What is on reflection really rather nice about the Reyvablog, I think, is that it's a piece of fiction where almost every character is female. Even out of the humans and Teru (who aren't necessitated to be female, unlike Reyvateils who basically only have one physical sex), there's a total of one male character, the human medical researcher Rigil (or Silver). It passes the Bechdel test several thousand times over. And, at least to my mind, it manages this without drawing attention to the idea that it's non-normative for fiction to do this.
Watching Dr Horrible recently, I remember thinking, "you know, if all the gender roles in this story were reversed, people would Notice. It would suddenly be a story about Female Villains and Female Heroes, not about villains and heroes." You can't have a story with a mostly female cast without people going, "whoa. Why is everyone female?" A mostly male cast, however, doesn't raise an eyebrow. Male is the unmarked category, the default, the average.
On the Reyvablog... there was actually no marked category, in my mind. The bloggers didn't stand out for being female; Rigil didn't stand out for being male. I forgot what gender winters was a lot. And that was nice. What was also nice was that it wasn't, to my mind, a very "girly" story at all; it wasn't a story About Lots Of Girls Who Do Girl Things. I suppose in part that was because it was more About Lots Of Reyvateils Who Do Reyvateil Things, but still, from a this-world standpoint it's refreshing. All-female casts can too often cause writers to force the story into being about Shopping and Fashion and Boys, as opposed to, you know, just normal people living their lives no matter what gender they are.
The Reyvablog was about some tough people, some fragile people, some educated people, some naive people, and plenty of people in between who spanned the whole spectrum of things people can do and be and think. They weren't constantly oohing over relationships or simpering or preening; nor did they consistently ignore things like being pretty or having partners. A lot of them didn't feel they needed partners to make their lives complete, and would rather not have had the ones they were forced to be with. One of them was basically the female equivalent of that guy you know who's always saying "lol, I'd tap that". (dhezeall was interesting to write, actually. A male character like her would, I think, have come off as at least a little bit bothersome and pushy; she was quasi-famous for saying to one character who described themselves physically, "great, now I have to imagine you sitting behind your keyboard being hot". She playfully hit on and innuendoed at the other characters a lot. She was never crude or demanding about it, though, and she would have stopped immediately if someone had expressed their dislike; and she was also very mature in other senses, and very kind. She took in a naive sixteen-year-old homeless girl and would cut out her normal way of bantering with people around her, because she was sixteen. But as a guy, I think she might have been intimidating just because of the history of the sexes.)
It was, ultimately, I think, a really good story about people and rights and the end of the world and all sorts of other things. It was a story about people, with an almost exclusively female cast. That's not often seen, and I'm proud of it.
Letra - Eldharia ~Inori Saku Mori~
2 months ago
19 comments:
I think you can only pass the Bechdel test once. After that, the attitude should be, "Well, why NOT have a mostly-female cast talking about non-girly things?"
She took in a naive sixteen-year-old homeless girl
I was thinking about this earlier: in a way, it's like she's paying forward what her friends did for her. Although she's serious enough about activism that she'd probably do it anyway.
Awwww! That's kind of true. I actually never thought about it like that, thinking she was just being an activist, but it's yet another of those little details that fits in. She has a very strong awareness that people need this, and she has always been the first to come forward and say "you can have my couch/floor", more than most people probably would. She practically sees it as her duty to give up floor space if she's got it.
She also talks about herself in third person from the spiritual plane, apparently...
XD!! Why did I log in as her? Habit... wow. XD
I guess in the sublimated world, she has less of a sense of herself as an isolated person and more of a sense of herself as part of a collective... so it makes sense for her to talk in third-person and in a really meta way, maybe? XD
(You know you have Reyvablog withdrawal when... you accidentally post as your characters on Cake Wrecks.)
Well, it would be a shame to never see those names again... And it's appropriate to have dhezeall post about her own character. ^_^ Who would know more about herself?
All-female casts can too often cause writers to force the story into being about Shopping and Fashion and Boys, as opposed to, you know, just normal people living their lives no matter what gender they are.
