277 réponses à ce sujet

[MiSsSmOkEy20]

They are Desire Demons so they have to be as sexy as can be. What sexier then a girl half naked lol.

[Spitz6860]

MiSsSmOkEy20 wrote...

What sexier then a girl half naked lol.

lol, there is a pretty obvious answer to that question

Modifié par Spitz6860, 07 janvier 2010 - 09:08 .

[TheDauntless]

Actually this is not true. There was Shianni, for example. And Flemeth,
even though she was in a way a pretty stereotypical witch. There was
Ser Cauthrien. And Anora, whom I actually liked. Lets face it, women do
things differently. If most of the women in the game would've been
acting like men, that would've been worse. Being a strong, independent
woman doesn't always mean that the woman has to behave like a man,
although it seems that is quite often expected in our society.

I've always looked to Flemeth, the Lady of the Forest, and Anora as the only qualifying strong females. Flemeth and the Lady were not allowed to be (full)humans, however. Anora was a politician and a queen but she also played the thankless role of a princess who needed rescuing. (Dagna was admirable too, for a sidequest npc). Those women may not have explicitly bucked the patriarchal status quo, but that is what they did. They're all clearly female. They're all clearly intelligent and brave. And they were all clearly segregated as a minority even amidst a minority. Each one stood out because her gender was tied very closely to her contributions in the storyline, but that is a sad state of affairs because DA did not demonstrate any female heroes(or  strong/interesting female villains) who could have been gender-neutral. I point to women characters throughout KOTOR who were in places of power and responsibility. It wasn't perfect, but all of them were gender-neutral. Bastila, Dodonna, Yuthura, all of them. Too often such parts are solely portrayed by men, with women relegated to helpless stereotypes. The widow in Tatooine would have been insulting had she been the kind of woman repeated as a theme throughout KOTOR, but that wasn't the case. Instead it is DA's problem.

Cauthrien's part was the smallest of them all and she never possessed a mind of her own. I say this because her "redemption" was clunky. Shianni didn't impress me. She had guts on her side but she's got a ways to go before she finds her brains. There's much to admire about learning from mistakes, but not if one stupidly endangers other civilians.

Women can do things differently than men. Yet women can do things the same way men do.  BioWare seems to only subscribe to the former, which is just as unhealthy as presuming that the latter idea is correct for all cases. In truth, there shouldn't be any rule that says the two cannot exist side-by-side to diminish the urge to compare oneself to a theme. Look closer and there's the fact that not all women are even alike, and not all men are always alike. Unfortunately, BioWare's themes in DA coalesced into female examples who were predominantly weak and insulting. There were (lowballing, no doubt)3 very shrill damsels in distress from Redcliffe alone, and they weren't even played for laughs to dampen my disgust. There should be room for more female heroes if there is already so much leeway given to portraying female victims. Especially for a story as big as this one was...

And
why are the chantry clerics fools? Just because they believe in the
Maker, and try to bring comfort to people? Was Mother Theresa a fool?
Chantry clerics do not get much space in the game, that is true, but
then again, your comment shows, that such a character wouldn't be very
much liked.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall Mother Teresa sermonizing desperate people about their "mortal sins" with her unconditional humanitarian efforts. No one should insult her by comparing her to the Pope. Yet I compare the Chantry to the most vocal organized religions because I deem such things to be more harmful than helpful as a whole. Just look at the remarks about the Divines. Their attitudes are responsible for the troubles that elves in DA live with. Compare their moves to what the Pope likes to preach about queer people or condoms. Perhaps they believe in their superstitions, perhaps not. What I know is that the Chantry and say, the Vaitcan's blessings(useless or otherwise) are political currency by nature. Occasionally there are rebels among them who won't exclusively parrot rigid teachings and "conditional forgiveness," but they're few and they don't represent the party line.

