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+--- Thread: No female playable character in Zelda because Aunuma is sexist (/showthread.php?tid=6972)
No female playable character in Zelda because Aunuma is sexist - A Black Falcon - 14th June 2016
So, there is no female playable character in the new Zelda game because Aunuma is sexist. To explain why there won't be a playable female character in this game that should have one, he said "Zelda isn't playable because then what would Link's role be"? WHAT? That's a ludicrously sexist thing to say, for fairly obvious reasons! It's a modern version of the good old sexist stereotype that 'girls' have no place in adventure stories [because they should stay home, etc.]. This is a stereotype we're breaking down here in the West, but Japan sadly still holds out against the modern world. It's sad given how much I love the Zelda series, and it always has been one of the best in gaming, but that is the only way to explain his incredibly flawed "logic" in the quotes in the OP, sexism, from an older man in one of the most sexist countries in the developed world.
Sadly enough, due to series history and Nintendo's own bad record of womens' roles in their games this is exactly the result I expected, but it's still extremely disappointing even if it is in no way a surprise.
Full quote:
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/why-zelda-breath-of-the-wild-wont-have-a-female-he/1100-6440862/
Quote: During the conversation, which was translated by a Nintendo representative, we asked Aonuma if the rumors of having the option to play as a female version of Link are accurate. He said that he's aware of the conversations happening online, stating: "So yes, there were rumors like that, and we did discuss as a staff as to what would be possible if we took that route."
However, instead of entertaining the idea of the player being able to choose the hero Link's gender, Aonuma said his team considered what they deemed to be the simplest option; making princess Zelda the lead character. "We thought about it," said Aonuma, "and decided that if we're going to have a female protagonist it's simpler to have Princess Zelda as the main character."
This idea was ultimately rejected, because according to Aonuma "...if we have princess Zelda as the main character who fights, then what is Link going to do? Taking into account that, and also the idea of the balance of the Triforce, we thought it best to come back to this [original] makeup."
As for the game otherwise it's looking good, but different, but maybe another thread for that?
No female playable character in Zelda because Aunuma is sexist - Dark Jaguar - 14th June 2016
Yeah the triforce doesn't need genders to "balance" itself. Heck, Ganondorf's a male, so it's already out of balance.
Now, designing an entire campaign for Zelda would be a lot of work, so THAT sort of reasoning I could accept. This though? Yeah, it's pretty shoddy reasoning. Nothing will really come of it though, because Japan is just too far removed from the US for them to care about what english Twitter is saying.
Zelda has had some pretty cool roles anyway. There's no reason both Link and Zelda couldn't be doing stuff. I dunno, they're just too attached to the idea that Link, Zelda and Ganon are symbolically tied to the triforce. Here I was hoping the Hyrule Warriors spinoff would be a great start down the road to allowing characters other than Link to have a leading role now and again. I really don't need Link to ALWAYS be the star, and as I've said time and time again, the only way we're ever going to see a female lead is if Nintendo is willing to let go of the need to ALWAYS star Link in every single Zelda game.
So, all that said, I'm more excited for this upcoming Zelda game than I have been in a good long while. It's a great return to form, with everything having a very strong Zelda 1 inspired design.
No female playable character in Zelda because Aunuma is sexist - A Black Falcon - 15th June 2016
Dark Jaguar Wrote:Yeah the triforce doesn't need genders to "balance" itself. Heck, Ganondorf's a male, so it's already out of balance.No, no. Hero, villain, and girl, those are the three roles. You can't have girl, girl, and villain, that makes no sense!
Yes, it's that kind of crazy-sexist thinking that is the only possible "explanation" for Aunuma's really bad excuse there.
Quote:Now, designing an entire campaign for Zelda would be a lot of work, so THAT sort of reasoning I could accept. This though? Yeah, it's pretty shoddy reasoning. Nothing will really come of it though, because Japan is just too far removed from the US for them to care about what english Twitter is saying.Remember when Ubisoft said that Assassin's Creed couldn't have female characters (even for multiplayer) because doing the animations and stuff would be too much work, and they got a lot of criticism for that? It's not a great excuse because given the scale of these games, of course you could have had a female character too if you care at all. Ubi eventually responded by adding a female character in Syndicate. Nintendo./.. I'm expecting nothing, with their long history of sexism and being incredibly stubborn.
