The Damsel in Distress Syndrome in Video Games

The role of what is expected from video games characters is something that people think they know very well. But they don't know the truth behind the role that women usually play in these games. The videos that I watched talked about the history of the "Damsel in Distress" and how they have used the darker twists and hybrid forms of it to create new roles and plot tools for these games. The videos defined this trope as when a female character is objectified and placed in a situation where they are made helpless and must wait for a male antagonist to save them. I found that their overwhelming number of examples to be very through, but also a tad bit on the side of overkill as they example after example, sometimes at least ten different titles, to make a single point and not a whole argument. the videos explored numerous titles that show that game designers have fallen into their own problems by not thinking about how the roles they place women in during the course of these games. Another note about the videos I would like to make is the fact that in the second video of the series, where they talk about the dark hybrids, such as the "girl in the fridge damsel", to be very disturbing with the idea that this was unconsciously reinforcing the ideas of misogamy. Looking pack on my own gaming experience, I'll admit that there have been a few games that have had this idea of the "damsel" needing to be saved and while i enjoyed these games, this image has not made me thing women unable to defend themselves or able to saves themselves, it is the opposite. These portrayals of the women i see as unrealistic and enforces my idea of a strong women figure. I will say that despite the overly-excessive amount of repetition of examples and the sheer ridiculousness of some of these example, the argument was valid and the idea was a sound one.