The digital game Firewatch adheres to the adventure game genre by presenting tropes that align it with the journey story. The protagonist, Henry, takes a summer position as a forester in an attempt to escape his personal tribulations. The game descends from the fantasy of an idealized heteronormative lifestyle to the tragic reality of Julia's early beginnings. Drunk driving conviction for Alzheimer's disease and Henry. Henry is isolated from society and confined to the watchtower upon his arrival in the forest. Henry's only and elusive companion, Delilah, is never physically depicted on screen, but she delegates Henry's daily tasks. Henry's predilection for life on the frontier is irrelevant as the game is structured as a walking simulation. The structure of the simulation becomes more and more disturbing as the window shatters. (Campo Santo). The player is then juxtaposed between two genders for the remainder of the game. The game recycles horror tropes to offset the placid natural setting. Firewatch resolves with the annihilation of the forest and Henry and Delilah's re-emergence into society. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Firewatch implores the narratological prism of feminism to discern the thematic aspect of the game. Campo Santo attempted to illustrate the process of male maturity through the challenges imposed by an incendiary terrain. Henry is forced to flee the environment once the metaphorical trials are complete. According to gender studies scholar Evan Watts, digital games set in anti-utopian societies with a domineering male protagonist frequently underpin male-influenced tropes of protectionism and the attribution of control to aid in engendering female autonomy. Although Campo Santo appears to endorse the conventional tropes that Watt described as masculine idealism, the feminist perspective of empowerment subverts the initial imagery of masculinity. The dialogue options in Firewatch reflect an interplay between masculine tropes and the disillusionment of masculine tropes to give a feminist critique of emancipation. The article “Ruin, Gender and Digital Games” by Evan Watts is essential in the gestation of women's rights by subverting democracy in conventional digital gaming companies to denounce their misogynistic regulations. Watts deploys three paradigms that demonstrate the error of patriarchy to characterize women: “Bioshock, Fallout 3, and Silent Hill” (Watts 253). The paradigms contribute to the generation of two integral concepts that characterize masculine idealism: protectionism and the attribution of control. The notion of protectionism is essential for a male figure to preserve a woman's innocence from the corruption of society. The attribution of control addresses male repression of female desires to maintain their disempowering power over women. Dichotomous concepts are expressed in the feminist perception of Firewatch. In the preamble to Firewatch, the player is provided with dialogue options that frame Henry's personality and his systematic choices throughout the rest of the game. The framed narrative precedes with linear anticipation until the acceleration of deterioration of Julia's condition. The game provides Henry with dueling opportunities to deal with Julia's major illness. “You decide whether to place her in a full-time care facility or you are determined to care for her on your own” (Campo Santo). The designated options embody the philosophy of male protectionism among men wanting tosuppress the emergence of female independence. The repercussions of Henry's decision immortalize Julia's victimization. Julia's departure to a nursing home reinforces the importance of Watts' associations of femininity. “Marginalizing women, forcing them to assume roles of domesticity, passivity and subordination” (Watts 250). Campo Santo makes Julia a kismet victim of a terminal illness to scrutinize the fraudulence of women through the denial of their vocal presence. The latter option depicts a similar example of female oppression, Henry portrays the role of omnipresent male protector as Julia's guardian. The protective model is governed by patriarchy by prescribing to men the inherited traits of strength, perseverance and infallibility; giving credence to their supervision over women. Campo Santo defines Julia through Henry's perception by denying the revelation of Julia's feelings about her infirmity. Julia's transparency is systemic to a society that values ​​male intuition and thwarts female intelligence. The trope of subordination is the raison d'être of patriarchy in Firewatch and evolves to respond to Julia's outward obedience to Henry. Watts examines the digital game BioShock as an epithet to address the harmful potential of male surveillance. The presentation of female characters in Bioshock is that of children or "Little Sisters". The Little Sisters embody the trope of victimhood in their artificial disfigurement and their need as children to be guided by a male parental figure (Watts 253-255). The Little Sisters parody Julia in their apparent return to an infantile stage. The girl-child metaphor is enough to satisfy a visual representation of women's inferiority. Firewatch is effective in subverting the conservative male model by displacing Julia as a burden to Henry. The uniform consequence of the preceding scenarios is Henry's neglect to facilitate Julia's care. Henry's lethargy during Julia's rehabilitation is