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The Samus Mystique 77

Posted by Zonk from the more-women-in-power-armor-has-to-be-a-good-thing dept.
Gamers with Jobs contributor KatarinLHC has an interesting piece looking at what she calls 'The Samus Mystique', the need for more female characters in games with the chutzpah and level-headedness of Metroid-killer Samus Aran. From the article: "Her independent streak is legendary: Samus always works alone. She explores caves, shoots enemies, and investigates secret passages, all on her own initiative. Her story does not revolve around her being kidnapped or needing rescue. Instead, she is a proactive force in a dynamic world; she does not react to her circumstances but instead interacts with them. She demonstrates a lesson not often taught to young girls, which is that working by yourself can be powerful, gratifying, even joyous."
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The Samus Mystique More

The Samus Mystique

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  • How far we have come... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Errandboy of Doom ( 917941 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @01:28PM (#14016105) Homepage
    ...in heroine [classicgaming.com] attire [apple.com].

  • Heroines who are actualy female. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Does the world need more female main characters in games? Maybe, maybe not.

    If they're going to be heroines who both look an act like women, then yeah, I'll take that. But if they're going to be men with tits then I'd rather just have a male avatar.
    • I don't know, I tend to think if the future of your entire "sex" depends on lessons learned and emulated from videogame characters, you have bigger problems. The entire article that chick wrote was one giant flame-bait. It might have had it's place in 1978, but it's 2005. Time to move on.
      • The point isn't that women derive their entire sense of self from one videogame representation of them.

        1. It's that lots of kids play video games, and some of those play Metroid (including some young girls -- especially the cool ones). People get their views of the world and themselves from many sources, and video games are a potentially influential one since they're often targeted towards the formative years. Whether they actually influence a damn thing is up for debate, but it's certainly possible. A r
    • So true, Token girl heroes in games bug me so much. If you want to write a character who acts like a man, don't bother making a female modle.
  • I'm not sure what to think about this one... can somebody call up the grumpy clerk in the Gamestop in New York and ask him what he thinks?

  • Hmm. (Score:5, Funny)

    by ScaryFroMan ( 901163 ) <scaryfroman@nOSPam.hotmail.com> on Saturday November 12, 2005 @01:43PM (#14016178)
    "She demonstrates a lesson not often taught to young girls, which is that working by yourself can be powerful, gratifying, even joyous."

    I think it would be pretty hard to teach that lesson without taking off her suit...

    • I think it would be pretty hard to teach that lesson without taking off her suit...

      I know. Teaching young girls the "powerful, gratifying" joys of working by themselves just doesn't sound right...

    • Re:Hmm. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Seumas ( 6865 )
      You should go read the comments on that site about the article. It's like everyone forgot that the women's movement ended a long time ago. Girls - you get to vote now. You can be CEOs. You (think) you can be perfect moms *and* professional independant career women all at the same time. Really, you don't have to sit around the house all day bemoaning the fate of women characters in videogames in your blog. You're free now. You can actually go DO stuff.

      I'm all for people being equal (though that does NOT mean
  • People always end up doing this when they make too many issues out race or gender.

    She says she wants people not to judge others based on gender, than says Samus is THE ideal of womanhood. I mean, what's so great about rugged individualism? It doesn't seem so great to me, and it doesn't seem feminine either. I don't want women to become men any more than I want nem to become women, and I certainly don't want women to become Ayn Rand...

    Just stick with the ridiculous clothing complaint, that one makes much
    • 1. I think it matters more what the women whan to be than what you want them to be. (Okay, that one was cheap, I admit....)

      2. Samus isn't Randian, thank god. She might look like it at first, but there is nothing she says that can allow us to make any assured statements about her own views. We don't know what the heck Samus thinks. She does her job, she gets out, if you did it fast enough she takes off some clothes, SEE YOU NEXT MISSION. As near as we can tell from this, she believes in Speed Nudism and
  • Yes it's a joke, but how many old-schoolers really finished the original game, with the proper hack, to know that in the US?
    • In many of the later games, they make it more obvious; for instance, in the Metroid Prime games, it's occasionally possible to see her face's reflection in the visor. Also, in Prime 2, you can see her face pretty well through the visor of the last suit upgrade you get, and it's obviously feminine.
      • Plus it's now in the manual.

