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Bruh, have you played this game? Maria is absolutely a strong female character and specifically struggles with the expectations placed on her because she's a noblewoman. While she does love Michael and is fiercely loyal to him and her allies, she's very much her own person. If you expect Maria to be a housewife/baby factory, you have either not played the game at all, horribly misunderstood everything about Maria, and/or are projecting what you want to see on a game that is very much not doing that.
I have played it, and I like it. And the main reason I like it is because Maria is not a "strong female character", at all. Don´t insult her, even if you are his author, please.
A "strong female character" is a female character that copies the stereotypes of the "strong male character" of the cinema of the 80´s (that became a joke in the 90´s) and put them into a female character in the 2020´s because that´s feminism in modern writing: a woman that behaves like a stereotyped rude "alpha" man. So far, Maria doesn´t fight against monsters or men with her bare fists because she knows they are stronger and can´t win. Maria is not rude with men. Like other user says in a previous comment, she don´t try to undermine and set a dominance over men. She don´t do with men what a stereotyped alpha male of an old bad western or a 80´s action movie would do with other men. She don´t try to always show that she doesn´t need men because she´s "independent" and "empowered", and she´s better than men. She´s not offended if receives the help of a man and says things like "I´m a big girl, I can take care of myself". She supports and helps the MC, and accepts his support and his help.
There are already THOUSANDS of "strong female characters" in comics, games, novels, TV shows and movies, that are actually stereotyped rude alpha males with the appearance of women. So, please, don´t spoil Maria with postmodern feminist stereotypes and clichés. She´s a great character so far.
And, yes, if she´s living in a medieval world, his mindset should be medieval. And that´s not incompatible with "being her own person". I´m not saying that the game should turn into a "pregnancy simulator". That would be a boring game. It´s OK that Maria is an adventurer and explorer, even if that´s not exactly a role for a woman in a medieval world, because the story needs it. I´m saying that a noblewoman in medieval times would understand that she would need a husband in order of inherit a title because, when the adventure and exploration times ends, her main social role will be to be a wife and mother and continue the dynasty, and would not consider herself as a "subservient to a man in her own house", like other user says. Specially not one that she loves so much. The problem would be to find the correct man (and apparently she has found him already) not that the man would have access to her status and title and she would be "the wife of".
