'Malee' & Female Companions

[Actalo]

I just noticed all the female companion options are melee characters.

Lae'zel - 2h Fighter
Shadowheart - Mace Cleric
Minthara - Mace Paladin
Karlach - 2h Barbarian
Jaheira - Fighter/Druid

But class is just part of it - when I thought about my early access playthroughs, I thought about my dialogue interactions and realized all the available female companions seemed like male personality tropes wearing female skin-suits.

All of the female companions are entirely interchangeable with the males, there's no difference besides genitalia. In fact, I'd argue the female companions are probably more 'manly', both physically and personality-wise, than the male companions.

If anything, the male companions seem to be the only well-rounded bunch: some are self-sacrificing, self-effacing, others heroic, romantic, ambitious, empathetic, and one is an effeminate, flamboyant homosexual. Like I said, well-rounded.

Meanwhile, the female companions are all sorts of surface level aggressive, mean, violent, callous, stoic - one even has literal explosive rage ... all extreme aspects of masculinity.

I've always been curious - do female players actually like playing characters that are completely stripped of anything remotely feminine - and are essentially male personality tropes?

I understand the appeal to male players - slutty hot chicks with big weapons and bigger boobs (who really, really like them) has been popular forever. But, I don't understand how this appeals to female players. As a dude, if every male character option was hyper-feminine in every way but the nuts and bolt, I wouldn't play the game... and I'm reasonably confident few men would either - so do women like playing these hyper-masculine avatars?

I know male power fantasy pretty well, it's very popular, and most games certainly reflect that - but RPGs tend to have a slightly higher female player base compared to traditionally male'ish genres - so obviously women play these games. Do they all just make custom characters? Or do the female companions/player character choices reflect a commonality between male and female power fantasy I'm not aware of?

[Wolfsun]

Ahhhhhhhn- CRAP

[Metallicus]

I agree with you, OP. The males are feminized and the females are heavy into their masculine energy. I believe this is the way society is being engineered right now.

[Wirewing]

Results will vary. It's the type of character that they decided to write into the story and both men and women will either appreciate or denigrate their aspects, based on their own preferences and how good they feel the character's performance is, in the game.

They may even change their mind and either get sick of them or learn to appreciate them. No group is a monolith and not everyone is making personal critiques on portrayals of characters in videogames based on gender or (non?) gendered behavior/ presentation.

If it is confusing for someone to expect that a pretend person present themselves a certain way and then be confronted by an unexpected personality, then that's probably a good thing. People are people, individuals are themselves. Framing the writing as subversion of a patriarchal agenda is, ironically, dripping with an agenda of its own.

The entirety of womandom isn't going to put your steam forum topic on the weekly agenda in order to quell your curiosity.

[Cutlass Jack]

Well of course we want women running into melee so we can stare at their butts. I mean heal them. Yes heal them.

[PocketYoda]

I don't want to get banned again so i'll just say its a current route modern media has taken these days.. It is what it is.

I hopefully will be only using mercenaries anyway so i can use Gnomes, Halflings and Dwarves etc.

[Cy]

That's just how everyone writes women now. They need to be men, because feminism has spent the last 30 years telling everyone that feminine traits are undesirable.

[Agent Chieftain]

Well, at least most of them have feminine hairstyles. Only Karlach has "the haircut."

[katzenkrimis]

Originally posted by Wirewing:

Based on their own preferences and how good they feel the character's performance is.

That's all it's about for me.

Can you fight? Get to the front line.

Don't like my decisions? Get lost.

As long as we can hire temporary workers, everybody is replaceable. Although, I'd prefer that some of the main characters stick around. I'd like to help some of them. It'd give me more dialogue to read and companion quests to do.

I'll scratch their back if they scratch mine.

Eww, that sounds kind of creepy.

[geeb]

I've polled all femoids. They say they're going to be playing as the flaming homosexual vampire, or creating a self-insert to bang him.

[Hobocop]

Shadowheart isn't really much of a Mace Cleric with only 10(12?) Strength by default.

[s0t3lg]

i think you are wrong on two accounts first shadow heart may start with a mace but her stats are dex based so she is better off with a dagger than a mace also because of this she functions better as a ranged character rather than melee, second as for how the characters act i would say for the most part they are all androgynous with their personalities as their isn't really any gendered specific reactions in the first chapter.

[geeb]

Originally posted by Hobocop:

Shadowheart isn't really much of a Mace Cleric with only 10 Strength by default.

Yeah, but taking that into account disrupts the point they're trying to make.

[Eckoh]

Originally posted by Hobocop:

Shadowheart isn't really much of a Mace Cleric with only 10 Strength by default.

I cannot imagine my group without her as she has the heals, but offensively she is kinda trash.. I mean you need to give her weapons that have effects on misses cause she hits nothing regardless if it's spells or melee

[cl656]

I call ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

There is noway you could of watched the Panel, saw the Karlach segments,and thought "this ♥♥♥♥♥ acts like a man".

[Deylendor]

Originally posted by geeb:

Originally posted by Hobocop:

Shadowheart isn't really much of a Mace Cleric with only 10 Strength by default.

Yeah, but taking that into account disrupts the point they're trying to make.

True. Seems like everybody forgot about the forever female archers of the past.
Suddenly there are agendas and PsyOps everywhere now that some chick can wield an axe... like we didn't have those in the past too.