Will Final Fantasy XV's Cid be a Lady?

[Psychotic]

Daniel at this point you should just say "Actually, yeah, you know what? I love tits. It sucks that females are marginalised and over sexualised in this game but that's a price I'm willing to pay for teh b00bz."

[Shlup]

I haven't read every post and can't respond properly anyway because I'm heading into the Christmas madness and am posting on my phone, but I can see now that the issue with you, at least, Daniel, is a genuine complete not understanding what "se ualized" means. That's fine; I will be happy to give you examples and help clarify the difference. First it would help if you would take your list of male FF examples and explain how they fit the definition of sexualized.

[Loony BoB]

Psy: xD As much as I love boobs, and have no denying of that, I'm not "wanting to marginalise women because boobs", I'm just tryin' to get my head around all this in a way that helps me understand where the ladies are coming from better because a loooot of stuff in this thread has had my head going around in circles.


This is a fantasy based on reality.

Now tell me, how many mechanics have you seen dressed like that in real life?
None. Haven't seen many soldiers in the real world who enter combat dressed in an open jacket either - silly costumes is something that I consider normal in FF. And often silly = for the sake of increasing physical attractiveness or general "coolness".


Then this new game comes along and goes "hey guys look Cid is male this time" and all he's wearing is a Borat G-string to show off his bulge, some goggles and has a few splashes of oil on his face to warrant being called a mechanic. Pretty unbelievable right?
Well, a borat suit isn't exactly very attractive by any length. If it was a guy dressed in, say, boxers of some kind, I'd think it was really silly. But I wouldn't get upset, I'd just think it's a stupid outfit for a mechanic. Of course, I see guys working on cars with no shirt in the media all the time which may not help the issue there (I'm stupid when it comes to that end of things) and it probably doesn't help my natural understanding of this stuff when guys, if anything, might not mind being treated like sex objects every now and then. >_> Or at least I wouldn't. I'm not what many people refer to as sexy so on the few occasions a girl has looked at me and made some kind of comment about my physical appearance I've been pretty chuffed (sadly to this day it is limited to my hands, my abs when I was 15 and shivering from a cold pool - RIP my 15 year old abs - and my butt which I never understand because to this day I just don't understand why people like butts).


This is the issue here, Cidney is the first time Cid has been female and she is a) not wearing attire remotely suitable for an actual mechanic (this would potentially be a minor point, but this is a game that's supposed to be more grounded in reality after all - and the other females we've seen like Luna and Stella are modestly dressed... one could even go so far as using the word "normally" dressed) and b) has huge boobs that are gratuitiously held out in what could only be described as a gravity defying push-up bra.
Experience tells me otherwise when girls say something like this. :shifty: For her frame, they're definitely big, though.


So yay, Cid is female for a change - but also had to be overly sexualised as a result. Because just putting her into mechanics overalls (ala Kaylee from FireFly) would be far too unrealistic. Right?
To be fair, Kaylee - looks aside - was a pretty sexual creature when compared to Cindy.

But yeah, I get where you're coming from with the "historic" stuff. It's the first time she's been sexualised and she's a girl. I would call it a bad choice by SE because of the natural backlash it was going to get. If it were the second girl, or if a Cid had previously been a mechanic and topless, would there have been the same fuss? I do wonder. As for "Fantasy based on reality" - I take that with a gigantic pinch of salt (and I'm grateful it's not set in reality) because aside from the shape of cities and the fact that while the clothes are absurd for what they're doing, they're still clothes you see in the real world... it's all still blatantly fantasy. Which is a relief for me.

I get this argument a lot better than I get the rest of the sexualising arguments vs. gender arguments. I think that's the part that has me thrown for a loop.

I do think a lot of this comes from a completely different way of looking at sexualisation between genders, though. Firstly that guys just don't mind being sexualised nearly as much as girls (probably for social/cultural/historic reasons), secondly that boobs are something that differ between genders and therefore there is a kind of double standard based on that (which I personally disagree with but accept that I can't snap my fingers and change society, culture or decades of history and beliefs or whatever), and finally that we typically (according to studies!) find different kinds of states of dress more/less attractive than each other.

But as for "was it a bad call?" - yeah, if they wanted to get someone skimpy clothing they should probably have gone for a different character, I guess, to avoid the historic ties to Cid and a backlash based on that.

However, if there were no historic ties to Cid to consider, if I had never known of Cid's history... I don't think I'd have blinked. If it were any other character, I wonder if anyone would have blinked. I certainly don't think that it's something to do with wearing reasonable clothes for a job because that's something that is par for the course at Final Fantasy and this being a "fantasy based on reality" doesn't mean all the clothes are going to be reasonable. I'd say the guys don't all have reasonable clothing, one girl so far doesn't, and I'm pretty confident we'll see more characters with stupid clothing before we're done with 'em.

Shlup (you snuck in after I'd typed up the above): I think I get it a little better now although I'm still not 100% certain. Is it simply a case of sexualised = has what are considered sexual organs being "on display" when there is no story-relevant reason to do so? So it's like... Tifa is fine because she works at a bar so wears clothes typical to that job (although the question could be raised whether they should be relevant to that job, but that's waaaaay off topic), Kimahri is fine because he's tribal, Fran is fine because she's tribal, Vanille is fine because it's some special attire for a ceremony she was going through for her tribal thing, but Rikku in a bikini for FFX-2 is not, Kuja in a codpiece while acting as a gundealer is not, Ultimecia's boobs are blatantly sexualised and you can throw your Cidney into the pile for the reasons mentioned throughout this thread?

Something like that, I'm gathering.

[Ayen]

If it were any other character, I wonder if anyone would have blinked.

They would have.

[Karifean]

If it were any other character, I wonder if anyone would have blinked.

They would have.

Significantly fewer people though.

[Loony BoB]

Probably a similar level to when LeBreau kicked in.

[Ayen]

There'd be one less argument to present, that's it. Removing her connection to Cid wouldn't change people's perspectives on the outfit.

[Karifean]

There'd be one less argument to present, that's it. Removing her connection to Cid wouldn't change people's perspectives on the outfit.

True. It would still affect fewer people in the first place. The fact that she's a Cid causes more people to care about it.

[Aulayna]

Just watch the first 50 seconds of this (note things like the camera angles used etc)

GQ6TcgcYpPs

And you're right, more people probably do care because she's Cid. One of the "recurring" characters who has had some sort major role in the majority of main-numbered Final Fantasy games, and the first time Cid is female - she is unnecessarily over sexualised. The real kicker here is that it is especially evident when taking her in comparison to the rest of the known XV cast. Though to be quite honest, I imagine any character posed as a mechanic dressed in a similar way would elicit a similar reaction regardless of the namesakes history.


this being a "fantasy based on reality" doesn't mean all the clothes are going to be reasonable. I'd say the guys don't all have reasonable clothing, one girl so far doesn't, and I'm pretty confident we'll see more characters with stupid clothing before we're done with 'em.

I didn't say reasonable, I said believable as practical (if high-market) everyday fashion. Again in relation to the rest of the known cast, so far Cidney sticks out like a sore thumb compared to everyone else. The guys are wearing what you could reasonably believe teenage/early-20s would be wearing. Is what the guys wearing suitable for combat, not really, but that's pretty much something that falls into suspension of disbelief when their attire would otherwise look relatively normal for who they are.

Luna is from nobility and is dressed modestly, like wise from the very little of we've seen of Stella since the re-design she's pretty modestly dressed. The Regis looks formal, the leader of the empire looks regal. Cidney, however, looks one jacket zip strip away from being a pole dancer at a roller disco, not something you might reasonably believe someone who works with machines all day would be wearing. Have you ever worked with oil? It's an absolute bastard to wash off your skin and clothes, no-one in their right mind would dress like Cidney is if being a mechanic was their daily profession.

She is so out of place stylistically with the rest of what we've seen thus far. On that note, watch the later footage of them running around the town and tell me how many people you see who are dressed similar to Cidney.

If everyone was going around dressed like they were at a high school roller disco, or all the guys were in leather pants and their pecs showing and all the girls were in frimpy frilly mini skirts and too-small/tight-to-contain-their-boobs-tops, then yeah, it would probably be given more leeway as an "oh Japan, you so crazy" aesthetical choice (not that it's necessarily an any better situation, but that's something for another thread).

But in this case, Cidney is the odd one out, and that's what people are crying fowl over. While character development story-wise, SE don't always have the greatest track record with major female characters (see Raistlin's sexism series) - at least the majority of them post-VI, design wise, haven't fallen into the male voyeurism bracket that plagues the RPG genre.

Perhaps, maybe, people have come to expect (or at least hope for) more from Final Fantasy than needing to show off an over-sexualised token eyecandy female?

[Spooniest]

I think SE have made it abundantly clear that the whole "taking on significant sociopolitical issues" thing was just a phase they were going through with FFVI, and they really have no intention of taking the player any more seriously than the series did at that point.

Things like the cheap eye-candy Cid we've been given show that they're not paying as much attention to the story as I would like, which I find troubling. I've always had a red flag go off in my mind whenever an entertainment program (or commercial, as it were) tried to use sex to get my attention (and presumably my money, too). I make it a point to treat what I am about to hear/see/do with extreme scrutiny whenever a sexy image is used as part of the hook.

It's pandering to the lowest common denominator, and I wish Final Fantasy would grow up along with me, but it's been made clear by those who gatekeep for the series that they do not want to "grow the series up," as it were.

:/ One of those things in life that just needs to be accepted, dealt with, and moved on from, I guess.

[Shlup]

For the next two days I`ll be awkwardly typing on a tablet, so please forgive the lack of citations. If you want a citation I woul consider it a personal favor if you would try google first, but if you request a citation I will of course find one.



When, in a specific game and/or series, I feel the genders are sexualised and/or not sexualised to a reasonably equal degree (gender-wise), no, I don't care. If, such as in a game like Dead or Alive, we see it blatantly one-sided, I think it's bad. Doesn't mean I'm going to lose my trout, but I feel these games go too far. They're entitled to make these games and like yourself, I'm entitled to not buy them, but hey, whatever. Still, I can see the appeal of these games to people who are seeking titilation without the use of outright porn. I won't kick up a stink about it, but I'm happy to state my opinion on any particular game and/or series if I have one and feel like putting it out there. FF just happens to be a series close to my heart and if I feel people are overreacting, I'm just as happy - if not even happier, due to the series being something I'm fond of - to express my opinion on it.

I'll also note that when I feel they go too far, I still express an opinion against Final Fantasy - such as in the case of Fran, which I personally felt was ridiculous. But some people - interestingly often female - like that, so I wasn't going to make a huge fuss.
I appreciate the clarification.



Gladiolus. Tidus. Barret. Snow. Gadolt. Kuja (although personally I imagine that the majority of girls are more likely to find other characters sexier than Kuja, like Basch, because girls tend to prefer the feather to the whole damned chicken, which I personally agree with but hey, if you like the codpiece, power to you).
Aside from Gladiolus's open shirt, I have no idea why you'd consider these characters sexualized. Please be specific.


Keep in mind these objective facts: The oldest [human] female character is Lulu at 22 and oldest male is Strago at 70. At least FFIV Cid (54), Yang (35), Tellah (60), Edward (24), Fusoya (?), Edge (26), Galuf (60), Locke (25), Edgar (27), Sabin (27), Cyan (50), Strago (70), Setzer (27), Barrett (35), Vincent (27), Steiner (33), Amarant (26), Auron (35), Wakka (23), Basch (36), Sazh (40) playable male characters are older than 22-year-old Lulu; not counting temporarily playable characters over 22 (Laguna, Kiros, Ward, Seymour), characters of unknown age other than obviously elderly Fusoya (Shadow and Gogo), and non-humans 25-year-old Kimahri and 46-year-old Red.
I've acknowledged already that the age thing is something they can work on.[/quote]
What happened to "fair and equal"?



There are no non-humanoid female characters.
Freya. Unless you mean non-humanoid in a more loose term, in which case there's probably only been one non-humanoid ever, Red XIII. All the rest have two arms, two legs, a vertical torso, a neck, a head, etc.
I would call Freya humanoid but Can't With non-humanoid being that he's a cat.



To my knowledge, no male characters pose in a way designed http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131228200629/finalfantasy/images/2/24/Lulu_Victory_Pose.png.
It's a bit unfair as males don't have boobs or any kind of "secondary sex characteristics" I can think of according to society. We've just got the genitalia, which to my knowledge isn't exaggerated in either gender beyond that seen in Kuja.
Men have many secondary sex characteristics, they just aren't sexualized as women are. Women's bodies are sexualized to the point where women are being shamed out of feeding their babies and told that they need to cover their shoulders so as not to "distract the boys." The most noticable secondary sex characteristics on boys are increased muscle tone and widened shoulders, yet boys are not told to cover their shoulders or biceps to avoid distracting the boys, and a man can walk down the street without a shirt on freely. In some places women can be assaulted or killers for exposing something deemed sexualized to that culture, while many places will laugh at you for thinking boobs are sexy because they're "for babies." Where in the world is a man slut shamed for showing a body part?

I understand you get that inequality exists and that all of the above is bad, but you seem unwilling to apply that knowledge to the world as you live in it. Men are harder to sexualized simply because men, as a whole, are less sexualized.

Yes, I understand you feel women buying into this as well justifies the disparity. Both videos I posted address this briefly... We are socialized early and often that a female's value is her body. Do you believe women are somehow immune to socialization? This is not an issue with men; it's an issue with all of society.

I feel like I'll need to expand on how socialization leads both genders to sexualize/idealize/"appreciate" the female body, but I'll leave it at that for now.


...Aeris? >_>; But kidding aside, again, I don't think we can say much of this for anyone. Has sex ever actually been a thing in FF? Personally speaking, I think sexualised should include "being dressed inappropriately for ones role for the sake of gaining sexual appeal via physical attraction." If one of the above was meant to equate to that, it goes back to "is it sexy, is it relevant for what they do" and we're back to what we've been discussing earlier.
That last bit would refer to such things as Cidney working on cars in fuck me boots and Tifa kick boxing in a microskirt with her painfully large cans. It does mean people wearing clothes that don't make sense for the reason of appealing to someone else.


I'm troubled here because every single guy I can think of that is supposed to be sexually attractive appears to be muscular (and therefore powerful) because that is what is deemed to be sexy according to most females. So I could tell you Gladiolus, and you could say "No, he's strong, that's a power thing." And I don't know where to go from there because it's down to how you personally want to interpret it. The guy legitimately looks like a male model, to me at least.
Well apparently you think Barrett is dressed for the express purpose of arousing me, so you're right to not trust you judgment.


Really, I think before we can go much further, you need to send me examples of sexualised males (...probably better to do so via PM or something) so I can get a better understanding of your interpretation of what they should look like. I've grown up being told (by females) that male wrestlers in tiny pants was not something they found attractive, but I'm getting the impression that this is what you mean by sexualised, because I'm unsure what else it could be.
You're confusing exposed skin with sexualization. A skirt with a slit up the thigh is sexualized; a gymnist running toward a vaulting horse in her leotard is not sexualized, despite showing more leg.

Note that you're often dismissing examples because a hyper sexualized male seems ridiculous; this kind of proves the point--you said yourself that you don't even blink at hypersexualiuzed female character, yet this just looks silly:

http://fitpop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Sexy-Supermen-Head.gif

...That's all I have time for; it's present opening time.

[Vyk]

I think SE have made it abundantly clear that the whole "taking on significant sociopolitical issues" thing was just a phase they were going through with FFVI, and they really have no intention of taking the player any more seriously than the series did at that point.

Things like the cheap eye-candy Cid we've been given show that they're not paying as much attention to the story as I would like, which I find troubling. I've always had a red flag go off in my mind whenever an entertainment program (or commercial, as it were) tried to use sex to get my attention (and presumably my money, too). I make it a point to treat what I am about to hear/see/do with extreme scrutiny whenever a sexy image is used as part of the hook.

It's pandering to the lowest common denominator, and I wish Final Fantasy would grow up along with me, but it's been made clear by those who gatekeep for the series that they do not want to "grow the series up," as it were.

:/ One of those things in life that just needs to be accepted, dealt with, and moved on from, I guess.
I feel you on that one. I think this is exactly why Type-0 is resonating with me more than XV currently is. I mean yeah, they're in school, which is Japanese Fiction 101 these days, but other than that, the story seems intended for a more mature audience than your average FF, the characters (though girls in school uniforms may get a rise, but its Japan, they don't know any other type of uniform for girls) nobody seems all that sexualized, and the story, setting, atmosphere, all seem to take both the characters and (more importantly) the player more serious than the FFXIII saga, and possibly XV.

But again, I'm only half following things, and I've probably made that a little too clear by my ignorance on certain things. I still don't know what this girl's name is. People are switching between calling her Cidney and Cindy, and I'm not sure why we went back to calling her Cindy

[Psychotic]

SO STOP BUYING THEIR GAMES FOR CHRIST'S SAKELate, but I just saw this video and it made me think of this post. It explains why boycotts don't really work and provides actual examples (Mass Effect 3 for one!) where having a massive online bitchfest actually does influence things.

Strong language, kiddos.
xn-fxiCIX6w

[Shlup]

Heh, I like that video.

Anyway, now that I'm home I want to clarify what "sexualization" means. For the sake of this, and because we're talking about general sexualization and not sexual objectification, we'll go with the basic dictionary definition of sexualization: "to make sexual; endow with a sexual character or cast," as it kind of encompasses all of the APA's definitions anyway. This can come in the form of the subject suggesting a receptiveness to sexual advances by use of clothing, poses, facial expressions, environment, narrative (for example, an innocent enough picture with a sexual innuendo as text). There's also, as BoB has noted, the audience imposing sexuality on a subject without any of the above.


http://img2-3.timeinc.net/people/i/2008/specials/sma08/hjackman/sma_cover2.jpg
http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/2007/specials/sexiest_man/covers/11_13_00_300x400.jpg
http://www.star941fm.com/pages/funphotos/sexiest/bradley-cooper-sexiest-man-alive-cover.jpg
http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/2007/specials/sexiest_man/covers/11_26_01_300x400.jpg
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1523651!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_970/people-clooney.jpg



http://cdn.evilbeetgossip.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/scarlett-johansson-esquire.jpg
http://www.esquire.com/cm/esquire/images/6S/esq-11-kate-beckinsale-1109-mdn.jpg
http://sidewalkhustle.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/09/Esquire-Magazine-presents-Mila-Kunis-as-the-Sexiest-Woman-Alive-2012-Cover.jpg

Showing skin in and of itself doesn't make someone sexualized. For example...


Obviously the audience often chooses to objectify women in these outfits, but that's their own personal issue and may or may not be a problem depending on degree and frequency.

