133 réponses à ce sujet

[Hair Serious Business]

Darkspawn companion is one I always wanted especially since Dragon Age Awakening in where we had talking darkspawns.

[Sir DeLoria]

I'd like to see a woman like "Hammer" from Fable 2, someone who's built to look like a warrior rather than built to look sexy and then be given a sword. I would like to see a lot more variety in female characters in general. Let there be morbidly obese merchant women with 8 rings on each finger and a giant ruff type collar, women who are tall and bony and horse-faced, women who are old and wrinkled and bent over and actually look old (giving a hot young women light crows feet and grey hair does not make her old BW...), women who are heavily scarred the way Zaeed was, etc...In addition to the young, sexy, perfect model-featured women that already exist in games. I'd also like to see more characters of differing ethnicities. Vivienne is awesome and a great start, but I'd still like to see more non-white people to shake things up.

Cass fits quite a few of these requests. She's more muscular, slightly scarred, mid aged and deffinitely doesn't look like a model.

I very much agree about more diverse ethnicities though.

[karushna5]

I'd like to see a woman like "Hammer" from Fable 2, someone who's built to look like a warrior rather than built to look sexy and then be given a sword. I would like to see a lot more variety in female characters in general. Let there be morbidly obese merchant women with 8 rings on each finger and a giant ruff type collar, women who are tall and bony and horse-faced, women who are old and wrinkled and bent over and actually look old (giving a hot young women light crows feet and grey hair does not make her old BW...), women who are heavily scarred the way Zaeed was, etc...In addition to the young, sexy, perfect model-featured women that already exist in games. I'd also like to see more characters of differing ethnicities. Vivienne is awesome and a great start, but I'd still like to see more non-white people to shake things up.

 

Hammer! I love hammer! I think Hammer really inspired my love of Aveline, and I wanted to romance her sooo badly. I do think sometimes that men get to be grizzled tough guys and often when women get old they are still more pretty than grizzled. Flemeth, Wynne, Samara, Meridith they are not bad by any means, but I want old ladies that are like Wrex, Zaeed, Canderous, even youngish Sagacious Zu. Not anything wrong with them as they are but it sure would be cool to have a old female character that was at least as grizzled as most main characters to video games.

 

But give these games the credit they should have. Sera, Josephine, Cassandra, they all have flaws and are portrayed like people.  They are still beautiful, but definitely not "sexy, perfect model featured" I like this design SO much. But since it is brought up, would love a older female character, like Shepard if she hadn't saved the world and aged a bit.

 

I really believe in characters who are made to be neither pretty nor ugly but designed to shape their characters, one reason I am so stoked to meet them is they really leap off the page and seem to tell you about them before you ever meet. I love Jack, Aveline, Ashley, Morrigan, I usually had at least 1 character per game where I said "this is a character I love and rarely see for people like me" despite their fewer numbers, all of the women in this game seem like they will fill the ticket.

[karushna5]

Not to be a downer, but this is a very steortypical trope 

I mean TV tropes themselves say that just because it is a trope doesn't mean it is common or that tropes are bad, and it is impossible not to be able to apply a trope to anything. Tropes exist for recognition of different characters, often I use TVtropes to find what I want to read/watch.

 

So sterotypically women are often portrayed more based on looks than most other things. In fact TVtropes themselves mention that as well. (everything and its opposite is a trope, nothing is not a trope and that is not a bad thing) Stereotypical is how often it is done and what is expected from something and how closly they adhere to it. Often portraying all of a set of attributes based on one trait. So Zevran is slightly more sterotypical rogue than say Varric, because Varric does not fit as many preconceptions about rogues as Zevran does. They are both less sterotypical than Sebastian who had that life but no longer and is actually a noble. None of this applies to the rogue trope itself, but how closely a set of preconceptions about that trope are adhered to.

 

Being unique has less to do with not being a trope as using it in a unique way, and tropes themselves have nothing to say how common they are.