Quote:Zelda has had some pretty cool roles anyway.Sure! Sometimes she does something cool and then gets kidnapped and the hero has to rescue her, other times she gets kidnapped and then does something cool after being rescued, and sometimes she just gets kidnapped, no cool part. Of course, there's a very stereotyped common thread to all of those...
And I know I've said this before, but I do find it quite noteworthy that while EAD/NCL and the games they oversaw with Capcom have never had Zelda playable (excepting moving around spirit statue Zelda in Spirit Tracks), two of the three Western-made Zelda games (the CD-i titles) star Zelda. Of course she's also playable in Hyrule Warriors, which I was hoping might give Aunuma ideas, but sadly he stuck to his sexist standards instead. At this point it is hurting the games to continue refusing to have a playable female character.
Quote: There's no reason both Link and Zelda couldn't be doing stuff. I dunno, they're just too attached to the idea that Link, Zelda and Ganon are symbolically tied to the triforce. Here I was hoping the Hyrule Warriors spinoff would be a great start down the road to allowing characters other than Link to have a leading role now and again. I really don't need Link to ALWAYS be the star, and as I've said time and time again, the only way we're ever going to see a female lead is if Nintendo is willing to let go of the need to ALWAYS star Link in every single Zelda game.I entirely agree with all of this. Link is a good character and I do like playing as him, but have some variety sometimes! This new Zelda game changes a lot of things about Zelda, there is no good defense for sticking with this one.
Quote:So, all that said, I'm more excited for this upcoming Zelda game than I have been in a good long while. It's a great return to form, with everything having a very strong Zelda 1 inspired design.Beyond the gender thing, I'm bnot,. I mean, some things about the game look great, such as the exploration, some of the neat things you can do, combat, etc., but... I, of course, have never cared for open-world games and hate crafting, and both of those things are major focuses of this game. Weapon durability is also not great. And while the art style is pretty good, I'm one of the (I guess few) who think Twilight Princess has the series' best art design, not this somewhat Skyward Sword-like look. This is good, but that's better. Oh, and the simpler music... I don't know, great music is such an important part of the series! I'm sure this game will be very good and do well, but I liked traditional 3d Zelda a lot...
No female playable character in Zelda because Aunuma is sexist - Sacred Jellybean - 16th June 2016
Link is already kind of androgynous, swapping the gender wouldn't make much a difference. It seems to me that the problem is that male gamers would have trouble identifying with a female character, hence the resistance. Why is that? People get so butt hurt that their sacred treasures might be changed in the slightest way.
Is the story really so pivotal on a man rescuing a damsel in distress? I see people on FB arguing unironically that the very essence is that link must be male, as essential as having a sword or being the reborn hero of time. It's not even the same damn character every time! Do Dr. Who fans lose their shit at the prospect of a female doctor? Or are game players specifically a bunch of pedantic purists, more resistant to change and getting out their comfort zones than old white conservatives?
Relying on old tropes is a crutch for the creatively lazy. Even if you don't want to alter Link's gender, at least put in levels with Zelda as a playable character. Give her a more active role than weak woman kidnapped by bad man, need good man to save her. Talk about some caveman bullshit.
No female playable character in Zelda because Aunuma is sexist - Dark Jaguar - 17th June 2016
Their excuses are terrible, but I'm personally not really concerned about it one way or another. Everyone talking about the new Doom and no one's put ID to the question on why Doomguy couldn't be Doomgal. It's a worthy question, and we need more female protagonists in gaming, but it is weird that Zelda is the series that got all the focus.
No female playable character in Zelda because Aunuma is sexist - A Black Falcon - 17th June 2016
Dark Jaguar Wrote:Their excuses are terrible, but I'm personally not really concerned about it one way or another. Everyone talking about the new Doom and no one's put ID to the question on why Doomguy couldn't be Doomgal. It's a worthy question, and we need more female protagonists in gaming, but it is weird that Zelda is the series that got all the focus.
Zelda is an action-adventure game, maybe an action-RPG this time, not a FPS. People have different expectations for the two genres. Doom is an FPS, a game in a very male-heavy genre both in terms of audience and characters. Sure choice might be nice, but it's understandable that the character is male... and anyway, when you're in a first-person view which gender you are isn't quite as obvious as a third-person camera. But in comparison, action-adventure and RPG games have lots of female characters, and more female fans too. There is much more expectation for that kind of game to have a female character option.
