Please do NOT alter Dark Knight AF for female characters.

[FallenArisen0990]

Also do DRKs not get scythes? =/

DRK don't get scythes because it's not their weapon. Their weapon has always been a Claymore or Deathbringer. Cecil can even confirm this. XI did a lot of dumb stuff (WAR starting with a Sword, AF being an Axe, Relic choice being Great Axe....)

[Greven]

I think they think, sorry for the wordplay, that we like the original gear being tweaked. But we don't, not that way at least so I guess they'll accept gladly to not to as it's going to be even less work for them. Though this post was made a bit late as I "hope" those kind of things are already been done and archived time ago!

[Tsuga]

snip

I don't think that's necessarily true. Most female action heroes are a combination of sexy and cool/powerful. Look at wonder woman, lara croft, the women in the RE movies that someone posted a pic of a couple of pages back.

A woman can look powerful while still looking sexy, and in fact a woman's sex appeal can make her pretty damn cool if she owns it while kicking ass. I just don't think they should HAVE to look sexy all the time. I want my character to look feminine, just not sexy all the time.



To the argument that some people were making that a woman cannot look intimidating compared to a male, that's complete BS. If you're comparing a waif to a body builder, of course the body builder looks more intimidating, but that goes for BOTH genders. There are varying body types, but body type alone does not make you intimidating. It's also how you hold yourself, and in the case of this argument, what you're wearing. A male and a female midlander hyur, for example look just as intimidating in the Warrior armor, and I think that's cool. I just wish that the female warrior armor with the mask down did not completely hide a character's gender.

[Eloah]

snip

I think you missed my point slightly, or I might not of made it clear enough, and in fact some of what you said supports what I meant. It's not that for an American audience a female character can't be strong and sexy, it's that the idea is, for the general audience, that they are mutually exclusive. It's a balancing act that is difficult to maintain. And even you said so yourself, you don't mind them looking sexy but not all the time; which is the issue I was pointing out about cultural views. In Japan they can be sexy all the time and their strength/purpose is never questioned, but in America it could be.

Hope that clears it up a little.

[Onikimaru]

There was a post here before showing the female Au Ra in DRK gear, is this the confirmed final product of what it will look like on them?. It looks normal.

[Tsuga]

I think you missed my point slightly, or I might not of made it clear enough, and in fact some of what you said supports what I meant. It's not that for an American audience a female character can't be strong and sexy, it's that the idea is, for the general audience, that they are mutually exclusive. It's a balancing act that is difficult to maintain. And even you said so yourself, you don't mind them looking sexy but not all the time; which is the issue I was pointing out about cultural views. In Japan they can be sexy all the time and their strength/purpose is never questioned, but in America it could be.

Hope that clears it up a little.

I see, I think. I'm not sure I agree that they're mutually exclusive, just in a lot of cases strong women are usually dominated, or saved by males in western media (the most recently infamous example being Black Widow's imprisonment in Avengers: AoU), hence why you get the "women can't be stronger than men" mentality, or maybe it's just a common trope because of that mentality.. but we're veering off the rails a little.

I think that SE has done a good job of providing "sexy" gear as an option, and not forcing it on players. I don't think that SE would take the dark knight gear and go overboard with sexiness. While that may be accepted by the Japanese side as cool or cute, I don't think SE is interested in hurting the image of their classic jobs by making them look like something that Gust or Idea Factory would design. I guess my point is that the typical sexy anime aesthetic doesn't really get applied to most FF games.

There was a post here before showing the female Au Ra in DRK gear, is this the confirmed final product of what it will look like on them?. It looks normal.

Was there? I only saw a male Au Ra in it..

[Tsuga]

"Make the women armor emphasize their sexiness that's what women are better at, women will never be as powerful as a man will be" is a pretty darn misogynistic view. Men and women vary in strength and power, I can tell you there are plenty of strong women who can overpower strong men as well. Keep in mind women aren't some monolithic entity and possess a huge amount of differences from body to body, same for men. Physically formidably, threatening, imposing, being violent are.. Traits of formidable, threatening, imposing, and violent people. Besides by slapping on a boob window to "allow a character to look sexy" is something that shouldn't be for armor, you know, something meant to protect you.

This this this. I wanted to say something to this effect before but I just didn't have the words.

[MirielleLavandre]

Having read all of these replies (yes, I know - on vacation and bored), it seems that there is a disconnect between what some people are saying and others are perceiving being said. If I am not mistaken, Beowulf81 agrees with most people that women can BE just as powerful or even more powerful than men, but believes they will not and can not LOOK as powerful/imposing/threatening as men due to their natural bone structure and such. Others are seeming to make sexy and powerful be mutually exclusive, which I don't really understand myself (but then again, I'm Asian and, as someone mentioned, those two are able to co-exist in easily in Asian cultures)

One thing I will say, and is good to keep in mind -- no matter how threatening, imposing, or downright terrifying a man may look in all the armor he wants and huge muscles -- put a gun in the hand of a woman and I'd be far more intimidated by that if she looked like she knew how to use it. Even if he had the same gun, it would then come down to not which was more imposing or hulking, but which knew how to use the weapon better, how to position, use cover and such. Plus, a woman's more lithe frame may even be a benefit in a gun battle that involved a lot of running, jumping, etc. Thus, such instruments have often been the 'great equalizers'. Also, though slight of frame, if a woman is all super-natural-y like those Ring girls with long, black hair, they seem pretty darn imposing and 'run the other way' to me :P

In the end, somehow a discussion about making armor in a video game not cater to the typical 'women's armor must look sexy to be women's armor' has devolved into talks of misogyny and other stuff ^^ We'll all see soon enough and we'll have to be happy with whatever SE has decided (though I'm betting female DRK armor will be just like female WAR and PLD armor -- basically the same).

[TriksteR]

There was a post here before showing the female Au Ra in DRK gear, is this the confirmed final product of what it will look like on them?. It looks normal.

This?

[Niwashi]

In Japan they can be sexy all the time and their strength/purpose is never questioned, but in America it could be.

I think it's more that in Japan it's more socially acceptable to view women as not having the same strength or purpose as men. In designing Au Ra, for instance, SE admitted outright that they wanted to show that the females need to be protected. In Japan that's still widely viewed as sweet (as it was in America 80 years ago). In America today it's viewed as demeaning. Needing to be protected indicates an inability to protect yourself or to be the protector. The damsel in distress role only makes sense if the character is inherently weak.