Some Musings on Women in FE
Aug. 8th, 2013 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mark_asphodelJust to get these thoughts down in one place...
I don't know about y'all but I found little things about the way female characters were handled to be a very off-putting thing in FE13. I didn't like a lot of the Big Things in FE13 either but small disparities really got under my skin. At this point, the high-water mark for the franchise treatment of female characters looks to be Tellius, but it's worth examining the baby steps-- both forward and backward-- it took to get to that level, or even to FE6's level of female empowerment.
FE1: Things actually got off to a pretty good start in FE1. You have a genuine heroine in Caeda, the princess who takes up arms and kicks ass when her country gets attacked and then recruits a good chunk of Marth's army in the bargain. You have a high-ranking, take-charge female paladin in Midia-- sure her rebellion fails but she was in there trying. You have princesses like Minerva and Nyna left ruling their respective nations at the end of the game. Elice is a victim and a passive object of rescue, but hey, Marth is at least as interested in saving his sister as in avenging his father-- heck, Marth's entire status as a younger brother of an elder sister rather than merely as the son of his father is interesting. Not bad, really. Also can't mention FE1 without mentioning the Pegasus Knight Sisters, whose influence in terms of character and story reaches many, many later games in the franchise.
FE2: Gaiden takes this solid base and expands upon it, providing a female co-lead in Celica, a character who deliberately gets involved in a campaign she could've sat out because she felt it the right thing to do. She doesn't get swept up in events-- she chooses to help influence events. More than that, though. Gaiden introduces something Archanea really doesn't have: female antagonists. Specifically, female antagonists that can't be saved via recruiting. Sure, there are damsels in distress and even Celica has to be rescued at one point, but overall Gaiden seems pretty good, especially when prominent female supporting members like Teeta and Palla are taken into account.
FE3: The second round of Archanea is a huge step back. Women are automatic allies or victims who need a man to redeem them. No true female antagonists-- even generic peg knights are male. Marth's key female allies all cede power to him at the end of the game. Mystery of the Emblem is the absolute pits in terms of female empowerment for this franchise IMO. I love the storyline but the way the female characters are treated just blows. Even Caeda's role gets reduced because some characters she recruited in FE1 got cut from the roster.
FE3 is also notable for what it lacks in that many distinctly female "archetypes" didn't exist yet-- the exotic long-haired sword beauty came along in FE4. The spunky village-girl archer arose in FE5. These are notable in part because FE11 retconned them into existence via characters like Athena and Norne.
FE4: Here, things get interesting. On the one hand, some people on the f-list have strongly objected to the, well, rape-happy tone the game takes in numerous places. On the other hand, I have to give FE4 props for introducing a world where female representation just IS. No male peg knights here-- Jugdral abounds with generic mages, troubadours, and peg knights who fight and die alongside the NPC men. Jugdral has memorable and annoying female mini-bosses (Deet'var, Pamela, the mage Sisters, the falcoknight Sisters) including a mini-boss who leads an all-female mercenary troop. Jugdral offers up a must-hate, must-kill, thoroughly malicious boss in Hilda-- who is explicitly working her of her own volition and not in opposition to the good guys because she's tricked, deluded, brainwashed, etc. And, of course, you have one of the most sympathetic elder-generation characters in the game in Queen Rahna, who is given a gloss of dignity even in death and defeat. So, overall, Jugdral is a massive step forward from FE3 in presenting a level playing field where women aren't automatically off-limits in battle because of their sex and unfit to rule because they lack "magic swords."
Of course there's a downside, and the downside is in your actual female playable cast. This ain't the land of gender equality-- not when younger brothers still count for more than elder sisters politically, not when brothers take active steps to keep their sisters from getting their hands dirty, and not when every single female member of the Gen1 cast is either dead or sidelined when Gen 2 rolls around. Given Lewyn, Finn, Oifaye, and Shanan all get Gen 2 screen time, it makes the off-screen presence of Aideen sitting back home in Isaach extra annoying.
FE5: Now here's where stuff gets really interesting and IMO relevant to later games. Thracia 776 keeps up the Jugdral tradition of putting young ladies in peril, but it also does some other stuff. We have expanded female representation in physical classes-- I mentioned Tanya the spunky archer, but we also have Machua the Hero and Selphina the bow knight (arguably a Midia expy but eh). We have some nuanced female characters in Olwen, Amalda, and Misha, who offer some moral complexity beyond what you get in the FE3 women-- and you might be obliged to kill them! On the downside, you have FE5's version of the Nyna archetype, mouthy little Princess Miranda, whom the script mostly treats with contempt and whose happy ending involves leaving her throne for a simple life as the wife of a man old enough to be her grandfather.
No, really.
[FE5, like FE3, presents a diverse array of noble, talented, powerful female characters and then concludes with an unequivocal message of UP THE PATRIARCHY!!! We like strong women... but not so strong they don't go back to the kitchen when we tell 'em to.]
