Representation in Games

all through media you will find representations that latch onto characters often defining them as a character but also often just being used as a trait.

gender norms are no exception, in actual fact being one of the biggest categories of representation in the media, often displaying men as strong and stern, and women as delicate and nurturing.

gaming has its fair share of characters with these traits, especially for the men, we can see this through characters such as, the Doom Slayer from the game DOOM, Master Chief from the Halo franchise and an endless sea of names we could use, but none of these characters come anywhere close to the pure definition of masculinity in Human form that is Kratos from the God of War games.

From ancient greece the name Kratos literally means power and strength, he is said to be 6 foot 6 and is tattooed in blood red ink, his design pushes the common idea of masculinity all the way to its limit and this was very much intended by the developers, this can be seen even through gameplay as well, as Kratos rips through waves of enemies and shreds the greek gods to pieces, acting upon his rage fuelled revenge of Ares by killing anyone who tries to get in his way, including the God of War Ares himself and once the deed is done, he replaces Ares as the God of War and uses this status well by engaging in war with the rest of the pantheon.

Women in gaming when they are the main character are typically represented as strong and independent- for example Lara Croft but we will return to her later, as not so much can be said about the women on the sidelines of the hero, for example Princess Peach from Super Mario. Peach is soft spoken and also nurturing, but we all know her from having to be saved every single game, she is the biggest example of damsel in distress in the whole of gaming and even when she did get her own game and was the protagonist, most of her powers include her being emotional, one power just including her crying. Nintendo put their hand in a bag of female stereotypes and pulled them all out for this character.

Characters that oppose gender norms usually are the ones that stand out, creating interesting dynamics and leading to very interesting characters and stories. One example of this is Lara Croft for the tomb raider games, she has been around for almost 25 years and is a playstation 1 classic, in her games she doesn't rely on a man to save her and she goes through some very very brutal scenarios, she is the inspiration for many other video game characters such as Nathan Drake who is often compared and stated to be the male counterpart to Lara. And in what other game do you get to take down a T-rex with duel wield pistols?

Another character that breaks the usual representation is Kirby. Kirby's design reflects this as he is a small pink gum like ball not usually what would be represented as a male character, although he would seem harmless, just like Kratos he also destroys waves of enemies and has also killed gods in his games, which creates a funny but interesting shift in the usual strong male characters.