Sex and the Zero Suit: Why Samus was Great Only in Metroid Prime

[Mr Khan]

Khuutra said:

Mr Khan said:
Ho... Hmm...

There is much to reflect on, here.

I would say, in a pre-Other M world, that this whole affair is a bunch of sound and fury signifying nothing. Her sexualization was incidental, simply an expansion upon the reward that was offered up in the first game, which itself was a last-minute addition for shock value. It was a way of saying "you've reached a better tier of reward," without explicitly saying so. Indeed, in Metroid Prime 2 & 3, the bigger reward wasn't getting to see more of ZSS, but getting the sequel hook instead.

Other M is a whole separate discussion, of course, one in which we both have made our opinions well known over the years, and where a lot of the apparent sexism can be attributed merely to lack of context (in why exactly she froze up over Ridley) and cultural blind-spots (over the unflinching obedience to Adam). The only indisputably egregious matter there is the heels in the Zero Suit

Of course, your argument asks for more games in the vein of Metroid Prime, something i would very much want (best game EVAR), but i feel that a lot of this hardly qualifies as sexism, but something that sorta looks like sexism if you squint at it right.

I'm not going to suggest that you are viewing this through the lens of attachment to the standing characterization and status quo of the character, but I think it might be possible that you're viewing the game in a softer light than you should.

Her sexualization was not incidental. It might be - in theory - if it were incidental throughout the course of the game, but it's not. Her sexualization serves to incentivize high-level play, which has turned Samus's body into a commodity against which we bargain our skills and our time.

This, in itself, is not necessarily problematic, but in the context of a character like Samus it is immensely egregious.

So in this context, her incidental sexualization throughout, say, Other M or Zero Mission is less egregious than making it a reward (as in other games)?

Rol said it better than i could. It's like getting different sized mansions at the end of Luigi's Mansion. Such an incentive makes no statement about, say, the virtues of homeownership, nor does getting Samus in different degrees of (and i really hate to use this term) undress necessarily make her a sex object.

Now, if she were posing, or if they were showing something more provocative than a bit of midriff, i might be inclined to agree, but as it is, they're showing a woman who is, for all intents and in-context purposes, clothed in a practical manner, except for the bikini in the original game, but that can be excused via hardware limitations.