I don't see why that is. Even if a story did have an all-female cast, the author coudl write about something other than slice-of-life or romantic situations. Surely no one's life can be described entirely in terms of where they shop and who they date.
I didn't think of the Reyvablog as being remarkable in the Bechel test way because it was a story that told a story*. It seemed self-evident. I'm more surprised to hear that a lot of stories can apparently be written by recyling the same 3 topics any time there was a significant number of female cast members.
* And because I didn't know such a test existed.
It strikes me that it could be hard to apply that test meaningfully to RPs. In the average movie, it may not be just one person deciding the characters and course of events, but there's a level of central coordination. In RPs, you don't get the result of a planned design, you get the cumulative effects of everyone's personal ideas and reasons.
... Of course, with you having three female characters, you pass all by yourself.
I do kind of wonder what the distribution would be like if Reyvablog were based in a world where Reyvateils came in both male and female. (In fact, there's probably a lot of interesting possibilities there.)
I think "imagine what it'd be like if all the genders in the story were reversed" would be a useful test in general. I'm not sure what it's testing *for*, but it ought to tell you *something*.
The way you're describing dhezeall is kind of interesting, because I never really got that sort of felling off of her. Though I guess it could be partly due to the whole getting-people-mixed-up thing. But I kind of feel like I wouldn't have found her bothersome and pushy had she been a he, exactly because she wasn't crude, and it was friendly.
(Actually, things like "I'd tap that" or the more-common-where-I-see-it "I'd hit that" really annoy me. They both sound like things for doing to enemies. I much prefer the straightforward and honest "I would go to bed with her!")
(Deciare)
Even if a story did have an all-female cast, the author coudl write about something other than slice-of-life or romantic situations.
Hey, slice of life is a lot more than those things too! */stare Lucky Star dvds*
Deciare: I don't think it's that people can't write such plots as that it's a stereotype that society, and by extension individual writers (who are often male and entrenched in stereotypes and also want to write what sells, and they believe that this sells because it's all that gets written and thus all that is selling, etc. etc.), buy into. And there's so much of this out there already that people tend to notice if a story bucks the trend, and think it's strange, therefore it doesn't get written in the future....
winters: Unless we're discounting dhezeall on the grounds that she identifies as Reyvateil more than female, I have four female characters? I have four biologically female characters, anyway: AR, neonsunray, heartofharmony and dhezeall. Hard to say whether she's female or not; she kind of rejects the gender binary but at the same time prefers female pronouns, doesn't mind her female body, etc. I guess she's sort of someone who is happy to be a different kind of person from the one you'd normally expect to live in a female body, that is happy with that body but not the same as other females. Or something. A "guy inside who's happy being a girl outside", as opposed to someone outright transgendered and wanting to change.
I guess... huh. Maybe think of her as like a guy from a post-sexism society who would theoretically not have their masculinity threatened if they woke up one day as a girl, and would actually find it kind of hot. That's her.
And I don't think she would actually be likely to say "I'd tap that". :) She doesn't like to objectify; she's more about the lust than the trophyism, for reasons that, well, she's an activism and she's seen enough of trophyism. She might be lustful enough to be her own cardinal sin, but she sees the people she lusts after as people.
Perhaps the explaination is that I forgot heartofharmony was one of your characters. Yes, that seems quite possible. ^_^;;;
The gender identity stuff is a topic of real interest to me, but I need to get some sleep now, so it'll have to wait...
Sleep needs to happen eventually. I'll look forward to your further thoughts! Hope you're resting well. ♫
On the topic of "wanting to make things that sell"...
We make videogames for a living. The vast majority of the videogame industry caters very heavily towards the 18-30 male demographic, because that is where the majority of the money comes from. This becomes something of a cycle, as games are designed with that in mind, and so are designed to appeal to that demographic, and so they sell primarily to the demographic they are targeting, etc.
