Why do non-mammals or non-humans need human characteristics?

[darlarosa]

I was thinking about this because I view it as a logical design things. Let me explain with the example I am most focused on...

Note**Sure it's not a major part of the game, but I want to talk about it so if you have a problem with it go suck a nut.

Breasts.
I like them. I have a pair which are fun to play with. They can be pleasant to look at. However Argonians don't need them nor to Turians. It's not even about breasts or overt sexism(though I will mention that in a moment), so much as it does not make sense. Designers and writers go through the trouble of making a world as realistic as possible, and the fact that it is a minor detail makes it kind of jarring to me. To me it's just a really lazy thing to do. Sexual metamorphism is more than just breasts and body shape for some species. Even among humans there is variation. There are humans with barely A cups that are perfectly female creatures, the same as triple G tits. Body shape factors into it, but for example birds use different calls, colors, movements. It's just really weird, and almost insulting to the players to go "They're too stupid to know females" or "All our players are straight men who MUST BE SEEING BOOB EVERY 5.4 MINUTES OR THEY DIE". It would just be interesting to see biology taken into account when creatures are based on Earth creatures. Fictional creatures aren't exempt from reality when a world is constructed as a reality.

Now here is the sexism issue in it. I consider it Institutional sexism.
There is this reoccurring theme of non-human females looking significantly more human than their male counterparts. In society a woman's worth is primarily determined by her looks, ability to produce offspring, and her age. So it's not too shocking when people say "we don't want to look at ugly women", but then there's the fact that those same people look at the male counterpart and have no problems with it. The male turian does not have a six pack, so why give breasts? Maybe a chest bump so resizing things is easier but...I dunno it's just kind of creepy to put human sexual ideas on some of these non-humans...

Why does monster design have to be so appealing to human sexual senses? The thing I liked in Mass Effect two is the bachelor party background conversation that points out that each male enjoyed the Asari because it reminded them of the females of their own species. It wasn't the human characteristics, the breasts, it was things the human male out of the group never thought about. It's kind of what made the Garrus F!Shep romance so endearing, he didn't know how humans complimented each other or how they did things.



More importantly than all this...how many people are jerking off to pixels where breasts, or perfect abs for that matter, or a pretty face for all monsters really matters.It's like the argument of guys who play females who say they don't wanna look at a guys ass all day. It doesn't make any sense (beyond homophobia) because it's just a differently sized ass.

Even if you don't agree with my reasons, isn't it just a bit weird to put tits on a lizard? Or turn a troll into a pleasant faced skank?

 

[Kopikatsu]

Because we more easily associate with them (things with human characteristics, not breasts per se). It's easier to make someone care more about something they perceive as human as opposed to just an inhuman blob monster.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well they don't need them we do because we are narcissistic dandies who only feel comfortable with our own kind, and surprise surprise what awful bigoted shit came from those tendencies.

 

[Thedutchjelle]

I believe Blizzard did this well with the female Protoss in Starcraft 2.

You would recognize Selendis as a female Protoss but she does not look either human (aside from the generic homonoid shape) or mammal.
Compare Artanis (male)

Spoiler

and selendis

Spoiler

I agree with you on the Argonian thing though. It's a cheap way to make people instantly recognize the gender without having to add much other detail. And you got to admit that it works.

 

[TehCookie]

I love how GW2 does it with the charr. I find it easy to tell apart the genders, the males look more beastly and monstrous while females look more lithe and animal like. Actually there is an interesting article [http://www.arena.net/blog/the-artistic-origin-of-the-charr] that explains how they came up with that too, which is funny since they came up with it after they failed making charr sexy. Even in the end some people still wanted to add boobs to them, so one of the designers said they had to keep is realistic, if they wanted boobs the cats would have 6. That's really the only race I can think of off the top of my head that has different genders without having to resort to human dimorphism.

its one of the fastest and initial things people identify as 'female' when seeing a species they have never seen before. simply put making the creatures have human body traits is a fast way of making players identify with the species and more easiely recognise which gender is which. sure its not realistic but id rather not have to flip an argonaian over and lift its tail to check its gender

They could add things like male argonians being a brighter colors or males always have horns while females to not or have one gender have a longer tail or not have ridges on one. There already some differences like how female have rounder heads, and losing their boobs doesn't mean they will have a male body. You don't have to look down under to tell a male deer from a female deer or a male cardinal from a female cardinal.

 

[Thedutchjelle]

I agree with you on the Argonian thing though. It's a cheap way to make people instantly recognize the gender without having to add much other detail. And you got to admit that it works.

Having "WOMAN" written across the character's head would also work. That doesn't mean it's a particularly good or clever design.

Hahaha, but I don't recall anyone ever doing that before, so maybe your example would be clever It would atleast be funny.

