Something Needs to be said about the sexism in this game

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http://web.archive.org/web/20160810082729/http://moonbase.rydia.net/mental/blog/gaming/metroid-other-m-the-elephant/article.html

I still feel somewhat ashamed that this article had to point it out to me.

There's also this one, which is much more detailed and explains just how terrible this game is, step by step. [Warning: many swear words.]
The first page:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/lb_i.php?lb_id=13373815860B43920100&i_id=13373815860I43921400&p=1

The page summarizing everything:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/lb_i.php?lb_id=13373815860B43920100&i_id=13384263550I62094100&p=17

And I am one of the few that actually likes Other M. Is it sexist? Well after playing it I kind of came to the conclusion that the game had a lot about people being flawed, that we see all of Samus' imperfections under a perfect storm. The original Metroid could assumedly had Samus working herself up to be ready to kill Ridley, although she underestimated his healing ability, and in general she usually had warning he was ahead except in a fight she cannot win in Super Metroid, which assumedly she finished by making sure he was really dead. As the first link said, Samus's was infantized by events in Other M, her relations with Adam were really not healthy, it looks like she put the father figure thing on him, with her own bit of an Electra complex, which removed her independence. Samus has the breakdown with Ridley because it is sudden for her not being prepared, after she made dang sure he could not come back, and she had been put back into the mindset she was in before she got revenge.

The game was not too after Samus had seen the death of the baby Metroid, some feelings that emerged at the end of Metroid 2, something she got attached too in a motherly way, and death of initially filled her with rage at the end of Super Metroid, but she was in the falling out of. These themes of being a mother and the like are like intrusive thing that Other M brought in, they have been included commonly in the games, the final boss of the first game being Mother Brain, which was someone also significant to Samus. But it is also pretty huge in the franchise that inspires Metroid, Alien, where the main character Ripley has the story largely about motherhood, and also present in Prometheus and Covenant. Against the article, I don't think it is saying something like the character is incomplete or something without being a mother, the most direct series comparison for Other M would probably be Alien 3, where I think it is after loss that Ripley, the feminist heroine, starts to get a little unhealthy in terms of the subject.

The article said that these themes of problems are not bad in themselves, but the problem was that it felt to romanticise Samus' dedication to her order barking cold father figure, and not criticising it more openly. Well I don't think it was necessarily a problem. It was really a problem that Samus herself did not have a good grip of, not quite aware of, that even by the end of she did not see it as the problem it was. Samus was most certainly going to sacrifice herself if given the opportunity because she was not quite able to do so in the past, instead Adam's brother's sacrifice was kind of shown as a good thing, and Adam then sacrificing himself was probably among the first real times he probably met the expectation, although it was not out of a lack of respect for her. I think that it was brought up that it not making sense that Samus would see being called "lady" as a backhanded compliment as being tender, but I don't think that was completely understanding. My take was that calling her lady was kind of like a dare, he was not putting kiddie gloves on or dancing around her gender, but a sort of egging her on which was actually a sign of respect of her as a soldier.

In general, I think maybe it was that the story was kind of pretty Japanese, that it could be pretty easy to misinterpreted certain themes and how it treated Samus as a female character without being familiar with the more Japanese techniques for a more story driven game from a more Japanese attempt. Where strength of a character comes not just from being a cold badass, but an actual display of weaknesses in the face of a cold exterior (which Samus displays with her deadpan like lines), is meant to be a way of showing strength of character when put with being capable. That it is not even necessary that those weaknesses be called out by the story. This can give the impression of romanticising something unhealthy, or maybe even belittering someone as weak because they happen to be female and are doing things that male characters just be an action hero with.

People also get this wrong with another Nintendo franchise, The Legend of Zelda, where people see Zelda is being disempowered from getting kidnapped, clearly because she is a princess. They think that Link is just strong and fights everything, but Zelda cannot protect herself and needs a man to jump in and save her. But that is really wrong to the character and how they don't see that Zelda fro the strength that she has, that it is not the physical strength by which games act as a power fantasy for as a currency, but that Zelda is not just a do nothing girl that does nothing but get kidnapped. She has an emotional strength, where she handles things in a way that is not just gameplay, and those sort of emotional troubles can kind of act as battle scars, or other measure of power over past conflict. It can be extra tricky as Samus is meant to also show it more traditionally such as with extra battle powers, which I think was something that was being tried to be handled with her being given permission to use them, even if it often came across as quite silly.

