Guild Wars 2

While objectively you have a point, I’m under the impression you’re looking too far into this.

Interesting read. I hadn’t considered the LW/GW2 cast from this angle.

Although I have to be honest and say that as it’s actually quite rare for decent female characters to outnumber decent male characters in a particular cast or context, especially in video games which still suffer so badly from tokenism as far as female characters go, I don’t personally find it quite so terrible (especially while some of said female characters are pretty awfully written anyway). Female gamers have been putting up with this kind of cast imbalance for decades, after all.

That said, in all things balance and diversity are usually the best thing as far as gender goes in a cast. I wouldn’t complain if we got more interesting male characters thrown into the mix.

Wasn’t there some big huge thread about the watchknights making females look bad and how the Queen’s Jubilee was something demeaning with so many of them prancing around?

I, for one, welcome a story where the guys are total wusses and can’t get anything done without a woman behind them.

I mean, it’s been ages since I pulled out Dragonriders of Pern, maybe this can remind me about how much I really liked Lessa.

Shiren.9532:

The Living Story is littered with female empowerment plots, unfortunately one of the most commonly used ones is the poor portrayal of male characters as a mechanism to make the females look good. I like it when stories have powerful female characters, but I resent when it’s done at the expense of male characters.

For two thousand years a book with male empowerment plots has dominated our culture. Now there’s a story with a few females in the lead, and suddenly all hell breaks loose?

You only perceive it to be that way because you’re not used to females in power, neither in stories nor in real life. Magnus is the leader of LA, and last time I checked he was still male. A lot of dungeon bosses are males (eg Adelbern). The entire Sons of Svanir plot revolves around male empowerment. Where were you with the personal story being all about males succeeding? The dungeon story is about destiny’s edge and that’s mostly about Rytlock and Logan reconciling. Logan looks far more masculine in that story while Caithe is the love sick girl. Did I hear you complain back then?

Just cherry picking a few in the Living Story doesn’t make this a bad thing. Maybe the next plot is all about a man rescuing an 8 bit princess in distress. I’m waiting for your thread complaining about that story having male supremacy themes.

Actually I have developed similar concerns as the OP and was discussing this with my guild a few days ago.
The fact is so far every female character introduced in the LS has been great and amazing, wonderful and powerful whilst every male has either been portrayed as a moron or put into the villain role. I like what Arenanet is doing . I like that it’s showing women in positions of power and authority. They did a really good job with it back in GW1 across the 3 campaigns creating a variety of interesting and fun female characters who weren’t defined by thier gender. Devona , Cynn and Gwen stand out to me. I like as a company that they have put several female team mates into prominent position and they respect thier contributions . Big thumbs up here for that guys.
However I am starting to feel uncomfortable with the points the OP mentioned. It could actually be nothing and the situation could just be that a large amount of the writing staff are female so they write what they know. We have accounts in the games industry in the past where female team mates have had to point out in team meetings that certain scenes in a plot seem a little “unconsentingly close”.
Personally I think it’s a good thing. Just don’t want in the process of trying to be changers in the industry overcompensating so much you do so in reverse. Kinda like how people overcompensate the way they act around people with learning difficulties so mark work higher but somehow lower in doing so.

Laken.9018:

Personally I think it’s a good thing. Just don’t want in the process of trying to be changers in the industry overcompensating so much you do so in reverse. Kinda like how people overcompensate the way they act around people with learning difficulties so mark work higher but somehow lower in doing so.

It’s one storyline. Come one. Let’s point out a few of the reasons why this is so fallacious …
1/ Personal Story. Like it or not, but Trahearne is a man.
1.1/ So are 2 out of 3 of the Mentors
1.2/ not to mention 3 out of 5 races having a male teacher
2/ Destiny’s Edge and the main plot there is about male rivalry
2.1/ the Caithe side plot is about a girl in mad love
3/ Flame Legion is expressly only-male
4/ same for Sons of Svanir
That leads to the non Living Story plot being dominated by male centered plotlines. There’s nothing wrong with that per sé, but it also leads to the inevitable conclusion that nothing’s wrong with the current Living Story plotline when it comes to females.

