Why do the characters have a gender?

[philip]

I just finished the game and it was the best I have played this year so far. Thanks for a very beautiful game.

Afterwards I checked the website and was a little surprised that the five characters not only have names but also specified genders. So my five heroes are four men and a woman.
I'm not really complaining, but I really wonder: Why?

I did not follow the website prior to the release, in which case I would have known before even playing the game.

But for me the game opened up a wonderful fantasy world that was designed with the clear intention of inspiring my mind and giving me a break from reality: The game has no spoken text; no text at all really besides the menus. There is no manual and nothing to distract the player from this story in a fantasy nature where twigs and mushrooms and lots of wonderful creatures roam.

Why does this world need characters that have a name (Mr. Twig is something very difficult than just "twig")? They are not people. They don't talk. They don't address each other.

Even more so with the gender. Why is the mushroom a lady? Our heroes (and all of the other creatures) do not exhibit any gender-specific behavior in the game (and why would they - they are a fantasy). Why burden them with an external definition? What does this add to the game?


In hindsight, this spoiled the game a bit for me. It's like watching the film they made from your favorite book and see that the actors look different than the characters you had in your mind.

Can't we just have lovely creatures in a game that wants to lead us into their own world? Must we burden them with our human ideas of identity?

What do you think?

[Aetulia]

I completely agree with your sentiment. Gender in games is often a difficult topic to breach, and it seems that many people find it insignificant in the broad scope of social factors in gaming. In this situation, the "gendering" of the characters is not necessarily negative, as it shows a depiction of a female character that isn't characterized by gendered behavior. Despite it not being negative, I do find it unnecessary. I, too, had assumed the characters were genderless. Horticulturally speaking, there are male and female plants, but I doubt that actual plant reproductive factors influenced the genders of these characters.
As a slight aside, I found it interesting that the "Mrs." Mushroom character bears that title. "Mr." does not denote a marital status, but our supposedly female protagonist is married. Probably nitpicking on my part, but interesting nonetheless.

[masorost]

Despite it not being negative, I do find it unnecessary

  Botanicula is in fact based on "unnecessariness" and it is full of useless details, which are obviously not supposed to make any sense