(Lack Of)Female Enemies in Video Games

[miyabi95_]

You should probably play the Disgaea series if you're looking for female antagonists. Yeah, they're over-sexualized, but I'd say it breaks away from what we see in most games.

I don't really think this perpetrates sexism from game developers, to be honest (I know it might not actually be what you're getting at). My little "mantra" with any game, show, book, etc. is that it's all fictional and most likely doesn't accurately depict the creator's moral/political views.

Of course, context is important. There are more than enough stories that have a theme that relates to reality and may even hold many criticisms on society (look here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_criticism). However, you have to be smart and not point fingers at every work of fiction just because of a small theory that you have about it (Again, I'm not accusing you of doing these things, I'm just pointing out a common issue with people who get offended easily from works of fiction that more-likely mean no harm).

[Dolphman]

Nobody complained about the Dark Queen from Battletoads. She's fanservice as hell, with leather leotard, elbow gloves, and thigh-high boots.
And to top it off, she's the main villain. There's also the fact how the majority of her army appear to be wearing BDSM-esque attire.
Yeah, they do have a dominatrix theme going on with her. But that didn't stop her being one of the few iconic female villains in video games.
Which back then in the 90s, most developers would've been afraid to even have a female antagonist.

[miyabi95_]

Nobody complained about the Dark Queen from Battletoads. She's fanservice as hell, with leather leotard, elbow gloves, and thigh-high boots.
And to top it off, she's the main villain. There's also the fact how the majority of her army appear to be wearing BDSM-esque attire.
Yeah, they do have a dominatrix theme going on with her. But that didn't stop her being one of the few iconic female villains in video games.
Which back then in the 90s, most developers would've been afraid to even have a female antagonist.

Probably because not many people were able to get that far in Battletoads because it's near-impossible to beat, haha.

It's weird how the BDSM trope has spanned across female antagonists (and even some protagonists) for such a long time. Even in a game like Melfand Stories (not localized, but I'm using it for example), where everything's designed to be really cute and light-hearted, they needed to add a brooding female character with tight clothing and a whip (the character in question is Nora). To be honest, I think it might have something to do with western superhero comics - put a well-fit girl/muscular woman/etc. in tight spandex/rubber/latex/etc. and you have a typical heroine (sometimes) or villainess (usually).Melfand StoriesMelfand Stories

[Neon Streak]

Or another common thing, there will be common female enemies if they're not human.  Feminists seem to not get their jimmies as rustled when things happen to female non-humans.

I noticed female non-humans don't count towards "Female Characters in Gaming" unless they're sufficiently sexed up (in other words: they have obviously human tits) and are bipedal. Characters like Jigglypuff and Cynder don't count for some reason.

Funny you should mention that, because there's one particular female villain that I'm quite fond of that comes across my mind: Fluffy from Ty The Tasmanian Tiger. Specifically, in the third game, she was portrayed wearing a black latex jumpsuit (It even showed her obvious reptilian cleavage!) Yet nobody complained about her design.

Then again, the game came out in 2005, when feminism wasn't all that prominent.

[Koopaul]

No one mentioned the greatest female antagonist of all time?

Gruntilda Winkybunion!

[Koh]

No one mentioned the greatest female antagonist of all time?

Veran from Oracle of Ages.  Just waltzes right in and takes control, and has several forms.

[psychospacecow]

No one mentioned the greatest female antagonist of all time?

Veran from Oracle of Ages.  Just waltzes right in and takes control, and has several forms.

Eliza from Skullgirls. Take all your preconceived notions of right and wrong in the game, flipped them on their side with her as the most hate-able person, usurping the position from a vindictive god's mutant effigy.

[NICKtendo DS]

Captain Syrup from Wario Land 2.

[Random Talking Bush]

I see girls everywhere

Cut it out, TomSawyer1. It's obvious that you're trying to boost your post count just so that you can re-post your request, judging by how you bumped MULTIPLE older topics without anything worthwhile. You're on the road to being banned if you keep that up.

[Davy Jones]

Currently playing The Witcher and killed female elves, vampires, ghosts and demons.

[Gors]

I see girls everywhere

I nominate this for TVGR best post 2015

as for female enemies, I believe we're getting closer to equal representation. It's still not much and there's lots to improve, but we're definitely seeing improvement.

[miyabi95_]

I see girls everywhere

I nominate this for TVGR best post 2015

as for female enemies, I believe we're getting closer to equal representation. It's still not much and there's lots to improve, but we're definitely seeing improvement.

Speaking of which(not particularly on track with the enemies discussion)...I like how Lucina's a very well-balanced female character. Her design isn't overly-feminine or overly-masculine, she doesn't wear anything too skimpy, her color pallette includes a lot of navy-ish blues, her voice is flexible enough to give off a feminine and masculine tone, and probably many other things too. This is mostly based on what I know of her appearance in Smash Bros. - I'm generally not very interested in Fire Emblem.

Aaaaaaanybutt...For enemies, I'd like for there to be a good mixture of enemies that appear to give the appearance of a gender, but are just enemies to be destroyed so there's no need to worry too much. I'm pretty much talking about the Super Mario universe. I remember having an official strategy guide for Paper Mario back in the day(despite not actually owning an N64), and all I would do is look through the catalog of different enemies because the aesthetic made them look so interesting. It was back when I was a kid and boys had to be boys and girls had to be girls, so I could easily make those assumptions about the enemies in Paper Mario. But nowadays, I think of most Mario enemies as genderless because eventually they'll be stepped on or hit with fireballs. There are exceptions though...Too many for me to name off the top of my head .