It is incredibly difficult to convince someone making a console game to even just simply make the protagonist female. We've had that discussion with producers and designers in the past, and it has been a futile exercise every time. "Men don't want to play a female avatar." goes the general wisdom. It is commonly seen as "disturbing" and "an affront to the player's masculinity". At very best, we get a "...but it's okay so long as she's totally hot. I mean, if you've got the choice between staring at man-ass for hours while playing the game, or checking out a hot chick, maybe it's not so bad, right?" Because as we know, the purpose of women in media is to provide eye-candy.
Here's to hoping beyond hope that AT3 gets the female protagonist that it seems that it might. It's entirely possible that the protagonist will be male again, following the same formula as the first two, but the series plot seems set up to suggest a very specific female protagonist, which would be just great. Imagine the things that could be done in this setting...
But yeah, the moment you're piloting a female avatar through cosmospheres and convo topics, people are probably going to freak out, so it's probably hoping too much.
@winters:
I think "imagine what it'd be like if all the genders in the story were reversed" would be a useful test in general. I'm not sure what it's testing *for*, but it ought to tell you *something*.
Yeah, I think about that too, sometimes. Situations that are entirely common that may suddenly seem exceptionally good or exceptionally bad if the genders of the people involved were reversed. It highlights the kind of things that are simply expected of given genders without good reason, ironically like privilege checklists.
@Ayulsa:
She took in a naive sixteen-year-old homeless girl and would cut out her normal way of bantering with people around her, because she was sixteen.
Hehe. I may be older, but I can easily feel more good-natured warmth and stability radiating from dhezeall than your description seemed to suggest. I've liked her since the beginning, even on the occasions we were arguing against each other. She just obviously cares so much about what she believes and the reasons she believes them. I can't imagine her being any kind of callous, and your description of her bothersome-ness and pushiness seemed totally out of the left field (though I could see why you thought so after you pointed it out).
But as a guy, I think she might have been intimidating just because of the history of the sexes.
I wonder... I've seen speculation that a male Reyvateil would be more inclined toward "thought" than "feeling". There's a thread somewhere on the forum where ilutiern tried to design a sort-of dialect for male Reyvatiels based on that concept... But thinking first rather than feeling first shouldn't interfere with their ability to sense each other's intent and be comforted from it.
@chimerae:
A good excuse already exists to feature a male protagonist in At3, given what has been hinted at about the society of the third Tower. There's never been a more expectable time to feature a lone hero belonging to an extreme minority fighting against the establishment. ^_^ That'd be a shame, though, because it's been shown that they can tell better stories than that.
I'd rather have a protagonist who is comfortable with social environment around Tyria's Tower, rather than someone who insists that isn't the way it should be. I'm curious about the canonical interpretation of the way Reyvateils relate to each other as a common fact of society (the other two games were much more focused on the way Reyvateils relate to their own inner selves or to humans, with exceptions for specific characters). What would they do for fun, what would they dream of becoming, and what do they choose to expect of themselves without having to live according to the human standard of how society ought to be structured?
But yeah, the moment you're piloting a female avatar through cosmospheres and convo topics, people are probably going to freak out, so it's probably hoping too much.
? I've sensed some discomfort indicating this might be the case, but do you know any specific reasons as to why? I hope it runs deeper than a vague discomfort with affectionate relationships between female characters. Especially since I agree with dhezeall that the quality of being female can be secondary to the quality of being a Reyvateil. ^_^
chimerae: Whoa, pretty awesome! I don't think I've ever actually met anyone who had that job before. Is it the dream job people in fandom seem to think it is, or...?
