I mean, female gendered entertainment, from what I have been exposed to, has similar issues to male gendered entertainment as to often reducing the opposite gender to fuckable tropes. The thing is, mainstream entertainment tends to be male gendered entertainment (decreasingly so, but particularly disproportionately so in gaming). Moreover, there is obviously a difference of power in society. Thus, there is more than enough room for this sort of critique and the 'but there are reverse examples!' is sort of beyond the point.

Especially if you consider there to be also room for such a critique of female gendered entertainment, which I take it there is.
 

Mesoian

Member
Couple of years ago Devil's Playground, a major Vampire Savior tournament in Japan, used this advertising poster. It was featured throughout the tournament, even during the winners ceremony.
You dont see that kind of Morrigan very often

images

I mean, sure. She's never going to stop being sexy or be in somewhat lewd poses, and even then, it's more due to the fact that she's basically Capcom's female idol mascot than the fact that she's a succubus (do kids know she's a succubus? My niece just calls her "that vampire lady with the boobs out"). But then you get to the games that she's actually in, the things where they're writing dialogue for her and she's completely changed. She's gone shopping with other Capcom characters more times than she's had sex with anything in an official compacity over the past 20 years.

Edit: I see what your point is now and yes, you're totally right. Even though she's still super sexy, capcom doesn't market Morrigan as a lustful creature anymore, but other people certainly do. Outside of their artwork which still has a lot of questionable stuff, they don't really market any of their women like that anymore, even when they're leaning hard into pretty common sexytime tropes. But pepperidge farms certainly remembers that time she drank that dude before Dimitri showed up.
 
Otome games are niche as fuck and irrelevant to the discussion.
Not to necessarily disagree, but a few videos back, FF was citing some very obscure mobile games as evidence of a specific trend.

I wish I could recall which video it was offhand, but it surprised me to suddenly pepper in some random F2P games in what had normally been a series about mid to high budget console games.
 

Haganeren

Member
Trails in the Sky has a female protagonist and a lustful male character in Olivier. Virtually every otome game has the same.

That being said, in Trails in the Sky the "lustful" part of Olivier is here for giggle, we could even wonder if he can seduce anyone since no girl take him seriously at all. Shera which is the feminine counterpart is taken more seriously on the "seductive" aspect.

I certainly doesn't want the characters to change since i love them so much but the portrayal of that kind of trope is still a lot different from my perspective.
 
Do gross characters with their dicks waggling openly about count as "grotesquely masculine?" I was certainly thinking of Piggsy from Manhunt as a comparable male example during 4:00-5:00.
 

Mesoian

Member
The western counterpart of Otome culture is the craze over twilight saga and fifty shades of grey.

True, but those aren't games.

Western Otome games are in their infancy and a game that used the licence of any of those existing things would no doubt be trash.
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Most of the examples she featured are from really trashy western games that I'd expect fail in the writing department in more areas than just female representation. I wish she'd feature more Japanese games which tend to have a greater emphasis on complex writing and less one dimensional characters.

The part near the end about this particular kind of female villain existing for the purpose of male conquer is an interesting point and something I hadn't thought of before, I thought the montage of those scenes were quite disturbing.
We're talking about the same Japan that has been ripping from the same set of anime tropes for decades right? And that is insanely far behind in terms of both representation and inclusiveness. "Complex" in the context of a lot of Japanese games=convoluted and poorly told via constant exposition and conversations that sound nothing like the way humans actually talk.
 
I had no idea.

True, given the mostly male playable characters. The exception would be Portrait of Ruin, that has a playable female character, but also only succubi.

Interestingly enough, the female characters if they get hit by the heart attack from the Succubus do not get charmed in the Castlevania games, but in a game like Harmony of Despair, if they get hit by the heart attack from Dracula, they will get charmed while the men just take damage (The opposite is true if the female Astarte does her heart attack). Which makes sense in lore because vampires play mind tricks and do seduce the opposite gender.

Speaking of Incubus, I usually see them here and there. I know in Ragnarok Online there are both Incubus and Succubus enemies. Here is the card for Inucubus (good luck getting cards to drop unless you were on a high rate server though)

Card_2005822_27n.gif


And I know Hayate/Ein had an Incubus costume for Halloween in Dead or Alive

0fc529bc2bb154a812aa45b8cae2bc61-650-80.jpg
 
She has valid points in analyzing this trope (that lords of shadow 2 clip, eeeesh), but to gloss over male variants of this is being a little intellectually dishonest. For example, she brings up the Succubus as an example without ever mentioning the Incubus. You know, the male demon that lures women to their doom? Granted there are more female examples of this trope than male, but it does go both ways.