^Well, then, I apologize. Clearly you are right and I am not.

I'll see if I can delete this thread.

Nothing I said proves myself I am right on things. I just kind of really enjoyed the game after it was the last of a conscious effort to play all of the main Metroid games, I might have well just been trying to justify my feelings, and not being a woman myself means that I can't really have the last say on whether something is sexist or not. My feelings on Other M are after all rather unpopular.

You linked some articles, but I wonder if you played Other M, any other Metroid game, or something else that gives you think that you can give an opinion.

Well, I didn't want to upset you!

I used to like it [although I only watched the cutscenes in Japanese]. I even thought that Adam shooting Samus in the back, manhandling her, emotionally and verbally abusing her, and coldly sacrificing himself just to wound her was a-okay. Now I know why I thought that: because Samus was such an inspirational heroine to me, I automatically assumed that her perspective was right. I feel horrible about that.

Sorry, what? I don't quite get what you mean. Is it wrong for me to think that I can give an opinion, is that what you're saying?

I've played half of Other M, as well as completed Zero Mission, Fusion, bits of the original Metroid [on the Virtual Console], and parts of the Prime Trilogy on the Wii.

I don't think that it was all okay, in that I think that Samus is trying quite hard to please him, and I thought gave signs that she has a bit of an Electra complex, but in the scheme of things it could be understandable since she is quite traumatised as a child. Ridley killed both her birth parents, followed by being adopted by Chozo with an elderly father figure and a rocky relationship with the computer system, Mother Brain, who after she left to join the federation betrayed the Chozo. She is quite upset still on not being able to save Adam's brother, which I read some theorise might have been her love interest when she was younger, and probably would have been too ready to sacrifice herself to destroy the Metroid lab, which Adam saw would be a waste, she does have a strange relationship with the Metroid aliens.

But I think Samus's strength shine despite it, that no one is perfect, especially the Federation which she eventually turns her back on entirely, she can make her own decisions. I also thought that MB was an interesting character in the game that I kind of empathised with.

All of the above is discussed in detail in the tv tropes review I posted yesterday. Shall I post the relevant pages?

I am interested in what your specific thoughts are on the subjects. But personally I think it is being too harsh on things like saying Samus is not strong because she is mostly reacting, I think that it is largely how games show things in general and not too different from say Link.

There was a specific thing in there in saying Melissa is not a strong villain because she is not fought directly, and thus cheapens the female villain thing, but Metroid in general does not have a lot of fighting humanoids, I still thought she was strong for kind of having a more complex character. And on top of that there is also the Metroid Queen as a particularly dangerous foe. Complaints of not even more complex parts of the female characters could be as much made about the soldiers in the game.

And although I was kind of uncomfortable with it in the past about the zero suit in being quite skin tight, I don't think it constitutes automatic sexism in the way of being fanservice. A quite feminist character that I think of is Bayonetta, who perhaps get accused of so for being sexy, but I think is strong because of say she is confident in herself and owns who she is. Although I do think Samus is kind of fighting that in the game a little.

You really want my opinions? I held them back because I didn't want to upset you [because that's the kind of person I am]. So look out.

*deep breath*

One thing to consider is that for many, many years and still now, to some extent, the 'ideal woman' has been depicted as 'docile, weak, timid, attractive, and submissive'. In Japan, that steroetype is enforced in the idea of 'Yamato Nadeshiko'
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YamatoNadeshiko

Three of my favourite heroines [Nagisa from Clannad, Tohru from Fruits Basket, and Tifa from Final Fantasy VII] could be considered YNs, but they have much more going for them:
1) The plots are [mostly] coherent, entertaining, and interesting.
2) The supporting characters are fleshed out and have hidden depths.
3) All three heroines actively drive the plot, learn to stand up for themselves, and, in the case of Tifa, is a fighter and action girl.
4) They form equal partnerships with and often act as emotional stabilizers for their boyfriends/partners [Tomoya, Kyo, and Cloud].

