I was thinking about this with regards to FE6 fairly recently, when it hit me, after all this time, just how many ladies you had to bust out of prison cells (the answer, incidentally, is 9-- yeah, I was taken aback too). But I think the reason it took so long for the staggering number of damsels-in-distress to hit me is because the tone and, like you said, the little things about the game's overall treatment of women is a lot more heartening. We get characters like Echidna and Dorothy and Wendy, who don't follow traditional gender roles, but don't make a huge deal about it, either. Miledy chooses loyalty to her female liege over her existing romance. Even Clarine, who does make a big deal about being a lady, doesn't care about keeping to her role beyond the trappings ("A true lady must be dressed properly when she fights" ...pretty much sums her up). And then Cecilia's whole predicament is handled quite poignantly, not pulling any punches regarding how hard she has to work to be taken seriously by her male peers. So the tl;dr of FE6's female characters is, in summary: terrible recruitment introductions, good (if scant) executions, strong finishes. Generally speaking, I mean: Idenn's role is so unfortunate that the optimist in me is inclined to want to see something really smart in it ("redeeming" the dragons as not a 100% pure sparkly god-race by having them turn her into a weapon? showing the logical extreme of their reverence for logic? some commentary about her sole purpose being obedience and reproduction? I mean, come on, game, you were doing so well!), and I still can't decide whether Zealot becoming king of Ilia is actually progressive or not.
I had also wondered why FE7 seemed to have taken a step back, with its female cast on the whole being more delicate and traditional (and the men likewise tending to treat them as such), but thinking about it in terms of the series' theme of new generations succeeding where their predecessors failed, it makes more sense. Even just looking at the (male) protagonists: you've got chivalrous Eliwood, who seems compelled to offer his protection to every woman he meets-- not disrespectfully, but because that's presumably how he's been taught. With Roy, it just isn't an issue. Take his recruitment convo with Lilina, for example-- his primary love interest, whom he swore to protect earlier, and who Eliwood, naturally, told to stay out of danger. Anyway, Roy gives her a tome to defend herself with, and that's it. No "are you sure you're okay to fight?" or "stay behind me!" or anything like that (IIRC, the only recruitment convo along those lines is Ellen's, and that's the second chapter; suffice to say, he learns). This change isn't arbitrary, either: after all, it was Cecilia-- the character who's arguably the most aware of sexism in all its forms-- who taught them during a highly formative period of their lives. So yeah, of course the prequel is going to seem more old-fashioned when all the evidence from FE6 indicates that things in Elibe are changing pretty rapidly.
Since I don't know, is this sort of thing evident in the other two-generation universes? Some of the comments seemed to sort of indicate that this was true for Ylisse, but what about Jugdral?
More generally, I've also caught myself being overly analytical of the motives/development/etc. of female characters over males. Sometimes, like Ammie brought up in her gendered tropes meta, it's understandable, as the combination of certain traits is often trite with one gender and refreshing with the other. But I guess I'm getting tired of the idea(s) that a female character loses Feminist Points by taking advice from a dude or failing at something or caring about her kid or, idk, crying. Then again, women who are TOO perfect, strong, etc. get the Mary Sue card thrown their way, so I guess there really is no winning when everyone's a critic. Which shouldn't be news, I guess. The important thing that IMO FE essentially gets right is to include a wide variety of female characters, so there isn't one single representative for womankind that everything is riding on, plus you get more opportunity to create interesting characters and dynamics that way.
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I had also wondered why FE7 seemed to have taken a step back, with its female cast on the whole being more delicate and traditional (and the men likewise tending to treat them as such), but thinking about it in terms of the series' theme of new generations succeeding where their predecessors failed, it makes more sense. Even just looking at the (male) protagonists: you've got chivalrous Eliwood, who seems compelled to offer his protection to every woman he meets-- not disrespectfully, but because that's presumably how he's been taught. With Roy, it just isn't an issue. Take his recruitment convo with Lilina, for example-- his primary love interest, whom he swore to protect earlier, and who Eliwood, naturally, told to stay out of danger. Anyway, Roy gives her a tome to defend herself with, and that's it. No "are you sure you're okay to fight?" or "stay behind me!" or anything like that (IIRC, the only recruitment convo along those lines is Ellen's, and that's the second chapter; suffice to say, he learns). This change isn't arbitrary, either: after all, it was Cecilia-- the character who's arguably the most aware of sexism in all its forms-- who taught them during a highly formative period of their lives. So yeah, of course the prequel is going to seem more old-fashioned when all the evidence from FE6 indicates that things in Elibe are changing pretty rapidly.
Since I don't know, is this sort of thing evident in the other two-generation universes? Some of the comments seemed to sort of indicate that this was true for Ylisse, but what about Jugdral?
More generally, I've also caught myself being overly analytical of the motives/development/etc. of female characters over males. Sometimes, like Ammie brought up in her gendered tropes meta, it's understandable, as the combination of certain traits is often trite with one gender and refreshing with the other. But I guess I'm getting tired of the idea(s) that a female character loses Feminist Points by taking advice from a dude or failing at something or caring about her kid or, idk, crying. Then again, women who are TOO perfect, strong, etc. get the Mary Sue card thrown their way, so I guess there really is no winning when everyone's a critic. Which shouldn't be news, I guess. The important thing that IMO FE essentially gets right is to include a wide variety of female characters, so there isn't one single representative for womankind that everything is riding on, plus you get more opportunity to create interesting characters and dynamics that way.