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Squeenix Fail
Here's the thing, about the recent announcements regarding Lightning Returns.
You all know that I'm a huge FFX-2 fan, so it's not like fanservice or character redesigns or playing dress-up dolls are deal-breakers for me. I might have rolled my eyes a little bit at Lightning Returns and her five million outfits, and I think it's more than fair to ask if a Final Fantasy game with a male protagonist would have ever included such an aspect, but it doesn't bother me really.
This thing with the breast enlargement bothers me. Not just the fact of it, but the way it was presented, the tee-hee-nudge-wink grossness of it, the idea that whether Lightning's breasts jiggle is the most important thing about the game, the fact that it's Lightning being sexualized in this particular way. In her original characterization, Lightning broke out of many of the female character stereotypes that have plagued Final Fantasy games in the past, so to see this change is really frustrating.
Take this news and combine it with the lack of female playable characters in FFXV (which hasn't been officially confirmed but seems highly likely) and the redesign of Stella from this to this, my faith in Squeenix is pretty much shot.
I will still probably buy and play Final Fantasy XV; I will still probably not get Lightning Returns unless I ever manage to finish FFXIII-2, so nothing has changed for me, really. But it's all very disappointing, and getting worse.
You all know that I'm a huge FFX-2 fan, so it's not like fanservice or character redesigns or playing dress-up dolls are deal-breakers for me. I might have rolled my eyes a little bit at Lightning Returns and her five million outfits, and I think it's more than fair to ask if a Final Fantasy game with a male protagonist would have ever included such an aspect, but it doesn't bother me really.
This thing with the breast enlargement bothers me. Not just the fact of it, but the way it was presented, the tee-hee-nudge-wink grossness of it, the idea that whether Lightning's breasts jiggle is the most important thing about the game, the fact that it's Lightning being sexualized in this particular way. In her original characterization, Lightning broke out of many of the female character stereotypes that have plagued Final Fantasy games in the past, so to see this change is really frustrating.
Take this news and combine it with the lack of female playable characters in FFXV (which hasn't been officially confirmed but seems highly likely) and the redesign of Stella from this to this, my faith in Squeenix is pretty much shot.
I will still probably buy and play Final Fantasy XV; I will still probably not get Lightning Returns unless I ever manage to finish FFXIII-2, so nothing has changed for me, really. But it's all very disappointing, and getting worse.
Re: tl;dr: complex stuff is complex. :|
If it were Lebreaux having fun with sexy costumes, I'd think it were appealling and adorable, because she appears to me to have a whimsical fashion sense. Even Yuna, as an expression of "trying on different clothes, having fun, finding herself, acting like a regular teenager and living the life she denied herself as a prim and proper virgin sacrifice," makes sense.
But Lightning? WTF?
Mostly, though, it's just that for me, the character matters more than her appearance, and I found it deeply disturbing that the male director and designer of Lightning Returns seemed to be fixated on her as eye candy more than as a person, as if that's the chief selling point of the character, when she is a helluva person.
And this is from someone who puts Fran in front of the party partly because I like her butt. But that's not what I think of first when I think of Fran (I think of her voice). She's a fascinating character who happens to have a nice butt. I would still like the character (and think it was pretty fantastic) if Viera were heavy-set, earthy and weathered like treebark instead of video game sexybuild.
Re: tl;dr: complex stuff is complex. :|
So, even if Lightning is Lightning, couldn't Lightning, herself, legitimately want to dress sexy at least once?
My point here is making a distinction between the scope of a character when we think of that character as a person vs the character as an object.
All of us commenting under this post are voicing deep disappointment with enhanced jiggle-physics as Squeenix's Hot New Selling Point for a remake of Lightning. From an external POV, jiggle-physics sexually objectifies Lightning and SquareEnix is blatantly using that as part of their sales pitch. From an internal POV, athletic women engaging in highly athletic activities purposefully keep their boobs tightly bound in place for damn good reasons (*ouch*).
But I feel uncomfortable saying no sexy costumes for Lightning *because* Lightning is Lightning. That seems too narrow and confining for the character herself.
It's a subtle thing, not sure if I am explaining it well. It's the difference saying no to problematic jiggle-physics marketing while still saying yes to female characters who can be physically strong and athletic, emotionally complex and compelling, and, when the *character* believably wants to, they can also appear as sexually appealing. I hope that makes sense?
To me, it's about embodying the character with a broad sense of agency such that the character appears to be who she wants to be across a range of different situations. When Lightning is physically leaping and bounding and fighting, I want to see her acting in her self interest rather than *only* as an objectified thing, but when Lightning has an in-world reason to dress in a manner that shows off her attractive form, I don't want to stop her from dressing sexy if I believe that is what she wants to do.
Re: tl;dr: complex stuff is complex. :|
Re: tl;dr: complex stuff is complex. :|
Re: tl;dr: complex stuff is complex. :|
Re: tl;dr: complex stuff is complex. :|
Although, once a game ships and is in the hands and minds of players, players create their own explanations for characters' motivations. I thought that the body design for the original Lara Croft was insultingly objectified for the male-gaze and it completely turned me off from the series. Meanwhile, academic research done by feminists with critical theory training when interviewing pre-teen girls uncovered very different feelings about Lara: female role-model, someone they wanted to be friends with, they fantasized about going on adventures beside Lara while playing the game, etc. So... idk. It's all very complex.