Another Rebuttal

by Dr. Mal

I think it's high time that the female RPGamers drop their inferiority complex. Honestly, the female FF characters might as well be having sex with every other male (and female) in the game based on the way some people are treating them.

First things first: TIFA. Isn't she wearing shorts? Maybe I'm wrong, maybe she is wearing a skirt, but does it REALLY MATTER? Perhaps she likes wearing clothes like that; maybe it's to show off the fact that she can kick a lot of hiney and wear a handicap around her waist at the same time. Or maybe it's to impress the guys at her bar. It's okay to think that Square uses her outfit and big breasts to sell their game, but maybe Tifa's using her big breasts and her outfit to sell more DRINKS? Which would you choose? Some crappy run-down bar, filled with cigarette smoke, and careless service? Or, a smaller, more homely bar, run by a sweet gentle young girl, who cares about her job, AND has a nice body to boot? I'm not being sexist here, but it's true, there's a lot of guys in the world who go to bars and oogle women. Get over it. It happens on planet Earth, and it's going to start happening on planet Final Fantasy. We were spoon-fed with Nintendo's "Spoony Bard" form of American Final Fantasies, and now we're playing the first 3D Final Fantasy, with the more realistic characters, with no crappy censor on it, and it shocks and appauls people that Tifa has big breasts. She has big breasts! Say it out loud three times, and get over it! Yes, true, it does seem unnatural that she's a martial artist (it says nothing in the game about being a body builder, though, although I suppose that goes hand-in-hand with martial arts) and has large breasts, but hey, there's also a quite hefty-looking man who was legally allowed to get a large gatling gun grafted to his arm, and an electric company who can do whatever the hell they want whenever the hell they want, and nobody can stop them. You'll notice that the minute Cloud hops off the train in the beginning, he fights two soldiers who blast at him with machine guns, while he's left to fend for himself with his large, single-edged razor blade of a sword. Who wins? The guy with the very heavy sword. For crying out loud, if you want to talk about proportional problems, how is that lanky little guy supposed to heft that huge sword? And how come Aeris didn't bleed when she was stabbed? And how come she died from a sword, when getting shot a couple hundred times only lowers her HP? I know, I'm digressing, but these are all examples of unnatural elements in Final Fantasy. If you can live with that, I'm sure you can let yourself live with a character who has big breasts and keeps in shape. She's not "weak" like the other female characters women have complained about in the past, either. Give her credit for that, at least. And before more of you accuse Tifa of being a slut, allow me to ask you: Did Tifa decide to repay a favor from Cloud with a "date?" She dresses "slutty," and that's it, but I've never once see her act slutty, unless you count the scene where she sleeps next to Cloud.

Another thing.. why does Meagan (or any other person, for that matter) complaining that all the female characters depend on the male characters? Would you all rather have the females in each game be self-sufficient bull-dykes? I have news for you: The majority of them ARE self-sufficient. Terra and Celes are quite strong, Lenna, Faris & Cara can be strong if you choose to make them that way, as can Rinoa, Quistis, and Selphie.
The weak females? Aeris, Rosa, Rydia, Porom, Relm. The latter three are little girls, and when Rydia grows up, she's nothing but a whip-toting Summoner.. not a battle-hardened warrior. Rosa is a pure white wizard, Aeris is just a regular girl Yeah, an Ancient, a Cetra, whatever. If you want to say that Aeris should be powerful because she's an Ancient is just as RACIST as saying that all black men are.. well endowed. The Cetra are a different race of humans, a race with natural magical powers nonetheless, but a different race.
Face it: Not all women can be self-sufficient.
If it's a matter of PLOT self-sufficience which is the problem, you must have a vandetta against all people, because all the "dependencies" are purely normal.
Rosa - She's Cecil's GIRLFRIEND. She LOVES HIM. Naturally she's going to want to BE WITH HIM.
Rydia - I always thought that Rydia appealed to Yang as a "daughter" of sorts. And as far as Edge goes, it's just an assumed future relationship, as is the relationship with Celes and Locke.
Porom - She has no dependency on her brother, aside from casting Twin and turning into stone to protect her friends.
("Gee guys.. We're all gonne die, and there's nothing I can do. *thwap* Shut up, Palom! There's no way I'm going to turn into stone for these guys! I am WOMAN! Hear me roar!") If anything, Porom was the dominant sibling, always smacking her brother around.
Terra - She depends on nobody, aside from her friends, and her "children." She wanted to feel love, and instead of some typical relationship with another party member, she finds children, and learns of a motherly love. ("How come TERRA has to be a mother? She's her own woman!!")
Celes - She's a general, not some love-starved twit. That phrase says everything. Exactly WHERE in FF6 does it say that she's Locke's girl? For the majority of the game, he's hung up over his quassi-dead girlfriend Rachel, and then when she finally dies, nothing more is mentioned of his love life. Oh sure, he saves Celes's life in the end. ("Don't save me, Locke! I'm my own woman!") And he also says that he promised he'd always protect her. Hey, he wants to protect her.. MAYBE it'd be a future relationship, but as far as the game goes, there's no definite sign of that. (Locke ALSO promises to protect Terra. Maybe he's just the ladies' man. I dunno.)

