Yes, I've Genuinely Been Waiting For This Age To Make This Entry.

[rionaleonhart]

I turned twenty-two a few weeks ago, and so it seems an appropriate time to post about something that's been troubling me: the ages of female characters in the Final Fantasy series. And videogames in general, and media in general, really, but I'm using the Final Fantasy series in particular to illustrate this problem.

About a year ago, rimon made an entry asking about the sorts of female characters people wanted to see in videogames. Considering this made me realise that, whilst I could easily name a few significant male videogame characters over thirty, thinking of female characters in the same age range was considerably more tricky.

Curious, I looked up all the humanoid main-party characters in the main-series games from Final Fantasy IV to Final Fantasy XII, disregarding characters such as Fran, who is more than fifty years old but looks much younger on account of not being human.

The ages of the male characters ranged from five to seventy.

The ages of the female characters ranged from five to twenty-two.

I love the Final Fantasy series, but this is ridiculous. Beatrix from IX is twenty-eight (and awesome!) and Edea from VIII must be over thirty, but both of these are temporary party members, playable only very briefly. Permanently playable male characters over the age of twenty-two, meanwhile, include Edward, Edge, Yang, Cid (IV), Tellah, Galuf, Locke, Edgar, Sabin, Setzer, Cyan, Strago, Vincent, Cid (VII), Barret, Amarant, Steiner, Wakka, Auron and Basch. That's at least one playable male character older than the oldest female characters in the entire series (Aeris and Lulu*) in every one of these games bar VIII.

And that bothers me. Why do the women always have to be young and pretty? I do love most of the ladies of Final Fantasy, and I don't think for a moment that they're there solely to be attractive; they're characters, with strengths and flaws and insecurities and roles in the plot. But they're limited in age and appearance, and there's no reason for them not to be as physically varied as the men.

I'm not saying that videogames have to stop having young, pretty women in their casts, but would it be too much trouble to include the occasional female character who deviates from that template? Really, now. I don't want to feel that I'm going to be past saving the world from a giant flying whale in a mere twelve months.


* I always thought Lulu was around thirty. I was astonished to realise she was only twenty-two. I mentally age both Lulu and the eighteen-year-old Quistis up eight years when I'm playing their games.

Lulu doesn't look twenty-two, so why make her twenty-two? There's no reason for her not to be thirty. Wakka doesn't look twenty-three, either, so he could have been aged up as well had their romance been a concern.

And, of course, in Final Fantasy X-2 Lulu is twenty-four and, ta-da, no longer a playable character. TWENTY-TWO IS THE ABSOLUTE CUTOFF FOR LADIES TO HAVE ADVENTURES. HERE, HAVE AN EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD INSTEAD. I do like Paine very much, but the way in which Lulu is sidelined does seem a bit odd.

Comments

[eva-kasumi.livejournal.com]

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.

[rionaleonhart]

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?

[eva-kasumi.livejournal.com]

Freya is twenty-one? Freya is twenty-one? What the hell? MAYBE IT IS A TYPO. MAYBE THEY MEANT THIRTY-ONE. I am just going to believe this, it will make me happier.

I agree, Freya is interesting as one of the few female characters who is basically non-sexualized. I'm not sure what it means that a female character has to be a rat in order to be non-sexualized. =/ Then again, most of the male human characters in FF are sexualized as well, but not nearly to the same degree as the females. There has been an increasing lack of shirts for men, though. I can't say I disapprove.

[ravenclaw-devi.livejournal.com]

There's Quina I guess? (More genderless/of undetermined gender than female, but not unequivocally male.) But you have a point.

[imadra-blue.livejournal.com]

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.

Then you'll want to play Final Fantasy XIII, which broke up the pattern. Of them, Vanille is most like the perky girl archetype, but has some backstory that sets her apart from, say, Rikku or Penelo or Yuffie or Selphie, but Fang and Lightning do not fit the other two archetypes. The game is imperfect in design, but I cannot complain about the playable female characters at all. None are love interests (the only female love interest in the game is a NPC). The wide-eyed magic-using ingenue is male. Below, I describe the three ladies. There's minor spoilers, but I tried to keep it generic.

Lightning: Technically speaking, the lead, though the game. No love interest. Dedicated to saving her sister and later the world. Decidedly unfeminine--very militaristic and frequently punches people when angry. 21. NOT the voice of reason--in fact, her anger leads a male in the party to an action that leads to violence. Can be remarkably unsympathetic and is extremely driven.

Fang: Also 21. Kinda crazy. Fight-happy. Smartassed. Worldly, but not reserved. Willing to "tear down the sky" to save her female companion. Strongest member of the party. NOT the voice of reason. In fact, her anger and determination to save her female companion at all costs nearly leads to the entire party's and the world's destruction. Has more experience than the other party members. No love interest!

