Player One
Nov. 15th, 2016 02:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
korafoxI've been playing Assassin's Creed: Syndicate lately, because it is a good coping mechanism and also because I really need to finish it so I can give the disc back to my dad. This is the first main game that lets you play as a female assassin; technically the two main characters are twins, Jacob and Evie, but while there are some missions only Jacob can play, I can spend 85% of my time as Evie.
Oh my goodness, it so wonderful to be able to play as a character who looks like me. Especially wonderful to play as a woman who is strong and smart and competent without being sexualized. The series as a whole is actually pretty good about this sort of thing; female NPCs generally have agency despite how easy it would be to play into stereotypes of history, and hardly anyone questions their ability to handle intrigue and violence (Arno from Unity gets a bit of a side-eye here though). There are even a couple transgender characters, who were real historical personages.
Having a woman as the actual player character instead of an NPC is so much more satisfying, though. And I admit, my love of Evie is partially because she's pretty much exactly how I imagine Dahlia looking, and her personality and skill set are what Dahlia would be like if she were trained from birth as some sort of Loom assassin, so. I get to imagine my character being awesome. : P
Oh my goodness, it so wonderful to be able to play as a character who looks like me. Especially wonderful to play as a woman who is strong and smart and competent without being sexualized. The series as a whole is actually pretty good about this sort of thing; female NPCs generally have agency despite how easy it would be to play into stereotypes of history, and hardly anyone questions their ability to handle intrigue and violence (Arno from Unity gets a bit of a side-eye here though). There are even a couple transgender characters, who were real historical personages.
Having a woman as the actual player character instead of an NPC is so much more satisfying, though. And I admit, my love of Evie is partially because she's pretty much exactly how I imagine Dahlia looking, and her personality and skill set are what Dahlia would be like if she were trained from birth as some sort of Loom assassin, so. I get to imagine my character being awesome. : P
