Your idea of a Female Protagonist
- Thread starter lex.nero
- Start date
Recommended Videos
I tend to lean towards charaters like Lara Croft, Ripley were thier not portrayed as a bag of hormones I dont care about apperance to much as long as her breasts dont dwarf the screen and the camera isnt perverse then all set.
Edit: Zoey from L4D isnt such a bad charater either.
Edit: Zoey from L4D isnt such a bad charater either.
I have difficulty taking female leads seriously some times, even though in almost every venture where I get to choose the gender of my character I always do a run through as a female lead. Also in 2 graphic Novellas i have female leads.
But in film and games and books alike, there is a tendancy to make female characters (leads or not) very unnatural. Either they're uber feminine, obviously thought out by a man who considers women as a frail creature and lacking in confidence or the writer/director goes 180 and make them far too masculine, making arnie and stalone blush.
Then there is the issue of over sexualising them. This pisses me off more then anything else. I can't take a character seriously if her primary reason for being there is to catch my little mans attention. Conversly, others play it down so much that I might as well be watching female body builders (it might be your fetish... but it ain't mine, OHHH god no.)
But to say all of the above are wrong is kind of arseways logic. Men and Women are varied enough that it's quite likely a real person would fall into these stereotypes. The issue isn't exactly the character, but how the writer treats that character, with all his/her flaws and perfections.
So to answer your question, I think running with a succubus as a female lead is fine, as long as you give your character a personality that evolves to the scenarios and events in the story... and not just play's up to the stereotype.
For me in both my stories the female lead is introduced as a child, showing certain events that shape her to the person she is in the main body of the story. Throughout the stories the characters perspectives on events changes when exposed to certain other events.
For example, in one of my stories the female lead is a fractured and tortured soul (due to a spiel of tragedies as a child) she gathers strength and confidence as she rebuilds her emotional and mental self from the ground up, but sadly her experiences have left her jaded. She has a likeable personality although appears to be timid, but as the story progresses she shows a seething bitterness towards certain forces within the story, which ultimately corrupts her to the point of her taking some rather unthinkable choices.
Just don't play into the stereotype and you can make any cliché work. I suppose you know yourself that seeking originality is a painful and fruitless venture. At best you will sumble across it
But in film and games and books alike, there is a tendancy to make female characters (leads or not) very unnatural. Either they're uber feminine, obviously thought out by a man who considers women as a frail creature and lacking in confidence or the writer/director goes 180 and make them far too masculine, making arnie and stalone blush.
Then there is the issue of over sexualising them. This pisses me off more then anything else. I can't take a character seriously if her primary reason for being there is to catch my little mans attention. Conversly, others play it down so much that I might as well be watching female body builders (it might be your fetish... but it ain't mine, OHHH god no.)
But to say all of the above are wrong is kind of arseways logic. Men and Women are varied enough that it's quite likely a real person would fall into these stereotypes. The issue isn't exactly the character, but how the writer treats that character, with all his/her flaws and perfections.
So to answer your question, I think running with a succubus as a female lead is fine, as long as you give your character a personality that evolves to the scenarios and events in the story... and not just play's up to the stereotype.
For me in both my stories the female lead is introduced as a child, showing certain events that shape her to the person she is in the main body of the story. Throughout the stories the characters perspectives on events changes when exposed to certain other events.
For example, in one of my stories the female lead is a fractured and tortured soul (due to a spiel of tragedies as a child) she gathers strength and confidence as she rebuilds her emotional and mental self from the ground up, but sadly her experiences have left her jaded. She has a likeable personality although appears to be timid, but as the story progresses she shows a seething bitterness towards certain forces within the story, which ultimately corrupts her to the point of her taking some rather unthinkable choices.
Just don't play into the stereotype and you can make any cliché work. I suppose you know yourself that seeking originality is a painful and fruitless venture. At best you will sumble across it
Flawed.
No wait! Don't bring on the hate!
I've found that a lot of female characters tend to be ultra-perfect-super-women. I mean, they're hot, smart, tough and etc.
Or if they have a flaw, it's something utterly stupid like: "Oh no I can't seem to relate to this guy/girl" or "I am a massive *****".
If I want to put a woman in a story I'll just make her a normal person. I.e. few too many brews, she gets hammered. She chows down on cake every day, she gets fat. Somebody shoots her, she gets hurt. She likes somebody, she asks them out.
No super skills or anything. Unless the story has super skills in abundance.
No wait! Don't bring on the hate!
I've found that a lot of female characters tend to be ultra-perfect-super-women. I mean, they're hot, smart, tough and etc.
Or if they have a flaw, it's something utterly stupid like: "Oh no I can't seem to relate to this guy/girl" or "I am a massive *****".
If I want to put a woman in a story I'll just make her a normal person. I.e. few too many brews, she gets hammered. She chows down on cake every day, she gets fat. Somebody shoots her, she gets hurt. She likes somebody, she asks them out.
No super skills or anything. Unless the story has super skills in abundance.
A one-armed woman with blond hair who fights demons in 18th century London, together with a grim reaper in the shape of a black dog named Hutch.
No matter what the gender, I try to make every character in my story believable and well-written; I come up with a good personality and history for the person first, then build up a look for them.
Also, as for females in particular: I try to make them strong women. Not bitchy or just dudes with big busts--I try to make them strong and still feminine. The two are not mutually exclusive traits at all.
Also, as for females in particular: I try to make them strong women. Not bitchy or just dudes with big busts--I try to make them strong and still feminine. The two are not mutually exclusive traits at all.
Quoted for absolute truth, character an gender should be handled separately.Daystar Clarion said:
FemShepard is also imho the best female protagonist out there. Beeing voiced by Jennifer Hale helps.
All to often with the already few cases of female protagonists that doesn't look like Ivy have little more character depth than "She's a woman that can kick your ass."
Basicly what I'm saying is gender != character. It would be nice if the game industry realised that a bit more often.
The problem is that you're looking for a "Female protagonist" instead of a protagonist who just happens to be female.
If you were looking for a male protagonist would you ask what our idea male protagonist is, or just what our idea protagonist is?
The ideal protagonist is one who's believable as a character.
If you were looking for a male protagonist would you ask what our idea male protagonist is, or just what our idea protagonist is?
The ideal protagonist is one who's believable as a character.
Word to the wise: The less overtly sexual the female protagonist, the more interesting they are. If the strong female lead is too sexualized, they're hard to identify with and frankly not that interesting. See Lara Croft and company.lex.nero said:
Some examples of good females leads would be FemShep from Mass Effect and Jen Mui from the first Mercs (not 2). They're strong, capable, but still come across as actual women, not men with breasts, and definitely not blow up dolls.
You'd better not or I'll sue your ass for copyright infringement.Loop Stricken said:
This includes the concept that she has freckles and that the grim reaper dog ate her arm after it was ripped off by the demon that killed her parents.
I'm also considering writing a story about a succubus... kind of. She's the daughter of a succubus, with half the power of her mother. She sees men as cattle, so maybe evil? I like characters with overwhelming flaws, for some reason... especially when the flaws make them border-line evil.