It's Not Her Fault You Suck
I don't know if anyone remembers a post I made a while back about the character of Farah from the game Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. I mentioned how it wasn't at all easy to find hatred on her, and I guessed it was because the cast was so tiny.
So of course, since I opened my big mouth someone had to shove their foot in it.
I actually stumbled upon this by looking for the ever elusive PoP: SoT fanfiction. It's a post on someone's LJ, but for obvious reasons, I won't post to the actual link to the entry. The girl doesn't need to have people suddenly busting down her LJ door, so to speak.
But it doesn't mean I don't find what she wrote to be incredibly stupid. So, here it is.
Just beat "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" today. Is it the best game evah, or what? Suffice to say, I loved it. Beautiful plot, good old action, and more traps than you can shake an Arabic sword at. The only thing that annoyed me was whatsherface, Farah. (For you heathens who haven't been touched by the golden light of PoP, Farah is the big-busted, angst-ridden Indian princess.) And the rant commenced:
1. Her measurements. OK, I am fair, but somebody tell me, how much thinner than the prince can Farah be? The prince who looks apprx. between 50-55 kg (come on, look at the guy! Photo model/Russian circus artist/martial artist, besides, he only drinks water ^.^ ) can not squeeze between the cracks in the walls, but Farah can. On the other hand, her breasts the size of water melons can't be too comfy, what with the rest of her proportions.
Right... So Farah must be what? 35? 40? Puh-lease...
That ringing sound? Don't worry, it was just PoP slapping the feminist within in the face.
2. I wish she wouldn't yell: Help me! every goodamn fricking second after the battle starts. And sometimes she just stands there, bow in hand, whilst the monsties try to tear her head off. OK, so since I don't want to die because of her am a nice guy I rush off to save her, smite down the enemies mightily, only to hear, half a minute later to hear the keening call: Help me!! Prince Charming rushes off yet again...
3. She keeps shooting me in the ass. Dead serious. And then she says in this horrible wanky voice: Sorry!
Up yours b*tch, maybe you should learn to use that friggin' bow!! the Prince shouts. Not. But he should.
4. All in all, she could have been a really good character. And that maybe is the most annoying part in it all O.o (and the ass-shooting. Goddamnit.)
Okay, wank a bit more, girl.
First off, Farah's body type? She's supposed to be super thin. It's part of the plot. One of the main things Farah does during the game is find random (and convenient) cracks in the walls. She crawls through them, throws a switch somewhere, and gives you, the Prince, something to climb up/run on/jump to.
As for her chest size, it's actually not disproportionate to her body. I'd say... a C cup, maybe. Nothing bigger than that. And there's also the fact that she's the main and ONLY female in the game, and therefore the designers were OF COURSE going to make her attractive! I find it funny that the girl will complain about Farah's chest size, but make no mention of how the Prince was pointlessly ripping off random bits of his shirt throughout the game, until he was completely bare chested. Because fan service is only okay if it's for girls, apparently.
As for helping Farah during battles, and keeping her alive? Okay, it should be known that I'm huge into fighting games, like Guilty Gear and Soul Calibur. Games like PoP: SoT are not my specialty, at all. That being said, it's PATHETICALLY EASY to keep Farah kicking. And I really mean that. I've played through the game twice already, and she died on me about one time.
If she cries, "Help me!" you run over, kick Sand Creature butt, and make sure that they stay off her for about ten-twenty seconds. And guess what? Her Life Bar is suddenly back to full.
Keeping Farah alive is frightfully easy. Keeping the Prince alive is another matter. He's died on me one too many times, Power of Time Reversal and all. If you can't keep Farah alive, you totally suck at this game. And I mean that. No one should have trouble keeping her from dying. If she keeps dying, you just suck. It's nothing to do with Farah, and everything to do with how you play. Even when I was surrounded by the thirty-fifty someodd Sand Creatures in that tight elevator near the end of the game, Farah didn't even come close to kicking the bucket.