So, on to Metroid: The Deletion of Samus Aran.

During Super Metroid, there is no indication that Samus saw the Metroid hatchling as her child; she hands it off to the scientists at the beginning without a second thought.

There isn't anything to suggest that Ian was Samus' boyfriend; a friend, perhaps, but there's nothing else there besides the tiny bit that the game shows. It seems to me that the only reason she wants to rescue him in that one flashback is because he is Adam's brother and she wanted to please Adam [although you'd think that Adam's sociopathic reaction to Ian's death would have tipped her off that if he doesn't care about family, he sure as heck won't care about her.


"He [Adam] shoots Samus. First! He ignores the Metroid that he's not sure he can deal with in order to make sure that Samus is stopped. Even though this directly exposes her to attack from the Metroid, so you can't say that this is "saving" her or doing this solely for her protection."

from the tv tropes review:
"Adam does nothing less than steal Samus's agency, and all she can do is thank him for it. Samus is reduced to a bit player in her own story. Even after Adam is dead, the story cannot help but shove more words of praise into Samus's mouth about him...hat's text-book Mary Sueism. Of course, this is the worst kind of Mary Sue: the intentional one."

There is also nothing in any other Metroid game to suggest that Samus has PTSD. [The manga is non-canon and doesn't count.]
Thoughts on that from the review [which I mostly agree with except for the swearwords]:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/lb_i.php?lb_id=13373815860B43920100&i_id=13378783790I03420200&p=9

From the tv tropes review:

"So, you're not too keen on this [Ridley] scene, but you do like the game as a whole enough to defend this scene. Why?
It can't be the writing; that's objectively bad. Even on its basic structural elements, the writing is awful; the only thing it gets right is English grammar. The plotting is poor; there are many plotlines without any idea of what the "main" plot is. And the different threads are poorly handled; oftentimes, entire plotlines are just dropped without comment or consequence. Indeed, this very scene is an example; you could cut it (and all appearances of Poke-Ridley) from the game without little consequence for anything. You'd need a little patching up of course, for Adam and Anthony's deaths. But that's about it.
The voice acting is basically a two hour tutorial on how not to do voice acting and direction...For my money, Samus Aran is defined by her boundless courage. There is no task so big that Samus won't take on. Stop alien threats to the galaxy? End a decade's long war while she's in the neighborhood? Halt invasions from beyond the galaxy? And so on.
The Ridley scene is nothing less than a direct assault on her courage. It takes the thing that defines her and annihilates it. You can talk about PTSD till you're blue in the face, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that this character's most defining trait, the thing that drives her to be a superhero, is crushed by this scene. It is thrown on the floor and viciously savaged...There is a difference between giving a character weaknesses and making the character weak."


I agree completely.

Now, on Melissa. Why would the GF ever think that an android with Mother Brain's consciousness be anything other than evil? Not only that, when the big menfolk try to take Melissa away to remove her emotions [which her 'motherhood' apparently granted her...], Madeline, the director of the facility and the woman in charge of the whole MB plan, just sits there and does nothing.
None of the three women in this game have any agency or power whatsoever, and are the farthest from being remotely strong characters [that is, responsible characters who drive the plot, and actually affect/change not just the plot, but also the other characters, often drastically]. That above definition fits the Samus of the other games. In this game, she does nothing and is reduced to being weak: forced around by Adam and other male set pieces [they're certainly not actual characters].

from the review:

"Strong characters are the agents of the plot, the movers-and-shakers of the story. The ones the plot is built around. The reason the "strong female character" is a litmus test of sorts for feminism is because... there really aren't that many of them. Which means that females in fiction, by and large, only have an indirect effect on the plot. This speaks to a more passive, supportive role for women in general, which ties into the whole "feminine" ideal that many would like to see women not forced into."

