After waxing poetic about sexualized heroines in games, and extolling the virtues of courage in storytelling, I find myself backed into a corner.

Whatever I do, I will be an asshole. Here’s the story:

I wanted to create a good female character. Someone who was respectable, strong, competent, yet feminine. I endowed my creation with a strong trunk, breasts of normal size and shape, strong legs, feminine hips.

Well, first it turns out that athletic women are pretty skinny, especially from the side, which happens to the primary angle of this game:

(See the rest of the latest renders here)

So she may be skinny, but the activity of the game requires that she be really athletic, so I give myself a pass. She may be young, but the storyline requires that she be on the cusp of marriage so it’s out of my hands.

Still, I’m feeling a little uncomfortable about having a young, attractive female lead.

The Straw

Now here’s the “courage” part–the last straw that really makes me look like an asshole.

The pre-European Māori had very different nudity taboos than we do. They had essentially two articles of clothing: a pui pui skirt, which is sort of like one of those Hawaiian grass skirts, and a rectangular shawl that they would drape over their shoulders. They had other things like feather cloaks for special occasions and high ranking people, but those weren’t common.

Generally speaking, they didn’t wear clothes if it was at all inconvenient, and in fact had a cultural belief that clothing spread disease (which was often true in those days). Often warriors would go to war in the nude. Swimming was done in the nude. Lots of athletic activities which a skirt would interfere with would require nudity. Raining? Go naked!

Also, the concept of female breasts being covered differently than males’ is purely European. Often the small shoulder wrap would cover only one breast because of the way it was worn, over one shoulder.

The reality is that if she were on a quest requiring running, climbing, jumping, etc., Kōtiro would most probably go naked or nearly naked.

The courageous thing to do would be to own that, and to show a nude female main character. Because of my audience, however, that would also be sexualizing her in a way I specifically wanted to avoid. Not to mention the practical implications of getting people to distribute and play a game with nudity that is not also about nudity.

So, I’m either a coward or a pervert, and either way I’m a hypocrite.

I think what I’m going to do for the sake of my audience is cover her with a skirt and shawl and just ignore the fact that they aren’t terribly realistic in context. On the other hand, that clothing is still skimpy at best, so maybe by trying to compromise I’m being a cowardly hypocrite perv.

What would you do?