symptomatic of the failure to implement the patriarchal practice of paternalism. Campo Santo offers options that describe Julia's rescue from a male overseer who traps her in a state of hopeless incompetence. “You put a chair in front of the bedroom door or you think she sleeps like a rock” (Campo Santo). In the first option presented, Henry's paternalistic influence is limited; instead of frequently checking on Julia and preventing her from leaving the room, he grants Julia a limited reserve of autonomy by arbitrarily closing the room. “You put a chair in front of the bedroom door” (Campo Santo). Julia is intermediately stripped of her metaphorical childhood to the extent that she has the potential to escape the room. The benign repercussions of Julia's departure from the room coincide with patriarchy's digression into the constraints placed on women. The chair functions as a metaphor for increasing female mobility despite the ever-present obstacle of patriarchy. The chair is therefore a dichotomy of definite and indefinite obstacles in the hypothetical potential to contain or reveal Julia. According to Watt's deconstruction analogy. “The demolition of such a building signifies liberation from an oppressive culture” (Watt 250). Henry's weak strengthening of the door is the beginning of the destabilization of the patriarchal injunctions that transform women into the position of family devotees. The second paradigm laid down by Campo Santo orchestrates Julia's absolute deliverance from the paternalism that the room symbolically offers. “You trust that she sleeps like a rock” (Campo Santo). Henry undermines the security purpose of the doors in his incompetence in imploring the lock. According to Watts, “the absence of boundariesexisting architectural structures coincide with a deficiency in the removal of women from a harmful society” (Watts 250). Henry's faith is restored in Julia, believing that she is capable of existing independently of an artificial symbiotic paternalistic relationship. The renewal of confidence in women implies a lesser need for men to conform to their role as protector. Women are elevated to the rank of individuals and are removed from their trivialized interpretation of children. The game moves away from the extent of male protectionism with the simultaneous progression of the narrative. Firewatch displays congruences with BioShock by subclassifying the theme of misogynistic protectionism with the advancement of the narrative. According to Watts, the game overturns the practice of male power that has sowed confusion in society and returns supremacy to women. “The overtly patriarchal image of women in need of male protection is disrupted by the fact that Big Dads are subordinate to Little Sisters” (Watts 255). The fetishization of women as helpless offspring is transcended by game mechanics to make women the pacers of men. Firewatch deploys a metaphor to add the reassignment of control to women and in turn grants them supremacy over their male counterparts. In Firewatch's Day one module, the game catalogs dialogue options that explain Delilah's presence. “You killed three husbands. You are a black widow. You stay here until the heat subsides and then you will kill again” (Campo Santo). Henry is seemingly aligned with a patriarchal agenda by equating Delilah to a misandry spider. The comparison to a spider dehumanizes Delilah by transforming her feminine figure into a repugnant imaginary image. Delilah suspends Henry's defamatory illustration and usurps control by forcing Henry to follow her orders. Campo Santo transcends Henry's role of symbolic inferiority to show the rise of female ancestry. Watts implores a final paradigm by extrapolating the male inferiority complex in his evaluation of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. In which the player plays the male protagonist and is paralyzed during the action sequence by female manipulation of the game's mechanics. "It is an approach that forces the player to place themselves in the position of victim in the situation rather than dominate it, and which then requires that the players become aware of it” (Watt 260). Silent Hill upends conventional expectations by discriminating against authority in favor of an absent female character and dismantling the male protagonist's ability to mount a counterattack. The game forces men to assume the predetermined roles of servitude that once characterized women. Silent Hill is similar to Firewatch in that the survival of the male protagonist depends on the omnipotent female character. Firewatch subverts the male craze for control and confines the distribution of power to that of women. Firewatch offers a close reading of the aforementioned metaphor to set a precedent for female emancipation by validating women's carnal desires. Comparing Delilah to a black widow brings her predatory instincts into play. “You killed three husbands” (Campo Santo). The predatory natures manifested in women demonstrate the beginnings of autonomy over their promiscuous desires and in turn rebuke dominant male desires. The dialogue option is a precursor to the development of a potential flirtation and involves a subset of Henry's romantic illusions regarding Delilah. Delilah dominates their current intimacy and disrupts the traditionally masculine sexualized reverie. The black widow analogy makes the male spider replaceable, to the leniency of the female spider and.