Female V And The Silver Fox Samurai

By Benjamin Rose

Cover Art: Natalie Bielat

Google the question “Is V canonically female” and you’ll quickly wind up on Reddit enmeshed in a tedious conversation between progressives and basement dwellers over who was the better voice actor, who is racist and sexist, and who simply played as Femme V because they’re a “closeted trans woman”. To be honest, I hate this shit, and you should too, being as it is a microcosm of the impossibility of civil discourse in 21st century fandom, or whatever.

Notwithstanding the fact that CD Projekt Red has routinely rejected canonicity for any of V’s endings, genders, or lifepaths, a noticeable trend has emerged both structurally and marketingwise over the past few years that informally gives the prize to Femme V. In large part, this is entirely the achievement of Cherami Leigh, who was nominated for a BAFTA for her voicework in Cyberpunk 2077 and was, pointedly, chosen over Gavin Drea (Male V) to read the spinoff 2077 novelization No Coincidence for Audible.

In other respects, as evinced by comments made by lead quest designer Błażej Augustynek recently (to the effect that the game was written from the female perspective first to compensate for the devs’ greater experience writing a male protagonist, that is, Geralt, and that he personally considers V female) the feminine bias seems structural. https://www.ign.com/articles/cd-projekt-reveals-how-it-made-cyberpunk-2077s-male-and-female-protagonists-in-equal-measure

Disentangling the planned from the adventitious is hard in this case, but the upshot seems hardly in doubt. Prior to launch, V was uniformly depicted as male in promotional material, and female V’s first significant marketing appearance was on the next gen (PS5 etc.) edition cover of Cyberpunk 2077.

By the time of Phantom Liberty, No Coincidence, and the Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition, Femme V was clearly dominant. Consider the semantics; the word “ultimate”, from Latin ultima, carries the connotations of both the “best” example of a thing and the “last”, “final”, or most “complete” version of it. And Leigh’s V is the one gracing the cover, gun in hand, of Phantom Liberty, and towering above Idris Elba and Keanu Reeves on the cover of the Ultimate Edition.

Credit: CD Projekt Red

I don’t think there’s much to debate here. In some ways, this is a refreshing change of perspective: not for the sake of “checking some DEI box”or “fighting the patriarchy” (cf. Reddit), but because having given us two deeply compelling, although deeply different, male protagonists in The Witcher trilogy and Edgerunners, coding V as female adds some variety. This is emphasized again by the sheer quality of Leigh’s nuanced voicework, which captures a great range of attitude and emotion, whereas Drea too often lapses into one-note tough-guy stoicism, like a younger Geralt of Rivia without the wit, intellectual depth, or humor to make him appealing.

Geralt is masculine, which implies hardness and competence tempered by the vulnerability and wisdom required to be an emotionally complex human being. Male V is puerile, a vision of masculinity that either flattens manhood into the ability to break things or else combines that ability with a smirking arrogance that pretends to greater charisma than it actually possesses. Maybe I’m just grousing here: V is after all only 23 compared to Geralt’s 50 something-coded century-long life, but after 25 when real-world responsibility kicks in, most rational men grow out of embodying the average 23 year-old mindset. You were hot shit in high school? Who gives a fuck?

Be that as it may, a puerile, punkass, or moody edgelord character can be compelling to the extent he suggest a greater, untapped potential—that is after all the entire thrust of Shakespeare’s Henriad cycle, which in I Henry IV and II Henry IV is not actually about the title character, but the journey of his son, the dissolute Prince Hal, from child of privilege to national hero as Henry V. But he can’t be boring; and, as in the case of Mark Meer’s soporific Bro Shepherd from Mass Effect, Male V bores the shit out of me, try as I might to give him a playthrough. Oh well, one day I guess.

