No More Cakes and Ale

No, they did not appreciate the female form. They considered it too fat, soft and misshapen compared to a tight young boy's body, the true ideal of human beauty.

I'm trying very hard to avoid knee-jerk reactions from both right and left.

In my fantasy worlds, I like to be surrounded by beauty. That's not left or right.

And I'm wondering why Bioware seems to be shying away from beauty, at least when it comes to the female form.

Interesting. I found Liara, Tali and Miranda all attractive. Ashely was pretty, but not my type in terms of personality.

I'd still bet Cora would score low on a scientific survey of attractiveness. Which is NOT to say many people wouldn't find her attractive. And more power to them.

If you want to be gay, be gay OP.
As for me I'll be straight and enjoy what we got.

Pity we can't get the real data from Bio.

*Ahem.*

As a heterosexual male, with all of the evolutionary urges entailed, I have a few things I'd like to say about the mindset behind threads like this one. I would like to stress VEHEMENTLY that I am in no way attacking the OP or anyone who agrees with him. What I am about to say goes towards the concept of beauty as defined by modern society. This idealized conception of beauty that tells a very large proportion of women that they need to be fake to be acceptable to the modern male eye.

Aveline in DA2, Cassandra (and Sera, for different reasons) in DA:I and now Cora in ME:A all fall under this scrutiny and are found wanting by a (seemingly) large proportion of the male gender. Note that I did not say a majority of the male gender, since we don't have NEARLY a large enough sample size to state thus. However, the perception, if one were to look at the comments on YouTube and in this forum, are that these characters aren't attractive "enough."

That entire concept sickens me on a fundamental level. The media, including movies, televison, fashion and beauty magazines, has for so long placed the top, say, 1% of "beautiful" women so far into the forefront of the collective mind that anything less is seen as vastly inferior. Countless young girls and grown women live in constant anxiety that their level of attractiveness isn't "good enough." I have 3 daughters, and so far, my wife and I have done (we think!) a good job of instilling a healthy level of self respect and esteem, but it has been hard to counter the constant bullshit spewing forth from the television. When my 9 year old daughter (now 13) came up to me and said she wanted to go on a diet 'cause she was fat (she was almost skinny as a rail in truth, but had put on a few extra pounds in preparation for a growth spurt and she's beautiful besides but thinks she's ugly....) I just want to gather as many people from the beauty "industry" as possible and slap the ever loving SHIT outta each and every one. They've created a problem (wanna look beautiful? BUY OUR PRODUCT!) to sell merchandise.

In truth, Cora, Sera (minus the hair, but that's an endearing quirk to me 'cause of her character), Cassandra and Aveline were all good-looking females who I wouldn't ignore if I saw them on the street. They're MUCH more representative of the "average" women I see every day than the supermodels we see on TV all the time. And you know what? I'm very happy to see it. I am, as I started this diatribe with, a heterosexual male. I'm not immune to the appeal of the supermodel type. There's nothing wrong AT all with being beautiful. But there's nothing inherently GOOD about being "beautiful" either. I don't care if you would rate someone a 6, 7 or 8 on some arbitrary scale, or any other number in fact. It's all bullshit created by popular media to promote products.

Yes, there are scientific studies that have concluded that certain characteristics including symmetry are inherently built into our concept of beauty. But other factors, like jawline, body fat proportions, and others are completely societally based. And waaaaaay too many people, women included, buy into that bullshit, and perpetuate the cycle. Which again leads to countless women and girls feeling like they're not good enough and don't measure up. The modern media, with our constant in-your-face exposure has made this pressure to be "pretty" so high that it can actually cause mental health issues. I, for one, am glad to see a portion of that media break from that mold, even if a little.

To conclude, I wish to reiterate that this isn't directed at the OP or those who agree with them, but towards the society which spawned this concept in specific. I appreciate the female form in a wide array of many permutations, yes, including the supermodel "ideal." I'm more than happy to appreciate the female form in this particular game, despite the "lack" of said ideal.

I admire the passion of your post, and I particularly love the soapbox opener.  Very nice (no sarcasm whatsoever, seriously.)

I have a daughter too, and she hasn't quite hit this age yet, but I'm not looking forward to it.  Keep fighting the good fight.

Back on Mass Effect, this is gonna be a hard one long range.  If they put both Miranda and Cora in the same game, and then Bioware did the stats and found 4X as many people romanced Miranda... then what do they do with that?  Do they cave to the common denominator or stick to their guns?  Rough.  They are in some ways cornered by the very media empire you decry that came before them.  Being a fly on the wall during their discussion would be interesting, and probably excruciating and / or infuriating. 

sorry but that's not 100% accurate, not touching other issues raised in thread but greeks and sooo many ancient cultures viewed women as beautiful, intelligent, and powerful. At some points men took power, at others women, and on such a downstroke women were caste as victims who had been wronged by the past and that became reason for their current status. Don't perpetuate the subversion by believing it has always been, passed through cultures and generations, it has not, only the struggle for power was and is constant.

Hey, if a topic's fun it's fun, whether or not it's bait. Besides, you gotta give the thread points for starting with a clever literary reference, even if that reference is being deployed in the service of a profoundly silly assumption.

Which one? In 'The New Adventures of He-Man', he looks like this:



He's still bulky. In the 2003 series, Prince Adam isn't a color-swapped version, actually looks different:



So the one on the left is the only depiction where Prince Adam isn't a ham sandwich; though He-Man still is one.