And then there's Eyvel. FE5 basically rectifies FE4's lack of competent Gen2 adult female characters by placing Eyvel at the center of the action from the very first chapter. Here we have a woman who is in her mid-thirties(!), respected, an authority figure and leader, a renowed physical fighter, and also a loving and beloved mother. Eyvel kicks ass. And then a couple of chapters in she gets hit with the victim stick and sidelined for the majority of the game while the menfolk do the fighting-- turned into an Elice-like MacGuffin, on the mind of the protagonist but always out of sight until the penultimate chapter.
So what do we make of things when the script presents us with an OMG awesome female character and then makes the deliberate choice not to utilize her, to box her off, make her a literal object for 90% of the game? Do we say, "Welp, at least she was cool," and think that it's kind of neat to find such emphasis on a mother/child bond when it wasn't expected? Or do we feel irked because it wasn't enough? After all, what it would look like if IS had taken this scenario and swapped it, deep-sixing the male parent figure while the female parent figure stayed active? Well, IS actually did this IMO and it's called Path of Radiance, so there you go. You can look at it from the opposite angle, too-- killing off the protagonist's father is a trope in itself in Fire Emblem. Even Eliwood in FE6 shows up, promptly gets sidelined, and is spoken highly of throughout even though we don't see him DO anything. So IS repeatedly does this with and to male characters, and it's part of the show. It's expected. So... is it SUCH a terrible thing that this happens to Eyvel? Because, simply put-- what befalls Leif's "mother" isn't much different than what happens to the fathers of Roy, Ike, or Eliwood. Is this a case of a strong female character being shoved to the side (boo) or the case of a parental figure being shoved to the side so the kid is forced to grow up, and in this case the parent in question is-- for once-- the mom?
Then again, maybe it's both. That's what makes evaluating female characters and their roles so goshdarn difficult.
And then we have Linoan, who presents a different FE-specific issue. In Linoan we have what I once termed the Disappearing Female. She's the scion of a holy line, the beloved ruler of a besieged city, gracious and kind and pretty. She's also, in the end, completely irrelevant. Her bloodline don't matter 'cause she explictly never weds. Her city don't matter because all of FE5 is a retcon interpolation into FE4 and Tahra isn't even on the map in FE4. Everything we do with Linoan, every concern we have about her, amounts to nothing and the overall saga barrels along without her. See also: Lyndis.
Then again,Tellius took this and "fixed" it too, IMO. Take a good long look at Micaiah and just TRY to tell me Linoan wasn't an inspiration there. And then look at what Micaiah gets to do and the consequences that has. Her sekrit bloodline matters. She has a lasting impact on the map. Even if she's shown up by Saga Hero Ike, she unquestionably matters in a way that Linoan does not and that (IMO) Lyndis does not.
Female representation is tricky, and in some cases I suspect that female fans (including me) actually DO judge female media characters more harshly than their male counterparts. That doesn't mean a lot of female media characters aren't tokens, or cardboard, or just plain crap. I specifically didn't mention a couple of female leads, Julia and Deirdre, that I find to be horribly written, and later FE games have their share of unsatisfying heroines IMO (Ninian, lookin' at you) or female characters with potential that aren't treated well by the script (Eirika the Gullible). But at a certain level I think I want to just be able to sit back and appreciate Caeda, Celica, Evayle and Linoan (and Titania and Micaiah)[*] without tying myself into knots over whether they could've been even stronger or better or more active or more consequential.
'Cause it's not like their male counterparts don't have problems.
* F!Kris, Katarina, F!Robin, and Lucina come with so much baggage that I can't help but tie myself into knots, sorry.
I don't know about y'all but I found little things about the way female characters were handled to be a very off-putting thing in FE13. I didn't like a lot of the Big Things in FE13 either but small disparities really got under my skin. At this point, the high-water mark for the franchise treatment of female characters looks to be Tellius, but it's worth examining the baby steps-- both forward and backward-- it took to get to that level, or even to FE6's level of female empowerment.
FE1: Things actually got off to a pretty good start in FE1. You have a genuine heroine in Caeda, the princess who takes up arms and kicks ass when her country gets attacked and then recruits a good chunk of Marth's army in the bargain. You have a high-ranking, take-charge female paladin in Midia-- sure her rebellion fails but she was in there trying. You have princesses like Minerva and Nyna left ruling their respective nations at the end of the game. Elice is a victim and a passive object of rescue, but hey, Marth is at least as interested in saving his sister as in avenging his father-- heck, Marth's entire status as a younger brother of an elder sister rather than merely as the son of his father is interesting. Not bad, really. Also can't mention FE1 without mentioning the Pegasus Knight Sisters, whose influence in terms of character and story reaches many, many later games in the franchise.