It is so rare for a plotline in any game to have even 50% women, let alone in a positive light, that an exceptional case as the Living Story is getting this kind of threads … or should women be limited to the damsel-in-distress role like the SAB princess?

shrugs I’m not mad or anything. Just saying kind of have noted a very similar thing in the LS that the OP pointed out. I don’t like entering these sort of threads as people make assumptions and try to pull posts apart as it’s a very heated concept.
And yes the PS is defiantly more balanced. I wouldn’t use it as an argument for saying its male centric as it’s got some pretty kitten cool female centric arcs and characters in there as well

This isn’t just happening in the living stories. Its all over the game, I for one am looking for BALANCE. However all “fight to win roles” are given to females and all wussy roles are males. Like someones opinion is seeping through all over this work of art that is gw2 and leaving a bad taste. The NPC of Harathi hinterlands captain that takes over the centaur camps are female, The female leaders of the Ogres, Vigil’s Efut and their leader, The Norn warmaster has always been soft and then killed off. Most memorable Seraphs are females, except the bad guys. Leader of the Order of Whispers another romance dog for ms. fairhair, Soma in frostgorge, and many other DE or MetaE’s all around. The only exception are Dredges… Which I don’t recognize any female ones.

I really think guys just learn to deal with it. Women have been through it for decades and longer. We had to deal with it, why can’t you?

I completely disagree with Braham. Bear in mind that in Flame and Frost he decided “to hell with it” and just got stuff done, despite what his mother and Knut said.

He’s along with Rox because they’re a team, not because he’s her date. They trust each other. Rox has more life experience than he does, so she’s got a voice of reason and wisdom while he’s a kitteny teenager that rushes into things headfirst. He’s silly and fun. Just because he’s not more important than her doesn’t mean he’s subservient to her.

I also highly disagree that Ottillia’s plot point has anything to do with female empowerment. I honestly think this is taking the Living World stories and actively attempting to portray it in as negative a light towards men as possible.

I’ll have to find the study, but I’ve heard one referenced that when women make up 33% of the people, people tend to see it as half of the group…when they actually are 50%, then people tend to see it as women are overrepresented.

I would agree that Logan is portrayed as a lovesick idiot who is in great need of some character development, but I completely disagree that this somehow makes Queen Jennah ‘look good’. She is completely bland. The voice acting is wooden. We have no idea how she feels about Logan or indeed anything beyond speeches which sound about as exciting as some of Trahearne’s. I suspect this is Anet’s apparent difficulty in developing characters beyond their initial concept, and that applies to several prominent characters. I think it’s bad writing, not gender bias.

Logan has been that way through the entire game. He’s actually got passed that in the PS (somewhat) but Anet thinks that the LS can’t be tied to the PS at all, because some people might not have finished the PS yet. Logan still has to be within shouting distance of the queen at all times, Rytlock still has to hate Logan, Caithe still has to be emo, etc.

It’s kind of discouraging. Anet basically wrote a book, published it, and then keeps amending the beginning of it. While what you really want to know is what happened to the characters after the end, after you watched all of them go through their Journey to come together again.

It is funny…I’ve never seen a game with so many strong female main characters, in so many positions of leadership, and with such large roles. And I doubt anyone would claim that Zojja is “sexualized”. =D

And yet if you ask the “typical feminist blogger” about GW2, they’ll say it’s awful because they saw a screenshot of some Female Human Light Armor set that was too revealing, and thus it’s a horribly sexist game that oppresses females and blah blah. Mostly because that’s the easy route.

Did you just say Marjory is good at her job?

She bought into Mai Trin’s incredibly flimsy and obvious lie about her alibi during the investigation. And instead of investigating herself, she sends the players out to investigate for her. Pretty lousy detective if you ask me, even if you argue the second part is purely for gameplay mechanics’ sake and needing to involve players.

As for Braham being a nobody at the Queen’s Jubilee… what else could he be? He’s a random guy from a small Norn village. Sure, he’s Eir’s son and all, but its not like Eir is the leader of the Norn and could send her son as an envoy or something (and that’s also putting aside the fact that the two are estranged anyway so even if she had that authority she probably wouldn’t look to him to fill it). If Braham wasn’t there with Rox, there’d be no reason for him to be there at all unless he was just there purely as a spectator.

I don’t really understand what this topic is meant to address. Are you saying that all the characters should be perfect and admirable with no flaws?

Bovinity.8610:

It is funny…I’ve never seen a game with so many strong female main characters, in so many positions of leadership, and with such large roles. And I doubt anyone would claim that Zojja is “sexualized”. =D

And yet if you ask the “typical feminist blogger” about GW2, they’ll say it’s awful because they saw a screenshot of some Female Human Light Armor set that was too revealing, and thus it’s a horribly sexist game that oppresses females and blah blah. Mostly because that’s the easy route.