        And Zero Mission had a section where she ran around without her suit.
        • That was the most frustrating part of the game. I almost threw my GBA into a wall several times during that sequence. It was almost as bad as the Spider Ball boss in MP2. That almost ruined the whole game for me.
          • Exact same feeling here. If they want to make stealth games they shouldn't make them levels in popular non-stealth games. Same problem with Wind Waker's Forsaken Fortress (first pass).

            I don't think I encountered the spiderball boss but that's because the boost ball boss annoyed me so much I stopped playing.

  • Samus Versus Alis (Score:5, Interesting)

    by feyhunde ( 700477 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @02:25PM (#14016378)
    Samus is cool, but the way she's played her Gender doesn't matter. She is a strong professional, but the games are designed is most of the time her gender is irreverent.

    What I find to be more of an interesting character are the Phantasy Star Alis characters. The original is prolly the first RPG female lead. She's avenging the death of her brother, and does it in a pink dress. She's the swordswoman of the party and has more hp then the other characters. PS1 was also created by a lead female designer.

    Then in PS4 Alys is strong older sister character who teaches the main character everything he knows, and is the strongest character until she dies saving the rest of the party.

    Strong female leads don't have to conform to single feminist view, they can wear pretty pink dresses if they want, and still kick ass.

    • "they can wear pretty pink dresses if they want, and still kick ass."

      I bet you'd like that wouldn't you?
    • Mod up, most insightful post I've seen here in a long time.
    • Samus is cool, but the way she's played her Gender doesn't matter. She is a strong professional, but the games are designed is most of the time her gender is irreverent.

      I'll never forget that friend of mine who played Super Metroid unknowingly, up until he died and Samus' suit flying off death sequence appeared.

      "Why's there a girl in Samus' suit?!"

      Classic.

      Samus' gender has sweet FA to do with how good or bad a game Metroid is, and whether or not female gamers will like it. Female gamers, like males, will pl
  • It's good to give Metroid credit for Samus, true. She's not an overglorified sexual object (*cough* Lara Croft *cough* DOA/Soul Calibur *cough*).

    However, as has been pointed out, there is still the "hidden" (I use this loosely, since it's pretty much standard in every entry of the series and is well known) reward of beating the game in a short time frame which gives you Samus sans suit. This is nothing more than a fan service, and I have no idea where to place this. Is this objectification? Or not?

    On t
    • And what exactly is wrong if it is objectification?

      We base our entire choice of sex-partner, mate and societal/species evolution and propegation on objectification. You think women (and society in general) don't pick and judge males on a certain set of objectified traits such as height, weight, income, profession and posession? Men and women and society objectify each other in every way possible - especially when choosing who we're interested in sexually and who we are interested in as characters. Why do yo
      • You can rationalize it all you want, but I think this is the real issue - 'objectification' or depersonification is also used to describe the way we treat other people as objects, in particular the way men can treat women as sex 'objects'. By reducing other people to things, it permits us to treat them with less care and human concern, bypassing our values around this subject.

        • Re:Better than the rest, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Mattintosh ( 758112 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @11:37PM (#14018635)
          By reducing other people to things

          Umm... People are things. So are trees. So are rocks. So are pieces of paper, houses, shingles on the roof of a house, shingles still in stacks at the hardware store, and boobies. And when I say boobies, I mean... well, about 4 or 5 different things. Red-footed, blue-footed, masked, udders, teats, and a HUGE RACK.

          Things are things. See also: Noun.

          This is why I hate people that gripe about objectifying other people. Our brains perceive everything as an object, including other people! That's just the way we as humans work. We even have names for objects that represent groups of objects. Words like "traffic" or "galaxy". We have names for objects that represent groups of people, like "race" and "nationality". Our brains identify, clarify, and categorize everything around us.

