dan-heron – Bikini Armor Battle Damage

When I first read this ask, I kicked myself because I saw this game for sale on Steam and didn’t even think about buying it because well…

So I decided to look into it and specifically who was Shield Knight?

G L O R I O U S !

This is how you female armor!

The first few articles I found were mostly written before much was known other than she was going to be in the game. But according to the original Kickstarter:

So while it appears that Shield Knight does have an awesome outfit on par with Shovel Knight’s… being female means she still must exist primarily as a “beloved” damsel to be rescued by the hero.

– wincenworks

I’m really puzzled how would someone confuse Shield Knight for a man.
Her design is an A+ example of how to make armor look feminine without compromising its protective purpose.

Still, seems like the game makers’ idea was “as long as we make the damsel in distress character wear appropriate warrior gear instead of princess gown then we get our feminist cookie!”… I don’t have enough palms to facepalm accordingly.

~Ozzie

Also in a previous ask:

“Boobplate Witch” version 3 actually. The original Boob Witch is Twinrova and the second to appear is Veran iirc. Vera comes with metal armor, boob window and midriff showing.

Impa

I feel that Impa is just begging for someone to write a thesis titled “Secondary characters, room for artistic exploration or lazy recycling of names?”

The Warriors of Hyrule incarnation is pretty badass looking, dressed pretty consistently with male characters in Zelda and I can see why people are itching to have her bust some moves on the battlefield:

I mean we could discuss things like the open toed boots, or the eye on her boob – but overall her outfit is stylish without being ridiculous or heavily sexualized. Since armor has traditionally not been a big thing in Zelda (Link usually runs around his normal clothes) the lack of it and the presence of fantasy fueled weapons is consistent with the narrative of the setting.

It’s also pretty cool that they gave her the big bruiser sword.

Twinrova

Honestly I am not that big a Zelda fan, so Twinrova and Veran didn’t even occur to me when I saw Shia – but they don’t really lessen the wtf value of Shia in any way.

The first and most obvious difference with Twinrova to me is that “Can I fap to this?” was probably not a design priority. I mean yes, it’s a huge jump from what the sisters look like prior to combining – but mostly it seems focused on projecting the idea that they’re no longer old – they’re now young and powerful and still utterly bizarre.

There is some genius creativity that went into this image and while it’s certainly playing on some sexualized characteristics (wasp waist, boob plate, etc) it’s not something that would make me hide it from children.

Veran

Oh yeah she has an armor bra, personally I find that headpiece more terrifying – it seems an accident waiting to happen:

However, like Veran’s boss – Twinrova, there’s a lot more actual creative design here – it looks less like lingerie armor more like couture gone mad. There was also no reasonable expectation that you’d see Veran looking like this in the game, since well it was on the Gameboy Color:

So while it’s not good, and is frankly kind of weird – it’s still a fairly basic example of sexying up a villainess because she’s evil and looks like someone put some real effort into making look unique and recognizable even with the limited resolution and palette.

She also came back in 2001 and I haven’t seen any attempts to try to make her iconic in the Zelda franchise since. She was also an antagonist who operated primarily through possession and shape-changing – so no real expectation of her wearing combat armor.

So while she’s definitely part of many problematic tropes, including villainess armor – it would be disingenuous to pretend that she’s a particularly bad or outrageous offender.

Shia/Cia

This is the main antagonist in a Zelda spinoff that is supposed to be entirely about fighting on battlefields full of soldiers, using cool weapons and combos and stuff. Everything suggests this is how she will appear in game:

She’s strutting about in a gown, wearing a ball masque headpiece that has no eye-slits. And this is what happens when I go to Nintendo’s page promoting the game:

And guess what! Shia/Cia is not on the “suitable for all ages” page for Warriors of Hyrule. Also, I don’t read Japanese so I have to take a fan Wiki’s word on this translation, but this is what we’ve been told about the character:

Cia is a witch tasked with maintaining the balance of the Triforce. Although a good person at heart, she comes to harbor serious affections for Link which in turn becomes deep-seated jealousy directed towards Princess Zelda. Cia then becomes possessed by a dark force. This leads to her waging war on the kingdom alongside her companions Valga and Wizro.

Yes she was a good person but being jealous over Link has allowed her to be possessed with evil (women aren’t allowed to be evil just for themselves and are apparently prone to possession) who walks around in a costume Nintendo won’t show you (or at least English speaking audiences) on their own site. Not even an attempt at creativity – for a game that’s to be released on a console that Nintendo says:

Wii U is a brand new home videogame console from Nintendo that fundamentally changes the relationship between you and your TV and how you, your friends and family all connect.

– wincenworks