Relm - 10 yr. old girl. Her guardian is her grandfather... her grandfather whom she never LISTENS TO. I see no problem with this, aside from the possible disciplinary problem she poses.

Lenna, Faris, Cara - They're princesses. Princesses aren't naturally independant war machines, even though Faris breaks that barrier. Isn't that enough?

Tifa - She likes Cloud. She wants to be with Cloud. She grew up with Cloud. She missed Cloud the whole time he was gone. Just because her dillema isn't avenging somebody, doesn't mean she's some slutty sex-object.

Aeris - Zack was her boyfriend, and she liked Cloud, again something that was never totally mentioned in FF7, but it DID show more than the Locke/Celes thing. She didn't need ANYBODY'S help to summon Holy and save the world, didn't she? Riddle me that, Meagan. Sephiroth killed her while Cloud watched. How dependant is that?

Yuffie - According to Meagan, Yuffie's "stuck behind" her father, Godo. Right, that's why you meet her on an entirely different continent, stealing from people. Of course, Godo is ALSO her FATHER, so even if she WAS stuck behind him, that's the way things normally are!

Rinoa - I'm surprised this wasn't mentioned. Rinoa supposedly depends on Squall. However, to quote another perception I read, which, I believe was written by Shane Turner, Squall was trying to become a lion, so to speak, while Rinoa already was one. She held her own in any arguments the two got into, and if you ask me, during Disc 1, Squall was "stuck behind" her, and by the time Disc 3 rolls around, he's even further stuck behind her because he's totally fallen for her.

Quistis - At one point, she admits that she THOUGHT she was in love with Squall, but it turned out to be something else. No problem with Quistis, really.

Selphie - Selphie constantly blows Irvine off, and the only dependency she has that I remember, is waiting for Squall to open the train door for her so she can look out the damn window.

Next, Meagan basically says she wants more topless women in Final Fantasy. Well, as a guy, I can't argue with her there. I wouldn't mind that at all. ^_^ I would, however, mind seeing a topless girl getting smacked around in battle. If a big breasted "Body-builder" bothers you, Meagan, wouldn't you be bothered by a topless girl who can take just as much damage as anybody else? Futhermore, I'd think a topless girl would be the ULTIMATE sexist marketting ploy by Square.

What would their excuse be in the plot?
TIFA: "In my household, I grew up learning to never wear shirts if I don't want to. Hope you guys don't mind."
*Cloud scratches his head and shrugs*
CLOUD: "No argument here..."
CID: "..at all!!!"

Yeah, I'm sure that would make Square look REALLY fair to women.
However, not being ashamed of putting in an FMV where a female is missing some clothes for a justifiable reason would be okay, but that's not being fair to women, that's just not being afraid of getting an "M" rating slapped on the game box.

Personally, I never saw the point in why guys can not wear shirts, but girls can't. I'm not being a pervert, that's just my point of view.. however that's not the case here. Barret may not have been wearing a shirt, but since we're on the subject of taking totally meaningless things and making them look like a federal case, maybe Square made him that way to appeal to the women! (I don't believe that one bit, but it could be said.) Hell, Barret isn't even totally shirtless, and Sephiroth was not "parading around" without a shirt. You see him in the end shirtless. Big deal. Who else can you criticize? Maybe Yang? Welcome to planet Earth, where it's considered "inappropriate" in many places for women to not wear a shirt.

Maybe the women in Final Fantasy ARE comfortable, Meagan.
Aeris wears a dress... because she LIKES DRESSES, however, she keeps part of it unbuttoned because it feels more COMFORTABLE.
Tifa is not wearing a sports bra, she's wearing a shirt, and that "skirt" is a pair of shorts. It's not that they aren't comfortable, it's that people like Meagan aren't comfortable.
I'm not trying to bash Meagan, I'm just expressing my point of view on her opinion, which is about as unfair as some of the reviews I've seen on FF7/8.

So next time you play one of the Final Fantasy games, don't think about these things - at all, because they aren't true. Pop in one of your games and enjoy it to it's fullest extent, instead of gawking at how unfair Squaresoft is with the women.

Original Editorial: The Roles of Final Fantasy Women