“I am no man”: For Zelda-playing daughter, dad gives Link a sex change

[redqueen]

"Dad's favorite pastime shouldn't treat girls like second-class citizens."

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/11/i-am-no-man-for-zelda-playing-daughter-dad-gives-link-a-sex-change/

Why did small business owner and gamer dad Mike Hoye spend the last few weeks hand-tweaking the text in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker so that the main character was referred to as a girl instead of a boy? As he put it, “I’m not having my daughter growing up thinking girls don’t get to be the hero.”

Hoye and his three-and-a-half year old daughter Maya have recently been playing Wind Waker together, but Hoye was bothered by the fact that even players who change the protagonist's name to something other than "Link"—which the game allows—always get addressed as though they are male. The main character is always referred to with words like “master,” “my lad,” and “swordsman.” Because Hoye's daughter can't yet read, Hoye has been reading the on-screen dialogue aloud to her and diligently transliterating the gendered language from male to female on the fly as they traverse the game's Great Sea together.

To make this process smoother, Hoye eventually decided to hack away at the actual text of the story, producing a female-oriented version by altering the game's data files. According to his blog post on the project, Hoye took a GameCube disk image (.GCM) of Wind Waker and dug into it with a hex editor. He changed all story text and dialogue by hand, then tested his work by playing the game file in the Dolphin GameCube emulator.

The modifications proved a bit tricky, since the new female-oriented wording had to be a byte-for-byte alteration of the original; even throwing in "she" in place of "he" would mess things up. So Hoye got creative, using words like “milady” in place of “my lad” and “master."

...

Cool dad.

[ZM90]

1. Pretty cool. Now Skyward Sword revolutionized Zelda but I think the next step is to allow the

player to choose Link's gender and I'm a 22 year old male who has been playing Zelda since Ocarina of Time and I own every single Zelda game (except CD-i which are so bad they don't count as true Zelda games). We need a gender choice for Link in the next Zelda, make it happen Nintendo! Female players shouldn't be left out.

[DonCoquixote]

2. what is sad is

There are many games that already let people pick gender, especially ones like mass Effect, SWTOR, WoW. Mass Effect effect even allowed LGBT sex scenes.

[seabeyond]

4. my husband plays gears of war. he says they are so.... balanced in the male/female role that the

genders are not in the prescribed roles. the guys are comfortable playing any of the characters.

i understand they did a very good job keeping all that garbage out of the game.

[DonCoquixote]

11. well,in modern gaming

It is accepted that the girls kick us much rear as the guys, it also helps that many of the more aggressive, skilled gamers happen to be, women. Not every gaming company gets the point, but the ones that make money do.

[seabeyond]

12. yes. i am not a gamer. hubby and boys. but boys are telling me their girl peers are also. i read

that it is hitting 50%. like 46% last i read are female gamers.

that is a good thing.

and yes. being the one that checks games out before buying, i do notice that some companies just are not playing the misogynist/sexist game and flat out say..... gaming for all.

i just really like gears as hubby was telling me about it. one of his favorite.

[Hayabusa]

3. I get why he did it

and I do believe that there need to be more good female video game *agonists, but the canon nut in me is going "AHH!"

[ismnotwasm]

5. Pretty neat

I'm not a gamer, but I do like say, "The Resident Evil" movies based on the game. Not sure how the game is run, but Alice in the movies is far more than "a strong female character" she IS the character.

I've seen my grandson and my SIL for that matter, pick characters in games that were male or female based on ability, nor gender. They want use strategies, to win, rather than pay attention to gender.

[Hayabusa]

6. They seem to be somewhat balanced in the games.

In the first, Jill Valentine can carry more items, but can't take as much damage. Chris Redfield is hardier, but can't carry as much stuff. It seems to be more of a difficulty thing than it is based on gender. Second game, there's hardly any difference between Claire and Leon other than weapons they can use (Leon gets a shotgun and magnum pistol while Claire gets an awesome crossbow and a grenade launcher).

That said, Ada Wong wearing a cocktail dress in 2 and 4 seems to be nothing but fanservice, same with Jill's outfit in 3.

Sister series Dino Crisis treats gender fairly equally as well.

[ismnotwasm]

7. So gender presentation is more of an issue than gender ability?

I've read criticism of how women are presented, (sexed up) in both games and comics, but how ability (powers) has improved.

Thank you, that's interesting

[Hayabusa]

8. Make of it what you will

but I've always considered them to be part of the same thing: "Yeah the outfit is kinda fanservicey, but otherwise she's a strong and well-developed character with abilities on par or balanced with male counterparts."

The thing is, I've been reading comics and playing games long enough to know that fanservice will always exist, so unless it's so mind-blowingly over the top (take a look at Red Sonja and the propensity for the chainmail bikini in fantasy art) I kind of put it away in the back of my mind and focus on the character.

[ismnotwasm]

9. I only read a few comics

No matter how well developed a male body is, the caricature never carries the overt sexuality of the female body. Instead, it focuses on threat and strength. I wonder if it will ever change?

[Hayabusa]

10. I'm not sure

Mainly because fanservice has been so engrained in comic art for so long.