Dragon's Crown Sexism Editorial -Whimsical- Nerd Age
May
24
24
Today I am going to bring you an editorial on all the cries of sexism directed at Dragon’s Crown. I’m going to explore how I feel about the issue with you. Starting with:
Dragon’s Crown Sexism was Never Intended
The women are in fact busty, but not all of them. Every character is unnaturally, in fact ridiculously in many cases, attractive. The whole thing is supposed to have a whimsical feel to it. Even the Dwarf and Elf who no one is crying sexism over are either incredibly masculine and well-muscled or perfectly set to the standards of those who like slimmer women in each of their respective cases. The Dwarf even wields a ridiculously undersized axe in much of his art. On his in-game character his weapon is still tiny compared to his body. The whole design clearly is the case of a joke that many people just did not get.
What do all these have in common? Two of them are completely under-dressed. All of them are supernaturally attractive to someone. Finally, all of them are not real and in most cases could not exist.
If Dragon’s Crown Sexism Claims are True
Then both men and women are on the receiving end. This is the only suitable case anyone can make against the game. The Wizard has an unreasonably unmarred and beautiful face. The Dwarf is a mountain of muscle and hair that would make any human bodybuilder walk off in shame. And yes, every single woman is either unnaturally, inhumanely busty or attractive. If that is the point people want to make then there is certainly some truth to it.
The Fighter and Dragon’s Crown Sexism
One character is serving as the basis for it not being sexist towards men more than many others, the fighter. He is well-dressed in shining armor that covers him up well. He is also a mountain of muscle with a perfectly unblemished face who could never exist in real life. Does it really matter that much that he wears heavy armor? Would the Amazon having the same heavy armor matter? I leave that up to you.
How Should you Approach It?
If you are a rational, thinking human being there are only two ways. One you decide everything is a big joke, as seems highly likely to me when every character is either supernaturally handsome, beautiful or otherwise attractive. Or you can decide the game is both Misogynist and Misandrist at the same time. If you go with the second one I will have to respect your opinion. I’ll just be taking it as the humorous fantasy adventure I think they were striving for. If you decide to go with my opinion feel free to check out their site.
I think you’re sort of missing the point. Male characters were designed by men to be people men want to be. Yeah, the wizard at least is what we could call conventionally attracted, but no male characters have their sexuality played up. Muscles are things that move other, heavy things. They play into the idea of physical agency.
In contrast, the female characters have been designed, by men, to be someone they want to have sex with. The sorceress particularly is proportioned to emphasize her breasts and hips, neither of which have anything to do with combat, but rather with attractiveness to men.
You’re really just getting mad reductive and crying “well men’s designs are exaggerated too” when there are clear differences in the way emphasis is made.
Even if they are designed to be the men they want to be, that doesn’t make the portrayal less sexist in the least. You’re arguing intent determines sexism, which it never has. Perception determines sexism and if it did not no one in the community would have written about this game at all.
In all likelihood the intent was comedy but something can easily be unintentionally sexist. Your entire stance is the definition of reductive as you are saying only the portrayal of the women is valid. Either the ridiculous portrayal of each counts for something or none of them do. Regardless of the creator’s intent, only the perception of gamers such as us counts.
If we’re discarding any sexism because someone has muscles, the Amazon is extremely well-muscled and could probably break the male wizard in half in a physical fight. So by that note we have to remove the Amazon, Dwarf and Fighter from the sexist argument entirely. Not something I believe either of us are comfortable with. If we’re discarding sexism if someone is formidable then the unnaturally attractive Wizard and Sorceress are the only non-sexual people in Dragon’s Crown because in most settings magic is more formidable than any blade. The twist of that is that both those characters are by far the most sexist ones in the game. I don’t want to be a Moe elf and many female gamers would take offense to being a disproportionate spellslinger.
While it may not be your intent, if we ignore sexism in any form while just tearing down sexism we see for women then we’ve accomplished nothing. We’ve just moved the sexism around like cleaning with a dirty mop (not a sexist crack, I’ve done quite a lot of mopping). That being said it’s a huge problem and more in fact does need to be done against it. If the game does add to that problem then by far the most effective thing to do would have been to ignore it. Atlus games have small printings and short runs. The publicity from controversy probably helped sell the game more than anything.
Do the vast majority of women have it harder than the vast majority of men? Certainly. Biases in hiring, pay and eligibility for military service are just a few of the disparities. We agree on it being a massive problem that needs to be changed, I’m just not sure anyone is seeing the solution clearly without anger and/or bias. Myself included as a man who has not been the recipient of many of the positive sexual and racial biases I hear about so often. That doesn’t mean they do not exist, I’m saying the fact that I’m an outlier may skew my perception. But that is why it’s an editorial.