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rionaleonhart) wrote2023-11-22 01:02 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2023-11-22 01:02 pm
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I Also Complain About Female-Led Films Disproportionately Being Romantic. I'm Never Happy.
Can anyone think of examples of videogames where the protagonist inevitably has a romance with a male character? Not games with romance options, but games in which romance with a specific male character is part of the story and every player will experience it, regardless of their choices, in the same way Nate of Uncharted or Ellie of The Last of Us or Squall of Final Fantasy VIII unavoidably have romantic storylines with specific female characters? This isn't for a project or anything; I'm just curious.
It's weirdly hard to think of examples. Abby has sex with Owen in The Last of Us, Part II. I think Jodie always has a romance with Ryan in Beyond: Two Souls (Ryan is the worst, but that's neither here nor there). There's Evie/Henry in Assassin's Creed: Syndicate (I hesitated on this one because Jacob's billed as the primary protagonist, although, to be fair, Jacob also gets kissed by a man), and there's Transistor, where you're always in love with your sword who is also a dude. Other than that, I'm drawing a bit of a blank.
I'm not counting cases like Mike/Jess in Until Dawn, where you play both halves of an M/F pairing. I suspect these cases sidestep the gaming industry's weird reluctance to have male love interests because, if you look at it from the other protagonist's perspective, it's a female love interest.
Final Fantasy X-2 and XIII-2 are both games with female protagonists who had a romance with a male character in the previous game, for which they weren't the main character. In both cases their male love interest happens to be absent for almost the entire game in which they're the protagonist, which is an interesting pattern in light of the scarcity of male love interests for game protagonists generally.
The gaming industry is definitely showing an increasing willingness to have female protagonists, which is great. (Since 2014, I've been keeping a list of the games I've played in which the protagonist is female; the number of games on the list has nearly quadrupled from ten to thirty-six, twenty of which were released in the last decade.) I wonder, though, if the industry as a whole still thinks 'but the player will obviously be male, so you can't let the character they're controlling kiss a boy; that would be gay'.
I think it's cool that a lot of female videogame protagonists either have female love interests or have stories that aren't about romance at all; I'm definitely not saying that the protagonist should have to kiss boys in every videogame. But it does feel like there's an odd absence here.
It's weirdly hard to think of examples. Abby has sex with Owen in The Last of Us, Part II. I think Jodie always has a romance with Ryan in Beyond: Two Souls (Ryan is the worst, but that's neither here nor there). There's Evie/Henry in Assassin's Creed: Syndicate (I hesitated on this one because Jacob's billed as the primary protagonist, although, to be fair, Jacob also gets kissed by a man), and there's Transistor, where you're always in love with your sword who is also a dude. Other than that, I'm drawing a bit of a blank.
I'm not counting cases like Mike/Jess in Until Dawn, where you play both halves of an M/F pairing. I suspect these cases sidestep the gaming industry's weird reluctance to have male love interests because, if you look at it from the other protagonist's perspective, it's a female love interest.
Final Fantasy X-2 and XIII-2 are both games with female protagonists who had a romance with a male character in the previous game, for which they weren't the main character. In both cases their male love interest happens to be absent for almost the entire game in which they're the protagonist, which is an interesting pattern in light of the scarcity of male love interests for game protagonists generally.
The gaming industry is definitely showing an increasing willingness to have female protagonists, which is great. (Since 2014, I've been keeping a list of the games I've played in which the protagonist is female; the number of games on the list has nearly quadrupled from ten to thirty-six, twenty of which were released in the last decade.) I wonder, though, if the industry as a whole still thinks 'but the player will obviously be male, so you can't let the character they're controlling kiss a boy; that would be gay'.
I think it's cool that a lot of female videogame protagonists either have female love interests or have stories that aren't about romance at all; I'm definitely not saying that the protagonist should have to kiss boys in every videogame. But it does feel like there's an odd absence here.
no subject
Weelllll (and spoilers definitely follow, heads up) in Fatal Frame you play as Miku, a sixteen-ish year old high school girl. She and her elder (early 20s) brother, Mafuyu, can "see things other people can't see" (i.e: ghosts and spookums.) Their mother commit suicide due to being overwhelmed by her power when Miku was a child, leaving Mafuyu to raise his sister. Miku's very insular, and her world seems to revolve around her brother as her sole support system.
In the game's prologue, Mafuyu goes to the alledgely cursed Himuro Mansion where a famous author-- and Mafuyu's mentor-- recently went missing. Unfortunately, Mafuyu also goes missing, so the game proper has the player take Miku through the mansion, chasing after the specter of her brother. Their relationship, to me, read kind of odd, but they seemed to be brother/sister and that was it. Probably. The game ends with Mafuyu, who's still alive, choosing to willingly die to be with the Onryo of a shrine maiden whow as wronged in life, and who's suffering binds a Hellmouth from opening and a calamity from occuring. Miku is left completely alone, broken and traumitized from the event. Roll credits!
Miku returns in Fatal Frame 3, now around 18-19, and has moved in with a slightly older gal named Rei. Rei's deceased fiancee was friends with Mafuyu, so they took in Miku when she had no where else to go. This game involved Rei and Miku going to the "Manor of Sleep" in their dreams, a place where the bereaved are summoned when they no longer have the will to live. Miku's parts involve her chasing the spectre of her brother (again) in the dream manor to reunite with him. She's also super sapphic with Rei (we stan) and in the end, Rei saves them both and they resolve to find the will to live... together.
Except psych, because Fatal Frame 5 takes place years later and we learn that Mafuyu's spirit came to Miku in the dream manor to give her inspiration to live, and by inspiration to live I mean- and I really don't know how to put this delicately- some ghost dick. So Miku ends up pregnant (!) with her brother's (!!) ghost baby (!!!) which drains a bunch of her life force, so she gives birth and then dissapears to go get ghost married (!!!!) in a ceremony to her brother (!!!!!) who's sorta-technically promised to the suffering shrine maiden from the first game (I'm outta exclamation points).
So, yeah. Retroactive incest.
no subject
no subject
If you ever get a chance to play the franchise give it a try haha