Gender, Fantasy, and the Women of Dragon Age.

[prozacpark]

At some point, I was avoiding LJ/fandom because of the fail, and then I got busy and forgot to post. A lot. But I have been randomly consuming various media, and having thoughts, but mostly too distracted to post. One of the things I kept telling myself I would definitely post about was "Game of Thrones." Which I have been both watching and reading

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[pyrrhiccomedy]

Hey! I got linked here by a friend. This is such a fabulous write-up of one of the major reasons I love the Dragon Age games and why I'm constantly trying to get my friends to play them. Yeah, the story is good, the world is surprisingly imaginative for an elves/dwarves/wizards fantasy setting, but the ladies you guys the ladies, don't you understand, you can have MEANINGFUL FRIENDSHIPS WITH OTHER WOMEN. And the male (recruitable) characters aren't misogynistic towards them, either! Some of the inter-party conversations about Isabela's pursuit of all the sex, everywhere make me want to break out into song. Good-natured teasing, where her appetites are seen as part of who she is and nothing to condemn? Be still my heart.

For me (as for you, I imagine), the Warden and the Champion are women. I've played a male Warden, and a male Champion, but I couldn't finish the game with them, because for me, it's just not as cool when a guy does this kind of crazy shit. And being able to make an entire party of ladies and feel like all of us are completely badass is...not a feeling I'm used to in videogames, to say the least. I tend to pursue the straight romance options (hey, I'm straight), but my characters' friendships with Morrigan and Isabela come out feeling like some of the most important and personally meaningful in the games. And to actually have a woman's friendship with another woman be given the same kind of emotional clout as The Male Love Interest is...really, really wonderful.

This was actually one of the things I liked best about the shift in format from DA:O to DA2 (which, like everybody, I do have reservations about): your party members had lives outside of you. It's made clear that Isabela is dragging you around on her adventures, too. Aveline has a career. Merrill is doing things beyond your ken. Obviously this is true of the male characters, as well, but it means a lot to me for the female characters because it's like the game writers are reassuring me that these ladies have agency to spare. You don't just earn their unending, slavish devotion in Act 1, and then they'll wait around in camp for you to call on them for the rest of the game. While that never precisely made me uncomfortable in DA:O--hey, it's how RPGs work, or at least 'worked back then'--I did sometimes look at, say, Leliana, left behind for the last four missions because I'm currently playing an archer and I need another DPS in melee instead, and think "...You know, if you want to go get in trouble on your own while I'm scuttling around the Deep Roads, that's okay? Leave a note, or something, I'll come and find you when I get back. You look so bored!"

In DA2, I can leave Isabela behind for a while, and feel confident that her life is no less meaningful or exciting just because I'm not currently in it.

[prozacpark]

I admit to playing het romances both times, too, actually. Um, and admit to playing Warden as male, because, hey, my entire motivation for giving the games a try was to experience the angsty Morrigan romance, which was used as a selling point (I may have a thing for het romances involving morally ambiguous flighty women with emotional issues). I probably can't ever play the second one with a male protagonist because Hawke has more of a presence what with actual voice and interaction (and I admit that I found the Warden kind of creepy and kept thinking he was, like, telepathic or something.) But while playing the het romance in the second one, I ended up shipping Isabela/Hawke madly and wishing that I had just played that. Because yes, the relationship between Isabela and Hawke is wonderful, and I admit to having a thing for female friendships where the two women different in terms of personality and moral views. And I imagine that the Warden/Morrigan friendship is similar. And really, even besides that, you get a good sense of the friendship between Isabela and Merril, the weird respect/rivalry relationship between Isabela and Aveline, and the fun banter between Morrigan and Leliana.

And the male (recruitable) characters aren't misogynistic towards them, either! Some of the inter-party conversations about Isabela's pursuit of all the sex, everywhere make me want to break out into song. Good-natured teasing, where her appetites are seen as part of who she is and nothing to condemn? Be still my heart.

THIS, yes. I was trying to figure out what I actually find it funny when people talk about Isabela's sexuality when that's usually something that pisses me off, and that's it. It's discussed with the tone that would be applied to male characters with an active sexuality where it's more "Oh, YOU" and less...a way to control women's sexuality or shame them into not being that sexually active. Which I really, really appreciate. And it does certainly help me like the male characters, and be able to ship them with all the awesome women.

And that's a very good point about the shift in format that I hadn't considered. I admit to cheating on gameplay a bit, so I only took along the characters I liked and didn't care much for the ones left behind. But I would definitely have been sad leaving Leliana behind, and I loved having all the characters have their own homes/stories that went on behind the scenes.