Then, of course, there's getting hit by one of Farah's arrows. Well, there's a simple solution to that, darling. Get the hell outta the way! It takes all of about two seconds to see where in a fight Farah is positioned. Stay out of her line of fire. Simple as that. If you keep your sorry, princely butt right in front of her, yes, she's gonna hit it. Duh. Move to the left. Move to the right. Move behind the monsters. Just move.
People like to forget that Farah is the Prince's fighting partner in the game. They. Are. A. Team. Just because you only play as one of them doesn't mean you should forget that the other one is fighting. Taking Farah's movements into account during a fight is easy, and so's making sure you don't get hit, or allowing her to die.
Hell, having Farah there made quite a few fights easier for me, particularly when it was a Sand Vulture. One shot from an arrow, and they're dead. Whenever they came around, I just stood next to Farah, and let her take them out. It's also nice that her arrows freeze the Sand Creatures temporarily, giving you time to slice them up before they do it to you.
I also have to say that Farah isn't a slap to the face of feminism (Though, the idea of that line makes me roll my eyes. Bitch, please, indeed.). Farah orders the Prince around through most of the game, since she's the one who knows where they're going. When they split up, the idiot boy gets lost! Not to mention he screws up repeatedly, therefore making everything much more difficult than it ever needed to be. The Prince relies on Farah's knowledge throughout the game, because she's the one between the two that actually knows what to do. He's following her lead.
But, you know, actually helping, and trying to fix things when the Prince was too stupid to is somehow anti-feminist. Or something stupid like that.
She's also just a cool character, as a whole. She's smart, determined, amazingly forgiving (I'd hate the Prince if I were her.), and brave enough to fight a bunch of undead things, even though she's doubtfully trained in combat. And she's not the poster child for angst in the game. The Prince is. He's the one constantly bemoaning how awful everything is, and woe is him! Farah realizes everything is God awful, sucks it up, and just goes about to correct the situation. The only time she ever points out just how bad things are is when the Prince messes up.
Poor Farah. I love her too much for crap like this.
So of course, since I opened my big mouth someone had to shove their foot in it.
I actually stumbled upon this by looking for the ever elusive PoP: SoT fanfiction. It's a post on someone's LJ, but for obvious reasons, I won't post to the actual link to the entry. The girl doesn't need to have people suddenly busting down her LJ door, so to speak.
But it doesn't mean I don't find what she wrote to be incredibly stupid. So, here it is.
Just beat "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" today. Is it the best game evah, or what? Suffice to say, I loved it. Beautiful plot, good old action, and more traps than you can shake an Arabic sword at. The only thing that annoyed me was whatsherface, Farah. (For you heathens who haven't been touched by the golden light of PoP, Farah is the big-busted, angst-ridden Indian princess.) And the rant commenced:
1. Her measurements. OK, I am fair, but somebody tell me, how much thinner than the prince can Farah be? The prince who looks apprx. between 50-55 kg (come on, look at the guy! Photo model/Russian circus artist/martial artist, besides, he only drinks water ^.^ ) can not squeeze between the cracks in the walls, but Farah can. On the other hand, her breasts the size of water melons can't be too comfy, what with the rest of her proportions.
Right... So Farah must be what? 35? 40? Puh-lease...
That ringing sound? Don't worry, it was just PoP slapping the feminist within in the face.
2. I wish she wouldn't yell: Help me! every goodamn fricking second after the battle starts. And sometimes she just stands there, bow in hand, whilst the monsties try to tear her head off. OK, so since I don't want to die because of her am a nice guy I rush off to save her, smite down the enemies mightily, only to hear, half a minute later to hear the keening call: Help me!! Prince Charming rushes off yet again...
3. She keeps shooting me in the ass. Dead serious. And then she says in this horrible wanky voice: Sorry!
Up yours b*tch, maybe you should learn to use that friggin' bow!! the Prince shouts. Not. But he should.
