Yes, I've Genuinely Been Waiting For This Age To Make This Entry.

[rionaleonhart]

I turned twenty-two a few weeks ago, and so it seems an appropriate time to post about something that's been troubling me: the ages of female characters in the Final Fantasy series. And videogames in general, and media in general, really, but I'm using the Final Fantasy series in particular to illustrate this problem.

About a year ago, rimon made an

Comments

[rionaleonhart]

I remember being confused and horrified by the flesh-coloured patches around the crotch of Rikku's wetsuit when you first meet her. WHY

Actually, the six-year-old Eiko of Final Fantasy IX also has flesh-coloured material covering her crotch. EIKO. EIKO, THAT IS NOT A GOOD LOOK.

[rionaleonhart]

THE WARRIOR DRESSPHERE. WHAT. Rikku, dear, are you sure you don't want to put on a pair of knickers?

[teh_kween]

I couldn't possibly comment on FF, because I've never really played it (I know, I know - for shame), but I've always thought something similar about Dynasty Warriors

[rionaleonhart]

We own Dynasty Warriors 2; I haven't played a great deal of it myself, but I have watched my brother playing it, and the lack of women and variety in the women was something I'd noticed. I assumed it was due to limitations imposed by the source material, but you're right; they could have improved on it.

Yue Ying gets a bow and arrow

In Dynasty Warriors 2, if I recall correctly, every character has a bow and can shoot arrows they pick up. I assume this isn't the case in Yue Ying's game, because 'HER WEAPON IS... ANOTHER BOW' would be hilariously rubbish. (Doesn't having a long-range primary weapon sort of defeat the point of Dynasty Warriors, though? I'd thought a great part of it was meleeing one's way through vast crowds of enemies.)

with that bloody war fan coming a close second - it lets him fly! It shoots lasers!

...ahahaha, what?

[teh_kween]

'HER WEAPON IS... ANOTHER BOW' would be hilariously rubbish.

And yet, that is in fact the case. No, really - she hits people with it. Which rather begs the question, WHY NOT JUST GIVE HER A SWORD?

...ahahaha, what?

In the novels he's a famous strategist, so he's supposed to be sort of...thoughtful and clever. But this doesn't go any way towards explaining why his enemies are so afraid of - they have pointy weapons and magic lightening on their side. What chance do tactics have against that?
Therefore, logically, the only choice to reconcile this was to give him totally batshit powers. When he's up in the air, you can't bloody touch him. And those lasers hurt man. They hurt.

[thorne_scratch]

Agree very much, though I'd always thought Edea to be rather older than 30-- I was reckoning her to be in her forties at least (based on vague guesses at timeline stuff and Cid's appearance), and chalked her appearance up to sorceress powers and fabulous bone structure.

But, it's been a long time since I played FF8, and I don't remember if they actually gave out the number of years in between living at the orphanage and GARDEN, and what have you!

[rionaleonhart]

You are quite possibly correct! I wasn't sure, but I thought she looked quite young in the orphanage flashbacks and that they were probably twelve or thirteenish years before the events of the game. I'm terrible at judging ages, though.

[anonymous]

Not to generalise or anything *cough* but couldn't this be applied to most games/tv series/comics/films/etc/etc? Certainly to the ones aimed at a mostly male audience. Or at least so comics/games like to pretend. The Games Industry is a bit like a 10 year old boy clutching a controller and telling the girl who just whupped his ass at Mario Kart that she cheated and that 'girls can't play games!'

[anonymous]

PS I agree with the person above. I'm heading towards 30 now and yeah I'd still sign up to be a super hero.

And now to stop leaving mysterious anonymous comments on your post. ;)

[rionaleonhart]

It could indeed be applied to most media, sadly. I mentioned this in the first paragraph of the entry, but I probably could have been a bit more general in the rest of it. The Final Fantasy series certainly isn't the only thing guilty of this; it's just the only one for which I had collected statistics. Ultimately, I suppose the inclination towards featuring young pretty female characters in videogames is less damaging than the same bias in live-action media, because I imagine that bias means it's difficult for many actresses to get work.

Hello, by the way, if we haven't met! If we have and you're just hiding behind anonymity because this is a thorny topic, please don't feel you have to.

[dracothelizard]

Obviously, only men play these type of adventure games, and obviously men only want female playable characters that're young and attractive.

Or at least, that's what some of the people responsible for the games seem to think :(. Which is why loads of RPG games were marketed with sexy ladies in metal bikinis wielding swords on the cover. Because only MEN play these games, and MEN want sexy ladies!

Which leads to this kind of nonsense.

[captlebubbles]

Ajfhaskghkajhg I hate those ads. They're always jumping at me every time I go to DD. Is that a porn game? Are you supposed to create porn for points? What is this game?

[dracothelizard]

Apparently it's just an RPG that involves no scantily clad ladies whatsoever.

[captlebubbles]

...I'm confused.