It is possible for a game to have both brilliantly diverse/representative and problematic elements, you know. The problematic elements don’t go away just because they did good in a different area of the game. That’s why flat-out THIS GAME IS SEXIST statements are completely useless for critical analysis.

“It’s the lionesses’ job to do the hunting.” ~Scar, The Lion King

It’s an ongoing trend even in movies.

Kids movies – Tagled, Brave, The Incredibles, Harry Potter
Teen movies – The Hunger Games, Nancy Drew, Twilight
“Grown-up” movies – Underworld, Kill Bill, Resident Evil

…just to name a few.

yup, not surprise at all.

It is possible for a game to have both brilliantly diverse/representative and problematic elements, you know. The problematic elements don’t go away just because they did good in a different area of the game. That’s why flat-out THIS GAME IS SEXIST statements are completely useless for critical analysis.

I don’t disagree. I just think it’s funny that people will gloss over or ignore anything deeper than physical elements. Mostly because it’s very easy to point at something physical and say, “omg boobs!” whereas addressing strength of role or something is much more involved.

Basically it’s just the easy route to getting attention on the internet. Pick a controversial issue, fixate on the absolute most superficial aspect of it and go crazy.

In other words, the Sarkeesian’s of the world wouldn’t get much attention if they posted, “Yeah, this game is good. I’m pretty ok with it.” =D

Oh no!! Woman characters that aren’t totally useless and sit there being useless and stupid…. how dare Anet!!

Oh no!! Woman characters that aren’t totally useless and sit there being useless and stupid…. how dare Anet!!

Oh no! Hyperbole!

The more obvious sexist stereotypes are still important issues, though, and as you say, because they’re more obvious and easier to analyse, they inevitably get more attention. Not all of it, though. I read plenty of feminist blogs which critique at more subtle levels.

I was almost with you until the shot at Sarkeesian :P She emphasises at the beginning of every video she creates that enjoying media doesn’t exclude you from being able to recognise or talk about its problematic aspects, and she breaks down very specific aspects of the media (plot devices, characters within it, etc.) she talks about rather than saying DIS GAME R BAD. So much of the criticism levelled at her is at things people say she says, instead of what she actually says, so . . . just wanted to point that out.

Bovinity.8610:

Oh no!! Woman characters that aren’t totally useless and sit there being useless and stupid…. how dare Anet!!

Oh no! Hyperbole!

Look at WoW, every interesting woman character may as well die once they pair up with a male character… unless their you know, Jania, then she just doesn’t do anything and is boring and flat the whole time… Several MMO’s and RPGs follow the same trend…

While I have no issues at all wth the presentation of the female characters in the game, I do agree that often male characters are not all that well done by. I know there’s some pushback in saying “Well, female characters finally get some respect so deal with it” but that’s not really that great of a response. Well written, well presented characters shouldn’t be confined to either gender. The ideal goal should be having both genders respresented well with neither coming at the expense of the other.

The more obvious sexist stereotypes are still important issues, though, and as you say, because they’re more obvious and easier to analyse, they inevitably get more attention. Not all of it, though. I read plenty of feminist blogs which critique at more subtle levels.

Again, I don’t disagree. On the other hand, it’s frustrating that “female stereotypes” are all considered negatives, while “male stereotypes” all seem to be considered positives somehow.

In other words:

“Female who bakes a pie” is an awful gender stereotype that hurts women everywhere.

“Male who grunts, has more muscle than a rhino, and can’t think of any solutions other than breaking something” is a great gender stereotype that promotes male power. wat?

I was almost with you until the shot at Sarkeesian :P

Yeah yeah, she’s just a recognizable name so it was convenient to make the point with it. =D

On the other hand, really, I’d love to hear her just say, “Yeah, I’m pretty ok with this game.” instead of often pretending that the positive aspects of things don’t exist.

StriderShinryu.6923:

While I have no issues at all wth the presentation of the female characters in the game, I do agree that often male characters are not all that well done by. I know there’s some pushback in saying “Well, female characters finally get some respect so deal with it” but that’s not really that great of a response. Well written, well presented characters shouldn’t be confined to either gender. The ideal goal should be having both genders respresented well with neither coming at the expense of the other.

I can agree with this.

