I Like Representation

This is a topic I’ve been meaning to cover for a couple of months now, but I couldn’t quite figure out how to handle such a subject like this one. On the one hand I get to talk about a topic that has seen definite improvements over the past five years of video gaming, but on the other hand not everyone is going to agree with my opinions and view this as an article trying to shove an agenda down their throat. They may view this as an article made to collect easy views and clicks, but that’s not the case here. This is coming down from the bottom of my heart and I’ll try my best to back up whatever claims made. So let’s give it my best, okay? Good? Well that’s good lass.

Video games have become more cinematic and story focused in recent memory, and personally I’m a big fan of storytelling in gaming. Video games are slowly beginning to outclass their older brother, which is cinema, and some stories have proven to be so tremendous that they can only be told through the means of a video game. Of course there are those people who complain that stories in video games are starting to outmask what should be the most important part which is gameplay and core design, and I understand where those people are coming from. You paid sixty dollars for what should be a fun product and half the time you’re watching a guy talk for fifthteen minutes straight. However, when you find a game that has an even balance between excellent gameplay and storytelling then you’ve found that goes above the medium. Storytelling in video games is wider and broader than ever, and with the standards rising it means more people are being given the opportunity to help out with the development of video games. This means video games can be more representative.

Storytelling has improved tremendously in video games, and representation has gotten bigger as well. We’ve been seeing developers and directors try to incorporate representative protagonists and a diverse cast in video games. Any idea can work and you shouldn’t tell others that their ideas won’t work at all. Not many gamers seem to recognize representation in video games and the importance it brings. Many will pass it off and find representation to be the easy way of making your game look more favorable to an “easily trickable audience”, but I would disagree. I don’t mind representation in video games and to be honest I think it’s great. It’s great that diversity, culture, and representation in video games have grown bigger and that we’re looking beyond the light that blocked us before. I won’t try to make this article too long, but I’ll try to cover the areas that matter most. I want to talk about why I like representation in video games and why it is more important than some people say. Sit back and enjoy.

I will give a warning that there will be spoilers for several video games, so do be aware.

Given The Opportunity

Here’s a question a lot of you may be asking yourself by now. Why would you put representation into a video game in the first place? The answer to this question, which should be obvious, is because of opportunity. Everyone should always be given opportunities to prove themselves and showcase the gifts and talents they may possess. They may not be perfect and there is always going to be someone who can do what they do better, but at least give them the shot. Don’t be the person who refuses to give them that opportunity. Someone who refuses to acknowledge ideas out of the box they already live in. How else can representation and the range of diversity expand if you don’t want to acknowledge what exists outside the norm we’ve been living by for several years now with gaming? There’s a reason why some gamers like myself are getting sick of seeing the trope of “generic gruff protagonist” over and over again. It’s not because they're white or they enforce an all-male agenda, it’s because if you were to line them all together and tell someone to list the unique personality traits of each one they probably won’t be able to list all that much. Half of them can either be described as “a badass killer with weaponry” or “bastard with a heart of gold”. It’s not terrible, but this has been the trend for several years now and it is hard to connect with a character when they feel like soulless husks. There are some examples of generic gruff dudes done right though. Joel Miller from The Last of Us and Sam Porter Bridges from Death Stranding elevate this medium quite a bit by not only doing a good job immersing us into the worlds they live in, but by making us care for who they are and engaging us with their background. Outside of those two I can’t really think of any other examples. Having a representative protagonist and cast can be quite good. They not only go outside the trend of “generic gruff dude”, but they demonstrate that they fit in as well as the characters we’ve gotten used to. There shouldn’t be too much of a difference.

