Gender & Video Games - Ryse: Son of Rome (2013)
Marius the main protagonist of Ryse: Son of Rome (2013).
In the second part of this gender in video games series, I am moving forward to 2013 and another hack-and-slash game, Ryse: Son of Rome. I have to say, there’s not much improvement from the original God of War, but we are moving through time to get to better things in future parts.
Of note, some of the themes and discussions in the following game are highly sexualized and potentially triggering.
The game was originally released as an Xbox exclusive and was later released for all consoles worldwide in 2014. Sian Beavers has already made an excellent analysis of this game and how it represents women. When I wrote this research paper, I decided to play this game as well to form my own opinion and see just how good or bad it was.
My overall opinion of the game, regardless of the representation of women, is that… it was a slog. There was no variety in the hack-and-slash elements, the game wanted you to do the same thing the whole time, and it felt absolutely exhausting. My mom called while I was playing and asked me if I was okay, and I remember saying I just wanted to stop but I wanted to finish my research.
The goddess Nemesis in Ryse: Son of Rome (2013), one of the few female gods portrayed in the game who was given the look of a femme fatale.
Once I did get to the parts of the game that had female representation (of which there was very, very little) I began to feel even more exhausted and the game began to feel oppressive. This isn’t a new or unique feeling to me, as there have been studies on the effects of overly sexualized female characters on female players, which are discussed by Lynch.
Beavers mostly makes mention of the human females in the game, but there was something at the very beginning of the game that wasn’t mentioned in that article and that I analyzed several times to attempt to understand what was happening. For context, I also have a degree in Classics and have taken multiple classes on Greek and Roman Art, including entire semesters spent on decoding, identifying, and analyzing several different pieces of Classical Art. At the beginning of the game, Nero runs to a vault to hide, and all along the round walls of the vault are bronze statues set on pedestals, all of them placed in front of sconces that Marius, the main character, lights.
One of the statues around the room in the overly sexualized position in Ryse: Son of Rome (2013).
They are fully naked, kneeling with their legs fully spread, and with their hands grasping their breasts while their faces look dead ahead and expressionless. This might have been in reference to Nero’s rumored flagrance and over-indulgence, but as a Classical major, they made very little sense to me. I’ve studied a lot of bronze statues and even Aphrodite does not often end up in poses like this, certainly not with a lifeless expression. It felt pointless, troubling, and extremely distracting as an important cut-scene played all around them and that set the tone for the rest of the game.
Much like Kratos’ family, Marius’ family are dead within the first few moments they are introduced. Their pointless deaths give Marius purpose and they bolster his status as a “hero” despite the atrocities he performs for the rest of the game (Beavers 80). One of them is never even seen alive on camera, and their deaths occur offscreen, perhaps to emphasize how pointless it is.
The Romans talking about using Boudicca against her father while she’s chained and bound in scanty attire in Ryse: Son of Rome (2013).
Later, Boudicca appears about halfway through the game and she portrays the perfect model of a damsel-in-distress. She is her father’s weakness, as her position of vulnerability causes him to surrender. Without her weakness, he would not give the Romans the valuable information he did. And her eventual rise as an antagonist depends on getting revenge for her father, as opposed to her own revenge for what was done to her. Beavers analyzes this as a stereotype that games, particularly early on, taught women: that violence and sexuality were tied together and that it was simply what was done. Women can only confront that violence if it further enhances the male narrative.
Moreover, Boudicca’s “bondage-attire” enhances this perception even more. This can also be seen in Kiera Knightley’s portrayal of Guinevere, and early depictions of Wonder Woman (See Jill Lepore), both of whom were dressed extremely similar to Boudicca in the game, and give off the impression that even these powerful women only exist for the male gaze and will eventually be overcome by him. Wonder Woman’s only weakness is “being bound by a man” and Guinevere is eventually defeated by her seduction at the hands of Lancelot.
Kiera Knightley as Guinevere in King Arthur (2004)
The next part of this series will be significantly more cheerful and positive, but with 2023 nearly over and the game being 10 years old now, it’s important to realize that many young women who are at least nominally adults now grew up with this being the norm. Ryse: Son of Rome was not the exception to the norm, but rather a significant example of what the norm was. Games still depend on advertising for the male gaze in many ways - just look at any number of iOS gaming ads. However, things are moving forward, and this series will hopefully start to show what the future might be like.
I will be taking a break next week for the holidays, but this mini-series will continue the week after. In the meantime, what were your favorite games growing up? Do you remember any of them being different to what they are now?
