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Feminist Frequency's new series on positive female characters kicks off with mobile game Sword & Sworcery

Women vs tropes

Feminist Frequency's new series on positive female characters kicks off with mobile game Sword & Sworcery
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Feminist Frequency creator Anita Sarkeesian has kicked off a new YouTube series which looks at positive female characters in video games - and she's started with surreal mobile adventure Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery.

It might be hard to tell from that tiny bundle of pixels, but protagonist The Scythian is a chick. And by using similar tropes to games like Zelda, Sworcery "asserts that women can fill the role of the mythic hero as effectively as men can."

Sarkeesian says "Sword & Sworcery gives us a female protagonist and encourages us to see her as a hero first and foremost, one who also just happens to be a woman." Here's the full transcript if you're more of a reader than a watcher.

The video's got some spoilers for the ending of Sworcery, so maybe give it a miss if you haven't beaten the game yet.

Mark Brown
Mark Brown
Mark Brown is editor at large of Pocket Gamer