|
In the era of Playstation, many game companies arose from obscurity, casting off their masters and gaining prestige and wealth in a fashion they previously never could've imagined. Among them, the mighty Squaresoft. Final Fantasy 7, a glowing diamond in their crown of games that illuminated the way onto the mainstream. But with success came much debate. Some detested the new way of doing things, argued that this change was robbing the series of the heart and soul they'd come to love. Others complained about the idiots that abounded following the rise of the game, the mainstream joining this private club of fans that was only a fraction of its current size. And then there were those who complained about...
Tifa's bra size.
You wouldn't think it a matter of grave importance, just something to blink off and ignore. Leave it alone. But no. She's become a sort of icon, one might say. And it isn't because her concept art is hugely endowed with feminine attributes that will sabotage children's minds and send them lusting unendingly after this unrealistic portrayal of femininity. After all, it wasn't that ungainly there to begin with. Large, definitely, but nothing to go crazy and pull out all the guns over. You might point to her cruddy 3-d art and go, "look at those cannons, they'd knock an eye out!" Potentially, ye might have something there, but even so, they don't remotely compare to how big they are today. They got larger with each and every telling of the tale of Tifa's massive mounds. Tifa's bra size is now something of legend. You can fit small houses in it comfortably after all for it can hold the most ludicrously sized assets ever imagined by man. They're gigantic! Titanic! They're practically soft-core porn just by their very existence! How could Square ever do such thing! In Final Fantasy 7 even! That is sacred ground, is it not?
A better question is how did this girl become such an icon of absurdity? She isn't that absurd of figure. She's not prancing about in lingere, tee-heeing over meaningless trifles and generally providing an embarrassment to the female gender. She's actually quite strong as far as female heroes go, often saving the day. But you wouldn't know it to listen to talks about her. She's the icon. RPG girls who are big, aren't simply big anymore, they're 'almost as big as TIFA!' They aren't sluttish, they're wearing more clothes than Tifa did! Lulu's not analyzed by herself. She's merely the Tifa figure of the set, a set of breasts wrapped in a fancy gothic dress of belts. She's slowly been blown out of proportion. So slowly in fact, folks don't even notice it. If I say her name on a message board, people instantly talk about her gigantic chest and nothing else. I've even seen pictures of her on message boards regarding the latest Advent Children stuff. Get this! Folks can't recognize her because her chest isn't big enough. What a winner there. Between folks who couldn't recognize size and fantasized over her being a sex object and folks who fought against such things in games by using her as an example of a sex object (she's horrible, she has huge breasts! Look at the bad sex-driven male-appealing game industry!) that she has literally grown into a legendary sexual figure that few remember in any context of her existing as anything else. Can we leave it to rest? Take a look at her original concept art sometime. Consider, perhaps, that we still have a bit of dignity left in us. Or at least, that Square didn't cross the line back then. Take a second to forget about all the perverted artwork you've stared at for years. Drop, just for a moment, the never-ending banter on how the absurd female stereotypes embodied by her are going to destroy the minds of men the world over.
Let Tifa have her dignity back. Her humanity as a player upon the stage. Let the Tifas of the world, the Lulus, the KOS-MOS, alone for a moment and consider that it really isn't that important to icon-ify these ladies. If they're a vehicle for your lusts, leave that in private. And don't let them be a vehicle for speeches against the horrors of fanservice to males. Remember that they're not as exaggerated as we've envisioned them; that we can show the maturity of treating them like characters of depth or interest.
|
RSS feed
iTunes