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Is Sheik Female or Male?
Oct. 8th, 2011 07:57 pmThis is not actually a post about the subject because that's been discussed to death. In fact the real topic probably is also discussed to death, but is related to the subject.
First, let me start by saying I prefer Sheik female, simply because I find it more interesting. I don't actually follow Zelda games that closely, having only played one and was introduced to Sheik through SSBM, so there might be canonical reasons that she/he is male, but in a strict personal and perhaps storytelling standpoint, she is far more interesting as a female.
But why?
I don't know why, really. I suppose it's because of his/her oufit, which covers her/his body, and the fact that her/his face is covered as well. So many female characters,and I really mean it, so many are portrayed in an all too-common way that nowadays is really beginning to annoy me. There's a video game with high attention to detail, stunning graphics that make it as if you're merely guiding the hero through a whole movie, and then they meet a female. What does the developer do to denote that the character is indeed female besides the name or voice, if there is voice-acting? Why, give her boobs of course. And because the audience is nothing but a bunch of perverted dumb fucks, make sure there's plenty of cleavage so they can see those boobs and therefore determine that she is indeed female. After all, all females look and dress like that!
The ironic part is if Sheik is indeed portrayed as female, her outfit being tight to her skin, will show us all her lovely beautiful curves. Isn't that great?
But the one solace I have at least, is that her face is covered. That gives us a sense of mystery, that even though most characters in fiction have the same goddamn face, maybe her face isn't of a sweet delicate girl, but of a hardened-warrior. Maybe her face is covered due to scars, or covered because she's trying to disguise herself...actually the biggest reason is that we don't have to see her lips. It's not really quite as obvious as giant breasts and womanly curves, but mere coloured lips seems to automatically dictate that this creature is female! Unless you're Frieza. Or his dad. Or his brother.
I DIGRESS.
We've seen in Anime that most males, or at least relatively young ones of the teenage and young adult age look rather feminine. They're not always muscular men with body hair and gruff voices, and in fact even muscular men don't need to have gruff voices, or those with gruff voices do not need to be muscular. I am only asking for the same for females, who should not, especially in the West, always be so exaggerated. I suppose it's one of the oldest tricks of business though, no male fans if there are no sexy women after all. Even then, they don't all have to be like so!
But even still. An example is Negima, many different body types and kinds of females with several different personalities. Great, right? Finally something that portrays people of different heights, skin-colour, body-types, personalities...same faces still, but you get the point right?
...nope.
And it's all because of one thing. Because of the fanservice. Because the majority of the cast is female and having them all be the same would be rather dull. If there was ever a series where the female is the minority, she'd just be female. Not a character, just female. I'm sure there have been many, many rants about that, of the Smurfette Principle. Let me give you an example of the other way around.
The only male character shown in canon in Touhou is one Rinnosuke Morichka. He's not manly. (Canonically, of course) He's not strong. He's not the center of attention or the subject of a harem. (Canonically, of course) He's simply minding his own business, running his own store. He's not a buttmonkey for being the only male. He's not shirtless. (Canonically, of course) He has a personality besides being male. It would not matter if he were female anyway, but nothing in Touhou is affected or changed in him being male, besides het-fics actually existing beyond that of <character>/ZUN. Even though all that time before he was ever introduced males were either non-humanoid or dead/disappeared forever. But why is he male? What is the purpose of making him male if the entire population is female anyway?
Well a theory of why everyone is female is that ZUN can't draw males. This still holds up, since Rinnosuke only appeared in the mangas drawn by other people. That can be the same for any other creation or work out there! If you can't make a good female character, don't even bother with one. Stop trying to attract other demographics if you're just going to do it poorly, and surely not all male fans are horrible lost causes in terms of sexual appeal. Why can't a female be attractive without wearing practically no clothing? Why can't a female be interesting without being stereotypical? I'm sure males would be interested in a strong female character too.