Look at WoW, every interesting woman character may as well die once they pair up with a male character… unless their you know, Jania, then she just doesn’t do anything and is boring and flat the whole time… Several MMO’s and RPGs follow the same trend…

1) What does WoW have to do with anything here?

2) That’s really not even all that accurate and is just something that people say. (mostly because of that post on…Massively, I think?…that people just parrot now) In reality, plenty of female characters in WoW have their own story and are strong. Of course, if you’re trying to create outrage, then you’ll just gloss over them the way you just did with Jaina. =D

StriderShinryu.6923:

The ideal goal should be having both genders respresented well with neither coming at the expense of the other.

I can say this though, even if Logan’s character is well written, Anise will still dominate — she’s just that awesome of a character. This is evident in the human noble personal story where Logan has a very well written character.

My point is, just because Anise will still dominate, doesn’t necessarily mean that it was done in the expense of Logan — but can still be perceived to be that way in comparison.

So how exactly are you going to meet that “ideal goal”?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I can say this though, even if Logan’s character is well written, Anise will still dominate — she’s just that awesome of a character. This is evident in the human noble personal story where Logan has a very well written character.

My point is, just because Anise will still dominate, doesn’t necessarily mean that it was done in the expense of Logan — but can still be perceived to be that way in comparison.

So how exactly are you going to meet that “ideal goal”?

I would disagree, I find Logan’s character the dominant one on the good side with the human commoner storyline. I also find Rytlock actually comes off as a really good character when he isn’t kitten ing about Logan like a jilted ex.

However! Rytlock identifies as a warrior first and male second, despite Steve Blum being the VA. I have no problem with this as most strong female characters in this game identify as female second as well.

Panda Shepard.1248:

I really think guys just learn to deal with it. Women have been through it for decades and longer. We had to deal with it, why can’t you?

Is that what you consider equality?

DarcShriek.5829:

Panda Shepard.1248:

I really think guys just learn to deal with it. Women have been through it for decades and longer. We had to deal with it, why can’t you?

Is that what you consider equality?

Yeah, tit-for-tat isn’t a good formula for equality.

Besides, the idea that men haven’t had to “Deal with it” a lot of that time is false anyway. The big difference is that we’ve been trained to never, ever, ever bring it up.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I can say this though, even if Logan’s character is well written, Anise will still dominate — she’s just that awesome of a character. This is evident in the human noble personal story where Logan has a very well written character.

My point is, just because Anise will still dominate, doesn’t necessarily mean that it was done in the expense of Logan — but can still be perceived to be that way in comparison.

So how exactly are you going to meet that “ideal goal”?

I would disagree, I find Logan’s character the dominant one on the good side with the human commoner storyline.

I don’t know anything about the commoner story line but in the noble story line, Anise is taking the lead even though Logan has a very strong character especially when saving the orphanage.

I also find Rytlock actually comes off as a really good character when he isn’t kitten ing about Logan like a jilted ex.

I don’t think that character is exclusive to Rytlock because it seems that this character is shared among other charr, male or female, especially Tribune Desertgrave.

However! Rytlock identifies as a warrior first and male second, despite Steve Blum being the VA. I have no problem with this as most strong female characters in this game identify as female second as well.

What do you mean by “female second?” I hope it’s not some type of stereotype that in order to be identified as “female” you have to be like a damsel in distress stereotype.

What do you mean by “female second?” I hope it’s not some type of stereotype that in order to be identified as “female” you have to be like a damsel in distress stereotype.

Kinda the exact opposite. Instead of, “This character is female/male and happens to do stuff.” it’s “This character does stuff and happens to be male/female.”

Sort of a fine line to walk on. But when it’s crossed the wrong way for female characters, there tends to be a big hubbub over it. (“omg she giggled! Too girly!” or “OMG she cooked something! Stereotype!” or “OMG she has breasts?!?! Sexualization!”)

Which is weird, because when the line is crossed the wrong way with men it’s seen entirely differently. (“He’s so big and strong! That’s manly!”)

Bovinity.8610:

What do you mean by “female second?” I hope it’s not some type of stereotype that in order to be identified as “female” you have to be like a damsel in distress stereotype.

Kinda the exact opposite. Instead of, “This character is female/male and happens to do stuff.” it’s “This character does stuff and happens to be male/female.”

Sort of a fine line to walk on. But when it’s crossed the wrong way for female characters, there tends to be a big hubbub over it. (“omg she giggled! Too girly!” or “OMG she cooked something! Stereotype!” or “OMG she has breasts?!?! Sexualization!”)

