The problem with the damsel-in-distress cliché is that, while including a damsel-in-distress in your game isn’t the same as saying all women are helpless, it does reinforce a stereotype that is prevalent, not only in games, but in every art form. So even though a single instance of it might not be strongly felt on its own, eventually those drops do fill up the bucket. And which buckets we notice filling up depends on which stereotypes affect us most—as
