Princesses, Privilege and Power

I've come up with a new theory. 

This is hardly surprising, because I seem to come up with a new theory every week. I spend some time beaming at how brilliant I am, then discover that whatever idea I just had was already tested to death. Sometimes I wonder if I'm a little late to join the social psychologist game.

And, giving credit where it's due, this new theory was largely inspired by Marc Gold's competence-deviance hypothesis. It's a fascinating hypothesis that states, in brief, that the more competent society views you as, the more deviant you society will let you be. And someday I will test the shit out of this hypothesis until it breaks. 

This might seem like a leap, but my shiny new theory basically states: It's not what you have, it's what you don't have.

If you want to ask how that connection was made--don't.

I've noticed this in my own life, growing up. Disney princesses get a whole lotta flack these days, basically for sitting around and waiting for their prince to come. I recently read Cinderalla Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontline of the New Girlie-Girl Culture by Peggy Orenstein. Though there are some things you need to take with a grain of salt a wedge of lime, and a shot of tequila, the crux of the book is this: it's become too common for said "girlie-girl culture" to be shoved down the throats of girls. This is why I am no longer permitted to go into the toy section at Target. I am a very angry woman as it is, and when I see anything labeled "Pinkalicious", I feel the need to start hurting things. Then I go look at Nerf guns and feel a little better--again, competence-deviance! 

Fun fact: Roy Disney believed that Disney characters should never enter the same fictional universe as one another. Whenever you see any merchandise with more than one princess on it, they will never be looking each other in the eyes. I bet you've never noticed this before, but now you will, and I'll just tell your right now: it's fucking eerie.

Another thing of note: how often do you see the princesses* like Pocahontas or Mulan on these backpacks, lunchboxes, coloring books, bedspreads, or school supplies? Not very often, if at all. 

Tiana from The Princess and the Frog was a pretty valiant effort to give the princess some backbone, and she did stand on her own pretty well. To be perfectly honest, though, I found her kind of boring. It's the new princesses I love: Rapunzel and Merida. Merida is actually the first female protagonist in any Pixar movie, ever. 

Dear Pixar,

I really enjoyed Brave and loved Merida's character, but WHY THE HELL DID IT TAKE THIS LONG?!

Love,
Kaye

Toy Story came out in 1995. It's about damn time.


I suppose I shouldn't be complaining too much. Growing up, I was right on the cusp of princesses going from useless girls in poofy dresses to girls who actually get out and do shit--like save the guy.

I was raised on a diet of Disney movies, musicals, and books about girls and their horses. This goes right back to my theory, because while I got plenty of this: 

"Wait here for some guy to save me? Screw that,
 I'm going to law school  in August and
 I'm suing my step-mother for slavery and harassment."

I also got plenty of this: 

Fuck you, prescribed gender roles!

I'd also like to take this time to give a shout-out to my mom, who was the one who really got me to notice things like these growing up. Thanks, Mom. Without you, I may not be perusing a doctorate is social psych, or have a place to stay when I'm utterly penniless after paying loans. And another huge shout-out to my wonderful professor (who I've mentioned here once before) for really introducing me to all this stuff. You both have helped me figure out my life in ways that I'll never be able to fully express.

Excuse me, there's something unmanly in my eye. 

Kaye's Train of Thought

But what does this have to do with games? That's why we're here, right? Vid'ja games? There is ample room for Disney Princess complaints in other places. So while my train of thought does meander around quite a bit, I promise you, I do have a point:

It's not what you have, it's what you don't have.

This could apply to pretty much anything--education, role models, radio stations (I used to live where the only stations were country or Jesus, and after awhile I forgot why I hated Taylor Swift. Musical Stockholm Syndrome)--and games.

Awhile ago one of my friends asked me a question: Why do some games allow you to choose your character's gender, but some don't?

My first thought was immediately, "the storyline!" One of my favorite games, Tales of Symphonia, is pretty much all about the story; battles and game mechanics are secondary. In that game, you can't choose the main character's sex, or even change his name. It seems pretty restrictive in that sense. But it's still a damn good game, so don't judge it based on that.

It seemed sort of obvious, but then I remembered some of my favorite games, like Dragon Age. It has a wonderfully strong plotline (if a little generic at times), and you can customize everything about your character--their looks, voice, personality. So it can't be just the storyline. In fact, most of the games I've reviewed in this podcast have next to no storyline, and no customization of characters. I think of Legendary in particular. The main character's identity has so little to do with the rest of the game, does it even matter?

Yay, shameless self-promotion!

I get it--character customization doesn't work for every game. Maybe I've just been spoiled by BioWare. Maybe I should just be grateful for Lara Croft and Samus and be done with it.

If this isn't what epiphanies look like,
then I don't want to be right.

Or maybe I should wonder why we don't have more kick-ass female characters, or why we can't make our own. And then I had an epiphany: 

Kaye: I love my Shepard! She's such a bad ass!

Sam: Don't you mean HE'S such a bad ass?

It all comes down to one thing that has shaped not just the game industry, but pretty much life as we know it. 

Privilege.

I'm sure it's a word that most people are familiar with. "Driving is a privilege, not a right." How many times have you heard that one? Or maybe that's just me. Geez, you kill a van just one time...

The basic definition of privilege is something special that you have but not everyone else does. Going with the above example, I have the privilege of driving: I'm old enough, I have a license, and my sight is good enough that I'm not dangerous to others on the road. Because of these things, I am allowed to drive a car while not everyone else can. 

But if you're looking at privilege from a social perspective, then there are a couple things you need to understand about it. First, privilege is not earned. It is something that you happen to be--some trait about you that you did not choose for yourself and largely have no control over.

It comes in all forms, and often in the shape of the most basic things about you. For example, I have White privilege, cisgender privilege, able-bodied privilege, and heterosexual privilege. I didn't decide one day to be White, or to have my sex match my gender (yes, there is a difference between the two, but that's a post for another day). People of my race are represented in the media I view, I never have to be confused about which restroom to use. I don't have to worry if the restaurant I'm going to has a wheelchair ramp, and no one will ever tell me that I'm going to hell for being with the person I love.

I'm a very lucky girl.

Which brings me to our second point about privilege: You are largely unconscious of your privilege.