          And then someone gets all touchy-feely and has a fit because they don't like how they're being treated by someone. Here's my advice to that person: walk away. Just walk away and ignore it. They're either clueless or they're baiting you. If you throw a fit, more people will notice, then there will be larger doses of people baiting you, while the rest of everyone who still doesn't give a rat's ass about your problem will begin finding ways to hate you. And the more the baiters get you to gripe, the more people hate you, and the haters' numbers will grow. And then you'll whine and cry and bitch and piss and moan until everyone hates your guts and/or pokes you with a stick to get you to make more fuss. And then (hopefully) someone will shoot you and put you out of our misery. Yes, that's your choice: walk away and shut the hell up or die a miserable death.

          Erm... sorry. I got a little carried away there.
          • That's just semantics...and a gross oversimplification...you have to differentiate between inanimate "objects" (hardware stores, houses, shingles, RACKS, etc) and people - inanimate "objects" lack the dimensions that human "objects" have: thoughts, feelings, hope, aspirations, love, hate, etc.

            Reducing someone to an object means just that - you might as well be treating them like rock.

            Games pander to and are created by men who "tend to" objectify women - duh! It's a boyz club and the girls want in.
    • I could be wrong here, but I wanted to say that it would only count as objectification if she were to be portrayed in a hugely sexual manner. I haven't beaten the Primes but from my experience with the original games, it was meant more like a "guess what - you just kicked all that ass by playing a girl." I mean, if she were bent over licking her phaser arm with a glazed look on her face, with dead space pirates all around her, sweat dripping...off....of.....

      Damn, that would be hot.

      Joking aside, perh
      • Yeah. I agree with your point. I don't find them objectifying. I was just wondering if any women would consider the endings objectification? Of course, it's no more objectifying than your local lingerie model. *shrugs*

        On a somewhat unrelated note, yay for Mother 3 almost being done!
  • Who the hell describes playing video games as "joyous"? Don't undercut the valuable ideals of equality by pandering to women with vacuous, feel-good language.
    • Who the hell describes playing video games as "joyous"? Don't undercut the valuable ideals of equality by pandering to women with vacuous, feel-good language.

      I do, muthafucka!

      Indeed, I can't think of a more appropriate adjective to explain Katamari Damacy. Sometimes, the word fits.
    • Who doesn't? Games should evoke a range of emotions. One of the strongest I've felt was the sense of wonderment the first time you walk into the fountain of the Great Fairy in Zelda Ocinara of Time.

      If the only emotions in the games you play are anger and rage then you are really missing out.

  • Metroid Makes the Gender Arbitrary (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quantax ( 12175 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @03:03PM (#14016538) Homepage
    While I agree with the author that more realistic renditions of females as people as opposed to objects needs to be done, I hardly consider Samus to be representative of this as her sex is completely arbitrary to the gameplay and in fact is only revealed in the very end of Super Metroid in a 'look whos inside' type of way. In fact, I would argue that No One Lives Forever, even with Cait Archer wearing her sexy jumpsuits, makes for a better female role than Samus as she actually speaks and makes her personality known throughout the game. While shes still representative of the sexual-object female spy, its done purposefully tongue-in-cheek the entire time, and her lines do not lend towards her being a 'dumb broad with guns'.

    Another and better example is Alyx from Half-Life 2: Shes dressed sensibly and while cute, is not super-hot or a walking example of anatomical disproportion. Her lines are ones you'd expect from an intelligent person in her situation and shes more than capable of fending for herself as she does many times in the games, sometimes it seemed better than yourself as Gordon. Other than Alyx, its hard to name a female character that is like her in her sensibilities and generally realistic interactions; she was a person. Even Cait Archer is a purposeful stereotype for all her interactions & cleverness.

    I look forward for the day that females in games are representated as people and not simply as women.