Why do I feel the Chantry nuns are gossiping fools? Let me clarify. Of the comedy pair in Denerim, the older one who kept screwing up the Chant was the one I liked, for she wasn't shy about her sardonic attitude towards her own religion. It's the other one who spouted beautifully-written but useless, pious illusions who I disliked, and she's the example most of the others copied. Witness how none of them contributed anything meaningful or direct to the plot. Their males got to. Genitivi was the scholarly-adventurer who facilitated the rediscovery of Andraste's Ashes. Greagoir was the templar-commander at a dangerous scene who wielded military power and the authority to politically bargain. Yes, I happened to like both those guys. I'll even go so far as to say that, to me, Greagoir was a DILF. But I didn't happen to like them primarily because they were male, but because they were bold, admirable, and they kept their sermons to a minimum. Were those not traits which human women can also apply? If it weren't for negative persisting gender roles, one of those two could have been female or there might have been a female as a third similar Chantry notable. I found it to be no coincidence that the Chantry nuns were only caregivers while two of their male contemporaries were written as heroes who significantly affected the storyline. It's a double-standard which works against women(and men, let's be honest) when exclusive gender roles are so pronounced.

To be completely honest, I myself like to see the
feminine shape scantily dressed. Because it is beautiful. If it comes
in a shape of my main character dressed in the Dalish armour, all
covered with blood after a hard battle, all the better. I very much
like to wear the Dalish armour, much more than the other light armours
in the game, simply because it is prettier. Yeah, I'm a woman, after
all. ../../../images/forum/emoticons/tongue.png

I too "dressed down" my male elf mage since his lesser, handsome robes put me in a better mood. He's supposed to be me in DA. It's something I would do. But I can't compare my habit to the gender dissimilarities which leather and cloth gear exhibit in this game. Simply because the depiction is common does not mean that it is healthy. BioWare does right by plate armor for women and men, but they should even that out the same way for cloth and leather. Some cuts are more flattering for one gender in particular, but these disparities are absurd. Personally, I think everyone should be indecently exposed while sporting leather. Everyone covering up is a method I can live with too.

Modifié par TheDauntless, 07 janvier 2010 - 11:18 .

[Knal1991]

Branka and ser cauthiren were strong females too, though imo both a bit messed up in the head...and and the silent sisters

[Ubasti]

TheDauntless wrote...


I've always looked to Flemeth, the Lady of the Forest, and Anora as the only qualifying strong females. Flemeth and the Lady were not allowed to be (full)humans, however. Anora was a politician and a queen but she also played the thankless role of a princess who needed rescuing. (Dagna was admirable too, for a sidequest npc). Those women may not have explicitly bucked the patriarchal status quo, but that is what they did. They're all clearly female. They're all clearly intelligent and brave. And they were all clearly segregated as a minority even amidst a minority. Each one stood out because her gender was tied very closely to her contributions in the storyline, but that is a sad state of affairs because DA did not demonstrate any female heroes(or  strong/interesting female villains) who could have been gender-neutral. I point to women characters throughout KOTOR who were in places of power and responsibility. It wasn't perfect, but all of them were gender-neutral. Bastila, Dodonna, Yuthura, all of them. Too often such parts are solely portrayed by men, with women relegated to helpless stereotypes. The widow in Tatooine would have been insulting had she been the kind of woman repeated as a theme throughout KOTOR, but that wasn't the case. Instead it is DA's problem.

I forgot to mention Eleanor Cousland as well as a strong woman in the game. And I actually do think that Wynne is a strong woman also.


And does it matter, if the female is not fully human? Because even those not fully human are still portraits or reflections of real women, no matter how strange they might look (watch out, you got the literature scholar out of me now... ). The thing in storytelling like this is, that most people don't buy the ideas that are too far from their real lives. Also, when one is creating a world and a story, the life experiences and all such are bound to affect the story. And whilst creating, usually the story takes over. One might argue, that this shouldn't be the case in computer RPGs, but I would disagree. The best stories come out from true creative work, not from forced obligation. And I truly think David Gaider has had such enthusiasm to his work while creating DA. It shows everywhere. Maybe it is not yet the best possible game, nor the best possible world, but it is interesting nonetheless.


