Blonde or red-headed

[lathany]

Here's one from Ragnar Tornquist - name a blonde or red-headed heroine from a video game.

The two best suggestions were Joanna Dark and Samus Aran. The FF women were discounted (unfairly in my view) on the grounds that "they’re part of an ensemble cast led by effeminate (and sometimes blond) men".

But, yeah, I can definitely think of more heroines with brown or black hair.

Comments

[huggyrei.livejournal.com]

That's weird - I would say Lara Croft was a red-head, yes she seems to beclassified as brown here.

[huggyrei.livejournal.com]

Similarly, I'm not sure whether to label Alice (from American McGee's Alice) as red or brown.

[huggyrei.livejournal.com]

Yami, the Hat, and the Book: the heroines are yellow and blue haired.

[huggyrei.livejournal.com]

Starcraft: Ghost. The heroine is dalled Nova, and is blonde.

[huggyrei.livejournal.com]

...actually, reading through the comments, I think most of those I can think of have already been mentioned, so I shall shut up now. It probably doesn't help that I don't play that many video games.

[the-original1.livejournal.com]

Allessia Faithhammer, of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II is blonde, and Vhaidra Uoswiir (a dark elf) in the same game has white hair.

[onyxblue1.livejournal.com]

The cleric of Helm in Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II is blonde. I don't remember her name . . . Arianna, maybe? That's pretty bad, because that's the character I'm playing now!

Yue Ying, Zhuge Liang's wife, in Dynasty Warriors V is a red-head, isn't she? It seems like there's one other female character who doesn't have black hair. Or do they not count because they are Asian?

[onyxblue1.livejournal.com]

I meant Allessia! I did! I just typed it wrong!

[the-original1.livejournal.com]

The elephant girl? Ah! Zhu Rong. That's her name.

[quisalan.livejournal.com]

As a browned haired woman, I have to applaud the video game creators ;).

I was going to suggest Alex Roivas from Eternal Darkness who does infact rock mightily, but she's already been mentioned in comments on the original post.

There are obviously blond characters in fighting games which match up to the men, but there do seem to be less blonde women.

However, rather than it necessarily being a stereotyping thing against blondes, it makes a lot of sense to me on marketing grounds: a large amount of the population of the world has dark hair due to ethnic backgrounds*.

A brown or black haired heroine makes the character easier to identify with in various areas of the world including Southern Europe, Asia and South America, either as 'partner' material or as self-identification. Blonde is very much a limited characteristic of Anglo-saxon or scandinavian descent, and therefore less marketable when trying to appeal to a mass audience not on sexual attraction but on the 'click' factor.

YMMV, however.

---
*Pale skin is often seen as attractive, hence characters having it

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

Alice Elliot from Shadow Hearts (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0e/Shadow_Hearts.jpg) was blonde.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Alex Roivas does indeed rock mightily.

Though is blonde not as attractive as pale skin is?

[lathany.livejournal.com]

I've not played Alice, but Lara, IMO, is a brunette.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Interesting that she got dismissed in the thread.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Although, when it comes to many of the DWV characters - they really aren't major enough, in my book to be heroes or heroines. There's only a few that qualify for that.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Yeah I agree it's not particularly in the realm of stereotyping for that reason. Particularly when it comes to Japanese games.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Good call. As was Karin from SHII.

[metame.livejournal.com]

I reckon at least half the lemmings would have been female, so that's quite a few with green hair...

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

Skies of Arcadia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skies_of_Arcadia) - both of the chicks, one is red (Aika) and the other blonde (Fina).

And Star Ocean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Ocean:_Till_the_End_of_Time), Till the End of Time has a red headed main character called Nel.

Both Japanese RPGs (one even from Square Enix) though so they might not count :-)

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Skies of Arcadia I haven't seen, but I don't think Nell counts as main as she is optional for your final party structure. She has lovely red hair though :-)

[lathany.livejournal.com]

I think lemmings clone, so it's arguable whether they are male or female. Either that or the Highest Birth Rate Ever.

[quisalan.livejournal.com]

Nope.

The reason (historically) that pale skin was attractive was that it was the sign of the aristocracy in that you didn't have to go outside in the fields to work. This does follow into most cultures as darker skinned people do get suntanned and get very much darker when exposed to sunshine. Pale Asian women are often nearly as white as caucasians.

Hence pale skin (especially on women) = wealth and therefore marriagability. This is standard across many cultures with any kind of heirachy, and then it just got absorbed into the popular culture as beautiful = white.

Nationality and racial stereotypes didn't have anything to do with it, hence blonde not being seen as particularly attractive, as that is a genetic thing linked to certain genotypes.

*realises your blondeness*

...Errr.. .blondes definitely more attractive.... ahhh... don't kill me!

;)

[quisalan.livejournal.com]

(that should have been therefore beautiful = pale, but YKWIM).

I.e. pale doesn't actually correlate to being caucasian.

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

Blonde does do well on the exotic front in a number of countries though and bleached blonde is considerably more common than natural blonde. If you just look round a metro in Madrid there's quite a lot of blonde, it's just that not much of it is natural.

On the paleness side of things, this is obviously where literature comes in :-)

``How very ill Eliza Bennet looks this morning, Mr. Darcy,'' she cried; ``I never in my life saw any one so much altered as she is since the winter. She is grown so brown and coarse! Louisa and I were agreeing that we should not have known her again.''

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

Ooh, no, definitely brown.

[ao-lai.livejournal.com]

Hmm...

Lenneth in Valkyrie Profile 1, and Silmeria / Alicia in 2.

(One of whom was in the 'Top 25 video game heroes of all time' link in the next post...)

[quisalan.livejournal.com]

*sniggers*

I really need to read Pride and Prejudice again - I read it once years and years ago, and barely remember it :)

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Lovely quote - I know it well.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

:-)