I do want to give off some examples of representative heroes in video game stories. Mainly characters of different ethnicities and female heroines. Let’s start with female heroes since that seems to be the easiest to talk about. A lot of female characters in the past have been treated as damsels in distress, the love interest who you then easily hook up with, or if they were given the opportunity to be the main protagonist they were often treated as sassy. When I say “treated as sassy” it means that was their main defining personality trait. They were cool and when they kicked ass they certainly did, but they were treated more like an afterthought. It’s not the writer's fault though, it’s more of the time period they lived in back then and the expectations of most generic gamers. Now female heroes are being treated equally as a male hero would, and honestly I think I’ve grown to love some of the female characters in video games. Writers have started to put in actual personality, backstory, and character growth into female characters and they’ve grown to become some of my favorite characters.

Emily Kaldwin the Empress of Dunwall in Dishonored 2 had transformed from a defenseless little girl from the first game into a skilled swordfighter much like her caring father. The once faithful loyal protector, Corvo Attano. She still recollects the day her mother died right in front of her eyes and how the man she secretly knew was her father had to go on dangerous suicide missions, but she learned to mature and unlike the previous empress she learned how to defend herself. Now that she is older she must govern Dunwall and make peace with the surrounding isles, but one day an unwelcome guest comes into her throne room and accuses her of a crime she didn’t commit. Dishonored 2 gives you the choice of playing either Emily or Corvo, and personally I choose Emily. Her abilities make Dishonored 2 a more accessible experience for newcomers and her journey is centered around personal growth. Looking back at those dark moments of your life and learning to move on. One of the many pieces of equipment you carry around in Dishonored 2 is a heart that possesses the soul of Emily’s deceased mother. Using it reveals the inner feelings of another person. Late into the game you must exchange the soul of the heart for another person. Emily never got to grow up alongside her mother, but Jessamine lets her daughter know that she is proud of her and that she has become the strong empress she wanted her to be. Emily says goodbye one last time before her mother moves back into the afterlife. Emily Kaldwin has changed for the better in Dishonored 2 in several good ways and she carries the fatefulness her father has. She’s very badass as well! I remember when looking at Emily I went, “ I wish I could be as awesome as her.”

Another good example of a feminine hero is Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn, otherwise one of my favorite protagonists in a video game. She’s an outcast to the Nora tribe and treated like scum, but she learns of a trial she can partake in to be granted any desire she wants. Including to be part of the Nora tribe. Aloy then spends her entire life training and soon she becomes a skilled huntress who can strike down any mechanical beats that lunges towards her. Aloy partakes in this trial when she is a young woman and succeeds, but the contestants are then attacked by a group of cultists. Aloy witnesses her father figure die, is told the truth about her origins, and is then sent out on a journey to stop this cult and figure more about the world. She’ll explore ancient ruins, help out other travelers, get closer to the truth, and learn about the world that came before hers. Later on you figure out she’s a genetic clone of Elizabeth Sorbeck, a scientist who experimented with robotics and biological life. Her team tried to create robots that feed off of natural resources and repopulate easily, but a bug popped up in their program and they started reproducing like crazy. The world was slowly brought to ruins as supplies diminished, but Sorbeck found a way to preserve human life and repopulate it during an apocalypse. Aloy soon learns why she is so important and the journey soon centers around her and her relation to this pre-apocalypse scientist. She may not be entirely like Sorbeck, but she learns from the mistakes the past had made and makes sure that relationships and ties don’t judge her fate. Aloy is a character with more depth than expected and she does a good job with keeping the player interested in the story. Her actress, Ashley Birch, did a splendid job playing her role! There are so many other interesting female characters I can talk about. Senua from Hellblade, Madeline from Celeste, Lohse from Original Sin II, Ann from Persona 5, Stella from Spiritfarer, and one that I really wanted to bring up was 2B from Nier: Automata but I really have to keep the ball rolling as this segment is now starting to last pretty long.

