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.

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.

The men are all fantastically varied from their sizes and ages to their facial hair and voice acting, but the women are all hotpant-clad teens or twenty-somethings who fall into one of two categories - 'sparky', headstrong, squeaky-voiced irritant who you feel obliged to smash in the face with a pole-axe until she learnes her place, or a languid, sultry, door-mat of a woman, who is fighting for her husband's cause.

For the most part, I understand that the novels which form the basis for the series were incredibly male-led and that there aren't so many women to pick out of the narrative...but, ffs, you've made all of the characters MAGICAL anyway, why not go a bit further with the artistic license and have a female character who is strong in her own right and not just fighting for/beside her husband?

Even the weapons they're given annoy me - Yue Ying gets a bow and arrow. The Qiao twins fight with fans. Zhen Ji fights with A MAGIC FLUTE. It was only in DW6 that she was upgraded to a chain whip. Still wears a sarong and a bra, though. Excellent stuff.

You'd never see a male character fighting with a flute, and even when they're given a seemingly 'girly' weapon (for example, Zuo Chi fights with a cursed deck of cards, and Zhuge Liang with a 'war fan'), their power is upgraded to compensate. The cursed deck is probably the most powerful weapon in the game, with that bloody war fan coming a close second - it lets him fly! It shoots lasers! The fans wielded by the Qiao twins, by comparison, do neither of those things.

Wow...turns out this gets on my nerves more than I'd previously thought. Oh well :)

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?

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!

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.

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!'

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. ;)

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.

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?

...Celes in FF6. Also one of those characters I could never, ever see as 18. I mean, what the everloving cheese?

Admittedly, I've noticed that FF characters are in general younger than they have any right to be to be doing what they're doing (and this is also a trend in RPGs in general), because (and the FF dev team have explicitly said this) they want to appeal to a younger audience. But at least you DO get older male characters. You do.

You know what really strikes the point home? Try to imagine having a seriously older female sage in your party, a la Tellah from FF4, without the entire gaming community cracking up and laughing. That's how ingrained this is.

How can she be eighteen? How? She was a general! Celes is twenty-six in my head.

Admittedly, I've noticed that FF characters are in general younger than they have any right to be to be doing what they're doing

That's very true. (Balthier is only twenty-two? Really? Everyone training at Garden is a teenager?)

Sometimes I think most Final Fantasy character ages are determined by throwing darts at a board that has the numbers 15 - 21 written on it. Playing through XIII, I would have sworn that Fang was at least 25, but according to the internet she's 21.

As far as I'm concerned, Ashe should also be older than 19. It's like they write 'older' women and then get all alarmed and confused.

I haven't played XIII, but really? I've seen pictures of Fang, and she really doesn't seem that young to me. Your dartboard theory actually explains a lot.

O HAI PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY.

There is a super interest thing in film theory which is the Male Gaze. Basically, most media assumes that the 'gaze' of the film (that is, what we see as an audience AND what we see as someone who empathises with the protagonist) is a) male and b) heterosexual. Thus much of what we see in the media - even if made by females or via female protagonists - is geared towards straight men. So, young, attractive, available women (there is also a whole bunch of awesome stuff in this theory about the technique of that gaze, how women and men are shot on camera, how they dress, present themselves, etc). Think of women's magazines. Think of how many women's magazines (geared towards straight women) feature photoshopped, conventionally attractive women in mildly-to-overtly alluring poses. It's a lot. A whole lot. Why? These are women we are meant to empathise with, but they are most often presented in a 'you want to sleep with me ;D' context.

ANYWAY IT'S INTERESTING. And. Really fucking sad. But basically the world is ruled by straight white middle-aged men and there's nothing much we can do about it the end? WOO.

I am sorry to butt in, but I think the male gaze theory is stupid.

