Melinda and Tropes vs. Women in Video Games

[spottedshroom]

Flame war time!

The Melinda quest is a pretty standard "damsel in distress" trope. For a game that makes a point of having some bad-ass women characters, I think we can do better.

A fairly simple solution would be for Melinda's gender to be chosen at random each game. This would just require new sprites and changing some pronouns. I would specifically not like to see any of the other details of Melinda's plot changed for just the male version, since that would defeat the purpose.

Instead or in addition to that, it would be nice to change Melinda's plot to give her more agency. Right now she (1) gets rescued from cultists, (2) is a pain to escort out of a dungeon, (3) unintentionally uses her blight abilities to kill the monsters at the beach, and (4) is no help in getting cured of her demonic possession. Instead, for example, she might (1) explain how she came to be captured in a way that doesn't portray her as weak, just unlucky, (2) be a useful sidekick getting out of the dungeon rather than dead weight, with difficulty of that floor increased to compensate, (3) intentionally give in to the temptation to use her demonic powers at the beach, but later confide in the PC that she needs help to avoid being corrupted, and (4) give a hint at how to deal with her problem.

[grayswandir]

I vaguely remember reading somewhere something about a "male Melinda in Derth" as its own separate quest line.

[Effigy]

Melinda is clearly the damsel trope (including in the achievement name), but we also have Aeryn as the strong female character that fights alongside the player during the final battle and so forth. I don't think it's necessarily bad to have one as long as you have the other to balance things out. Melinda also has agency in deciding not to date the player's character if they act creepy, but I think to some extent she's a meta-joke about this common fantasy trope.

As far as making "Melinda" have a random gender each game, it's not a bad idea but I think it will complicate things. For instance, her introduction is based on being a virgin sacrifice to a demon, and this is based on the age-old notion of "pure" girls or children being used in satanic rituals. The idea of sacrificing adult males is not as common, at least in Western popular culture. Maj'Eyal could be different, but again I think this is playing on common fantasy tropes for thematic effect. I also think many players would be uninterested in rescuing a male "Melinda" for the prospect of gay romance, although that's obviously based on the perspective of a straight male player.

[twas Brillig]

Maj'Eyal could be different, but again I think this is playing on common fantasy tropes for thematic effect. I also think many players would be uninterested in rescuing a male "Melinda" for the prospect of gay romance, although that's obviously based on the perspective of a straight male player.

That's not a great argument--there's a non-zero number of straight female players.

[Effigy]

Well, I understand that and I agree that it's good to accommodate different people. But when a character is a fixed gender, it just is what it is. Once it becomes randomized, you open people up to disappointment for getting the "wrong" RNG, like getting the wrong kind of escort quest. I'm the kind of person that's more accepting of a suboptimal factor that's predictable than a random factor that can be good or bad but is out of my control. The only way to please everyone would be to let you pick which gender "Melinda" spawns as, and I think that would be awkward from a storytelling standpoint.

EDIT: The other option, which a lot of modern games with NPC romance subplots do, is to have multiple NPCs of different genders/orientations that you can date. That's a fine option, but it requires creating a new quest line rather than just tweaking what's already in the game.

[Delmuir]

I rather dislike the romantic side of the quest.

I don't mind the quest itself and I'd be fine with it being randomized but I'd prefer to nix the romantic development from it.

If one still desires a romantic subplot, it ought not be too difficult to develop one.

In fact, here's a suggestion:

1. Nix the romantic subplot for Melinda.

2. Create two alternate quests, one with a male character and one with a female character. You can only accept one so if you don't get the gender you want, you simply decline the quest knowing that the other one will pop up at some point.

3. Have that quest be akin to the Dwarven starting zone… have it be a partnership. You stumble upon a warrior out on a mission and you help him/her complete the mission, working together, and a relationship can blossom.

In fact, it could be developed in parts… you meet, have a short, mini-quest, and then he/she departs. Later, like an escort mission, you get another quest, and the story develops, and so on and so on. Maybe four parts in total.

This would be an excellent thing to extend into the second half of the game, or even designate to the East.

I'd much prefer that to the Melinda quest as is.

[grobblewobble]

The Melinda quest is a pretty standard "damsel in distress" trope.

Yes. And you will find that trope in about every popular movie ever made, as well as anywhere else in our culture.

If you seriously want to change that, maybe an obscure video game (known by 0.001% of the population) is not the place to start.

[donkatsu]

The Melinda plot makes me cringe about as bad as the Orc Broodmother did, but at least the Broodmother was memorable.

[0player]

Yes. And you will find that trope in about every popular movie ever made, as well as anywhere else in our culture.

If you seriously want to change that, maybe an obscure video game (known by 0.001% of the population) is not the place to start.

Another argument can be made that changing what's within our grasp is the best course of action.
Otherwise it's a Catch-22 -- all things are either impossible to change or not worth it.

Ahem. Never viewed that particular quest as especially problematic. I mean, she's a town girl, what exactly is she against 8000 cultists that are all-too-happy to murder such an overpowered and weathered adventurer as yourself? I feel like she got the good amount of character in her.
Now, that's not to say that romantic tones in that quest are by any means necessary or tied to anything (other than a certain person's love for redheads?) Recommending her to whatever town she desireds would be easy without her falling in love with you, as well.
All in all, I have mixed feelings about this. It's a good "moral choice" quest, in that you gain ton of benefits from NOT doing the right thing. It's a good NPC. It's a good "nice guy" joke. It does many things pretty well.

[grobblewobble]

Another argument can be made that changing what's within our grasp is the best course of action.
Otherwise it's a Catch-22 -- all things are either impossible to change or not worth it.

