Where are all the female antagonists?

[lacktheknack]

Well, I just finished Tomb Raider Anniversary, which had a lady CEO as the antagonist. And she actually does stuff! And is threatening! And has an epic final form!

 

[Kingjackl]

It sounds to me like there are quite a few. I don't know why anyone would ask this question when Bloody Mary from the Wolf Among Us is still fresh in our minds. The main antagonist from Gears of War was female, as was the main antagonist from Uncharted 3, Bioshock 2, The Last of Us (sort of), Persona 4, the third Phoenix Wright game and Dragon Age 2. GLaDOS and SHODAN are clearly feminine despite being technically genderless, and on that note you could even count the Administrator from TF2 as an antagonist.

Much like with female player characters, there isn't really a shortage, so much as there's an imbalance of male and female villains. I don't think it helps when people have to add qualifiers to these things though, like whether or not they're conventionally attractive, whether or not they reform, or whether or not they're the main antagonist. Either they're female or they aren't.

 

[Zakarath]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution had the female CEO of Tai Yong Medical be among the main antagonists of the game, and the most prominent face of the shadowy agendas arrayed against you. Though she didn't exactly get much in the way of characterization beyond one "haha, men are so easy to manipulate" line.

 

[Vegosiux]

*siiiighhhh* can we not turn this into the opression olympics?

That ship has sailed. Ages ago.

Oh, and I loved to turn Phaere's game in Baldur's Gate 2 against her. Viconia seemed to be rather amused by that particular backstab.

There'sa problem see... it's okay to have a female protagonist or supporting character but when you have obviously female characters as bad guys well.... that my friend is 'promoting violence against women'

There's that, too, but I don't think it happens a lot if you stay away from tumblr.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Assassin's Creed I, where the main payoff of Altair's story arc is that he doesn't kill a woman - even though she's still on the villain's team. There is then an entire spinoff game dedicated to 'winning her over to the good side,' which is eventually successful.

The longest-recurring and definitely most powerful villain of the series, Juno, is female.

Batman: Arkham City, where the only female villain you ever fight, Harley Quinn, can only be punched once before disappearing behind a wall of armed male mooks. You later find her tied up and gagged by your sexy ninja friend, because girl-on-girl bondage is hawt.

Quinn can be fought in Harley Quinn's Revenge DLC just like any other boss, and in the main story of Arkham Asylum, where you also fight Poison Ivy. For that matter, a lot of villains go "unfought" in Arkham City - which introduces the very female and very punchable assassins, by the way.

Oh and I just remembered - Batman doesn't fight Two-Face at all, does he? He just ties him up in a cutscene. Does that qualify as sexy bondage as well?

God of War, where the three female goddesses receive special treatment: Athena is only killed by accident, and Kratos is immediately remorseful, Hera is killed after no battle and in an anomalously bloodless manner, and Aphrodite gets to live because of tits (and whose cut death scene was also completely bloodless).

The main villain of God of War: Chains of Olympus is Queen Persephone, who serves as the final boss fight as well.
The main villains of God of War: Ascension are the Furies, who are female and have lengthy boss fights.
The main villains of God of War II are the Fates, who are female and have lengthy boss fights as well.
In God of War: Ghost of Sparta you fight the bosses Scylla, Callisto, Thera and Erinyes - all female.
In God of War III you fight Gaia, also female.
Hell, a whole bunch of recurring enemy types are female. Gorgons, sirens, harpies, ceres and I'm probably forgetting a few. A lot of monsters in Greek mythology were female.

Even if you want to ignore all those examples and build a case around how unceremoniously and effortlessly Hera and Athena are dispatched, what about the equally lame fights against Atlas in Chains, Icarus in GoW 2, Helios and Hephaestus in GoW 3...

I really don't think you've posted very good examples there at all.

 

[Lizmichi]

The Saints Row series has some female villains that the boss was more then happy to kill. Most of them, however, where sidekicks really, or a girlfriend. SR isn't really know for their deep characters, but that's not the point of the games really.

There's also Persona 4.

Spoiler

In the True ending you fight Izunami who has been pulling the strings. The team doesn't show remorse for fighting her, but she's an undead goddess so she might not be able to die.

The Golden Sun series has also had a lead femail villain in each game. They didn't use their bodies as a weapon, and fought just as well as the men.

There is one series that at first made the game make you feel bad for killing girls, but got over that for the most part. Tha is No More Heroes. A good bit of the ranked assassins are girls, NMH 1 had 4, and the last boss was a crazy fast running ***** that Travis didn't try to save. Bad Girl is a villain in NMH 1 that uses a baseball bat as a weapon. Hell, another female assassin has a rocket luncher leg. How bad ass is that. Sadly that's the one Travis feels horrible for her death.