But before I forget what this was all about, I'll try to return to the subject. Yes KOTOR was different. Even BG2 had some stronger women than DA has. But for what I've read about BG2, people didn't much like those strong women (meaning Jaheira here mostly, whom I liked very much). But then again, BG2 and KOTOR were build in a totally different kind of worlds, worlds already established and known to the public. DA is a whole new world, which has been created from a scratch. I may be looking at it from a different perspective, since I know how much work such thing must have been, so I am in awe how well they managed to do it. Besides, they had three women to do the writing too for DA, at least the names can be found in the credits. And in some parts of the game I think I can see it too.

TheDauntless wrote...


Cauthrien's part was the smallest of them all and she never possessed a mind of her own. I say this because her "redemption" was clunky. Shianni didn't impress me. She had guts on her side but she's got a ways to go before she finds her brains. There's much to admire about learning from mistakes, but not if one stupidly endangers other civilians.

So you want perfect women in the game, ones that don't make mistakes or believe in something without thinking? Because that is what I get from this.


I found Shianni a strong woman. Yes, she might have thought before acting, but if every character in the game would behave like that (always thinking everything through), it would make a very dull game (or a very dull story). My main whacked the hell out of those humans who violated her cousin, and was not a bit sad about it nor felt remorse. Even though she knew it might affect the whole community. What makes interesting characters is the thing that they have flaws. I also liked Ser Cauthrien, she was an interesting character, though played only a small part in the story. Reading her background from the Codex (or maybe it was somewhere else, can't remember exactly) it's no wonder that she was the way she was. I got the feeling that she also might have been in love with Loghain, and well, women in love tend to do the irrational things for those they love (and men as well I might add).

TheDauntless wrote...


Women can do things differently than men. Yet women can do things the same way men do.  BioWare seems to only subscribe to the former, which is just as unhealthy as presuming that the latter idea is correct for all cases. In truth, there shouldn't be any rule that says the two cannot exist side-by-side to diminish the urge to compare oneself to a theme. Look closer and there's the fact that not all women are even alike, and not all men are always alike. Unfortunately, BioWare's themes in DA coalesced into female examples who were predominantly weak and insulting. There were (lowballing, no doubt)3 very shrill damsels in distress from Redcliffe alone, and they weren't even played for laughs to dampen my disgust. There should be room for more female heroes if there is already so much leeway given to portraying female victims. Especially for a story as big as this one was…

Actually I think that again Ser Cauthrien is a good example here. The way she acted is gender neutral IMO (even though I mentioned that being in love thing earlier). If she'd been a man in the game, would anyone wondered why she was being so stubborn? Since usually it is thought that men obey orders from their superiors, especially in military. But she is a woman who behaves exactly as a man would in the same situation. She is loyal, she tries to protect the man she respects, and forbids herself to think what the truth might be.


I assume you mean Isolde, Bella and that smith's daughter when you say there were three damsels in distress? For me there actually is only one damsel, the smith's daughter. Isolde is a distressed mother, who can sacrifice herself for her son, or even  




MAJOR SPOILER HERE!








kill her son herself depending on the choices made by the player. And Bella, well, she did lack a bit of backbone, but there were also men in the game who needed a lot of persuading from the main character to do some things. So I see Bella only as one of those not so important side characters who are there just to give something extra to the game. Maybe she should have been a guy instead of a girl, and maybe she could have been. For me it wouldn't have made any difference for my game experience.

TheDauntless wrote...


Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall Mother Teresa sermonizing desperate people about their "mortal sins" with her unconditional humanitarian efforts. No one should insult her by comparing her to the Pope. Yet I compare the Chantry to the most vocal organized religions because I deem such things to be more harmful than helpful as a whole. Just look at the remarks about the Divines. Their attitudes are responsible for the troubles that elves in DA live with. Compare their moves to what the Pope likes to preach about queer people or condoms. Perhaps they believe in their superstitions, perhaps not. What I know is that the Chantry and say, the Vaitcan's blessings(useless or otherwise) are political currency by nature. Occasionally there are rebels among them who won't exclusively parrot rigid teachings and "conditional forgiveness," but they're few and they don't represent the party line.

What if the Chantry had been all men? Or if there had been no Chantry at all? Or there'd only been templars? Or a religion, that wouldn't have been as rigid and unforgiving about some things? What would have become of the game? Would there have been any conflict at all? Or is it just that making women as the head figures of the Chantry is the bad thing, that it makes women to be portrayed as lesser beings, because they believe in such things in the game? Yes, I disliked the Chantry as well, but in a good way, because it was there to give conflict and to portray for me something that people believed in as whole and got me thinking all sorts of things about what the Chantry is saying isn't necessarily the truth about things. But what comes to the female issue, I saw the priests in Chantry as individuals, like the nuns back in the medieval times of our real world. Some of them wanted to do good, and chose to do it the only way they knew how. One can argue that there should have been a Chantry cleric who would have stood out as being different. But then again, there are also limits of how many strong characters one can have in a story. 


What comes to templars, I have no idea if they're always men. So I can't argue about thing that if Greagoir should have been a woman. The head enchanter in the mage tower though, he could've easily been a woman, and as far as I can remember, Irvin actually had asked Wynne to be his successor in the position, but Wynne denied. Can't comment on Genitivi either, since I really can't remember the thing that he was connected to the Chantry in any way at all. Have to read things more thoroughly next time.

Modifié par Ubasti, 07 janvier 2010 - 12:03 .

[Keithhy]

.............. wow...............



When you get worked up, Ubasti, you get worked up!

[Ubasti]

Heh, I'm not worked up. If I'd be like that, believe me, you'd notice it . I just like to have good arguments over things, exercise my grey brain cells a bit.



Just playing through Ostagar again, and it seems there ARE female soldiers there, actually *almost* every second soldier is female. Just run around after the Joining, you'll find them.



And now I think my bit for this thread is here, and I'm turning toward other things.

[philippe willaume]

To answer the initial question, the answer is because they could not get away with completely naked.

Phil

[PuffyTail]

I think the discussion about scantily clad female desire demons and the discussion about whether the game itself is sexist are two different things. Nudity and sexuality are not bad or demeaning things in and of themselves, by any means. My issue with the desire demons and the game's utter lack of reciprocity in catering to women's desires is that "sexy" in our society is all too often marketed to and defined by the male gaze and it's REALLY annoying. I have a rather amusing mental image in my head of some of the game's male NPCs being painted up to resemble Beluga whales and doing bizarre interpretive dances now from this discussion, though

Looking at the game as a whole, there are several strong female NPC characters, Although I must also observe that the majority of those characters tend to be evil, manipulative, essentially written as men (Ser Cauthrien) or (in the case of Shianni and the city elf origin) bitter and victimized. I'm not so sure I would necessarily consider them to be positive examples of portraying strong women.  I do consider Wynne and Leilana to both be interesting and positive female characters, though.

Modifié par PuffyTail, 07 janvier 2010 - 03:25 .

[BroBear Berbil]

Wow, somebody managed to bring an indictment of Catholicism into the discussion. What a shock.



As I have nothing insightful to add to the discussion I will just put in a random thought...



I wonder if Hunger Demons are like half-naked demonic Broodmothers. mmmmm that's sexy

[Herr Uhl]

OnionXI wrote...
I wonder if Hunger Demons are like half-naked demonic Broodmothers. mmmmm that's sexy

So, broodmothers with clothes on? Intriguing.

