Anyone who’s into video games has probably heard of Samus Aran. While she’s not the first video game heroine, she’s definitely one of the earliest, having first appeared in the original Metroid title released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986. One of the most notable things that sets Samus apart from most heroines is how she first blasted her way into the scene: the creators of the game kept her sex a secret from the public and the press, and they even used male pronouns to describe Samus in Metroid’s booklet, tricking the players into believing they were guiding a man or at least a male character through Zebes, the game’s milieu.
What made this trickery possible is Samus’s now legendary Power Suit. It covers her from head to toe, making many players, including my six-year-old self, think she was actually an android or a robot. Imagine my surprise when, upon beating the game, Samus was shown to be female. Sure, it’s nothing special today when we have hundreds of female-led video games, but back then the world of video games was a little different, and while female-led games existed before Metroid, they were few and far between and most of them went unnoticed by the masses.
Samus has generally been shown as a stoic, strong individual who prefers doing things her own way, working alone, and being the kick-ass bounty hunter gamers have grown to know and love over the past decades. Perhaps that’s the main reason why the fans and media alike were so upset when Metroid Other M hit the shelves in 2012 and basically redefined the term ”character assassination.” Team Ninja, the people responsible for the lambasted sequel to an exceptionally highly regarded and respected game series, basically stripped Samus of all agency, made her subservient to her (male, obviously) ex-commanding officer and sorta-kinda father figure, Adam, and portrayed Samus as a shy, awkward, timid weakling instead of the powerhouse who had destroyed entire planets and pretty much committed genocide on a dangerous alien species in previous Metroid games.
Most fans and video game figureheads agree that Other M’s fit into the Metroid canon is problematic, i.e. everyone pretty much wants to forget that abomination was ever made. I tend to agree, so I’ll move on and ignore the game and its heroine-that-isn’t-the-real-Samus. That being said, despite all her strengths, Samus has received criticism or, rather, her treatment has received criticism: in the first Metroid game, there was a specific mechanic that has made more than a few people give Samus’s creators and Nintendo the evil eye. Namely, if you beat the game fast enough, you will see Samus take off her helmet in the end sequence. If you beat the game even faster, you will see her without her powersuit, wearing a long-sleeved leotard. If you beat the game faster still, you will see Samus in a bikini.
I admit, as a six-year-old boy, I didn’t really give it a second thought. To me, it was just a game mechanic and a way for the creators to show that Samus was female. In a way, I understand it because back then the technology was extremely limiting, so the programmers had to make the revelation somehow, and only showing one, small, pixelated still image didn’t require much resources.
Furthermore, history books tell us that the directors of Nintendo actually told the team responsible for Metroid to shelve the project. That’s right: one of the most iconic video game series and heroines was almost canceled. However, the creators believed in the project so much that the entire team kept working on the game on their free time, often sleeping in the office just to be able to finish Metroid and give life to what has become the face of video game heroines, Samus Aran. Understandably, they had extremely limited resources, a very unforgiving time frame, and they had to do all the work after an already hard day’s labor, so I can forgive the ”revelation mechanic” of the first game.
However, in every consequent sequel, the mechanic was kept in the game. In my opinion, at that point it became pure fan service and cheapens the character because after the first game, the vast majority of gamers knew Samus was female, so the surprise revelation in the end of the game (if you beat it fast enough) was a surprise only to a precious few. Sure, it became a staple of the franchise, but I think it outlived its charm after the first release, so come on, Nintendo, let Samus have her dignity from now on, eh?
That’s not the only problem, however: in the extremely popular Super Smash Bros fighting game series, you can pit various main characters of different video game franchises against each other. Naturally, being one of Nintendo’s icons, Samus was in the game from the get-go, and in the latest iterations, you can play as two different versions of Samus: with or without the Power Suit. What I take issue with is that the game’s creators have made the armorless Samus much stronger than armored Samus. As you can probably understand, that makes no sense whatsoever. If she was truly stronger without her armor, why would she wear it in every Metroid game? She wouldn’t. That means the creators made the so-called Zero Suit (the name of the skin-tight outfit) Samus far more powerful only to motivate players to choose her over armored Samus, to have some more fan service on-screen. That’s kinda cheap, isn’t it?