I appreciate the people who fight for equal representation, but of course there are people who misinterpret "equal" as "dominance." The world isn't perfect though. And now that I think about it, the Animal Crossing games are perfect examples of equal representation of gender. You can choose to be male or female and look the way you want (some restrictions of course, but the choices are still there). There are male and female residents in your town. The visual style looks cute and bubbly, but I wouldn't say it's enough to give off a gender bias. I never really thought about that...

[Kosheh]

I see girls everywhere

Can this PLEASE be in next year's necroposticon



I've actually been thinking about this topic for days and it's killing me that I still can't really come up with much. There's actually a fair bit of female representation tho in games, though I guess I never really gave a second thought about it. I'm gonna toot this quite a bit, but Dunkel pretty much voiced most of my concerns. It's pretty difficult in Western society to constitute hitting a woman except in the instance of like - self defense. If you think about it, it's exactly why Birdo changed to a male character when the game came stateside.

Have you noticed that a lot of video games seem to be lacking in female enemies? It seems that in the world of gaming, bad girls are usually taking the role of bosses or NPCs, but not random mooks the hero can take out on the spot. When they do appear as standard enemies, they're always portrayed as dominatrices or hookers; this is particularly true in beat-em-ups, such as Double Dragon and Streets of Rage. Meanwhile, male enemies are portrayed as bikers, pirates, soldiers, 1930's gangsters, and more.

Dunkel pretty much nailed it a few posts back; most "grunt" level characters are due to space constraints and palette constraints. Things were also a little more hectic in the game industry in the 80's and 90's - most gaming companies had something good going on for them, so they censored (sometimes gratuitously) to avoid possible media outrage. That's the last thing when you're still trying to establish a foothold in the market AND keep your product family friendly. It also doesn't help that the juggernaut of the time [Nintendo] was breathing down your neck to ensure that your product fit their strict guidelines, otherwise you're risking your licensing to develop for them. That of course changed with Mortal Kombat, but that's neither here or there.

Even modern-day games have fallen victim to this gaming-gender issue. For example, in Batman: Arkham City, we have the Caped Crusader beating the shit out of countless male convicts, but the only female goons he takes out are ninjas (Which doesn't really make sense to me from a realistic standpoint; I don't recall any female ninjas in Japanese history.). Do you mean to tell me that Arkham Asylum doesn't house female convicts, save for Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn?

The other thing about some of these characters, and it's kinda lousy but even more obvious with 90's game characters - in the example of Arkham City, if you tried to create a low-class female grunt prisoner or hoodlum with a more realistic body type...you'd probably assume the character was a man anyway. From a design standpoint, it's pretty difficult to create a female grunt character that appears uniquely female to the audience that doesn't require the character to possess an idealized female figure (which is sorta the root of controversy at the moment) so the end result is usually that you end up with a character that looks like a punk or dominatrix, to show that she's definitely a bad guy and warrants a beatdown. ;P
Honestly, I feel like if you DID stick with the idealized body type for a female character, she'd appear too strong and too cool and would end up becoming the design for a boss-character anyway, which is kinda the deal with Poison Ivy or Harley Quinn, isn't it ;P

Hell! In The Last of Us, the only female enemies you ever encounter in the game are zombies, which-if you think about it-is really sad. You'd think that in a post-apocalyptic setting, standard gender roles would be demolished...unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case.

I'm pretty sure if I had a realistic female hunter calling me out, trying to kill me I'd be scared absolutely shitless, but that's just me ('A`; )

Currently off of the top of my head I'm thinking about the current rebooted Tomb Raider game (prior to "Rise of") The more I think about it, there aren't really any female enemies that Lara comes across - but that might be a good thing. I feel like from my boring-ass cisgender male perspective, the male inhabitors of the island pose a threat to a character like Lara - but it's easier to make them a more cold, ruthless character you really don't want to be emotionally involved with. However, on the other hand, I feel like a female grunt character in any of those roles would actually mess with the player's head more, and you'd actually think twice about trying to stealth-kill that woman so you can progress within the story...and you'd actually have some players who couldn't actually bear upon themselves to pull a knife on said character (actually, didn't Far Cry do something like this by having you try to kill your friends, including your girlfriend for one part of the story path to progress?)

idk, I feel like if you had like, a female guerilla warfare character in fatigues that you had to candidly, stealthily kill, it'd be a lot harder for players to go through with it than some generic male character. Even if a character donning full fatigues and a gas mask uttered female guttural tones once neutralized/injured, many people would feel like kind of an asshole afterward.

---

No one mentioned the greatest female antagonist of all time?

Gruntilda Winkybunion!

I'm actually really, really disappointed in you, Koopaul. Just completely shitting on the legacy of the greatest Mario antagonist that wasn't really Mario's antagonist. The antagonist that oversaw your journey from a Game Boy to a Game Man.

Just kidding I'm actually really disappointed in all of you let's talk about an antagonist who was totally oversexualized but never was because she had a fucking genie