Which is weird, because when the line is crossed the wrong way with men it’s seen entirely differently. (“He’s so big and strong! That’s manly!”)

That’s different than “female second" because it was within the context of role (as in “Warrior first”) so I asked what role defines “female” so that we can place it “second”.

so I asked what role defines “female” so that we can place it “second”.

Like I said, it’s a pretty fine line. One of those, “Hard to define, but you know it when you see it.” sorts of things.

I’m sure someone else will come up with a good example, though.

Don’t you worry OP, we have Traeharne, you can’t be more perfect than that.

Trahearne isn’t that bad of a character. If you play a sylvari it actually fleshes out his character quite a bit (and more specifically the “Act with wisdom, but act” line) and he actually does grow quite a bit. The problem is they kind of failed to introduce his character to everyone else and then his bad AI and somewhat funny (in a bad sort of way) lines makes the character come across as more useless than he should. Pretty much, he suffers from a rushed narrative and the end game quests being rushed and often buggy.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

StriderShinryu.6923:

The ideal goal should be having both genders respresented well with neither coming at the expense of the other.

I can say this though, even if Logan’s character is well written, Anise will still dominate — she’s just that awesome of a character. This is evident in the human noble personal story where Logan has a very well written character.

My point is, just because Anise will still dominate, doesn’t necessarily mean that it was done in the expense of Logan — but can still be perceived to be that way in comparison.

So how exactly are you going to meet that “ideal goal”?

I can see how you arrived at that question given the wording I chose, but my perspective is it should be less of a mathematic equation than simply the overall balance. In every story there are going to be main characters and supporting characters. There are always going to be “good guys” and “bad guys.” Even in most couple scenarios, there is often going to be a more dominant person. It’s not so much that I’m saying that one characters portrayal can never be used as impetus for the other to stand out. It’s more that, if you look at the entire composition, you should not constantly be seeing the same trend consistently repeating itself as it currently is in GW2. It’s also important that even the “lesser” characters should be given their moments to shine. Every character, major or minor, should have a reason to exist beyond being there to make others look good in comparison.

I can sympathize with the people who say “Well, females have felt this way for generations! Now males occasionally feel it, and they freak out!”. For years, women characters have been sub-par, and women players have been largely ignored. I bet a lot of women players have a lot of pent-up frustration from that.

That said, reverse-sexism is still wrong. That’s why, if this game was truly sexist against men, I would be concerned. However, I don’t think you’re correct, OP.
The living story has featured a good number of strong, well-written female characters. However, if you examine the game as a whole, it’s pretty 50/50. Strong, excellent male characters include…
Tybalt! Who doesn’t love Tybalt? He’s full of personality.
Forgal! He’s also got a great, well-developed personality. He’s rough and masculine, intelligent, practical, and he’s got a hilarious sense of humor.
Bhuer Goreblade! He’s a competent centurion of the Iron Legion, and an early mentor for charr characters
Maverick, Clawspur, and Dinky! Each of these warband-mates has a unique personality and take on life.
Trahearne! Yeah, you heard me. Arenanet screwed up in portraying him in the personal story, but seriously. The guy is a scholar and hero devoted to saving Orr. He leads the Pact—was able to successfully bring together the three Orders and hold them together. He is able to interact with all the races—even those who are generally unfriendly, like the Largos.
Dougal Keane! This guy doesn’t play a major role in your character’s story, but he is the hero of the Ghosts of Ascalon novel. Because of him, the charr and humans were able to form their alliance.
Steward Gixx! The leader of the Durmand Priory. He’s a humorous character, because he gets so frustrated with Sieran, but you can tell that he really cares about her and about the priory. He’s a wise and competent leader.

Also, there are lots of historic male characters like Cobiah Marriner, Pyre Fierceshot, Prince Rurik, Durmand, Ventari, Ronan, and Snaff!

Lastly, just because Guild Wars 2 portrays female personalities and roles so well, that doesn’t mean it’s flawless.
Females can still only pick a small range of rail-thin (eating disorder, anyone?) body types with exaggerated sexual traits (big breasts, flirty idle animations). Unlike some of the male faces, no female faces have any scars or flaws (except for one norn face with a few scratches). The humanoid female characters, like Eir, Jennah, and so-on, all look like supermodels. Lastly, some of the armors still give male characters a completely covering robe, and female characters a corresponding bikini. So the message that females must appeal sexually to men, in order to be important, is still there.