Awhile back, one of my friends commented about ethnic diversity in video games. This blog focuses on gender, sure, but it still all falls under the category of social commentary. When I first read this, I was pretty excited, and then I nearly shit a brick. Why hadn't I thought of this? For all I go on about gender equality in games, I'd hardly given a thought to race. It wasn't an issue to me. But it was to Jasmine.

Here's the difference: I am White. Jasmine is not. Even if I don't necessarily like the way that women are portrayed, at least White characters get fair representation throughout, well, pretty much everything in American media, while characters of many other races do not. 

To once again quote David Gaider: 

"You can write it off as 'political correctness' if you wish, but the truth is that privilege always lies with the majority. They're so used to being catered to that they see the lack of the catering as an imbalance."

David Gaider, please write all the games forever. 

There are whole "checklists" of privilege, and I've included them in my sidebar links on the right. Yes, I tend to focus on male privilege, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many small advantages that we all have that we are largely unaware of. You enjoy something that others do not, because of something you did not choose.  (Warning: this list is guaranteed to make you feel horribly guilty, but check out a few anyway. There's a lot you're missing that you don't even know about.)

And I'd like to add one to The Male Privilege Checklist: If I am unable to choose my video game character's sex, it is likely the protagonist will be a male anyway.

Be aware of your own privileges. Be aware of the privileges that others have, or don't have.

And once we understand these things, we can start to change them. 

*For those nit-picky people, I use the word "princess" as a general term for any Disney female lead, even if they're not technically royal.

I think a fun thing to do might be to take a drink every time I use the word "privilege" in this entry, but then you might die, so don't do it after all. 

Throwing science at the walls: Portal 2

Portal 2
Year: 2011
Developer/Publisher: Valve
Systems: PC, Mac, PS3, Xbox 360

I don't think anyone could have predicted Portal's success. It started as just an extra in The Orange Box, but caught on like wildfire, and it's not difficult to see why.  Not only does Portal have some of the most fun, physics-defying puzzles I've ever played, it also features wonderful dark humor and is astoundingly quotable. In fact, the only real complaints I've ever heard about Portal were that it was too short.

Later on, the fans would complain about the other fans, because after after you've heard people shouting "The cake is a lie!" for three days straight, it becomes less funny.

The only logical step for the developers was to pull a Disney and make a second one. Unlike Disney sequels, however, this was actually better than the original. Okay, I'm probably going to get some flack for saying that, but consider this: they took what was good, and improved upon it. There were times when I actually caught myself laughing out loud. The second game haa a more tangible storyline, which only serves to make Aperture Science even creepier than it already is. What I find really interesting is that though there are several more characters in the second game (read: more than two), it still manages to capture Chell's isolation so completely.

Think of the first few minutes of gameplay. You are woken up by an overhead voice, learn some basic controls, and are sent back to sleep. When you next wake up, you are alone, you have no idea how much time has passed, everything in the Enrichment Center seems to be broken or overgrown...and there is not another living soul in sight. Only robots. When you finally do hear another human voice, it's a decades-old recording.

Maybe it's just me, but the more I think about it, the scarier I find it. It doesn't help that Cave Johnson is so out of his mind he puts Tesla to shame as a mad scientist. (I might get shit about that one, too, but Tesla never made a quantum space hole that could be used as a shower curtain.)

"If you're allergic to peanuts, you may want to tell somebody now, because this next test may turn your blood into peanut water for a few minutes. On the bright side, if we can make this happen they're going to have to invent a new kind of Nobel Prize to give us, so hang in there." - Cave Johnson

Aside from the new story, there's a ton of new stuff to play with. Sure, laughing in the face of physics while you fling yourself from test chamber to test chamber is plenty of fun, but then things like the light bridges and gels are introduced--the sort of things that make you run faster, jump higher and hit harder. There's an all-new, ridiculously awesome co-op mode to puzzle your way through that lets you take control of not one, not two, but four portals! It's so much fun, you won't mind how frustrating it can get.

So, yeah, the sequel is great--one of those rare games that eclipses its predecessor by coming up with pretty much stronger everything: more story, more characters, more moments that keep me awake at night. Because, holy hell, GLaDOS.
I just want to say that video games tend not to scare me very much when I'm not playing them. I generally feel pretty well protected by the fourth wall. Even one of the most disturbing bosses I've fought doesn't really bother me, unless I'm dumb enough to play the dwarf bit in DA:O while alone at night. And when I started playing Portal 2, I knew that GLaDOS was going to be in the game. There's no way she could not be. 

I say this how you can understand how utterly terrified I am of this character. Below, find an accurate description of my reaction when she awakes:

And I may as well just come out and say it: GLaDOS was the only video game character I've ever had a nightmare about. 

...Don't judge me!

So what makes her so damn terrifying? 

"Didn't we have some fun though? Remember when the platform was sliding into the fire pit and I said 'Goodbye' and you were like 'no way' and then I was all, 'We pretended we were going to murder you'? That was great!"

I do not like that woman.

I've come up with a few broad categories that explain just what makes her so scary. First of all, it's pretty obvious that GLaDOS has not familiarized herself with the Laws of Robotics. Oh, and the fact that she's Robot God.

First of all, GLaDOS is omniscient. 

She knows everything that is happening in the facility. You can destroy cameras and find hiding spots where she can't see you, but she is always aware of your movements. The only time that you are really free from her gaze is when you defy her, breaking out of the testing chambers in the first game or preparing to face her down in the second. It's not impossible to escape from her, no, but it is pretty damn hard, and you'll need to be quick, smart, and aware of everything to do it.

Secondly, she is omnipotent.

GLaDOS is life and death at Aperture Science. When you finally escape from her in the second game, it's only because she lets you.  She often controls what resources you have available in the various test chambers and even determines your actions during gameplay. Like killing the beloved Companion Cube. (It's a box with a heart with it. It was sad when you had to burn it. Now can we please, as a fandom, move on?) She could kill you at any moment and simply chooses not to, because, well...

GLaDOS is cruel.

She tries to murder you and she killed everyone in the Enrichment Center (on the worst Take Your Daughter to Work Day ever) with a deadly neurotoxin for, as far as I can tell--shits'n'giggles. That's the technical term. And then there's all the emotional manipulation she subjected to who knows how many test subjects before Chell, culminating in the death of the Companion Cube. And that's just the first game. In the second game, things get worse before they get better. Then they get better, and then worse all over again. Because what's worse than a psychotic computer who, essentially, runs the world? A vengeful psychotic computer who is really fucking pissed at you. 

