Highlights
- Some female characters in Genshin Impact have received criticism for being written in an over-reliant manner on character tropes, overshadowing their genuine personalities.
- Characters like Keqing and Jean, despite being in positions of power, have little development outside of their work, leading to a lack of depth and exploration of their full personalities.
- However, newer characters introduced in recent releases show more depth and growth, but it's important not to neglect previously introduced female characters who could benefit from more screen time and development beyond their tropes.
Genshin Impact has grown to have a large amount of playable characters from its launch. In 2023 alone, 12 new Genshin Impact playable characters have joined the fray so far. But not all of them were well received, and not all characters in general have had good reception. And unfortunately, some of these are female characters who could have been written in a more empowering way. Not every woman was handled poorly, and this isn't to say that every man was written wonderfully.
However, some female characters have gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to Genshin Impact's writing. Even if they seem well done, there's usually an over-reliance on a character trope. If these traits were upped strictly for marketing purposes, that would be one thing. However, some of Genshin Impact's women go so far into their tropes that it's hard to see their genuine personalities shine through.
Genshin Impact's Over-Reliance on Tropes
An easy trope to draw attention to is "overworked woman." While it is wonderful to have so many of Genshin Impact's leaders being women, that leadership tends to overtake their other personality traits. Genshin Impact's Keqing is a strong example of this--she has little development in cutscenes that doesn't involve her being working or too busy to stay and talk to the Traveler for long. The same goes for Jean, a strong leader who works too hard and could certainly use a break. Their positions of power are good things, but their position should not be their personality.
Here lately, Genshin Impact has another woman in a position of power that does not fall into the "overworked" trope. Furina/Focalors, the Hydro Archon, has a great range of personality traits, swinging from a theatrical woman putting up a mask to a strong, serious woman who shows that she has a plan for her people. The women added later in Genshin Impact's release don't use tropes as crutches as hard as the past ones do, but there are still ways to better write women.
Another issue many games face, not just Genshin Impact, is flat characters. Of course, when a game reaches 70 characters, there can be some expected repetition in traits or uninteresting cases. Keqing and Yanfei get hit the most by this, but they aren't the only two. Ayaka and Shenhe tend to be whittled down to one personality trait, but people are more than just one shade of emotions or behavior, more than one thing they did way back when, and yet these women have their one strong trait and fade beyond that. Fans want to see these characters in new and different settings that take them out of these boxes and explore more of their depth.
But the characters that came with more recent releases, especially in Genshin Impact's Sumeru and Fontaine, have way more depth than those of past nations. Genshin Impact is showing more growth as the game evolves over time with its player base. But this doesn't mean that the previously introduced women should sit and collect cobwebs while better-written women get added to the game. There are plenty of ways to add more personality to the girls who don't get as much screen time as these new ones are.
By adding new events to Genshin Impact to bring some of these characters together, HoYoVerse could use that chance to wipe the dust off of older characters like Jean and Ayaka and make them more than their tropes or defining character traits. There's nothing wrong with women who are overworked, or women who are shy and docile, but this should not be all there is to them.
Genshin Impact is now available on Mobile, PC, PS4, and PS5. A Switch version is in development.