Let's take this one step further. Let's look at the ACTIVE series.

Oh wait. The picking are much slimmer. You've got what, Pikmin, Mario, Pokemon, and...Zelda. Everything else is Status Unsure...at best.

With Pikmin IV, we don't know what to expect because all of Nintendo's outward showing was on the shoulders of a single man and he's gone now. Mario is a mainstay series that probably won't even stop after Nintendo as we know it is gone. Pokemon looks to be the same as ever, and Breath of the Wild looks to be too ambitious in my opinion.

Now of the grand showing of practically bugger all this year, we can expect that Pokemon will continue to feature a female avatar. Perhaps they'll even remember to let us customise it. That's a check.

Miyamoto mentioned something incredibly vague about doing something different with the 2D Mario series. Considering that he hit the ceiling for both stables, what with going to space and just giving up and giving people a level editor, I can understand the need for something new. However, I doubt that this will involve Peach-Hime being playable.

In spite of shaking up 30 years of conventions and Zelda traditions, the series creator and current Zelda Team lead have both put their feet firmly in their mouths as to why there wouldn't be a female protagonist in a mainline Zelda game. But there's been female Zelda artwork and cosplay since before the first Clinton administration. My expectation is that it'll be until the next Clinton administration to realize this. They had already considered this before (in the same way a picky child considers peas), but apparently they didn't understand that they could have avoided a buttload of idiotic bad press by simply giving players the option when the character of Link is so efficient that some Disney Princesses look Butch compared to him.

As for Pikmin, they did introduce ONE female playable character, but it was still an absolute sausage fest. I do not have high expectations for this to be resolved.

I don't get what happened. The Mother Series, Fire Emblem, and the Nintendo Wars series were speckled with good examples of strong female characters. Kumatora, various female COs, and of course so many serious ladies of Fire Emblem, and not the otaku bait that is the obviously pandering Tharja.

Nintendo claims to have female staff, but I don't trust the culture of Japan to put them above "carpet' status.

Actually, for this purpose, I would not count Pokemon as having a fixed protagonist precisely because you get a choice. (It's still better than forcing a male avatar, however.)

I am here looking at games with a fixed protagonist. It is of these games that male characters are way too common and female characters way too rare.
Yes, but if you look solely at the *main* character of each game, you will notice that said character is male (with the arguable exception of some Fire Emblem games).

That can be taken all sorts of places, places such as:

- There's nothing in the Witcher canon that says Geralt can't die and reincarnate as a woman.
etc.

With science fiction, fantasy and pretty much all fiction, the authors can make the rules. If they write themselves into a corner with rules or existing canon, they can make a time machine or paranormal rift that opens up a gate to a parallel universe or alternative timeline where the rules are completely different, etc.

Look at the first of the new Star Trek movies as an example. I liked the new Star Trek movies, but they could have made Kirk a woman because it's a different timeline. You could literally make Geralt come back as a walking oak tree, then make him a relative of Groot in the lore. :)

While all of that is possible though, doing that sort of thing comes with potentially big risks. Risks that the fan base is not going to buy into the alternative timeline, Geralt as a tree, Kirk as a woman. Look at the examples above of how female Thor and Robin were received as case in point. Sure, they can do anything they want really, but sometimes when they do this thinking it is a smart franchise decision you end up with Aliens 3. :)

Here's something to note:

In Doctor Who, it has already been established that the Doctor can die and regenerate as a new character; hence, having the Doctor regenerate as a woman would not be unreasonable.

On the other hand, has Geralt ever died and reincarnated? Also, does reincarnation happen in the world at all?

It's fiction, anything could happen in the future in fiction, whether or not it has ever happened in the past. Geralt theoretically could die and be reincarnated as an ice cream shitting rainbow farting flying unicorn. It probably wont happen, but it could.

That's why tinyE said "he'd have to be Russian".

Oi, you want to start a fight or what?

And that other sentence is even more retarded you trying to stir shit up, mate?

While I'm here: The topic title has a grammatical mistake.

It should read: "What if Geralt *were* female!"

Except for the looks and the name? Not much I guess.

But gasp, I say! Isn't he a well established character with a long backstory?

The ultra-sensitives won't play it either way. Too much immaturity for their feelings to handle. So why do it?

I read the books but it was already some time ago. If I remember correctly he was feed some mutagenic mushrooms, then decided to become monster slayer and famous fighter, then got in love with a sorceress, then took custody of a child, then travelled through the world somehow being drawn into wars, affairs, royal conspiracies without really wanting to always showing lots of pragramatism. The world is somewhat medieval fantasy with elves and dwards but doesn't really indicate a patriachart or special roles for genders as far as I remember.

Exchange Geralt by Fiona (fightress, a bit more refined combat style, slightly less strong) and you get mostly the same story I would guess. It would be surprising for a split of a second and then... ?

I am generally against the idea of changing existing franchises to SJW-friendly, e.g. changing Geralt to a female, or the new Mad Maxine, or changing James Bond to a black lesbian woman with four legs. While sometimes it may work, I just generally oppose the idea. Next they will make a movie about Jesus where he is she, because you knows.

What I am for though is introducing new games and series with female leads. I don't have anything inherently against that, as long as it makes sense and doesn't feel like some cheap attempt to ride of the SJW wave.

Mirror's Edge was ok in that sense. I loved the Aliens and Terminator (2) movies with their female leads. These are examples of things done right. It would feel equally stupid if Mirror's Edge 2 would have a male lead this time because of some unwritten equality rule that both genders must be present in the series as leads, or because the men's right activists had a social media campaign to get a male lead to Mirror's Edge 2.

Does that exist? It'd have to be Gay Men or Black Men or some other bullshit. Straight Men or White Men or anything of that nature would be labeled racist or sexist or unworthy of having a group look out for their best interests.
*ahem*

I've played the first two games. I don't really care for Geralt but I don't really like the world he lives in either so that might be part of the reason. I think if he was female he'd have to fight twice as many people probably.

Here we have it all (sorry, in Finnish):

http://www.miestentasa-arvo.fi/

http://henrylaasanen.puheenvuoro.uusisuomi.fi/

So while the feminists concentrate on stressing how oppressed all the women are and point out where this oppression happens in the society, these men's activists do the same for men.

Sometimes their arguments are pretty silly (like complaining about the status of single men who can't find a woman, as if that is somehow a gender equality issue; or complaining that some fair wanted to hire young women, and not old men), sometimes they point out real problems that the society doesn't care about (like in Finland the unemployment rate is considerably higher for men than women (this is always forgotten when comparing the wages of men and women), or that while men indeed make more money, they also work much longer hours, or that most homeless people and outcasts in Finland are men, or that the women generally benefit far more from the Finnish pension system than men, etc. etc. etc. yadda yadda yadda...).