ShinkuDragon Wrote:might be, but i have quite the feeling that will unlock a MASSIVE can of worms when she makes the video.
To be fair, while I think there will be an impact, I don't think there will be an increased amount of outcry over the topic of What Women Wear in video games. We all know it, we all see it, and I think a lot of people have already picked on this a lot. What Women Wear has already been a core argument for why women should be treated better at cons (because they're dressing up as 'sexy' characters who they love, but they receive a lot of negative attention from men for either being 'fake' geeks or just wanting to wander about scantily clad around a bunch of 'ugly nerds' -- I think, or hope, that we can see why this is a bad argument from multiple perspectives). It's been a major reason why the Hawkeye Initiative (linked earlier) has been occurring, too.
Also, this isn't directed at you, but it's directed at everyone who continues to try to invalidate something being a Damsel in Distress without understanding what the trope is at its core and how it can be used in conjunction with other literary devices.
People are more likely to cry about the Damsel in Distress trope because she's "unfairly ignoring examples where it doesn't happen" (and yes, there are exceptions to the rule -- that's why they're called exceptions; there are also different stereotypes to address, and you can't address them when you're talking about a particular one in a series), but they also aren't willing to understand what it is at its core and how it's used as a literary device . I posted this somewhere else (and I'm not going to link it here; I'll let that slide for someone else to do/find, if they wish), and I'm posting it here for the sake of simplicity in explanations (and not having to write it all over again). I'll mark the text in the same way that I did in its previous location:
Quote:So for the tl;dr version of this entire post: Damsel in distress is an overused literary device that strips some or all of the power from a young female character by detaining her physically, psychologically or through a curse/possession. Her story is not her own and belongs to the hero as a means to progress his story. It is not something that a character is, but it is something that happens to a character; just because youre a strong character at Point A of the story doesnt mean you cant be damseled in Point Z. It also doesnt preclude you from helping the hero in some fashion. The problem is not that it exists but how it is represented and the frequency of those representations.
That's what I've been fighting against repeatedly when people pull other examples. Just because you have some examples of something doesn't invalidate it from falling under the literary device. Just because a character is strong at the beginning of the story doesn't mean she can't be turned into a damsel at another point of time; just because we know Zelda's going to be kidnapped in advance to further progress toward the Tri-Force doesn't mean she hasn't been damseled. And it's those small bits of story that keep people from seeing this. Those other aspects are parts of other literary devices; it doesn't mean that one literary device works by itself all the time. It works with others to create a story, whether or not it's adequately written.