Women Presented Unfairly in Games Story?

[Red Panda]

Katjaa is super passive, Carley can't figure out how to use batteries, Lilly is mental and stands by her crazy Dad until the end, and Clem verges on escapism.

Men have their faults, but do you think the the fairer sex is getting equal treatment by writers?

[DreadMagus]

Doug seems to be a stereotypical "nerd"

Ben is a garden gnome

Kenny is a weakling who's only motivation is his family

Larry is a drama queen

Duck is as dumb as a box of hammers

Lee is the player's avatar and thus exempt.

[Legeritable]

What the above poster is trying to get across is..

You need to be a transgender.
Then crap gets real.

[DreadMagus]

O_o

[Legeritable]

You heard it here first.

[DreadMagus]

If you say so.

[Red Panda]

Even the difference between Chuck and Christa.

Chuck tells Clem she's going to die then gives Lee advice, he has a point.

Christa question how smart it is to bring an 8 year old girl is an old, enclosed building, also sound advice, and suddenly she's queen bitch/Lilly 2.0 to most people.

Maybe it's some of the players, and not the writers, at work. IDK

[DreadMagus]

Sounds like a player issue.

I appreciated Christa's advice a bit more than Chucks... of course, I was unhappy with Chuck's deliver method.

[bazenji]

Christa:

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you serious with that shit?"

Lee:

"Yes."

Christa:

"Okay, just checking. That's a great idea."

I believe it's her delivery.

[DreadMagus]

Which is a far cry better than...

Chuck: YOU GONNA DIE LITTLE GIRL!!!
Clem: ;_; The old scary dude with the candy says I'm gonna die.
Lee: THE HELL OLD MAN?
Chuck: Chillax, dude, I was just trying to get your attention. Got any booze?

[thestalkinghead]

Originally Posted by Red Panda

Even the difference between Chuck and Christa.

Chuck tells Clem she's going to die then gives Lee advice, he has a point.

Christa question how smart it is to bring an 8 year old girl is an old, enclosed building, also sound advice, and suddenly she's queen bitch/Lilly 2.0 to most people.

Maybe it's some of the players, and not the writers, at work. IDK

i actually agreed with everything christa said except staying alone, i thought it was stupid searching an abandoned building on your own, but there was no way of getting anybody to come with me, i thought she was strong and independent like Carley but bossy and she always think she is right like lilly.

i wasnt as mad as Lee when Chuck said Clementine would die, i just thought he lacked tact, then he told us to do two obviously good things and we could do them.

i think its more personal taste than anything, i didnt think lilly was a good leader and if i knew her in real life i wouldn't like her, and i dont think that i was forced into not liking her by the writers, i just didnt, but even though its way to soon to say i think i would like Christa in real life because she was concerned about Clementine and i think if i meet a group of survivors in the ZA and they had a child i would judge them by how they treated the child.

[Master of Aeons]

Yeah, I blame the players. Everyone's mean as hell to Christa and I don't get why. She doesn't trust my group. Hey, that's pretty smart!

[Phantom Command]

Christa doesn't trust a group of four men and a little girl, lets break it down -

Lee is a convicted murderer regardless of how you chose his persona.
Kenny Keeps freezing under pressure and lost his entire family.
Ben makes stupid choices and needs to find a backbone, plenty of those laying around now.
Clem is a puzzle.
Chuck tells little girls they will die instead of just going directly to Lee

So yeah good group.

I think the women are being given a wider variety of personas compared to the men which make them stand out although it wouldn't hurt if it turned out Omid who is slightly passive when Christa's around likes doing the washing up and other unfair steriotypes

[Mr.Happy]

Originally Posted by DreadMagus

Lee is the player's avatar and thus exempt.

Why should the player avatar be exempt from scrutiny? I mean, as the player's alter ego, isn't he/she the most suspect character of them all?

And well, despite his frailty, Lee is the man. He gets the girls. He beats to death the men who try to steal them from him. Or at least is in the position to kill them. And when he doesn't get the girl, it's simply because the girls can't agree to share him nicely. The fact that all the other men are in some respect Nancy boys who can't handle tough situations only serves to undeline Lee's position as the only real man in the group.

Since the player's alter ego has no equals, the game regrettably works as a male ego pump. Even if it is less effective at that than your average fps game. Also, all the women seem to be at heart maternal caretakers or frightened little girls. They don't seem to have much existence beyond this role, Katjaa's suicide being the most obvious example.

Oddly, Kenny the family man just keeps on going. I suppose he lives for his work now.

[bakajin]

Mr Happy, interesting. Kind of on par with general feminist complaints about games in general. I don't think Carley fit either stereotype you presented, however. Maybe that's why she had to die? LOL. Wouldn't, as a journalist, Carley have been the best suited to find out who was behind the stolen supplies?