FE2: Gaiden takes this solid base and expands upon it, providing a female co-lead in Celica, a character who deliberately gets involved in a campaign she could've sat out because she felt it the right thing to do. She doesn't get swept up in events-- she chooses to help influence events. More than that, though. Gaiden introduces something Archanea really doesn't have: female antagonists. Specifically, female antagonists that can't be saved via recruiting. Sure, there are damsels in distress and even Celica has to be rescued at one point, but overall Gaiden seems pretty good, especially when prominent female supporting members like Teeta and Palla are taken into account.
FE3: The second round of Archanea is a huge step back. Women are automatic allies or victims who need a man to redeem them. No true female antagonists-- even generic peg knights are male. Marth's key female allies all cede power to him at the end of the game. Mystery of the Emblem is the absolute pits in terms of female empowerment for this franchise IMO. I love the storyline but the way the female characters are treated just blows. Even Caeda's role gets reduced because some characters she recruited in FE1 got cut from the roster.
FE3 is also notable for what it lacks in that many distinctly female "archetypes" didn't exist yet-- the exotic long-haired sword beauty came along in FE4. The spunky village-girl archer arose in FE5. These are notable in part because FE11 retconned them into existence via characters like Athena and Norne.
FE4: Here, things get interesting. On the one hand, some people on the f-list have strongly objected to the, well, rape-happy tone the game takes in numerous places. On the other hand, I have to give FE4 props for introducing a world where female representation just IS. No male peg knights here-- Jugdral abounds with generic mages, troubadours, and peg knights who fight and die alongside the NPC men. Jugdral has memorable and annoying female mini-bosses (Deet'var, Pamela, the mage Sisters, the falcoknight Sisters) including a mini-boss who leads an all-female mercenary troop. Jugdral offers up a must-hate, must-kill, thoroughly malicious boss in Hilda-- who is explicitly working her of her own volition and not in opposition to the good guys because she's tricked, deluded, brainwashed, etc. And, of course, you have one of the most sympathetic elder-generation characters in the game in Queen Rahna, who is given a gloss of dignity even in death and defeat. So, overall, Jugdral is a massive step forward from FE3 in presenting a level playing field where women aren't automatically off-limits in battle because of their sex and unfit to rule because they lack "magic swords."
Of course there's a downside, and the downside is in your actual female playable cast. This ain't the land of gender equality-- not when younger brothers still count for more than elder sisters politically, not when brothers take active steps to keep their sisters from getting their hands dirty, and not when every single female member of the Gen1 cast is either dead or sidelined when Gen 2 rolls around. Given Lewyn, Finn, Oifaye, and Shanan all get Gen 2 screen time, it makes the off-screen presence of Aideen sitting back home in Isaach extra annoying.
FE5: Now here's where stuff gets really interesting and IMO relevant to later games. Thracia 776 keeps up the Jugdral tradition of putting young ladies in peril, but it also does some other stuff. We have expanded female representation in physical classes-- I mentioned Tanya the spunky archer, but we also have Machua the Hero and Selphina the bow knight (arguably a Midia expy but eh). We have some nuanced female characters in Olwen, Amalda, and Misha, who offer some moral complexity beyond what you get in the FE3 women-- and you might be obliged to kill them! On the downside, you have FE5's version of the Nyna archetype, mouthy little Princess Miranda, whom the script mostly treats with contempt and whose happy ending involves leaving her throne for a simple life as the wife of a man old enough to be her grandfather.
No, really.
[FE5, like FE3, presents a diverse array of noble, talented, powerful female characters and then concludes with an unequivocal message of UP THE PATRIARCHY!!! We like strong women... but not so strong they don't go back to the kitchen when we tell 'em to.]
And then there's Eyvel. FE5 basically rectifies FE4's lack of competent Gen2 adult female characters by placing Eyvel at the center of the action from the very first chapter. Here we have a woman who is in her mid-thirties(!), respected, an authority figure and leader, a renowed physical fighter, and also a loving and beloved mother. Eyvel kicks ass. And then a couple of chapters in she gets hit with the victim stick and sidelined for the majority of the game while the menfolk do the fighting-- turned into an Elice-like MacGuffin, on the mind of the protagonist but always out of sight until the penultimate chapter.