Another thing of note: It seems like GLaDOS is the femme fatale of the game. Yes, that's kind of a weird characterization to attribute to a giant robot. But the minute she loses her morality core, her voice becomes smooth, less robotic, and definitely going into the realm of seductive. Oh, and then there's things like this:

There's a joke about hard drives somewhere in here.

Yes, that's GLaDOS being compared to a bound and gagged woman hanging upside down from the ceiling. The thing is, it's not just some crazy fan thing: GLaDOS's appearance was based on Botecelli's The Birth of Venus. Huh.

That awkward moment when you remember that your mom reads your blog, and you just posted a picture like that on it.

So, there you have it: the single most terrifying video game character I've ever had the joy of  playing with. 

Even a good villain, though, is nothing without a protagonist to cheer for, and that brings us to Chell.

There's a certain amount of caution you have to take when analyzing silent protagonists. If you want to do it well, you have to make sure that you're not attributing your own traits to them. (This is one of the reasons why I believe the Twilight series is so popular--Bella is such a vapid character that it's very easy to put yourself in her shoes.) Even without speaking, though, you can at least glean a little bit about Chell. 

First of all, Chell is crazy smart. It might take me twenty tries to complete a level, but in-universe, Chell only has one chance to figure out the puzzle without getting shot, vaporized, incinerated, drowned in muck, or lasered to death. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't last very long if I were a test subject at Aperture. Hell, I don't deal with 3D well enough in real life, even without a computer trying to murder me. There are some other small, blink-and-you'll-miss-it hints about Chell's intelligence, too: when you walk past the old potato battery science projects, you can see her name and the largest one there. 

Along the same lines of Chell being scary smart, she's also resourceful. I'd like to think that people can be clever when their lives are on the line, but I think most of us would panic if we were trapped inside an aging laboratory with nothing to help us escape but a potato battery and a device that's hardly a weapon. It's not a lot to work with, really--so being able to use your enemy's tactics against them is freaking genius. 

So: female hero who solves her problems by using her brains instead of brawn. The sexiest thing about her is probably her boots. Because, holy hell, those are some fantastic boots. A nice change for ladies in games. But there's one more reason why I love Chell so much.

You don't notice she's female.

I know how weird that sounds, almost contradictory to the rest of the blog. But there's no one making her prove that she's just as good as the guys. There's no one going, "You're a credit to women! Everyone knows that women have poor spatial relations!" There is never any reference to Chell's sex. 

I find this absolutely wonderful. 

I want to get a couple things out on the table before I go any further. I'm not one of those, "Men and women are equal at everything!" kind of people. On a biological level, men and women are just programmed differently. It's simply a fact of life. Take a stereotype we all know and, well...know: "Girls are better at reading than boys." 

The reason behind this is because testosterone slows the development of the left hemisphere, hence, girls develop reading skills faster. But this is a broad generalization: there are many men whose language skills are better than mine, and there are women whose language skills are worse than mine. Biology shows us what tends to happen, but not what is true of all people.  SCIENCE!

The point that I'm trying to get to (but somehow seemed to have wandered off from) is that, yes, there are differences between men and women that we can't do anything about. Unless you work for Torchwood, or something. But it doesn't need to be a factor in how we treat people. Chell's sex is never mentioned, and hell, most gamers forget they're playing as a woman. Portal 2 is one of the rare games where I feel there really is gender equality: because you forget all about it.

Tl;dr: GLaDOS is fucking terrifying, and it's perfectly reasonable if you have nightmares about her.

Image Credits:
Upside down GLaDOS originally found here: http://www.game-ism.com/2008/04/04/still-alive-shes-free/

A Girl Walks into a Game Store...

If there is anything that's really great about writing a gaming blog, it's the research. Earlier today, I decided to do some research on Dr. Mario, and determined that Mario is the worst doctor ever.

"You kept shoving pills down his throat! He only had a headache!" - VGCats

In fact, once I'm done writting this, I'll probably do more "research" on Portal 2. Look at me still blogging when there's science to do...

Believe it or not, there are more to games than just playing them. There's the industry itself; the geeky subculture; the fanbase ("Alistair looked deeply into Sten's eyes and whispered..."); and game creation. Oh, and marketing. That's important, too.

With all that in mind, I decided to conduct a very unscientific experiment.

I would like to take a moment to apologize to my professors who taught me everything I needed to know about performing a psychology experiment. Please forgive me. I'll do better next time! I'll form hypotheses and everything!

The experiment was very simple. I would walk into a game store, and ask the clerk if she or he could recommend a game for me. Then, I would explain just what kind of game I was looking for: "I'm looking for a game that has a strong female lead who's not, like, oversexualized."

Needless to say, hilarity ensued.

I feel the need to state that I live in a small city, with a population of about 30,000. There are very few locally owned businesses, most of which are restaurants. Almost everything here belongs to a chain or some sort of franchise. In short, there are no independent game stores here, making my options for pseudo-research rather limited.

This town is kind of a downer.

I came up with a quick list of games that met my criterea, which was harder than I expected:

1. Dragon Age
2. Portal/Portal 2
3. Mirror's Edge
4. Metroid

Those were the games I thought I would be recommended to me. They're by no means the only games that have heroines that are more than a pair of boobs on a stick-figure, but I was expecting these because they're not exactly obsucre. Like, say, Radiant Historia.

The first place I stopped was Target, which, to be fair, isn't solely a game store. The one in my area has a pretty decent selection of games, but they only stock new or relatively new releases. It's like the Top 40 Radio Station, but with Mario.

After hearing the clerk discuss games with another customer, I got up my nerve and stepped up to him. After double-checking to make sure he was a gamer, I asked my question.
I have never seen such a look of sheer puzzlement cross anyone's face before. He wrinkled his forehead, furrowed his brows, pursed his lips. Granted, he had probably never been asked about female leads in games before, and likely won't be asked again. He asked me which system it was for, presumably to help him figure out a good answer to the question.