I will note, though, that men's volleyball players don't seem to "need" tiny shorts in order to do their sport. Though I suppose their balls would fall right out of them anyway. You could also make the argument, for the swimmers, that women's swimwear being designed to be more revealing than men's is an issue. You could also make the argument that women being forced to cover their breasts because they're so sexualized is an issue.

http://i931.photobucket.com/albums/ad157/Bmjones1207/1293810459.jpg
http://i931.photobucket.com/albums/ad157/Bmjones1207/1293751292.jpg
http://www.suseagulls.com/images/swim/action0910/team2.jpg
http://users.rowan.edu/~mcalli63/swimteamfl.jpg
http://dissidia-france.com/img/personnages/exm/terra.png



http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-23VB6UjEH8U/Tcl58aDtdaI/AAAAAAAAE8U/FS-x3py_MGM/s1600/Skip-Sheffield%252Bnexus%252Bcore%252Bwallpapers%252Bwwe%2B4.jpg
http://www.images22.com/pics/04/sexiest-wwe-male-wrestler-triple-h-on-the-stage.jpg
http://media.psu.com/media/articles/image/Barret_2.jpg


I mean, yeah, things like fashion and cologne have always used sex to sell, both men and women, but salad dressing?

http://timenewsfeed.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/kraft-0614.jpg?w=753
http://d1bb041l1ipbcm.cloudfront.net/user_media/diveimage/kraft-nude-zesty-man.jpg
http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/314206/slide_314206_2832400_free.jpg


Note that I'm not saying it's automatically bad to be sexualized. We all like to sexualize ourselves from time to time--we enjoy being sexual subjects. I'm also not saying objectification is always bad--it's certainly unavoidable, to say the least. But it does matter that women are sexualized and objectified far, far more than men (by both men and women, so it really doesn't help to say "but women like the sexy characters too"--yes, we are all socialized to value women for their looks more than men). You can make the argument that FF isn't as bad as... whatever else, but that doesn't earn it a pass. It's certainly not fair and equal, and hypersexualized characters like Cidney don't cease to influence players' perceptions just because she's part of a game that has... another female character somewhere who's pretty but mostly clothed. Or something. I'd be surprised if the game even passed the Bechdel Test.

Being honest, Cidney just pisses me off. They had the opportunity to do something simple but cool but they turned it into cheap pandering. It's insulting.

For fun, here are some things I came across while looking for pictures of objectified men (NSFW):
10 Times When Comics And Movies Sexualized Male Superheroes (http://io9.com/10-examples-of-how-it-looks-when-artists-sexualize-male-1628021803)
Le sexisme inversé (http://iletaitunepub.fr/2014/10/14/sexisme-inverse/) - Many of these aren't equal because the men are less attractive than the women, but I thought they were funny.

2SrpARP_M0o

[Slothy]

You're confusing exposed skin with sexualization. A skirt with a slit up the thigh is sexualized; a gymnist running toward a vaulting horse in her leotard is not sexualized, despite showing more leg.

Note that you're often dismissing examples because a hyper sexualized male seems ridiculous; this kind of proves the point--you said yourself that you don't even blink at hypersexualiuzed female character, yet this just looks silly:

http://fitpop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Sexy-Supermen-Head.gif

...That's all I have time for; it's present opening time.

If this and your last post don't finally make some people understand what you're arguing here then there's no hope for some people. Literally no hope for any of them.

[Shlup]

Oh yeah, I forgot I was going to talk more about crotch bulges! I would like to make sure all the men here are aware of this inarguable fact: David Bowie's crotch bulge ushered my entire generation of ladies into puberty.

http://fancydresscostumes.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/david-bowie-bulge-gif.gif

http://40.media.tumblr.com/45970fbb4493ebfa994791eee3ecd741/tumblr_ml7lvjrj2d1s6oaeto1_500.jpg

For more information, see this (http://www.reddit.com/r/AskWomen/comments/2qc7w6/what_is_your_favorite_jennifer_connelly_film_and/) Reddit thread.

[Spooniest]

One of the things that it's important to remember about things like this is that the argument of feminism is very sound and utilitarian. Practical, even. If you judge people based on their gender you will avoid picking the best person for a job...it has been enormously beneficial to our society (I wager) to have a mixed workforce.

Teaching people that it's ok to regard someone as less of a person due to their gender is a largely counter-productive thing. I wonder how this figures into the "Peter Principle?"

[Shlup]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Y4Tm0GlAlls#t=915

Link is to the part of the trailer analysis that covers Cidney. Rolling my eyes so hard.

[Tyson]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Y4Tm0GlAlls#t=915

Link is to the part of the trailer analysis that covers Cidney. Rolling my eyes so hard.

Did you see the part at 26:38? It shows another scantily clad female NPC. He assured the audience that she dresses that way because it plays a very important part in the game :P

[Fox]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Y4Tm0GlAlls#t=915

Link is to the part of the trailer analysis that covers Cidney. Rolling my eyes so hard.

Did you see the part at 26:38? It shows another scantily clad female NPC. He assured the audience that she dresses that way because it plays a very important part in the game :P

This is just ridiculous. You know I remember defending the all male cast in another thread: "It's OK, you can do this from time to time, I don't think it's sexist if you have a particular theme you want to explore".

The more I see though the more I think the creators just figured girls would just be too distracting for the men as they try and save the world.

Come on: "Guys, guys. The reason why she's dressed like that... she plays a very very important role in the game. You'll find out." Is there some weird rule I'm not aware of where the more important a role a woman plays, the less they must wear?

[Ayen]

Dem bikini models are critical to the role of FFXV. OMG that woman is naked she must be the most important character yet!

[Spooniest]

nf0oXY4nDxE

You are now singing to yourself:

"Ah!"

"Ah!"

"CID LOOKS LIKE A LADY"

You're welcome

But being dead serious about this, I don't think I can fathom the amount of raging boners that Japan has on a yearly basis.

I think we can all agree that Yoshitaka Amano's women were pretty tastefully clothed at this point, don't you?

[Fox]

Not all of them, but for the most part. Amano really liked his costumes, he'd put a lot of work into giving each character something really interesting to wear.


But being dead serious about this, I don't think I can fathom the amount of raging boners that Japan has on a yearly basis.

My hypothesis is that it would be a much more progressive nation if they didn't censor their porn.

[Shlup]

Did you see the part at 26:38? It shows another scantily clad female NPC. He assured the audience that she dresses that way because it plays a very important part in the game :P
Oh don't worry, I'm sure it's very important.


I think we can all agree that Yoshitaka Amano's women were pretty tastefully clothed at this point, don't you?
Yeah, I think so. Both males and females tended to show skin, but it felt more whimsical than sexual. May have to do with the distinct lack of back-breaking taa taas though.

[Jinx]

Tifa's boobs aren't really that big, though! As someone who wears an E-cup, I can safely say her boobs are far from being back-breaking or would cause her "serious" back problems.

[Shlup]

Tifa's boobs are very big for her small frame. You have the frame to support larger breasts. Tifa doesn't, and she's a kick boxer besides. The only two people I know who have been physically active with small frames and large breasts had them reduced. The people I know with large breasts who haven't had them reduced are not physically active and have larger frames, though two of the three still complain of back issues.

[Spooniest]

Tifa's boobs are very big for her small frame. You have the frame to support larger breasts. Tifa doesn't, and she's a kick boxer besides. The only two people I know who have been physically active with small frames and large breasts had them reduced. The people I know with large breasts who haven't had them reduced are not physically active and have larger frames, though two of the three still complain of back issues.

According to this wiki (http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Tifa_Lockhart), Tifa is 5'5". Three of the four sources cited for her height are that (167 cm = 5'5"). It doesn't list a weight.

Now, plugging that height into a BMI calculator (http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm) along with the hypothetical weight of 150 lbs (conservative for her tiny tummy, but she is very muscled) produces a BMI of 25, in the "overweight" category. Tifa would be overweight at anything over 150 lbs. That is the maximum healthy weight for a woman of her height.

How much of that is her exocrine glands? According to this (NSFW!! Science) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast#Structure), breasts weigh between 1.1 and 2.2 pounds each, and (I guess) tend to be close in weight to each other.

I calculated what percent of 150 lbs 4.4 is, and it comes out to almost 3%.

What happens as her weight goes down, but not the weight of her breasts?

Assuming a weight of 125 gives us the BMI of 20.8, (right in the middle of the normal weight zone) and her breasts (assumed to still be 4.4 lbs total) are now 3.5% of her total body weight.

Anything under about 110 would be dangerously unhealthy, and certainly not supportive of a martial artist's calorie needs. At 110 her breasts become a solid 4% of her total body weight.

This really doesn't seem like much, and it suddenly occurs to me: large breasts aren't difficult on the back because of their weight...it's constantly having to wear a tight strap around your back to hold them in place, and move them away from things, because the bigger they are, the more sensitive they are.

But I can't really know, as I (obviously) have never had the pleasure of owning a pair. :-/

[Shorty]

This really doesn't seem like much, and it suddenly occurs to me: large breasts aren't difficult on the back because of their weight...it's constantly having to wear a tight strap around your back to hold them in place, and move them away from things, because the bigger they are, the more sensitive they are./

Sorry, but this is incredibly wrong. They are uncomfortable with or without bras and it is because of the weight, and also because it puts unnecessary stress on parts of your body that are not accustomed to unnecessary stress, even to a small degree. It might not sound like much, but try to strap 9-20 pounds worth of weights to your pecks and walk around with them and see how great your neck feels after just a few days. It is not awesome. Additionally, the glands you mentioned to not make up the entire weight/mass of breasts. There is quite a bit of fat and tissue as well.

However, with that being said, bras do not add for comfort, but they are not the main source of the discomfort.

There's no way Tifa is 150 pounds. She is likely closer to 120-125, possibly even less because of her physique and training, and should probably be a B cup or less if we are going for accurate proportions. But she does not appear to be a B cup, so Shlup's points stand.

[Shlup]

Tifa is 120 at absolute max. I'm 160 and notably chubby; even with jugs there's no way Tifa is near 150.

[Night Fury]

Sorry, until you have to carry D cups on a slim frame around, Spooniest, you can't say it's not uncomfortable :p

I love going braless when I know I'm not doing anything that day, but it is certainly easier to go about my day with them fastened in. I really hope Tifa is wearing a good sports bra, because with all that jumping around she's going to hurt herself more than anyone else...

[Bubba]

The Never-Ending Thread of Excessive Breast Size.

Related: After some excessive eating, I am in danger of entering the realms of bra-wearing myself.

[Fox]

Tangentially related: How poor representation of women damages gameplay 101:

1) Women usually get shoved into the 'healer' role.
2) The women usually get kidnapped by the bad guy.
3) You spend big chunks of a game without a healer!! fffffuuu

I'm playing one of the Tales games at the moment where that happened. It's very frustrating. Then of course in FFIX you effectively lose Dagger for a chunk of it (and no Eiko is not an acceptable replacement). FFX, same thing with Yuna. Pretty sure at least one Star Ocean game pulled the same.

I guess one upside of the bro-fest that is FFXV means we won't have to worry about that.

Properly on topic: So I had my attention drawn to a shot of one of Noctis's swords and it was pointed out to me that it had a freaking motorcycle engine on it. This is, of course, ridiculous. But I guess they're taking the 'road trip' theme very seriously. If they are actually engines for some reason, and given that Cidney's a mechanic... perhaps an armourer as well?

[Del Murder]

Removing any of your core party members from the lineup for a length of time is annoying in general.

[Spooniest]

try to strap 9-20 pounds worth of weights

Where is this figure coming from?

[Loony BoB]

1) Women usually get shoved into the 'healer' role.
This always annoys me too. Same with guys always being the best tanks/DPS. I find it refreshing when it's different. FFII did this well - best healer in the game was a dude. FFXIII was thankfully pretty balanced and broke a lot of stereotypes, mind you, notably with two ladies being the best fighters in the game and Hope pushing Vanille for best healer.

[Vyk]

try to strap 9-20 pounds worth of weights

Where is this figure coming from?
I've always heard boobs were in the 8 lbs range myself. Though can't recall if that's 4 lbs per boob or 8 lbs per boob. Especially when you're in the DDD and up range. But I can't personally validate the claim with any cited data. I just know this is how my girlfriend feels with her boobage and if she didn't hate surgery and doctors so much I'm sure she'd seriously consider a breast reduction

[Spooniest]

I linked to a Wikipedia article on breast structure guys...Y U NO CLICK LINK

1.1 to 2.2 lbs per breast, that's what it says.

[Shorty]

So my guessing about weight was off. It doesn't take awake from the fact that they are uncomfortable and cause pain. It's not all fun and games in that area.

[Spooniest]

Why don't we get back on topic?

Cidney is a new thing for Final Fantasy, and they are always trying to deliver new things. This wasn't a bad idea, just horribly horribly executed without the slightest bit of subtlety or grace.

At least what she's wearing looks fashionable enough. I was getting sick of all the buckles and zippers for god's sake.

[Vyk]

Yeah, I think Nomura's getting his buckles and zippers jollies off redesigning batman suits and stuff, isn't he?

[Shlup]

I've always heard boobs were in the 8 lbs range myself.
You're thinking of your head.


Cidney is a new thing for Final Fantasy, and they are always trying to deliver new things. This wasn't a bad idea, just horribly horribly executed without the slightest bit of subtlety or grace.
Agreed. It's like someone thought to do something nice and then someone else decided to just fuck it all up. I hope she's pleasant enough as a character.

Though I also want to note that they keep saying she's not important to the story, but the trailer spends a significant amount of time showing her off. I think I will write a letter expressing my disappointment, actually.

[Polnareff]

Why does it matter? Everybody's chest is showing. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

And to be fair, nobody even notices until that one person points it out. ^^;

[The Man]

The question about why it matters has already been answered repeatedly in this very thread.

[Psychotic]

I know I've posted Jimquisition in this thread earlier, but I'm on a massive binge watching every episode and god damn

hR9UMgOFeLw

Are men objectified in video games? Must watch viewing for anyone who has been interested by the issues raised in this thread. I particularly recommend it to Mr Loony BoB!

[Aulayna]

Why does it matter? Everybody's chest is showing. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

And to be fair, nobody even notices until that one person points it out. ^^;

Yeah I'm completely sure you weren't flambloxomed by Cidney's vulumptuous bossoms until someone pointed out how curvacious they were popping out of that shirt. Anyone getting bamboozled over such mammaries must be kidding themselves.

Let me give you this virtual $1 million dollars. It's about as legit as your post was. Have fun spending it.

[Spooniest]

Men are largely not sexually objectified in video games, I don't think. They are, quite a disproportionate amount of the time, the main agents in the game that move the story forward and take actions that affect the plot. When females are given equal time, they are not given equal significance; i.e., they don't do a whole lot besides helping the male characters.

"But Spooooon!" you might say, "FFXIII! The Strong Female Characters! SEXISM IS OVER!"

If you have played the entire series, or even a large portion of it (as I have, up to XII which I did not finish), you know that what I'm saying is true.

How does this relate to sexual objectification?

Someone cannot be being objectified and be the sole agent working to move the plot forward (by their own decisions which succeed) at the same time. Granting a character in any narrative a moment where they are successfully acting to move the plot forward all by themselves is a very weighty decision for a writer to make, and it rarely, if ever, gets given to a female character in any FF game. I would challenge someone to create an extensive list of times females were granted agency in the plotline of a FF game.

One example I can immediately pull off the top of my head is FFIV. The Magus Sisters and Barbariccia are named characters in the story who attack the heroes.

...But then, they're villains.

FFV makes out better, what with Faris being all action-y early on, but she largely becomes irrelevant in the latter half of the game, providing mostly advice.

FFVI...um. It has a Female main character, yes. But she doesn't really do anything. She isn't her own master, she doesn't make any decisions that settle any plot points. It's suggested, but never followed through on. Celes and Relm fare no better, as their actions in the story (if present) are largely ineffectual.

I could go on. Women don't really do anything in the stories of FF, unless they're bad guys.

If you are a woman, a man, or either with a daughter who plays FF, I suggest you write to SE (snail mail) and complain...

I think this is kind of a festering thing in Japan right now. They've been shouting at their female senators "Get married!," arrested an artist for making a vagina-shaped kayak or something.

Women are kind of getting shafted in that country, really.

[Fox]

I think this is kind of a festering thing in Japan right now. They've been shouting at their female senators "Get married!," arrested an artist for making a vagina-shaped kayak or something.

Women are kind of getting shafted in that country, really.

Is there a country where they aren't, to one extent or another?

If there is, I'm going to guess it's somewhere in Scandinavia. They always seem to be a bit more socially enlightened.

I do think Final Fantasy has some of the better examples of women as main characters, when they put their mind to it. OK, the player avatar in FFX may have been Tidus, but as far as I'm concerned Yuna was the protagonist. Arguably the same with XII and Ashe. And yeah, for all the nonsense XIII pulled they did at least put some decent women with agency in the lead roles.

So they do know how to do it properly. They just have to remember to.

[Shlup]

I know I've posted Jimquisition in this thread earlier, but I'm on a massive binge watching every episode and god damn

[video]

Are men objectified in video games? Must watch viewing for anyone who has been interested by the issues raised in this thread. I particularly recommend it to Mr Loony BoB!

This thread could've been a lot shorter if you'd posted that sooner, you monster.

[Vyk]

That dude spreads out his argument very well, can tell a lot of research and editing went into perfectly articulating his argument. And he makes all valid points. The sexy male characters are just a nice side-effect of making sexy male characters that male gamers may want to be. Its never the intention for female gamers to oggle at

[Freya]

I like cidney. I'm a bit hrmpf with the boobage but at the point i'm tired of complaining about it.

[Shiny]

Here we go again. No Cid was "sexified" until they decided to make a female Cid. Granted Square Enix is pretty notorious for sexifying their male characters too, but every other Cid was for the most part fully clothed. Why does this one have to be showing her breastses? Because she's a female Cid? Is it supposed to be okay because they made her mechanic? Give me a break Square. I'm quite tired of any form objectification in a character. I would love for just sophiscated characters who don't have to have a sex appeal to be interesting. I'd rather the most interesting thing about them be their skills and backstory.

Gone is a world of video games that don't feature men as beef cakes or bishounen with abs, and girls with huge boobs and mini skirts parading about. They make characters that don't even look like real people anymore. I wasn't going to buy this game, but now I am really not buying it. Their last few games have been pure suck anyway.

By the way we can see all of you rep, so stop with snarky rep comments AND the snarky posts.

EDIT: According to this thread I should be getting a breast reduction. Duly noted.

[Shlup]

EDIT: According to this thread I should be getting a breast reduction. Duly noted.

I feel awkward being the one to tell you that you don't have big boobs. Where did you get the impression that our discussion would imply that you should get a breast reduction?

[Spooniest]

This seems to have taken an ugly turn.

Fuck whoever is responsible.

Cidney's gonna bash your shit with her wrenches, dood

FFXV-II: Cidney Wrecks Your Shit

[Shiny]

EDIT: According to this thread I should be getting a breast reduction. Duly noted.

I feel awkward being the one to tell you that you don't have big boobs. Where did you get the impression that our discussion would imply that you should get a breast reduction?
That was actually a joke, I'm not getting a breast reduction although I agree with you that my boobs aren't big, or at least don't look it with clothes on. I don't really consider a D cup that I have big. I'm 5'1'' and 100lbs, but I'm pretty sure most of my back problems are slouching related. Also pretty sure that Tifa's boobs are probably more like a G not a D which I would imagine would definitely cause her back issues if she's only 120lbs. But more on the related topic of why Square is failing. :monster:

[Shlup]

I don't get what the joke was, but it was about boobs to I'll laugh anyway.

