Can gaming's great women characters be written by men?

Polygon:
When Life is Strange is released on Jan. 30, publisher Square Enix will also make a free playable demo available.

It's a taster of the first 20-minutes or so of this Telltale-style episodic adventure. Life is Strange is the story of a high school student who returns to her hometown after a five-year absence, seeking to find her place in a complex social order, against the backdrop of a hunt for a missing teenage girl.

I urge you to try the demo. It's good fun. Also, this is one of those rare games that presents a woman in the lead role and a woman in the co-star role. In the demo I played, there are a number of interactions between central character Maxine Caulfield and other young women, as well as men. Such a thing ought not be noteworthy, but it is.

[PoSTedUP]

um, they were and have been in the past. i hate dumb and ignorant questions. smh journalism, gtfo.

[Muzikguy]

This is so stupid and I completely agree. It's like the writer just thought of some dumbazz question to stir up controversy and get hits. Well this is nothing new, as you pointed out. Terrible "journalism". Gender has nothing to do with how and if a writer can write

[lipton101]

Ridiculous question. Here's another brain buster: can literatures great women characters be written by men? Can hollywoods great female characters be written by men? The answer is yes... And here's how: "I think of a man, then take away reason and accountability." Lol. That's a Jack Nicholson quote from 'as good as it gets' btw, but seriously, yes. The author of this article should explore other fictional avenues to see that it's possible and common. Annie Hall anyone???
http://youtu.be/6Y9BukEBI9c

[StifflerK]

Can they...?

April Ryan from The Longest Journey (Ragnar Tornquist)
Alyx Vance from Half Life( Marc Laidlaw)
Glados from Portal (Erik Wolpaw/Chet Fasliszek)
Jade from Beyond Good and Evil (Michel Ancel)
Elaine Marley from Monkey Island (Tim Schafer)
Clementine from The Walking Dead (Sean Vanaman)

I'd say yes. Can female writers create good male characters?( Amy Hennig and Nate Drake) - also yes.

Dear 'Garme jurnalists' - stop shoehorning gender into everything. Thanks.

[mixelon]

Tbh it's the headline that messes it up, he's mostly talking about how Life Is Strange has weirdly man-written seeming girls in a game largely about two girls and it seems strange to him.. In that context it makes sense that he'd be thinking maybe a female writer could get a better hold on "teenage girl writing". - which is likely a more difficult type of writing to pull off than most action/adventure/fantasy stuff, as its more grounded in familiarity.

Can't really comment on that without bringing gender into it, but he could've used a less dumb title. It was pretty ponderous though and not really a statement that guys aren't good at it.

[StifflerK]

I can imagine they can write with greater intimacy about a character of the same gender based off past experiences.

But then again looking at famous authors, they're capable of writing fantastic characters of different genders (e.g Mary Shelley + Frankenstein) or even different species (Jack London + White Fang.)

Personally I think creating compelling characters is more down to the skill and capability of the writer rather than their gender.

[MysticStrummer]

Of course they can...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

; )

[mixelon]

What a silly headline considering the rest of the article. I guess it got people to notice.

He's referring to the future's great female characters, not the past's ones, though I guess he's questioning if some of them could have been done better/differently by female writers too.

[WeAreLegion]

Give it a rest, Polygon. We all agree that equality is important, but you can stop now.

[uth11]

If someone is a keen observer of human nature and a good writer, then I think that either gender could write great characters of either gender.

[BC_Master_Haze]

Writers must be able to step into any kind of persons shoes, I don't see how males writing females is any different from young writing old. Good writing is good writing, no one can get anywhere in the industry (be it film, games or literature) without showing diversity in their work :)

But no, polygon has to skewer everything to do with women in video games and blame it on men.

[ziggurcat]

what a stupid premise for an article... can gaming's great male characters be written by women? because the answer is the same for both of these questions:

yes.

the end.

[Adamon1]

Ellie from The Last of Us. Case closed.

[Heyxyz]

Many Women have written great male characters, so why can it be the other way around?

[mochachino]

Female and Male authors of novels can write incredible characters of the opposite sex so I imagine a video game writer wouldn't be any different. At least in principle. It often seems like videogame writers dropped out of school half way or something given how incredibly poor so many game stories are.

[just-joe]

http://i.gyazo.com/d38c443f...