David Cage prefers writing ‘emotional’ female characters
Lewis Denby August 28, 2012 - 10:59 amNews: Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls creator David Cage says he prefers writing female characters to male characters, as he can better identify with the “range” of emotions that females are comfortable displaying.
Quantic Dream boss-man David Cage says he prefers writing female characters because they can have a “range of emotions” that aren’t usually suitable for male characters.
“I feel really close to [female] characters,” Cage said. “And working for male characters, I often end up with, I think, less interesting things. More standard things, ones you would expect from a male hero.
“What I love with females is that they can fight, they can be very angry, they can be upset, they can cry. They have a palette. They have a range of emotions that is actually larger than male characters.”
Cage said that writing a female character allows him to be himself in a way that would seem “ridiculous” if writing for a male character.
“Writing Kara [in Heavy Rain], for example, was a really big pleasure for me, because you could really go from being naïve, to being really funny, and come to tears. And fear,” he said in an interview with Gamasutra.
“And they can really express all this, whereas males, we don’t express our emotions publicly so much.”
Are we not in danger of cultivating the idea that boys shouldn’t cry in videogames, though? That male characters in games should be about guns and swears and testosterone? Boys cry in real life, and I’d hate to think that some of our medium’s most acclaimed writers feel they have to conform to such silly stereotyping. Hmm.