I'm not saying it's good or clever design, but it's design that has proved the get it's message across without getting in the way. I'm not a big fan of it either, but I can see why they use it.

Or perhaps the modelers are lazy and can't figure anything else out, I dunno.

 

[Terminate421]

It's just that we humans associate males and females with certain parts of the body very quickly, using these allows us to make it easier to dissociate.

It's not entirely bad character design, it just has a lot to do with human "knowledge"

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Need to be more like Star Wars.

Humanoid AND multiple breasts.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Ehh, I can see where you are coming from but breasts are short hand for "this thing is female" if the designer can't think of something different.

I agree with the Argonians, Lizard breasts make absolutely no sense. They could have thought up some different coloured scales or different head cones for women I guess. I've never played WoW or GW2 or anything like that so yeah.

Anyway if you believe Freud then EVERYTHING is related to sex so there you go, problem solved :3

Oh what about Nami from LoL? She's clearly not human since y'know she's a fish but her scales go in a slight V shape down her chest which sort of looks breasty. The rest is just a cute fish mermaid thing.

Nobody plays Nami anymore... Fuckin' travesty.

Anyway if people didn't think up making non-humans look human then we might not have the best underboob character in fighting game history.

Spoiler

[sub]Fucking terrible picture sizes I swear[/sub]

Seriously A BlazBlue game without Makoto would be a complete unplayable mess!

 

[Jynthor]

Well, in Morrowind Argonians didn't have breasts(They also didn't have straight legs) Since then Bethesda has been too lazy to make unique models for races, although you have to admit having to remodel every single piece of armour in the game for a single race seems like a lot of work.

Then again, I don't really care, sure lizards don't have breasts, but last time I checked they also didn't y'know, talk.

 

[LongAndShort]

I disagree about using the Turians as an example, since unlike the breastless Krogan and Salarian female we see, they seem to have similar reproductive characteristics as us and so them having breasts isn't completely out of the question. Besides, I haven't seen any canon Bioware images of Turina boobs (not that I've been looking...) so for all we know they've got eight nipple running up a bulging chest. Or udders.

Just saying.

Otherwise I agree with you, but am guessing part of it is also the fact that low budgets in the making of sci-fi monsters in the past has meant that a lot of us probably just expect monsters to be anthropomorphic, if not just humans with coloured skin and weird tatoos.

 

[Proeliator]

Spoiler

[sub]Fucking terrible picture sizes I swear[/sub]

Seriously A BlazBlue game without Makoto would be a complete unplayable mess!

In best Yahtzee Voice: "That young boy has the strangest chest growths. He should get those looked at."

OT
I think trolls are mammal like, boobs actually make a little sense, feeding young milk and all. As for slimming them down, if the females are supposed to be physically smaller, like most mammals are (there are exceptions though), its not drifting to far off from what makes sense.
Aliens and lizard men? Artist's discretion. Though it does sometimes seem like a cop out just to make them obviously smaller (sometimes way too) and slimmer.

 

[lacktheknack]

I agree with you on the Argonian thing though. It's a cheap way to make people instantly recognize the gender without having to add much other detail. And you got to admit that it works.

Having "WOMAN" written across the character's head would also work. That doesn't mean it's a particularly good or clever design.

No, but simple breasts aren't the same as spray-painting "WOMAN" across their head. Because I'm familiar with women who have breasts, but I'm not familiar with any women with ANY words on their head.

 

[OneOfTheMichael's]

Spoiler

[sub]Fucking terrible picture sizes I swear[/sub]

Seriously A BlazBlue game without Makoto would be a complete unplayable mess!

In best Yahtzee Voice: "That young boy has the strangest chest growths. He should get those looked at."

OT
I think trolls are mammal like, boobs actually make a little sense, feeding young milk and all. As for slimming them down, if the females are supposed to be physically smaller, like most mammals are (there are exceptions though), its not drifting to far off from what makes sense.
Aliens and lizard men? Artist's discretion. Though it does sometimes seem like a cop out just to make them obviously smaller (sometimes way too) and slimmer.

Well just imagine how painful breast feeding is for for trolls with the tusks and all.

 

[spartan231490]

I was thinking about this because I view it as a logical design things. Let me explain with the example I am most focused on...

Note**Sure it's not a major part of the game, but I want to talk about it so if you have a problem with it go suck a nut.

Breasts.
I like them. I have a pair which are fun to play with. They can be pleasant to look at. However Argonians don't need them nor to Turians. It's not even about breasts or overt sexism(though I will mention that in a moment), so much as it does not make sense. Designers and writers go through the trouble of making a world as realistic as possible, and the fact that it is a minor detail makes it kind of jarring to me. To me it's just a really lazy thing to do. Sexual metamorphism is more than just breasts and body shape for some species. Even among humans there is variation. There are humans with barely A cups that are perfectly female creatures, the same as triple G tits. Body shape factors into it, but for example birds use different calls, colors, movements. It's just really weird, and almost insulting to the players to go "They're too stupid to know females" or "All our players are straight men who MUST BE SEEING BOOB EVERY 5.4 MINUTES OR THEY DIE". It would just be interesting to see biology taken into account when creatures are based on Earth creatures. Fictional creatures aren't exempt from reality when a world is constructed as a reality.