Now let’s move onto different examples of races and ethnicities that have been represented in video games recently. Arkane Studios, the guy who made the recently mentioned Dishonored 2, have had recent games with protagonists of different ethnicities. Morgan Yu from Prey is of half half german and half asian descent. He’s the lead scientist aboard Talos 1 and his entire journey centers around him recollecting his forgotten memories and figuring out what fate lies for the station and crew. I really like seeing asian or Japanese protagonists having big roles like this outside of stories set in their respective countries. Maybe it’s because I myself come from asian descent, well more accurately vietnamese, and we have never really seen that many asian roles in video games. In Arkane Studios’ most recent release Deathloop you play Colt Vahn, a dark skinned colored man trying to escape a time loop that he is stuck in. At the same time Juliana, another dark skinned colored character who plays a major role, is busy hunting him down as he goes on a bloody hunt across Black Reef. They're both entertaining to play as, and the banters both of these characters have establish the rising stakes and competition you must face. Time is of essence in time loop games afterall. Then there’s Billie Lurk, one of Daud’s followers that had existed since the Dishonored’s DLC, but didn’t get a full character model until the second game where Arkane Studios made her a dark skinned color character. She’s mysterious throughout the whole adventure and when you learn the twist that she was an apprentice of Daud it’s shocking. Billie would then star in her own adventure, Dishonored: Death of The Outsider, sadly the last entry in the Dishonored series. Arkane Studios has done a really good job with representing characters of different races and ethnicities in the last five years and they’ve made some of the most badass characters you can see.

There are several other good examples of different ethnicities and races being represented in video games outside of me bragging on as an Arkane Studios fanboy. Recently Far Cry 6 allowed you to play as a hispanic lead either male or female, but unlike previous entries the main character seems to have a more active role in the story and pacing. The Last of Us: Part 2 had an incredibly diverse cast of characters ranging from asian, african, and latino. Look, it's not as bad as you think it is. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, this one should be recognizable to any spidey fans out there, allows you to take control of everyone’s favorite african web slinger Miles. Then there’s Hades which is a game I think has the best example of how to do representation in a video game. We’ll touch more on Hades in a bit. There are quite a few characters drawn with dark skin tones like Dionysus, Ares, and Patroclus. They fit in perfectly within the setting and the writers treat them as normally as every other character in the game. It shouldn’t make a big difference whether one character has golden skin and another has skin the color of ashes. Some developers go a step further and make games that represent different cultures and traditions across the human race. Ghost of Tsushima takes us back to the feudalism era of Japan and shows us the beauty that once scoured each of the islands. The many monuments and temples dedicated to their beliefs and prayers. The valleys or red flowers, mountains of blue, forests of yellow, and tall grass of white. I don’t know if this counts, but the Persona and Yakuza games try to give us a depiction of modern day Japan and let us play as modern day Japanese citizens partaking in epic quests. The Guacamelee! series is not only a celebration of video game culture, but a celebration of Spanish festivity with wacky colors and music flying about. Indivisible takes inspiration from southeast asian mythology with one level in particular reminiscent of a modern day big city. I love it. I love it all so much! The thing that makes representation work perfectly in any setting is reminding yourself that it should be treated equally and normally like everything else on set. You do have to nudge it in there for it to be represented, but you’re still finding opportunities for representation. It’s great when you give representation an opportunity.

Love is Love

Gender is an interesting topic to discuss. It’s not only the preferences we have in a relationship, but how we also define ourselves as a human being. A majority of gamers out there will believe that there are mainly two genders, male and female, and that every relationship out there will center on just the two. However, there are some folks who don’t quite agree with just the male and female relationship. Some women aren’t really interested in men and would rather date someone of the same gender as them and share the same interests as them, because that’s their preference. Same would go to men and how some men want to date someone who is the same gender as well or shares the same interests and beliefs with them. Then there are people who like both genders and would be fine with dating anyone as long as they can get along with them. I totally understand this, because it comes down to a relationship where you want to be someone who makes you happy. Someone who helps maintain a healthy bond between the two. Then there is gender preferences which is the pronoun a person may go by. A boy may go by the pronoun of “he/him”, and a girl may go by the pronoun of “she/her”. However, some people aren’t comfortable with the gender they are and wish to be something else entirely. They may want to be addressed by the gender they wish they were. I really hope I’m not doing a terrible job explaining this, because this is starting to sound poorly explained. Some boys wish to be treated as a woman, and some women wish to be treated as a man. Some individuals want to go by “they/them” because they do not identify as either male or female. A person should be treated the way they want to be treated, and there’s no wrong wanting to be the gender you want to be. We all eventually come to that question of who we are and you shouldn’t tell a person that they can’t be that because they weren’t genetically born that way. Gender is gender, love is love, and as long as it is truthful to the heart it will shine diligently.