[Nefla]

Not to be a downer, but this is a very steortypical trope http://tvtropes.org/...Main/BrawnHilda but I see your point. We already have several female tropes.
Sera http://tvtropes.org/...ain/ActionGirl 
Cassandra http://tvtropes.org/...eanneDArchetype
Morrigan http://tvtropes.org/...adyOfBlackMagic
Isabella http://tvtropes.org/...Main/PirateGirl
Lelianna http://tvtropes.org/....php/Main/SheFu
Maybe not perfect fit. But you can very easily see the resemblence in the tropes.  The same goes for the male charaters. Honestly. There are enough tropes to fit them all. one way or another. So Sterotypical? You mean "Women = Weak but agilie and smart and cute" and "Men = Strong, dumb, slow and focused" Well. We don't really have that in dragon age.

I don't care about tropes, and their personalities have been differing but all the female DA characters except Shale have fit into a small window of physical looks. All of them are young (or look young with just the added grey color in the hair and a very faint lined texture to the face) all of them have an hourglass figure, none of them are significantly scarred like Zaeed, all of them wear makeup even Aveline, all of them have flawless skin, none of them are overweight or have crooked teeth, all except Sera and Vivienne have sleek and styled hair (no frizz or tangles). They even changed Flemeth in DA2 and sexed her up for no apparent reason. DA:I is a big step up from DA2 where every woman had the exact same face but every female companion and advisor is beautiful and fairly young.  

 

I never said anything about men being dumb and strong and women being weak and cute. I simply want a wider variety of looks for the female characters. It's not just BioWare, you'd be hard pressed to find female equivalents to most male characters. Female characters in general usually fall into:

-young, pretty, potential love interest

-middle aged, chubby, mother type

-witch

 

Cass fits quite a few of these requests. She's more muscular, slightly scarred, mid aged and deffinitely doesn't look like a model.

I very much agree about more diverse ethnicities though.

Cassandra is a little muscular, but not what I'm talking about. I'd like to see a woman with stylized bulk like Iron Bull, or at least just a really tall fat woman to spice things up. Plus, I wanted to see a woman with the kind of scars male characters typically get (again I point to Zaeed) and not a barely noticeable nice neat little nick across a cheek. This reminds me of ME1 where male characters had some scar options that totally jacked their face up but the scar choices for women were much smaller and less noticeable so as not to mar her beauty.

[Sir DeLoria]

Cassandra is a little muscular, but not what I'm talking about. I'd like to see a woman with stylized bulk like Iron Bull, or at least just a really tall fat woman to spice things up.

In a Medieval setting fat people just wouldn't be that common. As NPCs sure, a Dragon Age version of Ellie from Borderlands 2 would be hilarious.

But companions need to be physically fit for combat of course.

[Nefla]

In a Medieval setting fat people just wouldn't be that common. As NPCs sure, a Dragon Age version of Ellie from Borderlands 2 would be hilarious.

But companions need to be physically fit for combat of course.

It's not a real medieval setting though, and not realistic by any means. People somehow take showers, shave their legs and armpits, brush their teeth, don't crap directly over the street, etc...Even so, I'm sure there were plenty of fat nobles who sat around all day doing no manual labor and just eating and drinking wine. Plus I can easily see mages becoming pudgy or even obese. I'd be cool with fat companions or NPCs, (there were a couple in DA:O) just don't have everyone look the same >.<

[Nefla]

I've been trying to figure out why this thread kind of bothers me, and I don't think I particularly like associating those kinds of traits with masculinity or femininity to start with, so asking for a character to be both a woman and have muscles, or be a timid wilting flower kind of guy, like that's some kind of big deal either way gender-wise, doesn't sit well.

Because the gaming industry is stuck in the past as far as gender roles, the portrayal of women, lgtb, and other things it's shockingly rare to see a muscular woman or a timid, wilting flower man unfortunately

[karushna5]

I don't care about tropes, and their personalities have been differing but all the female DA characters except Shale have fit into a small window of physical looks. All of them are young (or look young with just the added grey color in the hair and a very faint lined texture to the face) all of them have an hourglass figure, none of them are significantly scarred like Zaeed, all of them wear makeup even Aveline, all of them have flawless skin, none of them are overweight or have crooked teeth, all except Sera and Vivienne have sleek and styled hair (no frizz or tangles). They even changed Flemeth in DA2 and sexed her up for no apparent reason. DA:I is a big step up from DA2 where every woman had the exact same face but every female companion and advisor is beautiful and fairly young.  

