Five great female video game characters
Women have been part of video games for decades — despite what #GamerGate wants you to think. By Sweta Rana
They are out there, you know. Great women in video games. And they’re not just of the Strong Female Character™ variety, either. Here are five complex, compelling and challenging women that give me a shred of hope for the industry in these appalling #GamerGate times.
Mild spoiler warning
A renowned warrior and respected general, Celes Chere begins FFVI fighting valiantly for the Empire. Unfortunately for Celes, the Final Fantasy series tends to emulate Star Wars, in that the word ‘Empire’ is almost always equivalent to ‘villainous douchebags’. Responsible for many innocent deaths, Celes eventually renounces the Empire, accepting her label as a traitor in favour of a noble cause. For much of the story, she must battle with her own guilt over her past atrocities. Celes can be proud, brash and difficult to warm to (most of the other characters dislike her upon first meeting her), but she is also intelligent, resourceful, and genuinely kind deep down. Plus, she ain’t a half bad soprano.
Blade Runner, the video game adaptation of Ridley Scott’s adaptation of Philip K Dick’s novel, is a curious thing. While Westwood Studios were able to secure the rights to use some of Scott’s cinematic characters, they could not obtain the rights to them all. Thus, many characters in this version of Blade Runner were completely new, including Crystal Steele. Crystal isn’t necessarily likeable, per se. Her firm belief is that the world’s anthropomorphic androids should be mercilessly eradicated is… controversial at best. But she’s a stellar cop, and a vital character, in that her fate is directly tied to the players’ actions. Crystal realistically responds to the protagonist’s decisions, and through the game’s thirteen possible endings, she can suffer a grisly death, escape, or valiantly team up with the main character, Ray McCoy (rights to Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard were evidently not procured).
The overt sexualisation of this character is definitely cause for a considerable facepalm (style aside, that is frankly inappropriate combat attire — no one wants to wield a deadly weapon then suddenly realise their breasts have fallen out). Whilst it may be tongue in cheek it’s a little telling that the only playable female character’s special ability is ‘Sex Appeal’, although one male character does get the more muted armament of ‘Charisma’. Mercifully, there is much more to Jessica than fuel for fanboy wet dreams. A skilled sorceress, she is fierce and determined in her quest to avenge her murdered brother. So desperate for the power to achieve this, at one point she succumbs to dark forces and the rest of the team must actually defeat her in battle. With strengths, weaknesses, and the natural motivations of a grieving sister, it’s a relief to know that Jessica is fully-fleshed in more than one sense.
Tough but far from infallible, Cass was abandoned by her father when she is young. Growing up, she develops her shooting skills and a role as a Water Merchant in Fallout’s water scarce, post-apocalyptic wasteland. Nevertheless, she finds herself a victim of Nevada’s caravan wars, and has to admit she has not been as clever as she would like to believe when she discovers that her caravan has been destroyed. Her trials are exacerbated by her inheritance of both her father’s heart condition and his hard drinking problem. True to form, Cass is first encountered getting smashed at a local bar. But she is no damsel in distress — shrewd, witty and with a zero-level bullshit tolerance, Cass proves she is far more than a list of adversities.
This story of a gruff, bereaved father and a precocious teenager struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world is nothing short of epic. Much of the game’s appeal is down to its nuanced characterisation, and Ellie is a prime example of a female character who is smart and likeable, yet realistically multi-faceted. She is a resourceful fighter, but still enjoys comics and terrible puns. The additional episode Left Behind explores her life before the events of the main game, and delves into her grapples with adolescent self-doubt, sexuality and survival in beautiful and subtle ways. Ellie is a meticulous portrait of a normal teenager born into a chaotic and dangerous world.
Misogyny and prejudice are widespread in the gaming world, and even her companion (and your playable character) Joel can be justifiably described as an overly controlling patriarch. Such chauvinism arguably infects the majority of the industry, but thankfully there are still projects which acknowledge that women are people too. They may be diamonds in a rough landscape right now, but they prove that not all video games are clichéd sausage-fests where women are present solely to provide palpable sexuality and/or rescue-fodder. I am proud to be a female gamer, and pleased to play games with male, female, and non-gendered characters that are grippingly realistic and relatable. Ain’t no #GamerGate crap gonna take that away from me, and I strongly believe the developers of the above games would concur. There is genuine possibility for this minority to become the majority; knowing that keeps me gaming.
Originally published at abstractmag.com on November 14, 2014.
