Defending the "Gentle" Sex

Although I don't call myself a feminist I am all about equal rights for women (right to vote, enter the workforce, etc.).  However, I also have some old-fashioned opinions, like the role of mothers as, well, mothers and the man's duty to respect and protect the women around him. So it is with great reluctance that I fight female NPCs when gaming.

Girls' night out in Markarth: my Nord archer and her housecarl Lydia

I've recently acquired a copy of Skyrim (I know, I know) and have been enthusiastically fulfilling my digital destiny.  I love the open combat system in Bethesda's games, and it is with equal enthusiasm that I tackle bandits, trolls, and dragons (at last, a game for going toe-to-toe with the great wyrms!).  But what really bugs me about the Elder Scrolls is their insistence on making the main character fight women. 

Don't get me wrong, I am not above sitting by during a throwdown between women (I remember eating dinner one day in the cafeteria at my undergrad when an all-female knock-down-drag-out fistfight started a few tables over and immediately went to the floor.  Rather than leaping to anyone's aid, I took another bite of scalloped potatoes, preferring to allow several athletic-looking frat brothers and the security officer break it up.)

But in Elder Scrolls there is no choice: women draw swords as often as their men, if not more so, and the Dovahkin is compelled to reciprocate with force.  Why Bethesda decided on this feature, whether as a way to make things interesting or out of some ill-conceived notion of gender equality, is unknown to me.  I like the variety found in the Elder Scrolls (accents, races, religions, sexes), but I must raise objection to the female body count my various characters have accrued in the course of their journeys through Vvardinfel, Cyrodiil, and Skyrim.

Case-in-point: as Lydia and I were brawling our way through Broken Tower Redoubt last night, the Foresworn garrison consisted of nearly all women; the one bloke, a craven Briarheart, was holed up in the highest room in the tallest tower, tending to a shrine of Debella (the only woman he bothered to defend, despite the incessant clamor outside).  What bothers me about this is that while clearing the first floor every female death was met by a pang of guilt, but by the time we were on the terrace outside the tower it was all business.

I do not take this change of heart lightly.  What sort of message does this carnage send our kids?  One answer might be the asinine responses found on a message board discussing this same topic.  The first post expressed chagrin at the necessity of this bloody combat, but a good number of the responses encouraged the chivalrous fellow to simply "respect" the women he was fighting, as though "honoring" these CGI warriors by giving them a noble death somehow exonerated the deed.  Except THIS IS FICTION.  It can be whatever you want it to be, and Bethesda has decided that a ghastly female death toll is necessary for their millions of heroes to achieve stardom in their imaginary universe.  This is the sort of thing that mars an otherwise good story, just as unnecessary ribaldry has always soiled the otherwise pristine mayhem in Game of Thrones.

In the case of Elder Scrolls, I suppose one might be consoled with the promise of a MOD that rewrites the game script.  The problem with Westeros is that both the TV series and the books will be to be totally rewritten in order to merit redemption.