Avistew said:
Therumancer said:
Now, I will also say that there is also a bit less practical diversity in women for the kinds of games presented, because there is some relevency to this in real life. If you look at female dancers and martial artists and such you'll notice they all tend to wind up with the same, or very similar builds. In comparison guys, who are designed differantly for physical activity, can be greatly more varied in the way they develop.
I disagree with you. Women have just as much variety in how their bodies develop depending on which activities they perform and which muscle groups they focus on, as well as variety in their body type to begin with.
You can see that just like a male sumo wrestler has a different build from, say, a fencer, because he uses different kinds of muscles, females who practice sports such as hammer throw or weightlifting develop their muscles differently than those who, say, are dancers.
The only thing that seems to be constant in the lineups is the small size of their breasts comparatively, because breasts are made of fat, and the more muscle you get, the less fat you have.
You also don't see as many older female characters in fighting games, they tend to all be in their 20s, while males have a much broader age range.
It's not the complete lack of differances, but the degree to which those differances appear and the number of them. It's not a popular point, and I understand you don't like it, but it's just the way things are. The reason why you don't have lady versions of Hulk Hogan in pro-wrestling is because that's not how girls develop. You get a guy who pumps iron and gets into an ideal body-muscle ratio he's going to wind up a lot differant than a girl who does the same thing, and can simply put do a lot more differant things with his body and form it in differant ways.
Again, you take female pro-wrestlers like Sable, Chyna, or others from back during that entire era and compare them to say "The Rock" or whomever, the differance isn't that those girls didn't work out, or put in the practice time in the gym. Indeed thet learned all the same kinds of stuff to put on the shows that the guys did, and worked out heavily because it was their job, that's just what it looks like for girls.
Likewise due to the way guys are structured a sumo-type regime can produce a very powerful if odd-looking physique that is functional for what it's intended for, a girl really isn't going to be able to support and function that way.
Now in an ideal world, this wouldn't be true, but we don't live in one, and guys and girls have some substantial differances in our physical makeups. Men are simply more capable and varied physically, maxxing out much higher. This basic truth comes out in heroic fantasy.
When it comes to the AGE of characters in video games, there is some truth to that, but again I think it comes down to reality and the way both genders age. Men tend to remain physically viable/imposing a lot longer than women for a lot of differant reasons. Even when it comes to all girl competitions girls have a fairly small window of ideal physical performance, which is one of the big reasons why we have so many scandals with female figure skaters, gymnists, and other things. Ages being lied about to get girls into competitions when they are at their teenage prime for flexibility, knowing that by the time another competition or olypmics comes along they won't be able to compete. China got into some trouble for this and tried to cover it up when they hosted the olympics, it was a big deal for a reason, and one of the reasons why it was a big deal was that given the performance window the other countries competing didn't nessicarly send their best people, but the best people they could send within the age requirements, given another year or so to play around with the roster might have been very differant. The bouncing teen/tween girl speed demon characters aren't just pervy fantasy, there is some basis to that sterepotype since that's the age when a girl actually has an advantage over a guy in certain areas and is going to perform at the highest possible level. Where a 16 year old guy is probably only going to be physically better when he hits 25, a girl at like 14-15 is probably going to be more physically capable and flexible than she will be in her early-mid 20s. Games involve fantasy exagerration, but in general it's slightly less of a stretch for some 15 year old girl to be performing those acrobatic moves than for a middle aged one to be doing the same thing.
That said, above and beyond all real-world rationales that might be behind it, look at the works of fiction and artwork created by women. Ask yourself how many female heroes in any genere there are that aren't fairly young? They exist, but are few and far between, and that's without guys even getting involved. I think a lot of it has to do with a degree of suspension of disbelief. As a general rule, your correct, that most women in fantasy are either young OR have somehow managed to retain their youthful prime. The most noteworthy exception in recent memory I can name is probably Amanda Tapping in "Sanctuary" but in that show you'll also notice that the character relies on mysticism (source blood) to justify having physical abillities well beyond what she should be able to do, Helen Magnus LOOKS
like she should be middle aged, but they justify the FX and stuntwork by saying "well she has Source Blood which lets her fight like she's in her physical prime, and has retarded her aging to the point of near immoratility". I could mention example of other exceptions from various cop shows and such, but most of those aren't strictly speaking fantasy fare of the type we're talking about. Even in things like Fringe/The X-files, the female leads rarely do much in the way of heavy fighting, "Sanctuary" stands out largely because the heroine of that show has done things like having running episode long cat and mouse kung-fu fights with teleporting mad scientists.
Still, sometime take a look at what the ages of some of the characters in these games actually are. I believe Ivy from Soul Calibur is supposed to be in her 40s, but she has a cursed bloodline which probably does a lot to retard her aging. Not to mention the simple fact that anime-type art style doesn't do a good job of representing the fine details on aging, when your either looking at smooth skin, or yoda-type extreme aging with little in between it's hard to say... that's a problem with highly stylized artwork.
The overall point here is that what we see throughout fantasy, represents the way things are pretty well. There ARE exceptions in real life, but then again there are exceptions in fantasy as well, so it tends to balance out. When you see one of the exceptions let it stick out in your mind for what it is, as that is probably part of the point.
