The adventure game market wasn't quite so male-dominated, especially where Sierra was concerned, with a large number of female game designers, and multiple influential games with well-developed female protagonists 1-2 years before even the original Monkey Island came out.
Thanks, didn’t know. I knew about Roberta Williams, but I did not play the Sierra games much (that I remember, only Kings Quest 3, which was the first adventure game I ever played).
This is one of the things I really really liked in the original two MIs. The characters ...and especially the relation between tough Elaine and Guybrush ("you're so helpless and cute").
I think they did not get this "right" in the newest part and it's my main problem with it.
I adored this in Return to Monkey Island, as well. Elaine and Guybrush just have a … functional relationship. They love and support each other and they get along well. It's an important part of them as characters, but it's just there, and you don't have to worry, and the plot doesn't revolve around it. I found it refreshing.
actually, I found their relationship in Return to Monkey Island really weird. In that Elaine forgives basically everything that Guybrush does, even in the last act. It's (somehow) understandable wrt to the ending itself, but it certainly was out of character wrt the older titles in the series and as such I did not like it.
Re:The Curse of Monkey Island
by 7thaccount on Friday April 19, 2024 @05:24PM
(#40092068)
Is that the latest game? I played it on the Switch and it seemed like there was a reference on the island that she's cheating on him or something.
Re:The Curse of Monkey Island
by iosonofuturista on Friday April 19, 2024 @06:38PM
(#40092697)
Not cheating, the reference (a tree carving IIRC) would be in the tree before the events of the first game of the series, so before guybrush would have met Elaine. It’s understandable that she would have lovers before guybrush, but the implication that one could have been the big bad LeChuck, makes guybrush fume, even if it’s just an initial.
Re:The Curse of Monkey Island
by 7thaccount on Sunday April 21, 2024 @11:16AM
(#40106403)
He also notices she got rid of their picture and a few other things I thought
>For such a male-dominated industry creating a game for a largely male audience, it is impressive how well and positively women were portrayed in the MI games.
Wait a second, why is that surprising? As if to you, something being male dominated must usually mean women being portrayed negatively by men, and if they're not then it's a surprise.
Sorry, but your comment just reeks of sexism by assuming mens' default is to not have a positive portrayal on women.
I do think it is more about wide feedback than 'men can't portray women well'. It's easy to overcorrect or make weak characters (not only women) when you're in a monoculture and your feedback come from the same kind of people. My example is Raymond E. Feist. His characters (especially female, but not only) were really weak before he partnered with Wurts (which, in my opinion, gave birth to their best work), and in all his following books all his characters were way better than in his first works.
Re:The Curse of Monkey Island
by handoflixue on Friday April 19, 2024 @06:31PM
(#40092657)
It's not sexist to acknowledge reality, and back in the 90s male-dominated media very much did have a tendency to portray women badly. The further back you go, the worse the problem gets.
In general, society has moved to be less and less tolerant of bigotry over time. Given that, you should expect that older media will be more bigoted than we currently tolerate.
Re:The Curse of Monkey Island
by geopurcell on Friday April 19, 2024 @07:13PM
(#40092932)
This ignorant attitude about the past is currently shaping a trend of 2 dimensional characters in culture. All female characters must be strong and good, all males must be weak and evil. The same with racial depictions; whites are evil, blacks are good. The bigotry hasnt gone away, it's reversed, and become stronger.
> all males must be weak and evil.
Correction: Only the white males.
Those are some serious assaults without backing any of it up
Re:The Curse of Monkey Island
by handoflixue on Friday May 03, 2024 @07:55PM
(#40253610)
I mean, go back far enough and people used to own black people and thought women weren't fit to vote. The extraordinary claim here would be that everything was resolved by the 90s
Re:The Curse of Monkey Island
by raverbashing on Friday April 19, 2024 @03:41PM
(#40091166)
Definitely way better than a guy who was given a name based on a generic file name and type!
Elaine in particular is brave, smart, skillful, a leader, but also loving, kind. The character is not flattened to a single characteristic or narrative function. Even when she needs to be saved, when you get there, she already saved herself (in MI 1 or 2, I don’t remember).