When I told him "any", there were a few more seconds of awkward silence before he finally spoke again. That was obviously not the answer he was hoping to hear.

I sort of feel for this guy, actually. I used to work in a bookstore, and occassionally people would ask for things like "the book with the blue cover". Well, if you don't know the title, author, or genre, we don't either. Please be nice to your local booksellers and ask intelligent questions.

We cruised through the game aisles, and he eventually game up with two suggestion: Final Fantasy XIII-2, because the main character is a girl, and Skyrim, because you can create a female character. I thanked him, explained what I was doing, and then gave him my suggestions.

His reaction? Perhaps not overly pleased, but I wasn't asked to leave the store, either. When I told him my suggestions, he just sort of nodded and said, "Oh, right. Those games. Yeah, I think we have Metroid around somewhere."

Maybe going to Target wasn't fair, but I wanted to stop at a couple places like it. Not everyone goes into game stores, but plenty of people shop at Target. Large stores like this are the "mainstream" of gaming, if you will. What's kept in stock there is a reflection of the most popular games. You're not going to find Ace Attorney there, but you will find everything that the cool kids are playing.

"Let's get out the Bro-box and play some Bro-lo!"-Gorbi and Ginger, the two most non-bro people I know.

A few days later, I marched boldly onward to a GameStop. I was a bit more hopeful about this one. If Target is the Top 40 radio station of video games, GameStop is the radio station that plays just about everything. It's sort of fun to pick through the cheap games and obscure titles that you've never heard of. (Check out Darkened Skye!)

There was one guy working, and I browsed for a minute or two while he helped another customer. I finally approached and asked my question, and I have to say, this guys' reaction was my favorite so far.

"I'm looking for a game with a strong female lead, who's not, like, oversexualized."

He laughed and walked over to the Wii and DS games. After a minute or two of contemplating--while standing right in front of two Metroid games, I might add--he finally said something that I hadn't expected to hear: "Well, there's a few, but I'm trying to think of something that's not little kiddish."
I hadn't even thought about that. I probably should have taken it into consideration, I realized, as I stared at the Tangled and Cooking Mama games. While I'm not about to argue that Cooking Mama is a character that young girls should aspire to be (She cooks! She's a Mama! Sometimes, we even let her out of the house to garden!), I really had to wonder what games young girls really were playing. 

But I digress.


We moved on to the Xbox games after a minute.


GameStop Guy: Final Fantasy...eh...it could really do with a strong female lead.


That reaction really surprised me. I'd assumed that I would get a lot of recommendations for Final Fantasy games, not only because of XIII, but also because they have a giant fanbase. Just because a girl is the lead character doesn't mean that she's a good role model. You know who you are, Cinderella.

Above: armor 

GameStop Guy: Yeah, the problem is that's how a lot of games get marketed.




Me: Yeah, and bikinis will totally protect you from energy swords.




After another minute, I came clean and explained what I was doing, and gave him my (short) list of suggestions. He said that suggesting Portal had never even occurred to him, because all the characters were robots.




Except, you know, the one you play as. But we'll get into that in a later post.


Anyway, I bought a Metroid game (Nintendo, Y U MAKE METROID FIRST PERSON?), thanked him for being a good sport...and it was time to move on to the next store.
For science, of course.


After a very frightening drive, I somehow managed to make it over to another GameStop in one piece. The guy working there was absolutely great. After a couple of minutes nonchalantly browsing shelves, I finally stepped up to the clerk and asked about leading ladies.


After a brief "hmmm", he finally said, "Have you ever played Mass Effect?"


Mass Effect! I had never even thought of Mass Effect. Bad fangirl! Bad!
He continues: "You can have a girl character, and it actually does make a difference which gender you play."  He turned to see what games were behind the desk and listed a few. "Well, I'd say Tomb Raider, but Lara..."


Me: "Yeah, she's somethin' else."

High heel gun shoes are the last thing I would
want to wear when I'm fighting angels.

GameStop Guy: "And there's Bayonetta, but...hey, do you like Final Fantasy games at all?"


I am probably being too harsh on XIII, but dammit, SquareEnix, I want a GAME, not an interactive cut scene.


I really loved this. He didn't take long to answer, and it was easy to tell that he knew what he was talking about. At the mention of Portal, he said that Chel was actually probably the best heroine out right now...too bad you never see her. After that, our conversation quickly spiraled to "Blah blah BioWare blah." 


GameStop Guy #2, never quit you job. 


There was just one last stop that I needed to make before this experiment could be concluded: Best Buy. 


It didn't take me long to find someone to ask, and after a brief pause, he had an answer: Mirror's Edge.


I could have hugged him.


He called another employee over and asked him about games with strong female leads. The second guy responded with Metroid. And that was the moment I realized that I needed to actually go to Best Buy more often.


I was really surprised and delighted. I gave them my short list (now with Mass Effect tacked on at the end), and at the mention of Portal, their reactions were something like, "Oh, why didn't we think of that?"


As any good psychologist (or wannabe researcher) knows, you need to replicate your experiments to ensure that it wasn't just a fluke, and to test your hypotheses using other variables. I'd really like to see what would happen if I had a guy go into game stores and about female characters, or what a woman working at a game store would say. But that's another post.


It's not easy finding a game to fit those two criteria. I love that women are featured as main characters more and more, and I want to see it as a sign that the industry's changing. One study from 1998 found that, of the 33 games used in the study, 41% (13.5 games, if you want to get technical) had no female characters at all.


I can't adequately express how much I love how much this has changed. It's not just that women are present in games now, but also that they're taking an active role--no longer just damsels in distress or femme fatales.


The problem now is what I'm going to title "the Lara Conundrum".  You can make female leads with good characterization, goals, an unwillingness to back down...


But you should also make sure they don't get buried underneath their boobs.


What we have now--for the most part--is a mix of empowerment and objectification. Two things I never thought would go together, and then I started writing this blog.

Objectification: Seeing a person not as a person, but as an object--in such a way that it removes the person's identity.

Sexy, sexy objectification.

While it's usually used in terms of men objectifying women, it can go both ways.

How do we separate the two, or do they go hand-in-hand when it comes to gaming? Is it possible to make a kick-ass female character who still looks good?