Let's stretch it further. WHY does the generic default character have to be male? Just create a character, do not worry about their gender, and give them a gender. It wouldn't matter if they were female or male, at all. If at some point in the plot the sex of the character must be brought up and be relevant, then fine, give them the appropriate gender, but why does it matter? Because guys don't like shows with main female characters? What the hell is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic then? I assure you guys like that show not because they are furries or deranged, but because the show is legitimately good. (Of course, there are always those very deranged vocal minorities!) And look, they're ponies, not girls with well-developed bodies! (or alternatively, completely undeveloped bodies for those people) Their personalities and the setting make it more so that the ponies are young adults, as opposed to children, since they have responsibilities. Life in Equestria just tends to be rather idealistic because after all the main demographic is children.
And yes, this stretches to a few of my berserk buttons in the Touhou fandom. Like Murasa canonically not wearing shorts. I like shorts. I like how most fanartists keep the shorts. Most people see her as a dull forgettable character (and awesome people see her as an awesome captain with plenty of potential! /notbiasedatall) so why not throw her the bone and make her a little more identifiable, like being the only character with shorts. It gives her personality and it's practical in the seas. (I wouldn't wear a skirt in the seas or the skies, what with that wind...) If all females in a type of media is female because they all wear dresses, that'd be highly monotonous. (Unless of course it's in a time period where females are restricted to a type of clothing) Just like if all females are basically a pair of jugs, or if all females are high-pitched annoying people, or if all females...
You get the point.
Moving on, my clan friends (or Ventrilo friends, or friend people male...things. What do I call them now?) assigned each other with various DBZ characters. No one really assigned one to me, so I did it myself, but I'm not entirely sure who to be since I don't really care much for the female characters in DBZ. I went with Dende since Namekians produced asexually so they're not really male or female even if their appearance is very much male. Also Dende is cool. Then I asked Akira who her favourite female character was, and she responded Chi Chi.
You know, at first I was like "Why?" in my head. Because in my memories of watching DBZ as a child, Chi Chi was rather annoying, but after rewatching some of these episodes today...I can kind of see why. And most people who accuse her of being annoying and stupid to me, are just immature teenagers who don't understand her character. Sure, she isn't without flaws and can be rather annoying, but ultimately she is a mother, a caring mother who only wants to see her children thrive and succeed. Fighting, although very awesome and entertaining to watch, and no doubt very important to the safety of the world, will not help Gohan through life in terms of careers. Though I would think the world owes quite a bit to the Son family and the rest of their group for saving the world so often, but they're such nice people they don't even take credit for it.
And she isn't without development, either! She began to train Goten in fighting, when Goku was dead, finally realizing that not allowing Gohan to train as much as he could was foolish as well, but how was she to know before then that the Earth would be the target of evil aliens time and time again? Her wish to keep her children safe, even if she is by no means in any position to having the power level of a mere human is admirable. I found her death scene to the hands of Majin Buu actually rather shocking. She stood up to the villain after her son was allegedly dead and her husband definitely so. It was actually really stupid, but still...you really realize she's just a mother trying to protect her children. Not watching Gohan or Goten to fight such powerful monsters is instinct. It's like the world wars, where all the men have to go fight for their countries. Surely all the mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, etc. just want their family to come home! They don't want them to fight, to face real danger even if it was necessary to stop dictators and empires and whatnot. They just want them to live.
Speaking of her death, Goten was there to witness it. I actually found that a lot harder to take than Gohan losing his father several times or Gohan watching Krillin plus the other fighters die several times, etc. I'm not saying Gohan had it better either, it's just that there's a difference between a man risking his life dying and an innocent civilian. There's a difference when someone who has died once already dies again and someone you don't expect to bite it since they're non-fighters. It's also because Goten seems a lot more innocent at that point, having experienced far less than Gohan, so suddenly seeing someone who you're very close to, not even a person meant to fight die right in front of you is kind of troubling...