[swk3000]

As I understand it, it's about the way the brain is wired. Men are very visual, at least when it comes to sexual attraction, so the Desire Demon plays on that. For men, one of the first things we look at in a woman is how she looks. It's not neccessarily a good thing, but that's how we work. Women, on the other hand, are much more complex creatures. Looks are further down the scale for them than they are for men. Roughly half the gamers out there are women, but it's far easier to cater to the men's way of thinking, as all you have to do is make an almost-but-not-quite nude woman and you're done.

[philippe willaume]

Well it is a matter of what we concentrate on.

For exemple middle age is seen as a very migosinistic period but it is the only period of history where a woman produced a military treatise and as far as strong women well check out Isablelle of france, Margeritte of Anjou or Yollande of savoie.



It is true that we could have had the incubus/succubus or may be a desire demon releated to your sexual preference.



But at least female companions are not “o please, save me now great hero/heroine.”

And there are some strong women in both goody and baddies role.





Ps OnionXI

Well all the 3 major monotheistic religions are not especially known to have a high regard of women in general, so well to quote the famous related book, you reap what you sow.

[BroBear Berbil]

philippe willaume wrote...
Ps OnionXI
Well all the 3 major monotheistic religions are not especially known to have a high regard of women in general, so well to quote the famous related book, you reap what you sow.

And I fail to see how it's related to the topic.

[philippe willaume]

could it be that ?

OnionXI wrote...

Wow, somebody managed to bring an indictment of Catholicism into the discussion. What a shock.

[philippe willaume]

swk3000 wrote...

As I understand it, it's about the way the brain is wired. Men are very visual, at least when it comes to sexual attraction, so the Desire Demon plays on that. For men, one of the first things we look at in a woman is how she looks. It's not neccessarily a good thing, but that's how we work. Women, on the other hand, are much more complex creatures. Looks are further down the scale for them than they are for men. Roughly half the gamers out there are women, but it's far easier to cater to the men's way of thinking, as all you have to do is make an almost-but-not-quite nude woman and you're done.

well if that was the case ugly women would only be shagged by poor sighted men. Beer goggles can not really compensate as after a while sexual potency is inversely proportional to the amount of alcohol consumed.
 
The way you set and handle value is largely set by the society in which you have been raised and or have lived for a while.
 
Women do check men out just like men do.
You just need to have more female friends.

they just express it according to the social constraint of the society they live in.
In most society men can be more open about it as it is a "man thing" to do.
 

phil

[BroBear Berbil]

philippe willaume wrote...

could it be that ?

OnionXI wrote...

Wow, somebody managed to bring an indictment of Catholicism into the discussion. What a shock.

Nope, because that's not really an explanation of how religion or Mother Theresa is at all related to the subject of partial female nudity in DA. You simply quoted my sarcastic comment. If you are confused about what I was referring to, perhaps you should read a few posts above mine.

More on topic I'm interested in where people are getting these figures on 40-50% of gamers being women. I assume it's from some study but then I would be interested in how such a study came to that conclusion. If anybody could point me in the right direction on this I would appreciate it.

I can't see it being more than 30% myself and that's accounting for all age groups. I can see most female gamers playing casual games () but the female RPG gamer still seems to be a rarity so it seems clear, to me at least, why games like DA cater to males with partial nudity. Of course, DA has aspects that appeal to female gamers as the Teagan fangirls should clearly illustrate. Giving an anecdotal example here: I've been playing MMORPGs for the last decade and in recent years I've certainly seen an increase in the female population (most of whom seem to be mid 20s to 30s in my experience), and I've been in both casual and raiding guilds with female players but they never accounted for more than 10% of the population in those guilds.

[philippe willaume]

Don’t worry one does need to write like Spinoza to confuse me.



Now “what a shock” at the end kind of make it quite obvious that that it was a sarcasm. And I even assumed that you meant the Vatican/pope/condom comparison in thedautness post and the way it was used later as reciprocal of possible position on men by the chantry.







