Your Princess is in another Castle
How many stories do you know where there is a male protagonist out to save his kidnapped girl? There are quite a lot and I think it's a tale as old as time. Men are expected to defend their women. However, why does the story feel so alienating in a video game? The Analogy As I said the "save the princess" story is very old and deeply rooted in our culture/instincts. In animal terms, it is the story of winning females away from a rival and gaining exclusive mating rights. It speaks to our basic nature of males proving themselves to a female by show of strength. And there is something in us that accepts this. Women want strong men who can defend them. Men feel the need to show off their strength to impress said woman. Where the analogy falls apart is that in a story, the attention is always split to focus on one party or the other. If the focus is the captured princess (a la Sleeping Beauty/Snow White), then the Prince is not given much of a personality. He's just