#except here its fsr about femininity??? like what does being feminine or not have to do with being a good character

[akimojo]

Every time I stumble across someone trying to argue on whether lightning or serah is the better protagonist I wanna bang my head against the wall

[fyresaber]

#except here its fsr about femininity??? like what does being feminine or not have to do with being a good character #i dont get it at all

the bias towards serah and other ff women over lightning is about femininity actually. they uphold archaic societal norms and expectations of femininity palatable by men, which ff itself has trailblazed for decades, that makes them easy, comfortable, and nonconfrontational to stan, while lightning challenges them. soft, docile, conciliatory, sacrificial, always forgiving, a pacifist princess who exists to heal and motivate the men around her, biting back only to the extent it’s quirky and cute, a healer or white mage or archer, prude and innocent, loyal to her one man, the perfect non-threatening morsel for the male gamer’s appetite. and that’s not to say these things are bad, or that serah isn’t more than this phenotype (i’ll be the first to paint her with more complexity), or that lightning isn't these things underneath. but to absolve these characters of the men who wrote them, divorce them from the male society and the audience they seek to serve, and downplay critique into "stop pitting women together!!1!" is not progressive nor revolutionary, and in fact disserves the feminist agenda i appropriate xiii for. you have to acknowledge these tropes exist to uphold the subjugation of women, and play a role in why lightning’s been hated, demonized, reduced to the “cool girl” trope, “woke try hard feminist girlboss propaganda,” so easily since her first debut. it’s not about which one’s a ‘good character’ or not, it’s about the rampant misogyny that’s plagued the fantasy genre since its inception, to the point that it’s subliminal.

and making two women kiss and makeup and “be sisters 🥰🥰” isn’t the solution either! that’s just making a comfy house of our cage. it’s the easy way out.

Every time I stumble across someone trying to argue on whether lightning or serah is the better protagonist I wanna bang my head against the wall