If you have been reading this blog up to this point, you’ll know how much of a fan of Dark Souls I am. What you won’t know is that whenever I load up one of these games and enter the character creation, I always choose to create a female character. “Why do I do this?” I have wondered.
The first thing to note is how few games feature females as the lead character. In particular it reminds me of something I heard about a game called “Life is Strange”. As the developer Dontnod was seeking out publishers, the thing they were consistently told was that they had to change the lead characters from female to male. Luckily they didn’t have to in the end but this is a clear sign of the stigma towards female protagonists in video games.
When I was younger, I remember the choice of which gender to play as being obviously male. I played through the Pokemon games as a male and chose a male Commander Shepard in Mass Effect (much to my chagrin as it meant I was stuck with Mark Meer’s voice rather than Jennifer Hales). To be fair, the vast majority of media surrounding these franchises depicted male leads rather than females. Why would I choose a female then?
At some point I began to switch over to choosing females to play rather than a male. I truly wish that I could remember the first game that I actively chose to play as a female and what in my life may have prompted such a change but unfortunately I can’t. However, having spent some time thinking about why I choose female characters, I have some possible reasons.
The first thing to note is that, when creating female characters, I believe that there is a greater sense of variety to their look that I feel is absent with male design. To me, when I create a female character, she will look more unique and different to other female characters. In contrast, I feel male characters inevitably end up looking similar. While I’m sure that the aesthetic look of female characters is a part of why I choose them, I have ultimately decided that that is not the primary reason.
I mentioned in “Final Girl: Sexism or Feminism” that part of the appeal of Final Girls to me was how their ultimate victory against the (usually) male antagonists filled me with a sense of accomplishment. In that same way, I feel that playing as a female and slaying monsters, defeating villains and saving the world fills me with a greater sense of achievement than if I was to play as a male.
What surprised me though was when I told this to a female friend of mine, she said that watching me play Dark Souls for a few hours as a female made her feel sorry and protective of the character due to all of the hardship. As the character became stronger though, her feelings changed to one similar to mine in which she felt a great satisfaction in seeing this powerful female defeat bosses and triumph over adversity.
All in all, while I have found many answers as to why I choose to play as female characters, I am also left with many questions about what it says about my personality and attitudes. However, I am eager to hear what all of you reading have to say about all of this. Let me know what gender you pick when you play a video game and why.
Thanks for reading and if you wish to seek any of the titles I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs! Also feel free to follow my curator page on Steam “JRPG Reviews” for thoughts and opinions on any JRPGs that I play and my YouTube channel “Victory Achieved Gaming” where I guide my friend through challenging games.