LGBT representation has definitely improved within video games the last five years and just like the previous section to this essay I want to explore some examples of it that I’ve seen within video games. Let’s start off with Parvati Holcomb, one of the many quirky companions that joins you along your intergalactic journey through The Outer Worlds. She’s the daughter of the mayor of the first major town you visit, Edgewater, and she’s one of the many engineers who runs around town and makes sure the machines for manufacturing goods are up and running. Her father really seems to care all much about her and she tells you that she never knew who her mother was ever since she was born. She has lived in Edgewater in her entire life and no one really seemed to acknowledge that she existed. When her father sends her to tag along with you on some tasks, she notices that you are an adventurous type of person and that you possess a ship that can easily travel in between the several planets of the solar system. She wishes to join you on your adventure and you allow her to do so. She’s a cheery little lass that tries not to be rude or disruptive during conversations, but you teach her not to be shy and learn to speak up when she feels stressed out. You eventually arrive on the Groundmabreaker, a giant vessel that possesses several famous shops and can be used to refuel your ship. You need to go here to create a license for the ship you are flying around, but you can bumble around and encounter some interesting side quests here. One of them is a companion quest for Parvati. She’s a asexual biromantic character and while exploring the Groundbreaker she encounters another engineer just like her. She shares similar personality traits, seems to put a lot of work into fixing things, and is willing to open up conversations to any other engineers willing to learn. Parvati is afraid to talk to her at first, but then you help her get over her anxiety and kickstart a relationship between the two. It’s really cute. It’s like helping your daughter prepare for her first date. Which is convenient that I bring that up since later down in the story Parvati asks another favor of you to help collect the supplies needed for her first date. The recipe to a meal her date loves, some perfume to help her spell nice, and a fancy suit and tie to help her stand out. This then leads on what is basically a shopping list through abandoned stores full of psychotic baddies, but I was doing this because this was unlike any other quests I’ve seen in an RPG. You aren’t the person on the date or choosing the relationship, you're the person who is helping out by preparing. You do all this and Parvati thanks you for helping her out. For being a good friend to her. You can stand on the side and listen to the conversations her girlfriend and her are having, or leave the ship and wait for Parvati’s late night date to be over. Afterwards you can ask her how the date went and she’ll say that she developed a relationship with what is now her girlfriend. I like this quest. It’s one of my favorites.

