Final Fantasy IX
Game
Documents about Final Fantasy IX
Article
Are You Lázaro? Picaresque Childhood in Baldur's Gate 3
This paper investigates the incorporation of elements from Picaresque literature, specifically the archetype of the "rogue child," into the computer role-playing game Baldur's Gate 3.
- The paper, presented at DiGRA 2024 by David Matencio Durán (University of Murcia), examines how the picaresque rogue child from Spanish literature (beginning with Lazarillo de Tormes) reappears in Baldur's Gate 3 (Larian Studios, 2023).
- The study argues that picaresque rogue children exposed institutional corruption and the suffering of society's most vulnerable, while their pranks and small crimes carried limited consequences because of their minor status.
- In Baldur's Gate 3, these traits are carried by a naive gang of tiefling children, a marginalized race in the game's world, reminiscent of Huckleberry Finn.
DiGRASep 2024
Article
"We Don't Want It Changed, Do We?": Gender and Sexuality in Role-Playing Games
Arne Schröder's 2008 case study examines how gender and sexuality are represented in the German role-playing series Gothic, drawing on feminist media theory (Mulvey, Butler) and ludological analysis.
- Only 6 of 101 named human characters (about 5.9%) in Gothic I are female, well below the roughly 20% average the author cites, and female representation falls to 9.1% in Gothic II.
- The author argues the Gothic series reproduces traditional gender dichotomies and compulsory heterosexuality rather than challenging them, with its masculinity functioning as a compensatory fantasy built around a hypermasculine action-hero archetype.
- Female characters who do appear are mostly confined to sexualized or domestic roles, such as serving male leaders or sweeping floors, are unavailable for conversation, and are sometimes framed for a voyeuristic male gaze.
Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game CultureSep 2008