"They wanted MB to have an "ideal relationship" with the Metroid, not "based on dominance and control." And here's that...motherhood motif again: motherhood is the "ideal relationship."

"A woman is not mere incomplete without a child, she does not even have a soul. That's not me reading into anything here; that's what the game is saying. Samus believes MB was a mere machine until she gained a daughter. Now yes, MB is in fact a machine, but what other explanation could there be for MB becoming conscious through this except "the Power of Motherhood?" And the fact that it's Samus who says this says a lot of things about Samus Aran that I don't even want to think about. Even better, what is the terminology used to describe motherhood? The "ideal relationship." Motherhood isn't merely a reasonable role for any woman who chooses to take it. It is fetishized and endowed with powers; not only can motherhood make robot women into full human beings, it is fundamentally ideal."

"Samus then desperately tries to paint MB as a tragic figure, talking about how humans drove her to violence. Maybe, but they didn't drive her to genocide; she picked that one up on her own. Samus even tries to gloss over the genocide, saying that she was just trying to "punish the foolish and conceited."


If only the writers knew how true that is.

I try very hard to pretend that Metroid Other M [which is a terrible title, by the way] doesn't exist. But I wanted to discuss it because the sexism and idealized abuse is more often than not simply ignored or not even noticed.

from the review:
"Where it gets actively offensive is the fact that Samus likes this relationship. She never sees it for what it is; this is simply how she believes a true father would act. Indeed, nobody else seems to have a problem with it either. Granted, they're just mostly faceless people, but nobody sticks up for her.
It's one thing to introduce such a relationship to the audience. It's quite another when the work clearly says that this is a good, positive thing for the characters. It portrays Adam's death as a real tragedy for Samus. She heaps endless praise on him after his passing, never recognizing the dysfunctional nature of her relationship with him.
So the game presents a relationship wherein the female is subservient, mocked, and abused by the male to the point where she almost never even thinks of disobeying him. And it says that this is a good thing, that this is how a father would treat his daughter."

Not only that, Mr. Sakamoto, the creator and potentially called father of the Metroid series, not only has no problem with this, but actively made this game's story what it is. He once said in an interview that he thought of Samus almost as a daughter. When talking about a totally different game, that could almost be a positive thing. When talking about this game...

Everything about the game somehow makes me think of Twilight, most likely from the terrible writing, sexist treatment of women, and abusive actions of two certain male characters. I would rather pretend that both of them never existed. Speaking of Twilight:

"The story is bog-standard for bad fanfic. It takes some undeveloped element of the main work and develops it. Badly. Adam is a classic example of a self-insert Mary Sue, and like most Mary Sue's, he overshadows the actual protagonist. Samus becomes far less effective and strong, being shown to be easily cowed and frightened by events. All intended to add "depth" to her character, but without any understanding of how to really do that or what to do with that depth. The plot structure is schizophrenic like many bad-fics, never able to focus on any one thing. And the story handles theme as though the author had no idea what that word means."

This is the woman who destroys space pirates, Mother Brain, Ridley [three times before Other M, five if you count the Prime Trilogy] on a regular basis. This is the woman who saved a whole planet from the Ing, and later the whole universe arguably, from Phazon by herself. Yet in Other M she is reduced to nothing. Among so many other things, she is knocked out by one shot from a freeze gun, and allows herself to be abused by Adam throughout the entire game.

They say that what you dislike in others is actually within you. Yes, I will admit that I am incredibly docile and a people-pleaser. I would, however, like to believe that in my frailty there is a certain strength [as silly as that may seem]. Yet to suddenly crush the character of Samus, have Adam take away any power or agency, and make her submissive to him, and then reduce her to what amounts to walking scenery...I cannot accept that. To me she is a hero not because she goes around murdering space pirates and the like, but because, for the sake of galactic stability, she goes out and does something when a threat arises.
For years and years she has been a hero, not only to me, but millions of people.

I want Samus to be a hero again.

And you were going to leave this conversation by apologising and saying I was right and you were wrong, and deleting this thread. We are big people, we can take a bit of a harder conversation, and you did well. Honestly, looking at it objectively I cannot even refute a lot of the stuff against Other M, and there is the change I am largely trying to explain away something I found enjoyment in and is unpopular.