Aside from Lee, most of the characters are one-dimensional. You get to "mold" Clem in a sense, so potentially she can become as complex as you. (note: You can make Lee one-dimensional by not varying your choices).

Doug is more a follower than a nerd. I think nerd implies independent thought.
Katjaa is a caretaker. It's her job, not just as a mother.
Kenny is a Dad foremost. There's no inner conflict about that.
Larry is a jackass.
Ben is immature (I don't mean that in the Beavis and Butthead sense)
Carley is supposed to be a tough survivor, but we don't see much of that unless someone needs to be shot.

Part of the problem is the limited format. A lot of gameplay time centers on character building Lee and Clem. To show everyone as complex characters we might need a 10 chapter game.

[DreadMagus]

Originally Posted by Mr.Happy

Why should the player avatar be exempt from scrutiny? I mean, as the player's alter ego, isn't he/she the most suspect character of them all?

.

Because ultimately you decide how Lee acts/reacts to situations.

A Jerk?
An honest man?
A silent tool?

So it's far more subjective.

[8Bit_System]

Originally Posted by Red Panda

Even the difference between Chuck and Christa.

Chuck tells Clem she's going to die then gives Lee advice, he has a point.

Christa question how smart it is to bring an 8 year old girl is an old, enclosed building, also sound advice, and suddenly she's queen bitch/Lilly 2.0 to most people.

Maybe it's some of the players, and not the writers, at work. IDK

Men and women don't think alike, both genders have different views and priorities, but that doesn't make one stand out.

[bazenji]

Originally Posted by Phantom Command

I think the women are being given a wider variety of personas compared to the men which make them stand out although it wouldn't hurt if it turned out Omid who is slightly passive when Christa's around likes doing the washing up and other unfair steriotypes

Yeah, enforcing gender stereotypes in the zombie apocalypse is what the TV show is for.

[Genetic]

Originally Posted by Red Panda

Katjaa is super passive, Carley can't figure out how to use batteries, Lilly is mental and stands by her crazy Dad until the end, and Clem verges on escapism.

Men have their faults, but do you think the the fairer sex is getting equal treatment by writers?

I don't even understand your point.
You use dominant traits for Lilly and Katjaa, yet for Carley you use something as minor as Carley not knowing what batteries are to show unfair gender treatment?
>Clem verges on escapism.
So does Duck, in fact he does it to a far greater extent. He treats something as severe as medicinal theft like a Batman/Robin detective case. He constantly shrugs off his surroundings, Clem never does this and instead just likes to focus on positive things while not completely ignoring the situation at hand, an arguably good trait to have in such a time. And she's a child, a group often associated with escapism.
So no, women aren't at all "unfairly represented" in this video game, not even close, in fact this game represents various personalities very well.
People need to stop calling "unfair representation" and "sexism" at everything.

[Mr.Happy]

DreadMagus. Regardless of your playstyle, Lee is still the only man who can get the job done while others fail. This type of hilighting the player's competence at the expense of other npcs ensures that the they're doomed to appear effeminate, regardless of sex. Lee seems to be "just some guy" only in ep 1. However, in most games the pc character is ordinary at the beginning, so telltale ain't doing nothing new in this respect.

The tendency to glorify the player just reinforces the fact that women in this game are subordinate to men. With maybe the exception of psycho-cannibal Brenda. But she's more of a cautionary example than a positive one. When able to handle themselves in violent situations, women seem to yield in social conflicts. Among other obvious "benefits", I suppose female vulnerability also helps to impart more worth to the otherwise inferior male npcs.

I'm disappointed that the game is becoming more and more fixated on this as the story progresses. Introducing into the story yet another pervert out to get Clem being the most annoying twist. With Lee and Clem starting to work as a duo and the world the way it is, she's in enough danger as it is. No need to add another asshole especially out to get her. Besides, the game has already had too many additional "dammsell in distress" -plotlines.

My only hope at this point is that Christa fails to conform to the mommy role entirely and somehow manages to elude the punishment due to her for mothering grown up men. But I'm guessing they'll rather just opt to comfort players scared by her by having a zombie child gnaw its way out of her womb.

Originally Posted by bakajin

I don't think Carley fit either stereotype you presented, however.

Carley's difficulties with the radio and her overall girly nature were enough to squeeze her into the helpless girl stereotype for me. Not that it made her more unrealistic. People act stereotypically all the time, but there is enough of stereotypical behavior of this kind in games already.

Originally Posted by bakajin

Wouldn't, as a journalist, Carley have been the best suited to find out who was behind the stolen supplies?

You see. It just doesn't make sense if you think of it as a case of simple theft of supplies. Lilly's outburst wasn't about those stolen goods. It was all about Carley stealing Lee from her.