Vanille: Aged 19. Perky and bubbly--but this is part of her sham to keep up others' spirits. Often lies to protect others and winds up causing more harm than good with these lies. Is emotional. Has more experience than the other party members. Also no love interest, and the one time one of the guys (accidentally) checks her out, his bird cockblocks him. XD

[eva-kasumi.livejournal.com]

I have played it, and I thought about mentioning it as the exception to what I described, but I didn't because, to be honest, I hate it. I do appreciate that it has a female lead, and I do like that Lightning and Fang are your tanks and I like their characters in principle, and I do like that Hope is your healer and that none of the lead girls are love interests (I also loved this about XII). But I don't think the characters are well-rounded at all; they feel more like facades of interesting characters, and it is frustrating because I see how Lightning and Fang and Hope and everyone could be awesome, if only the game let them develop as real people instead of through stock cliche "growth" dialogue that I've seen a hundred times before in every other JRPG I've ever played and that feels entirely unjustified within the plot. Sorry for the rant, this game is just a huge pet peeve of mine at the moment because there was SO MUCH that it did that could have been amazing, and instead it just did all of it badly.

[imadra-blue.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair, I didn't say the game was perfect, nor that you had to like it. I was just pointing out that it broke up the pattern, and the lack of mention made me think you hadn't played it. :)

In response to your opinion, well. I agree FF13 had its disappointments, but I thought it had better characterization than, say, Final Fantasy X, which is my personal pet peeve and I keep stopping about 40% of the way in from dislike of its characters (Tidus and Wakka, mostly--I thought the females were just rehashes of previous FF incarnations, personally). I also had problems with Final Fantasy XII and its rather poor character development (and so many stock fantasy tropes, too), though I did at least enjoy that game and some of its wonderful ideas, so I did finish it. I thought FF13 was a step up in character development, at least to a certain level, but I do agree that it stunted itself and hit more than a few tropes. I had more problem with its lack of NPC development, or that characters (particularly Snow) never break out of their archetypal box. Yet, I still personally liked it better than FF10 or FF12. Then again, I've been playing FF games since FF4 came out, so there is much about the newer FF games (pretty much FF8 on for an oldbie like) that is rehashed to me, and FF13 breaking type likely appealed to me more than the same tired patterns repeated unto death. We all have opinions, so I don't mind your rant. Hope you don't mind my counter.

But regardless of whether you like it, the pattern of female archetypes was broken in FF13, and I do think it's fair to praise the game for that. It's also fair to mention you may hate the game, but I do think it's unfair to wish that the FF series would break archetypal patterns while ignoring the FF game that did.

ETA: I did weant to point out that FF13's flaws prevent it from being my favorite. My favorites tend to include the older games: FF Tactics, FF7, FF4, etc. For me, FF13 was more like FF8 and FF12. Flawed in execution, but has some really great ideas.

[eva-kasumi.livejournal.com]

You're right, I should have pointed out that XIII deviates from the pattern in the first place. But my reason for not doing so was that I feel that it completely undermined what steps forward it had taken in breaking the pattern when it failed to actually develop any of its characters past the tropes it set for them right from the beginning of the game. In previous FFs, the female characters may all have fallen into a set of archetypes, but at least they developed as characters within those archetypes--and yes, I've played plenty of FFs too, I've seen the rehash, but there are still elements within each of the female characters of those games that allows me to love them individually. In my opinion, the characters of FFXIII barely have personalities or development at all. By the end of the game (okay, very near the end, as admittedly I haven't quite beaten it yet), I don't feel that I know any of them as people at all.

So I didn't bring it up because for me, if the characters aren't people, then that completely defeats the point of breaking the pattern to begin with.

[imadra-blue.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. What works for some won't work for others. And I'm by no means trying to change your opinion, especially since some levels, I agree. (Though I actually felt the development of Lightning and Hope was acceptable, if not enough for my liking. But the others never did develop much at all, so I can't argue too much.) I tend to compartmentalization my reactions to everything, so I mention good things even for games I consider failures (i.e. I think FF10 had a brilliant world setting and an interesting storyline). Then again, I'm obviously not shy about sharing my opinions, so I tend to talk too much about everything I think (and wind up alienating people... >.>). My apologies if I'm coming off too strong. I just found it strange FF13 wasn't brought up, was all.

(ETA: Clarification of above. I wouldn't try to change anyone's opinion, even if I didn't partially agree with them, though I'd still argue my own opinion. I respect others feel differently about things, and love things I hate and hate things I love.)

[eva-kasumi.livejournal.com]

No, I hear you, it's fine. I know not everyone agrees with my assessment of XIII. I didn't bring it up because, like I said, I don't think it achieves the gender balancing that it attempts, and also because I knew that if I did it would devolve into a rant about XIII, and I didn't want to do that Riona's journal. But it does attempt to reconfigure gender roles, and I do give it some credit there.