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

[Mr Khan]

Khuutra said:

Mr Khan said:

Prurient interests really have no place in this discussion, or at least not this discussion specifically. We could hold discourse about the nature of Rule 34, and how everything remotely pornographic is inevitably made pornographic (or at least pruriently-oriented non-pornographic material), but that is separate from notions of the exploitation of Samus as an individual, simply because Rule 34 is equal-opportunity, and has made pretty much every respectable character into fapping/jilling material at some point.

No, no. The existence of the material isn't what's on the slab, here.

It's that this is a topic about Samus's effectiveness as the faceless/voiceless hero and how she is, in some ways, a powerful feminist symbol in spite of not being inherently feminine, and how that plays into the larger discourse about that archetype, and how the use of sex as a reward for performance undermines her essential strengths and is pandering in the worst possible way - and then you guys post pictures of Samus with disproportionately enlarged boobs for the sake of posting them

Well, really for the sake of trolling, being deliberately counterintuitive to the thread's purpose for the sake of humor and poking gentle fun at one of VGC's "grumpy old men."

But on the main topic, i would maintain that Rol's explanation here is the correct one. Once you've made it onto her gunship, you cease being Samus, and the degrees to which she is unsuited are basically easter-eggs, proof of achievement for the sake of achievement, and only incidentally exploitative. "Soft" sexism, if sexism at all, and not really damaging to the character.

Metroid Prime's narrative excellence is a breed apart, and one that should be emulated in future titles, but it is not inherently better simply from the lack of Zero Suit. Part of the problem, of course, is it would be hard to get a scenario where you can read the accounts of two different groups with very different conceptions of (but familiarty with) Samus. A more practical problem that the story will get boring if its always the Space Pirates, or if the Chozo are always around.

Hell, the end of Prime, along with a few other points, helped me form my characterization of Samus, which is ironically why i didn't find her portrayal in Other M all that jarring: a la Prime, she is more than just a faceless destroyer, she is someone who is aware of the sadness and the gravity of what is going on around her, someone who does not bear her immense destructive power recklessly (but is still inscrutable and unstoppable), so her long-winded internal monologues did not faze me (the *only* thing that really threw me in that game was the Ridley freakout)