We need more boob math in here.

[Del Murder]

I knew keeping up with this thread would pay off sooner or later.

[Shiny]

I don't get what the joke was, but it was about boobs to I'll laugh anyway.

It's okay, you're blonde.

[Shlup]

http://i.imgur.com/wnjdnD8.gif

[Spooniest]

http://i.imgur.com/wnjdnD8.gif

Congratulations, you've mesmerized my cat. He looks just like this cat but thinner, and he can't stop staring at this gif.

:D

[black orb]

How do you feel about this potential new Cid?
>>> Was about damn time, and it only took them 15 FF games to realize this could be a good idea. SE, what a bunch of geniuses..:luca:

[Bubba]

Apparently, Square Enix have included an Easter egg in FFXV where you can unlock a video of all the female characters performing Call on Me by Eric Prydz.

[Noctis Caelum]

Here we go again. No Cid was "sexified" until they decided to make a female Cid. Granted Square Enix is pretty notorious for sexifying their male characters too, but every other Cid was for the most part fully clothed. Why does this one have to be showing her breastses? Because she's a female Cid? Is it supposed to be okay because they made her mechanic? Give me a break Square. I'm quite tired of any form objectification in a character. I would love for just sophiscated characters who don't have to have a sex appeal to be interesting. I'd rather the most interesting thing about them be their skills and backstory.

Gone is a world of video games that don't feature men as beef cakes or bishounen with abs, and girls with huge boobs and mini skirts parading about. They make characters that don't even look like real people anymore. I wasn't going to buy this game, but now I am really not buying it. Their last few games have been pure suck anyway.

By the way we can see all of you rep, so stop with snarky rep comments AND the snarky posts.

EDIT: According to this thread I should be getting a breast reduction. Duly noted.
Yeah? Welcome to the 21st century. You should see what qualifies as a "model" now. (Male or female). You should watch a movie and pay attention to the main actors. Then watch ten more and see if you can place a pattern. Then, just for giggles, you should look at art work, and see what the general theme for people that are drawn or painted.

If you think it's just video games that are moving in this direction, then I don't really know what to tell you. If you're not getting FFXV because of that, then I'm sure nobody will care. Because frankly that reasoning is flawed and mind baffling. If you are not personally interested in the game, then by all means, ignore it blissfully. But to ignore it because of "sexifying" characters? Something that every media in every medium of entertainment in the modern era is also guilty of? I'm sorry but that is insane. You must hate a lot of games, music, art, and people in general.

[Shlup]

You must hate a lot of games, music, art, and people in general.
;)

[Slothy]

But to ignore it because of "sexifying" characters? Something that every media in every medium of entertainment in the modern era is also guilty of? I'm sorry but that is insane.

So because sexist depictions of characters happen in all media, but not necessarily all works in any given form of media, it's insane to ignore the ones that do rely on sexist depictions of characters? Do you think by ignoring the sexist stuff it means there's no works in any form of media that one could still consume? Because that would actually be insane. Luckily that's not true.

[CAST VOX]

The design is perfectly fine. I've seen women with more cleaveage IRL. Cidney having her mammaries hanging out isn't sexist. All that matters to me is how the character will be written. Hopefully, she'll be a relatively strong willed female character.

[Fox]

The design is perfectly fine. I've seen women with more cleaveage IRL. Cidney having her mammaries hanging out isn't sexist. All that matters to me is how the character will be written. Hopefully, she'll be a relatively strong willed female character.

Well, I'm convinced.

I mean, how many of us have actually seen a womans in real life? So if you say it's totally normal for them to go to work every day in a low cut top and hot pants, what reason would I have to doubt you?

[Mirage]

I saw some girls at a club or something wearing something like this so it's totally what female mechanics wear at work.

[Shlup]

I'm going to start charging people a dollar every time they use the "I see hyper sexualized women all the time therefore this is okay" argument. It's my "get rich quick" scheme.

[chionos]

The design is perfectly fine. I've seen women with more cleaveage IRL. Cidney having her mammaries hanging out isn't sexist. All that matters to me is how the character will be written. Hopefully, she'll be a relatively strong willed female character.

I think the difference between whether the thing is sexist or not hinges on the fact that those women with super cleavage you know IRL chose to be that way. Cidney (I'm not calling her Cindy, fuck the lot of you if you even think about correcting me) was DESIGNED by men to look the way she does. And it wouldn't be a thing at all if past Cids, all of which have been male, had been sexualized. If there'd been even one clear example of it.

I do agree that one of the ways we could deal with this situation is to embrace the character's other traits that don't sexualize her and as an audience turn her into something positive, but that doesn't change the fact that the designers at SE made some pretty shitty decisions with the visual designs for this character which are so clearly sexist that I'm not sure why this is a debate at all. Anyone who doesn't see it without having to be told, isn't going to see it after being told. Because it's pretty fucking blatant. I mean, really.

[CAST VOX]

The design is perfectly fine. I've seen women with more cleaveage IRL. Cidney having her mammaries hanging out isn't sexist. All that matters to me is how the character will be written. Hopefully, she'll be a relatively strong willed female character.

I think the difference between whether the thing is sexist or not hinges on the fact that those women with super cleavage you know IRL chose to be that way. Cidney (I'm not calling her Cindy, smurf the lot of you if you even think about correcting me) was DESIGNED by men to look the way she does. And it wouldn't be a thing at all if past Cids, all of which have been male, had been sexualized. If there'd been even one clear example of it.

I do agree that one of the ways we could deal with this situation is to embrace the character's other traits that don't sexualize her and as an audience turn her into something positive, but that doesn't change the fact that the designers at SE made some pretty troutty decisions with the visual designs for this character which are so clearly sexist that I'm not sure why this is a debate at all. Anyone who doesn't see it without having to be told, isn't going to see it after being told. Because it's pretty smurfing blatant. I mean, really. Her character design is better than most of the the things SE has crapped out, regardless of gender.

Also, the word sexist means pertaining, involving, or fostering sexism. Which this character design does none of. So no, it's not sexist.


I'm going to start charging people a dollar every time they use the "I see hyper sexualized women all the time therefore this is okay" argument. It's my "get rich quick" scheme.
In what world does having cleavage equate to being hyper sexualized?



Well, I'm convinced.

I mean, how many of us have actually seen a womans in real life? Quite a many.


So if you say it's totally normal for them to go to work every day in a low cut top and hot pants, what reason would I have to doubt you? None.

[Shlup]

It's like the whole last 11 pages is repeating itself.


In what world does having cleavage equate to being hyper sexualized?
This question has been answered at least four times.

I mean, I don't expect you to have read this entire thread or anything. I'm just saying don't hold it against me for not repeating what's already been said over and over.

[CAST VOX]

It's like the whole last 11 pages is repeating itself.


In what world does having cleavage equate to being hyper sexualized?
This question has been answered at least four times.

I mean, I don't expect you to have read this entire thread or anything. I already have.


I'm just saying don't hold it against me for not repeating what's already been said over and over. A satisfactory answer has yet to be given. Playing mental gymnastics about what is or isn't sexualisation in men vs women is hardly a proper argument or reason. Also, sexualisation isn't a bad thing to begin with. Nor is objectification.

[Aulayna]

I'm actually going to do it.

For the first time in a long timer I am going to channel my Inner-Hux and Inner-Freed.


Her character design is better than most of the the things SE has crapped out

Please provide examples of what you consider to be bad character design in numbered FF games post-VI and state why they are bad.


Also, the word sexist means pertaining, involving, or fostering sexism. Which this character design does none of. So no, it's not sexist.

Good job the primary criticism here is that the design is hypersexualised and how they're disappointed that SQEX have done this.



I'm going to start charging people a dollar every time they use the "I see hyper sexualized women all the time therefore this is okay" argument. It's my "get rich quick" scheme.
In what world does having cleavage equate to being hyper sexualized?

It's not just the cleavage people are criticising.

http://glynnorman.com/wp-content/uploads//2014/08/miss-the-point.png

I typed out a pretty long explanation in this post (http://home.eyesonff.com/showthread.php/160680-Will-Final-Fantasy-XV-s-Cid-be-a-Lady?p=3495317&viewfull=1#post3495317). If you can't figure out how there's anything remotely suggestive within the first 50 seconds of that video, then I guess this discussion would be about as productive as trying to knock down a building with my own forehead.

Although as an ammendum to that post let me add:

61732
61733
61734
61735
61736
61737
61738

Although, next you'll be telling us you walk around everyday looking like this (http://home.eyesonff.com/showthread.php/160955-Mevius-Final-Fantasy-Screenshots%21). Because it's appropriate day to day wear, just like Cidney's outfit is what you'd expect a mechanic to be wearing, right?



61739

Hammer Head Full Service Station?

61740


A satisfactory answer has yet to be given. Playing mental gymnastics about what is or isn't sexualisation in men vs women is hardly a proper argument or reason. Also, sexualisation isn't a bad thing to begin with. Nor is objectification.

Well by that line of thought. You've yet to state satisfactory reasoning about why you feel the way you do, other than throwing around generalised statements and semantics in a thread that is ultimately perception based.

So out of curiosity, what constitutes:


a proper argument or reason

?

[Shlup]

Did you really read the whole thing? Because I literally said "sexualisation isn't a bad thing to begin with. Nor is objectification" almost exactly in those words at least twice. And multiple people have described what it is about Cidney that makes her hyper sexualized beyond just cleavage. I really wouldn't blame you if you didn't read all those pages and long posts, but to just come in and say "nope, wrong" without offering any substance to your rebuttal makes it hard to give you much credit. Which I honestly would like to be able to give you if you have points to make.

It seems like you disagree with me (and others) about 1) what hyper sexualization is, 2) when sexualization is good or bad, 3) when objectification is good or bad, and 4) the sexualization on men versus women. Perhaps you could offer some definitions, sources, examples to support your points...?

[CAST VOX]

Although, next you'll be telling us you walk around everyday looking like this (http://home.eyesonff.com/showthread.php/160955-Mevius-Final-Fantasy-Screenshots%21). Because it's appropriate day to day wear, just like Cidney's outfit is what you'd expect a mechanic to be wearing, right? I never said any of that. But hey, nice espantajo.



Well by that line of thought. You've yet to state satisfactory reasoning about why you feel the way you do, other than throwing around generalised statements and semantics in a thread that is ultimately perception based.
The reason I don't feel objectification or sexualization are wrong is because they are perfectly natural, occur on a daily basis, and are not proven to cause harm. Hence why I am confused as to why everyone is already in agreement that they are wrong.

Also, you aren't all that witty or funny. So please, stop typing like you are. And you wonder why I don't want to read your posts. If they're all of similar quality that's a bad sign. EDIT BY BoB: Refrain from posting stuff like this.

A fantasy based on reality is still fantasy. Many of the things contained within will be idealized or exaggerated in some form or another. Perhaps those ideals and ideas aren't your thing. But they seem to be the character designer's thing. And there is nothing wrong with that. You have yet to prove there is. And I don't have to prove there isn't, because I don't have to prove a negative.

[Loony BoB]

Please avoid any personal argument in this thread, everyone. Stick to the debating the details, not each other. I've found this thread to be really insightful and helpful personally, and for the most part there has been little personal attack or much close to it, and I'd like to keep it that way. This is a thread and discussion worthy of healthy debate.

[CAST VOX]

Please avoid any personal argument in this thread, everyone. Stick to the debating the details, not each other. I've found this thread to be really insightful and helpful personally, and for the most part there has been little personal attack or much close to it, and I'd like to keep it that way. This is a thread and discussion worthy of healthy debate.

Got it. I'll dial it back a bit.

[Shlup]

espantajo
I had to look that up. I'm stealing it.


The reason I don't feel objectification or sexualization are wrong is because they are perfectly natural, occur on a daily basis, and are not proven to cause harm. Hence why I am confused as to why everyone is already in agreement that they are wrong.
Seeing you say this after I've addressed it with paragraphs on paragraphs, video posts, and links to scholarly articles makes me just literally
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ls274fLyzV1qms4wo.gif.

I will repeat a few, and I will give you more.

If you want a summary that's easy to digest, Laci Green breaks it down in her video here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_4dPB9MVS8), which I posted a few pages ago. You can dismiss each of her examples as "untrue" or "insignificant," but they are easily verifiable and if you give me specific ones I will even look those up for you if you want to see the evidence supporting them.

Also several pages ago, I posted eight links describing ways that objectification causes harm. Here is the list:

http://www.apa.org/education/ce/sexual-objectification.pdf
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11199-006-9147-3
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/26/sexual-pressure-objectification_n_5708921.html
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2961930?uid=3739560&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21105504405683
http://pwq.sagepub.com/content/38/3/398.abstract
https://news.wsu.edu/2014/05/27/study-links-mens-magazine-readers-unwanted-sexual-behaviors/#.VJoFM_8B_d
http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/07/men-objectified-by-women/
http://www.alternet.org/story/146396/new_discoveries_suggest_that_sexual_objectification_is_more_damaging_to_women_than_you_might_think

I looked up some new ones for you:
This article (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/presence-mind/201306/the-harm-in-treating-ourselves-and-others-sexual-objects) sums up six studies.
A Test Of Objectification Theory: The Effect Of The Male Gaze On Appearance Concerns In College Women (http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2010-13678-009)
Objectifying Sarah Palin: Evidence that objectification causes women to be perceived as less competent and less fully human (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103109000432)
A MEDIATIONAL MODEL LINKING SELF-OBJECTIFICATION, BODY SHAME, AND DISORDERED EATING (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1998.tb00181.x/abstract)
MEDIA CONTRIBUTIONS TO AFRICAN AMERICAN GIRLS' FOCUS ON BEAUTY AND APPEARANCE: EXPLORING THE CONSEQUENCES OF SEXUAL OBJECTIFICATION (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2008.00433.x/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false)

I can find more if you want. I wasn't sure how much effort to put into this because I'm not sure how much you care. Can you show me anything that refutes my evidence or supports your notion that objectification is neutral?

[CAST VOX]

espantajo
I had to look that up. I'm stealing it. Uh, you're welcome?



I can find more if you want. I wasn't sure how much effort to put into this because I'm not sure how much you care. Can you show me anything that refutes my evidence or supports your notion that objectification is neutral?
No, those sources are compelling enough.

[Shlup]

I appreciate that. Thank you. Is there anything else I can clarify for you, or anything you'd like to clarify for me? I'm unclear as to what "hyper sexualized" means to you if Cidney isn't it.

[CAST VOX]

I appreciate that. Thank you. Is there anything else I can clarify for you, or anything you'd like to clarify for me? I'm unclear as to what "hyper sexualized" means to you if Cidney isn't it.
No prob.

I just don't think she's hyper sexualized. The problem with using the term "hyper sexualized" is that the word "hyper" denotes a certain amount of relativity, kinda like saying the words "more" or "less" it brings up the question of as opposed to what. In this case, opposed to a buttload of other characters like Bayonetta, or Tifa, or any girl from DOA. She may be incredibly sexualized, but she's not hyper sexualized, if that makes any sense.

[Shlup]

That's fair. I think it's weird that you think she's less sexualized than Tifa, but you're right that it's subjective.

[CAST VOX]

That's fair. I think it's weird that you think she's less sexualized than Tifa, but you're right that it's subjective.

Pffft. Nah, I was just using Tifa as a comparison. Tifa is loads less sexualized. I just couldn't come up with another FF heroine off the top of my head. Kuja

[Aulayna]

Although, next you'll be telling us you walk around everyday looking like this (http://home.eyesonff.com/showthread.php/160955-Mevius-Final-Fantasy-Screenshots%21). Because it's appropriate day to day wear, just like Cidney's outfit is what you'd expect a mechanic to be wearing, right? I never said any of that. But hey, nice espantajo.

Well:


The design is perfectly fine. I've seen women with more cleaveage IRL. Cidney having her mammaries hanging out isn't sexist. All that matters to me is how the character will be written. Hopefully, she'll be a relatively strong willed female character.

Considering the bulk of the discussion in this thread is about how her clothing isn't really appropriate for her role, I guess one could be forgiven for understanding your original post as saying such attire was fine?

[Spooniest]

I'd like to point out that you guys are in your third week of impotent debate about this subject.

We, as Final Fantasy players, are so desensitized to sexually explicit costuming that I doubt anyone on this board actually cares enough about equal representation of the sexes to do anything about this.

Has anyone even tried contacting Square Enix? I hope so, but I doubt it.

[Loony BoB]

If you ever hope someone has done something on behalf of you, yet you haven't done it yourself... :)

[CAST VOX]

I'd like to point out that you guys are in your third week of impotent debate about this subject.

We, as Final Fantasy players, are so desensitized to sexually explicit costuming that I doubt anyone on this board actually cares enough about equal representation of the sexes to do anything about this.

Has anyone even tried contacting Square Enix? I hope so, but I doubt it.

The problem with contacting SE is that you have to know japanese. Also, it took them until the success of Bravely Default to realize they had been ignoring an entire section of their consumers.

They are also Japanese. They live in the same country where women need a separate subway due to a groping/blackmail case. And where upskirts and pantyshots are common occurence in media. And where women are ugly after the age of 25.

Also, Japanese developers tend to follow mini-traditions in their developement of games. Ever wondered why Dark Souls 1 and 2 had so many similar themes and events to the old King's Field series? Or why most FF games have giant chickens that came from a long forgotten entry in the series? It's not laziness, they just do what's been done before while adding a small new thing every now and then.

They probably aren't going to take your advice.





Although, next you'll be telling us you walk around everyday looking like this (http://home.eyesonff.com/showthread.php/160955-Mevius-Final-Fantasy-Screenshots%21). Because it's appropriate day to day wear, just like Cidney's outfit is what you'd expect a mechanic to be wearing, right? I never said any of that. But hey, nice espantajo.

Well:


The design is perfectly fine. I've seen women with more cleaveage IRL. Cidney having her mammaries hanging out isn't sexist. All that matters to me is how the character will be written. Hopefully, she'll be a relatively strong willed female character.

Considering the bulk of the discussion in this thread is about how her clothing isn't really appropriate for her role, I guess one could be forgiven for understanding your original post as saying such attire was fine?
My intention in that original post wasn't that her design was fine for the role of a mechanic (it clearly isn't). Just that it was fine overall. I've seen worse, so I didn't react as negatively as you. I also never said it was appropriate day wear. Hence, the espantajo.

[Vyk]

I get your point, but I think Kings Field was made by the same company, as well as a PS2 game that had a feudal Japanese theme where you're a demon hunter that played exactly like Dark Souls, and also made by the same company. Demon Souls and Dark Souls is just where it hit mainstream. It doesn't seems surprising that a company would build upon what they've established in the past. But they are indeed obsessed with traditions and the use of tropes more than being progressive, imaginative, or inventive sometimes... possibly most of the time. Especially with their panty shots and underage moe sex goddesses

[CAST VOX]

I get your point, but I think Kings Field was made by the same company
They are, that was my point. They allude to things they themselves have done before. The development teams have their own little traditions they follow when making a game. The games evolve slowly over time, rather than changing greatly in a single sequel. Megaman X is another good example; in every single game, the first boss is absolutely huge, but goes down like a house of cards.

