And Collette from Les Miserables was just words. So what -- Hugo envisioned her as a beautiful woman, and so she was one in that fictional world -- and every movie has portrayed her as exactly that. Nobody tried to claim that Samus is real -- she IS fiction, but so are many artforms, yet they can still be envisioned as real. That's what art does.
I don't mind one bit if you want to go start making games with female characters whose beauty marks are warts, thin hair, and inverted breasts. But trying to reinvent Samus as one of those in this case makes no sense -- it isn't what she has been EVER.
You'd be hardpressed to find someone who is willing to look beyond big boobs and a thin bare midrift as I am -- heck, a girl I seriously dated for a while was born with no legs. But that doesn't change anything about what I said -- the average guy knows what I mean when I say "ideal womanly form", and even if he cannot verbalize it, he knows it when he sees it. That doesn't mean he's under the illusion that every woman is like that, anymore than a woman thinks every guy has to be like Leon Kennedy -- nor does every man think that that level of beauty has to be there to find a woman attractive. Now I am sorry if this offends your worldview, Zeno, but artful representations don't always portray an absolute stoic reality. Sometimes they represent ideals -- fantasies -- they aren't always existential "slice of life" portrayals.
[QUOTE=Atarifever]Whatever you write here about "beauty and brawn" and her not having to be naked, I'd guess you wouldn't bet your life on what the chances are she'll be wearing anything but skin tight spandex/leather, a short skirt, or a bikini.[/QUOTE]
I can't imagine anything wrong with that -- she wore a bikini in the best ending of the original game too. So what -- she wore a bikini -- OH THE SHAME! How unjust this world is that an attractive woman should wear a bikini and then find a fanbase. God knows, we should reinvent Samus as the average homebody who has mostly inner-beauty as a selective tax on the world of entertainment to correct this horrible injustice!
[QUOTE=Atarifever]A male actor stands a good chance in the industry even if he's ugly. How many Rob Schnider, Kevin James, and Steve Bushimis are there in female versions? Now how many of them play anything besides "that ugly girl"? This silliness is just another part of that. In fact, it's worse because now the woman doesn't even have to be able to exist for men to start fawning over her.[/QUOTE]
Oh I am sure whoever plays Samus will exist
And last I checked, Steve Bushemi didn't play that many romatic leads in place of Leonardo DiCaprio, so I really don't know how your analogy applies. His roles are usually the ugly sinister guy, who is really witty in a sociopathic sort of way. Nor did Ron Howard's younger brother get any parts I can remember outside of the ugly, crazy, manical, or nerdy guy who acts as the Shakespearean clown.[QUOTE=Atarifever]Also, regarding her portrayal as an attractive woman to the limits of the technology, I don't think the NES did that. People might think that was the idea, due to her being in a bikini, but come on. She was obviously put in a two piece to show that, you know, she was a woman. On 8 bit hardware what was the other option? Putting her in a dress (yeah, she wears a dress under the suit, that'd make sense)? Making the surprise be that she was Princess Peach? It wasn't to make her attractive. It was to make you realize Samus was a girl.[/QUOTE]
Metroid was one of the first games for the NES -- and so yes, for its time it really pushed the limits of what we generally saw on consoles. Comparing Samus to Princess Peach, Samus' portrayal at the end of Metroid wins the virtual beauty contest, given that all things are pixelated.
By the way, I don't know if you actually saw these or not -- but Samus was not put in a dress in any of the available endings for the original game, nor for any game I can remember until very recently. The original game for instance offered you either her suit (if you spent too much time on the game, effectively not telling you she was really a girl), a purple leotard (for less than a few hours), and a bikini (for the best ending). Heck -- I hope this doesn't rock your world, but I am almost certain that you can see her nipples in both the leotard and the bikini endings. *GASP* For that matter, even the zero suit endings now show her in a very revealing blue leotard. And her form is hardly "average" in those endings
Since repetition is the best form of emphasis, let me reiterate that I am fully informed that Samus Aran is not a real person (just like Mother Brain, Space Pirates, and Metroids are not real). But it is very clear that her portrayal has BEEN of a very beautiful woman -- not a generally unattractive one or even one of average looks. I am not implying in the least that I regularly become aroused when I reach a good Metroid ending, but I am still left with the undeniable impression in each of those endings that Samus is consistently portrayed as being in the top 1% of the gene pool, and not just the C-average of the bell curve.