I know I’m not the only one who prefers armored Samus and who thinks the ”revelation mechanic” of the Metroid series is tacky, tasteless, and disrespectful towards both an awesome character and her millions of fans. Hell, I’m not even the only guy who thinks like this! So, dear Nintendo, dear Yoshio Sakamoto, dear Masahiro Sakurai, you don’t need to ”sell” Samus to us via skimpy outfits. She won her fans over even before anyone knew she was female, not to mention before anyone knew she looked like a Barbie. None of that mattered then and none of that matters now.
What does matter, however, are the games and what Samus does in them, not her gender or how she looks. I know it’s a little presumptuous of me to tell the creators of the game what their game is about, but I kind of feel they have either forgotten about it, or they just don’t trust their own creation to be lucrative without such fan service. Hear me out, though: Metroid has always been about exploration of dark, lonely, dangerous worlds, where you have nobody to rely on except yourself. Metroid is about solitude, it’s about isolation, it’s about a lone, heroic bounty hunter doing what she does best: laying waste on space pirates and fighting her way through the cavernous mazes of Crateria, the scorching lava pits of Norfair, and the eerie, dead halls of Tourian all the way to victory. That is the essence of Metroid, the essence of Samus Aran.
And that, dear readers, is also why I still view Samus as a positive representation of a video game heroine. It’s not her fault some numbnuts at Nintendo’s marketing department decided that the game wouldn’t sell without showing some skin. It’s not her fault that Team Ninja basically ignored the previous canon, wrote their own, and all but ruined her character and angered thousands upon thousands of her fans in doing so.
What these people don’t realize is that the fans see through all that BS. They see the greatness in the games and they understand the wondrous joy of discovery when you find a new secret area in an alien world you know nothing about, discover a new shortcut, find a hidden missile expansion or energy tank, or learn a new trick that not only enables but encourages sequence breaking and speed running, i.e. competing with other players on who can beat the game the fastest. It’s no surprise the 1994 release, Super Metroid for the Super Nintendo, is still not only considered one of the greatest video games of all time, but it’s one of the most popular titles in the speed running community.
Lastly, we, the fans, understand that Samus isn’t great because she’s a female warrior or because she’s pretty. We understand that Samus is great because she’s a warrior who just happens to be female and pretty, ergo it wouldn’t matter one bit if she was male, or if her looks didn’t match the Hollywoodian ideal, not to mention how nobody cares whether or not she takes off her Power Suit during the final cut scene. In fact, I’m willing to bet my vintage turnip collection that fans would love a new Metroid game even if Samus never removed so much as her helmet as long as the game was as good as e.g. Super Metroid or Metroid Prime.
At any rate, I know this time our positive representation of a video game heroine was a bit more controversial, but I believe it was crucial to address the elephant in the room as it’s all but impossible to discuss video game heroines without mentioning Samus. Incidentally enough, she was inspired by Ellen Ripley, the protagonist of the famous Alien franchise, so it’s only fitting the next time we’ll take a look at one of the newcomers into the ranks of video game heroines, the daughter of Ellen: Amanda Ripley.
‘Til next time!
For the first part of Positive Representations of Video Game Heroines, click here.
Sources:
“Critical Compilation: Metroid’s Samus Aran.” Critical Distance, n.p. 22 October 2015 Web. 24 January 2016.
Graham, Justin. “Opinion: In Defense of Metroid: Other M.” Oprainfall. Operation Rainfall. 12 October 2012. Web. 24 January 2016.
Mike D. Metroid: “Other M – 5 Years Later.” Nintendo Enthusiast, n.p. 31 August 2015. Web. 24 January 2016.
“Samus Aran and Sexism.” Still Eating Oranges. Tumblr. 22 March 2014. Web. 24 January 2016.
Petit, Carolyn. “From Samus to Lara: An Interview With Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency.” Gamespot. CBS Interactive Inc. 12 June 2012. Web. 24 January 2016.
Young, Jake. “Why Samus’ New Zero Suit Outfit Is Unacceptable.” Dorkly. Connected Ventures, LLC. 20 August 2014 Web. 24 January 2016.
Photos (in order of appearance):
poojipoo. “Samus Portrait.” Digital art/painting. DeviantArt. DeviantArt, 29 July 2012. Web. 24 January 2016.
“Ending for Metroid (NES).” vgmuseum. n.p. n.d. Web. 24 January 2016.
Lucas-Zero. “Super Smash Bros 4 Metroid Wallpaper.” Digital art. DeviantArt. DeviantArt, 4 December 2014. Web. 24 January 2016.
spacecoyote. “Warrior.” Digital art/painting. DeviantArt. DeviantArt, 9 March 2010. Web. 24 January 2016.