The stealth queen continued

[Ordinaryundone]

You deny doing what I am claiming you do and then you go on to do it again in your second paragraph. You are defining women by female attributes and by extension feel that a role that doesn't require female attributes shouldn't have a female character. Why shouldn't the game have a female protagonist? "Because it doesn't fit the narrative" isn't an acceptable answer, because gender has (or rather should, in modern media) precious little impact in much the same way that skin color has. You wouldn't ask things like "Why is Sam Fisher white?" or "Why is Dom hispanic?" because that's only superficial traits just like gender.

By setting the norm as white male you are exercising stealth sexism at its' very worst. You are probably not doing it intentionally, but this is the strucutural discrimination that women and people of other ethnicities face daily. It is especially prevalent in media, just look at the men to women ratio in lead roles in Hollywood or try doing the Bechdel test on some big movies. Until we get over the notion that "If it doesn't need a woman we should use a man" we still have a long way to go in regards to structural sexism.

Dom being Hispanic is unimportant because it has no bearing on the fact that he is a soldier, Marcus's best friend, a father and husband, etc. However, Anya being female IS important, because she is Marcus' love interest. If you changed her to male, you'd completely change the role, and Marcus' role as an extension. Gender is ALWAYS important in a story, no matter what you think, because it doesn't just affect their own character but how they interact with other characters as well. You may think that is sexism, but its just realism. Think of any game with a male main character and replace him with a female, then dwell on the ramifications of that. One of Same Fisher's defining character traits is that he is a father, and has that Papa Bear (not Bill O'Reily) mentality that turns into unstoppable rage by Conviction. Could he had been a protective mother? Maybe, but thats not the kind of story they were trying to tell. Similarly, characters like Snake or Dante could not have been women because a lot of their character involves the relationships sons have with their fathers and brothers. Its a very real thing that would be lost if you had changed their genders.

It works for females too. No One Lives Forever was a campy send-up of the old school 60s/70s spy fiction like Bond, complete with swapping the typical role of a man as the lead with a woman. This was done very deliberately, so that they could raise an eyebrow and finger poke at the sillier and more sexist elements of the era while still being playful and non-judgemental. Ditto in Perfect Dark. What, you think it was coincidence Rare made the spiritual successor to Goldeneye a woman? Bayonetta could have very easily been a man (hell, she probably would have been Dante) as far as gameplay is concerned, but if she was they would have had to rewrite a large section of the story that revolves around her being a woman, namely her surrogate mother situation with Cereza, the way she teases Luca, and the whole Umbran witch thing.

I'm not saying that roles can only be filled by men because they are strong or women because they are sexy. That is sexism, and though it is somewhat true it is a sad thing if a writer needs to rely on it in this day and age. What I am saying is that there are certain stories that can only be told through one gender or another. If you are going to write a plot that would be easily and identically told through both, then you might as well go gender neutral, because your story simply isn't going to be using its resources to the fullest extent it could. Hell, make it so you can choose your gender, that way everyone is happy.

 

[Thebabyboom]

Velvet Assassin wasn't that bad of a game. I'm just going to say it.

OT: I liked your first article/post. Very well thought out.

Well thank you it's always nice to be appreciated