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Under the Feminist Microscope:
Female characters in video games

» Small step or giant leap for females in 2013?

Angela Espinoza
Contributor

f the many games that
came out in 2013, several

of them featured crucial female

characters, such as BioShock
Infinite’s 19-year-old Elizabeth
(Courtnee Draper), The Last
of Us’ 14-year-old Ellie (Ashley
Johnson), and The Walking
Dead’s seven- to nine-year-

old Clementine (Melissa
Hutchison) in seasons one and
two.

Each character shares some :

extremely important traits as
personas and as characters that
we, the player, have to invest

in for well over 10 hours per
character. For one, they are all

side for much of the game’s
length. In past decades, the
concept of an escort in video
games had been an absolute
nightmare. Previous games
didn’t just make you walk

they forced you to protect
them from everything their
designated game had to throw
at them and you. Hours were
wasted in order to keep often
uninteresting if not terrible
non-player characters from
dying. The idea was that you
were putting effort into caring
about them, but they werea
nuisance when all you wanted
was to beat the game.

What’s special about

is that, through fantastic
writing, the player legitimately
cares about them. They are

all developed, intriguing, and
simply wonderful characters
the player genuinely becomes
attached to. Furthermore, they
actually contribute to helping
the player throughout their
respective games: Elizabeth
collects materials for you, Ellie
fights and kills by your side,

many paths to get you out of
dire situations.

What perhaps makes them
even better is that they are
all different. Most different is
Elizabeth, who is not unlike
the hopeful, wide-eyed, Disney

What's special about Elizabeth,

Ellie, and Clementine is that,

through fantastic writing, the player
legitimately cares about them. They
are all developed, intriguing, and
simply wonderful characters the
player genuinely becomes attached to.
Furthermore, they actually contribute
to helping the player throughout their

respective games...

: princess—which I feel, in her

case, is a good thing. Ellie

:; and Clementine share some

escorts, which means the player similarities in being children

is required to have them at their ! of the apocalypse, both being
: as tough and brave as they can

: be to impress their caretakers

: (the player); but whereas Ellie is

: old enough to crack a dirty joke

: or an awful pun, Clementine is

: still a little girl who is not yet

around with various characters; hardened from just how evil

* } the world can be. They all have

: their own reasons for causing

: the player to care about and

: love them, but what matters is

: that this bond the player forms

: is shared amongst hundreds of

: actual people.

But, while there are a lot

of positives about our three

: heroines, they all come with

: the exact same, larger-scale

: problem. Elizabeth, Ellie, and

: Clementine, all of whom are

Elizabeth, Ellie, and Clementine sveraly sidekicks Tobe a in

season two of Walking Dead,

: Clementine is the protagonist

: (which I think is the greatest

: design decision anyone has

: ever made), but for now I’m

: looking at season one. Yes,

: these three females are the

: centres of their respective

: games and stories. However, in

: each game, you are playing an

: older man—BioShock Infinite’s
: : Booker DeWitt and Last of Us’

and Clementine seeks and finds : Joel (both Troy Baker) as well as

: Walking Dead’s Lee Everett—

: who protects the women and

: escorts them to safety. There

: may be less of an in-game

: threat to the females, but the

: setup remains the same. They

: all have their own reasons for

: taking on the role of guardian,
: and they are also very different
characters, but the fact is you

: are playing as men, aided by
helpful women.

That said, I still think all

: three games are amazing in

: their own right, and this is
largely because of the excellent
: stories and characterizations.

: The strong females don’t end

; at just the leads either—each

; game has several interesting,

: likeable female characters

: as well as unlikeable female

: characters, especially in

: Walking Dead’s case. What's

: important about these

: unlikable females is that they

: are not unlikeable because of

: their gender, but rather that

: they are terrible people, which
is an actual issue not often

: tackled.

: I'm not going to pretend that

: in 2013 games like Grand Theft
; Auto V didn’t desecrate female
: characters as an ultimate goal
: in their games (I’m strictly

: referring to the disturbing

: stripping sequences). But if

: BioShock Infinite, Last of Us,

: and Walking Dead taught me

: anything, it’s that, for the first
: time as a female gamer, I felt

: like women—good or evil—

: could be fairly represented in

: multiple games. And those

: three being the critically

: acclaimed blockbusters that

: they were (all three garnered

: various “Game of the Year”

: awards), I feel we're going to

: see a lot more faithfully created
: female characters in the future.

 

Elizabeth of Bioshock Infinite (TOP), Ellie of The Last of Us (MIDDLE),
and Clementine of The Walking Dead (BOTTOM) // By IGN.com