[Opinion] Nier Replicant and Kainé's sexualization

El lanzamiento en abril de 2021 de Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139… permitió que disfrutáramos una versión mejorada de un título de 2010 que no muchos jugaron, pero cuyos fanáticos consideran una obra de arte. Pueden leer la reseña aquí. Tras su historia, que parece bastante típica, se esconde una interesante deconstrucción del mundo de los videojuegos tal como era hace una década. Uno de sus elementos más interesantes es Kainé, un personaje realmente sorprendente a muchos niveles.

Through Kainé, Yoko Taro and his team wanted to criticize the ugliest clichés about the women we found in our games, but they failed in their goal.A few months ago we asked if violent games could criticize their own violence, with Nier Replicant we discover that it is not easy to criticize sexual objectification while sexualizing their own characters.

Who is Kainé?

The only girl in the protagonist of Nier Replicant is a very unusual character.His violent and aggressive personality, with an impressive ability to express the most colorful insults, contrasts with his tender face and sexy outfit.The two serrada swords that he uses to fight, as well as his unusual ability to use magic, make it one of the most powerful warriors of this apocalyptic world, in which strange beings known as ‘shadows’ attack a decimated population.

Its history is quite tragic and it is a pleasure to discover it little by little.In fact, it is necessary to have finished the game once before its past is revealed to us.When we discover how much he suffered, we empathize with her immediately and that makes the decision we must make to see the finals ‘C’ and ‘D’ has much more weight.

Kainé has so much relevance in the plot that some consider it the true protagonist of Nier Replicant.The ‘E’ route, added in this new version, gives us some reason.

Sadly, Kainé is also an example of the big problem of sexualization of female characters in video games.

Women in video games

We all know the Cliché de la Guerrera Sexi.The girls are no longer just "damsels in danger", but if they want to fight, the most important thing is that they are attractive to the masculine gaze.It is not uncommon to find in video games, comics and ‘anime’ with “bikini armor", deep necklines and suits so glued that they look like a second skin.Although there are exceptions, the vast majority of these characters are designed by men who do not demonstrate much concern about the perception of a female audience, which became increasingly vocal against sexualization that suffers its gender in fiction.

Things have improved a bit in recent years, although there is still a lot of work to do.

It is in this environment that Kainé emerged.As we said, Nier Replicant intends to be a comment about his contemporaries.Use its history, game mechanics and even camera location to show the players the worst clichés of the middle.The success of his message was not universal.Some considered it revolutionary, others did not understand it and there are those who believe that a game cannot make a valuable criticism of the sins that he commits.

And this applies to Kainé.

You will see, Kainé is a very sexy young woman with a rather revealing outfit.His main suit is literally a ‘baby doll’ that exposes all his attributes.There is a "justification" within the game for your costumes (we will talk about it later), but it is empty.

According to Yoko Taro - creative director of the game - Kainé is a “very masculine protagonist" and his attitude is part of that.I wanted it to be as feminine as possible despite its appearance.What did he want to achieve with this?Everything indicates that she sought to subvert the cliché of the warriors with a woman who would be as attractive as possible to male players, because of her rude personality and another reason that we will reveal in the next section.

We do not want to insinuate that "women cannot be rude," but that many men show dislike of personalities that move away from an absurd "female ideal".But because of the other characteristics of Kainé, this subversion of the clichés ended up being quite problematic, even offensive.

Kainé's secret

From this point you will find ‘spoilers’ of the Nier Replicant plot

During Route B of the game they reveal, in a sequence of text, a very important and cruel dialogue of Kainé's past:

This is told another child.An abuser of the same village.

They are words of a young Kainé to her grandmother, who immediately reassures her and tells her that she is her granddaughter regardless of what others say.

Kainé is intersex.This means that it has both male and female sexual characteristics.This was confirmed by Yoko Taro in several interviews during the launch of the original game.He wanted this revelation to be “a surprise for players."

The language used to describe Kainé and ambiguity on her in the plot of Nier Replicant have made many - even in official publications - describe it as a hermaphrodite or transsexual, not as intersexual.Even today there are those who describe it as “trans representation in video games."

This leads us to believe that the purpose of this aspect of the character was not to create a diverse cast or to deepen his background, but that - together with his rude personality - he was part of the subversion of the figure of the ‘Warrior Sexi’. Una forma de “asustar" a los jugadores masculinos diciéndoles que el personaje hacia el que se sentían atraídos no era lo que esperaban.Although Kainé is not trans, this possible reading has a quite transphobic and unpleasant tone.We have already seen some commentators on the Internet talking about how "they were deceived" for her to like.

The game suggests that the reason why Kainé dresses so revealing is because he is reaffirming his femininity.It is true that dressing in a sexi can be empowerr for many women, but that is just one of the possible facets of what it is to be a woman.This seems more like a case issued by the male gaze.Yoko Taro has declared that he had to "fight a little" to let him keep the lingerie as the main attire of the character.

This situation reminds us of Quiet, from Metal Gear Solid V. Hideo Kojima dijo que los críticos “se arrepentirían de sus palabras" cuando descubrieran la razón por la que ella vestía tan sexi.The excuse he finally gave was ridiculous.

"Reckless"

Nothing we have read suggests that Kainé's creators interviewed intersex people and learned about their experience so that she was a good representation.On the contrary, the result is, at best, misinformed.In the worst case he is fetishist.

Why do we dare to say that?Because in Nier Replicant see.1.2247487139… literally worsened the situation.Players can unlock an achievement or trophy called ‘Temerario’, which has as a description: “You have risk life 10 times to discover someone's secret."

What do you have to do to unlock it?Move the camera 10 times to see Kainé's underwear.With all the sexual abuse that exists against women and people from the LGTBI community today and the obsession towards the private life of trans and intersex people, the creators of the game seemed funny to include a 'reward' for those who do somethingLike this in the game.

The level of sexualization that exists towards Kainé in Nier Replicant is really sad.We want to believe that the goal of Yoko Taro and the other game developers with these problematic aspects was noble, only they were not able to handle them well.However, 10 years have passed since the launch of the original title.They had the possibility to fix all this in the new version and did not.

All this is a pity because Nier Replicant is an excellent game and Kainé is a great character.It is an unnecessary stain in a work of art.

Thank you very much to Diana Mafla, who in the past collaborated with her analysis of the KDA attire in LOL, for her perspectives on Kainé that helped to shape this article.