Right...Are male advisors particulary beautiful? I of course, mean not the artistic quality of the pictures, but as "yep, would bang" beautiful? What would be the purpose of highly beautiful, almost sexualised, advisor portraits, in the context of this game? What makes it so, that male portraits can be sort of average looking, but female ones need to be beautiful?
No they're not, but they were in historically accurate Europa Universalis 4. Actually, we would have "hot males" on international men's day to accompany hot females in the women's day pack if I had my way. And the point is that they would at least be pleasing to the eye, unlike the present portraits, which are not even historically accurate.
Perhaps I haven't made my argument clear enough:
Historical="plain" faces (male+female)
Fantasy= "fair" faces (male+female)
EUIV=Historical
Women's Day DLC=Fantasy
Women's Day DLC
- ahistorical clothing = Historical = "plain" faces
So I have a problem with the ahistorical outfits
or the imperfect faces. If I had my choice, the faces would remain as they are now, but the women would be wearing dresses, as any woman in that age would be wearing; I don't want to see beauty queens in a realistic setting, but I do in a fantasy setting.
Women rarely held formal positions of "military advisor," but some were able to exert influence in such a manner as to provide a similar effect for their nation as what the advisor's bonus grants. That's what many of the events simulate, for instance. And despite your protests, these events are from actual history, not fantasy. Maybe there's an advisor slot or two that's not intended to be filled with an actual historical woman, but the vast majority of this content is solidly rooted in the real history of our world.
But that's a side-story to the main thrust of your post above, which has two major issues with it.
First, you're holding onto the classic double-standard; the men can look like whatever, the women should look beautiful. That's your preference because it's what appeals to you personally, the male gamer. Men can come in a wide variety of appearances because whatever who cares, but the women should look nice because that's pleasant for you. You are not considering the female gamer in your complaint. Having a wide variety of depictions of men in a game makes men more comfortable playing the game; it feels natural, and there's probably someone there who looks something like you. When all the women look beautiful, the game is sending a message to female gamers: this game is for men, and the women in it are here for the enjoyment of men, not for you. You are probably inclined to disagree with this, but please believe me: if you are a man then it is very difficult to impossible for you to truly understand this. There is no equivalent experience you can draw from (no, not even all the pretty male actors in movies, because even there, there's still a much greater variety of types of men in terms of physical appearance). You must choose to believe the women who tell you this and the researchers who back this up with decades of evidence.
Second, you seem to waver between calling these portraits "average" and "ugly." I don't think this is an accident; I think they're basically the same as far as you're concerned. This isn't your fault; it's just a result of the media you've been drowned with since the day you were born. Women are almost always depicted as beautiful, except when they're not for some specific reason (usually because they're either a joke or a villain). So, anything that's not beautiful is ugly by comparison, even if she's average. Worse, a number of these portraits actually depict quite attractive women! They have great facial symmetry, appropriate features and proportions (nose / chin size), even great hair for the most part. But they're a bit older, they're not covered in makeup, and probably most importantly, they're not smiling or otherwise making appealing facial expressions. Suddenly this is "ugly!" This, of course, has very harmful effects on women as a whole, also backed up with decades of research if you care to dig into it.
It's not about "celebrating ugly characters." It's about representing real people first and foremost, and also about making the game more appealing to people who aren't men. This may be frustrating to you, as a man, since the default for things is typically to cater to your preferences (see: most other games, movies, and shows ever). But surely, with this small free DLC offered on International Women's Day, you can set that aside and let the other half of the population have a few scraps?
So why can't we have military advisor women wearing dresses, as would be historically accurate? The military uniforms are not accurate.
And if you think I'm holding onto a double standard, then you're presenting a strawman argument as I made it incredibly clear in my original post that I am not:
spartanlemur said:
I'm not being sexist here; if a work of fantasy is being created, both male and female characters should be good looking. That much is simply logical.
Attractive men appeal to me as do attractive women because like any human I like looking at beautiful things. But I will of course concede that pretty females do appeal to me more; I am a male like 95% of everyone else here, and whether we like it or not (though some of us pretend we do not), we place a greater importance on women being attractive than men. That still doesn't change the fact that pretty much everyone likes attractive images/characters, and thus intentionally making them unattractive for any reason other than historical accuracy is pointless.
Perhaps I should make clear that when discussing media, my standards of "ugly", "average", and "beautiful" are with reference to other media. Of course in real life, like any other person with any sense holds completely different standards, but when artists can make the choice on how attractive characters should be in about ten critical minutes of their work, I cannot understand why they would purposely create characters which are less attractive than existing media.
As for your closing point about "representing real people", I would again draw mention to my claim that given the outfits, this DLC is clearly in the zone of fantasy (which is not a bad thing in and of itself), and as such lends itself to the artistic license of not having to represent "real people". Furthermore, I have always been under the impression that women, much like men, also find characters/images of their own gender more enjoyable to look at when they are pleasing to the eye. The only women I have met who do *not* feel this way are those who have been influenced by social pressures to reject such depictions as "artificial standards" (this is not their fault; we are regularly exposed to this manner of argumentation on a daily basis).
You point out that this is free DLC, which is true. I am not criticising it out of any sense of entitlement; it is rather because I am warm to the idea of it, but would rather see it have what I consider to be a better execution in future games so I might be able to bring myself to use it. And rest assured that I am speaking for around 90% of the population here! The only people I am not speaking for are those who have not been trained into seeing conventional beauty standards as "ugly" or "artificial".
it certainly creates an instant perspective regarding any complaints about their appearances!
Passive aggressive much?
I disagree with you. I'm willing to coherently argue my case. I don't think I deserve to spoken of like some stereotypical brainwashed chimp. All criticism of the DLC content deserves to be taken seriously when it is being argued in a respectful manner, which is what I am trying my best to do.
I've said before that I like the idea of the DLC, but this is just one small thing which irritates me enough to not want to use it (small features are important; I didn't buy XCOM for years because I heard that everyone had American voices in the demo).
Also, without wishing to sound too "male-gaze"-y, I'm going to have to disagree with SpartanLemur; I feel that pretty much all of the portraits are fairly good-looking, just in a more "natural" way than your typical airbrushed supermodel. They're certainly non-sexualised, which is as others have noted commendable, but in addition to the artistic quality and naturalism I've already mentioned I feel like they are genuinely aesthetically pleasing too. They're certainly not "ugly"; much like their male counterparts, they're just fairly ordinary well-drawn portraits.
I would adore the way they looked as well if they were wearing historically accurate outfits!