I mean, it exists, but a couple generations after women have started being part of the film industry, I think it'd better change. (There was recently some discussion I read about the female gaze and the Twilight movies, and while I have never seen the Twilight movies and I hear they're terribly sexist, I have to admit there is a lot of shameless male shirtlessness there.)

Please don't sound so defeated about it! It makes me sad.

That is all.

When you save the world and everybody declares you President of Everything, I expect you to change this, starting by making it mandatory for every story to have at least awesome female over the age of thirty. :D

I shall attempt to fulfil your alarmingly high expectations, mysterious anonymous figure! I'd better get on that world-saving quickly, though, as apparently I have only a year or so left in which to do it.

Anybody, official or not, who says Lulu is 22 is a filthy liar. She's a very pretty lady, yes, but she is not that young. No way.

I think FFX-2 (which I wrote a little about yesterday as I played the very beginning) is the biggest offender, as, at least at the beginning, it seems to go the route of, "You know these well rounded female characters from FFX? We're gonna dress them up and have them singing? You like fanservice, right?" Which I would imagine Yuna would shy away from and Rikku might nick all the change of anybody trying to do such a thing when their back is turned...

Most games seem to have such an issue with female characters. Just trying to think of anything I've played with stereotypes of women of any kind in them... I suppose you could argue Digital Devil Saga does, but I don't mind it there, as it's pretty well done. There are five main playable characters, part of a Tribe - one is a woman. She is a kickass magic user (and healer for some people, but I find her best to use offensively). She's pretty, she's young (but no younger than the rest of the cast) and very emotional. But it makes sense there in that a) it's a game about people who are essentially emotionless drones becoming cannibal demons and awakening to emotions and thoughts they'd never knew about. I'd be worried if somebody -wasn't- reluctant about the circumstances, and she has a lot of resolve and can be more of a badass than the men when the time calls for it. Perhaps a bit stereotyped for it to be the girl, but I dunno, it makes sense in context. (Here's the cast, she's the woman on the far right.)

Nocturne's going against stereotype slightly by having its female be the person obsessed with the strong prevailing over the weak...

Character ages though... I really can't think of many older women having much of a presence in games at all. I guess there's Queen Brahne in FF9, but she's kind of a psycho. The Persona games, while teenage focused, do occasionally have older characters: iirc the Hierophant social link in Persona 3 is with an elderly man and woman, and the Death social link in Persona 4 is with an old lady...

It really is quite bothersome. Mind you, I'd still like to see a cast of somewhat realistic looking characters: give them some flaws in their appearance, please! Bonus points if they don't care about their appearance, or, if they're a girl, they don't care about getting into a relationship of some sort (this goes for TV too).

Hmm...

Final Fantasy X-2 is ridiculous, and I cannot imagine that any Final Fantasy featuring male characters in the party would ever have used the 'dressphere' system. It does have its good points, though, and I'm not sure it deserves the scorn it attracts from a lot of the fandom (although it can't compare to Final Fantasy X in quality).

I really can't think of many older women having much of a presence in games at all.

imadra_blue has pointed out over here that characters' mothers in the Final Fantasy series are almost always absent or dead, which I thought was interesting and depressing. Heaven forbid we include any women old enough to have a teenage child.

Edited at 2010-08-05 11:29 am (UTC)

You've just reminded me of a BBC News report that made me want to smash everyone in the gaming industry in the mouth with every feminist tome I can find. (Except 'A Room of One's Own'. It's too light.) The industry does not and will not believe women play these kind of games, which means they think it's fine to carry on being wilfully sexist because the little ladies are never going to see it. It's the kind of attitude that sees 'fashion designer' and 'pet doctor' games being marketed to young girls alongside pink versions of the consoles and it makes me genuinely angry bordering on HULK SMASH territory.

I just watched that BBC report... WHAT IS THIS FUCKERY!? Yes that's right reporters, no women want to play competitive games, and especially not violent games, oh hell no. They especially don't want to spend whole days at a time violently shooting zombies in the zombie-parts and stamping on their heads and swearing like a champion every time something nasty jumps out at them from a wardrobe like I do.

