An Oddworld game with a female protagonist?
It only really occurred to me recently how there are basically no female characters in the Oddworld series. I know their role in the narrative is mainly to reproduce etc., but do you think there could ever be an Oddworld game with a female lead character? I think it fits the Oddworld game design quite well in a very basic way; an outsider kind of character triumphing in some way. Also, given the current climate of movies featuring strong female leads (E.G Star Wars) would the time be right? Or do you think it could face possible backlash for just being a "Mary Sue" type of affair that some seem to brand this media. (Not myself - and for the record I loved TFA)
Your thoughts? (Also please note I don't mean from a financial standpoint, or where OWI are at this point in time with their company, I.E I know it's not feasible for them to be bringing out new IP, just theoretically if they could.) |
I don't think it matters. There have always been games with strong female protagonists just as there have always been films with strong female protagonists.
Females on Oddworld seem to have a much higher rank and be much rarer, (Maggie and even Sam technically) so it makes sense why you don't play as them. Oddworld has shitloads of superspecies. |
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I was imagining more along the lines of an "underdog" female character as oppose to these high-ranking ones, or perhaps a high-ranker that refutes their responsibility. Sounds quite shite and generic when you say it like that, but I'm sure if OWI had the story to tell, they'd do it. |
I always liked the fanon stating that Stranger is a female character, given she's pretty small for a Steef and doesn't have horns.
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I certainly wouldn't mind seeing a female protag of some kind (maybe Grubb or Clakker) but I would die inside if they made one just to pander to SJWs. Like you said Connell, the character should fit the narrative.
E: And I think if they did make a female protagonist, they'd probably be able to avoid making them a Sue. I feel like a lot of authors tend to paint their heroines as flawless ultra-badasses, but to be honest, I love characters with flaws that have to struggle and better themselves. And there's not a single Oddworld character that doesn't have flaws and struggles. |
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As for a female lead in Oddworld: If it makes sense for the story, just don't shoehorn one in. As we move forward into the 21st Century, we're seeing an irksome trend of politically correct zest in literature and entertainment. Idris Elba being cast as the Arthurian gunslinger, Roland Deschain, has been perceived by many as the studio's attempt to needlessly racially diversify the main cast—which makes utterly no sense, considering there is a main character who is both negro and a woman in the second book. I'd have to agree that it's a rather bizarre decision, probably motivated by some market analyst who is just checking all the boxes to make sure they don't enrage any political fringe groups. I'd hate to see Oddworld suffer the same treatment. |
oh god how did you forget the ghostbusters reboot
oh god |
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I'm not a big ghostbusters fan either but HISSSSSSS. Like what even was the point of the reboot? |
Hmm this is an interesting point. Most species on Oddworld are supposed to be sexless, yet are portrayed by male voice actors (Lorne) anyway. There's no concievable reason why a mudokon or glukkon couldn't be voiced by an actress, yet I feel that would be feminsing them in a way that would be inconsistent with the way those races have been hitherto portrayed.
I think the best option for introducing a feminine lead would be to introduce a new race exclusively voiced by women. |
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I think it would be great to have a femal inhabitant protagonist. In a hypothetical view, let's say a female Mudokon who does exactly what Abe does, my only request for this is that she is treated the same as Abe was in the game. In other words, showing that their world is harsh for all, no matter the gender/species/race.
I'm even down for robotic female shrinks if we ever get to see more of them in the future. It's like Oddworld made Glados before valve...did... Nah I'm not putting on my tin foil hat today. |
Yes because OWI were the first people to do rogue evil AIs.
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Personally, I don’t think Oddworld is a series where gender matters so much to the story. The species of Oddworld are so diverse that there’d be no reason not to have a female protagonist, but she’d be dealing with the same themes of environmentalism and anti-corporatism that every other protagonist has dealt with. I really wouldn’t mind either way.
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Also, not all species are eusocial – Clakkerz, Grubbs and Outlaws all appear to have a male/female split, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if Gabbits and Steef do too. Vykkers are all hermaphrodites. :
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As an example, consider the point about Idris Elba playing Roland Deschain – is there a real reason why he shouldn’t play that part, besides Deschain being white in the books? It’s important to have more gender, racial and cultural diversity in media, so I can’t say I personally see a problem with the growing trend in modern media. :
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It's up to the creators what they want to put in their work, we have no business going in and demanding more diversity. :
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This thread is gonna go places.
Not good places. But places. |
Steef is female.
