Some Thoughts on Brothers, Frozen, and Gender

First of all, Spoiler Warning: I am going to spoil the end of Brothers and Frozen throughout this post, so look away now if you don’t want that to happen to you.

Do you have a person in your life, a friend or a cousin or an uncle, that is just a ton of fun to be around? Someone who is both capable of holding an entire room with a story while still being able to tone it down for the close emotional discussions that friends and family so often share? You love this person through and through, but there is some seemingly small flaw of theirs that makes you feel uncomfortable around them sometimes. Like maybe they drink a bit too much at parties and get a little rude, or they have a habit of saying subtly racist stuff that makes you a little uneasy. You want to love them unconditionally, but that little flaw holds you back. This is the relationship that I have found myself in with Brothers: a Tale of Two Sons.

In Brothers you play as a pair of brothers on a quest to a far-away kingdom to find a magical remedy for their sick father. They have already lost their mother, and their father seems to be on the way out as well. To save him, you cross through troll-filled caves, giant castles atop bottomless ravines, and ancient battlefields filled with dead giants to find this magical elixir to save your father. Yet, after overcoming all of these obstacles and hardships, what drives these two brothers apart is a woman. At one point towards the end of the game the brothers save a young woman who is about to be ritually sacrificed by a tribe of warriors to their blood-god. After freeing her, she joins the party and guides the brothers through a snowy village that is haunted by some sort of invisible monster. As she guides the two, the elder brother can flirt with the girl, and through some subtle gestures you can tell that the two are a bit smitten. At points throughout the village section, the girl exhibits feats of strength and balance that seem exceptional, but I thought that they were within the bounds of some sort of acrobat or athlete. Though I thought the girl’s athletic feats might be foreshadowing I had no idea how far the game would go.

After the snowy village section the girl guides the brothers to the entrance of a subterranean cave. At this point the younger brother protests that they are going the wrong direction, but the elder does not heed his warnings. At the bottom of the cave, the girl transforms into a half spider-half woman monster that attacks the boys. They work together to painstakingly RIP OFF 4 OF HER LEGS AND KILL HER, but not before she mortally wounds the elder brother. In this scene, the game plays upon the time-worn trope of woman as seductress and destroyer, tearing the brothers apart, both emotionally when she causes them to disagree, and physically by killing the eldest. The designers choose to make the wedge between these two brothers be a woman, and they choose to have her cause of game’s emotional climax. In what is otherwise an emotionally deft and subtle game, the crescendo is remarkably blunt; I mean the girl’s monster form is like some sort of nightmare mermaid: top-half woman and bottom-half spider. The message that women can be monsters and can damage the bonds of brotherhood is loud and clear. I still love the game for what it is, but like my uncle Johnny on half a glass of rum, I could see some aged and un-nuanced opinions on the role of women that made me uncomfortable.

I thought about this ending scene for some time and I wondered if perhaps the ending would be a bit more talked about if the game was gender swapped, with two female protagonists on a journey together and a male seducer. Luckily, this weekend I went to the movies with my girlfriend and we went to see Frozen, the latest movie from Disney. If you aren’t familiar with the film, like Brothers, it stars two princesses/sisters who happen to bond over a treacherous journey through a Northern-European themed fantasy land. It also features a seducer, but in this case the seducer is a prince from a nearby village named Hans. Like the spider woman from Brothers, he is at first a love interest of one of the two main sisters, only to later be revealed a usurper intent on killing both of the main characters. But, in the case of Frozen, Hans is a person who acts like a monster, not a monster disguised as a person. The woman in Brothers is quite literally dehumanized, as she becomes a monster that has no motivation beyond consuming the brothers for the sake of feeding. In contrast, Hans is an unfortunate prince born at the end of a long line of brothers who all outrank him in the line of succession; he is a conniver because he sees no alternative to the throne. He is a jerk and an attempted murderer, but at least he has characterization and motivation. At least Hans is still human. The only living woman (their mother’s ghost makes some angelic appearances) given any real screen time in Brothers is a monster in disguise.

So here I am. I love Brothers and what it does with its two main characters. I love the final sequences with the younger brother learning how to complete tasks that he used to need his older brother for. I love the vistas and I found myself melancholy after the game was over. But unfortunately I can’t think of this game without remembering its one nagging flaw: its use of a woman as a cheap source of conflict and its demonization of one of its only female presences. I really did not expect that a Disney princess movie would present me with a very similar narrative setup to Brothers, but with more nuanced gender relations. By no means is Frozen’s use of the seducer trope perfect, but it doesn’t irk me like Brothers’ does. Perhaps it is just that Brothers aspires to such heights and executes on so much of its goals that when it stumbles it is all the more glaring. I wanted to love this game unconditionally, but now I can’t help but see this flaw staring me in the face.

I guess venn diagram between the Giantbomb audience and the Frozen audience is not as overlapping as I thought...