My next example, which is one of my most favorite, is Zagreus from Hades who is a bisexual character. During his journey to escape the depths of the Roman underworld and the cruel treatment from his father, Zagreus will encounter two of his childhood friends. Megaera, one of the fury sisters who stands in his way from escaping the deepest section of the underworld, Tartarus. Then there is Thanatos, the death incarnate who occasionally helps Zagreus wipe out floors filled with an insurmountable number of enemies and offer him goods if he can beat him in a short killing competition. Zagreus used to have a tight relationship between these two because he grew up alongside them, but their friendship was broken when Zagreus decided to escape the underworld and not even tell them. He wanted to escape and he couldn’t bring himself to tell his friends that he was leaving them behind. That he basically never wanted to see them again. In between each run you get the opportunity to chat with characters and give them drinks that pop up extra conversations and deepen your relationship. Deepening your bond with Megaera will make her slowly trust you again, and deepening your bond with Thanatos will make Zagreus confess some feelings that he has been having for a long period of time. If you max out your bond with either or then they approach you is Zagreus’ bedroom. Thanatos will spend the night with Zagreus and the two may kindly “hang out”, if you know what I mean, and the same goes for Megaera. You can date both of these characters at once if you really want to and they’ll find this triangle relationship to be normal. Thanatos I believe is the best romance option between the two. He seems very busy with his work and doesn’t have much time to talk, but during those moments where you see him and Zagreus get along you see those remnants of their love for each other grow. There’s another LGTB couple in Hades besides Zagreus. His mentor, legendary war hero Achilles, will talk of a person that he lost during his battle in Troy. As you venture through the underworld you stumble upon a sad man sitting near a waterfall in Elysium. His name is Patroclus and he tells you he has nothing really left for him now that he is dead. Zagreus can then bring up Patroclus’ name to Achilles and he’ll be surprised with shock. One man deeply misses the other and the one who was let alone thinks that the other abandoned him and never will return. You help exchange messages between the two and slowly their ties with one another will mend. There’s a side mission where you must search the old archives for Achilles’ contract and rewrite the rules in a way so that he can see Patroclus again and pay him a visit every so often. The two of them get along thoroughly and they thank Zagreus for bringing them back together again. Finally there’s Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, who talks about her nymph friend Callisto a lot and the ambrosia Zagreus gifts her will be used to deepen the relationship the two lassies share. Hades has a lot of LGBT representation and it does a good job fitting it in.

Even though I haven’t played this game yet, one game that has achieved a huge feat by having an entire cast of LGBT characters is Ikenfell. All the major characters that play an active role in the story are LGBT and go by specific genders. We have asexual, bisexual, homosexual, nonbinary, transgender, pansexual, and a couple of others. That’s a lot to feature at once and you’d think they would have a strong focus on one, but they manage to pull it off and do all of these different genders. It’s dazzling to see! Okay, time for the lightning round of LGBT representation in video games that I can think of, but don’t want to drag out to a point longer than it should be. Psychonauts 2 has two homosexual characters that play major roles later on in the story, two married men Bob Zonatto and Helmut Fullbear, and the connection the two characters have is built up properly as the game shows how much they need each other to cling onto hope. One of many quests later on in Divinity: Original Sin II has a woman being sentenced to death for a crime she had committed and her wife is begging you to go and save her. Say the right thing and the woman’s wife won’t be executed right in front of you. The Last of Us: Part II, that’s right I’m bringing this game up again, had two instances of LGBT representation. The first and foremost is the main protagonist Ellie being in a relationship with a girl named Dina and the two get along quite nicely since they share similar character traits and support one another on the quest to avenge Joel. I know some people didn’t like their relationship since the two characters were so similar that their chemistry seemed to be stagnant, but I guess relationships are like that and still work. Isn’t it good when you find someone just like you and you two can spend the rest of your lives with each other? I don’t know. This is a really old example, but Fallout: New Vegas allowed you to roleplay as either a bisexual or homosexual character. Two of your traveling companions, Veronica and Arcade Ganon, can only be dated if you are the same gender. Cyberpunk 2077 allows you to do the same thing by having relationships for males who want to date a male and females who want to date a female.