Also, Zelda has been getting this focus for many years now, it's not some new thing. The series is one of Nintendo's most popular with core gamers too, which on top of the other reasons above adds to the focus on the series.
Sacred Jellybean Wrote:Link is already kind of androgynous, swapping the gender wouldn't make much a difference.This seems fairly obvious to me, yes. You'd think that this would be obvious to most, but given the climate these days it's hardly surprising that some defend Nintendo here... and I think the core of it is, the more progress in fighting sexism society makes, the more some people lash out against that. It's too bad that Nintendo's conservatism often ends up with them beeing in the behind-the-times camp.
Quote: Relying on old tropes is a crutch for the creatively lazy. Even if you don't want to alter Link's gender, at least put in levels with Zelda as a playable character. Give her a more active role than weak woman kidnapped by bad man, need good man to save her. Talk about some caveman bullshit.The reason why this has frustrated me for so long is that ever since the early '90s, Nintendo has teased with given Zelda a stronger role in Zelda stories... only to pull back every time, never let you play as Zelda, and ALWAYS have her get kidnapped in every game. Zelda helps defeat Ganon at the end of several Zelda stories, after he rescues her, including the 1992 Nintendo Power Zelda comic (where Zelda's actually the one who kills Ganon, after Link freezes him), Ocarina of Time (not in a combat way here, though), Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess. And OoT has Shiek and WW Tetra, for some additional more active Zelda roles... but in both games, as soon as Zelda becomes a regular princess again, she gets kidnapped because that's what you do with princesses, have stupid caveman "rescue the girl" plots with them. Bah. Of course though, this still leaves Zelda with a better role than plenty of other damsel-in-distress characters, in those games at least; many other Zelda games have Zelda in an entirely traditional "rescue-the-girl" role and thjat's it, but at least most of the 3d titles go beyond that... if only Nintendo would notice this. But no, it's "playable Zelda would leave Link with nothing to do" ludicrous backwards sexism.
Seriously, all we need is a Western-made Zelda game again and it'd have playable Zelda in it almost certainly... even back in the early '90s the Zelda cartoon had Zelda in a strong role, on top of 2 of those CD-i games, and we've had a lot of progress since then. It might not be as good as a Nintendo Japan title, of course, though... but it probably would be more representative.
No female playable character in Zelda because Aunuma is sexist - A Black Falcon - 18th June 2016
http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/17/11967010/e3-gaming-gender-balance-feminist-frequency
In this E3, of the games shown at the press conferences and on Nintendo's stream, 41% had male-only playable characters, 3% (two games) had female-only playable characters, 49% let you play as either gender, and 7% are N/A. That high percentage of gender-choice games is good, but the massive disparity of single-gender games is unsurprising, but should be worked on.
No female playable character in Zelda because Aunuma is sexist - Dark Jaguar - 18th June 2016
What do you mean by "different expectations" exactly? Are you saying it's okay to keep the gender male for FPS games but not for adventure games? I'm not sure I can agree on that. It's a double standard.
No female playable character in Zelda because Aunuma is sexist - A Black Falcon - 18th June 2016
I meant different expectations of the audience there, mostly. I mean, shooter fans are mostly males, younger (teens to 30s) men, while RPG fans have a wider age and gender ratio. That alone is going to lead to companies making games differently to hit those different audiences, character gender included. However, you're right that there have been people questioning how few shooters have female characters in them, yes. The shooter audience mostly probably doesn't care that a lot of shooters are males-only, but some people do. I know some modern FPSes have a gender-selection option in multiplayer, which is a good step forwards. Battlefield 1 won't have that, but that is being accurate to the war it's depicting, though that game's hardly some war sim, so if they had included it it'd be defensible. So yeah, I probably was a bit off there, gender does matter in FPSes too... but historically you've seen gender choice a LOT more in RPGs than other genres, surely partially because I've always heard that female gamers often like RPGs.
Beyond that though, Zelda has always been a series I love, while Doom is just a really good game but not something I have some particular attachment to, so personally I can't compare those two -- of course I care far more about wanting a female character in Zelda, and not too much about Doom, that just reflects how much I care about those two franchises in general. Like, yes, it's fun and quite good, but the only version of Doom I've actually beaten is the SNES one...
(and I like SNES Doom, really! It's just obviously a big downgrade from the PC.) I was probably putting that bias in my post there.