    • While I agree with the author that more realistic renditions of females as people as opposed to objects needs to be done, I hardly consider Samus to be representative of this as her sex is completely arbitrary to the gameplay and in fact is only revealed in the very end of Super Metroid in a 'look whos inside' type of way.

      The idea is that women can do the same things as men can, right? So you've got various male characters in the Castlevania series kicking zombie butt through various locales, and you've

      • The fact that the designers chose to use a woman rather than a man is, in my opinion, rather progressive, especially since she doesn't romp around in her undergarments whilst killing aliens.

        It's more likely to be indicative of the designers being influenced by the Alien films but not being able to feature a pixelated woman wearing underwear. I suppose that It was progressive enough of them to keep the character as a woman instead of using generic male action hero #3.

        As for the bigger breakthrough of
    • What I love about women like this are that they whine and moan about how all men want to see in movies and videogames is hot stereotypical slender, big-breasted, young attractive women. They say men aren't open-minded enough and are too obsessive with physical aspects.

      These same women almost never have an issue with men having to play the stereotypical bread-earning, work from birth to death, live shorter lives, provide stabilitiy and security roles, do they? And these same women (I've been around them in g
    • ### in fact is only revealed in the very end of Super Metroid in a 'look whos inside' type of way

      Little correction, in the NES and Gameboy parts its only revealed in the end and only if you beat the game fast enough, in SuperMetroid, MetroidFusion and MetroidZero its already revealed when you die, since then the suit explodes away and you can see who is in there.

      Beside from that you are right, the female in Metroid is nothing more then a running gag, it doesn't matter to the game itself at all.
    • I look forward for the day that females in games are representated as people and not simply as women.

      You mean, perhaps in a game that makes a female character's gender completely arbitrary and irrelevant to the plot?

      It seems to me that you've just asked for exactly what you criticized Metroid for delivering.

  • Samus? (Score:1)

    by Seumas ( 6865 )
    SAMUS?!

    I've been ripped off. Call my IP lawyer!

    PS: I don't care about gender in a game. I care about gameplay and character development. And no, I don't necessarily want to play a fat chunky ugly female character rather than a hot big-titted one, but I don't want to play a fat ugly chunky loser male character either. Male characters in games are just as "stereotyped" and generic and unoriginal as the female ones. So what? So are magazine covers. So are movies. So are characters in most books. So are most an
    • Male characters in games are just as "stereotyped" and generic and unoriginal as the female ones. So what? So are magazine covers. So are movies. So are characters in most books. So are most anime characters. My vote goes to stop whining and start playing more.

      But what if we don't want to play more, because of all the afore-mentioned steretypes? Because we have the same opinion on those movies, books and (especially) anime characters?

      Flat characters DO have a role to play, even in good writing. But most h
      • Well, then stop playing those games. Movies have attractive, stereotypical characters in them, because that's what sells. You go to see a movie, becuase Angelina Jolie is in it - not because Kathy bates is in it. You can say "but that's not what I want" and that's fine, but you're not the majority and commercial success lies in satisfying the majority of people.

        So you can have games where you play a balding middle aged chunkster in his mom's basement or a weflare queen with six kids and four ex husbands liv
        • Well, then stop playing those games.

          I already do. But the economics of opportunity are getting in the way; companies can make more money by sinking it into dreck than into the next Katamari.

          You go to see a movie, becuase Angelina Jolie is in it - not because Kathy bates is in it.

          NO comma I DO NOT period

          Indeed, over time it seems to me that the "hotness factor" of the lead actress is mattering less and less.

          Movies have attractive, stereotypical characters in them, because that's what sells.

          Actually, they se
  • If Samus's abilities make her worthy of feministic respect, surely this guy [75thtrombone.com] represents hope for the end of annelid disenfranchisement everywhere!
  • is that her femininity isn't shoved into your eyeballs every 5 seconds. It's not 'SAMUS IS A WOMAN, SAMUS IS A WOMAN', only at the end do we find she's a she. It's cooler that way because you can kind of forget you're playing as a woman and concentrate on the *game*, which is most important.

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