Best female role model in in gaming

[Wolf Kanno]

We tend to talk about the marginalized nature of female leads in gaming, so who are some of the leading ladies people here consider to be great role models and why?

[Del Murder]

Samus comes to mind. I don't know if she's a great role model since her games don't focus a lot on characterization or story. But she does represent a somewhat ideal state in that the fact that she is a woman does not force the usage of certain stereotypes or have a big impact on what she can do. Your effectiveness in hunting space pirates is not determined by your gender, and the games make this very clear because she is a badass.

[Karifean]

Dana from Ys VIII definitely comes to mind immediately.

[Lord Golbez]

Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn. Her natural inquisitiveness and willingness to question authority, which lead to her gaining a comfort level with technology that is uncommon in her world and eventually to finding the answers she seeks.

[Del Murder]

Oh yeah, Aloy is a fantastic example.

[WarZidane]

I guess it sort of depends on what makes a great role model. It's easy enough to think of a couple of invincible badasses who go one-woman-army on everything in their path while being either silent/stoic or cracking jokes (Samus, Lara Croft, Bayonetta), who are a role model in the aspect of being empowering like that.

Personally, while I am not a lady and therefore can't very well say what is or is not a great role model for ladies, I'm gonna shout-out Estelle from Trails in the Sky, who's just a great role model in general :p
Like any other main character she stands up to whatever's in her path, but she's also a big positive influence on people around her, can be kind and caring, and knows when to rely on others because she's not infallible (but she is plenty capable of holding her own and shutting people down when they're wrong)

[Vyk]

Jade - Beyond Good and Evil. For a lot of the same reasons Aloy is a good character. Not godly or anything. Just generally a good person who gets the job done

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Del Murder
Samus comes to mind. I don't know if she's a great role model since her games don't focus a lot on characterization or story. But she does represent a somewhat ideal state in that the fact that she is a woman does not force the usage of certain stereotypes or have a big impact on what she can do. Your effectiveness in hunting space pirates is not determined by your gender, and the games make this very clear because she is a badass.

She's changed over the years, but I did like her personality in the early days. As a kid there weren't as many women who weren't damsels. Things like this made her stand out, even if it is campy. It was aimed at kids, so campy is good.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/980/900/c80.jpg

There are pretty fair amount of invincible badass ladies, and strong warrior lady archetypes nowadays.

I don't know about the absolute best rolemodel, and she's in an RPG so she's one of the main characters, but I've always liked Pascal from Tales of Graces. She's very intelligent, driven, kind, and does her own thing. They didn't make her perfect, and so she's not good with social cues. She's a good character, and has good qualities to look up to.

[Del Murder]

I'm trying to think of the best example from the FF series. There have been a lot of great female characters--Rydia, Faris, Celes, Rikku (X only), Ashe come to mind--but I don't know if any of them were particularly great role models. I guess I would go with Rydia since she had a complete arc of being a 'damsel' (in a sense) needing saving to the one doing the saving.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

I'm trying to think of the best example from the FF series. There have been a lot of great female characters--Rydia, Faris, Celes, Rikku (X only), Ashe come to mind--but I don't know if any of them were particularly great role models. I guess I would go with Rydia since she had a complete arc of being a 'damsel' (in a sense) needing saving to the one doing the saving.

Princess Garnet follows a pretty good story arch, imo. She's sheltered and naive, but still sees the change in her mother. Initially she just wants to escape, but grows to want to protect her people and be a leader they deserve. So she also develops more independence, confidence, etc.

[Jessweeee♪]

Max Caulfield from Life is Strange is one of my favorites. She could do all kinds of wicked stuff with time travel but she just wanna help her girl Chloe find her girl Rachel.

[Loony BoB]

What would you guys say defines a good role model in a video game? Someone people should be like? I mean, people can be dainty and that's okay, so long as they're still not an asshole. You can say all four of Lightning, Serah, Vanille and Fang could be good role models in that regard. I don't actually know many female assholes. Or does it require being "not defined by your gender" which in itself is sort of an oxymoron, because we're discussing people as defined by their gender in this very thread.

