I want you all to look at this picture. What do you see?
Let me tell you what I see.
First of all, yes, I see that her breasts are cupped by armor that appears to resemble demon hands groping her. I also notice that she’s not wearing pants. While the overall wardrobe is unique in that I’ve never seen anything quite like it before - no two fantasy armors are ever really alike - it’s also a typical fantasy armor for a female character, with quite a bit of sex appeal to it.
But you want to know what else I see?
I see a tiara. This tells me that either she’s a regal figure of utmost importance, or she’s a successful adventurer with enough gold to afford expensive and enchanted equipment. I see demonic imagery all over her - her pauldron, her belt, and particularly the beelzebub-looking faces on her swords, meant to inspire fear in her opponents. I see a pair of double-edged longswords, and the person holding them has the muscular, toned body of a woman who knows damn well how to use them. The emblem on her cloth tells me she fights for some kind of city or homeland, so she fights with the lives of thousands in the back of her mind. Most of all, I see her face. Strikingly beautiful, but wearing a look of battle-hardened, steeled determination. She’s about to fight something, she’s about to kill something. This is a woman I would not want to fuck with.
And yet, what would feminists, and critics of fantasy games see?
Just a slutty-dressed woman in a sexual outfit with breasts too big.
Feminists, critics, they would reduce this woman to what she’s wearing. Hell, not even what she’s wearing, but strictly how ‘sexy’ what she’s wearing is. They’d reduce this woman to the size of her breasts and how much leg she’s showing. They would reduce this character’s value as a woman down to one single factor: how sexy she is.
Now tell me, who is really objectifying women - the people who like this kind of attire, or the people who don’t?