But they are indeed obsessed with traditions and the use of tropes more than being progressive, imaginative, or inventive sometimes... possibly most of the time. Especially with their panty shots and underage moe sex goddesses
Japan and progressiveness are rather funny. It's not that Japan isn't progressing, it's just that they're progressing slowly. Japan is currently marching to the beat of its own drum. They always have. Progress seems to come in fits and spurts for them, rather than a steady stream. Things will change, they just take time.

[Shlup]

I'd like to point out that you guys are in your third week of impotent debate about this subject.

We, as Final Fantasy players, are so desensitized to sexually explicit costuming that I doubt anyone on this board actually cares enough about equal representation of the sexes to do anything about this.

Has anyone even tried contacting Square Enix? I hope so, but I doubt it.

Your doubt is misplaced then.

[CAST VOX]

I'd like to point out that you guys are in your third week of impotent debate about this subject.

We, as Final Fantasy players, are so desensitized to sexually explicit costuming that I doubt anyone on this board actually cares enough about equal representation of the sexes to do anything about this.

Has anyone even tried contacting Square Enix? I hope so, but I doubt it.

Your doubt is misplaced then.

You emailed them?

[Vyk]

Outside of that, it has also been noted that some small minority of goons do take note of the goings on inside this and many other Square-Enix-themed forums and webpages. A riot that happens here, especially if its also happening on those, will be noticed. And if it's that large scale, it might even be noticed a little farther up the chain. I imagine it would take something pretty wide-spread to make it to the top, but bitching on a forum is not fruitless. Much to the tune of the Jimquisition video Psychotic posted. Buying a game and having a hissy fit about it means bad press and PR that no company really wants. Having a hissy fit before its even released could actually change things

[Shlup]

Several people have written letters. Mine was illustrated in an attempt to be specific and helpful rather than damning. I do hate the notion that "Americans are obsessed with being politically correct" but, like, c'mon... Cids are supposed to be cool! Why'd they have to make her a sex doll? Why? :(

[Spooniest]

Shlup, what's their address?

Here is a USPS postage calculation for sending a letter to Japan. (http://ircalc.usps.com/MailServices.aspx?country=10214&m=1&p=0&o=3.5274&MailingDate=1/9/2015&MailingTime=8:00%20AM)

(Don't worry, everyone in Japan speaks English)

$5.10 it says.

So there, BoB, I did something. :)

[Ayen]

http://www.jp.square-enix.com/company/en/locations/

That shows the address and telephone number of all their main headquarters.

[Spooniest]

So the only thing left to decide is what message you want to send.

Keep it short and simple, and make sure you tell them:

* You dislike Cidney's costume.

* You would like them to change it.

* That you are thankful for their time.

It can contain anything else you want that doesn't contradict those three points.

Flood 'em with letters and they'll put a T-shirt on her, I guarantee you. If you were willing to spend 5.10 on a letter to complain, that'll prick their ears up.

Edit: Fridge Logic time...I just realized that $5.10 is startlingly close to 500 gil in FF6, which is how much it costs to send a letter from Mobliz to Maranda. :| Weird.

[chionos]

So the only thing left to decide is what message you want to send.

Keep it short and simple, and make sure you tell them:

* You dislike Cidney's costume.

* You would like them to change it.

* That you are thankful for their time.

It can contain anything else you want that doesn't contradict those three points.

Flood 'em with letters and they'll put a T-shirt on her, I guarantee you. If you were willing to spend 5.10 on a letter to complain, that'll prick their ears up.

Edit: Fridge Logic time...I just realized that $5.10 is startlingly close to 500 gil in FF6, which is how much it costs to send a letter from Mobliz to Maranda. :| Weird.

Not that I'm against people mailing SE to complain, but no, it won't mean a t-shirt for Cidney. That's just silly.

It might, however, influence the designers' thinking during future game development. And that'll have to do.

[Spooniest]

Not that I'm against people mailing SE to complain, but no, it won't mean a t-shirt for Cidney. That's just silly.

You're only saying that because it's never been tried before.

Defeatist attitudes don't change costumes in the name of human dignity.

[chionos]

Not that I'm against people mailing SE to complain, but no, it won't mean a t-shirt for Cidney. That's just silly.

You're only saying that because it's never been tried before.

Defeatist attitudes don't change costumes in the name of human dignity.

Now I can't tell if you're just being a smartass or not. If you're not, forgive me.

Such things have been tried before actually, and it's not that protests cannot create change, it's just not feasible in this case. The problem is that it's just not practical enough. They're not going to spend thousands of dollars to go back and make such changes. Perhaps if SE didn't realize what they were doing. Perhaps if the feedback were any indication that they were wrong in their thinking that a dolled up Cid would get the attention of some guys and create a lot of hype. But they weren't wrong. They knew what they were doing. What they wanted was attention, not acceptance, and attention is what they got. Controversy equals money sometimes (see: The Interview), and that's what we got here, and in the end that's all that really matters to them.

[Spooniest]

Controversy equals money sometimes (see: The Interview), and that's what we got here, and in the end that's all that really matters to them.

You have made that value judgement against them without bothering to attempt communicating with them. That's all I'm saying.

Edit: And this is the real twist...you are working from a stereotype of a video game company employee when making that judgement.

:) I think it's time to end discrimination against video game makers.

[Tyson]

Not that I'm against people mailing SE to complain, but no, it won't mean a t-shirt for Cidney. That's just silly.

You're only saying that because it's never been tried before.

Defeatist attitudes don't change costumes in the name of human dignity.

It isn't gonna happen. Maybe with FFXV-2. Too far into the development cycle atm. The demo is only a few months away.

Plus even if they did change it now, I'd be willing to bet the backlash of them changing their original vision for the character would be worse then the few complaints they're getting now!

Despite the size of this thread there really hasn't been much widespread outrage in the gaming community. If they were to change her outfit now it would be all over the front of every gaming site you can think of. Then they have a major PR problem.

[Spooniest]

If they were to change her outfit now it would be all over the front of every gaming site you can think of. Then they have a major PR problem.

For listening to their fans when they want something small changed?

That sounds like a PR nightmare, yeah. :monster:

Sorry guys, but I'm hearing excuse after excuse, and little concrete reasoning as to why this idea doesn't work. Surely 5 bucks and a dime isn't that important to you.

[Tyson]

If they were to change her outfit now it would be all over the front of every gaming site you can think of. Then they have a major PR problem.

For listening to their fans when they want something small changed?

That sounds like a PR nightmare, yeah. :monster:

If 100% of their fans felt exactly like you do that would be fine. It's a minority tho. Alot of people would be mad at them for compromising their vision.

[Spooniest]

If 100% of their fans felt exactly like you do that would be fine. It's a minority tho. Alot of people would be mad at them for compromising their vision.

Sounds to me like you either don't have 5 bucks and a dime to spare, or don't know how to write a letter.

For the record, I am largely unconcerned with the outcome. I think the super cleavage is offensive, but I won't be mad if it isn't changed. I'm more concerned with the state of SE's relationship with their fanbase. Shlup is the only one so far that has bothered to attempt communication with them. The rest of you are so cynical (likely from reading too much internet) that you want to throw the idea in the garbage can before it's even been tried.

When has a large-scale letter-writing campaign been tried with SE? When? Where? Who did it?

Answer me these questions three, and I'll concede your point.

Please don't be insulting to people. ~Scotty

[chionos]

Actually, Spooniest, I'm "cynical" because I'm a realist. Sometimes a stereotype isn't a stereotype, it's an INSIGHT. I've communicated with SE before, so it's not just a blind judgment. Also, I've watched the videos of whatshisface introducing the trailers and such, and it's pretty clear from his statements, his body language, the changes in pitch in the dude's voice, etc., that he knew exactly what the audience was thinking, both the positives and negatives. SE wanted this, so it would be utterly counter-intuitive for them to go back and change anything about the character now.

The problem is, also, not that the character is the way she is. It's too late to change the fact that they designed her this way. The problem isn't the character, the problem is the development team making the decision they made with one of Final Fantasy's ubiquitous characters. Cidney is merely external evidence of an internal problem, one which isn't going to be changed by a letter-writing campaign, because it's something that would require a change of heart in the human beings who work for SE. How do you make people see what they don't want to see? Letters? I'm sorry, my friend, life doesn't work that way. I wish it did.

[Spooniest]

This sounds like a lot of excuses not to spend $5.10 and the time it takes to properly write and address a letter to me.

I'm sorry you are such a realist. That must be very boring.

I become a realist when I go outside, to work, to the store, etc. When I'm home I don't give a crap about the real world.

[chionos]

Lol, wth are you even saying anymore? Do you have a number fetish? Is it 5.10?

I have to give you credit, you're a subtle troll, sir.


In any case, nobody's stopping you, Spoony.






So anyway, I'm looking forward, really, to seeing what the character is in the game. Will her personality match her attire? Will she be a ditzy flirt. I know she's not a story-driven npc, but she doesn't have to be to have a personality. I wonder if there's any fanart flying around yet that has her dressed more appropriately for her job. Going to look now.

EDIT:
Found this almost instantly. See, now this is still somewhat provocative and fun while being more practical and less ludicrous.
61774

See this is how you beat SE at their own game. Reinvent the character.
http://40.media.tumblr.com/6daef563db7feb844bf8e68da0e0817d/tumblr_ngymfbCidM1rjwzhbo1_500.jpg

[Night Fury]

If they were to change her outfit now it would be all over the front of every gaming site you can think of. Then they have a major PR problem.

For listening to their fans when they want something small changed?

That sounds like a PR nightmare, yeah. :monster:

Sorry guys, but I'm hearing excuse after excuse, and little concrete reasoning as to why this idea doesn't work. Surely 5 bucks and a dime isn't that important to you.

I hope that you're going to be heading this letter campaign with your own well thought out response, Spooniest.

[CAST VOX]

Lol, wth are you even saying anymore? Do you have a number fetish? Is it 5.10?

I have to give you credit, you're a subtle troll, sir.

How in hell does being overly optimistic make Spoony a troll?

[Spooniest]

This (https://www.google.com/search?q=cidney&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=9Z2vVMKwEIaWyQTi_IEQ&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1173&bih=592#tbm=isch&q=cidney+ffxv) google image search has me thinking a few things.

Cidney makes direct eye contact with people. She has close-ups. She is pleasant, but not terribly goofy or silly. She seems kind of cool, like you'd expect a person who shoes horses in a Western setting to be. Or like a blacksmith.

She's holding that wrench up and getting pretty excited about it. She really seems to have a thing for building stuff.

I'd really kind of appreciate it if they made Cidney the most intelligent person in this world. Like, she can fix and build any goddamn thing you could want or ask for.

:/ That would make up for a lot of boobage, I think.

[CAST VOX]

This (https://www.google.com/search?q=cidney&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=9Z2vVMKwEIaWyQTi_IEQ&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1173&bih=592#tbm=isch&q=cidney+ffxv) google image search has me thinking a few things.

Cidney makes direct eye contact with people. She has close-ups. She is pleasant, but not terribly goofy or silly. She seems kind of cool, like you'd expect a person who shoes horses in a Western setting to be. Or like a blacksmith.

She's holding that wrench up and getting pretty excited about it. She really seems to have a thing for building stuff.

I'd really kind of appreciate it if they made Cidney the most intelligent person in this world. Like, she can fix and build any goddamn thing you could want or ask for.

:/ That would make up for a lot of boobage, I think.
She'll probably be some sort of genius, or at least a great mechanic. They'll probably screw it up by making her a ditz or something.

[chionos]

This (https://www.google.com/search?q=cidney&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=9Z2vVMKwEIaWyQTi_IEQ&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1173&bih=592#tbm=isch&q=cidney+ffxv) google image search has me thinking a few things.

Cidney makes direct eye contact with people. She has close-ups. She is pleasant, but not terribly goofy or silly. She seems kind of cool, like you'd expect a person who shoes horses in a Western setting to be. Or like a blacksmith.

She's holding that wrench up and getting pretty excited about it. She really seems to have a thing for building stuff.

I'd really kind of appreciate it if they made Cidney the most intelligent person in this world. Like, she can fix and build any goddamn thing you could want or ask for.

:/ That would make up for a lot of boobage, I think.
She'll probably be some sort of genius, or at least a great mechanic. They'll probably screw it up by making her a ditz or something.

I hope they don't. I could see her being naive though, kind of like Kaylee from Firefly. Not ditzy, but kind of spacy because she's so obsessed with her machines and such. That would work fine for me.

[CAST VOX]

This (https://www.google.com/search?q=cidney&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=9Z2vVMKwEIaWyQTi_IEQ&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1173&bih=592#tbm=isch&q=cidney+ffxv) google image search has me thinking a few things.

Cidney makes direct eye contact with people. She has close-ups. She is pleasant, but not terribly goofy or silly. She seems kind of cool, like you'd expect a person who shoes horses in a Western setting to be. Or like a blacksmith.

She's holding that wrench up and getting pretty excited about it. She really seems to have a thing for building stuff.

I'd really kind of appreciate it if they made Cidney the most intelligent person in this world. Like, she can fix and build any goddamn thing you could want or ask for.

:/ That would make up for a lot of boobage, I think.
She'll probably be some sort of genius, or at least a great mechanic. They'll probably screw it up by making her a ditz or something.

I hope they don't. I could see her being naive though, kind of like Kaylee from Firefly. Not ditzy, but kind of spacy because she's so obsessed with her machines and such. That would work fine for me.
That would be nice. Characters that are obsessed with one particular thing can actually be very interesting.

But they'll probably just make her Vanille/Rikku with gadgets.

[Spooniest]

I don't get a ditzy vibe from her. She's intent on something, very focused, but not in an overtly hot-blooded way. She is capable of smiling, though. I think the look on her face says, "I'm not impressed with [the object of this imaginary sentence]."

[Loony BoB]

For what it's worth, I think making her occasionally ditzy isn't a problem - look at some of the previous Cids (FFV being the best example) and you'll find they can be bumbling on occasion. The things they generally are first and foremost related to any airships in the game and being competent with machinery. After that I find the characteristics you might think they are associated with probably aren't a complete match to a number of the Cids. Even being competent with machinery isn't something I immediately associate with Cid in VIII or XIII. The Cids really are quite varying.

Personally, from what little we've seen of her, I think she'll be set up just fine. She comes across as a rather quirky, intelligent and capable person, capable of standing up for herself and perhaps even runs her own business. Hard to say for sure though, we'll just have to wait and see.

[Spooniest]

Now, I understand "cheated angles" in camera/acting work. It's to show the front of the person while allowing them to talk to someone standing to their side. It shows up in these screens, too, with her talking to the buff dude in the open shirt.

She's not looking directly at him. She's kind of looking sideways at him, if at all. She might be turning around? But maybe not.

That seems kind of...how do you characterize it...

She seems like she works really hard or something, and stays up late a lot.

Definitely like a FFIV-Cid-esque vibe here. Esp with the goggles.

(let's hope the goggles do something)

Edit: I forgot to mention it, but Cidney's hair looks like she combed it with a balloon.

[Tyson]

This (https://www.google.com/search?q=cidney&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=9Z2vVMKwEIaWyQTi_IEQ&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1173&bih=592#tbm=isch&q=cidney+ffxv) google image search has me thinking a few things.

Cidney makes direct eye contact with people. She has close-ups. She is pleasant, but not terribly goofy or silly. She seems kind of cool, like you'd expect a person who shoes horses in a Western setting to be. Or like a blacksmith.

She's holding that wrench up and getting pretty excited about it. She really seems to have a thing for building stuff.

I'd really kind of appreciate it if they made Cidney the most intelligent person in this world. Like, she can fix and build any goddamn thing you could want or ask for.

:/ That would make up for a lot of boobage, I think.
She'll probably be some sort of genius, or at least a great mechanic. They'll probably screw it up by making her a ditz or something.

I hope they don't. I could see her being naive though, kind of like Kaylee from Firefly. Not ditzy, but kind of spacy because she's so obsessed with her machines and such. That would work fine for me.
That would be nice. Characters that are obsessed with one particular thing can actually be very interesting.

But they'll probably just make her Vanille/Rikku with gadgets.

I'm definitely getting a big Rikku vibe from her. Wouldn't be surprised if they're almost identical. May just be because of the mechanical skills and dress sense tho , haha.

[Spooniest]

I dunno...Rikku wears a lot of pink, and she has the emotional range of a teaspoon.

Cidney seems like she doesn't go in for any of that shit to me. She's got a workbench full of shit to fix, so why are you wasting her time by being a huge dumbass who doesn't even know how to build one electrical circuit, for goodness' sake?

I doubt they'd do this, but it would be interesting if they gave her Cid Highwind's potty mouth and abusive personality. :D Though obviously, women in Asia are strongly discouraged from smoking. Or so I heard from an Indian (SE Asian) once.

[Ayen]

I don't expect them to change anything, and stated as much in my letter to them. I simply made my disappointment in the outfit known and stated my reasons in the politest and most respectful manner that I could and informed them I won't be buying the game because of it. And before someone even say it, yes, I was one of the few on here that never cared for the game to begin with, but eventually, just like FFXIII, I would have bought the game for review purposes, but not now, and I would feel this way regardless of who the developers were, and what the game was.

[Spooniest]

Beyond sending my own letter, yelling about doing it in this forum and providing the link to the postage calculator, there is little more I can do at this time to promote this.

Really, the only plausible way for this to go is for someone (hopefully with me on board as the scriptwriter lol) to found a videogame company dedicated to hammering on these niches that SE refuses to acknowledge.

It's not a social justice thing, it's a storytelling quality thing. Change up the gender roles, keep people guessing. It's just another trope to play with.

Someone will found this company one day, or may have founded it already.

Their motto would be "Art is the weapon with which bad ideas are destroyed."

[Mirage]

I think perhaps I should write them something as well. Not sure what would be the best place to send it, though.

[Spooniest]

Straight to the Tokyo HQ.

[Mirage]

Do they actually read english letters there?

[Spooniest]

English is offered as early as what would be 8th grade in Japan. Has been for years. It's a prerequisite in their schools for a lot of business courses, I'd wager.

English is the language of business around the world.

[Mirage]

As early as the 8th grade? That's... really late. I never doubted that there were people at the SE headquarters that would understand english, though.

In either case, even if you start in 3rd grade like you do in a lot of other countries, it's not the time spent in english classes in school that makes you good at the language, it's how much you use it after you're done with your classes.

[Spooniest]

As early as the 8th grade? That's... really late. I never doubted that there were people at the SE headquarters that would understand english, though.

In either case, even if you start in 3rd grade like you do in a lot of other countries, it's not the time spent in english classes in school that makes you good at the language, it's how much you use it after you're done with your classes.