Fair enough. Okay, maybe I should put it differently, then.

This quest is absolutely fine. If this storyline is not to your taste, fair enough. Although I have to say, it's a totally optional quest and nothing stops you from ignoring it, or just letting her be sacrificed.

But if you're viewing it as sexism, like the original poster seems to do, your point of view is very far off mainstream, seeing how this theme occurs in over half of all movies. A quest to rescue a woman is wrong, period? Really?

A computer game is not the place to push some extreme political views. Go convince people on the street, write articles, organize a protest, whatever.

[Burb Lulls]

A reminder:

In addition to Melinda, a male merchant needs to be saved from the Assassin Lord, and a male Sun Paladin needs to be saved from Ardunghol.
There are more male "damsels" in the game than female ones.

[Isotope-X]

Instead or in addition to that, it would be nice to change Melinda's plot to give her more agency. Right now she (1) gets rescued from cultists, (2) is a pain to escort out of a dungeon, (3) unintentionally uses her blight abilities to kill the monsters at the beach, and (4) is no help in getting cured of her demonic possession.

I don't see any of these as being particularly marking her as a "weak damsel." Evil folks attack, overpower, and capture her. That could happen to a strong, agentive character as well. She's tormented and injured and therefore cannot help in her own rescue. She's infected by a force of corruption, the very essence of anti-life, and doesn't know how to control it. She can't help because she doesn't know what demons are or how they operate, because she's a normal person and hasn't ever encountered them.

None of these mark her as particularly weak, but rather a normal person who fell victim to terrible fortune. I think that in this case the character could certainly be male without changing the flavor of the situation very much except for the whole birth aspect. But even so, I think it's important to remember that not all female characters have to be badasses. As long as there's room for Buffy and Xena and Alyx Vance and Bayonetta and River Tam and Ronda Rusey in the world, there's room for victims who happen to be women.

That said, I agree the romantic subplot is rather horrible. Also, thanks, spottedshroom, for bringing up the topic for discussion. It'll be interesting to see where it goes.

[0player]

Fair enough. Okay, maybe I should put it differently, then.

This quest is absolutely fine. If this storyline is not to your taste, fair enough. Although I have to say, it's a totally optional quest and nothing stops you from ignoring it, or just letting her be sacrificed.

But if you're viewing it as sexism, like the original poster seems to do, your point of view is very far off mainstream, seeing how this theme occurs in over half of all movies. A quest to rescue a woman is wrong, period? Really?

A computer game is not the place to push some extreme political views. Go convince people on the street, write articles, organize a protest, whatever.

You sound unusually threatened...
Someone being of common occurence doesn't absolve it from being problematic. Note how you yourself were very well able to identify a commonly-occuring problem with this trope without either me or the OP naming it. Is the quest as absolutely fine as you claim, then? I don't deny that the quest is sufferable at the very least, but your rhetoric is unusual.
Why exactly is convincing people on the street better than convincing people on this particular forum, though? Is that because you fell it's unlikely you'll meet me on the street? Is that because you feel it's unlikely it'll amount to anything?
The view expressed is neither extreme nor political. Politics is its own box of spiders that no one is willing to touch. The question is about how people - players of the game - feel while playing said game. Speaking on their own behalf. Dare you take the power to shut them up?

[Mankeli]

A reminder:

In addition to Melinda, a male merchant needs to be saved from the Assassin Lord, and a male Sun Paladin needs to be saved from Ardunghol.
There are more male "damsels" in the game than female ones.

This is a keen observation, good job. But they aren't exactly the same because they actually are not completely helpless by themselves (UrhTROLL has shop that sells shit items for 4 K and the sun paladin can make a portal).

But really, I'm not sure if it counts in a discussion like this anyways. Just look at the closed Orc Breeding Pits thread: Some people got offended over the word "vulva" and because you killed female mother characters with babies and DG was pretty much accused of both being a Nazi and a women hater. And this was beside the fact that this whole game is about killing sentient beings without a judge or a fair trial and you kill thousands of them during a typical win. The game gives the best rewards when you kill things out-of-LOS so that the enemies never even have a chance to defend themselves at all! Also, did I mention that the most powerful being in this whole game who is also one of the most crucial to the lore and the whole world of Eyal is also a woman and the second most powerful being is completely genderless? Well, that didn't matter in that earlier discussion either.

Many people in general don't seem to understand what the nature of the problem of using negative gender related tropes in video games is (if there is a problem and I would be inclined to agree there is problem in some games). If we take this Melinda quest as an example then the problem is NOT that there are some hopeless women characters in some video game X: The problem is if ALL female (or male) characters are written as completely helpless idiots waiting to be saved (or if all males are depicted as raging violent madmen and rapists in some other instance, for example). I hope that everyone, including the OP, can understand that not all women character can be demigods like Linaniil. There is nothing wrong with having weak/hopeless female characters if the weakness is not depicted as a quality inherently found only in women and not men.

EDIT. Also check out 0players comment below!

That being said, I've never understood why Melinda has to be so hopeless in the getting out of the crypt part. I don't think it's necessary in terms of gameplay at all (quite the opposite) so she could definitely be more of use. And of course, I have no objections of adding a romantic subplot with a male character either if someone has the time to code it, I just hope that this time the changes will be done for the right reasons.

[0player]

As to hopeless/useless characters, the most hopeless and useless ones are escortees, and they're of a randomised gender
Following the trope for melinda still takes a little from her character. Giving her some basic defensive capabilities would be awesome.