Something I've been thinking about lately, what's your opinions about femme fatales in relation with gaming and do you think the trope of the femme fatale is inherently negative?
I admit in general, I have a soft spot of femme fatales in fiction, especially when written by women or not in James Bond like media (only Bond I like is the Dalton movies), especially portrayed in a more positive light. I'm pretty much a shy coward in real life so like the ownership of their bodies and sexuality when done well, the confidence they exude etc and like when they can kickarse.
Gaming though... Something about gaming always feels like it just goes into the most skeevy way of doing Femme fatales, either it's done as an excuse to put them into the most sexualized costumes possible while using the "They want to!" excuse to justify it (fighting games are bad for this like Ivy's infamous costumes) or they have a nasty habit of making their femme fatales brainwashed. The two examples of this that annoy me the most are Jill Valentine in Resident Evil 5 (especially since she hasn't been allowed in games post 5 in the timeline nd got shafted a ton for years after) and Widowmaker from Overwatch, the latter is stated to have been tortured and conditioned to be what she is (which caused the blue skin), both bother me and like what I said before, makes what they dress more skeevy to me.
The two that frustrate me the most are Morrigan from Darkstalkers and Anna WIlliams from Tekken, both are actually my favourite from their series but both make me feel guilty for that because of how it seems both the fandom and the people behind those games have made them more and more sexualized and objectified over the years and what made me liked them in the first place has slowly just been forgotten.
WIth Morrigan, I liked her more dorky nature she had, her character arc about her becoming a capable leader and queen, how she was good natured etc, but all of that seems to been slowly gone just to make her more and more about sex, with the Udon comics taking it to an extreme by making her a called blooded killer (despite the fact the games already established she didn't need to kill people). Anna Williams I like the subversion that the typically "evil" looking sister was actually the nicer of the two, a related to her backstory and genuinely liked her, but she has the same issue of Morrigan (plus Tekken media outside the main games just make her the evil sister anyway). It's frustrating.
I've been working on my game idea the past year which also has a femme fatale, A Croatian Vampire with an Owl motif (specifically the Eurasian scops owl) and I'm wanting to avoid the same issues that I just discussed.