That’s not to say Guild Wars 2 is bad. It’s a great game. Just, it isn’t all peachy and perfect when it comes to portrayal of women

It’s a video game.

Vahkris.6847:

I’ll have to find the study, but I’ve heard one referenced that when women make up 33% of the people, people tend to see it as half of the group…when they actually are 50%, then people tend to see it as women are overrepresented.

If you ever find it again, I’d be really interested in reading more about this.

DarcShriek.5829:

Panda Shepard.1248:

I really think guys just learn to deal with it. Women have been through it for decades and longer. We had to deal with it, why can’t you?

Is that what you consider equality?

Equality would be you making the same thread if all sexes in the LS were reversed. I somehow doubt you would have. So reconsider your own notions of equality.

Weindrasi.3805:

I can sympathize with the people who say “Well, females have felt this way for generations! Now males occasionally feel it, and they freak out!”. For years, women characters have been sub-par, and women players have been largely ignored. I bet a lot of women players have a lot of pent-up frustration from that.

That said, reverse-sexism is still wrong. That’s why, if this game was truly sexist against men, I would be concerned. However, I don’t think you’re correct, OP.
The living story has featured a good number of strong, well-written female characters. However, if you examine the game as a whole, it’s pretty 50/50. Strong, excellent male characters include…
Tybalt! Who doesn’t love Tybalt? He’s full of personality.
Forgal! He’s also got a great, well-developed personality. He’s rough and masculine, intelligent, practical, and he’s got a hilarious sense of humor.
Bhuer Goreblade! He’s a competent centurion of the Iron Legion, and an early mentor for charr characters
Maverick, Clawspur, and Dinky! Each of these warband-mates has a unique personality and take on life.
Trahearne! Yeah, you heard me. Arenanet screwed up in portraying him in the personal story, but seriously. The guy is a scholar and hero devoted to saving Orr. He leads the Pact—was able to successfully bring together the three Orders and hold them together. He is able to interact with all the races—even those who are generally unfriendly, like the Largos.
Dougal Keane! This guy doesn’t play a major role in your character’s story, but he is the hero of the Ghosts of Ascalon novel. Because of him, the charr and humans were able to form their alliance.
Steward Gixx! The leader of the Durmand Priory. He’s a humorous character, because he gets so frustrated with Sieran, but you can tell that he really cares about her and about the priory. He’s a wise and competent leader.

Also, there are lots of historic male characters like Cobiah Marriner, Pyre Fierceshot, Prince Rurik, Durmand, Ventari, Ronan, and Snaff!

Lastly, just because Guild Wars 2 portrays female personalities and roles so well, that doesn’t mean it’s flawless.
Females can still only pick a small range of rail-thin (eating disorder, anyone?) body types with exaggerated sexual traits (big breasts, flirty idle animations). Unlike some of the male faces, no female faces have any scars or flaws (except for one norn face with a few scratches). The humanoid female characters, like Eir, Jennah, and so-on, all look like supermodels. Lastly, some of the armors still give male characters a completely covering robe, and female characters a corresponding bikini. So the message that females must appeal sexually to men, in order to be important, is still there.

That’s not to say Guild Wars 2 is bad. It’s a great game. Just, it isn’t all peachy and perfect when it comes to portrayal of women

Excellent, constructive post, and thank you for highlighting that doing well in one area of gender representation doesn’t necessarily mean the whole game is completely free of tired gender stereotypes.

I never really looked at it from OP’s perspective but he brings up some rather good points.

Let me start out by saying I am all for equality, however I understand nothing will ever be exactly equal with anything, really, we can only get close.

I’m really happy that ArenaNet has made some prominent female characters, they did this extremely effectively in Guild Wars 1 and the male characters were also extremely interesting. Looking at Guild Wars 2… they’ve kind of fallen short.

Now, bare with me, remember, I support equality…

I think ArenaNet has maybe taken things a little too far, be it intentional or not. We have the majority of our core characters as females, most of them are presented in a strong manner, while males are not (for the most part). We have openly homosexual characters (again, this is fine, it just adds up), we have borderline interspecies sexual references (yes, they’re there if you pay attention). We have lore breaking elements of the game (dark skinned norn did not exist in guild wars 1 and 250 years is not long enough for half their race to look like they’re all giant Elonians) and a number of other things that effectively are just ArenaNet catering to equality.