The only point I can possibly make based on my knowledge is that there's no excuse for a Japanese person who has gone to school for any length of time to not know English. It's being offered to them, possibly much earlier than I last read about.

[Spooniest]

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to object in the strongest possible terms to the idea of a female mechanic wearing such provocative clothing. I myself have worked as a mechanic for quite a number of years now and the females who choose this profession are governed by the same laws of physics as any other mechanic, requiring copious amounts of protective clothing under the law of my country of residence.

I am no longer willing to financially support a producer of interactive entertainment that is willing to put forth such tripe and call it a AAA release.

Sincere thanks for your time and consideration,
Spooniest

[Ayen]

I don't think it matters which headquarters you send it to. They're all under the same banner anyway. I went ahead and sent mine to the NA corporate headquarters. Whichever one is closest to you should work.

[Loony BoB]

As a tip, hand-written letters are considerably more likely to reach their destination. If you hand-write your letter and send it to the producer, there's every possibility it will indeed reach the producer or the producer's PA. I've seen instances of SE responding to hand-written letters before, notably the producer/director of FFXIV who made an open letter as a reply to one of them during FFXIV 1.x. Can't remember if it was Yoshi-P or the other guy.

[NeoCracker]

For what it's worth...

https://angelwitchpaganheart.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/thoughts-of-a-feminist-gamer-getting-big-breasted-characters-off-my-chest/

[Shorty]

For what it's worth...

https://angelwitchpaganheart.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/thoughts-of-a-feminist-gamer-getting-big-breasted-characters-off-my-chest/


It is my opinion that assuming that big breasted characters are incapable of having any personality and reducing them to ‘smurf toys’ is, in itself, sexist and demeaning. It assumes that breast size and sexiness are the only things that the player notices or cares about in regard to female characters. Even worse is the assumption that this will make gamers sexist towards women in real life, a presumption that I find deeply patronising and insulting as a gamer. This morality policing of gaming has gotten out of hand. The vast majority of gamers are adults, let us decide for ourselves what we find acceptable. If more body types in gaming is what you want then stick to that instead of yet again promoting one kind of woman at the expense of another. Busty women are gamers too, some of us want to continue to see characters that look like us, deal with it.

Repeatedly in her article she mentions about how she wants more body types represented. Earlier in her article she writes that women's sizes have increased to a number of things, obesity being one of them. I cannot understand how she in good conscience can tout, "We want more body types!" while ignoring the fact that a multitude of body types are in fact not being represented, and that instead there is a specific body characteristic being represented here with female characters sporting large breasts. I do not see her advocating for more body types. I see her advocating for female characters to keep their large breasts.

And this little gem:


If more body types in gaming is what you want then stick to that instead of yet again promoting one kind of woman at the expense of another.

Her mentality does not promote more body types. It promotes one kind of woman who is typecast among a majority of video games featuring breasts too large for their proportions, aka the Sex Toy model from below. If this writer was in favor of more varied body types, she should be promoting body types like these, most of which are more realistic and less fetishized:

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/083/2/7/female_body_type_chart_vr_2_0_by_candy2021-d3cee0g.jpg


Even worse is the assumption that this will make gamers sexist towards women in real life, a presumption that I find deeply patronising and insulting as a gamer.

It is offensive to me that she can blurt out this sentence on a blog titled "Thoughts of a Feminist Gamer". No.

[Loony BoB]

Anyone who thinks that more body types means "fat girls" and "flat girls"... just... what. Sarah's list is just a sampling of how many body types there are for girls out there. Almost all of those are still emphasised hourglass figures, while most women I know don't match that, particularly athletic ones. People just need to look up "family portrait" on image search. So many types.

I can agree with a general sentiment that "omg this girl has a pinup body type that is so sexist" or "omg this girl has big boobs that is so sexist" can be bad to an extent in that such girls do exist and we shouldn't attack developers or call them "unrealistic" just for appearing in video games. However, they should appear alongside other females of all kinds of body types. Guys, too. Some games are pretty good at this, however a lot of them are not.

Ideally, unless a character is in a role where fitness is relevant, characters should be reasonably well represented across the spectrum, and I think everyone here can agree that doesn't happen.

[Night Fury]

Omg at the Kate Moss :lol: that's terrible

[Hannibal_Khan]

Even worse is the assumption that this will make gamers sexist towards women in real life, a presumption that I find deeply patronising and insulting as a gamer.

It is offensive to me that she can blurt out this sentence on a blog titled "Thoughts of a Feminist Gamer". No.

Why is that offensive? You think people don't know the difference between the real world and a video game?

I guess I feel that FF's don't need to give "reasonable" representations of people. I haven't seen many fat, old, or bald male protagonists and I'm not bothered by that. Many of the characters in FF have idealized figures, male and female, which i'm fine with. I believe games are the appropriate medium for these things, Final Fantasy in particular.

Final Fantasy is not some magazine with photoshopped images of "real" women that give girls false or misleading expectations of what a womans figure should be(which is a pretty horrible thing) . People are aware that games are just games. I haven't seen any evidence that VG's change people's behavior to real word people.

[Shorty]

Even worse is the assumption that this will make gamers sexist towards women in real life, a presumption that I find deeply patronising and insulting as a gamer.

It is offensive to me that she can blurt out this sentence on a blog titled "Thoughts of a Feminist Gamer". No.

Why is that offensive? You think people don't know the difference between the real world and a video game?

I guess I feel that FF's don't need to give "reasonable" representations of people. I haven't seen many fat, old, or bald male protagonists and I'm not bothered by that. Many of the characters in FF have idealized figures, male and female, which i'm fine with. I believe games are the appropriate medium for these things, Final Fantasy in particular.

Final Fantasy is not some magazine with photoshopped images of "real" women that give girls false or misleading expectations of what a womans figure should be(which is a pretty horrible thing) . People are aware that games are just games. I haven't seen any evidence that VG's change people's behavior to real word people.

Some people know the difference between real world and a video game. Some people are aware that games are just games.

However, I believe that the nastiness of GG spreading through the internet like wildfire is a product of men believing that women are objects to be used and abused as they so desire, which is what the female character stereotypes reinforce when their visuals represented in order to appeal to men's tastes and fantasies.

This behavior is not limited to the internet. Additionally, is represented just the same with photoshopped women in magazines, surgically-altered women in porn and so on vs. The Real Female Population.


I haven't seen any evidence that VG's change people's behavior to real word people.

Okay, let's use the well-worn example of Anita Sarkeesian.

Anita begins a blog called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropes_vs._Women_in_Video_Games), which examined tropes that she believes reinforce damaging stereotypes about women. Essentially, this is a movement to break away from the female character stereotypes that we all know too well.

She is attacked because of this. She is attacked because men want those female characters to remain the same; they want their games to remain untouched. She becomes a victim of death and rape threats, her webpages and social media are hacked, her article on Wikipedia is vandalized, among a slew of slander and additional threats of all sorts online in comments and Twitter and the like. One attacker created a computer game that allowed players to beat and bloody an image of her. She was forced to vacate her home due to the threats she received, and just recently had to abandon a conference at the University of Utah due to threats of gun violence.

All of these behaviors are examples of peoples' real life behaviors. They are behaviors caused by video games.

This is one case among many where females are harassed, threatened, and whose lives are otherwise endangered because they seek to change the female body, character and role stereotypes in games.

So for you to say "I haven't seen any evidence that VG's change people's behavior to real word people", I have to ask, are you paying attention?

[Hannibal_Khan]

First, the vast majority of people know the difference between VG's and reality, not just "some". Give our species a lil more credit than that plz.


I believe that the nastiness of GG spreading through the internet like wildfire is a product of men believing that women are objects to be used and abused as they so desire

Those folks who attack Anita do not represent all men, not even close.


They are behaviors caused by video games
Conjecture, at best. You can't possibly say that they only able to do so because they played video games... Video Games are not responsible for those individuals behavior. GTA V has sold 35 million copies but hasnt change they way ppl function in the real word, to the best of my knowledge(and multiple article's chronicling the decrease of all forms of violence over the past 20 yrs in correlation to increased gaming.) Here's an interesting aticle about how "bad" vg behavior may change us tho (http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2014/06/037.html).

If they weren't hacking her, they were gonna be hacking someone else. Their criminals, thats all. They don't represent an entire gender.

Now, back to FF. Why is it wrong for Cidney to be visually appealing to men? Many of the men is this game have idealized figures, and are appealing to women. Thats doesn't automatically make them a "sexualized trope". Frankly tho, I believe sexualizing characters is a normal thing humans do. I also don't believe women are "damaged" by these characters either. I give the female gender the credit deserved. Most women are very capable of seeing a game for what it is.

[Shorty]

First, the vast majority of people know the difference between VG's and reality, not just "some". Give our species a lil more credit than that plz.


I believe that the nastiness of GG spreading through the internet like wildfire is a product of men believing that women are objects to be used and abused as they so desire

Those folks who attack Anita do not represent all men, not even close.


They are behaviors caused by video games
Conjecture, at best. You can't possibly say that they only able to do so because they played video games... Video Games are not responsible for those individuals behavior. GTA V has sold 35 million copies but hasnt change they way ppl function in the real word, to the best of my knowledge(and multiple article's chronicling the decrease of all forms of violence over the past 20 yrs in correlation to increased gaming.) Here's an interesting aticle about how "bad" vg behavior may change us tho (http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2014/06/037.html).

If they weren't hacking her, they were gonna be hacking someone else. Their criminals, thats all. They don't represent an entire gender.

Now, back to FF. Why is it wrong for Cidney to be visually appealing to men? Many of the men is this game have idealized figures, and are appealing to women. Thats doesn't automatically make them a "sexualized trope". Frankly tho, I believe sexualizing characters is a normal thing humans do. I also don't believe women are "damaged" by these characters either. I give the female gender the credit deserved. Most women are very capable of seeing a game for what it is.

You're getting awfully defensive for something that I never implied. Nowhere in my responses have I said, "All men do this! The vast majority of men are sexist pigs who seek to sexually abuse and objectify women! All men want to beat and bloody Anita!" Nowhere have I said those things, so I am not sure why you are confusing me referring to GG as representing the entirety of men.

I am aware that not all men are like this. It is you who are not giving my argument credit. I stated facts. Men do this. Men are doing this. Men create stereotyped female characters which negatively affect women in "the real world". Those are facts.

Hey look, I can find links to support my argument as well.

Racism and sexism in the gaming world: Reinforcing or changing stereotypes in computer games? (http://www.academicjournals.org/article/article1380123494_Peck%20et%20al.pdf)


In general, we expect to find that computer games are designed and marketed for white, adolescent males, with evidence of both color-blind racism and overt sexism in the advertisements. Since the mid to late-1980s, many social programs in the U.S. have been retracted or eliminated altogether. This trend—often described as the dismantling of the Great Society programs which were implemented to minimize racial and gender inequality— has slowed efforts toward racial and gender equality (Marable, 2000; Sampson and Laub, 1993). Given this trend, we hypothesize:

(4) Current computer game advertisements (from 2009) will be as racially and gender biased (or more) than those from two decades ago.

SeX-Box: Exposure to Sexist Video Games Predicts Benevolent Sexism (http://psychology.okstate.edu/faculty/mburkley/Melissa_Burkley,_Ph.D._Social_Cognition_Lab/Publications_files/PPMC.pdf)

and here (https://vgresearcher.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/the-sex-box-and-benevolent-sexism-stermer-burkley-2013/)


We examined the association between playing sexist video games and sexist attitudes. Undergraduate students (61 men and 114 women) indicated the level of perceived sexism present in their most frequently played video games. Students also completed the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (Glick & Fiske, 1996), which measures both hostile and benevolent sexism. As predicted, men who played video games perceived to be high in sexism showed higher levels of benevolent sexism, compared with men who did not play such games. This relationship was not evident for women. Importantly, our study provides the first known evidence of a link between long-term exposure to sexist video games and sexist attitudes. Although correlational, these data are consistent with the notion that sexist video games encourage and reinforce sexist attitudes. Our findings have important real-world implications for video game researchers, parents, and game players themselves.

Some good arguments here for how video games do affect their players and their players' behaviors. (http://www.reddit.com/r/AskFeminists/comments/2n6egv/do_video_game_cause_sexism/)

Games inspire physical responses, they inspire emotions from us, they can change the way we think or act or provide a new perspective. They have the capacity to do all of the things people mimic after watching a television show or film or reading a book, even to change lives.

This may not translate to people going on murdering rampages in the street. That's not what I'm suggesting. I'm not suggesting that people become full-blown sexists and women-haters because busty character appears on screen. What these things do, though is inspire benevolent sexism, as the articles linked above says. To say that games don't cause, ignite, or otherwise inspire behaviors is, quite frankly, a bunch of bulltrout.

Asking why it's not okay for Cidney to be visually appealing for men followed by saying that sexualizing people is normal and then to say that you give the female gender the credit they deserve is preposterous, because evidently, you do not. You are giving the female gender the credit you think we deserve, which does not translate to credit at all.

[NeoCracker]

...Yeah, I'm just going to cover a few basic things here.

Firstly, just a general response to what you say on her article.

The point of the article wasn't to actively promote other Body Types in gaming. The point was to speak out against people who are constantly bashing games because of characters with big boobs. At no point does she say that other types are not welcome, she is simply countering people who keep saying that the big boobs are not welcome. (Yeah, in this very thread we have someone saying they are going to write a letter to square showing their disapproval of Cid's attire, and no one is saying this is a bad thing. So yeah, there are people saying the boobs aren't welcome, and none of you are exactly saying you disagree with that.)



Anita begins a blog called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, which examined tropes that she believes reinforce damaging stereotypes about women. Essentially, this is a movement to break away from the female character stereotypes that we all know too well.

She is attacked because of this.
No. Firstly, I'm going to ignore Troll's for purpose of this repsonse. (Yeah, the trolls are fucking shitty, but everyone with any semblance of clout on the internet gets those in droves.) People dislike Anita because of how nonsensical her statements are. You need only look at her dissection of hit man to realize this. The game penalizes you for killing innocents (You know, like all those strippers you see being killed in the video she that she claims the game in question encourages you to kill) to see how, at best, disingenuous she is being in her critique.


She is attacked because men want those female characters to remain the same; they want their games to remain untouched.

I hope you have some way to back this claim up.


She becomes a victim of death and rape threats, her webpages and social media are hacked, her article on Wikipedia is vandalized, among a slew of slander and additional threats of all sorts online in comments and Twitter and the like. One attacker created a computer game that allowed players to beat and bloody an image of her
Oh, you mean like what happened to Christina Hoff Sommers after she said a lot of these people criticizing Video games in the manner they were rather off base? (Protip: it wasn't people who support GG that went after her.) Or when she speaks out against blatantly false statistics? (Yeah, take a wild guess over where are the vitriol towards her comes from) Or how about Jack Thompson, who received pretty much the exact same treatment as Anita did, in his case the beat up image game as well? Guess that last one kind of destroys this being a thing only women have to deal with. (Yes, death and vivid threats of anal rape were all sent to Jack Thompson.)


She was forced to vacate her home due to the threats she received, and just recently had to abandon a conference at the University of Utah due to threats of gun violence.
I'll give you the former, cause that's just plain shitty. Note though, it takes ONE person to do this. But the latter is quite frankly silly. Unless you believe the official reports were full of shit, both state and federal investigations showed the threats to have no credibility what so ever. Regardless, Campus Security was still set to be increased during the event. There is a discrepancy between them saying they were in contact with Anita the whole time, and Anita saying she learned only once she arrived, but point in case this looked as if it were little more then some jack ass high schooler calling in a fake bomb threat to get school canceled for a day. Threats like this happen all the time. Hell, they've happened to Marilyn Manson multiple times from people trying to get his shows canceled cause they felt he was to edgy.


All of these behaviors are examples of peoples' real life behaviors. They are behaviors caused by video games.
You have exactly as much backing you up as Jack Thompson's claims do.


And no, pointing out that 'gamers did the same thing to Jack Thomspon' doesn't prove you're right, just as me pointing out all the absolutely terrible things some ass holes have done in the name of Feminism wouldn't be proof that Feminism caused all of this rotten behavior. Absolutely every horrible, shitty thing that has happened can be ascribed to a small handful of individuals easily.

[Shorty]

...Yeah, I'm just going to cover a few basic things here.

Firstly, just a general response to what you say on her article.

The point of the article wasn't to actively promote other Body Types in gaming. The point was to speak out against people who are constantly bashing games because of characters with big boobs. At no point does she say that other types are not welcome, she is simply countering people who keep saying that the big boobs are not welcome. (Yeah, in this very thread we have someone saying they are going to write a letter to square showing their disapproval of Cid's attire, and no one is saying this is a bad thing. So yeah, there are people saying the boobs aren't welcome, and none of you are exactly saying you disagree with that.)

I'm not saying she said other body types are not welcome. The leg she uses to stand on about why we should keep large-breasted characters is "to include more body types". She says this several times in her article, yet it does not accurately reflect her argument because she is concerned about disproportionately-designed female characters to keep their large breasts, not to be more inclusive of realistic body types that result in the large breasts mentioned.



Anita begins a blog called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, which examined tropes that she believes reinforce damaging stereotypes about women. Essentially, this is a movement to break away from the female character stereotypes that we all know too well.

She is attacked because of this.
No. Firstly, I'm going to ignore Troll's for purpose of this repsonse. (Yeah, the trolls are smurfing troutty, but everyone with any semblance of clout on the internet gets those in droves.) People dislike Anita because of how nonsensical her statements are. You need only look at her dissection of hit man to realize this. The game penalizes you for killing innocents (You know, like all those strippers you see being killed in the video she that she claims the game in question encourages you to kill) to see how, at best, disingenuous she is being in her critique.

She is attacked because she wishes to change the way women are misogynistically portrayed in video games by those who disagree with her and those who do not want to include measures that support feminist ideals in their games. My statement is correct.



She is attacked because men want those female characters to remain the same; they want their games to remain untouched.

I hope you have some way to back this claim up.

Sure. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/10/14/the-only-guide-to-gamergate-you-will-ever-need-to-read/) Read all you like. People making threats because the women seeking to change the movement translates to gamers wanting their games to be untouched by feminist ideals like the one Anita promotes. This means she is attacked because people want those female characters to remain the same.



She was forced to vacate her home due to the threats she received, and just recently had to abandon a conference at the University of Utah due to threats of gun violence.
I'll give you the former, cause that's just plain troutty. Note though, it takes ONE person to do this. But the latter is quite frankly silly. Unless you believe the official reports were full of trout, both state and federal investigations showed the threats to have no credibility what so ever. Regardless, Campus Security was still set to be increased during the event. There is a discrepancy between them saying they were in contact with Anita the whole time, and Anita saying she learned only once she arrived, but point in case this looked as if it were little more then some jack ass high schooler calling in a fake bomb threat to get school canceled for a day. Threats like this happen all the time. Hell, they've happened to Marilyn Manson multiple times from people trying to get his shows canceled cause they felt he was to edgy.

