Probably needs some reworking : Boobs Of Steel

Something about this trope feels off to me. A lot of the examples are pointing characters in specific works or universes that A) coexist with characters that are less bustier themselves yet equally as strong, B) coexist with characters that are equally busty don't specialize in physical combat whatsoever or C) are action girls who don't specialize in physical combat.

Honesty, Save for a few cases of characters who are brawn hildas or Amazonian beauties most of the women in this trope are pretty much generically attractive. Which has me believing the large breasts of these character's design has nothing to do with the strength or physical combat skill of the character and more to do with the obvious reason.

You know, I think we should check the wicks. I've seen a couple that mistake it for breasts being strong, not the woman being strong.

You mean an Improbable Weapon User of their breasts?

I meant more like breast would be something like armor. There was a really bad use of the trope on American Dad that I edited out.

Ah.

I don't wanna sound really cynical but I'm starting to get this feeling that a lot of tropers are using big breasts tropes simply to point out characters with big breasts.

Which is why we have repair shops open for every breast trope. And most of the misuse I would put under "powerful" instead of "physical strength". (Personally I think its fine that way but whatever.)

I recently killed an edit to Firefly that tried to list Zoe under this trope, ignoring that, from what I recall, Inara is just as well endowed.

I'm ambivalent toward "physical strength" (which I've seen), "generally powerful" (less so), or "the melee fighter" (which I've seen).

People seem to equate this to something like Large and in Charge with Breasts (personally I think that should be a trope by itself related to Magnificent Bitch and The Ojou and other tropes ) or the most powerful fighters get the rack moreso if their outfit shows off the goods during a fight Panty Fighter style. Or just a large breasted fighter who goes bouncing across the battlefield.

edited 3rd May '11 11:50:21 AM by Raso

Anyone want to check the wicks?

Should there even be real life examples in this trope?

Dunno. Probably not.

Yea, didn't think so either.

I have to ask, but does anyone really think that any of these examples are cases of a character's cup being directly porpotional to their combat abilities? It just feels like a huge leap of logic. Big breasts aren't exactly a uncommon trait in fiction.

I've seen several cases, but in most of them, the female character is just physically larger than the others.

Do you know of any examples of character that aren't physically larger than the female rest of the cast. I wouldn't mind if this trope dealt with characters who were brawn Hildas or amazon beauties but a lot of these examples are generically attractive women in works that have or are designed for a mostly male audience so it's hard for me to see how their cup size has anything to do with how strong they are.

bump

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall just from memory that that WAS what the trope is about. A character is physically strong, but rather than make them muscular, they're given a bigger chest. Tifa from ff7 is the archetypal example, while Power Girl is a case of doing this at first, then getting more realistic and making her muscular anyway. It's a character design trope more than anything else, and it's inherently unrealistic because athletic women lose cup size along with other bodyfat. Thus necessitating no Real Life examples.

That's what I always thought the point was. Sometimes there's grey area, like when breast size can be used to measure non-physical power, but the heart of the trope is big breasts = stronger girl.

If that's the case then the trope premise is flawed from the get go. Unless a character designer has explicitly stated why a character was designed in a certain way then any reasoning made behind their decision by people other than them is an assumption. Also I don't understand how Power Girl getting more muscular makes her more realistic, if anything it's the opposite. In Real Life, unless implants are involve, it's pretty much impossible to achieve the bodytype of Power Girl's muscular descriptions.

I find that a bit hard to swallow. Big breasts are an extremely common trait among fictional female characters regardless of the female character's background and the only other commonality between those characters is that they're all generally in male oriented works. So saying that in this specific case a generically attractive big breasted character was drawn with big breasts for something than the fact that it's sexy character design 101, least IMO, requires more substance.

edited 23rd May '11 11:01:14 AM by captainpat

Warlock's description might work if we put a YMMV warning up, or does this trope serve no purpose other than giving people an easy reference to characters they can fap to?

No, its just a visual shorthand. Look at the page picture. Like how angry people often have red hair.

edited 28th May '11 1:26:03 PM by Discar

That picture doesn't really mean anything. I mean, the same character designer worked on Final Fantasy 10 and designed Lulu◊, who's a wizard. I know that big breasts are a visual shorthand for sexiness but this idea that character's have big breasts because they're physical strong sounds ridiculous.

But the fact that muscular women lose breast fat in Real Life is notable.

That's why I said I would support revamping this trope to only include muscular or statuesque women.

edited 28th May '11 2:37:54 PM by captainpat

It does get overused. I don't think aversions even need to be noted; this trope isn't so common that any example of a girl with big breasts who isn't the brawler is an aversion. That just an Ignored Trope. Subversions are a little tricky too.

Cleaning it out to only allow for straight example, exaggerations, and lampshadings would help a lot, I think.