That being said I do agree with you on the % of female players and the target population.

Now regardless of that it could be argued that desire demon should be according to the sexual preference of the character.

[JTBehnke]

heat2008 wrote...

Why is it a male can walk down the street topless but if a woman were to do so it's indecent exposure.

Uh...last time I checked, walking down the street topless was considered a social gaffe for any gender.  Most places, or at least most restaurants won't serve you if you don't have a shirt on.

[BroBear Berbil]

philippe willaume wrote...
Now regardless of that it could be argued that desire demon should be according to the sexual preference of the character.

I could see this working for the desire demon at Redcliffe but then there's so much additional work involved for what is seemingly a simple idea. Come to think of it, I wonder if a female mage character can take the desire demon up on its pleasure offer; I think I know what my next character is going to be. If it does happen to be a possibility then the events that transpire by going the pleasure route are really left to the imagination since nothing is shown. Whether it's a male or female with the demon I think it can accomodate any taste without it being explicitly shown - though I will agree that straight women get the short end of the stick on this one but aren't women more imaginative anyway?

[Spaghetti_Ninja]

Oh come on, this game caters to women too, with characters like Alistair. Besides, plenty demons in this game are male, they just don't all wear human faces. The Mouse at the beginning of the mage origin is one example.



And if your girlfriend gets ''furious'' because of half-naked women in a video game, you need to find another girlfriend. Quickly. This one sucks.

[Addai]

I haven't read through all 9 pages but I just don't get why people, even red-blooded hetero women (of which I am one), can't appreciate the female form as beautiful simply from an aesthetic point of view. Granted, the Lady and the desire demons are idealized forms, but so what?

I do admit that the boob brush those desire demons perform is disturbing. LOL

Modifié par Addai67, 07 janvier 2010 - 09:03 .

[YunDog]

Herr Uhl wrote...

OnionXI wrote...
I wonder if Hunger Demons are like half-naked demonic Broodmothers. mmmmm that's sexy

So, broodmothers with clothes on? Intriguing.

They tried but none of the stores had anything in her size

[Flecchi]

Gimmie a sec and I'll dig up a list of Female bad-asses from history, Boudica(sp?) was one who united her tribes against the Roman expansion into Brittany. Joan of Arc, who cares if she was chosen by god or a little nutter, she still caused so much grief to England that they could only lie and cheat to win. there are two...

[TheDauntless]

I forgot to mention Eleanor Cousland as well as a strong woman in the game. And I actually do think that Wynne is a strong woman also.

I left the teryna out of it because she wasn't present for everyone's campaign. I admired her a lot. But she's another strong female quickly martyred.

I liked all of the companions. That is, after I did away with Zevran's canon appearance and improved Alistair's sexuality. Else I would not be so generous. I count myself as shallow as the next man. And yeah, the improvements even relate to the debates about sexism and homophobia in this thread.

And does it matter, if the female is not fully human? Because even those not fully human are still portraits or reflections of real women, no matter how strange they might look (watch out, you got the literature scholar out of me now... ). The thing in storytelling like this is, that most people don't buy the ideas that are too far from their real lives. Also, when one is creating a world and a story, the life experiences and all such are bound to affect the story. And whilst creating, usually the story takes over. One might argue, that this shouldn't be the case in computer RPGs, but I would disagree. The best stories come out from true creative work, not from forced obligation. And I truly think David Gaider has had such enthusiasm to his work while creating DA. It shows everywhere. Maybe it is not yet the best possible game, nor the best possible world, but it is interesting nonetheless.

The reason I have a problem with 2 out of the only 3 strong women in DA being non-humans is because there were only 3 such admirable ones among so many shrieking whiners in the cast. More on that below, you'll see.

So you want perfect women in the game, ones that don't make mistakes or believe in something without thinking? Because that is what I get from this.


