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- May 5, 2021
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You know, I've noticed something during my time playing JRPGs (Japanese Role Playing Games), among others, and it's that, well...
The girls are almost always "cute" (shoved in skirts), childlike, devoted, diligent to their schoolwork/learning, obedient, kind, and wanting to help everyone as well as overly sensitive (crying a lot). The women, meanwhile, are almost always self-sacrificing, are focused on being (or proving they will be) hardworking housewives, patient, loving mothers, etc... Not to mention if they are a daughter or sister, they're devoted to their father or brother(s), or even both depending on the family dynamic. Basically, stereotypical female behavior that wouldn't be out of place for women/girls in the 1800s. Even the flaws of these female characters are similar: they're almost always clumsy (in a "cute" way), naïve, and/or insecure about their self-worth or abilities, and that's it.
But in Western culture, women and girls are being encouraged to be BADASS. Female characters in video games are also starting to reflect this change, becoming more awesome: Aloy in Horizon Zero Dawn, Selene in Returnal, Ellie in The Last Of Us, Laura Croft in Tomb Raider, Yuna in The Ghost of Tsushima.
And I wonder if that's why I have a problem with JRPGs: all of the female characters are still so stereotypically feminine that they aren't CHARACTERS so much as a Hive Mind that thinks alike, acts alike, and moves alike. They have no agency, they aren't really realistic, and they are considered incapable of having any importance to the plots because they're "ill-suited" for brutal combat like the male characters... And overall, since these female characters just go along with whatever their love interest does, even if they do end up in a battle, they're more likely to be fridged. Basically, they're just filler.
Does anyone else feel the same way? Or am I just oversimplifying things?
The girls are almost always "cute" (shoved in skirts), childlike, devoted, diligent to their schoolwork/learning, obedient, kind, and wanting to help everyone as well as overly sensitive (crying a lot). The women, meanwhile, are almost always self-sacrificing, are focused on being (or proving they will be) hardworking housewives, patient, loving mothers, etc... Not to mention if they are a daughter or sister, they're devoted to their father or brother(s), or even both depending on the family dynamic. Basically, stereotypical female behavior that wouldn't be out of place for women/girls in the 1800s. Even the flaws of these female characters are similar: they're almost always clumsy (in a "cute" way), naïve, and/or insecure about their self-worth or abilities, and that's it.
But in Western culture, women and girls are being encouraged to be BADASS. Female characters in video games are also starting to reflect this change, becoming more awesome: Aloy in Horizon Zero Dawn, Selene in Returnal, Ellie in The Last Of Us, Laura Croft in Tomb Raider, Yuna in The Ghost of Tsushima.
And I wonder if that's why I have a problem with JRPGs: all of the female characters are still so stereotypically feminine that they aren't CHARACTERS so much as a Hive Mind that thinks alike, acts alike, and moves alike. They have no agency, they aren't really realistic, and they are considered incapable of having any importance to the plots because they're "ill-suited" for brutal combat like the male characters... And overall, since these female characters just go along with whatever their love interest does, even if they do end up in a battle, they're more likely to be fridged. Basically, they're just filler.
Does anyone else feel the same way? Or am I just oversimplifying things?