The Zelda series has had female bosses like Twin Rova, the last boss in Oracle of Ages. Mass Effect has had evil Asari, and so on; Dragon Age has a small handfull (Look at the end of DA2 and Queen Anora.)

 

[Keoul]

That fancy space shooter Warframe has 3 major female antagonists.
One is a boss called Kela De Thaym who you gotta beat to build a specific warframe and move on to the next planet.

Spoiler

The other 2 are called "The Queens", two sisters who control an enemy faction called the Grineer. Don't know much about them yet.

 

[SUPA FRANKY]

So here is Shodan. Juri from Street Fighter. Juno from Assassin's Creed, Harley Quinn DLC, The Assassins from No More Heroes, Uriel from Darksiders, many of the characters from Borderlands 2, The Final Boss of Persona 4, need I go on?

So what new topic will people go on about to circle-jerk their "oppression".

 

[Batou667]

It's not like those men are seen as expendable for their masculinity either.

Since those faceless grunts are generally blown away by male protagonists.

It relates back to the whole idea of men being the norm for most things.
Make a character (a standard enemy or a protagonist) a man, and it's business as usual.
Make them a woman, and it's suddenly a 'message'.

The only way we can get away from this idea is to have more even splits in all roles; more female protagonists and more female background characters and enemies.

I accept the male normative argument has some weight to it, but the idea that females can be combatants too - and in fact rival men in their killing ability - is nothing new. Think Lara Croft, The Bride from Kill Bill, Major Kusanagi (and all the other manga/anime kick-ass females), Catwoman, Wonder Woman, all the other female superheroes, and the "female assassin" genre of films like Aeon Flux, La Femme Nikita, Leon: The Professional, Hanna and Kick-Ass.

It seems we're willing to suspend our disbelief when it comes to protagonists. But the hordes of grunts, goons and henchmen? Oh, they've got to be men, it'd send an uncomfortable message if we had our hero smashing up women. It's weird; on the one hand we're ostensibly promoting an image of female competence and toughness, but the underlying message is almost that women can dish out punishment, but not take it.

 

[Lieju]

It's not like those men are seen as expendable for their masculinity either.

Since those faceless grunts are generally blown away by male protagonists.

It relates back to the whole idea of men being the norm for most things.
Make a character (a standard enemy or a protagonist) a man, and it's business as usual.
Make them a woman, and it's suddenly a 'message'.

The only way we can get away from this idea is to have more even splits in all roles; more female protagonists and more female background characters and enemies.

I accept the male normative argument has some weight to it, but the idea that females can be combatants too - and in fact rival men in their killing ability - is nothing new. Think Lara Croft, The Bride from Kill Bill, Major Kusanagi (and all the other manga/anime kick-ass females), Catwoman, Wonder Woman, all the other female superheroes, and the "female assassin" genre of films like Aeon Flux, La Femme Nikita, Leon: The Professional, Hanna and Kick-Ass.

It seems we're willing to suspend our disbelief when it comes to protagonists. But the hordes of grunts, goons and henchmen? Oh, they've got to be men, it'd send an uncomfortable message if we had our hero smashing up women. It's weird; on the one hand we're ostensibly promoting an image of female competence and toughness, but the underlying message is almost that women can dish out punishment, but not take it.

Those 'female assasins' are still a minority.

There's also the matter of sexualization.
The females are often sexualized, and once you bring that in, you bring in a whole new bucketful of unfortunate implications.

If you sexualize a female who is doing the ass-kicking, it's different from sexualising a female character that has the crap beaten out of her.

That's one of the reasons why that Hitman nun-trailer was so criticized; the women were heavily sexualized, both in their outfits and the camera-angles, and then brutalized.

Sexualising male characters is way less common, especially the grunts, so it's very rare to see male enemies being put in the same situation, and there's no underlying suggestion that you should be titillated by the character you are beating up.

 

[Triangulon]

I agree with the OP, however I can tender one example of an excellent female antagonist: Darth Traya in KOTOR 2.

 

[Batou667]

There's also the matter of sexualization.
The females are often sexualized, and once you bring that in, you bring in a whole new bucketful of unfortunate implications.

If you sexualize a female who is doing the ass-kicking, it's different from sexualising a female character that has the crap beaten out of her.

That's one of the reasons why that Hitman nun-trailer was so criticized; the women were heavily sexualized, both in their outfits and the camera-angles, and then brutalized.

Sexualising male characters is way less common, especially the grunts, so it's very rare to see male enemies being put in the same situation, and there's no underlying suggestion that you should be titillated by the character you are beating up.

Hmm. Good points, actually.

I suppose there's some merit to the argument that a woman's perceived worth and competence is overly linked to her physical appearance, so we tend to see females sexualised by default in media. And like you say, this causes problems when we're simultaneously aroused by - and deriving a degree of satisfaction from killing - sexualised women in games.