I wish I had the answers for this. I wish that when I yell, "I want to be her!" I knew whether it was because that character is strong in her own way--or whether it's because I will never look that good in leather. Hooray for self-objectification! :D

Or maybe it's because I'll never get to ride around on dragons in real life. That's a downer, too.

I hope we're going in the right direction. I hope that we see more Samuses than Ivys, that Lara gets her shit together, and that girl gamers don't feel worse about themselves when they put the controller down.

Before I end, I just want to send a massive THANK YOU to the employees and Target, GameStop, and Best Buy that helped me with this. You guys are awesome, and thanks for not kicking me out of your store.

Up next: Portal 2

Image credits: 

Ivy - http://soulcalibur.neoseeker.com/wiki/Ivy

Bayonetta - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayonetta
Link - http://emptyclosets.com/forum/chit-chat/53472-crushes-fictional-characters-4.html

Work Cited

Dietz, T. L. (1998). An examination of violence and gender role portrayals in video games: Implications for gender    socialization and aggressive behavior. Sex Roles, 38(5-6), 425-442. 

Sexy, sexy APA style. 

Or it would be, if I could get the indent to work.

I am Warden, Hear Me Roar: Dragon Age: Origins

Dragon Age: Origins
Year: 2009
Developer/Publisher: BioWare/EA Games
Systems: Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Mac

Warning: Here there be unmarked spoilers.

How do I even begin with a game like this? Dragon Age is a fantasy epic, full of action, romance, adventure, and some creepy-ass levels that I refuse to play alone at night. Oh, and there are dragons.

You begin by customizing your character. Along with deciding how your character looks, you also get to chose their sex (hooray, no default male lead!), race (human, elf, or dwarf) and class (warrior, mage, rogue). The fun part really comes in when you get to chose their background. There are six different backstories you can chose from, but what you end up with depends on your race and class. What I really love about the different backstories is that they all come back and bite you in the ass.

Your character's background doesn't radically alter the game too much. No matter what you start as, you still get the same set of events. On my first completed play through of the game, I started as a human noble, and was immensely satisfied when I got to kill the asshole who killed my character's family. If you start as a dwarf noble, when you return to the dwarven city, your evil brother is in line for the throne, and it's up to you whether he gets it or not. I love all the references that the game makes to your character's personal history, instead of just going, "Okay, here's some trauma, now go one and we'll never mention it again."

Alistair: You were betrothed? And you never told me?
City Elf: There were rapists. And they sent the wrong cake.

 All the backstories are pretty fucked up.

Anyway, you are found by Duncan, a Grey Warden, who saves you from various forms of trouble like death by recruiting you into the Grey Wardens. The Wardens are an ancient order of warriors who defend the world in case of a Blight, wherein nasty monsters (led by an archdemon) come to the surface of the world and try to kill everyone. There's some more history, which says that the first darkspawn (the aforementioned nasty monsters) were actually mages, the archdemon is a corrupted Old God, and the archdemon leads the hoard to...

But you don't need to know all that. Oh, sure, there's some musing on things like sin and trying to overtake something that you really shouldn't be messing around with, but that's not important right now. What you need to know is that darkspawn are coming to kill everything. Darkspawn are like the Daleks of the Dragon Age world.

I want to point out something that I think is very interesting. The storyline isn't all that original, the battle system can be slow and frustrating, and when you talk to NPCs, they practically recite an encyclopedia to you.

And yet the game itself is incredibly compelling.

The first time I ever played Dragon Age was on my roommate's Xbox while she and her boyfriend were out at a party. At first, I was sort of like, "Oh, D&D with pictures."

When they came home at 3 AM, I was still playing.

I think I may have finally figured out why Dragon Age is so addicting, and it really boils down to three things.

1. The world. The setting of Ferelden is so complete. How magic works, religion, racial tensions, nobility...everything that the game mentions is explored fully. For instance, there's an NPC you can talk to in Denerim's marketplace. She has no actual bearing on the plot, but she can tell you all about Orlais, her home country. If you have any questions about the Grey Wardens, Alistair has all the answers. If you want to know more than the characters have provided for you, you can find codexes all around--books you can read to get more information on just about anything. If you have a question, there's always an answer in sight. And if you can't find one there, you can always find someone like me, who will be more than happy to talk your ear off about this.

"Wait, why can't dwarves become mages?"
"Because they live too close to the raw lyrium ore, dummy."
"Whatever, nerd."

2. Your character. I think immersion becomes stronger when you design your own character. When you're playing Super Mario, you make Mario move and save the princess, but you're not really Mario. Even if you wish you were. When you make your own character, you choose everything about them: name, sex, appearance, even where their skills lie. Through dialogue options, you decide their personality. You're not playing as a character. You are the character. You are the one interacting with everything, making all the choices, and you are the one who saves the world.

3. The other characters. You wouldn't get very far in saving the world if you didn't have some help. You gather your party and build relationships with individual characters throughout the game. There is no "good" or "evil" scale in this game. Instead, your party members either "approve" or "disapprove" of your actions, and their approval rating translates to how much they like you. Morrigan disapproves (-5).

What I love about these characters is, like the setting, they are fully fleshed out. They're three dimensional, with their own motivations, histories, personalities, likes and dislikes. The game has loads and loads of characters, including the ten you can have in your party. Let's meet a few of the major players, shall we?

Mary Sue The Warden. This is your character, who rises from the ashes of her or his crumbling life and eventually becomes the Hero of Ferelden.

Alistair. Your first real companion in the game. Alistair is the bastard son of the late King Maric, which also makes him the current (sort of) king's brother. He's there to answer all your questions about the Grey Wardens, he's a romancable (which is totally a word, damn it!) character for female PCs, and he's the token virgin in the group. He shies away from leadership and actually admits that he prefers to follow others. He's not spineless, though, and he'll always make sure to get his two copper pieces in. He has some of the funniest dialogue in the game, as well as some of the sweetest when it comes to romance. Every so often I had to remind myself Alistair is a game character, after a cold shower and a 10 mile run. Also, he loves cheese.

"That's what I'm here for! To deliver unpleasant news and witty one-liners."

