Beyond the Damsel and the Deity: Gender, Aesthetics, and the Representation of Female Protagonists in Indian Video Games

Bhanu Pratap Maharatha , Sanjay Gupta

Indian video games; female protagonists; feminist game studies; postcolonial game studies; gender representation; character aesthetics

By using female characters as heroes in Indian video games, the status of women has been promoted, but the commonly-used patterns of representation always have their basis in one of these categories that have been handed down through history: the woman who must be rescued and is therefore part of a narrative damsel in distress or woman as the goddess of myth with her transcendental values and symbols one civilization sign. This study contends that getting beyond both these patterns requires theoretical work anchored not merely on inert strength but also itself be built on body (from the way she was framed to the result in cultural code), on dexterity (what a player can do through her), and on personality because of them, her desires and decisions become the skeleton around which subsequent development spins out. Through the staged, qualitative case study grounded in Raji: An Ancient Epic, MISSING - Game for a Cause, and Venba, supported with extra India-specific examples (Unrest - Devi: A Light in the Dark - Ajnabee: A Stranger Vocal Horror Stories--Gaja ), this paper elaborates five major ways of representing Indian heroines: the mythic heroine the activist/survivor the female protagonist who lives with or is apart from family, both at home and abroad the ensemble lead in a civic political drama the contemporary psychological subject Findings show that reasons for moves away from damsel/deity typicity become convincing only when games design the issue at mechanical level (choice architectures, pacing philosophy s of failure), when they interfere with traditions of "gaze" through framing and graphic grammar, and if they approve women as playable outside rescue or worship Paper concludes with a gender-saved design frame for India's game-making scene, stressing representational variety, intersectionality specificity and the grounding aesthetic that is Should be for cultural form of creativity.

Volume 14 Issue 3, March-2026

Pages : g635-g650