I am all for equality in real life, however in an RPG Fantasy world, it needs to make sense within the lore and it needs to be reasonably equal. I would bet real money that were all the living story characters that were portrayed in a heroic/positive light, male and the negative light, female, that we would have many a feminist complaining.

I’m not overly fussed about it, but OP is right. I would be severely disappointed if things continue like this. I would like to think that in the end we see this:

Female Charr, Female Human, Male Norn, Male Asura, ‘Male’ Sylvari. Effectively a reversed Destiny’s Edge 2.0, but maybe not in the same way.

Again, in case you forgot and your feminism is tingling, equality is good and I’m for it.

I feel that perhaps the current portrayal is not equal, but we’ll see. It’s not a major issue one way or the other, but I don’t want to see it become a problem.

I don’t see it that way. I dont think about characters as “male” or “female”. They’re just characters to me, and maybe you should look like it too. It doesn’t matter. Besides, female characters have been getting this treatment in games for a quite a bit, if you want me to point that out..

StriderShinryu.6923:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

StriderShinryu.6923:

The ideal goal should be having both genders respresented well with neither coming at the expense of the other.

I can say this though, even if Logan’s character is well written, Anise will still dominate — she’s just that awesome of a character. This is evident in the human noble personal story where Logan has a very well written character.

My point is, just because Anise will still dominate, doesn’t necessarily mean that it was done in the expense of Logan — but can still be perceived to be that way in comparison.

So how exactly are you going to meet that “ideal goal”?

I can see how you arrived at that question given the wording I chose, but my perspective is it should be less of a mathematic equation than simply the overall balance. In every story there are going to be main characters and supporting characters. There are always going to be “good guys” and “bad guys.” Even in most couple scenarios, there is often going to be a more dominant person. It’s not so much that I’m saying that one characters portrayal can never be used as impetus for the other to stand out. It’s more that, if you look at the entire composition, you should not constantly be seeing the same trend consistently repeating itself as it currently is in GW2. It’s also important that even the “lesser” characters should be given their moments to shine. Every character, major or minor, should have a reason to exist beyond being there to make others look good in comparison.

But isn’t that what supporting characters are, to make the main character look good in comparison?

But I get what you’re saying because it reminds me of the Black Widow character and Agent Coulson and their role within the S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers and how well their characters were developed. Unfortunately, this is not the case in GW2.

Jamais vu.5284:

It’s a video game.

Some people keep pushing the notion that if a character of a certain gender is poorly presented in a game, that will translate into discrimination and prejudice for people of that gender in real life, which there is no evidence for, but some folk will keep covering their ears and complaining about the male or female representation in video games.

It’s a game, they are caricatures, nobody cares.

Besides, it’s not like Logan is MY character, he’s just an NPC, what happens to him doesn’t empower me or disempower me, he’s not my representative and Queen Jenah (or princess peach) is NOT a representative for women around the world, they are just cartoony characters, nothing more.

I don’t like Liadri.

She’s sadistic, and has a horsewhip.

I have about a billion more things to say, but I am so glad this conversation is happening. We often only hear about this from one perspective which often skews the perceptions many have.

I hope ANet allows this conversation to continue, and I encourage everyone to speak their mind, no matter what your viewpoint. Equality means we consider both genders.

I plan on writing a longer post, but the gist of it is.

I want realistic characters of varying degrees that fit within the context of the story. I don’t need everything to be artificially balanced, or limited by sensitivities, its long as the characters are real, and they make sense in context, then awesome.

More later.

I’d just like to thank everyone bringing this issue into the spotlight. It may not even be intentional but aside from a few exceptions here and there most major male characters are portrayed as whiny and/or incompetent. Discrimination works both ways not just one and whilst it is refreshing to see strong female characters they shouldn’t exist purely at the cost of strong male characters.

The notion that male characters should be treated like dirt just because female characters are handled poorly in other forms of media is ridiculous, too. You don’t tackle discrimination by directing it elsewhere. You tackle it by eliminating it.

I said it in the OTHER thread concerning feminism and gender equality:

I would pay much more attention for something where I wouldn’t have to be reminded a character is male, female, or otherwise except as a throwaway fact. I want a good character first, a man/woman/whatever second.

I don’t want a strong female character which is some lady acting tough, gruff, and “putting men in their place” any more than I want a strong male character who’s tough, gruff, and tells ladies to “get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich”.

This is why I get weird looks when I say Cersei Lannister is a really interesting female character.