Can't think, better type
TPA has turned my brain into putty, excuse me while I vomit up some things I've been thinking about so they get OUT of my head and free up some space for work.
I never was able to finish Fire Emblem and Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones on the GBA, and that's always been one of my bigger gamer regrets because I generally like the games but they require a lot of patience and rage-filled restarting, so it's not exactly something that's conductive to my normal play style. But I've been trying to squeeze in a level or two in between pages of TPA. It's turned out to be a good system because when I get mad at the TPA I take it out on my pixlated army, and when that goes south I can take my anger back into the TPA. I type like a speed demon when I'm angry at something not related to what I'm typing about.
If you haven't played the games, they are overhead strategy/RPG based tactician games where you control an army of recruitable characters and move them around the board killing enemies. The catch is that if a unit dies, you can NEVER get them back (without starting over). They're dead. Forever. Each unit is totally unique and while they may share a class with another character, it's fair to say that none of the characters are replaceable. They have their own strengths and weaknesses, and despite being over 40 playable characters they are all well developed in terms of having back stories and defined personalities.
Anyway, while playing the game I like to give commentary to Ziggy because he's a fan of the series as well, and one thing we noticed about my play-style is I like to fill the team with cute boys:
Is it sexist if I'm objectifying them because they're pretty AND useful?
I'm missing two male characters I use who are not "pretty". Handsome sure but they aren't conventionally "bishounen" so yeah. A constantly rotating stream of adorable young men. AND they are all pretty different (not in appearance obviously what are the odds of TWO MAGIC USERS WITH PURPLE HAIR?!?) in the ways they fight, talk, interact, and just generally behave. I mean, Kent and Sain (the 3rd and 4th characters) are the EXACT SAME CLASS and yet they have entirely different fighting styles (Sain is far more powerful then Kent, Kent is much more durable then Sain), different growth rates with XP, and different personalities. Even though they are both Cavaliers, I could tell them apart just from reading their dialogue. Same with Erk and Canas (the purple haired gentlemen). They look similar, but they act TOTALLY different. And that's sort of the key to this game: you have to get attached to the individual units otherwise what are you fighting for? You have to like the people otherwise it doesn't matter if they get killed.
All that being said, I hate every single female character in this game. And this has nothing to do with their looks or their usefulness and everything to do with the fact that they are basically not people.
I only use these characters if the game forces me to. And it's not sexist because they ARE useless.
My problem with the ladies is that I can point to each of those gentlemen up there and every single one has a different personality. With these ladies? There are four types of women in Fire Emblem games:
Women in this game are either swordsmen, pegasus knights, or healers. That's it. Alright, there is one magician, and one dragon knight, but both of them start out as villians so by default they have to be something "evil." The Pegasus knights can ONLY be female, and the healers can ONLY be female. There are no male peg knights and no male clerics/troubadors. WHY? Why are women only allowed to hang out with the flying horses and girly healing magic? Why are classes like axmen and theif a boys club? It's not even about body type because later games on the Gamecube and Wii have a lot more variety in terms of character types (although men still can't be Peg knights or Healers), and really if a woman can be a Paladin why can't she be an axmen?
I'm being nitpicky but as someone who was an impressionable young girl when I first played these games, I find it really disheartening that the story is, for the most part, about a woman (Lyn is a primary main character) and yet still shoves women to the side in order to showcase cute boys.
I find it both upsetting and hilarious that Lyn can stand next to these two characters and call herself a "Lord" without people laughing at her.
Even when it makes sense for them to wear more clothing JUST BASED ON OTHERS OF THE SAME CLASS, they dont. The precedent is already there, what is so wrong with just letting them wear pants? It obviously makes sense. And don't even get me started in the posing of these characters. Wil is obviously drawn in a way that is meant to be dynamic and heroic, Rebecca is clearly just meant to be standing around looking cute. They're the same damn class, why is there so much descrepency in the way they are treated?
Only one of these characters is an accomplished archer. The other is a 15 year old girl who needs to put pants on.
I'm not even sure why, since the primary demographic of these games is boys. While none of the ladies wear clothes that make any sense for war, you can't even SEE their bodies unless they're attacking, and even then they are just pixels. The only reason I know what they are wearing is because I've seen the official artwork for all the characters, the most you ever see in-game is headshots and combat animations.
Sexy....?
So why is it like this? Why are the women in this game deligated to secondary support classes and dressed inferiorly to their male counterparts AND have shitty cookie-cutter personalities in a game where it does not make sense for any of these things to be like this? I dunno. I wish I did. It's getting more progressive in the newer games (but not that much more progressive) but we have a ways to go. I guess I'm just hypersensitive about gender in games because the only game I've ever known that treats women as real human beings rather then "GENERIC WOMAN" or worse "SEX OBJECT" is Persona 4, and no one I know will play it so I can't really get intellectual about it.
So yeah. I'm ready for some more real ladies in the gaming world.