 

I never said anything about men being dumb and strong and women being weak and cute. I simply want a wider variety of looks for the female characters. It's not just BioWare, you'd be hard pressed to find female equivalents to most male characters. Female characters in general usually fall into:

-young, pretty, potential love interest

-middle aged, chubby, mother type

-witch

 

Cassandra is a little muscular, but not what I'm talking about. I'd like to see a woman with stylized bulk like Iron Bull, or at least just a really tall fat woman to spice things up. Plus, I wanted to see a woman with the kind of scars male characters typically get (again I point to Zaeed) and not a barely noticeable nice neat little nick across a cheek. This reminds me of ME1 where male characters had some scar options that totally jacked their face up but the scar choices for women were much smaller and less noticeable so as not to mar her beauty.

 

I agree. I do feel like makeup should not be a must for every single character. And Aveline was frustrating because part of her arc was all about her discomfort with her looks which can be really offputting when I felt she was there for women that wanted to be like her. (I mean in part?) I don't mind pretty, many women want to be pretty. I don't mind pretty and buff. But I feel so sad with the "You are not very pretty, you need to feel bad and make yourself pretty" I don't know how many times me not wanting to be feminine equated to me "not caring about myself" to those around me.

 

But I like Cassandra, she is squarely herself. Much much better from DA2. I need a Zeed woman badly, or even female version of grizzled protagonist number 83. But I think characters who are neither extreme fit with most characters. Hammers and Viviennes are important, but I think Josephine, Sera, and Cassandra are good characters for the majority.

[slimgrin]

Ok with a lot of talk about companions i was thinking about stuff you dont tend to see. like a Hulking woman. ( yeah i know Shale.) or a Drunken belching Elven female Oghran or a flirtatious pamperd male character.

what would you like to see?

I want a girl with zero personal hygene.

 

Aren't they already doing this?

[HuldraDancer]

I'd like to see a woman like "Hammer" from Fable 2, someone who's built to look like a warrior rather than built to look sexy and then be given a sword. I would like to see a lot more variety in female characters in general. Let there be morbidly obese merchant women with 8 rings on each finger and a giant ruff type collar, women who are tall and bony and horse-faced, women who are old and wrinkled and bent over and actually look old (giving a hot young women light crows feet and grey hair does not make her old BW...), women who are heavily scarred the way Zaeed was, etc...In addition to the young, sexy, perfect model-featured women that already exist in games. I'd also like to see more characters of differing ethnicities. Vivienne is awesome and a great start, but I'd still like to see more non-white people to shake things up.

 

You stole my like at Hammer  I loved her so much in Fable 2, more characters like her would only be a good thing to me.

 

In spoilers for size just a picture of Hannah aka Hammer.

Spoiler

[Deathsbane]

I don't get some of the things on here(not referring to OP initial direction of the thread), from what I've read people are bringing up gender roles, representation of said roles and what have you.

 

What I want to know is, as far as representation goes what are your points? To clarify, I am asking why is representation so important to you? What do you think happens if all your desired portrayals are depicted? What would seeing your desired portrayals do for you?

 

I've seen this a lot for months now (not just on here), I personally don't see what the gripe is about. When I watch a movie or play a game, I don't look to see if they put a specific gender role in it or not, actually it has never occurred to me to look because I don't care. What I care about are the characters and if they are fully and properly developed it doesn't matter if they are muscle bound, short, walk with their hands or if they are pigeons(Hatoful Boyfriend, wooh).