I found Shianni a strong woman. Yes, she might have thought before acting, but if every character in the game would behave like that (always thinking everything through), it would make a very dull game (or a very dull story). My main whacked the hell out of those humans who violated her cousin, and was not a bit sad about it nor felt remorse. Even though she knew it might affect the whole community. What makes interesting characters is the thing that they have flaws. I also liked Ser Cauthrien, she was an interesting character, though played only a small part in the story. Reading her background from the Codex (or maybe it was somewhere else, can't remember exactly) it's no wonder that she was the way she was. I got the feeling that she also might have been in love with Loghain, and well, women in love tend to do the irrational things for those they love (and men as well I might add).

I dislike everything about Shianni but even I don't blame her for being raped. Victims are not at fault for that. But showing her and all the other female npc victims(and having them exclusively be female) desperately needing rescue is something I don't tolerate. I'm also not a fan of putting friends at the risk of suffering a bad fate as a consequence of one's actions. Were I her, I would've motivated the other alienage elves to help me dispose of the whole human entourage at the beginning. Human nobles would not have stood trial for their "intrusions." Resistance in that setting cannot be done in half-measures. She was within her rights to attack them, but didn't own it, and her hormonal reaction dragged her community down with her.

As a whole I hated the City Elves' origins. Gender roles were far too plentiful and they were negative triggers for me. Everybody must be wearing a surprise face upon reading that. Well. Part of me even smiles at the thought of wiping the alienage out. There were but a handful of elves I could stand in this game and not one of them came from that origin...

Does it not strike you as a cop-out that Cauthrien is more developed in her codex than she is during the events that take place in the campaign? I might've respected her more if she hadn't seem so tacked-on.

Actually I think that again Ser Cauthrien is a good example here. The way she acted is gender neutral IMO (even though I mentioned that being in love thing earlier). If she'd been a man in the game, would anyone wondered why she was being so stubborn? Since usually it is thought that men obey orders from their superiors, especially in military. But she is a woman who behaves exactly as a man would in the same situation. She is loyal, she tries to protect the man she respects, and forbids herself to think what the truth might be.

I agree, her character was gender-neutral. A man could've filled Cauthrien's boots by being Loghain's right-arm, as his protege, and as his lovestruck admirer. I question the judgment of anyone who isn't turned off by Loghain's voice and face, but if a woman can go for that then so could a man.

Thus my problem with Cauthrien is not simply because she's a female in a thankless position. It is the character. And I discount her away from those females who I feel were actually strong. I'd also discount the character as a strong male, if that were the case.

I assume you mean Isolde, Bella and that smith's daughter when you say there were three damsels in distress? For me there actually is only one damsel, the smith's daughter. Isolde is a distressed mother, who can sacrifice herself for her son, or even  




MAJOR SPOILER HERE!








kill her son herself depending on the choices made by the player. And Bella, well, she did lack a bit of backbone, but there were also men in the game who needed a lot of persuading from the main character to do some things. So I see Bella only as one of those not so important side characters who are there just to give something extra to the game. Maybe she should have been a guy instead of a girl, and maybe she could have been. For me it wouldn't have made any difference for my game experience.

I judge Isolde for her behavior as an insulting female stereotype. She was an empty-headed meddler who had little knowledge, no consideration for her family's vassals by the looks of it, an easy familiarity with crying to get what she wanted, and a very grating voice. That doesn't even include what she did to Alistair. Speaking of him, it's a pity he cares so much about what she means for Eamon.

She's the worst because she pretended her own wishes were for the benefit of her son and her husband. Alistair's existence threatens her position? Banish him. The heir she bore runs the risk of being claimed by the Circle? Safeguard the image and investment at all costs! She is so miserable to deal with. I would repeat these things if Isolde had been a man. The fact that she was a repellant portrayal of a female character contributed to a disfavorable theme of women in DA from my perspective. She was the worst of them.