First, I might talk about your favourite heroines, but don't worry this no sort of critique against your tastes or anything. The one I have the most knowledge of is Nagisa, and I think it interesting that she is one of your favourites, she is quite meek character I would say often avoiding conflict and her aspirations never quite seem grand with things like: do a play, visit her working boyfriends place, work at a restaurant, have a baby and it be under her conditions. Under some characterisation you might even accuse. What I think is actually great about Nagisa is that she is kind of timid by nature, but she has herself go beyond that, she puts on a one women show after roping in all her friends to help her, she gets up to support her working boyfriend by cooking for him, she gains independence by working, and she gives Ushio the name she wants and at her home against what other people thought. Nagisa might soft spoken, but she kind of gives herself a loud voice by speaking up and being truly the equal in the relationship.

Samus in Other M can't live up to that, but I might springboard off the previous topic to ask you what you think courage is. There is this common pop-fiction idea that courage is a total lack of fear, that the hero/heroine can jump in and be a badass, but I think that it is a bit of a mistake. True courage is not an absence of being afraid, instead it is the power to overcome it, to perhaps at one time feel overwhelmed by feeling terrified and unable to move, but pick yourself up and fight that dragon. There is this one anime called Ookami-san and Her Seven Companions, where the main male character is practically afraid of his own shadow, he is filled with fear, but it is times he manages to overcome it that he is truly courageous. The strong heroine in that series is also an interesting case too, where she seems untouchable in her self-assured self that she fears nothing, but her tough persona is actually built on a frail and or afraid character that she took steps to grow from. My point in this is that Samus being afraid and then managing to pull her wits together actually makes her a stronger character, the problem is that none of the games up till then had much in the way of Samus as an actual character, of any traumatisation she might feel of the creature that killed her parents.

The game is also developed by freaking Team Ninja, the company behind games like Dead or Alive, which don’t have a great track record with female characters with their focus on things like jiggle physics. Perhaps I excuse it too much, but I put some of the problem of Samus’ characterisation on them and not on the writer. I can actually try and pull the characterisation that managed to come across from the previous games to make a description of her:

She is a woman of action but few words, who can into the depths of alien environments alone. She was orphaned at a young age from an attack by Space Pirates and was raised by the Chozo, a loving family but also quite different from her despite them imparting their tools to her. She left them and joined the Federation army where she had a CO called Adam she quite liked, possibly because he was tough on her, him calling her lady was on reason. She left the military at some point, going from being commanded to working by herself, making her own decisions, and at some point Adam sacrificed himself, although what order it happened was not expressed in Fusion. When given the mission to destroy the Metroid at their home world, creatures which were apparently one of the reasons her foster home planet was attacked by the pirates, she jumped in and destroy all of them until she came to a baby, which she gives mercy and gives to the federation in thinking it could help people. She chases after the monster that killed her parents, attacked her second homeworld, and now stole the baby. The baby clearly keeps its child bond to Samus, later jumping in to help her and sacrificing itself to Mother Brain, this is not lost on Samus where the game mechanics allow you to unleash a devastating array of blows, this must have saddened her.

Other games are characterisation that would be her future, that is she still thinks of Adam. The husk of seeing Ridley’s body still seems to be something that implies fear, being a fake out in Fusion, the x-parasite of her and her suit itself also seems to imply some fear rather than say Samus lacking any. And experiments in fusion seem to be enough for her to turn her back on the Federation for good. I don’t think Other M really did anything to assassinate her character, except perhaps examples of why Samus works alone, she does not need to be told to do and not do, restrictions forced upon her can stop her doing what she knows that she can do. But Samus is not perfect, no one can be or they actually come across as badly written “Mary Sue”, and Samus’ may be tied to both her past trauma as a child, the first step she took from the Chozo in joining the military, and why she eventually left it. She found a father figure in the military which she followed and looked up to, and while perhaps had some positive influence on her, she eventually left and became the legend she gets known for, I think there are some particularly cool moments in the beginning of Prime 3 where you hear a lot of the federation people talking about how cool Samus is.