 

Also should people include and develop characters just for representations sake? I say no, I believe the story the creators wish to tell is the one they should tell if that means it is about scarred up biker chick from mars, then that is what it is. But not for the the sake of representation as that always feels disingenuous to me (Disclaimer - Not saying that anyone on here said any of this, I am simply making a point)

[Xilizhra]

I'd like to see a woman like "Hammer" from Fable 2, someone who's built to look like a warrior rather than built to look sexy and then be given a sword. I would like to see a lot more variety in female characters in general. Let there be morbidly obese merchant women with 8 rings on each finger and a giant ruff type collar, women who are tall and bony and horse-faced, women who are old and wrinkled and bent over and actually look old (giving a hot young women light crows feet and grey hair does not make her old BW...), women who are heavily scarred the way Zaeed was, etc...In addition to the young, sexy, perfect model-featured women that already exist in games. I'd also like to see more characters of differing ethnicities. Vivienne is awesome and a great start, but I'd still like to see more non-white people to shake things up.

To be fair, aside from the approximately five fat people in Origins, all of the men are uber-toned as well. I don't think this is a gender-specific issue per se.

[Drasanil]

I want a girl with zero personal hygene.

 

There's /d/ for that.

[DaySeeker]

Meh.  I don't want characters to be disgusting or horrible to look at.  I don't want a freak show.  If that were the style of a particular game, fine, if it fit a character in the game cool, but DA is not a sexist game; men are just as attractive as the women.  I couldn't play a female dwarf because of her frightening arms, so exagerrated or unattractive features did not make me want to play her more.

 

It's a fantasy game, not a horror one.  Does "horse-faced woman" need to exist?  Would it be much beyond ridicule and cries of, "How dare you mock long-faced women!" or just a distraction from the rest of the game.

 

Aveline was mocked as a child for her red hair and was not ouvertly sexual, nor did she place a lot of time and energy into social activity, it is no wonder she is not confident or comfortable there.  I'm not even sure she wasn't comfortable as much as she was nervous about pursuing Donnic given her position which was important to her and she didn't want to jeapardize.  

 

Well written characters are interesting.  A variety of characters are interesting.  Characters that can play off each other, contrast each other, push against each other- interesting.  I don't think the little we've seen of the characters is stereotypical and I certainly don't think they are sexist.  I also think players like to see parts of people they recognize- we don't just want chaos, so I find these threads just complain-y without reason.  

[karushna5]

I don't get some of the things on here(not referring to OP initial direction of the thread), from what I've read people are bringing up gender roles, representation of said roles and what have you.

 

What I want to know is, as far as representation goes what are your points? To clarify, I am asking why is representation so important to you? What do you think happens if all your desired portrayals are depicted? What would seeing your desired portrayals do for you?

 

I've seen this a lot for months now (not just on here), I personally don't see what the gripe is about. When I watch a movie or play a game, I don't look to see if they put a specific gender role in it or not, actually it has never occurred to me to look because I don't care. What I care about are the characters and if they are fully and properly developed it doesn't matter if they are muscle bound, short, walk with their hands or if they are pigeons(Hatoful Boyfriend, wooh).

 

Also should people include and develop characters just for representations sake? I say no, I believe the story the creators wish to tell is the one they should tell if that means it is about scarred up biker chick from mars, then that is what it is. But not for the the sake of representation as that always feels disingenuous to me (Disclaimer - Not saying that anyone on here said any of this, I am simply making a point)

 

It's really complicated and theres whole sociology on it, but really the short of it is validation. There is a difference between having characters like you at many different levels and not needing more, but many studies show that even children gain lower self esteem from not seeing characters like them in cartoons where they show such things. (Spongebob characters don't really have racial features, but they do have gender for example) Also you start identifying with other people other than yourself.

When I was younger, I hated being a woman. Men got friends, women were just catty to their friends. Men got to do stuff, women were just vapid. NONE of this is true. Most of my friends were girls, and boys were way catty to me, but media in general made it hard for me to identify with my gender. This leads to wide lower self esteem for women. Called internalized misogny and a whole bunch of people get it because they start believing everything told to them, even the implied stuff that is subtle. As a little girl I prayed to be a boy. I am not Trans, who have it even harder in all regards. I just generally thought that being a woman meant being unhappy. Boys were better because they were boys.

