Hi IronStylus - seriously, thank you for reading this and for considering variety in female body types, etc. It's great to see this getting some attention!

My pet peeve related to this topic is a recent change - the Soraka redesign. To me, it's taken a character who was not previously hyper-sexualised, who was a little bit ageless (in that kind of creepy way), and replaced her with a kind of vapid-looking T&A 18-year-old. This seems very much counter to your goals of creating greater variety and less objectified characters! Don't get me wrong - the art itself is lovely, and the remodel...well, I don't love the colour choice, but I don't have to! But the change in the presentation of the character is huge, and to me very negative. What were your thoughts around this redesign?

While you're (hopefully) listening - more variety is absolutely what we need. A similar three archetypes for female characters would be great - at the moment we seem to have one archetype with differing amounts of clothing. Something like the Diablo 3 barbarian would be great, in terms of body type - stocky and powerful. Sejuani would actually have been a great candidate for this.

I think the fundamental thing is that there is a difference between 'attractive' and 'sexy' - and while sexy isn't a bad thing in and of itself, when it's all that's available it feels very objectifying, and makes playing a little bit uncomfortable for even a hardcore female fan.

But things are changing, constantly.
Did you see what he said about Diana? I think that's an awesome step in the direction this thread really wants.

Perhaps with the next female champ release we'll see more!

Can we please have a female Draven-like character?

His self-absorbed, egotistical, showy personality is awesome.

Just would like to point out something that we were disussing (myself and the OP). Clothes or lack thereof do not truly equate to sexualization.

When talking about sexualization, it's all about the pose and it's REALLY frustrating when a character like fiora has an obviously sexualized pose (the broke back pose specifically because it looks like she's breaking her back to show both breasts and butt) but she's wearing plenty.


The main issue with this assumption is that it creates some rather unfortunate implications about women who dress in a similar manner. In feminist circles, that assumption is usually called sl*t-shaming and isn't looked on kindly, so it's something to keep in mind when discussing this topic.


Remember, the keyword is diversity when it comes to female champs. Not that we can't have sexualized female champs, but they should be consistent in terms of their overall character and there should be male champs who are sexualized other then tango twisted fate.

And yea, as said before, more variety in terms of female champs.

Its not about clothing, its about bodytypes

I miss being a forum celebrity, where are my goddamn downvotes

Welp, you'll see it when we release it. I also am pretty sure I know that I know female champions don't have to be "sexy". "Sexy" is actually the worst generalization you can throw around because of all the vast opinions on what is so. My version of sexy is probably a far cry from yours. Please don't generalize or assume to know my preferences. I have a feeling you have no idea what I think.

Please, we all know what you like

(Leona)

Cross-posting what I put on Twitter...

It makes me happy to see you discussing gender in League. There's a lot of sexism and racism in the character design that gets ground out more and more because you. It makes me happy that we have characters like Leona and Sejuani. Sadly, few discuss race. We have one confirmed character of African descent, and she's the most ignored character of all.

That being said, I strongly recommend looking at Borderlands 2 for a variety of female shapes and personalities.

Ellie, Tiny Tina, Moxxi, Gaige, Maya... all VERY different, all very feminine. All very kick-awesome.

In particular, I'd check out Ellie, as developers have confirmed she was made specifically to threw a curve-ball at peoples' expectations of female character design. You can watch her first scene here.

Stylus, you're the best parrot 'round these parts for a reason, and I thank you for being a part of this conversation. :-)