Has there been many male variants of this trope though? I cannot think of any as of right now.
 
*watches video* Hmm yeah I mean I can see that but...

*watches more* Well that is rather true...

*finishes video* Okay, I could refute some of the things she brought up but honestly I get the point shes trying to make and its a good one. There is clearly a perhaps unintentional misogynistic aspect to these characters and many more and its so deeply routed into our history and culture most people don't even seem to recognize it.

That is sure as hell an uphill battle to fight.
 

Oemenia

Banned
On the other hand, in today's media, we have the option to subvert tropes that have been overdone. We don't necessarily need to follow how the stories of the past were told.
But for now it works both ways. Besides Anita clearly has not understand the fact that there is more to it than just a spider-woman thing seducing a young boy.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
She has valid points in analyzing this trope (that lords of shadow 2 clip, eeeesh), but to gloss over male variants of this is being a little intellectually dishonest. For example, she brings up the Succubus as an example without ever mentioning the Incubus. You know, the male demon that lures women to their doom? Granted there are more female examples of this trope than male, but it does go both ways.

There's a reason the series is called Tropes vs Women in Video Games. She's speaking from a female feministic point of view :p. It's also why the focus is on negative tropes, even though she does scatter some things she does appreciate here and there. That said, I really would enjoy if she made a video of good examples of females in games too, but that would go against the entire point of her series.
 

Haganeren

Member
But for now it works both ways. Besides Anita clearly has not understand the fact that there is more to it than just a spider-woman thing seducing a young boy.

Maybe she DID understand it but it's still not revelant. The concept as i understand it is to expose how much a single trope is used compared to others and what kind of message she thinks that give as a whole.

Even if the trope is "well" used, it's still count for an use.
 
But what really annoys me about this trope is that I cannot think of a single time in real life where a woman has used her sexuality to get what she wants without a man benefitting.

Sure you can, it's in the rest of your post.

However, women's sexuality is absolutely exploited by men in exchange for favours, particularly in the entertainment industry.

Media is full of women who got famous and launched a career off the back of sleeping with a male celeb, sometimes with the sole intention of spilling the beans about it after.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Maybe she DID understand it but it's still not revelant. The concept as i understand it is to expose how much a single trope is used compared to others and what kind of message she thinks that give as a whole.

Even if the trope is "well" used, it's still count for an use.

Yeah, and her point is that "Dangerous Sexy Alluring Secret Monster Chicks" is a myth as old as mankind itself and why that is and how it affects our daily view on women. She doesn't vilify the developers for using the trope itself, but discusses how it came to be and how it could possibly affect our daily lives.

Sure you can, it's in the rest of your post.



Media is full of women who got famous and launched a career off the back of sleeping with a male celeb, sometimes with the sole intention of spilling the beans about it after.

How is getting laid not a benefit????

Edit: It's also to remember to ponder why women (and men) who do such things do them. What drives them to seek money and fame and why is sleeping with someone a way to do it?
 

Bamboo

Member
But for now it works both ways. Besides Anita clearly has not understand the fact that there is more to it than just a spider-woman thing seducing a young boy.
What is "more" and how does it relate to the topic? The topic being the depiction of women in video games. Haven't played the game so far, i'm genuinely curious.
 
But what really annoys me about this trope is that I cannot think of a single time in real life where a woman has used her sexuality to get what she wants without a man benefitting. However, women's sexuality is absolutely exploited by men in exchange for favours, particularly in the entertainment industry.

This is a bizarre thing to say for 2 reasons

1. The implicit assumption that the man is always the initiator. Even though this is probably the case, as they're the one in power, there is a reason "gold digger" and "sugar daddy" are terms. Some women are very much aware they can use their sexuality for gain

2. The idea that temporary sexual gratification is solely a benefit for the male and monetary or career advancement is what...no benefit whatsoever for the woman in the exchange?
 
How is getting laid not a benefit????

Edit: It's also to remember to ponder why women (and men) who do such things do them. What drives them to seek money and fame and why is sleeping with someone a way to do it?

It's not a benefit when they wake up the next morning and see the papers posting about their affair or cheating. Or even if not an affair/cheat just the details of it.
 
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