 

I grew up. But seeing yourself as a hero and not something lesser matters. More women see movies, but most movies are about men, because as the centers of all media, women are trained early to identify with men more than each other. If there is an odd number of characters, that have a mixed group of genders, women will always have the lesser number. In a group of 3, usually only one will be a girl. "Not like other women" is both a brag and a compliment for this reason. As a lesbian seeing someone validate me, when constantly I am brought down is important. Every single day a straight person has tons of validation saying they can be happy and find love, or at least being straight is good. Not only do gay people rarely receive that in any media, but life likes to remind them of the opposite. As much as LGBT people rail against ex-gay camps, many people join them to feel "normal" or because they feel like they are wrong or can't be happy.

 

This is true of all "minorities" many of whom are only minorities when it comes to media. When you have basic validation every day, it is hard to imagine what a complete lack of any support in the media culture around you feels like. Generally it leads to lower self esteem, sadness, and questioning of self worth.

[Frogtoad51]

I don't understand why people want characters to be more ugly in video games for realism. If I want realism I'll step outside.

[karushna5]

I don't understand why people want characters to be more ugly in video games for realism. If I want realism I'll step outside.

 

I don't think most of us want it for realism, and I don't want an ugly character, I want a Zaeed character, because the mercenary that has done it all and has cool scars is a cool one. It's not that I want ugly characters so much as I want female characters to be able to not be pretty so they can fit character types that kinda require a more grizzled look. Zaeed is scarred, has a bad eye and cool as anything, wrex is similiar. Just want an occaisonal (not often, just once in a blue moon when they make the battled soldier in every game occaisonally let her be a woman who can look the part) woman soldier who tells war stories and Looks like she has been through hell and back. Looks cool for it.

[KaiserShep]

Granted.  But Korra would definitely fit into the "non gender stereotipical" group.

 

I would say that Cass fits into this role also, though we have seen a few heavy armored females in DA before.

 

Have we seen a heavy armored female elf before?  I don't recall one.

 

Just wanna say that the idea of Korra being a hulking woman at all makes me laugh.

 

Almost...

 

Anyway, there aren't many instances that I can recall exactly, but one that I am certain of is the armored female elf that we encounter in Dragon Age: Origins. Granted, this character is only around for a few seconds before we kill her and the rest of her group, it's the one accompanying Paedan, the guy who set up a trap for Grey Wardens or supporters with the poster near the alienage entrance in Denerim.

[(Disgusted noise.)]

I'd like to see a woman like "Hammer" from Fable 2, someone who's built to look like a warrior rather than built to look sexy and then be given a sword. I would like to see a lot more variety in female characters in general. Let there be morbidly obese merchant women with 8 rings on each finger and a giant ruff type collar, women who are tall and bony and horse-faced, women who are old and wrinkled and bent over and actually look old (giving a hot young women light crows feet and grey hair does not make her old BW...), women who are heavily scarred the way Zaeed was, etc...In addition to the young, sexy, perfect model-featured women that already exist in games. I'd also like to see more characters of differing ethnicities. Vivienne is awesome and a great start, but I'd still like to see more non-white people to shake things up.

I'm for this too, but I just through I'd point out that Dorian is the Thedas version of South Asian, so you're actually getting two POC companions this time. (Also there was Isabela last time.)

[Who Knows]

Not to be a downer, but this is a very steortypical trope http://tvtropes.org/...Main/BrawnHilda but I see your point.
 

Meh. The only really thing linking her to that is that she's strong and big. Almost everything else doesn't match.

Hammer wasn't a joke character, and her body type certainly wasn't played for hurtful laughs.

[Xilizhra]

Just wanna say that the idea of Korra being a hulking woman at all makes me laugh.

 

Almost...

 

Anyway, there aren't many instances that I can recall exactly, but one that I am certain of is the armored female elf that we encounter in Dragon Age: Origins. Granted, this character is only around for a few seconds before we kill her and the rest of her group, it's the one accompanying Paedan, the guy who set up a trap for Grey Wardens or supporters with the poster near the alienage entrance in Denerim.

Strangely enough, she's an assassin, not a warrior.

