Lol, they say Lara Croft is the only videogame character whose breast size decreases with passing years.
I liked her as Lara Croft... When I played Tomb Raider as a kid, I didn't even notice the huge knockers (ok, maybe 'cause I'm a girl, I dunno). It was just cool to get to play with a female character who did all kinds of badass stuff for a change. I was a huge fan of Indiana Jones, so to have the female version of him I could identify with was just awesome. I guess my point is that even a character who isn't particularly praised by many feminists can be a positive role model, so in this sense I wouldn't stress too much about creating heroines according to the often-times contradictory heroine parameters some feminists have set up.
Thanks. And actually I'm planning the stories for two future video games as well as helping with conceptualizing them and their execution (e.g. what their controls will be like, what the characters will look like, what weapons and gear they'll have etc). [quick off-topic bit] One of them will be a medieval hack'n'slash, the other a sci-fi romp, both 2D action awesomeness à la Super Castlevania IV, Super Metroid etc. Nothing original as far as gameplay goes, but loads of good, old-fashioned, action-packed fun. Oh, and both games will feature a female character as the single playable character like in Metroid. That decision came from the simple fact that we were bored with games with male leads: such a vast majority of such games feature only male leads that we figured it was high time to level the playing field a bit. Besides, that gives us new kinds of stories to write instead of the traditional "hero rescues princess" albeit one of the games will be "heroine rescues her kidnapped man." [/quick off-topic bit] Why don't you send me a PM and we can talk about it further in private.
Just to clarify: I didn't know "heroine" in English meant something akin to a damsel in distress... I meant "female protag" instead. @T.Trian I'm curious about your gaming project, hope it becomes successful!
As a native English speaker, I don't interpret heroine as a damsel in distress--I indeed assumed that you meant female protagonist.
I have a similar worry because I'm writing a love story. Some people might think I'm saying a woman needs a man to be happy. But, I really just like stories about people falling in love.
Then you have your answer. You know what kind of story you want to tell, and you feel capable of writing it. That's all you need to know. Someone somewhere is going to dislike or object to your story. That is a given. Unless you are writing in order to win a popularity contest, why should it matter?
Yeah I was worried too because in my story the MC and her mentor fall in love with each other... But I also didn't feel it was because she's a girl and girls need men to be happy. It was because my inspiration was a story in which a boy has a female mentor and both fall in love with each other. I just inverted the genders without thinking about the consequences.
This sounds rather opportunistic if you ask me. Just change the genders back and your "problem" is solved.
How are you defining feminist? What to you is a "feminist paragon"? People fall in love for all different reasons. It's a universal human experience.
I think "paragon" maybe not the most appropriate word... Replace that with "example of how a feminist thinks a woman should be".
I'm with @T.Trian and whoever else said it, make the characters who they need to be to tell the story you want to tell. If you're writing some action hero story with a female lead, so be it. Shallow stereotype buxom, it's what the story calls for, isn't it? Do those readers care if your protag is a paragon of anything other than what they expect? But if you are writing a different story, a female with a typically male occupation (soldier or whatever), make her good at her job, then make her a real person. My protag is good at science (of course, ). She's a survivor, handles being alone in the forest like a champ. But she's a basket case when the 'in-crowd' of girls in her village puts her down. All the things she thinks of saying to them when she's alone, the things she decides to do when she sees them again, never happen. She is sure of herself then doubts herself in the same sentence. It's about the story you are trying to tell.
Actually, my character comes off as anti-feminist, so I think we're in the same boat. She's a flirtatious, brash, but very kind, party girl who has no career, cares more about having fun than anything else, refuses to leave her dying husband at cost of minuscule career.and takes in her abandoned niece while running schemes to make money and the like, while living with her husband's brother.
It isn't anti-feminist to be flirty, to put family before career, to want a boyfriend or to care about your appearance. It isn't even anti-feminist to be weak, it's human, although I would get annoyed if a character tied her own weakness to the fact that she is a woman. A fully developed character with her own strengths, weaknesses, opinions and motivations is a perfectly good feminist in my eyes, although she can only be improved by an aversion to cupcakes (seriously, if I see another "women's fiction" book with a bloody cupcake on the front I'll spit! It's a bit of sponge, we're not that arsed! /rant)
Well, love trumps her desire for fun at times, and who says she can't just bring her dying husband to the party?
Oh, she totally should! All the more reason if he's dying, or soon it'll be too late. (though I guess it gives a more morbid tinge to the saying "party till you drop.")