Sorry, but that's a bunch of bulltrout. Someone says that they are going to shoot up a school if a certain individual speaks there, and you want to say that such a threat wasn't credible? Where do you stand as an authority on whether or not a shooting threat should be taken seriously or not? Furthermore, campus security means nothing when a shooting threat has been made and campus authorities say that they will continue to allow guns on campus and in the auditorium. It means nothing.

Does it matter if ONE person or if thousands sent her threats of rape and violence to her home? So smurfing what if it was one person? I hardly believe it would be one in any case because thousands of people did it, but it shouldn't matter if it was one or a thousand; what matters is that it happened. It's really quite offensive that you shake that off in an, "oh, a rape/murder threat from one person isn't a big deal" sort of tone. Why was that important to note at all?

[Ayen]

At no point does she say that other types are not welcome, she is simply countering people who keep saying that the big boobs are not welcome. (Yeah, in this very thread we have someone saying they are going to write a letter to square showing their disapproval of Cid's attire, and no one is saying this is a bad thing. So yeah, there are people saying the boobs aren't welcome, and none of you are exactly saying you disagree with that.)

I fail to see how disapproving of the outfit equates to shaming big breasted women. If her bra size was smaller and she was still dressed like that I would feel exactly the same way as I do now. It feels like we're talking about two separate things here. And multiple people have already said her exposed breasts isn't the only issue they have with the outfit.

[Shauna]

No. Firstly, I'm going to ignore Troll's for purpose of this repsonse. (Yeah, the trolls are smurfing troutty, but everyone with any semblance of clout on the internet gets those in droves.) People dislike Anita because of how nonsensical her statements are. You need only look at her dissection of hit man to realize this. The game penalizes you for killing innocents (You know, like all those strippers you see being killed in the video she that she claims the game in question encourages you to kill) to see how, at best, disingenuous she is being in her critique.

I think that this sort of argument would hold more water if she had not been completely torn to pieces before she'd made any videos. There was no critique made. There were no videos with generalising statements about video games. There was an idea for a video series.

So why did people hate her then? What did she do when making her Kickstarter that deserved the level of vitriol she got?

She suggested that video games might have an issue with female representation. Simple as that.

[Spooniest]

I find that Anita Sarkersian's videos are too general...if she were more specific, people wouldn't be so confused about what statement she's making.

But the fact remains that 99% of her detractors go much much further out of their way to criticize her than is fair or warranted (or productive). I do believe that it's because she's a woman making the statement that games are kind of sexist.

It's pretty gross and I don't like looking at it.

[Shorty]

Because this same trend has been used in some of the responses in this thread, I'd also like to add that the "Not All Men" phenomenon is one of the most offensive trends regarding women's rights circling the internet today (http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/05/27/not_all_men_how_discussing_women_s_issues_gets_derailed.html) and that it does not in any way help the issue at hand, which is that whether or not a specific man is doing it, females in video games are sexualized and objectified by men and it negatively affects women in their daily lives.

[Shlup]

For what it's worth...

https://angelwitchpaganheart.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/thoughts-of-a-feminist-gamer-getting-big-breasted-characters-off-my-chest/
Oooooh, you know I commented on that blog.


I guess I feel that FF's don't need to give "reasonable" representations of people. I haven't seen many fat, old, or bald male protagonists and I'm not bothered by that. Many of the characters in FF have idealized figures, male and female, which i'm fine with. I believe games are the appropriate medium for these things, Final Fantasy in particular.
To repeat one simple example I've given several times in this thread, the oldest playable female in a Final Fantasy game is Lulu at 22. There are no less than 23 playable male characters older than Lulu, up to age 70+. If your "fantasy" is that males can be whatever as long as females are all young and pretty, then that is sexist as all get out.

No one's promoting an eradication of pretty people; the issue here is balance.


I haven't seen any evidence that VG's change people's behavior to real word people.
Art and media both influence and reflect the culture which creates and indulges in them--if you can't recognize that then I feel you're missing the entire point of art and media. I don't want to leave you hanging though, so here are a few published studies:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-009-9695-4#page-1
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-007-9250-0#page-1
http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/p64ut85g663gr605/
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-007-9278-1#page-1
http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/05150.15436.pdf
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-009-9637-1#page-1
http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/04/09/0886260512441078.abstract

A lot of people jump from this to "but that's like saying video games cause violence, which we know is untrue!" I don't think that's an unreasonable jump to make at first, but you have to consider 1) saturation and 2) ...effort levels? I'm failing to think of a phrase for that last one.

In regards to the former, we are just knee-deep in sexualization and objectification all the time. We are all raised from birth to value women based largely on their appearance, and that is constantly reinforced. We do this to everyone, of course--pretty people tend to have it better in general--but we do this to women far more. We are not exposed nearly so much to violence. Think of people who live in areas with a lot of gang activity; people living in those kinds of culture find that getting shot may just be a normal part of life. Or something to be proud of. For me, if I got so much as a superficial bullet wound is would somewhat smurf me up for life. I think if I got mugged I'd never leave the house again, but in some areas this is normal.

In regards to the later, there is a big difference between thinking sexist thoughts and shooting someone. Or even just hitting someone. I am not more likely to commit a violent act after playing GTAV, but I sure am more likely to be amused by the thought of running people over in my car. Seeing women in video games as primarily young and pretty, and often made to look like outright smurf dolls, influences how we see women.

Again, it's not about eradicating sexy, it's about balance. Balance both within the female gender and between the two genders.

Also again, my issue with Cidney isn't that she has boobs. I think I've illustrated the issue at least six times now though, and everyone else has said the same thing, so the next person to accuse anyone of hating on Cidney because "it's just some boobs" or something similar will incur just unrestrained wrath. Wrath, I say!

[chionos]

Oh please someone take one for the team and say it. Pllleeeeeeaaassseee.

Also, Edit: I'll add something of value to the discussion, or try to.

Character designed to be sexy AND sexualized:
http://gamingtrend.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/final-fantasy-xv-cindy-a-ukazka-mesta-a.jpg

Character designed to be sexy BUT NOT sexualized:
http://lounge.moviecodec.com/images/attachment/alyx-vance-vs-miranda-keys-6690.jpg

There's a difference between making a character that's attractive and making a character that's an object.

Square's not the worst company out there for these things, but they're still guilty of it.

Perhaps it's hard for some of you to understand sexualized vs. non-sexualized b/c we're talking about different characters in different situations and blah blah blah, well here's one character, before and after a reboot:

http://www.pixelkin.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/laracroft.jpg

The Tomb Raider reboot finally gave us a Lara whose body makes sense, whose proportions are realistic and unsexualized, who can be sexy without taking away from all her other qualities.

The point isn't sexiness. People still think the new Lara is sexy. People think Alyx Vance is sexy. But that's not the primary reason for them being onscreen. THEIR PURPOSE FOR BEING A WOMAN IN A GAME IS NOT JUST TO BE A PIECE OF ASS.

It's not even the amount of skin showing. Lara's clothes get shredded throughout the newest game, so by the end she's showing a lot more skin than shows in the above picture. But, for one, it makes sense in the story, and for two, it isn't the focus, it doesn't get in the way of Lara being Lara, which is more than a pair of tits.

I hate that we can't (neither as a forum nor as a society) get on the same page. Bottom line, it's pretty obvious that female characters are sexual objects in games more often than not, including in Final Fantasy. I don't think every single thing that people point to as being sexist is actually sexist, though. For instance, I don't think you can say that FFXV is sexist for having an all-male cast and also say that FFX-2 is sexist for having an all-female cast. (I haven't seen that in EoFF, but I have seen it online, and it's just an example).

I don't think it's wrong to point out that #notallmen. Because it's true, and because it's not about being defensive (I mean it doesn't have to be). Men who are closet misogynists may use it to cover the fact that they're totally secretly against this feminism stuff, but I don't see much evidence of it being about that. I don't think it should be a "movement" or anything, I just think it's important as an idea. You and I and everyone in here might be aware that not every dude is full-on sexist, but I've seen enough broad sweeping statements online, and heard enough women trash "every guy" to know that some people do take it too far. And ultimately, I think it's important that men and women work through this together. This shouldn't be a war, at least not one between men and women.

Is it really so hard, such a HUGE distraction, to see the whole thing in the proper perspective, to realize #yesallwomen and #notallmen at the same time? It's not so hard. It's no more difficult than asking men who have been indoctrinated from childhood to undermine and objectify women to suddenly see how wrong their thinking has been.

It's not a distraction, it's part of the discussion. Clearly this is an issue that requires more than a quick-fix, more than a simple overarching statement that cleans everything up in one fell swoop. I think it HELPS the cause of feminism to recognize that not all men perpetrate or propagate sexism (in the same way that not all women benefit or enforce feminism). That group of men is absolutely essential to the cause of feminism, because whether we like it or not, that's the group that has to change the minds of men who are sexist (that's logic, not sexism, think about it). It's also important to note because that group (along with women) needs to recognize unintentional or incidental sexism at work.

For instance, the disparate ages of FF characters was mentioned earlier. Something like this could be totally unintentional or accidental (for the record, I think it's indicative of Japanese cultural trends, i.e. directly sexist, but to make a point...). In other words, I don't think that the developers at SE have a rule that says there cannot be female characters over a certain age, they just design them that way. I'm not giving them a free pass, bear with me. Even assuming the characters were designed, just by chance to be the way they are (and not because SE designers intentionally thought to propagate sexism), they've had plenty of opportunity to be anti-sexist, to be proactive about the way they develop female characters, and for the most part they haven't been.

Again, I want to reiterate that I don't think SE is as bad as these threads might seem to imply. I think they're better than average, in fact (which is sad in it's own way I guess). Which is why it's sad to see them do something like this with Cidney. It's not the worst case of sexism in video games, but it's a step in the wrong direction. It's a step backward, not forward.

[Spooniest]

It's just some boobs, you're fine with looking at them when a woman breastfeeds but if she wears a bikini top western civilizations doomed right

Note: chionos put me up to it

I enjoy natural ladies

[Shlup]

Shut your smurfing face, Spooniest. EDIT BY BoB: You can't say stuff like that!

If it helps, chionos, I don't have any reason in particular to believe men are more sexist than women. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me and it seems likely based on my perspective, but I don't hold the view that men are sexist and women aren't. Women are very often the sexist ones. And I mean women upholding the patriarchy and all that trout.

[chionos]

If it helps, chionos, I don't have any reason in particular to believe men are more sexist than women. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me and it seems likely based on my perspective, but I don't hold the view that men are sexist and women aren't. Women are very often the sexist ones. And I mean women upholding the patriarchy and all that trout.

Oh, I'd say men and women are about equally sexist. We're all human, after all. I think the difference is that men have been in control for a long time and in such a system, naturally their version of sexism is going to be more prevalent. Men were in power so they were allowed to be sexist. I fully believe that if all gender roles were flip-flopped, we'd see the same thing in reverse: a disproportionate amount of women objectifying men and oppressing men and so on. The key is balance, and I sadly don't think we'll ever find it from where we are now. It would take a book to explain why I feel this way (and I certainly don't mean we shouldn't try), so I won't bother trying to get into it here.

In any non-perfect system, unilateral power is bad.

[Hannibal_Khan]

We examined the association between playing sexist video games and sexist attitudes

I don't consider FF's to be sexist video games nor do i think that they encourage or reinforce sexist attitudes, thus I dont see how that study is relevent to FFXV's Cidney. And according to them them, any story involving a "dansel in distress" is sexist(seriously, even mario games are sexist now?)...

Are we gonna censor games now b/c a small number of men will show "higher levels of benevolent sexism"?. If a guy can't distinguish the difference between a VG and the real world and wants to be a sexist prick, he can die alone without a wife our children. Thats Darwin. Better for the gene pool, imo. Do you really think that Cidney's design will propagate a sexist attitude in someone who didn't already have those kinds of beliefs?


This relationship was not evident for women

You emphasis this as was to deflect from the issue of male sexualized/idealized body figures in contrast to females? as if somehow women are immune to having the own sexist attitudes reinforced by video games? b/c that study does not unequivocally state that. And i suspect that would not hold up after further research and more balanced sample(the paper addresses the need for these in further reseaerch tho). But I don't outright deny that possibility(although it does seem counter-intuitive) either and would be genuinely interested in seeing that topic studied further.


Asking why it's not okay for Cidney to be visually appealing for men followed by saying that sexualizing people is normal and then to say that you give the female gender the credit they deserve is preposterous, because evidently, you do not. You are giving the female gender the credit you think we deserve, which does not translate to credit at all.

How does me saying that "women are perfectly capable of distinguishing fictional game characters from real world expectations", equal me giving women no credit? And why is it preposterous for me to think that she can be both visually appealing and a great character. And why such contempt in your response? I didn't say I wanted her oiled up and put in chains, i just asked why she can't be visually appealing. Im sure there are more than a few feminist goals that we would be in agreement on, and Im not defending the VG world's representation of women across the board, I just disagree with your assessment that me wanting a female character to be attractive is immediately sexism.

Sexualization is a broad spectrum and i believe most characters are sexualized by players to some degree, regardless of how provocative a design is perceived to be. And I believe that's quite normal human behavior among both sexes.



Ultimately, it's the calls for censorship that I find most egregious...

...I'm looking at you, spooniest...:argh:

[Jinx]

Shut your smurfing face, Spooniest.

If it helps, chionos, I don't have any reason in particular to believe men are more sexist than women. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me and it seems likely based on my perspective, but I don't hold the view that men are sexist and women aren't. Women are very often the sexist ones. And I mean women upholding the patriarchy and all that trout.

Oh, I'd say men and women are about equally sexist. We're all human, after all. I think the difference is that men have been in control for a long time and in such a system, naturally their version of sexism is going to be more prevalent. Men were in power so they were allowed to be sexist. I fully believe that if all gender roles were flip-flopped, we'd see the same thing in reverse: a disproportionate amount of women objectifying men and oppressing men and so on. The key is balance, and I sadly don't think we'll ever find it from where we are now. It would take a book to explain why I feel this way (and I certainly don't mean we shouldn't try), so I won't bother trying to get into it here.

In any non-perfect system, unilateral power is bad.

61975

[Spooniest]

I don't consider FF's to be sexist video games nor do i think that they encourage or reinforce sexist attitudes

I don't understand how you can be so mistaken.

[Rin Heartilly]

The issue I have with Cidney is that considering she's a female mechanic, it makes sense for her to be a tomboy. The fact that she's got petrol grease on her face and scruffy hat hair, along with the iconic goggles paints the symbolism for a tomboy, but at the same time she's got a really skimpy outfit on which is totally not suited for mechanical work :S

Of course it's entirely possible for her to be a female mechanic that isn't a tomboy, but I feel like she's giving off two different types of personalities both of which are clashing.

[Freya]

We examined the association between playing sexist video games and sexist attitudes

I don't consider FF's to be sexist video games nor do i think that they encourage or reinforce sexist attitudes, thus I dont see how that study is relevent to FFXV's Cidney.


Just throwing my bit in here. This is the same SE that decided to make Lightnings boobs bigger in Lightning Returns (http://www.destructoid.com/lightning-returns-director-ordered-bigger-jiggling-boobs-258934.phtml) so she'd be more jiggly. Why? Cause... boob jiggles!


According to a Famitsu interview (nabbed by DualShockers), Motomu Toriyama "wanted it bigger" with regards to Lightning's chest, a fact he found funny when interviewed on the subject. Lighting -- who Square Enix wants us to believe is a strong female character -- gets her jiggle on with various costumes in Lightning Returns, her model designer showing off how much you can make her chest bounce.

"Yes, her chest jiggles," explained Nobuhiro Goto. "Since everyone can decide what costume she’ll wear, you can make sure it does (laughs). By the way, since Lightning swings her arm when you change her weapon in the menu screen, that’s a recommended action for sure-fire jiggling! To see it even better it could be useful to equip a small shield. Look forward to it!"

That was their last game released in the FF series... sooo


JUST SAYING.

I don't know if anyone has brought that up yet cause, you guys post a lot but yeah. There it is again if it was brought up before!

[Sephiroth]

We examined the association between playing sexist video games and sexist attitudes

I don't consider FF's to be sexist video games nor do i think that they encourage or reinforce sexist attitudes, thus I dont see how that study is relevent to FFXV's Cidney.


Just throwing my bit in here. This is the same SE that decided to make Lightnings boobs bigger in Lightning Returns (http://www.destructoid.com/lightning-returns-director-ordered-bigger-jiggling-boobs-258934.phtml) so she'd be more jiggly. Why? Cause... boob jiggles!


According to a Famitsu interview (nabbed by DualShockers), Motomu Toriyama "wanted it bigger" with regards to Lightning's chest, a fact he found funny when interviewed on the subject. Lighting -- who Square Enix wants us to believe is a strong female character -- gets her jiggle on with various costumes in Lightning Returns, her model designer showing off how much you can make her chest bounce.

"Yes, her chest jiggles," explained Nobuhiro Goto. "Since everyone can decide what costume she’ll wear, you can make sure it does (laughs). By the way, since Lightning swings her arm when you change her weapon in the menu screen, that’s a recommended action for sure-fire jiggling! To see it even better it could be useful to equip a small shield. Look forward to it!"

That was their last game released in the FF series... sooo


JUST SAYING.

I don't know if anyone has brought that up yet cause, you guys post a lot but yeah. There it is again if it was brought up before!

I never actually noticed the jiggling as an obvious effect so it cannot be that present. The game is too dynamic to just look at her chest all the time and when you do she most of the time stands still.



I feel like you're saying that, because you didn't personally notice, it's not relevant or real. Toriyama specifically states he purposefully made this feature, but it doesn't count because you didn't notice?


That is the exact opposite of what I always do so any further discussion is completely unnecessary. By the way a person can intend something and while the intention is there some people might still not notice it or probably have no problem with the intention. A perfect example is my last post in which you didn't understand what I was talking about. However you will not stop forcing yourself to feel insulted of something insignificant like you did the last 4 weeks and I am not interested in more of that.

By the way - you have insulted me now. By reading what you want you have completely missed out my character which would have told you that my post would never be meant the way you understood it.

[Shlup]

I'm starting to wonder if Hannibal_Khan thinks anything is sexist at all? FF's female playable cast is entirely young, pretty (except for Freya) women, while the men have a full range of ages and types. The first and only female Cid is dressed like a fuck doll for her role as a mechanic. And (I hadn't heard this before) Lightning's chest was made bigger specifically so that players could make her jiggle for their viewing pleasure.

Like, dude, you don't have to declare FF The Most Sexist Game Series of All Time and throw all your games away, but when you say the games just aren't sexist I just don't even know what to say to that.


I never actually noticed the jiggling as an obvious effect so it cannot be that present. The game is too dynamic to just look at her chest all the time and when you do she most of the time stands still.
I feel like you're saying that, because you didn't personally notice, it's not relevant or real. Toriyama specifically states he purposefully made this feature, but it doesn't count because you didn't notice?

I don't understand your agenda. Either of you.

[Freya]

But they did increase her cup size from a C to a D because they just wanted her to have bigger boobs just cause. She went through 2 games without them. What was the reason? So her boobs look better in outfits? Because, jiggle?