[Deathsbane]

 

It's really complicated and theres whole sociology on it, but really the short of it is validation. There is a difference between having characters like you at many different levels and not needing more, but many studies show that even children gain lower self esteem from not seeing characters like them in cartoons where they show such things. (Spongebob characters don't really have racial features, but they do have gender for example) Also you start identifying with other people other than yourself.

When I was younger, I hated being a woman. Men got friends, women were just catty to their friends. Men got to do stuff, women were just vapid. NONE of this is true. Most of my friends were girls, and boys were way catty to me, but media in general made it hard for me to identify with my gender. This leads to wide lower self esteem for women. Called internalized misogny and a whole bunch of people get it because they start believing everything told to them, even the implied stuff that is subtle. As a little girl I prayed to be a boy. I am not Trans, who have it even harder in all regards. I just generally thought that being a woman meant being unhappy. Boys were better because they were boys.

 

I grew up. But seeing yourself as a hero and not something lesser matters. More women see movies, but most movies are about men, because as the centers of all media, women are trained early to identify with men more than each other. If there is an odd number of characters, that have a mixed group of genders, women will always have the lesser number. In a group of 3, usually only one will be a girl. "Not like other women" is both a brag and a compliment for this reason. As a lesbian seeing someone validate me, when constantly I am brought down is important. Every single day a straight person has tons of validation saying they can be happy and find love, or at least being straight is good. Not only do gay people rarely receive that in any media, but life likes to remind them of the opposite. As much as LGBT people rail against ex-gay camps, many people join them to feel "normal" or because they feel like they are wrong or can't be happy.

 

This is true of all "minorities" many of whom are only minorities when it comes to media. When you have basic validation every day, it is hard to imagine what a complete lack of any support in the media culture around you feels like. Generally it leads to lower self esteem, sadness, and questioning of self worth.

 

First off, thanks for the response, it was rather eloquent and gave me insight into where you are coming from.

 

To address the things you brought up. Perhaps I think differently than others do but I do not desire or require external validation, maybe it has to do with how I was raised (I am black and I grew up in Nigeria) I was taught and believe that I have authorship over myself and of course there are things outside of ones sphere of influence that can have an effect on them but for the most part we all have control over self.

 

It is this way of thinking that doesn't allow me to relate to someone having such a negative response to a lack of validation/presence of the invalidation. I have had my share of life experiences (none of which I will mention as this is not about me), people have heard me retell these experiences and consider them harsh or cruel or difficult. I don't see them as harsh or cruel, though they were difficult my reaction was not as you have described, I saw an obstacle and I overcame it by either removing the obstacle or adapting so that it was no longer so.

 

Having said that, I can understand facing difficulties pertaining to being different. It is the response of a 'lower self esteem, sadness, and questioning of self worth' that irks me to be frank. Why would the lack of validation in one aspect of ones life cripple them so? I believe we are all complex creatures, so for people in the LGBT community to feel this way because others don't validate one part of you confuses me. As a lesbian you are more than that you are first and foremost a person made up many different components so feeling this way because of one part of you makes no sense to me and I have experienced difficulties in life because of the color of my skin and where I was raised.

[Who Knows]

I When I watch a movie or play a game, I don't look to see if they put a specific gender role in it or not, actually it has never occurred to me to look because I don't care. What I care about are the characters and if they are fully and properly developed it doesn't matter if they are muscle bound, short, walk with their hands or if they are pigeons(Hatoful Boyfriend, wooh).

If you are already well represented in ways that you would care about, then you wouldn't.

Mentioning sentient pigeons and being from mars is useless. When people talk about representation they mean actual people, not things that don't exist.

 

 

Also should people include and develop characters just for representations sake? I say no, I believe the story the creators wish to tell is the one they should tell if that means it is about scarred up biker chick from mars, then that is what it is. But not for the the sake of representation as that always feels disingenuous to me (Disclaimer - Not saying that anyone on here said any of this, I am simply making a point)

You seem to forget that there are people who WANT to include things in their works for representation's sake. Do you really mean to say that they shouldn't because you think it's disingenuous? There is no dichotomy here. People can write and draw what they want while also being inclusive.