As for dhezeall... hmm, I didn't mean to suggest to anyone that I thought she was a bad person! She's not; she's one of my favourite characters, and she's, like I said, a very kind, mature person. I was just musing that a male version of her might have come off that way, and that perhaps, also, a male version of her might have had less freedom to act as she does without it actually meaning something different. It's like saying of a captain who takes a firm tone with people, "she'd have been jerkish if she'd been a subordinate doing the same thing", or of a black person who says the N-word, "he'd have been a lot more offensive if he'd been a white guy doing that". Even playfully hitting on people, with no ill intent, is more problematic for men to do than women because it can be threatening to women. dhezeall doesn't have the institutionally- and societally-backed power and image that would make her particularly intimidating when she says such things, and she knew that and so she reasoned it was okay-- so she's not a bad person at all. But a guy doing that, particularly in an otherwise all-female environment, may have come off as oppressive. Or not-- it's hard to say, and was really just a speculation. But she's a nice person, and she is warm and stable, and I'm really glad people can feel that from her. ^_^
I'd rather have a protagonist who is comfortable with social environment around Tyria's Tower, rather than someone who insists that isn't the way it should be. I'm curious about the canonical interpretation of the way Reyvateils relate to each other as a common fact of society (the other two games were much more focused on the way Reyvateils relate to their own inner selves or to humans, with exceptions for specific characters). What would they do for fun, what would they dream of becoming, and what do they choose to expect of themselves without having to live according to the human standard of how society ought to be structured?
All of this. One of my favourite things ever in fiction is exploring alternate, particularly non-human, cultures, and I'm worried that AT3 will write off a Reyvateil-run culture as "not how it should be" even though human-run cultures aren't treated the same way. (Sure, the human-dominated culture is flawed in AT1, but no one throws up their hands and goes "it's all because humans are running things!", whereas I worry that the Reyvateil culture will be treated as "when Reyvateils create an imbalance of power, things go wrong" without realisation that human culture did just that and it was just as bad. See also the OP in this thread: when humans/men run a culture, that's normal, and if it goes wrong the individual is blamed. When aliens/non-humans/women run a culture, people Notice, and if it goes wrong the species or gender is blamed-- "women can't do anything right!")
I also really want to see you-know-who as a protagonist, since the series is so perfectly setting up for it. I'd like to hope we can avoid a squick about girl-girl relationships, too. After all, AT2 featured enough girl-girl UST to power a warp drive; they don't seem shy.
I've sensed some discomfort indicating this might be the case, but do you know any specific reasons as to why? I hope it runs deeper than a vague discomfort with affectionate relationships between female characters. Especially since I agree with dhezeall that the quality of being female can be secondary to the quality of being a Reyvateil. ^_^
Masculine aversion to feminine avatars (except when objectified) is a pretty large discussion-space to explore, but to summarize, it's mostly just a matter of society being hypersensitive about gender roles and sexuality. If we start from the assumption that sex implies gender role implies sexual preference, and work our way back to what it means for a man to play a woman's role, in adopting a female avatar, a player is also adopting feminine gender roles, which is taboo to begin with. Even beyond that, though, there's also the fact that heterosexuality is the default position, and that exploring a woman's role would imply a (gay!!!) attraction to men. Lesbianism, however, is more accepted by society, so long as everyone is pretty, fits into their proper gender roles, and is "properly" objectified.
This is, of course, a pile of gross generalizations, built upon a mountain of assumptions. It's not just about "omg gay!", and in fact there exist heterosexual people who are okay with exploring heterosexual relationships from the other side, or even (rarer) homosexual relationships. Regardless, choosing a female protagonist will narrow the audience down from "18-30yo (assumed straight) men" to "18-30yo (still assumed straight) men who are comfortable with being a (also assumed straight) woman for the purposes of this game".
It's sort of depressing to try to deconstruct this particular social phenomenon, as in doing so, we run into so, so many unflattering assumptions. These assumptions aren't even right as often as people think, but still, we carry on as if they were Objective Truth.
If AT3 were to end up the story of a male, human freedom fighter combatting (directly, with his sword) oppression in Tyria's region, it could very easily devolve into "bogeyman feminism" territory or some sort of blase Terminator clone, and it could also distract from the many other interesting things that could happen there... but we can't really begrudge them their exploration of oppression of any sort, even if we'd rather hear more about Reyvateil culture and society. After all, that's what makes the games interesting!