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Ignoring the obvious genealogical points—that Roland is a direct descendent of King Arthur; has "blue, bombardier eyes"—there are some very strong racial themes once Susannah enters the story, which are completely butchered by making him black. There's also the glaring fact that Roland is supposed to look like Stephen King's father, as there series crosses over into our reality in the final few books, and Roland actually meets Stephen King. This has several connotations, namely that King created him, and thus it follows that there's a piece of him inside of Roland. Sure, they can make Stephen King black as well, but it still resonates as a bizarre choice. Of course, there are many more reasons, though most are contextual, and a few of them sentimental, so I'll leave it there. I absolutely support diversity in a cast of characters—LOST handled it very well, and it was the first Television show to portray a foreign, hour-long story via subtitles—but I digress when it comes to adding unnecessary flavour. Somewhat related: One of the biggest rules that is ignored in Fantasy literature is not to add unnecessary races to the story unless they play an integral role. Many authors think they can make their world expansive and a special little snowflake by slipping in elves, and dwarves, and pixie people, but unless there's a reason for them to be there, it often reads as stale. Oddworld handles this fantastically, however, as all of the characters are exaggerated stereotypes and metaphors unto themselves. I think that in itself is a core reason why most of the characters are drones; they represent everyone, both male and female alike. Ergo, to restate my original point: If it's necessary to the story. (Kind of a hodgepodge of an essay. I'm on the iPad and lost the long post I originally had written, so I apologise for the quality of prose.) |
Yeah to be honest the only thing remotely male about Mudokons is (some of) the voices.
By the way, would you class Oddworld as fantasy? |
I thought it's science fantasy, I mean it's basically a planet far far away, inhabited by aliens.
In regards to the topic, there's no reason why women can't voice characters, or why there can't be female expressing characters. If you look at many super queen species, the workers are all female and vastly outnumber the few male drones. To be honest, you wouldn't even have to make a female character model because for all we know they look relatively the same; perhaps just give them a female voice and minor adjustments such as a higher BFP and a lower height. Then again it's Oddworld so who knows. The one species I think there's no point having female characters is the glukkons. I think it works well having it like a 'boys club' when really it's a bunch of doting sons actually controlled by an angry maternal figure. |
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EDIT: What about this? A Dystopian story of Fantasy (Nature) vs. Science-Fiction (Industrialists). |
A story isn't necessarily dystopian fiction just because it has themes of oppression and so on and so forth, you could say The Jungle is dystopian fiction by that stretch of thought. I'd say it has dystopian themes, but remains steadfastly somewhere within the broader spectrum of fantasy.
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Oddworld is obviously an amalgamation of genres anyway, so the point is moot. |
But science fiction is an umbrella genre, with a vast number of sub-genres within it. According to Wikipedia (lol), dystopian fiction is actually a subset of sci-fi. Honestly it's hard to pin down just because...yeah you said it, it's more than any one genre. It's just Oddworld.
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Oddworld a bit unique really. But I've always classed Oddworld as more of a Sci-Fi rather then a Fantasy. There's technology in Oddworld which defiantly fit the genre and the whole franchise is centered around alien species. But yeah like what people have said. It's like a mix of loads of stuff.
Anyway. I dunno. Female protagonists are all the range now. And I don't really see Oddworld doing it without it sounding painfully obvious that they're doing it to please those sort of people. Oddworld isn't about gender. It's about the bigger picture of all species and the world being destroyed by greedy industrials. In terms of Lore. (as far as we know) Females aren't that common and are mostly queens. I think Gender might be brought up in the future, but not in a huge way. Again, we know there are Queens for the Mudokons, Glukkons and Sligs and we might eventually see them. But I don't think the fact the queens are female will be a massive talking point. It'll be more along of the lines of "This is the queen of our people" not "oh my gosh a female" Look. I'm not super against females in Oddworld. I really do think the Queens could be some of the most interesting characters in the games and I really would love to see them. I just don't think a female lead could really add anything. People don't care that Abe and Munch sound like Males. it's a non issue in my opinion. Also I've always imagined the Glukkon Queen having this voice and that sound hilarious to me. |
Yeah, I don't think it matters. If Munch was a female would it have been much different beside a female voice? I guess since his story involves Gabbiar then perhaps there's a different angle that could have been taken with a female Munch but if Squeek or a future protagonist is female I don't see why it would be a problem or be considered appeasing a certain demographic.
The whole superspecies/queen/matriarch element to the series seems like a very specific thing which doesn't mean we cannot incidentally have a female protagonist. If it's a young queen I suppose gender would play an important role but it could easily be a creature that just happens to be female. Like Munch just happens to be male. |
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And on a side note, would it matter in any real way if Roland was female? Or how about any leading male character in a story – most are white males but could easily be swapped out for women or other races. :
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