{"id":31376,"date":"2016-03-28T23:34:30","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T04:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=31376"},"modified":"2016-03-29T10:47:06","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T15:47:06","slug":"experienced-points-on-the-sketchy-woman-character","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=31376","title":{"rendered":"Experienced Points: On The Sketchy Woman Character"},"content":{"rendered":"

My column this week<\/a> is a tangent on the topic that Mumbles brought up on Spoiler Warning last week<\/a>, about how she’s sick of the bossy female coach character archetype. I can relate. I’m not tired of the female coach, but I am sick of the Aiden Pearce brand of protagonist, and I get how irritating it is when developers stick to that one trope that really gets on your nerves. <\/p>\n

And while I didn’t say so in the column, I think this is a point worth making:<\/p>\n

I know I’m always grumbling about male protagonists and male characters and ranting about how developers need to get out of this rut, but Firewatch showed me that I can still enjoy a male lead character, as long as he’s written properly. I’m not sick of male leads, I’m sick of shitty male leads<\/em>. Or as I’ve come to think of them: Ubisoft MenThis is NOT to suggest that Ubisoft is the only publisher guilty of this. They just have the ones that get on my nerves the most.<\/span>. You know the type: Growling badasses with no emotional vulnerabilities, no sense of levity, and central motivation built around vengeance or aggression. <\/p>\n

I used to be fine with these guys. I’m not sure what’s changed:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Age?<\/strong> Maybe because I’m older now, I’m interested in more texture and nuance and less raw id.\n
  2. Fatigue?<\/strong> Maybe after 30 years, I’m in the mood for something different.\n
  3. Dissonance?<\/strong> As games become more cinematic, maybe their shallow leads are looking more and more out of place. DOOM Guy was fine in DOOM, but DOOM Guy in a 2015 game with cutscenes and dialog and a supporting cast is another thing entirely.\n<\/ol>\n

    Then again, sometimes it works. As much as I whine about these guys, I really loved William “B.J.” Blazkowicz in the recent Wolfenstein games. I’m still trying to figure out why he works for me and (say) Jason Brody doesn’t.<\/p>\n

    Also, be sure to read my disclaimer on the Escapist before you go and make a mess in the comments. I love to talk about game design decisions like this, but I’d really rather this didn’t veer off into gender politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    My column this week is a tangent on the topic that Mumbles brought up on Spoiler Warning last week, about how she’s sick of the bossy female coach character archetype. I can relate. I’m not tired of the female coach, but I am sick of the Aiden Pearce brand of protagonist, and I get how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[551,527],"class_list":["post-31376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weekly-column","tag-firewatch","tag-soma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}