Morrigan. The resident "Tits McGee" of the group. Morrigan is a Witch of the Wilds, whose mother just happens to be Flemeth--who it turns out is probably the most dreaded figure in Ferelden folklore. She is forced to join the group by her mother, though Flemeth's reasons for this aren't as straightforward as she says they are.  Flemeth is all kinds of messed up. Morrigan is a tough woman. She believes in survival of the fittest and disapproves of rescuing kittens stuck in trees. She does have a soft side, though, buried deep down. One that likes pretty mirrors and necklaces. And you, if you choose to romance her. Not that she'll ever admit it.

"If the Wilds have taught me anything, 'tis this: first you must survive."

Leliana. One of the earlier companions you get in the game, Leliana started out as a minstrel/spy, escaped after being accused of treason, became a sister in the Chantry for awhile, had a vision, and then decided to follow your character around. Whew. If Dragon Age used the alignment system, hers would be Sickly Sweet. Leliana is kind to animals, loves her mother, and is completely okay with shooting the bad guys in the throat. She's probably the most positive character in the group, the most difficult to romance, and she loves shoes. Oh, she also makes a cameo appearance in Dragon Age 2.

"Oh, this looks like fun! I bet we'll have to work together and join hands and sing a happy song to get across!"

Wynne. More like EPIC WYNNE, amirite? Wynne is the oldest party member and technically dead, and probably my favorite character in the game. She's a mage from the Circle, and starts off as the designated healer of the group. Wynne's learned from her past mistakes and frequently doles out advice to the other characters, but not in any sort of patronizing kind of way. She's one of the characters that takes genuine interest in your background, too. Also, in my games, she can create Earthquakes. Wynne kicks ass.
"I will not lie motionless in a bed with coverlets up to my chin, waiting for death to claim me."

Zevran. Another option for romance, Zevran is an elven assassin from Antiva. Originally sent to kill your rag-tag team of adventurers, he's easy enough to get on your side. Though I rather got the impression that he liked being tied up after you capture him... He's really quite amiable for someone who's been raised to kill people for money. Some fans love him, some find him creepy. This is largely because he will sleep with just about anything that moves.

"I got the impression it involved sex, but then, I get that about most things."

Dragon Age has a ton of characters. Along with the ten avaliable party members, there's the NPCs: the villains, the characters you meet during all sorts of quests, and all sorts of people in between. The ones I want to focus on, though, are the ones that you've just met.

How are the women portrayed in Dragon Age?

Dragon Age is set in your generic medieval fantasy setting. Back in the Middle Ages in our world, women were more likely to be found in the kitchen or dying of the plague than running around in armor. If you pick up any fantasy medieval novel, though, it'll tell you that the ladies were running with swords and proving they were just as good as the guys all the time. Oh, and they were probably princesses fighting for their stolen throne, or something. With that said, I love what this game has done with women, finding a good balance between the two.

There are three women in the party excluding a female PC, and let's just put it like this: they all kick ass.  They're not fighting for equal rights, they're fighting because they have the ability to help save the world. There is, in fact, only one instance of a character saying that a woman shouldn't be involved in all this:

Sten: Why are you here?

Leliana: What do you mean?

Sten: Women are priests, artisans, farmers or shopkeepers. None of them have any place in fighting.

Leliana: I have no idea how to answer this...

Sten: It is not done. There is no more to it.

Leliana: Do you mean your people have no female mages or warriors?

Sten: Of course not. Why would our women wish to be men?

Sten, by the way, is a Qunari, a non-native race to Ferelden. Your female PC can have a similar conversation with Sten, in which he decides that you can't possibly be a woman because you're such a good fighter. The game doesn't ignore the role of women as fighters, as unusual as it would be in our medieval history, but also doesn't make a big fuss of it either. There's no "you're a special and unique snowflake" for being a woman who fights. Women fight in Ferelden. That's just how things are. No matter what Sten says.

Leliana and Wynne both join your party of their own volition because they want to help you save Ferelden from the Blight. Morrigan joins for less noble reasons, but they all have one very important thing in common: they are all strong characters.

I don't mean just physically strong. Every one of them has scars from their past, and yet, they don't let their past tragedies overwhelm them. They learned from them, and don't allow it to stop them from doing anything. That's not to say that they have forgotten about them, though. Each party member has a "personal quest" in which they confront some part of their past. Leliana, for example, was betrayed by someone she loved. And by betrayed I don't mean, "Marjolaine was cheating on her", I mean, "Marjolaine had Leliana framed for treason, which led her to Leliana being captured, tortured, and fleeing to Ferelden".

Marjolaine's a bitch.

But Leliana recovers from that, and when she confronts Marjolaine again, she holds her ground. Considering what Marjolaine put Leliana through, this might not seem like much until you look further into the game. Marjolaine has "emotional abuse" written all over her. Now, here is something that many people do not understand: it is incredibly difficult to leave an emotionally abusive relationship.

Warning: Kaye is about to reveal an uncomfortable amount of information about herself.

I have a B.A. in Psychology. I spent four years of my life studying what people do and why they do it. As you might have guessed from this blog, one of my chief areas of interest in college was social psychology, i.e., how the shit that people do influences the shit that you do.

It's also worth pointing out that I consider myself a strong person. Saying that I'm confident is a bit of a lie, but I think that I am strong. I have an anxiety disorder, and every day I tell it to shut up and sit down. The trick here is to make social anxiety YOUR bitch, and not the other way around. If I were a meme, I'd be foul bachelor frog the "Challenge Accepted" guy. Do I always succeed? No. But do I try my damnedest once a task is put in front of me? Absolutely. And yet I still don't have a job...

I'm saying this so you get a better feel for who I am, and how I see myself. I understand people. I don't easily stand down.

And about three years ago, I found myself in an emotionally abusive relationship.

This was the sort of thing I studied and discussed in classes, but I didn't recognize it in my own life. I had always said, "No man is ever going to get in my way", but I found myself helpless without this person. Whenever I stood up to him, he treated me like shit, and made me feel like I deserved it. I was crippled. I couldn't leave him, because I felt like he was the only thing that made me worthwhile. What I failed to realize was he was the reason I didn't feel like I was worth anything.

When I finally did stand up to him, he dumped me. And then--studpidly and inexplicably--I asked him to take me back.

I have told maybe two people about that before, because it is still one of the lowest moments of my life. Three years later, I still look back at that time with shame. I should have walked away, been glad that I was out of it. Instead, we got back together.

