Silly Argument About Castlevania

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So on a blog about the Chainmail Bikini trope, someone brought up a bunch of examples of male characters who were sexualized in a comment, including Isaac from Castlevania. Someone else responded (think they're an admin for the blog) and pointed out why a few examples of male sexualization didn't make male sexualization an equal trend to female sexualization, including pointing out why each specific example was a poor example. One of their examples was "A single character out of a franchise built on the idea of women as damsels in distress and objects to be won. Arguably also a character that may have been designed with gay men in mind more than women." They didn't point out specifically which game they were referring to, and it wasn't until I read their whole post a couple of times that I realized they were referring to Castlevania, which confused as from my experience with Castlevania that doesn't describe the series AT ALL. So I asked about that, saying that the series is rather about "stopping Dracula and saving the world", I didn't recall any examples of damsels in distress in the series, and it was a series with many unsexualized female protagonists.

She failed to explain how it's not about "stopping Dracula and saving the world" (though I refined the definition myself that the series is centered around the mythos were Dracula is the dark lord as there are a few games where Dracula proper isn't the final boss, and saving the world might be a bit of an exaggeration), but she did give examples of damsels in distress in the series, and sexualized female protagonists. However, half the female protagonists she gave (namely Maria, Charolette, and Sypha) I did not find to be sexualized at all, she neglected to mention Sypha as she originally appeared in the series, and the ones I did agree were sexualized were relatively benign by the blogs standards (Sonia and Shaona) and the series also featured male protagonists that were sexualized to a similar degree (Simon and Alucard). She also brought up the fact that Camilia is sexualized, but that has nothing to do with anything as she's an antagonist and not an object to be won.

After that point the discussion basically just decayed into her accusing me of breaking the rules and I technically did break one of them by going off topic so that's the end of that discussion there. But because that discussion is dead there, I'm curious to what the people here think of sexualization in Castlevania on a less biased forum.

I haven't played any of the games beyond Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, which I completed some months back. (Good game.) Thus, I can't really comment on the evolution of this franchise in particular. But I am familiar enough with the Japanese and their propensity for indulging in exaggerated depictions of the female form...

Sounds like you ran into another entitled, self-infantilizing moron who rallies under the banner of feminism -- no different than the plus-sized harridans who whined about alien strippers exposing their pixelated goods in Duke Nukem 3D, among other gormless crusades. I typically ignore these degenerates myself.



Women as damsels in distress and objects to be won... What influential literary work does that remind me of?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula

No, I agreed with everything else she said, just not about Castlevania. Compared most games there is very little exaggeration of the female form if any.

Castlevania Legends on the original Gameboy actually has a female protagonist (as well as an awesome soundtrack):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8FH8NI4U4Y

Eccelsia seems to me to be a fairly good female protagonist [except for her backless outfit...].

I like to jump and hit things with a whip or sword, it's a lot of fun.

People tend to over-analyse the trappings of games. Although most stories are subtly influenced by sexist attitudes, and by the historically male target audience of most types of game, they're still only a justification for the game, little more.

I say this as somebody who really, really can't stand any media which uses sex appeal to sell something. Besides the sexist element, it's insulting to the intelligence of the audience and devalues whatever is being sold. Castlevania isn't guilty of that, only of reflecting societal sexism at a level that could easily be subconscious. Rather than sneering at this, we should be challenging that societal sexism, and keeping our discussion of any game firmly focused on the mechanics.

I don't see anything sexist about Castlevania. Sypha is a great character, and one of the earliest examples in video games of a female character who isn't just eyecandy or a damsel in distress. There's never the impression that Trevor Belmont "wins" her, because she is a capable vampire hunter in her own right.

That's the game with Sonia. She's kinda sexualized due to her no-pants leotard thing (the other female protagonist have a least skirt), but it's not really anymore than Simon Belmont with his randomly uncovered shoulder and the like.




Loved that game, loved playing as Shaona. While the promotional artwork is super-sexialized, the backless outfit never bothered me in-game. I guess this is because the combination with the sprite resolution and the tattoo makes it not standout during gameplay, and the more detailed character shots during dialogue are all from the front. I think there is some plot justification for it with the glyphs, but it's still ridiculous because the male characters who use glyphs don't have the same thing going on.



My opinion is similar to this, basically it occasionally has sexist tropes because they are very prevalent in game and our culture in general, and because there are so many Castlevania games with rather complex plots it's inevitable they'll show up from time to time if you're not going out of the way to avoid them.