I never was able to finish Fire Emblem and Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones on the GBA, and that's always been one of my bigger gamer regrets because I generally like the games but they require a lot of patience and rage-filled restarting, so it's not exactly something that's conductive to my normal play style. But I've been trying to squeeze in a level or two in between pages of TPA. It's turned out to be a good system because when I get mad at the TPA I take it out on my pixlated army, and when that goes south I can take my anger back into the TPA. I type like a speed demon when I'm angry at something not related to what I'm typing about.
If you haven't played the games, they are overhead strategy/RPG based tactician games where you control an army of recruitable characters and move them around the board killing enemies. The catch is that if a unit dies, you can NEVER get them back (without starting over). They're dead. Forever. Each unit is totally unique and while they may share a class with another character, it's fair to say that none of the characters are replaceable. They have their own strengths and weaknesses, and despite being over 40 playable characters they are all well developed in terms of having back stories and defined personalities.
Anyway, while playing the game I like to give commentary to Ziggy because he's a fan of the series as well, and one thing we noticed about my play-style is I like to fill the team with cute boys:
Is it sexist if I'm objectifying them because they're pretty AND useful?
I'm missing two male characters I use who are not "pretty". Handsome sure but they aren't conventionally "bishounen" so yeah. A constantly rotating stream of adorable young men. AND they are all pretty different (not in appearance obviously what are the odds of TWO MAGIC USERS WITH PURPLE HAIR?!?) in the ways they fight, talk, interact, and just generally behave. I mean, Kent and Sain (the 3rd and 4th characters) are the EXACT SAME CLASS and yet they have entirely different fighting styles (Sain is far more powerful then Kent, Kent is much more durable then Sain), different growth rates with XP, and different personalities. Even though they are both Cavaliers, I could tell them apart just from reading their dialogue. Same with Erk and Canas (the purple haired gentlemen). They look similar, but they act TOTALLY different. And that's sort of the key to this game: you have to get attached to the individual units otherwise what are you fighting for? You have to like the people otherwise it doesn't matter if they get killed.
All that being said, I hate every single female character in this game. And this has nothing to do with their looks or their usefulness and everything to do with the fact that they are basically not people.
I only use these characters if the game forces me to. And it's not sexist because they ARE useless.
My problem with the ladies is that I can point to each of those gentlemen up there and every single one has a different personality. With these ladies? There are four types of women in Fire Emblem games:
- Strong female swordsman. Serious. Has to "prove herself" to the boys time and time again. Usually a main character "Lord" class, but sometimes an older woman.
- Shy, man-fearing flower. Delicate and put into battle because I don't know why the fuck did you join the army if you're afraid of men. Either a Pegasus Knight or a Healer.
- Mysterious beauty who is only in the story to either drive the plot further along, or to serve as a foil to another male character that she is a class-clone of.
- Happy-go-lucky "Everyone is my friend" type. Sometimes princessy in attitude, but usually just bubbly and annoying. Has a love interest male character, usually of a similar class.
Women in this game are either swordsmen, pegasus knights, or healers. That's it. Alright, there is one magician, and one dragon knight, but both of them start out as villians so by default they have to be something "evil." The Pegasus knights can ONLY be female, and the healers can ONLY be female. There are no male peg knights and no male clerics/troubadors. WHY? Why are women only allowed to hang out with the flying horses and girly healing magic? Why are classes like axmen and theif a boys club? It's not even about body type because later games on the Gamecube and Wii have a lot more variety in terms of character types (although men still can't be Peg knights or Healers), and really if a woman can be a Paladin why can't she be an axmen?
I'm being nitpicky but as someone who was an impressionable young girl when I first played these games, I find it really disheartening that the story is, for the most part, about a woman (Lyn is a primary main character) and yet still shoves women to the side in order to showcase cute boys.
I find it both upsetting and hilarious that Lyn can stand next to these two characters and call herself a "Lord" without people laughing at her.
Even when it makes sense for them to wear more clothing JUST BASED ON OTHERS OF THE SAME CLASS, they dont. The precedent is already there, what is so wrong with just letting them wear pants? It obviously makes sense. And don't even get me started in the posing of these characters. Wil is obviously drawn in a way that is meant to be dynamic and heroic, Rebecca is clearly just meant to be standing around looking cute. They're the same damn class, why is there so much descrepency in the way they are treated?
Only one of these characters is an accomplished archer. The other is a 15 year old girl who needs to put pants on.
I'm not even sure why, since the primary demographic of these games is boys. While none of the ladies wear clothes that make any sense for war, you can't even SEE their bodies unless they're attacking, and even then they are just pixels. The only reason I know what they are wearing is because I've seen the official artwork for all the characters, the most you ever see in-game is headshots and combat animations.
Sexy....?
So why is it like this? Why are the women in this game deligated to secondary support classes and dressed inferiorly to their male counterparts AND have shitty cookie-cutter personalities in a game where it does not make sense for any of these things to be like this? I dunno. I wish I did. It's getting more progressive in the newer games (but not that much more progressive) but we have a ways to go. I guess I'm just hypersensitive about gender in games because the only game I've ever known that treats women as real human beings rather then "GENERIC WOMAN" or worse "SEX OBJECT" is Persona 4, and no one I know will play it so I can't really get intellectual about it.
So yeah. I'm ready for some more real ladies in the gaming world.