4. All in all, she could have been a really good character. And that maybe is the most annoying part in it all O.o (and the ass-shooting. Goddamnit.)
Okay, wank a bit more, girl.
First off, Farah's body type? She's supposed to be super thin. It's part of the plot. One of the main things Farah does during the game is find random (and convenient) cracks in the walls. She crawls through them, throws a switch somewhere, and gives you, the Prince, something to climb up/run on/jump to.
As for her chest size, it's actually not disproportionate to her body. I'd say... a C cup, maybe. Nothing bigger than that. And there's also the fact that she's the main and ONLY female in the game, and therefore the designers were OF COURSE going to make her attractive! I find it funny that the girl will complain about Farah's chest size, but make no mention of how the Prince was pointlessly ripping off random bits of his shirt throughout the game, until he was completely bare chested. Because fan service is only okay if it's for girls, apparently.
As for helping Farah during battles, and keeping her alive? Okay, it should be known that I'm huge into fighting games, like Guilty Gear and Soul Calibur. Games like PoP: SoT are not my specialty, at all. That being said, it's PATHETICALLY EASY to keep Farah kicking. And I really mean that. I've played through the game twice already, and she died on me about one time.
If she cries, "Help me!" you run over, kick Sand Creature butt, and make sure that they stay off her for about ten-twenty seconds. And guess what? Her Life Bar is suddenly back to full.
Keeping Farah alive is frightfully easy. Keeping the Prince alive is another matter. He's died on me one too many times, Power of Time Reversal and all. If you can't keep Farah alive, you totally suck at this game. And I mean that. No one should have trouble keeping her from dying. If she keeps dying, you just suck. It's nothing to do with Farah, and everything to do with how you play. Even when I was surrounded by the thirty-fifty someodd Sand Creatures in that tight elevator near the end of the game, Farah didn't even come close to kicking the bucket.
Then, of course, there's getting hit by one of Farah's arrows. Well, there's a simple solution to that, darling. Get the hell outta the way! It takes all of about two seconds to see where in a fight Farah is positioned. Stay out of her line of fire. Simple as that. If you keep your sorry, princely butt right in front of her, yes, she's gonna hit it. Duh. Move to the left. Move to the right. Move behind the monsters. Just move.
People like to forget that Farah is the Prince's fighting partner in the game. They. Are. A. Team. Just because you only play as one of them doesn't mean you should forget that the other one is fighting. Taking Farah's movements into account during a fight is easy, and so's making sure you don't get hit, or allowing her to die.
Hell, having Farah there made quite a few fights easier for me, particularly when it was a Sand Vulture. One shot from an arrow, and they're dead. Whenever they came around, I just stood next to Farah, and let her take them out. It's also nice that her arrows freeze the Sand Creatures temporarily, giving you time to slice them up before they do it to you.
I also have to say that Farah isn't a slap to the face of feminism (Though, the idea of that line makes me roll my eyes. Bitch, please, indeed.). Farah orders the Prince around through most of the game, since she's the one who knows where they're going. When they split up, the idiot boy gets lost! Not to mention he screws up repeatedly, therefore making everything much more difficult than it ever needed to be. The Prince relies on Farah's knowledge throughout the game, because she's the one between the two that actually knows what to do. He's following her lead.
But, you know, actually helping, and trying to fix things when the Prince was too stupid to is somehow anti-feminist. Or something stupid like that.
She's also just a cool character, as a whole. She's smart, determined, amazingly forgiving (I'd hate the Prince if I were her.), and brave enough to fight a bunch of undead things, even though she's doubtfully trained in combat. And she's not the poster child for angst in the game. The Prince is. He's the one constantly bemoaning how awful everything is, and woe is him! Farah realizes everything is God awful, sucks it up, and just goes about to correct the situation. The only time she ever points out just how bad things are is when the Prince messes up.
Poor Farah. I love her too much for crap like this.