Re: how's life in games, it's fun work and the people are interesting. It also comes with its own set of annoying problems, but if nothing else, it makes for interesting conversation fodder. Oh, the stories we could tell... but this comment is way too long already!
Heh, never worry about long comments here. This blog's alllll about the lengthy discussion. :)
in adopting a female avatar, a player is also adopting feminine gender roles, which is taboo to begin with.
*nods* All of what you've said here makes (a sad sort of) sense from what I've seen of society. Which is part of why I'm pretty pleased with the direction dhezeall's gender identity went in; realising I could describe her as "a guy-ish person who's comfortable with a lot of things about being outwardly female, as long as you don't also expect her to stop acting like a guy" was rather nice. She blurs gender a lot; she's not exclusively masculine or exclusively feminine, but she enjoys bits of both because, hey, life's a buffet bar and snacks of all kinds are yummy.
I didn't set out to develop her that way; it was only pretty recently that she even started pondering her gender at all, and by the time she was thinking about it there was enough of her present as a person that I didn't have to make something up for her but could just explore what was there. If I'd made her up from whole cloth instead of letting her grow, she might have turned out to be something different than she was; I don't think I could have consciously invented a character whose idea of gender is so nuanced and contains so many little subtleties and priorities that even I'm still working out where she stands.
Lesbianism, however, is more accepted by society, so long as everyone is pretty, fits into their proper gender roles, and is "properly" objectified.
...that last bit made me want to lose my lunch. :x
If AT3 were to end up the story of a male, human freedom fighter combatting (directly, with his sword) oppression in Tyria's region
...I think I would cry. I mean, AT's been pretty good about this so far: the big lesson Lyner took away from it all was that the truly big problems in life aren't solved by hitting things but by extending compassion, and Croix wasn't especially weapon-happy. I think to go from that to "I will transform this ignorant wom-- uh, Reyvateil-dominated fascist regime using the POWER OF MY MANLY SWORD" would make me curl up into a tiny ball until it all went away. I really hope the treatment of their society isn't one-dimensional, and I hope that if Jakuri has something to say about it all, that she doesn't end up as an unfortunate mouthpiece for "I realise it was wrong for Reyvateils to have any power". IMHO, that would be a huge step back from where the previous games have gone.
(Ayulsa)
I guess she's sort of someone who is happy to be a different kind of person from the one you'd normally expect to live in a female body, that is happy with that body but not the same as other females. Or something.
Sounds like what I kind of think of as "femaleness vs. femininity". Femaleness isn't just comfort with being in a female body, but I think that's part of it. It doesn't seem unusual to me that someone would have one and not the other, but then *I'm* in a similar position, and I tend to consider myself normal anytime I wouldn't find it more amusing to do otherwise. `.`
And I don't think she would actually be likely to say "I'd tap that". :) She doesn't like to objectify
Hmmm. I don't even get to the point of thinking about whether it sounds objectifying or not, I just think it sounds *stupid*. I can't remember the details, but I once saw a drawing that was something like a girl holding a hockey stick up in the air, with the caption "She'd hit you." And you know, why would you say something that sounds like any number of rather nonsensical and unrelated things when what you mean is "I would go to bed with her"? (Or "him", for that matter.) It makes no sense to me.
(chimerae)
I mean, if you've got the choice between staring at man-ass for hours while playing the game, or checking out a hot chick, maybe it's not so bad, right?
Sounds similar to what someone on another forum I frequent called "Digital Butt Syndrome". Though in that case, it was mostly about the game City of Heroes, where your character can be whichever gender you want for whatever reason suits you.
(It was also supposed to have something to do with the Mithra in FFXI too. Though to me it doesn't explain the lack of male Mithra, since that tail-swinging animation ought to work just as well for them. And if there were male mithra characacters, I might just say I would go to bed with them... As it is, I find almost all the male character designs in that game to be pretty ugly, and I see no reason why that should be...)
