“Fantastic!”
Theme Music
This episode comes with a content warning
for game footage involving
hypersexualized female characters
and is not recommended for children.
As always, remember that it is both
possible and even necessary
to be critical of the media we enjoy.
That’s going to be especially
important to keep in mind
given the video game franchise
we are about to discuss…
In 1987 Nintendo released a 2D
action adventure game for their
Nintendo Entertainment System
which departed
from traditional video game conventions.
Metroid starred a bounty hunter
named Samus Aran
who is covered head to toe in the
now iconic cybernetic “power suit”.
The game’s manual referred to the
protagonist with male pronouns
and described his identity as
“shrouded in mystery”.
Metroid was notable as an
early example of a game
that employed multiple alternative
endings which could be unlocked
based on the player’s gaming
skill and performance.
If the player is able to complete
the game in under five hours
a short cutscene will play featuring the
protagonist without their armored helmet,
revealing that Samus Aran is, in fact,
a woman.
This was a significant moment
in gaming history,
especially for many female gaming fans,
because, at the time,
nearly all protagonists were just
assumed to be male by default.
Remember this was back
before the internet,
when you couldn’t just hop online to find
out about all the secrets and spoilers,
so for many players, the ending of
Metroid came as a genuine surprise.
Still, the subversion only worked
provided players were skilled enough
to achieve the surprise ending.
In retrospect, Samus’ gender reveal perhaps
should not have been as shocking as it was,
considering that Metroid is
heavily influenced by the Alien films.
Sadly the alternate endings
did not stop there
the two “best” endings make Metroid
one of the first games
to exploit the Women as Reward trope,
as both reveal Samus
in various states of undress.
The better a player does,
the more clothing is removed.
If the player completes the game in under
3 hours Samus is shown without her armor
and in a leotard.
If the player finishes in under 1 hour
they are treated to Samus in a bikini.
So yes, Samus wasn’t a damsel’ed woman
waiting at the end of the game as a trophy
rather, her body itself became the prize
awarded to players for a job well done.
Later games in the Metroid series
continued the convention of
rewarding players with endings featuring
Samus in various states of undress.
In one sense Samus Aran definitely did
subvert traditional gender tropes
of the 1980s by taking on the role
of intrepid hero.
However she and her body were still
presented to players as prizes to be won.
The convention, of earning access to
cutscenes or ending vignettes
with eroticized female bodies can be found
in many titles over the past 30 years.
“Apollo”
“Whoa! Whoa!”
(Audience laughter)
“Oh!”
We can trace the roots of the
Women as Reward trope all the way back
to the beginnings of the medium itself.
As we discussed in our
damsel in distress mini-series,
upon successful completion
of many arcade games
players were rewarded with the
related Smooch of Victory trope, so named
for the kiss the hero received as a reward
for rescuing a kidnapped princess.
Sometimes the prize is blatant as with the
Standard Hero Reward
in which a king will give his
daughter to the hero.
On other occasions, it’s taken a step further
by employing the parallel
Sex of Victory or Rescue Sex trope.
Yes, it’s exactly what you think it is:
instead of a kiss, sex with the rescued
victim is the player’s reward.
“That was gonna get ugly. You saved us!”
“My pleasure, ladies.”
“Thank you, thank you. Thank you.”
“You saved my life. A bit of joy as
recumpence is not too much to ask.”
“I’m intrigued. It’s been a tough day.
I think some joy might do me good.”
(Moaning)
We’ve coined the Women as Reward trope
to describe a long-running pattern
found in interactive media.
It occurs when women
or more often women’s bodies
are employed as rewards for
player actions in video games.
The trope frames female bodies as
collectible, as tractable or as consumable
and positions women as status symbols
designed to validate the masculinity
of presumed straight male players.
There’s some overlap between the
Damsel in Distress and Women as Reward
but they function differently.
While the Damsel in Distress
trope uses women
as a plot device to motivate male heroes,
the Women as Reward trope presents women
as a formalized reward mechanism,
meaning that the reward is coded
into the game system itself.
The result of this incentive structure is
that access to women’s bodies,
women’s affection or women’s sexuality is
reduced to a simple equation that guarantees
delivery as long as the correct set of
inputs are entered into the system.