I counted the smith's daughter, the girl with the kid brother, and I guess even Bella. I decided to ignore Bella. I don't remember everything, but it seemed like all the options to move her quest along were laced with sexual innuendos. That to me was wrong, given her position. Wasn't she trying to work while keeping one hand tucked between her legs by that point?

Well, now that I think about it EVERY female at Redcliffe was a damsel in distress. Hiding in the Chantry with the truly helpless elderly, brats, sick, and injured when there's a militia that needs all the help it can get? Let them be slaughtered for being so useless, I say...

What if the Chantry had been all men? Or if there had been no Chantry at all? Or there'd only been templars? Or a religion, that wouldn't have been as rigid and unforgiving about some things? What would have become of the game? Would there have been any conflict at all? Or is it just that making women as the head figures of the Chantry is the bad thing, that it makes women to be portrayed as lesser beings, because they believe in such things in the game? Yes, I disliked the Chantry as well, but in a good way, because it was there to give conflict and to portray for me something that people believed in as whole and got me thinking all sorts of things about what the Chantry is saying isn't necessarily the truth about things. But what comes to the female issue, I saw the priests in Chantry as individuals, like the nuns back in the medieval times of our real world. Some of them wanted to do good, and chose to do it the only way they knew how. One can argue that there should have been a Chantry cleric who would have stood out as being different. But then again, there are also limits of how many strong characters one can have in a story.

You and I actually dislike the Chantry for the exact same reasons.

But we disagree on its gender roles. My opinion is that they should not have been there in the first place. Their existence is unhealthy and they serve no good to compensate from what I can tell.

What comes to templars, I have no idea if they're always men. So I can't argue about thing that if Greagoir should have been a woman. The head enchanter in the mage tower though, he could've easily been a woman, and as far as I can remember, Irvin actually had asked Wynne to be his successor in the position, but Wynne denied. Can't comment on Genitivi either, since I really can't remember the thing that he was connected to the Chantry in any way at all. Have to read things more thoroughly next time.

I can't remember for sure if the Chantry bars women from applying to be templars. I do think they refer to all recruits as men. Certainly all the templars were shown to be men. But the PC can become a templar, regardless of sex. I see no good reason why a choice was made to exclude women npcs from complementing the templar ranks. Only the very bad reasons.

The Circle had more gender-equality than most of the other factions did. For good reasons? No. Women were only prominent alongside the men because those women all wore dresses and they didn't fight in melee. The Dalish were rogues who wore leather, and we know what that meant for their females. Mages = fictional for damn sure. Elves = fictional for anyone who doesn't play with razors.

Not so much equality among dwarves...and humans. Oops? No, no "oops." Branka and the Silent Sisters were insane and unflattering. Why cut out your own tongue if it defeats the purpose of being a rebel? Why must women be oddities to achieve? Why show the Sisters as tokens when instead there could be female warriors common in the ranks? Because then we'd have short, wide, fearsome women fighting in melee with heavy plate who are not easy and not bad jokes. No female power-brokers were in Orzammar, either. Tsk. Ohhh, gods. Do I even have to dredge up what we saw in the beggars' district...

The situation's almost identical for human npcs. And it's why the use of fictional allegories like elves, mages to "appease minorities"(women in this topic) comes as an insulting gesture. They'll have men taking on all kinds of roles in the campaign minus active prostitution(desire demons) for homophobic and sexist reasons alike. Yet they'll deign to have females fulfill the prostitute role in spades, second only to the helpless damsel role, often simultaneously. "Non-safe roles need not apply..." Only the societies in DA which bear the least resemblances to our own were allowed to depict women frequently in power. It does not speak at all of willingness to include minorities. Instead it speaks of exploiting minorities while demonstrating unwillingness to include minorities seriously at the big table.

Genitivi's a monk scholar. I don't recall the rank for that. He just wasn't wearing his robe in Haven.

Modifié par TheDauntless, 08 janvier 2010 - 07:08 .