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Okay. I'm gonna say something people might not want to hear or be receptive to:
Final Fantasy has, with few exceptions, NEVER been particularly good to its women characters.
The games that DID have, despite selling well, been panned by US audiences in particular.
Final Fantasy has, with few exceptions, NEVER been particularly good to its women characters.
The games that DID have, despite selling well, been panned by US audiences in particular.
I'm going to set aside FF1 since there are no explicit genders there, though it says something that the whole damn world gendered the White Mage/White Wizard, i.e. the caregiver class with a stereotypically feminine gameplay role.
FF3 is similar, and the 3D remakes that add an explicitly gendered woman in Refia don't particularly improve or change that much. (Honestly this applies to Dawn of Souls remakes of FF1 too)
Women in FF games are almost universally relegated to the role of support, both narratively and mechanically.
Even FF10, a game with a woman protagonist (Yuna), places her firmly in the role of "support" or more accurately "the supported, because she needs so much."
Even FF10, a game with a woman protagonist (Yuna), places her firmly in the role of "support" or more accurately "the supported, because she needs so much."
Terra's overarching plot is about motherhood. Celes's is about guilt (and being someone's rebound girlfriend). Rydia gets a brief moment but she and Rosa are largely there to support Cecil. Faris's subplot is about slipping back into gender norms in a lot of ways.
Lenna is about being the caring mom that can speak to animals. Tifa is effectively there to prop up Cloud and don't even get me started on Aerith Fridgeborough. Quistis is a professor crushing on her student (the dude protag). I could keep doing this.
I can already feel people who like these characters massing to angrily reply to me, so: don't.
I love most of these characters. I'm not saying they're BAD. I am saying the series has been very traditional about the roles it puts women into from the jump.
I love most of these characters. I'm not saying they're BAD. I am saying the series has been very traditional about the roles it puts women into from the jump.
I love FFX-2, and it was a game with an all-woman playable cast, but I'm also leery of saying it's ~*progressive representation*~. YRP are wonderful but they slot pretty cleanly into existing gender frameworks. Even Paine's gender-bending is within a certain "known boundary."
The FF13 games are probably the only time the series really went any degree of far in on having women characters in note-quotes "atypical" roles (and honestly even those roles weren't all that adventurous).
But as I have (and others have) argued about a million times:
FFX-2 and the FF13 games are the ones that US audiences mysteriously seem to hate the most despite their global reception and sales figures being pretty good. I WONDER WHY.
FFX-2 and the FF13 games are the ones that US audiences mysteriously seem to hate the most despite their global reception and sales figures being pretty good. I WONDER WHY.
So then FF15 and FF16 -- games both implicitly and explicitly stated to be courting airquotes "Western" aesthetics and approaches -- roll up with sausage fest casts and approaches and we have the temerity to be confused by it, which is wild to me.