(This story does have a happy ending, by the way. I got out of the relationship a few months later, realizing what an idiot I was being. I now have a wonderful boyfriend, and we've been dating for almost two years. The moral of the story is don't date douche bags.)

The point of that story wasn't to garner sympathy, but to explain that emotionally abusive relationships are hard to be in, and hard to get out of. So when I say Leliana holds her ground against Marjolaine, I want you to understand how difficult and courageous that really is.

Note: When I started this blog, I decided that it would only be about games. Not politics, not wage gaps, just women and games. But if you are in or think you may be in an abusive relationship, please seek help. It is not your fault.

That's as dark as we're gonna get, I promise.

...We were talking about games, right?

Right.

And Leliana's just the tip of the iceberg.  Morrigan's a mage, and mages in the Dragon Age universe are what TV Tropes refers to as glass cannons: They do mind-boggling amounts of damage, but they break the minute you touch them. Protip: don't let your mages carry sharp objects, lest they trip and fall. Morrigan's pretty much the DPS in the game, but she's a lot more than that.

First of all, Morrigan doesn't take shit from anyone. Not you, not her mother, and definitely not Alistair.

"Now we have a dog, and Alistair is still the dumbest one in the party." - Morrigan

I love you, Morrigan.

More than that, Morrigan stays true to what she believes in. For example, she hates the Chantry, but she doesn't rub it in your face. She's confident in herself. While nearly all the other major characters in the game doubt themselves at some point, she never does. She knows just what she wants, how to get it, and even faced with uncertainty, does not falter from her plans. Suffice it to say, she's a really tough woman.

If your relationship with her is high enough, though, you get to see what lies beneath that icy exterior. Morrigan has a soft side, and she seems almost embarrassed to show it at times. On my first play through, I managed to max out my Warden's relationship with her. Before the final battle, she will tell you that she thinks of you as a sister. If that doesn't melt your cold, dead heart, nothing will. This game did NOT make me cry. I was just chopping up some onions.

So, Morrigan. Tits McGee of the game? Check.

So much more than that? Check.

Which brings us to our last leading lady: Wynne.

Wynne is old. Wynne is (due to game stuff that makes sense in context) technically dead. Wynne wakes up every morning and says, "I have come to heal people and kick ass...and I'm all out of ass."

This is because Wynne is the single greatest game character ever created.

Wynne's primary function in the game is to act as a healer, which I gave Yuna some hell for in my last post. Here's the thing: In Final Fantasy X, Yuna only learned healing spells, because that's all the game said she could have. In Dragon Age, Wynne starts off with useful healing spells, but once she's in your party, you get to decide what skills you want her to learn. In my game, Wynne has saved me from TPK (that's total party kill, for you non-nerds) countless times, right before she creates a giant earthquake. Because she is that amazing.

The real reason that Wynne is my favorite character in the game isn't because of all that. Wynne genuinely cares about you and the other party members. When you start a romance with another party member (why Wynne is not a romancable character is a great mystery, and tragedy) she will honestly tell you how she feels about the whole thing, and why you're being stupid. Later on, she'll apologize, realizing that you and the other character are good for each other all along. She gives advice to everyone, but doesn't force it down their throats. She has some pretty funny dialogue with the other party members, which is also poignant at the same time.

Here's what I love about her: Wynne could drop dead at any moment, but she's determined to see this thing through. The fact that she's old doesn't stop her from doing anything. She doesn't see it as an obstacle, just a part of who she is, and it's not going to stop her from doing what she thinks is right.

I hope I'm as cool as Wynne when I grow up.

While we're talking about her age, I think it's worth mentioning that Wynne is sexually active. I know a lot of people think something along the lines of, "But you can't have sex when you're old! Your hip will break or something!"

Fun fact: Old people have sex. You might not believe me, but it's true.

Wynne: It has been a long day. By the lines around your eyes, I daresay you look as old as I.

Alistair: And if I may say so, milady, you appear to be getting younger by the day.

Wynne: Be careful who you flirt with, young man. When you wake up beside me tomorrow morning I'll be back to reminding you of your grandmother.

Alistair: Beside you?

Wynne: You heard what I said. It would not be the first time I woke to a younger man in my bed.

Before we move on, I just need to say that Dragon Age passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors.

What is the Bechdel Test?

I'm glad you asked, Timmy. The Bechdel Test is a simple way to measure the presence that women have in a movie or TV show. It is NOT a test of how good the movie is, or how feminist it is. For example, Twilight passed, but the original Star Wars trilogy does not. And there are ONLY THREE Star Wars movies, just like there are only three Indiana Jones movies.

The Bechdel Test has three tenants to it that must be in the movie/show to say it has passed.

1.  There have to be at least two named female characters...
2. ...who have a conversation with each other...
3. ...and talk about something other than men.

What do the women in this game talk to each other about? Religion, their way of life, anecdotes, dogs, saving the world...you know, things normal people talk about on a daily basis.

 Maker bless you, BioWare.

Let's talk about sex, baby.

Now that I have your attention...

Between the side-quests, main plot, personal quests, characters, and a fully developed world to romp around in, Dragon Age is a wonderfully complicated game. It does a good job of balancing story and action, but one of the things that makes it so intricate is the relationships between the characters. Like I mentioned before, the characters are one of the reasons that the game itself is so exciting and compelling.

When characters play a huge role, you're going to develop some feelings toward them--whether positive or negative. This is especially true in a game where you design your character and choose everything about them, from appearance to personality. I personally find the attachment people get to fictional characters fascinating, but that's not why we're here.

Your character can enter into romantic relationships with other party members, namely, Alistair, Zevran, Leliana, and Morrigan. I will say this honestly: this was the first game I played where the romance wasn't streamlined. I used to play a lot of JRPGs in high school. We don't need to talk about that.

Morrigan and Alistair are both straight, Zevran and Leliana are bisexual. Not every player was happy with this, of course. I'm a little torn on my feelings about it. For one, I think that having different orientations is realistic.

...and then I remember I'm arguing about realism in a game called Dragon Age.

Having been through all the romance options in the game, I can see how gamers--especially gay men--would feel jilted by it. Without mods, Zevran is the only MalexMale romance available in the game. (If anyone is interested, the mod is called "Equal Love", and it opens up flirtations and romances between characters and NPCs previously unavailable based on your character's sex. Ladies, now you too can kiss tavern wenches to your hearts' content!)