Of course, in MMORPGs you also get players making choices like that to either avoid attention or to get attention. And in CoH, with the way it encourages people to come up with stories for their characters more than many games, sometimes it's just the ideas that dictate it. I have all female characters, because that's what the concepts I have for use work with. (The concepts for male characters that I have also require powersets that either don't exist, or I don't want to play, thus I haven't made those characters.)
Of course, in a way it seems funny to me to think about attractiveness at all for CoH characters, because when I'm playing I hardly even notice my character. There's too much *else* to do. Unlike FFXI, where I get plenty of opportunities to be mesmerized by my Mithra character's tail...
(Deciare)
Situations that are entirely common that may suddenly seem exceptionally good or exceptionally bad if the genders of the people involved were reversed.
Hmmm. It's not really just good or bad, but would something seem *weird* if you did it. Take Ranma 1/2 for instance, since it's a series where people have actually written full-cast-genderswap fic. It ends up... actually being just as weird as the original. Different details, same story.
Of course, there's also the question of, when you swap the genders, just how much are you swapping? Take the story "Harry Potter and the Distaff Side". In that story, *everything* is reversed. Things that are considered masculine behavior in this world are considered feminine there, and vice versa. So there'd actually be no major difference between the worlds... If you didn't have someone from one world end up in the other. The incongruities and foolish assumptions that end up being shown would likely be much the same if it had been Harriet who was transported to Harry's world.
But take something like, say, Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~. Are you switching personality traits too? Hazumu in the "mainline" is a rather shy and feminine boy at the start. A brash and tomboyish girl in his place would likely take the story in an entirely different direction - in fact, that girl probably wouldn't have been run into by a spaceship. On the other hand, Hazumu as a shy and feminine girl doesn't seem to stand out as much... and then where do things go from there?
Also, a series with "Boy Meets Boy" in the title is probably going to end up marketed to a rather different audience...
(Aaand back to Ayulsa)
Even playfully hitting on people, with no ill intent, is more problematic for men to do than women because it can be threatening to women.
Seems like it's a case of, the action (taken without context) can be the same, the intent behind it can be the same, but the interpretation can be different due to... well, what really comes down to awareness of past events that didn't actually happen to the people currently being looked at. Which apparently can lead to men in such a situation being less comfortable with actually doing such an action, because they're aware that the interpretation could be tainted.
It's a rather nasty contradiction. On the one hand, awareness of past context is important, because there are people who will still try to pull that sort of thing. But applying it to people without that intent can screw you up. Without being able to know what people are really thinking, no matter what you choose will be wrong sometimes. So which set of consequences for error are you willing to live with?
(Though I should note that I have no real-world experience with hitting on or being hit on by anyone. `.` )
(And to chimerae once again!)
If AT3 were to end up the story of a male, human freedom fighter combatting (directly, with his sword) oppression in Tyria's region,
Personally, my hopes are on it being the story of a female Reyvateil freedom fighter. `.`
As I've mentioned some other places, I get the feeling that there's something *seriously* wrong on the Tower of Tyria. Not because Reyvateils are in charge, but because it's a screwed up arrangement in it's own right, and would be just as screwed up if you switched it all around. (It should also probably be noted that I see the culture in AT1 as a *lot* less human-dominated and screwed up than Ayulsa does. `.` )
If the situation and main charactere are what I'm thiking of, I think it would really highlight that it's not who's in charge that's the problem, but what they're doing.
(Ayulsa once again.)
I hope that if Jakuri has something to say about it all, that she doesn't end up as an unfortunate mouthpiece for "I realise it was wrong for Reyvateils to have any power".
And I'll be screaming just as loudly as you if Jakuri ends up saying something like that.
...
