Rebuttal to "The Roles of Final Fantasy Women"

by James Krysiak

The points in Meagan Ehrhardt's "The Roles of Final Fantasy Women" fall into three categories; generalizations which apply to almost any character, untruths, contradictions, and statements with very little bearing whatsoever on anything.

Generalization 1: "The first woman met has a blank past until later in the game."
How many games have you seen that completely explain a character's past when you first meet them? Cloud, Squall, and for that matter, practically the entire cast of every Final Fantasy has some mysterious event in their past that goes unexplained until late game.

Irrelevant Fact: "The last girl you get is always the youngest."
I simply don't see the importance of this. It's a great fact, but what does it mean?

Generalization 2: "The first woman you meet always has a very important part in the game."
So does the first man. Generally, main characters are introduced first.

False Statement: "All the women have a male character that they are stuck behind."
I want to know your definition of "stuck behind". If having a boyfriend means that you're stuck behind a man, then you're probably right. However, by most people's definition, you'd be hard put to describe Tifa, Yuffie, Porom, Rydia, Terra, Celes, or Relm as "stuck behind a man". The first four are all very individual women, striking down male characters' advances often. Terra and Celes are romantically involved with their male friends, but they aren't dependant on them and they definitely don't live in their shadow. If Relm is stuck behind Strago, then every child is stuck behind their parent or guardian, thus another generalization.

Generalization 3: "The second woman met has some tie to the main character or their actions."
Most characters you meet have some tie to the main character. If not, then the main character wouldn't have much business to do with them.

Generalization 4: "A woman is always killed or lost for a long time."
You even say it yourself; "Porom AND HER BROTHER use stone on themselves." Male characters are lost or killed as frequently as women characters. Remember General Leo, the man Terra's stuck behind?

Generalization 5: "We are kept in the dark about some women."
We are kept in the dark about some men. In the cases you listed, as in most cases, you can make inferences about what happened based on what you know.

Contradiction 1: Clothing
You complain about the skimpiness of women's clothing, then go on to mention cases where the same thing applies to men. Then you say that it's unfair that men could be shirtless. I'm getting a mixed message here. Do you want a game with shirtless women so they could be comfortable too? It seems to me that the less clothing one has, the more comfortable one is. If you want to complain about men being able to go shirtless but not women, then blame it on society, not Squaresoft.

Contradiction 2: Male Overshadowing/Protection
Before you stated (falsely) that a whole bunch of women in Final Fantasy games live in the shadow of their male friends. Then, when you talk about how women always disappear or die, you say that men are supposed to be protecting them. Well, you can't have it both ways. Would you rather have male protection or female freedom?

The one point I will concede is that Square makes their characters unusually top heavy. I find it disgusting that a gamer would salivate over an animated character (especially an ugly one like Tifa), but if it happens, it certainly isn't Square's fault. It sells more games, and it just makes good marketing sense.

It seems that in your eagerness to find Squaresoft guilty of chauvinism, you found all the generalisms you could dig up and pretended they applied only to females, and then created some falsities just for the hell of it. Too bad, I was looking forward to a good debate.

Original Editorial: The Roles of Final Fantasy Women