Heck, it seems like femaleness is key to visually justifying a lot of female antagonists negative aspects: either they're justified targets because they embody feminine aspects (the whore/slut/succubus type) or because they are devoid of certain feminine aspects (the crone or dyke types). :/

Just as an aside, an aspect of the violence-against-women issue in Hitman: Absolution that I haven't heard anybody mention is the fact that in a later level, a good proportion of an enemy's security staff are female. They're not sexualised, they wear black trouser-suits and carry guns, same as the male bodyguards. You're also free to kill them, push them off ledges, stuff them in wardrobes, etc, same as any other enemy in the game, with the exception that you can't take their outfits as a disguise (I guess the clothes wouldn't fit Agent 47). In a game that was otherwise brimming with edgy and controversial depictions of women I thought that was an understated and possibly even progressive depiction.

 

[Triangulon]

Much like with female player characters, there isn't really a shortage, so much as there's an imbalance of male and female villains.

This is a very good point (although personally I believe there is a shortage). Anyone can name half a dozen examples in response to these topics, however this does not mean that there isn't a problem.

I don't think it helps when people have to add qualifiers to these things though, like whether or not they're conventionally attractive, whether or not they reform, or whether or not they're the main antagonist. Either they're female or they aren't.

This is very silly. Of course it matters. An abundance of female antagonists (or any characters for that matter) portrayed insensitively (such as shallow sex objects or inferior to male counterparts) is potentially far more damaging than having no representation at all.

 

[Lightknight]

It's not as common because people don't generally want to physically slap a woman around as a victory condition. As noted above, they do exist but you have to have a lot of special conditions to make it meaningful.

 

[Skull Bearer]

I'm amazed no one mentioned GLADOS here. Awesome female villain. Kick-ass game.

 

[Matthew Jabour]

I'm amazed no one mentioned GLADOS here. Awesome female villain. Kick-ass game.

Let's just assume, for now and future purposes, that all of Valve's actions are beyond reproach, all right? Saves a lot of time.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I guess I could keep mentioning female antagonists, but I'm going to stick with those that present an actual boss fight...

A lot of the assassins in No More Heroes
Angel and Ayame Blackburn in Killer7
The Queen in ICO
Ninetails in Okami
Shannon in God Hand
Odette in Odin Sphere
Opalneria in Grim Grimoire
Arietta, Legretta and Nebilim in Tales of the Abyss
Lady Astraea and False Idol in Demon's Souls
Copperhead in Arkham Origins
Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy in Arkham Asylum and Arkham City
Daniella in Haunting Ground
Lisa Trevor in REsident Evil
Alexa Ashford in Resident Evil Code Veronica
Excella Gionne in Resident Evil 5
Alessa Gillespie in Silent Hill
Maria in Silent Hill 2
Claudia Wolf in Silent Hill 3
Cynthia in Silent Hill 4: The Room
Scarlet and Asphyxia in Silent Hill: Homecoming
Andariel in Diablo II
Jessica in Dragon's Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King
Commander Steele in Borderlands
Tala and Cassidy in Darkwatch
Silhouette in Destroy All Humans!
GLaDOS in Portal
Bloody Mary in The Wold Among Us
Shaunee and the Empress in Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
What's-her-name in Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
Maleficent and Ursula in Kingdom Hearts
Larxene in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Charybdis, Stheno, Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone, Persephone, Medusa, Scylla, Callisto, Erynies, Euryale, Clotho, Lachesis, Athropos in the God of War series... Kratos don't discriminate

There're a LOT of female villains in videogames who put up a perfectly good fight and it's not like I go around looking specifically for those, they just happen to appear in the games I play.

 

[Mike Fang]

I would definitely say the ratio of male to female villains is fairly skewed and there and there are a number of tropes that are frequently indulged in that either perpetuate female stereotypes (the fem fatale that uses her beauty to manipulate the men, who always think with their crotches around her; the female villain being a not the main one, but is the main villain's arm candy, etc.) or swing to the other extreme and come close to being militantly feminist (the inteligent female advisor villain that's the brains behind the throne to an idiotic, childish male primary villain; the female villain in a rogue's gallery being the only one with a code of honor or sympathetic motives, the femaile villain is the one who does the face turn,etc.)

However, I would say the number of female antagonists in media lately have been growing, even in video games. There's been Eve from Parasite Eve, Jessica Watts from Shadowrun Returns, The Sorceress from Final Fantasy VIII, SHODAN from System Shock II (although I do wonder if you can technically call a machine or artificial intelligence female...), Dr. Lamb from Bioshock 2, Ma Gnucci from The Punisher PS3 game, to name a few.

Overall I'd say there've been a fair number of female villains to show up in recent years and a bit further back than that. While I'd say there's still a ways to go before it becomes a 50/50 split and the treatment of male and female antagonists isn't really equivalent, I wouldn't call it completely unfair...just frequently imbalanced.