There’s been a fair bit of discussion in recent years about diversity in video games. Players are getting tired of the mid-thirties unshaven male/bald space marine/what have you protagonist that are the standard for protagonists, and we’re wanting to see more non-WASP characters. There have been calls for more women characters, more races represented, better treatment of gay characters, etc. Yet there’s been one underrepresented segment of the population that seems to have gone forgotten. Nobody seems to think to include us, to demand more representation from our populations, all the while gamemakers are seemingly forgetting we exist. We are a proud group with a very rich and distinguished history, yet we have been living with persecution for centuries, that continues to this day. I speak, of course, of the mighty southpaws.
It has long been scientific consensus that left-handers are more attractive, more intelligent, better in bed, and improved in just about everything we do than most. Indeed, experiments have proven again and again that we are everything Daft Punk ever dreamed of: harder, better, faster, stronger. Of course, you could probably find scientist out there who disagree with those findings, but they’re probably right-handed, and therefore their opinion can’t really be trusted. If you think about it, left-handers are pretty much like superheroes; we are just innately better at pretty much everything. If one were to call us the next step up in human evolution, they wouldn’t be too far off the mark. Yet, even with our obvious greatness, we find most of western culture against us. While “right” also means “correct” and “just” in English, the Latin root for the word “sinister” took on evil connotations because it referred to left-handed people. Largely because of our natural ability to circumvent many defenses against right-handed fellows, southpaws were considered treacherous and touched by the devil, which is ironic considering that we actually seem to be blessed by God himself. Even now, the Right Power movement pervades our culture, with basic tasks such as cooking, writing, and even using common school supplies made much more difficult by the fact that nearly everything is made specifically for right-handed people. In fiction, left-handers are rarely represented at all, and even when we are, our handedness is most commonly used as a sign for how evil the character is.
Of course, we do have some small representation in most mediums, and video games are no exception. The amount of left-handed characters is very small, but most of them are very significant. And usually the best parts of their own games. To follow is a bit of a celebration of left-handed characters in games, listing the most notable ones in the games I’ve played, and explaining a bit of how their natural superiority shines through.
Lost to the Aether 