It irks me that Zevran is the only MxM option. I think he's a fun character, but he wants to sleep with just about everyone.

I don't know if you're aware of this, but there's this stereotype that gay men and lesbians also want to screw everything, and will cheat on their partners at the drop of a hat. (A phrase I've never actually understood...)

In case you're wondering, that's not true. I'd go on, but I seem to have misplaced my soapbox. If it's not near that bit about abusive relationships, check back at the rape myths from the previous post. It'll turn up.

In the red corner: Alistair. Awkward, adorable, genuine. Can only be romanced by females.

In the blue corner: Zevran. Suave. Seductive. Flirts with everything. The only character in the party who's okay with it if you're sleeping with someone else. Romanced by either sex.

We get a gay romance option...with a manwhore.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but by Freud's cigar, I'M A PSYCHOLOGIST!

...And sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar.

Zevran and Leliana also demonstrate a couple interesting points. Society today is generally more accepting of lesbians than gay men. Zevran and Leliana both have some sort of tragic love story in their past. Leliana's is with another woman. Zevran's is also with a woman. The game, I think, seems to promote the idea that GirlxGirl is hot. If your female warden sleeps with a woman at the brothel, you get +4 approval from one of your party members.

Of course, if you do anything at the brothel, Alistair disapproves -1, so there's that.

Other than that gripe, I do like the romance system in the game.

Zevran and Leliana's sexualities aren't ignored. You can ask if they've been with men or women, but it kind of ends there. I love this.  Like the having women who fight, it's mentioned, but it's not a big deal.

"You've been with other guys before? Huh. Well, whatever, let's kill some darkspawn."

You know, a reasonable person's reaction upon finding out that someone you know isn't actually straight, or gay, or bi, or whatever orientation you initially thought she or he was.  Heterosexism. It's a helluva thing.

As for the problems with Zevran's romance, BioWare fixed this up rather nicely in Dragon Age 2. Instead of assigning the romancable  characters' orientations as "omni-sexual". Basically, the characters have no orientation, and you can start a relationship with them regardless of your sex.

Now, there have been complaints about this, saying that BioWare neglected the "Straight Male Gamer", which supposedly makes up the bulk of the gaming demographic.

...Except a couple years ago, 46% of game purchasers were female, and that number has undoubtedly risen since then.

My response to these complaints is something along the lines of, "Shut up and sit down, we've catered to your demographic long enough."

David Gaider, one of the game's creators, had something a bit more eloquent to say:

"The romances in the game are not for 'the straight male gamer'. They're for everyone. We have a lot of fans, many of whom are neither straight nor male, and they deserve no less attention. [. . .] And if there is any doubt why such an opinion might meet with hostility, it has to do with privilege. You can write it off as 'political correctness' if you wish, but the truth is that privilege always lies with the majority. They're so used to being catered to that they see the lack of catering as an imbalance. They don't see anything wrong with having things set up to suit them, what's everyone's fuss about? That's the way it should be, and everyone else should be used to not getting what they want. [. . .] Romances are never one-size-fits-all, and even for those who don't mind the sexuality issue there's no guarantee they'll find a character they even want to romance. That's why romances are optional content. It's such a personal issue that we'll never be able to please everyone. The very best we can do is give everyone a little bit of a choice, and that's what we tried here. And the person who says that the only way to please them is to restrict options for others is, if you ask me, the person who deserves it least." -David Gaider

David Gaider, never ever ever change.

But that's for the sequel to Origins. Let's get back to the game at hand.

There's a lot more to the romances than just Leliana and Zevran. I think it's very interesting that Morrigan is the easiest character to get in bed with, but Leliana is the most difficult. I think it challenges the idea of "all women are prudes" or, "if she puts out too soon, she's a skank." No person is exactly the same in a relationship, Leliana and Morrigan move at different paces, and that's perfectly all right. It also helps that their views on sex are different. For Morrigan, sex is something you do for fun, or even power. It's a game. For Leliana, it's an act of love and trust.

For Alistair, it's something along the lines of, "Wait...this is really happening? You...really? YES!" I really think that a lot of what goes through Alistair's head is elevator music.

Overall, I think Dragon Age: Origins is a great game for male and female gamers alike. The setting and characters are so well developed, they make you want to keep playing the game--even when the plot gets to be a little lackluster. After playing it on both the PC and the Xbox 360, I have to say, PC wins out. The controls are much better and help the battle system flow better. If there's one thing the battle system needs, it's flow.

I absolutely love the game's portrayal of women. There are a few things I would change about the outfit design. Morrigan's initial outfit was a bit much (especially when you remember that Ferelden and the Wilds are supposed to be cold), but you're not stuck with just what the game gives you. If I have one complaint about the female characters, it would be their designs, if only because most of their boobs look disproportionate to the rest of their bodies. It's not too that bad, though--they're not in your face or bigger than anyone's head. Just a bit larger than you'd think. But hey, what do I know? Maybe they have really weird corsets in Ferelden.

I also think it's worth pointing out that real armor is not meant to be flattering, especially full plate.

Aside from that, BioWare has done a great job with the female characters. They all have their own distinct personalities and are strong in their own ways. They fight for what they believe in and do not back down, regardless of whatever obstacles stand in their way. All of them serve a purpose, and that purpose is not to look pretty and cheer on the hero from the sidelines. They are warriors and mages...

And they are so much more.

Up next: "So, a girl walks into a game store..."

Resources:
Domestic Abuse Hotline for Men and Women - http://dahmw.org/ (US and Canada Hotline, 1-888-743-5754)
Find a local crisis center: http://centers.rainn.org/
National Domestic Abuse Hotline: http://www.thehotline.org/ (US Hotline 1-800-799-7233)

Read the whole "Straight Male Gamer" argument here.

Image credits:
Warden - http://ideaindustries.net/funny-facebook-profile-pictures/
Alistair - http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Alistair
Morrigan - http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Morrigan
Leliana - http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Leliana
Wynne - http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Wynne
Zevran - http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Zevran_Arainai
Facepalm - http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/facepalm


Protip: Melee rogues, attack the archdemon from the side.