Left is Right: Southpaws in Video Games, Part One

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.

Everything You Like is Fine

It seems that every couple of years, I’ll decide try and socialize a bit on the internet.  I know you wouldn’t think it, but it gets really distracting when every conversation partner you have in meatspace is getting constantly distracted by how good you look, so the faceless, anonymous form of dialoguing the internet offers is actually quite nice in comparison.  So I’ll do what hundreds of thousands of good internet denizens do and find me a nice forum.  Everything will be all good and fun and dandy at first, and I’ll be enjoying myself, but I’ll inevitably leave the forum within a year or so.  There’s just one sort of mentality that I always seem to run into, that I’ve honestly just grown tired of.

I seem to be a little unusual among the type of people who post on forums, in that I like most of the games I play.  I love the good games, of course, but I’m also usually able to find some sort of enjoyment in the bad ones, too.  Doesn’t mean I won’t rant and rave about them, of course, but usually I find them to be worth my while.  Same with most other media I actually bother to talk about.  Now, I’m far from an optimist.  I do see the glass as half full, but it’s half full of sewage.  However, with the various forms of entertainment I partake of, I seem to enjoy more things than do most people who take the time to write about them.

Well, apparently, that’s wrong.  It seems that there’s certain categories of every media you’re not supposed to like.  Talk about things that are too popular, too mainstream, too unique, too simple, too incomprehensible, too casual, etc., and there will always be some person there that pops up with “That thing sucks!  What’s wrong with you for playing/viewing/reading that?!”  And you know, the thing may suck.  But the problem here is that a) dude is applying a value to you personally for experiencing it and b) this sort of statement always seems to be toxic to discussion.  And that’s really all the fun of bringing it up in the first place, but once one person’s gotten judged for it, no one else is willing to speak up about it.  This isn’t a mentality that seems particularly common, but it’s out there enough that it’s popped up in every forum I’ve been a part of, and I absolutely hate it.  Not being able to talk about what I experience just ruins my point in joining forums in the first place.

So, good thing I have a blog, eh?  No one can stop me talking about things here.

The thing is, there’s really no wrong way to enjoy something.  With most entertainment materials, there’s not even wrong things to enjoy.  It’s art, everyone’s looking for different things out of it, and if the things you find lead you to love the material, there’s no way you can be wrong.  If you like something, it’s good, no matter what the general consensus says.  There’s no way to be wrong, whether you like something or not.  Well, except for my beauty.  That’s a universal constant, and if you don’t enjoy it, there’s something seriously wrong with you.

It always seems to get in vogue to hate something.  The mainstream loves a singer or author, and the counterculture rises up against it.  Neither are wrong, or right.  It’s art, whether you like it or not, and art applies itself individually.  It’s ok to like whatever you like, no matter what anyone says about it.  Justin Bieber, Twilight, Slut Soirees 23, if you enjoy something, that’s just what it means to you, and don’t let anyone else take that away.