This post was actually written just as Brotherhood came out – took a while to post it because of all our Christmas features that went up in December! … so it’s not actually about Brotherhood in detail. Rather, it seeks to express some opinions about the franchise so far at that point in time (and gaming trends in general/changes we’d like to see in gaming, specifically via this franchise because we love it). It takes stock of ACII and hopes that things will improve with AC:B. Though it does level criticism at AC:B it’s mainly a general view of where the franchise seems to be going on the whole and hopes for where it could go next. Maybe it’s starting to go there with AC:B, but with only one woman on the poster in a group of a load of men, I think that the way the games are marketed isn’t exactly advertising the female characters’ improved involvement very clearly, so I can see why Markgraf took a relatively unoptimistic stance.

There are some comment exchanges above re: the female assassins you recruit if that’s helpful!

That said, as we’ve now been linked by Ubisoft Workshop Markgraf’s done an afterword post which picks up on some of the points you’ve made! That’ll go up next week :)

We’re extremely thrilled that Ubiworkshop have responded to us – what a nice bunch of people!

And what about the characters Maria and Rebecca? Neither of them are stereotypically attractive, nor do they reveal much. Maria even takes the role of a man in a time when that was really uncommon of women. And personally, I think the guys are plenty sexualized as well, even though they may not reveal much. They have largely unrealistic ectomorphic model bodies.

While I do see your point about the promotion of sexual activity to create the life, I just can’t shake the notion that she’s been used *just* as an excuse for T+A (and the inevitable cosplayers’ respective body parts, too). It could be a great concept if executed well. I personally find the WoW dryads beautiful, and their frailty and willowy appearance along with their lack of clothing (apart from a few strategically places strands of ivy) can be attested to both their cervidae bodies and their “classic” fae-like nature as protectors of the forests and the animals.

Given the game’s history of sexy-fying NPC models relentlessly (see also: trolls, tauren*), I would love to believe that your suggestion is the reason for her attire, but I… I just can’t :(

*http://www.wired.com/underwire/2007/05/sexual_dimorphi/

Kojima pretty much confirmed it in a Japanese commentary (not that he needed to; Ocelot’s crush on Big Boss in MGS3 can be seen from the moon) EVA also hints at it in-game during some codec calls. I don’t know if he’s gay or it’s just the Big Boss effect, but it pretty much motivates everything he does from then on.

I like to think EVA was a parody of a Bond girl and in some ways it worked, but I felt that some of the fanservice was kind of gratuitous.

Wait what? Ocelot’s gay?

I think Eva’s role was crafted in the way it was for the sake of parody. MGS3 is basically an enormous Bond parody in plot, if not in gameplay.

Then you have EVA. Oh, EVA. Although she was pretty cool at certain moments, she was essentially big-boobed wallpaper and there to provide the ‘femme fatale’ angle – the woman as temptation, the Bond Girl who seduces the otherwise single-minded hero.

Mind you, MGS wasn’t afraid to sexualise the men as well as the women (Snake’s buttocks are the most lovingly crafted buttocks I have ever seen) and is refreshingly open about having gay/bisexual characters (Volgin, Raikov, Dolph, Vamp) and a main villain who is either gay/bi, or singlemindedly attracted to one of the main characters (Ocelot) making him one of the most triumphant examples of a smart, competent LGBT antagonists in any game.

Re: historical accuracy, I’m not convinced that’s the case.

There was almost certainly an underworld of gay sex work if the developers wanted to go there (not a “historically themed” comparison, but gay sex workers do feature at least a little bit in DragonAge!), but on the “women in other jobs” front, yes, independence was scarce, but there are any number of plot reasons besides sex for a woman to be out alone:

* too poor for a chaperone; merchant’s daughter on errands who gets “caught up” in the action
* in disguise (there are certainly cases of women in disguise to the point that it is a whole trope. But if that’s not convincing enough, this is a game where you can run along the rooftops in a uniform which is, let’s be honest, about as stealthy as a wedding dress, so how realistic do we need to be?)
* religious orders (in the preceding century prioresses had considerable monetary power and access to education)
* rich enough to be relatively independent (perhaps an eccentric widow – the pressure to marry would be marked, but not necessarily insurmountable; see previous comment about realism in the AC universe).

The sixteenth century may be the era of marriage-tastic misogyny, but it was also the era of (admittedly this is the UK, but…) Elizabeth I, Bess of Hardwicke, and the smuggler-pirate aristocrat Lady Killigrew. None of these women escaped their sexuality, affairs or possible marriages being discussed pretty extensively at the time. But they weren’t all sex workers.

The Renaissance era’s playwrights wrote a lot of characters that weren’t sex workers. Lady Macbeth – very sexual, and the power behind the throne arguably, but not a courtesan.

I really think that courtesans are one way to portray women with spare time, connections, and ability to cross section society, and they aren’t a bad way, but they aren’t the only way, and it doesn’t take much imagination to work around it.

I meant to say “more sense for the character, given what little I know about her” before I get flamed so hard Burger King could serve me as a Whopper.