I guess you could say that mature, understanding, tolerant, humble, confident people could be seen as good role models? The more different characters I look at when going through a list of female names, the more I realise I don't even know what a role model is. I guess we can at least say GLaDOS isn't the best role model, and Lara Croft isn't the worst.

[Del Murder]

I guess you could say that mature, understanding, tolerant, humble, confident people could be seen as good role models?
Probably this defines a good role model (and I would add kind) in a general sense. As I applied this question, I didn't think so much about 'role models' but more about examples with strong and admirable female characters that did not fall into the stereotypes that commonly occur when men write female characters (damsel in distress, abnormally large breasts, only there to support male characters, etc.). I think the FFXIII female cast works there, I just didn't care for them that much. :p

[Jessweeee♪]

I would say, a good role model, who so happens to be female.

[Example]

The only one I can think of that hasn't already been mentioned is Seth from Lost Odyssey.

[Fynn]

I’ve been coming to come up with some answer to this topic, but I just can’t. Maybe I just think role models are kind of an artificial concept. Maybe I think the predominantly male base that is game developers shouldn’t be telling women what to behave like or what a woman would be. Like I feel like however you slice it, we get a feminist issues.

But when it comes to female characters I find awesome, there are plenty. But I want to mention someone controversial as an example: Lightning. She’s been memed to death and her game’s reputation is what it is, but I actually really dig her as a character. She’s the rare “badass female character” that actually has emotional depth and doesn’t entirely discard any feminine traits to perpetuate the insidious idea that feminine equals weak, inferior, “less than”. Yes she’s badass and violent a lot of the time but her defining traits throughout most of her story are her love for her sister and the nurturing side she shows hope. Plus she learns to forgive and just generally be kinder to people without ever losing any of her edge.

So yeah, ironically, a character made specifically to cater to a specific base - mostly fans of Cloud and Strong Independent WomenTM turned out to be probably the most nuanced character in a game that really tried to be about the characters but really failed at it

[Wolf Kanno]

I feel my issue with Lightning is that she doesn't really break too much ground in terms of her character type. There are lots of grisly badass women who reveal a more nurturing side to soften their hard exterior in media. I mean in hindsight, she's a gruffer updated version of Faris without the drag. Both are no nonsense badasses but they have a softer side that is guided by their love of a sibling. The difference is that Faris didn't have to learn to be a better person. I also feel a different character before her (like the game that came before XIII) pulled the whole selfish character learns to look past themselves and be a better person trip just a little better.

I feel for me, I would go for someone like Lady Ashe and it's mainly because she has two important character traits: she's not afraid to get her hands dirty and she sees the bigger picture. With many RPGs falling into typical anime tropes, it was refreshing to see a character who actually put aside their personal desires because they could see the bigger picture at stake and understand that their desire doesn't actually align with what's best for others. Granted a lot of this is due to the fact that her desire wasn't exactly the nicest thing, but the genre is often overcrowded with conflicts that wind up not being a real issue as the personal desire actually does line up with the bigger picture of saving the world or whatnot. So I feel it was great to have a character who is not exactly the nicest person grow into the role she was born to be.

Overall, I feel one issue I'm seeing in this thread is people getting too stuck on the ''female'' part of the question. Yes, you may interpret is as who is a good role model for females, or you could see it as who is a good role model who happens to be a female. A role model is simply someone who has admirable traits that inspire others to follow in their path so I feel the question is more subjective than anything.

[Fynn]

Oh yeah, Ashe is obviously a way better character. For Lightning I just feel she stands out because 1) she’s a decent character in a game that lacks those and 2) despite her being all over the place, her outward image and the way fans feel towards her because of it don’t really represent who she is in game.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Dixie Kong because she's down for adventure and celebrates with badass guitar riffs.

https://i.gifer.com/1nDD.gif