Now here is the sexism issue in it. I consider it Institutional sexism.
There is this reoccurring theme of non-human females looking significantly more human than their male counterparts. In society a woman's worth is primarily determined by her looks, ability to produce offspring, and her age. So it's not too shocking when people say "we don't want to look at ugly women", but then there's the fact that those same people look at the male counterpart and have no problems with it. The male turian does not have a six pack, so why give breasts? Maybe a chest bump so resizing things is easier but...I dunno it's just kind of creepy to put human sexual ideas on some of these non-humans...

Why does monster design have to be so appealing to human sexual senses? The thing I liked in Mass Effect two is the bachelor party background conversation that points out that each male enjoyed the Asari because it reminded them of the females of their own species. It wasn't the human characteristics, the breasts, it was things the human male out of the group never thought about. It's kind of what made the Garrus F!Shep romance so endearing, he didn't know how humans complimented each other or how they did things.



More importantly than all this...how many people are jerking off to pixels where breasts, or perfect abs for that matter, or a pretty face for all monsters really matters.It's like the argument of guys who play females who say they don't wanna look at a guys ass all day. It doesn't make any sense (beyond homophobia) because it's just a differently sized ass.

Even if you don't agree with my reasons, isn't it just a bit weird to put tits on a lizard? Or turn a troll into a pleasant faced skank?

Because we more easily associate with them (things with human characteristics, not breasts per se). It's easier to make someone care more about something they perceive as human as opposed to just an inhuman blob monster.

This, and also so they easily identify them as female. To remove their human and female characteristics and still have different genders, the game would have to spend valuable time teaching the character how to distinguish between males and females of those non-human species. Either that, or you would have to provide more human characters so you can still have the diversity of romance options.

Like they said recently in Extra credits, you want the most depth you can get without adding too much complexity. Making the aliens in mass effect lack recognizable gender characteristics would have increased complexity, without adding any depth. It also would have made the romance options much more awkward to pull off. Don't forget that it would have taken time, time that could have been better spent on the story, or on fleshing out characters and inter-personal relationships. It's an irresponsible use of game time and designing effort to put in.

 

[Jiefu]

They are given human traits to make emotional identification easier. We don't really know what an eagle's sadness looks like, a monitor lizard's jubilation, a shark's boredom. It's quite likely that many animals don't even experience some human emotion - and even if they do, we may never know. By anthropomorphizing animals physically, artists make it easier (or possible) to anthropomorphize them emotionally. Now of course this does not explain why lizard people have breasts, but the simple reason for that is the same: by making them human-like, designers make these creatures easier to emotionally identify with or identify against - see the Aliens from Ridley Scott's Alien. They are distinctly designed to produce intense hatred and discomfort. Their eusocial society, visual design, parasitoidal reproduction, and lack of culture/civilization are all made to mark them as counter to our mammalian biology. Parasitoids essentially rape other species and use them as wombs for their young, which just about any human finds deeply unsettling and immoral. However, the Aliens do not care, and likely don't even possess the capacity to care (the Predators, in contrast, usually garner grudging respect as fellow warriors and sapients).

In contrast, the Argonians of Tamriel are designed to evoke sympathy - they are abused, mistreated, and discriminated against, but clearly undeserving of their plight. They may lay eggs, but both parents typically invest significant resources into raising young, which is distinctly uncommon amongst Earth's reptiles - many reptile mothers lay their eggs, hatch them, and walk off. If Argonians reproduced like common Earth reptiles, they likely would not have a society - certainly not one like ours, where family ties are near-universally valued. They would not evoke nearly as much sympathy. The same extends to their anatomy (after all, no upright-walking reptiles exist on Earth).

Another reason for significant anthropomorphization in gaming is that it saves time and effort. If, for example, Kha'jiit were to be quadrupedal, their entire combat system and equipment would need to be overhauled. They could not possibly use human swords, and armor would be near impossible to translate to them as well.

In society a woman's worth is primarily determined by her looks, ability to produce offspring, and her age.

You have two tautologies going on there. Age and appearance are both simply tied into fecundity. All anti-female sexism ultimately stems from the idea that women's primary (or sole) function is to produce healthy offspring. When a woman is called fat/ugly/slutty, the thrust of the statement is "you would make an unsuitable mother to my entirely hypothetical offspring, which is bad, as that is your function." While humans obviously have sex for pleasure (see: condoms, vasectomies, birth control pills, oral sex), we still discriminate for biological purposes.