[CAST VOX]

But they did increase her cup size from a C to a D because they just wanted her to have bigger boobs just cause. She went through 2 games without them. What was the reason?

It's because she's her creator's waifu.
She was a terrible character from the start.

[Mirage]

It also begs the question: If most people actually didn't notice, what the hell was the point of doing it in the first place?

[Spooniest]

These are not the creators of games that I want to play. :(

Who wastes precious billable hours on ball-smashingly expensive computers, developing a game for a series that has supported the company since its creation, just to make the main characters' tits wobble around!?

D:

That's a waste of fucking time.

[Shlup]

http://41.media.tumblr.com/5277f3c00e82c33d6b5202e643c61dd9/tumblr_n24cl90wWa1s755fuo1_500.png

Hey, we don't even have a bingo yet. That's heartening.

[Hannibal_Khan]

FF's female playable cast is entirely young, pretty (except for Freya) women, while the men have a full range of ages and types.
Why is the characters age an issue?. The characters are they're respective age's b/c thats how the stories were written. What's wrong with that? 'A young group of friends join together and fight to save the...', yada yada yada, they're all hero's- this is FF in a nutshell. Alot fans of the series seem fine with that..

There's not any "non-pretty"(polite way of saying ugly) male characters either. Some of them look average but quite a few would be classified as "sexy", and all are thin or muscular. Similarly, there's not any "non-pretty" female characters, some are "sexy" but many would be considered average/normal looking. Why does the FF series have an obligation to make "non pretty" playable characters? I don't think the they should have to shape their vision of characters around the fear that there designs may be deemed sexist for not meeting some quota for character diversity.


The first and only female Cid is dressed like a smurf doll for her role as a mechanic.
Yes, Cidneys outfit is unreasonable for a real world mechanic, but Gladiolus open leather vest and abs would be a pretty lousy defense against bullets in the real world too. I see no logic in that argument, and I don't understand how you can keep reverting back to it. You say she's dressed like a "smurf doll", I still think thats just a different form of slut shaming. You make the assumption that just b/c her design is sexy that she will only be a sexual object. But FF doesn't have a history of doing that(imo), so i'm not under the impression that Cidneys character will be any different.


Like, dude, you don't have to declare FF The Most Sexist Game Series of All Time and throw all your games away, but when you say the games just aren't sexist I just don't even know what to say to that.

So, you are saying that FF's are sexist games? Their portrayal of female characters is responsible(at least in-part) for real world sexism? And, believe me, I have zero intention of throwing away any of my games because you deem them sexist. I'll take my good games over "politically correct" games any day.


In regards to the Lightning issue; I haven't played LR but i will give some opinions on the issue of her breast and the jiggling of said breast. First, they shouldn't have increased her size. Seems ridicules to change the original design for the 3rd game. The 'jiggle mechanics' thing is more nuanced tho. Breast are not static, they do jiggle. So I think jiggle mechanics can(and should) be used appropriately. I don't think boobs should just stay in the same place like plastic while the rest of the VG mechanic are becoming more realistic. But i'm not defending how they were used in LR(considering i havent even played the game so I can't really give an opinion on it).




You can highlight "Art shouldn't be censored" and "male babrbarians also fight half-naked" on your bingo board now too, i suppose.

[Freya]

But the reason wasn't for realism, it was for jiggling. What's your comment on that being a obviously sexist(read the quote again if you disagree) move by square enix and it being the most recent FF released? Do you feel that with XV being in development for so long, it was being produced the same time as LR, that those ideals could have been a factor in this new character's design? If not, why not? The same team is working on XV now.

[Hannibal_Khan]

But the reason wasn't for realism, it was for jiggling. What's your comment on that being a obviously sexist(read the quote again if you disagree) move by square enix and it being the most recent FF released? Do you feel that with XV being in development for so long, it was being produced the same time as LR, that those ideals could have been a factor in this new character's design? If not, why not? The same team is working on XV now.
I said i wasn't defending how the jiggle mechanic was used in LR(I haven't played it). I was saying that VG boobs shouldn't just stay still like plastic and implementing some kind of jiggle mechanic is not necessarily sexist.


Schulp said "Toriyama specifically states he purposefully made this feature", so the blame is clearly on toriyama. Toriyama is not directing XV, Tabata is. Toriyama didn't design XV's characters, Nomura did.The FF series is a lot bigger than just games toriyama has directed. And, imo, the series does not show a history of "reinforcing sexist attitudes". And as much as I hate to defend Toriyama, I don't think his body of work is littered with sexism. They are mostly sub-par games tho, imo. But one instance of obvious sexism by one director is no reason to put the whole series on blast.

I hear the argument that the cast should be "more balanced", but i disagree. I don't think a artists should have to shape their vision of characters around some quota of "balanced representation", just for sake of doing so.

[Freya]

I don't think anyone said it should be "more balanced". The complaint is that the existing female characters are hyper sexualized merely because mmmm girl

[Shlup]

Why is the characters age an issue?. The characters are they're respective age's b/c thats how the stories were written. What's wrong with that?
If you can't even acknowledge an imbalance in how the genders are treated when presented with a completely objective numerical fact then I don't even know what you're trying to do here. Yeah, it's just "how the stories were written." Nothing is ever sexist or racist or at all problematic if it's "how it's written," apparently.


There's not any "non-pretty"(polite way of saying ugly) male characters either.
Many posts ago we determined that male playable characters are two to three times more likely to have a character design not obviously made to be physically attractive to the player. Almost all of the female non-attractive characters were children, while the male characters were mostly non-children. But I suppose that imbalance is also somehow not a problem because that's just "how it's written"?


Why does the FF series have an obligation to make "non pretty" playable characters? I don't think the they should have to shape their vision of characters around the fear that there designs may be deemed sexist for not meeting some quota for character diversity.
You're right, they aren't obligated to not be sexist. It would just be nice. I don't think it's that much to ask.


Yes, Cidneys outfit is unreasonable for a real world mechanic, but Gladiolus open leather vest and abs would be a pretty lousy defense against bullets in the real world too. I see no logic in that argument, and I don't understand how you can keep reverting back to it.
I'm happy to clarify for you then. Cidney's outfit is part of a consistent pattern of sacrificing character design in order to sexualize female characters, while Gladiolus's shirt being unbuttoned is not. In addition to Cidney's outfit being part of a subversive pattern, it also breaks the pattern of previous incarnations of Cid--a character that's typically respectable, dressed in a way that makes sense for his character, and is often older. Immersion and credibility is being sacrificed for... eye candy.


You say she's dressed like a "smurf doll", I still think thats just a different form of slut shaming.
Someone else literally dressed her up to be oogled. She isn't real. Someone sacrificed sensical character design for the express purpose of giving you something to fantasize about. She is literally a sex object.


So, you are saying that FF's are sexist games? Their portrayal of female characters is responsible(at least in-part) for real world sexism?
Treating the genders unequally would make them sexist by definition, yes. Are they the worst offenders? No, not by a long shot, unfortunately. Cidney and the Lightning boob thing are certainly running them up the ranks though.


And, believe me, I have zero intention of throwing away any of my games because you deem them sexist. I'll take my good games over "politically correct" games any day.
Well, good, because I just said that wasn't what was required of you...? I'm confused why you're adamantly against gender equality. What is it you think will happen? You'll never see a sexy woman again? You'll see too many sexy men? You might have to play a female character that's in her 30s? Sincerely, if you could clarify what it is about gender equality that upsets you, it would help.


But the reason wasn't for realism, it was for jiggling.
Also this. Yeah, breasts jiggle. Enlarging a character's breasts and adding jiggle for the player's pleasure is textbook objectification.

[chionos]

Well I was gonna make a comment about ages and whether or not some of this talk of FF's pattern of sexualization and sexism (specifically regarding character design) really holds up, but I want to have some sure-fire numbers so I'm going to spreadsheet this motherfucker. Might take a while.

Some early interesting numbers from FFII-FFIV:

Out of 20 playable male characters, there are five old men, and two little boys.
Out of 8 playable female characters, there's one old woman, and one little girl.

13/20 of the males are young, handsome men.
6/8 of the females are young, pretty girls.
The percentages are actually not far off. I think the problem there is that there's a disproportionate male-to-female number of playable characters. If there were more female characters would there be more old, ugly women?

More important, perhaps, is the comparison of the actual designs. Only three out of the twenty male characters show any significant amount of skin at all. FF2's Firion and big dumb Gus, and FF4's Yang. Only one of those three could really be considered "sexualized" at all, and that's Firion.

On the other hand, of the females, only the little girl, Porom(FF4), the old woman, Unei(FF3), and the runaway, Refia(FF3), do not show significant amounts of skin including cleavage.

That's 5/8 vs. 3/20. That's significant, I think.

It's important to point out that none of this really shows up so much in these early games given their pixelated in-game designs. Thus, these aren't exactly examples of sexism-reinforcing images, but it has other implications, and I'll get into that more later when I get the other games tabulated and finish the stats.

[Shlup]

The list of playable characters (http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Playable_Characters) includes temporarily playable characters (which I didn't include in my own analysis) but the list does not include Unei. Are you sure she's playable? It says she will help in a battle but it doesn't say you can play as her.

I appreciate the back up with the stats.

[chionos]

The list of playable characters (http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Playable_Characters) includes temporarily playable characters (which I didn't include in my own analysis) but the list does not include Unei. Are you sure she's playable? It says she will help in a battle but it doesn't say you can play as her.

I appreciate the back up with the stats.

In the 3DS version she's temporarily (and only partially) playable. I'm trying to be thorough, covering all bases for those that might seek to use such trivialities to undermine the numbers.

Interesting fact about Unei:

She shows up alongside Doga (Unei's old male peer in FF3) in FFXIV, in which both characters are young, pretty, generic hyurs (...sorta).

[Hannibal_Khan]

I don't think anyone said it should be "more balanced". The complaint is that the existing female characters are hyper sexualized merely because mmmm girl
They're hyper sexualized now??? Are we playing the same FF's? lol Dis FF, not Leizure Suite Larry. Honestly tho, which characters do you think are hyper sexualized?


@shulp

If you can't even acknowledge an imbalance in how the genders are treated when presented with a completely objective numerical fact then I don't even know what you're trying to do here
I did acknowledge the in-balance, but i'm saying it's marginal.

That list is hardly "objective numerical fact". Totally subjective(you admitted this in an earlier post tho).And, imo, there should be 3 categories; Un attractive, Average, Sexy.16 unattractive males?!! geez shulp, you must have some pretty high standards lol. But seriously, i would be interested in seeing your list of the unnatractive males. But No, the number of unattractive females to males ratio will likely not be even on anybody's list. But does it have to be exactly even for you to think it's not sexist? For every unattractive male there has to be an unattractive female?



Many posts ago we determined that male playable characters are two to three times more likely to have a character design not obviously made to be physically attractive to the player.Not "we", just you(again, anyone's list of unattractive characters will be completely subjective). But lets use my list as an example; I have 5 unattractive females to 10 males. So there's twice as many unattractive males to females(based on my subjective opinion).That sounds like a large disparity, on face alone, but the difference is still only 5 characters. and therefor seems marginal.



Cidney's outfit is part of a consistent pattern of sacrificing character design in order to sexualize female characters, while Gladiolus's shirt being unbuttoned is not. In addition to Cidney's outfit being part of a subversive pattern, it also breaks the pattern of previous incarnations of Cid--a character that's typically respectable, dressed in a way that makes sense for his character, and is often older. Immersion and credibility is being sacrificed for... eye candy.So if a female is on the "sexy" end of the scale, her credibility is sacrifice and she is "literally a sex object", and that's it? she can't be anything else? No other layers or dimensions to her as a character? Well that just isn't true for other "sexy" female ff characters. Cidneys design is sexualizing but Gladiolus isn't? Hypocritical, bull trout.You seem to be saying that it's only sexist when female characters are sexualised.



Treating the genders unequally would make them sexist by definition, yes. Agian, does the ratio of characters have to be precisley equal to not be sexist. I believe the issue is much more nuanced and is therefor irresponsible to label the games sexist for that reason.



I'm confused why you're adamantly against gender equality. What is it you think will happen? You'll never see a sexy woman again? You'll see too many sexy men? You might have to play a female character that's in her 30s? Sincerely, if you could clarify what it is about gender equality that upsets you, it would help.

HAHAHA thank you, i literally laughed out load from that last bit. What, from my posts, leads you to believe I would have a problem with seeing "too many sexy men"? Beatrix is around 30, and i adore her character(plus she's just so DAMN HOT!!!). I have no issue with female characters in there 30's or w/e. I just said that FF's theme is exclusively about young hero's, and thus the disparity in characters ages are irrelevant, b/c of coarse there's going to be many more younger characters. That doesn't mean there sexist. But, in all honestly, whats not funny is that b/c i have a dissenting opinion to you on the issue, that you will label me as a sexist/misogynist and for some reason implying some homophobia, as a ploy to diminish my arguments...


But i guess i shouldn't expect anything more from a woman. A woman with a brain 'a third' the size of a man's brain. It's science...
http://bb07aa07f3952a7b9f3b-5d2d61c27edf2275a68aa4077fb6a508.r36.cf2.rackcdn.com/9e5178812237b8dfb73212601842a7a0-e5e0fd7d317245888be863134c51d82f.gif EDIT BY BoB: That was definitely inappropriate, dude.

[Shlup]

If you can't even acknowledge an imbalance in how the genders are treated when presented with a completely objective numerical fact then I don't even know what you're trying to do here
I did acknowledge the in-balance, but i'm saying it's marginal.

That list is hardly "objective numerical fact". Totally subjective(you admitted this in an earlier post tho).And, imo, there should be 3 categories; Un attractive, Average, Sexy.16 unattractive males?!! geez shulp, you must have some pretty high standards lol. But seriously, i would be interested in seeing your list of the unnatractive males. But No, the number of unattractive females to males ratio will likely not be even on anybody's list. But does it have to be exactly even for you to think it's not sexist? For every unattractive male there has to be an unattractive female?
I was referring to the 23 male playable characters that are older than the oldest female playable character.

No, it doesn't have to be exactly equal, but not being double or triple would be a start.




Many posts ago we determined that male playable characters are two to three times more likely to have a character design not obviously made to be physically attractive to the player.Not "we", just you(again, anyone's list of unattractive characters will be completely subjective). But lets use my list as an example; I have 5 unattractive females to 10 males. So there's twice as many unattractive males to females(based on my subjective opinion).That sounds like a large disparity, on face alone, but the difference is still only 5 characters. and therefor seems marginal.
"We" as in the people participating in the discussion at the time.

That aside, a 100% increase is marginal to you? Wow.



So if a female is on the "sexy" end of the scale, her credibility is sacrifice and she is "literally a sex object", and that's it?
I'm unsure why you think it's appropriate to take this one example an apply it to every circumstance. I am specifically talking about Cidney's nonsense outfit. We aren't going to make any progress at all if you take every opportunity to run off the deep end.


Cidneys design is sexualizing but Gladiolus isn't?
No, you're misunderstanding what I was addressing. I was explaining to you why the sexualization is problematic. I've said several times that sexualization is not the problem; it's imbalance that's the problem. I would consider it a personal favor if you would put some effort into remembering what should be a simple point, as your continued implication that I believe all sexy is bad is not helpful. I'm sure you don't want to waste your effort fighting phantoms.


You seem to be saying that it's only sexist when female characters are sexualised.
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Usually it's a woman, but sometimes it's a man. It would be foolish to make absolute statements about complex issues.


HAHAHA thank you, i literally laughed out load from that last bit. What, from my posts, leads you to believe I would have a problem with seeing "too many sexy men"? Beatrix is around 30, and i adore her character(plus she's just so DAMN HOT!!!). I have no issue with female characters in there 30's or w/e. I just said that FF's theme is exclusively about young hero's, and thus the disparity in characters ages are irrelevant, b/c of coarse there's going to be many more younger characters. That doesn't mean there sexist. But, in all honestly, whats not funny is that b/c i have a dissenting opinion to you on the issue, that you will label me as a sexist/misogynist and for some reason implying some homophobia, as a ploy to diminish my arguments...
I wasn't implying anything and I certainl didn't put any labels on you. It was an honest question.


But i guess i shouldn't expect anything more from a woman. A woman with a brain 'a third' the size of a man's brain. It's science...

]http://bb07aa07f3952a7b9f3b-5d2d61c27edf2275a68aa4077fb6a508.r36.cf2.rackcdn.com/9e5178812237b8dfb73212601842a7a0-e5e0fd7d317245888be863134c51d82f.gif
I would appreciate it if you dialed it down s bit; that was inappropriate. And weird. EDIT BY BoB: Nothing to see here, folks, just a response to something that was deleted in another post.

[Fox]

Oh hey, sure is nice to see the same arguments we went over 26 pages ago get dragged up again. Means I don't have to go back to read them all and feel depressed again.


But i guess i shouldn't expect anything more from a woman. A woman with a brain 'a third' the size of a man's brain. It's science...

Hmm, I think I missed the part where a sexist remark from Ron Burgundy was a good idea. When he says it, he is a joke character whose stupidity and sexism are being mocked by the filmmakers. When you say it... you're an actual person talking to actual women. It doesn't have the light hearted "oh, aren't attitudes like this archaic and silly?" effect of the film. Even with a .gif.


I just said that FF's theme is exclusively about young hero's

Then what, pray tell, were Edgar, Sabin, Cyan, Barret, Cid, Vincent, Steiner, Auron, Basch, Fran, (omg a woman!) and Sazh doing in their respective games? The youngest of those is 27. They're not the majority of playable characters, most of whom are under 25, sure, but when you do get older characters (which you do, so it isn't 'exclusively' about young heroes) they are men. 10 times out of 11.

Let's have a few more rugged, badass women in these roles please.

Basically I just want more Judge Drace. Why can't she be in every game. Or have more than 3 minutes of screen time in the game she was​ in...

[Mirage]

yeah, true men have like brains the size of beach balls. Too bad they've got about the same contents too...

[Shlup]

10 times out of 11.
Actually it would be 24 out of 25, if we're counting Fran.

[Hannibal_Khan]

Let's have a few more rugged, badass women in these roles please.

Basically I just want more Judge Drace. Why can't she be in every game. Or have more than 3 minutes of screen time in the game she was​ in...
I'm not saying that I don't want older female characters.I'm just disagreeing with notion the series is sexist b/c of unbalanced representation. You want more balanced playable characters? Then tell me which characters are changed to achieve this. B/c every character has their fans among both genders, who are happy to have those characters. More "balanced" cast doesn't = better game. IV-X are great games, not sexist, and also don't have a balanced representation all female body types. Should the writers write their stories around some quota of balanced ages. Should character designers alter their vision of a design to meet a quota for non attractive character? My answer to this is, "Of Course Not!". You put the game in hands of the artist who create them. You allow them to create the game they want to make, the story they want to tell. If the cards fall and there's not a "balanced cast", that doesn't mean that the game is sexist (and by extension, the artist that create them). That has been the process in the past and it has resulted in some pretty great games. Let be clear tho, they're not great b/c their isn't a "balanced" cast, they're great b/c the creators were able to make the story and characters that they wanted to make. Like I said in several previous post, It's nuanced...

