One good thing about Japanese games in the days of sprites

[Mr Khan]

Khuutra said:

Mr Khan said:

Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird, correct? I was discussing gaming specifically. The ability of other mediums worldwide to portray a wide variety of males as perfectly set in standards of manliness is not in dispute, but rather in mainstream Western gaming where the He-Man archetype is still dominant and any other portrayal leads to doubt or some sort of "condition" under which the characters are identified primarily before their masculinity. This also expands to Western gamers, who then lambast other visual portrayals of masculinity, which do not necessarily have to be any less manly

Mr Khan I swear to God if you make me start listing male western gaming heroes who aren't He-Men I am going to blow a gasket.

"Masculinity" need not be the primary identifier of a character if they are good as a character. Of course they're going to be either huge or sexually potent if their defining characteristic is masculinity, but that's true in Japan too.

My lack of exposure to Western gaming doesn't help my case, though perhaps i'm using He-man too broadly. As i ponder, however, the only things that pop into my head are Gordon Freeman and Alan Wake (and both yet fall within the same general art style)