Anyway I actually lost that rant but Dreamwidth magically saved it after I thought it was gone forever. +1 for DW.
First, let me start by saying I prefer Sheik female, simply because I find it more interesting. I don't actually follow Zelda games that closely, having only played one and was introduced to Sheik through SSBM, so there might be canonical reasons that she/he is male, but in a strict personal and perhaps storytelling standpoint, she is far more interesting as a female.
But why?
I don't know why, really. I suppose it's because of his/her oufit, which covers her/his body, and the fact that her/his face is covered as well. So many female characters,and I really mean it, so many are portrayed in an all too-common way that nowadays is really beginning to annoy me. There's a video game with high attention to detail, stunning graphics that make it as if you're merely guiding the hero through a whole movie, and then they meet a female. What does the developer do to denote that the character is indeed female besides the name or voice, if there is voice-acting? Why, give her boobs of course. And because the audience is nothing but a bunch of perverted dumb fucks, make sure there's plenty of cleavage so they can see those boobs and therefore determine that she is indeed female. After all, all females look and dress like that!
The ironic part is if Sheik is indeed portrayed as female, her outfit being tight to her skin, will show us all her lovely beautiful curves. Isn't that great?
But the one solace I have at least, is that her face is covered. That gives us a sense of mystery, that even though most characters in fiction have the same goddamn face, maybe her face isn't of a sweet delicate girl, but of a hardened-warrior. Maybe her face is covered due to scars, or covered because she's trying to disguise herself...actually the biggest reason is that we don't have to see her lips. It's not really quite as obvious as giant breasts and womanly curves, but mere coloured lips seems to automatically dictate that this creature is female! Unless you're Frieza. Or his dad. Or his brother.
I DIGRESS.
We've seen in Anime that most males, or at least relatively young ones of the teenage and young adult age look rather feminine. They're not always muscular men with body hair and gruff voices, and in fact even muscular men don't need to have gruff voices, or those with gruff voices do not need to be muscular. I am only asking for the same for females, who should not, especially in the West, always be so exaggerated. I suppose it's one of the oldest tricks of business though, no male fans if there are no sexy women after all. Even then, they don't all have to be like so!
But even still. An example is Negima, many different body types and kinds of females with several different personalities. Great, right? Finally something that portrays people of different heights, skin-colour, body-types, personalities...same faces still, but you get the point right?
...nope.
And it's all because of one thing. Because of the fanservice. Because the majority of the cast is female and having them all be the same would be rather dull. If there was ever a series where the female is the minority, she'd just be female. Not a character, just female. I'm sure there have been many, many rants about that, of the Smurfette Principle. Let me give you an example of the other way around.
The only male character shown in canon in Touhou is one Rinnosuke Morichka. He's not manly. (Canonically, of course) He's not strong. He's not the center of attention or the subject of a harem. (Canonically, of course) He's simply minding his own business, running his own store. He's not a buttmonkey for being the only male. He's not shirtless. (Canonically, of course) He has a personality besides being male. It would not matter if he were female anyway, but nothing in Touhou is affected or changed in him being male, besides het-fics actually existing beyond that of <character>/ZUN. Even though all that time before he was ever introduced males were either non-humanoid or dead/disappeared forever. But why is he male? What is the purpose of making him male if the entire population is female anyway?
Well a theory of why everyone is female is that ZUN can't draw males. This still holds up, since Rinnosuke only appeared in the mangas drawn by other people. That can be the same for any other creation or work out there! If you can't make a good female character, don't even bother with one. Stop trying to attract other demographics if you're just going to do it poorly, and surely not all male fans are horrible lost causes in terms of sexual appeal. Why can't a female be attractive without wearing practically no clothing? Why can't a female be interesting without being stereotypical? I'm sure males would be interested in a strong female character too.
