Samus Aran: Heroine or Space Harlot?
Today, the world received lovely news: all three installments of the Metroid Prime series will be collected on one Wii disc. Opinions are mixed about Metroid Prime 2 and 3, but the Gamecube’s most vocal critics shrank back from Metroid Prime like a vampire withering away from a crucifix.
As can be expected, the news of a Metroid-rich future has sparked a lot of conversation about the series’ heroine: Samus Aran. Samus is easily gaming’s most admired female character, well-liked for her steady footing, perseverance, and sense of duty. But her self-discipline doesn’t wash away her humanity, a point illustrated throughly by the climactic fight with Mother Brain at the end of Super Metroid.
Moreover, Samus retains respect for being selectively modest. If you put forth your very best performance in a Metroid game, you might catch a glimpse of the bounty hunter out-of-suit. If you slack, well, enjoy fantasizing about a big tin suit.
It’s easy to mark Metroid’s famous endings as mere fanservice, but when Samus unveils, you’re not just being rewarded with a big ol’ slice of cheesecake: you’re earning a (figuratively) naked glimpse at one of gaming’s most reserved heroes. This revelation was especially important in the 8-bit era. It wasn’t just a shock to find out that Samus was a girl: discovering that there was a happily-waving human at the core of that bulky robot suit was pretty thrilling, too. It was one of console gaming’s earliest and most important twists of character.
Now that Samus’ popularity has finally gained momentum, some gamers wonder if her appeal as character is being drained in favour of bigger slices of the aforementioned cheesecake. Samus has long avoided being made up like the same brand of gaming tart that’s available for ten cents a dozen these days, but there’s worry that might be changing.
Samus’ critics point to Metroid: Zero Mission as the starting mark for Samus’ tumble into game heroine mediocrity. The character design used for the game’s cut scenes emphasized her pouty lips, done-up eyes, and, er, assets. The design stuck for Super Smash Bros Brawl. Suddenly, seeing Samus “undone” wasn’t a hard-earned reward. She could strut around suitless for as long as the player wanted to ogle her.
As a female gamer who’s constantly sighing and shaking her head like a sad grandma, character design choices don’t slip me by. I don’t understand all the strange ways of the male, but it seems to me—and I think more than a few men will agree with me on this—that Samus was physically sexier pre-Zero Mission. Her athleticism and unflagging resolve mixed well with her small flashes of maternal warmth. There was never any need to give her a stupid anime-grade hair style and pounds of make-up.
If Samus feels the need to pretty up before shooting Space Pirates, fine. I can live with that. What really makes me want to throw a punch are the cut scenes in Super Smash Bros Brawl that focus on her tight bum—don’t deny it—as well as her Zero Suit weapon and sultry taunts. Oh boy. a whip. No overtones there. Maybe Samus is just smart enough to know that seduction is a natural means of disarming an opponent, but considering she presents for Jigglypuff just as passionately as for Solid Snake, I’m not holding my breath.
Still, I can say a lot in Samus’ defense, since the character still appeals to me despite bad design choices:
–I won’t fault her for wearing skin-tight clothing underneath her suit, though I do find it odd that she would opt for her Zero Suit instead of her beloved space bikini. No doubt it gets hot in that contraption of hers with all the running and jumping. What’s more, she has Chozo blood running through her, so there stands a good chance her body temperature is higher than the body temperature of the average Dorito-consuming gamer.
–Samus was raised by birds. God knows what their ideas of modesty were like. You ever see robins go at it in the park? They have no shame.
–I am bored of Samus’ Sexy Time, but I’m far from being bored of her as a character. She still has an interesting past that’s rarely overstated. Even a certain single frame at the end of Zero Mission is very telling of her personality and past.