But in one  aspect, a playthrough by Male V is actually heavily favored by the demands of the plot, and that aspect is Panam Palmer, otherwise known as the only compelling  romance option in what is frankly 2077’s worst dynamic. Besides being essential to both the Anders Hellman section of the main storyline and the generator of the happiest (but not necessarily best) ending to Cyberpunk 2077, Panam is sexy, badass, principled, and, unlike that grumpy pink haired chick, actually capable of joy. Female V can’t sleep with Panam (many have tried on their first playthrough), but she can get wasted, have a laugh, and fuck shit up with her. In this respect alone Male V comes out as the clear winner, as the game basically supplies him one of the best characters in 2077 as a girlfriend, whereas Femme V must either hook up with 1)  the grumpy lesbian porn editor or 2) this loser:

Yeah, I think she would rather become a Buddhist nun and teach meditation in Reconciliation Park…

They did my girl dirty. That said, there was a universally agreed upon way Femme V might have gotten her happy ending and well, CD Projekt, you blew it (I’m of course assuming Idris ruled himself out as an option, because basically anyone would fuck Idris Elba). A delightful, mature man of honor; principled; hard as nails; carved out of wood; his hard earned wisdom and commitment to duty sharper than a katana, his jet black hair streaked with a touch of gray. Slayer of enemies and taker of bad selfies. Foodie, poet, and dad rock samurai: Goro-san.

Takemura is the only romance option that makes any sense for a heterosexual Femme V in Cyberpunk 2077. This is, in some sense, understandable given the scope of the main plot, which is rather short and would leave no time to persuade Takemura to renounce Arasaka in any of the non-The Devil endings. But even in The Devil, if Femme V sides with Arasaka and aids Hanako against Yorinobu, literally killing Adam Smasher by Goro’s side, Takemura cannot…well, smash her. I have played Cyberpunk 2077 4 times and I always save Takemura during the apartment chaos after kidnapping Hanako at the parade. His speech about jisei is beautiful…and of course ends in him telling V to “rot in hell, bitch”. Ouch. So why bother saving him at all? Probably because, from a roleplaying perspective, Femme V’s attraction to Goro (headcanon, but basically universally agreed upon) is based on a quality Male V holds for Takemura as well: professional respect.

Whether V is a male stone cold killer or, in Mike Pondsmith’s words, a female “adorable murder puppy”, V is a butcher, full-stop, and appreciates those who excel in the application of violence. She respects style and competence. Likewise, the age difference and contrast in ideals between the two is essential. If V was a street kid, Takemura is a direct challenge to their conception of corpos, a Japanese John Wick rather than the Wolf of Wall Street-style assholes the corporate echelon is usually represented by. If V is played as ex-Arasaka intel, the affinity only deepens. He is the mature, responsible embodiment of corporate masculinity, not some self-satisfied asshole like Jenkins who fucked up V’s entire life just to get back at his boss.

One gets the sense playing as Femme V, almost as a function of game mechanics and the power curve inherent in any fantastical shooter like 2077, that most of V’s options in Night City are tantamount to dating down. She’s the one who curb-stomped Oda and put a bullet in Adam Smasher’s head. What the fuck is she doing with some low-rent ex-cop like River? If she’s gay, are there literally no other options in this damn city than Judy the irritable “get-off-my-lawn-you-pussies” braindance scroller? What about Aurore Cassel? Kerry doesn’t like girls. Reed is sexless. Johnny’s a ghost. And there will most certainly be no rivals-to-lovers dynamic with Placide (He is too… “yon bet debaz”)

You get the picture. Romance is famously broken in 2077, but when Femme V has no options but Jig-JIg Street himbos, something’s up. Takemura is the exception. He is the only man in Night City (with, I think, the potential exception of the magnificently coiffed Mr. Hands) that can run at V’s tempo, the only major male character that has the looks, toughness, competence, and refinement to match her own excellence. If there is one man in Night City who can give Female V what she doesn’t have already, then it has to be Goro-san.

Well, that’s my piece on V and the Silver Fox Samurai. Be sure to subscribe to The Path and catch Luis’s article on Johnny Silverhand as well as Frankie’s article on the Witcher’s “found fatherhood” trope in the next few days. Next week I’ll be running a piece on Death and Dying in Cyberpunk 2077. Peace, choombas!