Hollow Knight has this one very sweet questline ending that can be missed if the player doesn’t know about it. The old beetle who upgrades your nail to stronger capabilities, the Nailsmith, lives alone in the ruins of what is now the City of Tears. He’ll tell you his number one goal is to forge the strongest nail the kingdom has ever seen and he finds the little knight to be the perfect individual to help him out. You can find the materials to upgrade your nail and when it reaches max level the Nailsmith will ask you to meet him outside. The Nailsmith has crafted the strongest weapon in Hallownest and realizes now that the kingdom is dead he will not have anyone to show his work off too. He has no purpose in life and what is the point of living in the remains of an apocalypse. He asks the little knight to strike him with the perfect nail and send him flying down onto the waters beneath his abode. What happens if you don’t do this though? Well you can leave the Nailsmith standing there and later figure out he has gone somewhere else to mourn his sorrows away. One of the three Nailmasters you encounter while exploring the world, Nailmaster Sheo, is quite different from the other two as he has dedicated the rest of his life painting rather than constantly fighting or sitting in a cold room alone meditating. You can check up on his work and see that he is stroking away his brush positively. If you come to Sheo’s home after sparing the Nailsmith you can find both of them sculpting statues. Sheo has decided to let the Nailsmith stay at his home and continue practicing his crafts. Demonstrating the talents he has built over the years and showing the Nailsmith to appreciate his work rather than agave the public to approve whether he is worth living. The two of them are happy together and there’s an achievement that confirms that both of them ended up hooking up. There’s also a bunch of other LGTB characters with Hollow Knight that are easy to miss, but I’ll sum this up really quickly. Hollow Knight is still amazing. I really like LGBT representation in video games. It helps show that any form of love is great and we should accept the preferences a person has rather than question what makes them so different from the relationships we are so used to seeing. Love is love, and as long as you maintain a strong healthy relationship that is all that matters.

Problems That Arise

While the title to this section may be troubling for some of you readers, and for a minority it probably just offended you but bear with me. I still absolutely love representation in video games, but I do think a couple of problems arise and it comes in two ways. The first is that representation doesn’t always take on an appropriate form, and the second is that some gamers may not be willing to accept representation and that’s how we get these arguments of whether representation should be in video games or not at all. The second problem I want to tackle last, because it may delve into controversial territories and while I’m trying very hard to not mention politics in this essay, it does handle personal agendas that families form for their children.

Developers and directors have managed to place representation into modern games quite well, but sometimes they don’t get it that right. In fact they might do the exact opposite and make a character that isn’t representative at all and just reinforces the agenda that came before. Remember female characters from back then and female characters now. Female characters back then were often sassy and, this is going to piss some gamers off, sexualized in such a way where attention was put more towards their design rather than the personality they actually had. Just look at Bayonetta for example, a great game, but it’s hard to tell whether this game was made to represent or appeal. Bayonetta is this stylish demon/angel slayer who wields over the top weapons, uses her knowledge of magic to summon demons to rip and tear her foes, and her clothing is made out of her own hair. She has an entertaining personality that keeps the player engaged for the entire ride, and the lore that surrounds her is quite interesting. It’s good, but is it representative? Is it representative when we place a heavy focus on a stylish female character and sexualize her as much as possible? Is it weird that Bayonetta has to be naked in order to summon powerful demons into combat. Is it weird that scenes and some torturous animations are made in such way to be “appealing” but so “appealing” to a point where it’s flat out kink. I hope you understand what I mean by “appealing”. I really don’t know what I’m saying right now. Look, the Bayonetta example isn’t obviosult working, so how about I move onto a game that is near and dear to me. It’s the problem with the dating system in Persona 5.