I don't agree (although I am glad someone is actually talking about the game).

There is an incredibly positive female figure in the game that gives it balance. The brothers' mother is a unifying force for her two sons, just as the spider creature is a force of separation. Similarly, there is a female ogre that is a symbol of family and companionship that you want to save just like male figures such as the father and (eventually) the left brother.

A game ultimately doesn't need to have moral female characters anyway. It just has to have interesting and effective ones.

I actually read this last night and agree quite a bit, but I was way too tired to comment on it at the time. I was really surprised about how much I enjoyed Frozen, and I think that the story it told was way more interesting and touching to me than the one in Brothers. I find it kinda telling that while both have a rift form between siblings started by a romantic complication, Frozen takes the time to show that there are a great many problems between the two sisters and the incident started by the romance plot is just the spark that sets off a veritable powder keg. Brothers, meanwhile, seems to hang the majority of the conflict between the brothers solely on the spider-girl. It's also telling to me that while Frozen shows the sisters attempt to reconcile and things carry on, Brothers immediately kills off the older brother after the scene. I just liked the way Frozen portrayed the complications between family members a lot more than Brothers.

Edited heavily because I still have not had enough sleep.

@gordian-blot: I would say that the mom is more of angelic symbol than she is a character. My issue is less that women are represented negatively as much as they are under developed as characters, they are either monsters in disguise or friendly angels. But now that I think about it I would say that pretty much every character outside of the two brothers is paper thin. Also I found the female troll to use femininity as sort of added reason why you had to save that troll. She is one of two women in the game who you have to save from enemies they can't fight.

@thatpinguino: I haven't seen Frozen so I can't comment on that, not a big fan of animated movies really, but I did finish Brothers. You're, of course, right that the "spider woman" twist is a well worn trope but that's just it Brothers is essentially a collection of loosely related fantasy tropes stitched together with the central brothers connecting the threads. For better or for worse Brothers is trying to be a video game fairy tale and evokes a lot of the aesthetic and themes of those old morality stories.

The "spider woman" is the worst part of that game for a lot of reasons, any implications take a back seat to the immediate problem of poor storytelling, but the game at least partially redeems itself by its excellent payoff. Originally I thought they were going to touch on the themes of the inevitable separation of family by time as children grow up and desire to start their own families, but then they wouldn't have had an excuse for a bad "boss battle" and way to knock off a brother. Remember games still seem to get a bit of a pass for "being good for a video game."

@heyguys:

what surprised me was that both Frozen and Brothers both employ a similar structure and setting, yet Frozen accomplishes so much more for its central characters and antagonists in about half the time. They definitely aspire to different goals, Brothers wants to tell the story of one brother growing up and being able to carry on after loosing the other. While Frozen tells the story of two estranged sisters that are brought closer through their hardships and are able to overcome their estrangement. But regardless of the goals, resorting to a woman-as-monster trope is cheap storytelling and it is relying on a narrative crutch without even jazzing up the crutch.

Just another badly developed villain, but this kind of reaction is the exact reason developers look at female characters with trepidation. It's a no win situation, so, you're better off making your half ass villain a male, at least people won't try to call your work sexist....

@cleron: I wouldn't call it sexist, it's bad storytelling, but there's nothing wrong with having a conversation about it.

@cleron: I mean when all there is to your character is their sex then yeah. I mean the spider girl has almost no character development, the only reason that the brothers would be following her at all is that the older brother has a crush. They make her a fairly nice believable girl, then they flip a switch to make her a monster and that is using the stereotype of the femme fatale in as blunt a way as possible. And the may argument about why the villain in brothers is less complex than the villain in Frozen is purely based on the amount of characterization she is given, not her gender.

Well, you can dismiss the mother any way you feel like, but by that particular logic then the spider is also a symbol rather than a character and thus whatever benefits/repercussions she brings to the game's representation of women is negated. The mother is there, she has a major impact on the characters, and she brings the brothers together.

I like the spider as a villain though. The most chilling part is the boat ride. So much of the time she spends on screen is her frantically trying to get the brothers to her lair, but on the boat ride she has a chance to relax and watch the brothers do it themselves. It's so backwards.

As for the female troll (trolless?), we never really know why she was captured (although we see various trolls seemingly enslaved and she eventually helps out the brothers too). We never know why the father got sick either. He just got sick.

@gordian-blot: I agree that the mother brings the brothers together, I am agreeing with you that neither the spider nor the mother are well developed. My issue is that none of the side characters are well developed. It just happens that two of the three female characters are either divine goddesses or inhuman monsters.

This was an interesting connection to frozen. This also helps me understand my own issues with brothers. I dont know if i had a problem with the woman in the game, but they both seemed hollow and just an easy way to push the story.If their mother had more of an impact to the story with more context as to her death it would have mattered more. Also i agree that if the spidergirl had more of a reason to be there other than to move the story. These character s could have used a bit more context to make them stand out more. It just lack the lasting punch , because we really did not have a reason to like or care for those characters. It shows the nice flip side frozen did by not falling for those same tired princess story beats.(also saw this with my lady).