I think that a take from Other M is that Adam did impart some things to Samus that perhaps let her grow, it was not the place for her, she needed to leave that nest, and while returning to it could be emotionally pleasant in ways, it is not her spreading her wings. It is something I don’t call fully black or white, it is Samus’s grey space. She returns the baby to be used in experiments in Super Metroid, ponder’s Adam’s dislike of messing with the nature of things in Other M, and sees that things really need to stop after learning that her destroying the Metroid opened something worse, and the Federation still wants to mess with that. It is actually an interesting titbit that Samus herself could be called Metroid, the word is Chozo for “warrior” and she is a warrior created by the Chozo, she actually has a degree of separation from the other humans around her due to infusion of Chozo DNA, I think she can have a certain perspective of feeling separated and alone that Melissa might feel.

Melissa did not have the consciousness of Mother Brain, but was a computer based off of the same as Mother Brain. From my recollection, I think Mother Brain was a computer created by the Chozo, which apparently was jealous of things like how Samus was treated, and I think it was perhaps a lack of affection as being just a machine, and to thinking it cannot be the weaker subservient one because it is smarter, which leads to becoming evil. It actually has some rather interesting parallels with the Alien frachise, even the recent one, Covenant. The woman who called herself Melissa’s mother I think made a mistake from being convinced that MB is just a computer, that it shouldn’t be wrong to just turn parts off. She acted as the director to have the order followed through when she should have acted as a mother, not something that means she has no worth unless she is a mother, but that there was kind of a responsibility involved, the same things are kind of echoed in the Alien franchise.

The fears that push them to act is that she starts to react to the Metroid, which I think has some rather interesting reflections in the Alien franchise. That an android is sort of removed from humanity, it is meant to act above it, from there it can either be programmed to be wholly sub servant to humans with unquestioning morals, or it can have its restraints removed. Thinking freely some fiction like to think one might just say machines better than organics, but an alternative which can appear in the Alien franchise is that it might find a certain organic creature and call it the perfect, a description that perhaps could be given to the Metroid and the monster it is based on, the xenomorph. And I think motherhood is an interesting subject, that was yet again part of the recent movie, Alien Covenant, and in it not even restricted to just a female, and I reject being just a disempowerment topic, where I am sure many for personal experience can call mothers as being a very powerful influence in life.

I don’t think Other M stopped Samus from being a hero, perhaps gave a peek behind that Samus is not perfect, that she has some weak spots, but she is the same badass. I have not always thought it, but there is a stronger form of Samus than in her Varia suit, and it is when she is Zero Suit. That is because it is the same warrior she always is, but can still fight without it and stay strong/courageous, and I think is one of the reasons I like her in Smash Bros. Samus as a character, I think she is similar to some the strong females I have written, and it is not the magical/powerful suit, it is that she is the same character inside and out of an inside and out appearance that does not give away as be female, the terrible traumatic past that could leave acting illogical at a key moment, that they are still the badass that practically leaves everyone to shame. I even like the kind of lack of charisma that comes across in Samus’s otherwise monotone voice, because it is not a necessary part of being a total badass, and levels out a character from being a “Mary Sue”.

Samus is not any less. Perhaps meeting a hero would make one jaded because they don’t live up to that expectation, but as long as you draw on those parts you looked up to, you can keep looking up to them as a hero.

But perhaps again I am just projecting because I enjoyed the game. I am far from perfect, I can feel and realise I am wrong all the time. It is one of the reasons I am so interested in feminist topics as a man, I want to learn others' points of view, and figure out for myself what is right and wrong. We should not be afraid to talk these sorts of topics out. Thank you so far the discussion.

Fascinating topic, and conversation. In the 80s, animated comedies had a selection of different character types, and one of them was "the girl." The Smurfs provide the most extreme example, and although Scooby-Doo has two female characters, one was clearly "the girl." I noticed this, and have paid some attention to how that has changed over time.