I liked Judge Drace too. Would rather have had her as guest member instead of that bratty prince, but that wasnt how Ito made the game. I don't chalk it up to sexism tho. You want a playable character like Judge Drace? Well I hope a future FF games creator creates a character like that and your wanting is fulfilled. But I say that the design should be the creators vision of the character and not just for an agenda to have more "balanced" cast. Compromising that princible is your best bet for getting both bad character and lousy games, imo.

Hmm, I think I missed the part where a sexist remark from Ron Burgundy was a good idea. When he says it, he is a joke character whose stupidity and sexism are being mocked by the filmmakers. When you say it... you're an actual person talking to actual women. It doesn't have the light hearted "oh, aren't attitudes like this archaic and silly?" effect of the film. Even with a .gif.
Well let me point out what you missed, Schlup asked me if why I was "so adamatley against gender equality". That's not a serious question. She's implicating me a sexist/misogynist. Thats an attack on my character, my morale standing. Yes, me, a real world person, Fox. She's done this more than once. At least when i retalliated i used a gif and the satire/humor was obviously implied. Do you think that was a "honest question", that schulp asked me? If my above explaination on views does not sufficiently convince you that im not a sexist, then what would? Do i need to list my views on all the issues of gender equallity in order to validate whether i can express my views on issue without being brushed off as just promoting sexist attitudes? B/c im not going to do that.......


Maybe at future date we could discuss our views on the issue in a more productive and less standoffish eniroment(which im sure im partially guilty fostering), but untill that time, i dont have the desire to dabate the topic any further.

[Fox]

I'm all for letting creators make what they want to make. But surely it's pretty clear how "the creators didn't want to make games with women in them" is sexist. Probably not maliciously so, but then most of the white people in '50s America weren't malicious with their racism either, they just assumed the attitudes they had been raised with - that black people weren't as capable/intelligent/moral as white people.

Same deal here. It's just ignorance, but it's still problematic. Being an artist doesn't give you a free pass.


You want more balanced playable characters? Then tell me which characters are changed to achieve this

Easy. All of them. Any of them. I cannot think of a single character off the top of my head from the series where it was 'important' that they were male. Perhaps the male half of relationships? So Cecil, Squall, Zidane, Steiner, Tidus, Balthier - there may be particular reasons you wouldn't change those. Perhaps Irvine because being a gross, sleazy dude was an important character trait.

Anyone else though? Swap 'em, change the pronouns and you're done. I can't imagine any of their characters would have been diminished by that.

[Pumpkin]

I think Suikoden does a good job with this, personally. Sure you get characters like this:


http://gensopedia.theirstar.com/images/7/7f/Jeane_%28Suikoden_IV%29.pnghttps://yurination.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/kisara.jpg?w=217

But then you also get characters like this:

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/suikoden/images/c/c5/Raja01.png/revision/latest?cb=20100425145242http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/suikoden/images/b/b8/S4_Elenor_Silverberg.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width/209?cb=20140722035624http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/suikoden/images/c/cb/Taki01.gif/revision/latest?cb=20100228040840

There's a variety of women of different shapes, types, sizes, and ages. You can still have young, sexy women. Just, you know, not all of them

[Shlup]

I apologize, Hannibal, for failing to find a way to ask you to explain your position to me without sounding accusatory. I've tried to rephrase my request several different ways, but I seem to be unable to find a way to ask the question that makes it clear that I really am looking for you to answer. If my phrasing makes you feel like I'm trying to imply you're a misogynist, I apologize again--I have no intention of putting labels on anyone.

The reason I use the phrase "adamantly opposed to gender equality" is that you are arguing against me, when my argument is simply that the genders should be treated equally. I've listed several ways in which the FF series does not treat the genders equally, and you've agreed that they're not equal, but you dismiss those inequalities as not problematic. I explained three ways Cidney's outfit specifically is problematic, and you said I was being hypocritical for not giving Gladiolus's open shirt equal weight, despite none of those three ways applying to him.

I'm simply asking how wide the disparity has to be before you feel it is problematic, especially in the face of such overwhelming data (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_representation_in_video_games) supporting the claim that it's already well into "problematic" territory. I'm also asking what your motivation is for opposing the people in this thread who are in favor of equal treatment of the genders. The guesses I made seem to have offended you--that wasn't my intent; I just have no idea what your motivation could be here.

In regards to the way you've been painting my position, there are still some flaws. For one, no one has proposed a quota that ensures 100% tit-for-tat balance in every circumstance. All that's required is that game creator's be aware of the implications of the design choices they make. I appreciate that you want to defend "artists," but you'll be hard pressed to convince me that giving Lightning a jiggly boob job is them being "artistic" and "creative."


If the cards fall and there's not a "balanced cast", that doesn't mean that the game is sexist (and by extension, the artist that create them).
There are no "cards" falling; there is someone behind every decision. We can give things a pass on a regular basis--it's okay to have games with male casts or with female casts--but when one gender is consistently less represented than the other but also consistently more sexualized, that is sexist, and that is something an "artist" should consider when designing their world and story.

To give another example, sitcom writers are actively moving away from the "dumb dad" trope because it's become problematic and offensive. I know so many dads (and non-dads, and women) who are irritated that TV shows portray them as incapable of caring for their own children. People have made it known that there is a demand out there for competent dads on TV, and now there's a a decrease in that stereotype.

And then there's those troutty live action Disney Channel shows where the tweens are constantly being troutty to their stupid parents. If you think media doesn't influence our attitudes, spend time with a kid whose parents let them watch those. All of my friends have banned their kids from watching them because as soon as they do, their kids start disrespecting them. Hopefully Disney Channel will figure out soon that that trout's old.

Again, I apologize for making you feel as though my goal was to call you a misogynist. I'm trying to understand your position and simply failing.

[Shiny]

But i guess i shouldn't expect anything more from a woman. A woman with a brain 'a third' the size of a man's brain. It's science...

Given that you say you have a larger brain than that of all women and that you infer that brain size some how equates to intelligence, you should have known that this post was completely uncalled for and should have also known to not post it. Do not post things like this again. Consider this a warning.

[Freya]

Hajime Tabata did an AMA today and while it focused on Type-0 some XV questions were in there as well.



What can we expect in Episode Duscae?
In terms of Episode Duscae...you'll find out if Cindy is this game's "Cid" by playing the demo!

So is she not THE Cid? But just a Cid?

[chionos]

Hajime Tabata did an AMA today and while it focused on Type-0 some XV questions were in there as well.



What can we expect in Episode Duscae?
In terms of Episode Duscae...you'll find out if Cindy is this game's "Cid" by playing the demo!

So is she not THE Cid? But just a Cid?

I don't understand. I thought it was already mentioned by one of the developers (I don't remember who it was) that Cidney is Cid. Why this nonsense now?

Also, I forgot to post my findings on FF's history of sexualization by gender. I need to make some charts. Be back.

[Sephiroth]

I am more amazed by the fact people still miss that Shidonii is Cidney and not Cindy. She is supposed to be called Cidney as she is at least a Cid and that is what her name is. Hopefully no one will do another mistanslation in the game.

[Vyk]

Hajime Tabata did an AMA today and while it focused on Type-0 some XV questions were in there as well.



What can we expect in Episode Duscae?
In terms of Episode Duscae...you'll find out if Cindy is this game's "Cid" by playing the demo!

So is she not THE Cid? But just a Cid?

I don't understand. I thought it was already mentioned by one of the developers (I don't remember who it was) that Cidney is Cid. Why this nonsense now?

Also, I forgot to post my findings on FF's history of sexualization by gender. I need to make some charts. Be back.
This is why I posted previously if this had been defined by the developers or if everyone just assumed based on her employment and name similarity. And there still seems to be a mystery as to the origin of this idea. It makes sense to assume, but I'm still kind of afraid it was all just an assumption in the end, and may not actually pan out. Especially since place still keep changing randomly between calling her Cidney and Cindy. They're both floating around pretty prevalently depending on how or how they decided to translate it :/

[Shlup]

If she turns out to be just some ho, I would feel much better.

Waiting on those charts, motherfucker.

[Pike]

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/373/265/968.jpg

[chionos]

So here's the first set of charts and whatnot. I really did this for me, because I wasn't sure how the numbers were and I didn't want to keep spouting things without knowing for sure what the statistics were.

I think the stats speak for themselves. I'm not trying to interpret anything. I know what they mean to me, but I know others might see them differently.

These numbers show the total number of each gender of playable characters in each game divided by era. It also shows the number of characters who were designed to show an excessive or unnecessary amount of skin. I made decisions as equitably as possible. If I counted a female for showing an excessive amount of boob, then I also counted any male character who showed an equal amount of his own chest.

These charts do not necessarily indicate sexualization. That's harder to show, because of how relative it might seem to some, so I'm trying to find proof for each instance of proposed sexualization before posting it. There are a bunch of ways to try to show this, and it's hard getting it all tracked down and parsed and stuff.

62227

62228

62229

62230

And here's the overall numbers. As you can see, the percentage of female characters who show excessive or unnecessary amounts of skin has almost always been much higher than the percentage of male characters who show skin excessively. In fact, there's never been a game with more male playable characters showing skin than female characters showing skin (by percentage). FFX might be the only exception, but I do think that's a result of the game setting dictating to the designers that basically everyone in FFX be half-naked.

62224

1. Some other interesting gleanings include the fact that FF6 is the best game in the entire series, yet again, regarding parity between the sexes (I think FFX is an anomaly).

2. Notice the dip in overall skin% through what most people consider the best stretch of games Final Fantasy ever gave us, FFVI-FFIX, even though the gender gap remained (7-9).

3. Five games had 100% of its playable females showing excessive skin. 0 games had 100% of its playable males showing that much skin.

Here's Cid so far. Some of these numbers are slightly estimated, but I'm still digging to get it exact.

62226

It seems Cid's age is trending downward, albeit slowly, with two major dips in FFVII's and FFXIII's Cids both being in their 20's. FFVII's big dip really shows how SE likes its FF characters young. For six installments, Cid was in his mid 50's or older, and suddenly, when he's going to be a playable character, his age drops by ~30 years. I'm not trying to insinuate anything with this information, just find it interesting.

I'm working on some other stuff, primarily the ages. Some characters' ages aren't ever explicitly given so I'm trying to dig them up.

[Wolf Kanno]

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/373/265/968.jpg

62231

[jlewbro]

It is very possible that FF XV's "Cid" will be a woman. In following in the FF character's tradition (as stated) she fits all the categories. I read a lot of comments addressing the sexualization of this character. We're not the designer and we're unsure of the many possibilities of why she is portrayed in this way, but our minds will always tend to go on the offensive side. Our Western culture is vastly different from Eastern culture. If anything, Western culture allows for more sexualization in reality, meaning, how we live and breath, not what is in the movies, video games, etc. Eastern cultures have a much different outlook on things. If we specifically talk about Japan, couples rarely live together before marriage, don't have children without being married and even their law does not recognize father's of children born outside of wedlock. I've also read that mothers are not seen by their husbands as sexually desirable anymore. Once a child is born the mother becomes like a relative so to speak, which may be a reason why most families have one child. Nevertheless, I am not ignoring how offensive this character may be to some, but culturally the game is designed and coming out in a culture that see's things different. The bottomline is this: you have a choice. With a sure-fire M for Mature rating for this game, viewer/playing is advised. If you don't want to play for various ethical/moral reasons, then fine, but also respect those who decide to play regardless.

[Ayen]

This is Claire Redfield in the newest Resident Evil game.

http://i.imgur.com/7BbIXtX.png

She's fully clothed, and not the least bit sexualized. Want the real kicker? Capcom is a Japanese video game company. The games are made by Japanese developers. So obviously, the Japanese are fully capable of not sexualizing their women characters, but when Square does the opposite it's a "cultural difference" thing or "taking it out of context." No. Cidney is dressed that way as eye-candy to male audiences. No other reason than that.

[Mirage]

Poor woman. Doesn't she get that the zombies will be able to grab onto her clothes more easily than her bare skin?

[Vyk]

Dude @.@ She looks awesome. That alone makes me want to buy the new Resident Evil. Go Capcom. I've given them shit in the past, but outside of Jill Valentine's outfit in the third game, their Resident Evil outfits are mostly tame

[Psychotic]

Dude @.@ She looks awesome. That alone makes me want to buy the new Resident Evil. Go Capcom. I've given them trout in the past, but outside of Jill Valentine's outfit in the third game, their Resident Evil outfits are mostly tameHer outfit in 5 was worse! The worst bit about it was that she was wearing a catsuit and had a control device on her chest and then keeps the catsuit unzipped even once it's been ripped off.

[Shauna]

Dude @.@ She looks awesome. That alone makes me want to buy the new Resident Evil. Go Capcom. I've given them trout in the past, but outside of Jill Valentine's outfit in the third game, their Resident Evil outfits are mostly tameHer outfit in 5 was worse!

Oh god Safari Clubbin' Sheva. Oh god Tribal Sheva.

[Vyk]

Yeah, I wasn't really considering the alternative costumes, even for Chris, most were pretty wretched. And about the catsuit, like... at least she was covered. I was comparing it to her wearing a freaking mini-skirt and fighting zombies. At least a catsuit is functional, if a little unnecessary. But yeah, it's certainly not immune to being considered sexualized since she's just one step away from really just being naked and covered in black paint

[jlewbro]

This character fits the role Capcom designed for her. She's in a completely different game. Had she been "auditioning" for FF XV, she would have been told what the director had in mind for what she will wear for that role and the scene she is in. Why does this have to be ONLY about eye-candy for male audiences? You'd have to apply the same principles to all sorts of media, the TV shows, movies, plays, etc. Plus in our Western culture, you can't just apply that to eye candy for males only. Why couldn't that be eye candy for females? I'm not trying to pick an argument, I respect you opinion/views, but there is so much more depth to labeling something because of the role what was designed for a specific character, in a specific game, for a specific reason.

[Fox]

Why does this have to be ONLY about eye-candy for male audiences? You'd have to apply the same principles to all sorts of media, the TV shows, movies, plays, etc. Plus in our Western culture, you can't just apply that to eye candy for males only.

We do. They do a terrible job of proper representation as well.

I'm not sure what your point is regarding the auditioning thing. "Right my dear, you performed great in Resident Evil, but in Final Fantasy you're going to have to be a bit closer to naked so the adolescent boys (and perhaps a percentage of women as well) can get their titillation. Why, you ask? Oh, don't worry about that. It's my creative license and therefore immune from criticism."

[Ayen]

This character fits the role Capcom designed for her. She's in a completely different game. Had she been "auditioning" for FF XV, she would have been told what the director had in mind for what she will wear for that role and the scene she is in. Why does this have to be ONLY about eye-candy for male audiences? You'd have to apply the same principles to all sorts of media, the TV shows, movies, plays, etc. Plus in our Western culture, you can't just apply that to eye candy for males only. Why couldn't that be eye candy for females? I'm not trying to pick an argument, I respect you opinion/views, but there is so much more depth to labeling something because of the role what was designed for a specific character, in a specific game, for a specific reason.

And the director would have been told to go smurf himself and the woman would have stormed out of the studio.

Explain to me how Cidney's role somehow changes or diminishes from being able to wear pants and not have her tits hanging out for everyone to see? What is the purpose of her outfit as it is now other than the bleeding obvious?

[Vyk]

Yeah... none of those excuses holds up to legitimate critical thinking. The only excuse, and not even a viable excuse, is that its eye candy. And the fact that some women may enjoy it is merely a coincidence. It's eye candy for men. Just like the rest of the entertainment industry. And if we could rant and rave and change their tune, we probably would. But we don't care about make-up or clothes. A lot of us don't even care about television or movies. What we do care about is video games. And if we can make enough noise to FIX our favorite past time, we most certainly will. And are attempting it at least. It's not like its just on this forum. Discussions like this are happening all over the internet, about almost every game that comes out these days. Developers are under a lot of scrutiny to open their eyes and their minds and get over their unconscious sexualization in portrayals of women. Hell, even outside of that, they're under a lot of pressure to make more than just back seat characters in general. Characters that pass the bechdel test are still important, and still kinda rare sometimes

[Pheesh]

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/373/265/968.jpg

62231

https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/grandpa-simpson-gif.gif?w=650

[Shlup]

It is very possible that FF XV's "Cid" will be a woman. In following in the FF character's tradition (as stated) she fits all the categories. I read a lot of comments addressing the sexualization of this character. We're not the designer and we're unsure of the many possibilities of why she is portrayed in this way, but our minds will always tend to go on the offensive side. Our Western culture is vastly different from Eastern culture. If anything, Western culture allows for more sexualization in reality, meaning, how we live and breath, not what is in the movies, video games, etc. Eastern cultures have a much different outlook on things. If we specifically talk about Japan, couples rarely live together before marriage, don't have children without being married and even their law does not recognize father's of children born outside of wedlock. I've also read that mothers are not seen by their husbands as sexually desirable anymore. Once a child is born the mother becomes like a relative so to speak, which may be a reason why most families have one child. Nevertheless, I am not ignoring how offensive this character may be to some, but culturally the game is designed and coming out in a culture that see's things different. The bottomline is this: you have a choice. With a sure-fire M for Mature rating for this game, viewer/playing is advised. If you don't want to play for various ethical/moral reasons, then fine, but also respect those who decide to play regardless.

http://i.imgur.com/5GPA6.gif

[Goldenboko]

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/373/265/968.jpg

62231

https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/grandpa-simpson-gif.gif?w=650

http://media.giphy.com/media/1446KeT2YkW2RO/giphy.gif

[Shlup]

http://i.imgur.com/jO8u9uj.gif

[chionos]

Ok, peeps, this is turning into a gif-off.

Back on track.

What about these new rumors coming in from SE that Cidney is actually a hermaphrodite?

[Shorty]

Source?

I'm not saying that to be jerky, I actually want to read it.

[Ayen]

Due to the unique ​nature of Square Enix, I can't determine if chionos is joking or not.

[Shorty]

I had not considered such a thing, but now I feel foolish :colbert:

https://33.media.tumblr.com/e14870e8560a71dc9676dd8e60faa482/tumblr_mg1f2rehO11rxz72xo1_500.gif

[chionos]

Oh smurf that was worth it.


I'm sorry, wife. I didn't mean for you to get caught up in this trap. You try to get one over on the world and all you do is hurt the ones you love. I'm so sorry.









Still worth it.


I'm realizing too late that I totally should have ran with this. I should have written a very serious article with out of context quotes from SE and tried to see how far I could run with it. I'm so fucking disappointed with myself.

[Ayen]

It's not too late. Quick, before anyone else sees your post!

[chionos]

But I would know, ToriJ. I would know, and that's what matters.

[Vyk]

Cid

Always has a penis

Always

[Shlup]

Even when he has a vagina, he still has a penis. After all, it's called FANTASY.

[Ayen]

Is the penis safely tucked away in the vagina?

[Psychotic]

And I think this topic has now ran its course.