@phantomzxro: I think the remarkable part of Brothers is the sequence that happens after the older brother dies, the gameplay moments that occur with the younger brother are really potent. But most of the side characters are really one dimensional, it just happened to be that I noticed this the most with the spider girl,but the more I think about it the less I remember anything about the side characters other than their character models.

@thatpinguino: I don't think anybody besides the two main characters was ever meant to be developed. Most of the side characters are there to be facets of the companionship theme and then move on. The troll couple are suffering alone and need to find each other. A man loses his family and tries to kill himself, but instead gets some help and moves on. A rabbit would rather lose its individuality in order to gain friends. All of them are meant to be small chapters in the companionship between to the two leads.

So yeah, only the main characters get developed and they happen to both be male. I guess you can call that a gender issue but I feel like it had to be about brothers. You may have already known, but the game is a very personal response from the creative director to the death of his own brother.

So OP thinks the message of Brothers is... bros before hoes?

Huh. Didn't see that one coming.

@gordian-blot: That link in your post is broken, but I did not know anything about the development process of the game. that makes sense though, since the driving theme of the game is moving on and continuing on the journey. No matter how absurd the threat or the circumstance the two brothers keep going, and that continues after the eldest brother passes away.

@thatpinguino: My bad. Here:

http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/a-tale-of-one-game/1100-4736/

@thatpinguino: I honestly hadn't thought of the spider-lady thing in Brothers like that, but it raises an interesting point. That game feels like a very personal creation and I think this stikes the nail on the head.

Also, I know this isn't the point of this, but how blooming refreshing is Frozen? It avoids all the usual Disney Princess cliches (apart from the teeny-tiny waists) and structures the film around two strong, likeable female leading characters. Also, it's a whole heap of fun.

@gatehouse: I do like that Frozen teeters up to the edge of a bunch of cliches then goes "Psych!" I mean it is a baby-step forward for Disney, but that feels like a world of progress for the princess franchises.

Bros before hoes.

I think the small problem I had with this story turn in Brothers is that it was so telegraphed, so obvious to me. The game looks gorgeous, has an interesting gameplay mechanic, and has an engaging story, for the most part. However, the second the brothers saved the girl and she began leading them along, alarm bells began ringing in my head. It's a relatively tired trope, a woman leading a man to disaster, that it actually kind of dulled the end game for me. I'm not saying it's bad because of the genders of the parties, though I think this happens more often with men or mankind being led astray by women (see Adam and Eve, the legend of Pandora opening a box and dooming mankind, Lady Macbeth egging on her husband to murder, etc) it is just a bit tired, as I said. It's really unfortunate that such a good game has, what I would consider, a lazy story element. Then again, this is the story that the creator wanted to tell, and it works more often than it does not. One small element certainly doesn't doom it, it just makes it less interesting personally, as a the whole.

But, when considering this game plot, that's not so much a gender issue with me as it is a writing issue, and a choice to use a common story element instead of doing something that doesn't come up so often in literature and movies. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. The game is pretty successful in evoking an emotional reaction, I just felt that that story choice was not handled as well, or as interestingly, as some of the other choices the creator made in other parts of the game.

@jadegl: I wouldn't say the lazy characterization ruins the game in any way, it just feels like a missed opportunity and seeing a Disney movie better capitalize on a similar opportunity made me reevaluate Brothers.

Frozen sucks....... That's all I got. :(

@thatpinguino: No, I didn't say it ruined really anything, just that I was disappointed at how obvious the climax was. Maybe it surprised other people, but with how imaginative other elements were in the game, I just felt it was an unfortunate let down. Your phrasing of "missed opportunity" is accurate and I feel it encapsulates my feelings on the matter.

The game uses quaint, fairy tale archetypes. In that regard the spider was completely appropriate. It's not a human female, it's a supposedly female shape-shifting spider monster. And even if you want to see it as the seductress trope, that is a completely valid thing to come between two male characters like the Brothers. Art imitates life and archetypes are what they are for a reason. I'm not being misogynistic or condemning either, it's just a fact of life.

I felt that that the Brothers were at the core, propped up by a gorgeous, classic aesthetic and story blueprint. Not once did it register as a gender thing. The troll lady was already caged, but the male troll didn't dare go rescue her on his own either, so that negates that argument.

@bbqbram: I don't see how the female troll already being in a cage when the brothers show up is significant with regards to her gender not being important. Also just because archetypes and stereotypes exist does not mean that they have to be deployed. Furthermore, if you do rely on a stereotype you can actually expand on that character, rather than just regurgitating the stereotype. Frozen uses stereotypes, but it also expands upon then and crafts unique characters, rather than just deploying pre-made archetypes.