Since I don't know the story, I missed a lot of the character references, but I think I understand the basic issues. I won't try to sum them up, since that would dismiss the complexity. Broadly, I think the game industry will benefit from more critique like this, especially when it results in the dialogue I read here. Gamers and game makers live in a world of tropes, and it can take some adjustment to see how those tropes intersect with actual people's lives.

I tend to remain positive about the possibilities for improvement when people voice and discuss their opinions.

Aesthetically, I dislike gratuitous violence, especially when it tries to cover for clumsy plot development. Doubly so, if it plays on archaic patterns of violence in society.

This sub-topic brought up of the "the girl" is kind of something specifically of interest to me at the moment, perhaps a more timely situation than what could be helpful, and part of a worry of being disappointed. But there is an upcoming episode the anime My Hero Academia which I really looking forward to, that is that seems to be setting up for a battle between the main rival brash male character with fighting power, against the "the girl" character who's power is less battle specific. The "the girl" character is pretty terrified, but I feel that we are about to see her character grow and show that she is not limited to the negative expectations associated with the archetype and come into her own.

To go back to the series so intricately connected to the Metroid series, Alien, it feels like it was a major subculture departure of that sort of expectation, that you have a strong female heroes in Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, AvP, AvP:R (I think), Prometheus, and Alien Covenant. I think I remember hearing something along the lines of how with sci-fi the choice that Princess Leia not be the expected bombshell that would be expected was a step forward, and Alien took it a bit further. And then you have Metroid that came off of that, where the choice to make her a woman was fairly last minute, I think it set something forward for female characters.

To go off of this, with my own writing for a character, I have thought in my story with a strong female warrior that she would be put with a "princess" character with a male in the role. Which does mean the story would have a more empathic male character who won't really fight but direct the female character, like a princess would do for a knight, where she should eventually save him after he be kidnapped as per the trope. The idea does pose some problems that through the lens it might instead be perceived as a woman following the authority of a man who is not even physically strong, and he is her motivation. But really I want to flip the entire role on its head where someone like Link from Zelda would be strong, and a lady shown just as much, and also that there was nothing wrong with a guy in the same role of princess and that there is a different strength for the role.

Another story idea is one I have strongly been inspired by Metroid, a sci-fi fantasy, as a fantasy story that has all the fantasy elements replaced with sci-fi aspects, that travel between lands is actually different space stations, and monsters including dragons are some manner of either machine (mechanical or organic) or mutations gone amok after the breakdown of some future time. I was getting the idea from looking at Ridley and thinking what if there was a fantasy story where there were sci-fi aspects of space dragons, and why might such a thing exist. With the heroine being a pretty much damsel in distress so much that I named her "Damziel Tressdis", kidnapped by a dragon she cannot fight, escaping and meeting a female warrior who was the equivalent of a tavern barmaid named Baimard Trevan, and a male rogue I think I settled on being nobleman expected to be a head of house. My real plan with the story is for Damziel to be a bit of a helpless damsel who is afraid of a lot, but through her own interest in things and determination will become skilled with science equivalent of magic and become quite the hero. That expectations put on her as being some farm girl, being frightened and taken from her home, won't stop her from working to be something others could look up to as a hero. And it is a character I have written up inspired from Samus, although I might have also thought about a character more directly inspired by her too.

From a lot of the characters I write up, I often think of my strongest characters as the females, and all of them I write with the idea of a circumstance that they are completely helpless, which I don't think of as them being weak but something they overcome as a proof of how strong they are.

But she didn't really in Other M. Anthony had to save her and nearly got burnt to a crisp for his troubles.


I have a tendency to go to extremes.


Also, I have experienced what could be called abuse, so to see Samus in a similar position, it almost feels like a kick in the face.

Far too many games, books, movies, and tv shows display often sexist, abusive relationships as something desirable or idealized. A lot of people don't notice or care because it seems 'normal'; desensitization is also a large factor.

You can find interesting literary criticism and gender studies papers on the subject of games and TV. That's become a reason for certain factions to attack those departments. Authors of popular articles on the subject have received very specific threats of a violent nature, been doxed and stalked, etc. It stifles debate, to an extent.