So what do we make of things when the script presents us with an OMG awesome female character and then makes the deliberate choice not to utilize her, to box her off, make her a literal object for 90% of the game? Do we say, "Welp, at least she was cool," and think that it's kind of neat to find such emphasis on a mother/child bond when it wasn't expected? Or do we feel irked because it wasn't enough? After all, what it would look like if IS had taken this scenario and swapped it, deep-sixing the male parent figure while the female parent figure stayed active? Well, IS actually did this IMO and it's called Path of Radiance, so there you go. You can look at it from the opposite angle, too-- killing off the protagonist's father is a trope in itself in Fire Emblem. Even Eliwood in FE6 shows up, promptly gets sidelined, and is spoken highly of throughout even though we don't see him DO anything. So IS repeatedly does this with and to male characters, and it's part of the show. It's expected. So... is it SUCH a terrible thing that this happens to Eyvel? Because, simply put-- what befalls Leif's "mother" isn't much different than what happens to the fathers of Roy, Ike, or Eliwood. Is this a case of a strong female character being shoved to the side (boo) or the case of a parental figure being shoved to the side so the kid is forced to grow up, and in this case the parent in question is-- for once-- the mom?
Then again, maybe it's both. That's what makes evaluating female characters and their roles so goshdarn difficult.
And then we have Linoan, who presents a different FE-specific issue. In Linoan we have what I once termed the Disappearing Female. She's the scion of a holy line, the beloved ruler of a besieged city, gracious and kind and pretty. She's also, in the end, completely irrelevant. Her bloodline don't matter 'cause she explictly never weds. Her city don't matter because all of FE5 is a retcon interpolation into FE4 and Tahra isn't even on the map in FE4. Everything we do with Linoan, every concern we have about her, amounts to nothing and the overall saga barrels along without her. See also: Lyndis.
Then again,Tellius took this and "fixed" it too, IMO. Take a good long look at Micaiah and just TRY to tell me Linoan wasn't an inspiration there. And then look at what Micaiah gets to do and the consequences that has. Her sekrit bloodline matters. She has a lasting impact on the map. Even if she's shown up by Saga Hero Ike, she unquestionably matters in a way that Linoan does not and that (IMO) Lyndis does not.
Female representation is tricky, and in some cases I suspect that female fans (including me) actually DO judge female media characters more harshly than their male counterparts. That doesn't mean a lot of female media characters aren't tokens, or cardboard, or just plain crap. I specifically didn't mention a couple of female leads, Julia and Deirdre, that I find to be horribly written, and later FE games have their share of unsatisfying heroines IMO (Ninian, lookin' at you) or female characters with potential that aren't treated well by the script (Eirika the Gullible). But at a certain level I think I want to just be able to sit back and appreciate Caeda, Celica, Evayle and Linoan (and Titania and Micaiah)[*] without tying myself into knots over whether they could've been even stronger or better or more active or more consequential.
'Cause it's not like their male counterparts don't have problems.
* F!Kris, Katarina, F!Robin, and Lucina come with so much baggage that I can't help but tie myself into knots, sorry.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-11 05:22 pm (UTC)Wow. I guess I don't feel bad about defending FE4 anymore.
and I still can't decide whether Zealot becoming king of Ilia is actually progressive or not.
Yeah.
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.
That's a nice explanation for meta, but I really don't give IS that much credit, especially when they go ahead and invent an irrelevant character like Lyn in FE7, and then handle Eirika with kid gloves in FE8, and then insert all these lovely moments of sexist bullshit in FE13... not to mention the tremendous step back in female empowerment between FE1 and FE3. They're all over the place, with no clear progression IMO. '
but what about Jugdral?
No. If anything, Gen 2 was worse off, because all the inheritance for everything defaults to the male child. The only way women end up ruling anything, even if they have major holy blood (and their brothers don't), is if their male relations are a) dead or b) inherit something better. Tinny inherits Freege *if* Arthur gets something else. Patty inherits her mother's lands only IF her brother gets a separate inheritance from their father. And Julia, heiress of the great god-powers of Naga, hangs around assisting Lord Emperor Seliph. So you end up going from a few female rulers to potentially zero.
All that and the Amazing Disappearing Linoan.
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,
Very true.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-11 10:09 pm (UTC)That's a nice explanation for meta, but I really don't give IS that much credit
Well, it was an observation based on the universe of those two games. I imagine it would be an easier conclusion to come to working backwards than working forwards: having the characters in the prequel act in ways that would read to audiences as more old-fashioned would emphasize further that the story is taking place earlier in time. I guess FE6 happened to have enough progression world-wise that it works out pretty smoothly. I'd be curious to know how much of FE13's specific moments of sexism are lodged in its first generation as opposed to its second: of course, the argument could be made that the bad timeline forced Gen 2 to view each other on more even footing, but at that point I feel like we start slipping away from author intent, if that's the lens we're interested in viewing this issue from.
And I suppose the angle does make a big difference when we're talking about this issue. You could look at how women are characterized, whether they're given new roles, how the other characters treat them. You could look at the sort of impact they have on the plot and whether they're active or passive. You could look at character design. You could even just fast forward to the ending of the story and look at inheritance and who ends up with what, like your analysis of Jugdral's Gen 2. I'm not sure one aspect is head-and-shoulders above the others, as it all comes to the average player in one package, and they'll take their own experiences to the table as well.