OH WAIT.

It carries over into their MMO(s), too, which seems very strange to me. There is no reason for you to not be able to create an older female avatar! One has a lot more options and ways to tweak appearances than the other, but you still can only really make the males appear to be obviously out of their late teens/early twenties.

Off the top of my head, the only Square game (possibly only game at all) I've played with playable "older" (if over 22 is old, we're all in trouble) women is Chrono Cross (which has a wide age range to go with its huge cast of characters). Even considering that a fair portion of the games I've played don't feature [controllable, since Ōkami is otherwise full of them] human characters at all, that's pretty sad.

I am also guilty of aging characters certain up. Ashe, for example. My brain is convinced she should at least be in her twenties.

you still can only really make the males appear to be obviously out of their late teens/early twenties.

Oh, my goodness, really? That's absolutely bizarre.

It's reassuring to see women who aren't in their teens or barely out of them in that Chrono Cross cast list! I did raise an eyebrow upon seeing that the thirty-eight-year-old mother of two has skills called 'Folding' and 'DirtyDishes', though. (She's quite stout, which is interesting; variations in body shape are another thing lacking in videogame characters, both male and female.)

Here via renay, and this is a great catch; I can't believe I never really noticed it before.

To go off on a tangent about Lulu, the whole "Lulu is 22" thing in canon bothers me so much, not only because she looks and acts so much older, but because it's directly contraindicated by canon -- when she's talking with Wakka about the Sin attack that killed their parents, she says "I was five, then." In the context of the conversation, this statement strongly implies that she was older than Wakka, because she can remember her parents but he has no memory of his. So I don't care what Ultimania or the game booklet says; if Wakka is 23 (which is game canon, not just documentation canon), Lulu has to be at least 24. Which makes so much more sense.

Aaaaand, that was a rant from a random stranger, sorry. But in a way, it helps illustrate the point: the game developers are so desperate to keep its female characters young that they ignore their own canon to make it work.

Ooh, I was surprised to find that she was younger than Wakka, but I hadn't realised it actually made no sense in the context of game canon. Thank you for pointing that out! (Rants from random strangers are welcome here!)

I would kill to see a FF game with an older female swordswomen, with *gasp* greying hair.

*swordswoman
(tired, sorry)

What really makes me mad is it seems like FFs have such great potential for female characters! Some have strength, others wit, etc. But inevitably they always end in sex appeal. Which is not bad, but the inevitability is what slays me. :C

And of course their age. I would love to see a female version of Cid.

If it's at all reassuring, I'm not sure they do always boil down to sex appeal! Characters such as Aeris, Quistis and Penelo are modestly dressed and never really portrayed in an overtly sexual way, to my recollection. Yuna wasn't sexualised in Final Fantasy X, although the sequel sort of scuppered that, alas. People find the characters sexy, of course, but the games themselves don't always objectify them. Even when female characters obviously are portrayed in quite a 'fanservicey' way (Tifa, Lulu, Fran), they're still complex, interesting characters with unique personalities.

In many ways, I think the Final Fantasy series fulfils much of its great potential for female characters; certainly it's produced a huge number of female characters I adore (Faris, Celes, Yuffie, Quistis, Freya, Yuna (one of my favourite characters of anything ever), Paine, Fran and many more; I was trying to restrict myself to one per game). There's definitely room for improvement and diversity, though.

I would love to see a female version of Cid.

Yes! I was actually thinking 'why can't we have a female equivalent to Cid Highwind?' when I was making this entry. That would be marvellous. (I assume you meant Cid Highwind; if you meant, say, Cid Kramer, I can only apologise.)

Isn't Vincent, at least, covered by the Fran Clause, since he's preserved somehow or other? He certainly doesn't look even close to sixty.