Let's stretch it further. WHY does the generic default character have to be male? Just create a character, do not worry about their gender, and give them a gender. It wouldn't matter if they were female or male, at all. If at some point in the plot the sex of the character must be brought up and be relevant, then fine, give them the appropriate gender, but why does it matter? Because guys don't like shows with main female characters? What the hell is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic then? I assure you guys like that show not because they are furries or deranged, but because the show is legitimately good. (Of course, there are always those very deranged vocal minorities!) And look, they're ponies, not girls with well-developed bodies! (or alternatively, completely undeveloped bodies for those people) Their personalities and the setting make it more so that the ponies are young adults, as opposed to children, since they have responsibilities. Life in Equestria just tends to be rather idealistic because after all the main demographic is children.
And yes, this stretches to a few of my berserk buttons in the Touhou fandom. Like Murasa canonically not wearing shorts. I like shorts. I like how most fanartists keep the shorts. Most people see her as a dull forgettable character (and awesome people see her as an awesome captain with plenty of potential! /notbiasedatall) so why not throw her the bone and make her a little more identifiable, like being the only character with shorts. It gives her personality and it's practical in the seas. (I wouldn't wear a skirt in the seas or the skies, what with that wind...) If all females in a type of media is female because they all wear dresses, that'd be highly monotonous. (Unless of course it's in a time period where females are restricted to a type of clothing) Just like if all females are basically a pair of jugs, or if all females are high-pitched annoying people, or if all females...
You get the point.
Moving on, my clan friends (or Ventrilo friends, or friend people male...things. What do I call them now?) assigned each other with various DBZ characters. No one really assigned one to me, so I did it myself, but I'm not entirely sure who to be since I don't really care much for the female characters in DBZ. I went with Dende since Namekians produced asexually so they're not really male or female even if their appearance is very much male. Also Dende is cool. Then I asked Akira who her favourite female character was, and she responded Chi Chi.
You know, at first I was like "Why?" in my head. Because in my memories of watching DBZ as a child, Chi Chi was rather annoying, but after rewatching some of these episodes today...I can kind of see why. And most people who accuse her of being annoying and stupid to me, are just immature teenagers who don't understand her character. Sure, she isn't without flaws and can be rather annoying, but ultimately she is a mother, a caring mother who only wants to see her children thrive and succeed. Fighting, although very awesome and entertaining to watch, and no doubt very important to the safety of the world, will not help Gohan through life in terms of careers. Though I would think the world owes quite a bit to the Son family and the rest of their group for saving the world so often, but they're such nice people they don't even take credit for it.
And she isn't without development, either! She began to train Goten in fighting, when Goku was dead, finally realizing that not allowing Gohan to train as much as he could was foolish as well, but how was she to know before then that the Earth would be the target of evil aliens time and time again? Her wish to keep her children safe, even if she is by no means in any position to having the power level of a mere human is admirable. I found her death scene to the hands of Majin Buu actually rather shocking. She stood up to the villain after her son was allegedly dead and her husband definitely so. It was actually really stupid, but still...you really realize she's just a mother trying to protect her children. Not watching Gohan or Goten to fight such powerful monsters is instinct. It's like the world wars, where all the men have to go fight for their countries. Surely all the mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, etc. just want their family to come home! They don't want them to fight, to face real danger even if it was necessary to stop dictators and empires and whatnot. They just want them to live.
Speaking of her death, Goten was there to witness it. I actually found that a lot harder to take than Gohan losing his father several times or Gohan watching Krillin plus the other fighters die several times, etc. I'm not saying Gohan had it better either, it's just that there's a difference between a man risking his life dying and an innocent civilian. There's a difference when someone who has died once already dies again and someone you don't expect to bite it since they're non-fighters. It's also because Goten seems a lot more innocent at that point, having experienced far less than Gohan, so suddenly seeing someone who you're very close to, not even a person meant to fight die right in front of you is kind of troubling...
Anyway I actually lost that rant but Dreamwidth magically saved it after I thought it was gone forever. +1 for DW.