Wait, I don't think it'd be possible for anyone to scream as loudly as you would if that happened. Okay, well, I'll still scream pretty loudly. ^_-
Sounds like what I kind of think of as "femaleness vs. femininity". Femaleness isn't just comfort with being in a female body, but I think that's part of it. It doesn't seem unusual to me that someone would have one and not the other, but then *I'm* in a similar position, and I tend to consider myself normal anytime I wouldn't find it more amusing to do otherwise. `.`
*nods* I mean, a lot of people identify as non-feminine females who are nonetheless okay with having female bodies. I think dhezeall takes it a bit further than most "tomboys", but from one perspective she doesn't really act more masculine than a butch lesbian (and in many respects acts more feminine); the real difference is in how she thinks about herself. Put another way, to an outsider she might not seem genderqueer because she doesn't behave in ways that seriously mess with people's concept of gender, but I think that's how she internally thinks of it.
a player is also adopting feminine gender roles, which is taboo to begin with.
This is oppression. I doubt many guys would feel bad about adoping feminine gender roles if society didn't keep telling them that it'd be weird for them to do so. Fleeing from everything that seems to imply an ambiguous or feminine gender roles is a characteristic unique to societies that prize manly men. In a little more time, they'll find themselves left with very limited choices for how they wish to live and present themselves. It's really depressing to see that very few people want to acknowledge that a dead end lies further in that direction.
"I will transform this ignorant wom-- uh, Reyvateil-dominated fascist regime using the POWER OF MY MANLY SWORD"
XD! That's so ridiculous, it sounds more like a deliberate parody than a failed attempt at a proper sequel. While a story about Reyvateils oppressing other Reyvateils may be interesting toward exploring the intents and programming with which the Origins were created (and it would be interesting to hear the official story behind why Origins were sent (or chose to move) to foreign and presumably hostile countries from El Elemia. Also, if they have a reason for being other than managing the Tower. Shurelia seems unnaturally eager to support humans to the exclusion of supporting Reyvateils, for example), I don't see THE POWER OF anyone's MANLY SWORD being part of the solution. Well, it may be part of the solution to some switch puzzles, but that would still be a downgrade from Green Magic.
when you swap the genders, just how much are you swapping? [...] In that story, *everything* is reversed. [...] Are you switching personality traits too?
Interesting questions. I don't generally expect society to change along with the gender swapping unless everyone in that world is swapped, in which case I can imagine why that would be a reasonable outcome. Swapping all the abstract gender roles in the world without touching the people's gender identities might be interesting too; would a world whose societies have been built around those reversed (from our perspective) gender roles from the beginning have any tendency to gravitate toward what is considered normative in our world?
As for switching personality traits, that's something I haven't ever thought about. I consider a character's personality to be one of the most important elements that define who they are, so a personality-swapped character is unlikely to feel anything like the same character to me, even if their personalities eventually reach the same endpoint as the story runs its course.
Well, it may be part of the solution to some switch puzzles, but that would still be a downgrade from Green Magic.
Maybe you could have both. Some switches you have to hit with a sword, some you have to set on fire...
(I actually didn't miss it when AT2 didn't have much of that sort of thing though. But I did find it inordinately amusing when the square button was used to control the... garbage-removal device. One of those little things that seem funny only if you've played AT1.)
Hey, AT2 doesn't have any main characters who use a sword, does it? Croix uses a spear. Cocona... well, the way she uses it in combat looks kind of staff-like. (Although, with the way it seems able to change length, sprout blades, and such, maybe it's more like an Intelligent Device...) Leglius has moves that look like yo-yo fighting, when he's not just bashing things. Amarie uses a bow. And Shun... he does things the old-fashioned way. No swords in the bunch. How many RPG cliches does it dodge right there?
I don't generally expect society to change along with the gender swapping unless everyone in that world is swapped
Nor I, really. I think "Distaff Side" is the only story I've seen that's done it. Or the only one that's stood out, anyway.
I consider a character's personality to be one of the most important elements that define who they are, so a personality-swapped character is unlikely to feel anything like the same character to me
Doing it well seems to be hard. But I think I have seen some stories where the author swapped just the gender-stereotype related ones, and seemed to retain the essence of the character to me. Still, I suspect it's something that would be interesting more often as a mental exercise than as a basis for a fic - and if one did make a fic out of it, they might have a hard time staying out of "might as well be original fiction" territory.
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