–Samus is happy. She has her spells, but many of her endings depict her as being content and satisfied with bounty hunting. Does she mourn over her Space Pirate body count? We don’t know, but there’s no real evidence that she feels any sadness for the race that killed her parents, razed her home planet, and did bad things to her little pet Metroid. Maybe she carries the weight of the world when she’s in her Gravity Suit, but when it’s off, the girl slips into weekend mode. Living in a world that has big problems separating work and play, I appreciate that.
–Even Super Smash Bros Brawl deserves this much: When Snake states his intentions (in a G-rated manner) to bed Samus, both Mei Ling and Otacon assure the confident alpha male that Samus would break him if he tried.
For now, I’m confident about stepping back and waiting to see where Samus ends up. I think she’ll be just fine. Continue to deliver us from the evils of Space Piracy, Miss Aran.
Tags: female characters, metroid, nadia oxford, samus aran, solid snake, super smash bros brawl
John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself. 
Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.
Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.
Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines.
Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.
Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.
Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.
I never played Zero Mission, but when I saw Samus in her Zero Suit in Brawl, it definitely felt weird. I actually wouldn’t have even known she was Samus if I hadn’t watched her Varia Suit fall off and the words “Zero Suit Samus” appear right there in the trailer.
Side note: Metroid Prime Trilogy makes me wish I liked Metroid games. That is a really awesome collection. I’d pick it up in an instant if it was a series I was interested in.
Samus is my favorite game character in general and my preferred character in Brawl. However, i do handicap myself when I play her because i absolutely refuse to get the Smash Ball since I find her Zero Suit design utterly insulting. Nintendo, let’s get past this nonsense. Showing skin isn’t going to make Metroid more mainstream. As far as I’m concerned, the best Samus has ever looked outside of her suit was at the end of Prime 1. Her face had the perfect mix of weathered maturity. Let’s dump the cat suited pole dancer and get beck to the professional alien killer please. After all, her character was inspired by Ripley from the Alien movies. Stay true to the source.
I’d go with the argument that Samus’ suitless design is likely to change over time just as her suited version has. Look at the ending of Prime 1. I don’t think she has a look of weathered maturity. I think they went for a style of realism, and frankly, kind of failed. They tried to make a realistic face with Gamecube era graphics and it ended up looking stiff and weird to me. Prime 2’s design was clearly influenced by the Metroid remake (she’s wearing the blue suit) and she looks a little more stylized. By Prime 3 they dropped any semblance of realism and just went for Zero Mission’s stylized, kind of cartoonish look. It doesn’t look sexed up. And as far as showing skin, so far there has been ONE game that shows it predominantly, and that’s Brawl. Unless you count the hour and a half, tiny sprite version in Zero Mission. Actually, if you want to make the game thematically more like Ripley and Alien, I would suggest making an entire Metroid game without the suit at all. She can be designed however you please, but I’d like to see one game where she’s a little less powerful. I found the additional content in Zero Mission to be some of the most exciting in Metroid’s history.
I’m not necessarily against sexual objectification of either men or women but it’s something that has a time and a place and it definitely wasn’t done well with Metroid. Trying to force a ’sexy’ angle on to a character who did fine without it for fifteen years was uncalled for. The new design didn’t made the series any more popular (I’ve yet to see -anyone- who claims they bought the games for the sex appeal) so all it’s done is upset long-term Metroid fans (male AND female!).
Well, it seems to have made Metroid hentai about ten times more common but I’m not counting that as a good thing.
I preferred Samus when she had a bit of ambiguity to her. Before the standardised Zero Slut Samus design she looked a little different every time she took the helmet off, and sometimes she was quite plain and unremarkable. I think this was a way of saying she was just an ordinary woman underneath, or she could be any woman, but the fact she was a woman wasn’t as important as the fact she was Samus Aran.
Eh, Zero Suit doesn’t bother me. It’s really something closer to what I’d expect to be worn in the depths of space, under a suit of armor like that. Looks thermal to me, like insulation.
Granted, I think after Zero Mission, it seems to… ah, accentuate her figure more, most notably in Brawl, but from a design standpoint, it makes sense to me.