Other than that, though, I am right with you, including thinking of Lulu as thirty. (Caveat: Never played her game, but I've seen pictures and cutscenes and such, and that's what I assumed).

A similar issue - is it just me, or do the girls tend to have less probable outfits than the guys? For example, in FFXIII all of the guys got pants, shirts, and some kind of coat (and even when they got Snow out of the coat for a while in some blatant female-angled fanservice, there was an in-story justification) while Fang was jumping around in a blue wraparound that basically defied gravity just by staying on her. Does she tape it to her skin or something? And this in what was otherwise a remarkably feminist game, too.

No - he was preserved at 27, so he's already beating the lady cutoff age.

This is something that's bothered me, too.

There's only one RPG I can think of with a main female character who's over 22, and that's Wild ARMS XF. Labyrinthia is 34, and while she's not the main character (that'd be 17 year old Clarissa), she is in the main party.

I don't think she acts or looks 34, to be honest.

... Goddamn.

You'd think I'd have noticed this before!

Random stranger here via ff_press, hi!

I agree about the aging up; there is no way Lulu is anything less than thirty, what the hell. Plus I played FFVI for years before learning the characters' official ages, and I always assumed Celes was in her late twenties. I absolutely, completely refuse to think of her as EIGHTEEN. What. The. Hell.

The sad thing is, because of this, when Lightning in FFXIII was revealed to be twenty-one in-game my first thought was "thank god she's not supposed to be eighteen." I really would have been a lot happier if Lightning and Fang were just a few years older, though.

What we really need is like a fifty-something weaponsmith lady with greying hair and badass scars. There's no rule that says that can't be sexy, too, and you know it would be sexy as hell.

She's not a weaponsmith, but do you know about Emma? She's from The Last Remnant, and since that's also a Squeenix game you'd thing they'd be able to give us kick-ass older female party members in the FF series too. :(

@ Rinoa: Hi! I'm another random stranger here via ff_press, hope you don't mind! ^^; I agree with your post and also tend to snort at the ages given to some of the FF women in manuals or ultimanias and age them up in my head. (Also, damnit, I'm 25 and that's not old, media industry! I can still save the world! \o/)

I remember that! Makes me sad. :( What also makes me sad is that I am currently working on a game about superheroes and all the male characters are really buff and manly (but do vary a bit in age) while all the women are young and pretty with powers that lean more toward healing (with the exception of one). The guy-to-girl ratio is also ridiculous. I think if I hadn't complained about it, the game would only have one or two female characters OUT OF OVER 20. But I hardly have any control over the contents of the game, since I'm just the artist, not the designer. :/ And the thing that amazes me is that my boss didn't even REALISE there were so few females and that their portrayals were sexist without me pointing it out to him. I didn't even bother with the age thing, I just wanted there to be a few more female characters in the game.

Square Enix is rather ridiculous when it comes to giving their characters ages. Especially with women. And Final Fantasy doesn't have a pretty history with women. While I love many of their characters (Terra and Yuffie and Tifa and Quistis and Ashe and Fran and Lightning and Fang, I love them all so, so much), the way they are portrayed in the stories can often be very troubling. I hadn't noticed the age thing myself, as I never looked up the official ages until recently, but had only done so for some of the games. I had no idea that Lulu was so young. That's ridiculous. I only played FFX part of the way, but assumed she was over 30. Same for Beatrix in FF9. And I still can't get over that Celes is only 18. It makes no damn sense.

Edited at 2010-08-04 10:02 am (UTC)

What do you mean, exactly, about how they're portrayed? Can I get some details?

I still disapprove of Ashe being under 20. I mean wtf, she just, doesn't seem that young! She acts older! Argh!

I might have found a game with an older female character, though! Or perhaps two or three, depending (I dunno cos I've not got them in my party yet XD) - Lost Odyssey for the Xbox (by Squenix's castaways, lol). They're Immortals, so they're at least 1000 years old (not sure of the exact age), but they even LOOK older than 18, too. Ming suffers from the scanty-clad rule (SO MUCH BOOB) but not quite as bad as it could be, and I think Seth is a bit more acceptable.