Persona 5 is one of my favorite JRPGs of all time and for a while I thought it was a perfect game. Memorable characters, stylish combat, a cool artstyle, engaging story, and somehow it manages to make the daily lifestyle gameplay engaging. However, I have started to spot some of the flaws the game has and one big flaw in particular is how relationships are handled. Every female confidant you earn in the game can be dated if you meet specific requirements. You can date multiple female characters at once and there’s a funny punishment scene later on if you choose to. These female characters come in a wide range. You have the hot athletic girl, smart student president, the rich girl, the nerd, the fortune teller, the goth doctor, the teacher, etc. You can date all of these characters at once, but isn’t that kind of a problem? Isn’t it kind of bad to tell someone they can wooh any girl and get away with cheating for a while. Well that’s the main problem though. The main problem is that the main character is a high schooler teenager and some of the women you date are adults in their mid twenties and thirties. There’s also a loli and I really hate how some games get away by doing this. This in particular. Finding ways to justify dating someone who is practically a child. Fire Emblem: Three Houses does this as well by having characters who look like children, but they find a way to justify it as well. By having the time skip where everyone ages by a few years, or the one girl who's actually one thousand years old but still looks like a little girl. It’s kind of disgusting to be honest with you. There’s also the fact that you can’t date anyone who is male and some of the male bonds you make in this game are done in such a strong manner. Ryuji Sakomoto is the first best friend you make in this game and the developers try to make sure it’s one of the first confidants you max out. I grew really attached to Ryuji and the way they build his character and justify his behavior across the one hundred hour long experience is done so well. Yusuke Kitagawa is another character who did very well and I grew attached to him as well. He’s this talented artist who puts way more passion into his work than he probably should, but deep down he has respect towards those willing to share an image. The beauty the world has and what the human mind can create with enough time and love. You help him paint his next masterpiece during your downtime, and it's cute seeing the main protagonist trying to maintain his cool while Yusuke drags him along on his ride towards success. I love how much Persona 5 puts towards these two, but it saddened me when I learned you can’t date either of them especially when they are close to the same age number as you. Then I thought to myself, “maybe Persona 5 Royal will solve this problem,” since the developers were trying to tweek minor flaws the original version had. Well they didn’t. They allow you to give male characters objects they may like, but they still don’t allow you to date them. There was a three year gap in between Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal, and one of the many requests that fans made was the option to date male characters. To roleplay a bisexual character. Something that Fallout: New Vegas from ten years allowed you to bloody do. So you can’t date male characters, but you can date older women and a child. What makes this worse is that the one LGBT couple in Persona 5 are these two elderly men who are perverted and chase your male friends around during a vacation to Hawaii. Great job Persona 5. Great f*cking job. I’m not angry and I’m just a little disappointed with what happened.

Some games just really don’t want to look outside the box, but then there’s people. This is where we move onto a deeper subject. Some people are still stuck within that mindset of what standards a protagonist should have and they don’t seem to mind it at all. There’s nothing wrong with what they are used to, but it is when they refuse to broaden their horizons. Rather than take representation as a new opportunity they instead loathe it. They claim it’s forced down or something that is being placed there to gain brownie points for the development team. I’ve met people who state that if you’re going to put a representative character in a game you better slide it in perfectly, or else it’s something that just doesn’t fit in with the story and is just there to be there. I can understand where they are coming from, but I don’t appreciate it when they are being bashful about it. When they really don’t care and say it should be a subject tossed away. It breaks my heart that the reason people still pick fights today or can’t get along is because we aren’t willing to accept change and new ideas. When we can’t reach an agreement and still continue to fight. It’s sad to watch mankind be divided.

Conclusion

That’s why we need representation in video games. We need that opportunity and chance to show others what these people can do. That they can take on major roles and handle them as well as what came before. Representative characters can broaden our horizons and show us the greatness we can achieve. The enjoyment, excitement, and entertainment that can be brought if we all can just get along and accept new ideas. They can be a great way for older audiences to accept the new, or a great way for a newer audience to be interested in the old. I’ll state this again, there really shouldn’t be all that much of a difference or anything to complain about by inserting a representative character in a story and world. They are as equal as everyone else and we shouldn’t doubt them for being different. I connect with this myself. Back in elementary and middle school I was often doubted and straight out bullied for coming from a vietnamese family and not being part of the racial minority. I was called racial slurs, treated like dirt, and spat in the face sometimes. I learned to ignore them and push forward. I grew stronger, became smarter, and eventually became the smartest person within my grade. Then I went to high school and I witnessed the diversity it had to offer. It took a bit to adjust to, but once I started to get the basics down I fell in love. I love seeing representation within video games. I love seeing characters who are asian or japanese similar to myself. I would love to see a Vietnamese protagonist in a video game one day. I like being able to connect with characters similar to me or design to relate to as many individuals as possible. Representation is not only a way to relate, but to connect. Isn’t that what we want? To connect? I hope this essay hasn’t lagged on too long and that I did a decent job explaining why I appreciate and respect representation in video games. Have a wonderful day everyone!