Why I Want So Many Female Game Characters

Characters Bayonetta and Jeanne as they appear in Platinum's Bayonetta 2.

I clearly love Bayonetta as a character.  I have spoken about her a few times on this blog regarding a number of subjects. I find her to be a wonderful representation of progression in the Video Game industry, being a powerful and developed female character in a market that mostly lacks anything of the sort. Surely, her place is up for debate, but the place for female characters in general is not. There are simply not enough. Games are a fantasy in more ways than one, but one thing that is not in need of such a treatment is proper representation of people. Society is made up of far more types of people than white, straight, buff men, and video games should show this.

As I said, pegging video games as a fantasy does not justify rash under-representation of different sorts of people. It should be a fantasy world where you take a believable character and put them in a situation different from our own reality (in most cases) and experience everything with them. Not everyone in the world and not everyone playing is a white straight male, so why is there a significant leaning towards this group in most games today?

Asian, Female character Faith as she appears in the upcoming entry in DICE's Mirror's Edge series.

I am frequently one to clamor on that we need more female characters and female leads in big games, and to many, it is seen as me wanting the balance to tilt in women's favor. I understand where this can come from, as I spend huge amounts of time discussing female characters and what can make them great, and never really discuss how we can improve the male characters. This is simply because proportionally speaking, there are far more well-developed male characters than female. 

And gender is far from the only poorly represented group, different races and sexuality are  highly under-represented as well. The character above, Faith from Mirror's Edge and its upcoming successor Catalyst, is a strong female and Asian character with a fair amount of development. Neither her being Asian nor her being female are defining characteristics, just what they should be; factors beyond our control that shouldn't have to define us. In some cases, a characters traits that are beyond their control can define them and they excel because of it. Kanji Tatsumi from Persona 4 is quite a strong example of this. A great amount of his character development arc is spent focusing on his sexuality and his feeling of a need to fit into a typical gender role that society has set out for him. As someone who struggled myself with coming to accept my bisexuality, I can say that they did a brilliant job representing the mental struggle. 

Tremendous Character Ellie as she appears in Naughty Dog's The Last of Us.

The Last of Us was one of the finest games of last generation (and this generation as well thanks to remasters). The writing was brilliant to a degree that was literally hard to believe for a video game. The characters' developments and the interactions between each other were amazing and some scenes were among the finest in all of entertainment, beyond even just games. Ellie, in my and many other people's opinions, is the finest character in the game. Light Spoilers for The Last of Us: Left Behind follow.

Ellie is a 15-year-old young woman. She has a number of hyper realistic character traits that make her fascinating to spend your time with. She is also not straight. Neither of these things are defining factors in her life or for her character. There is one scene in Left Behind that reveals her sexuality, and her gender is never pointed out with the intent of character definition. She is a great character, and that's really the only necessary detail you need as far as those factors beyond her control.

When you take a character that is of an "alternative" group of people and present them in a completely normal manner, not making the factors that make them part of these groups their defining traits, you can make a character with tremendous ease to relate to. These characters are easily liked and enjoyed by people both in and not in "alternative" groups. No one really argues the place of these developed characters when they appear, yet their appearances seem so few and far between. Its really not much more difficult to write a good character of these groups than it is to write one who is a white male. This method is the best and simplest way to begin introducing different types of people through video games to mass audiences. If we spend a couple of years introducing this, we will get to a point where many different groups are represented, and in the industry as a whole, their representation will be proportionally accurate. So, no, I do not want more female characters than males, I just see that we need more good female characters than what we have right now; female characters, non-straight characters, non-white characters, and surely others not mentioned; all these groups should be represented, come together until we reach a point where the people in our games accurately represent the diversity of the people of the world where our games are played.

What sort of diversity do you want to see represented in video games? Do you think this is something we can get done quickly? Let me know in the comment section or wherever you see fit.

Have a tremendous day.