Blech, tangent. I always hope that one day, Square will put an older kickass female as a playable character. I'm officially over the age for adventur now, and it makes me sadface.

I suppose Ashe does have to be quite young, as the idea behind her story feels a bit like 'a huge amount of power and responsibility coming into the hands of someone not quite experienced enough to be certain of what to do with it' to me, but I agree; early-to-mid twenties, perhaps, but she doesn't feel nineteen.

Those characters certainly do look older than the typical female Squeenix design. Hooray! Thanks for the examples; it's good to know that characters like these exist.

Well, by Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, Rosa and Rydia are both in their thirties. And even if you don't count them because they came from the original game, Leonora is 24 and both Izayoi and Harley look older than the mid 20s. However, we don't have official ages for those two, so they could be 18 for all we know.

...Funnily enough, Izayoi and Harley are pretty bad characters in battle, and Leonora only gets really good at a very high level. (Flare + Holy + Dualcast + an actual MP pool? Yes plz.) But Rosa and Rydia are still awesome.

Ooh, I didn't know anything about The After Years, so thank you for that information! I wasn't looking at spinoffs in my data, but it's good to know that playable female characters over twenty-two do exist in Final Fantasy, even if it's not in the main-series games.

It's one thing I like about western RPGs: you're not stuck with the player character the game designers have given you, you can make your own, male, female, Elf or Orc or whatever. I think Neverwinter Nights even gave you the option to have your player character be skinny or big.

In FFChrystal Chronicles you choose your race and gender and then you have four different descriptions to choose from for your character- not exactly customizable, but you get options, and the stats for strength and mana etc are based on which race you are. The Fate franchise games are the same way- you choose your race and gender (customizable appearance, but limited options; all of the facial features you choose from appear to be midteens, though) and your stats depend on your race. Human characters have a widest variety of magic; orcs start with five more strength points; elves have better stats for ranged weapons, etc.

I would love to see a Final Fantasy game in which the three females in your party (there are always three) aren't divided up into the three archetypes: the lead (most feminine; love interest; dedicated to a cause or a person; driving force in plot), the older woman (reserved and worldly; voice of reason; don't ask her personal questions or you will endure bodily harm), and the girl (perky and bubbly; extremely emotional; inevitably under 18). I am so tired of this pattern it hurts.

I love your point about ages and, of course, the youth and sexualization of the female characters, although to be fair JRPGs are pretty terrible about making their characters ridiculously young in general. There are male characters who are over thirty, but the lead is almost always twenty-two or younger (I can't think of an exception right now at all). And even the "older" characters turn out to be surprising young. Cid Highwind is thirty-two? I tend to think of him as in his forties. Isn't Auron also only thirty-something? Is it just me or is he going gray kinda young there?

(Technically, Fran is over fifty, I think? I kind of interpret that as late twenties relative to a hume lifespan, but that's entirely through my interpretation of how she acts more than looks, and that's not much of a basis to go on.)

On the note of young and pretty female characters, how old was Freya? And I love her to bits, but she's a rat, I don't know how many people were finding her pretty.

That's a good point about the female archetypes; there's a variety of male characters, but the women can almost always be delineated in the same way. More range would be wonderful.

Ageing really is ridiculous in the world of Final Fantasy. Auron is not in his thirties! He's just not!

Freya was twenty-one, which surprised me, because I always thought of her as older. Amongst other reasons, I love Freya for being a rare example of a female character who actually deviates significantly from the human (Fran deviates as well, but I wouldn't say it's a significant deviation). Characters like Red XIII, Cait Sith (well, he has a non-human form in your party, at least), Mog, Umaro, Vivi, Kimahri; all male. Why can't we have female non-human Final Fantasy characters more often?