Male Roles Vs. Female Roles in Fiction: Discussion/Analysis/Troperwank

There are tanks that are supports, too. Alistar, for example, as well as Taric from league of legends come to mind. Leona is a female support and a tank, as well.

It is very possible for them to be that. Support refers to a specific type of role that is varied as it is variable. they can be healers, the people who initiate, the defenders of the ADC, stunners, rooters, or in general facilitate fights one way or the other.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

I don't know who "Leona" is.

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!

This◊ is Leona. She is a support.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

Then yea, I kinda fit the women in suport roles sterotype myself. :/

I tend to play tanks that defend my teamates, or in RTS I will fortify our possitions, and provide artilary cover.

Although I will say this much I gotta agree with TB that making false claims weakens the argument, and Ainita does fail on that bit quite often, although I cant speak on the MOBA due to not having experiance.

I actually thought that LoL's gender division between support characters was heavily on the female side, but now that I looked into it, exactly five out of ten supports are female. The reason for my error was the fact that many mages, like Zyra, Morgana, Annie, and Karma really ever see play as supports only. And, like mentioned, Leona is a support tank.

LoL has had some problems with Guys Smash, Girls Shoot, though. Fans actually had to ask for a female tank before they finally added Leona into the game, and with Sejuani they are still the only two female tanks in the game. Same goes with fighters (only 8 out of 36!).

edited 30th Sep '14 12:15:55 PM by Paradisesnake

Guys Smash, Girls Shoot makes the veins in my forehead throb. In most of those cases, this is fantasy, there's no reason women have to be restricted to bows/magic/support roles, no one's going to call you out for inaccuracy if you have women in your equivalent of, say, the Knights of the Round Table.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

It's also completely unrealistic. Bows require a huge amount of upper body strength. Historically, if women had to fight with the men, they were better off with pole arms.

Except that "realism" or "historical accuracy" are arguments that are brought up in relation to fantasy stories. In a world with dragons and magic, women in fighting or leadership roles is what ruins immersion in the story.

edited 30th Sep '14 4:57:33 PM by AceofSpades

In a well-written narrative, the fantasy elements are part of the setting, while the characters (even the non-human ones) nevertheless act, think and feel in a way that the audience can relate to. In other words, realistically, given the fantastic setting. This has very strong implications for the use of stereotypes.

If it's fantasy, you don't necessarily have to comply to a stereotyped vision of what we think the past was like. And quite frankly, doing so leads to a lot of the sameness of the genre that gets tiresome. Plus, women did, in fact, do quite a bit in history, with several counter arguments as regards women's supposed roles.

You are, basically, making excuses here.

I kinda agree with Demarquis there, quite heavily, and this is coming from some one who thinks that there are too many sterotypes in Sci-Fi and most media.

Fantasy needs grounding elements, and for most fantasy settings that is the society, which is almost universally based off medieval Europe, in truth personally I am way more bothered by the "Medival Europe" bit since that is very.... Eurocentric, and it is not like Asia or the Middle East were not world players at the time.

edited 30th Sep '14 5:04:26 PM by Imca

To those people, I'd say, this is a fiction, I can do what I want.

Malarkey. Just because your fantasy may have Europe as a jumping-off point, doesn't mean it has to retain the gender politics of that time and place. I mean, surely you don't find Brienne to be immersion-breaking in Game of Thrones?

edited 30th Sep '14 5:07:39 PM by maxwellelvis

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

How? It looks more like we agree with each other. I'm arguing against using stereotypes. Sorry if that wasnt clear.

Of course you can write anything you want, but should you? Isnt that what the thread is about?

edited 30th Sep '14 5:06:30 PM by demarquis

In a well-written narrative, the fantasy elements are part of the setting, while the characters (even the non-human ones) nevertheless act, think and feel in a way that the audience can relate to. In other words, realistically, given the fantastic setting. This has very strong implications for the use of stereotypes.

demarquis: Not trying to be smart, but I didn't understand that. What are you trying to say? The setting can be limited by realism, but the characters can't?

edited 30th Sep '14 5:09:34 PM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

@ Maxwellelvis : Hell no, she is one of my favorite characters, but part of the reason why is her struggle adds a whole lot of (forgot the word)^note sounds like nuscence? means depth to her character, something that would be completely striped without it.

I am not saying all the characters should follow the stereotype, that's fucking stupid, I am saying the society itself should be bigoted, sexism, racism, and all that SHOULD exist in a fantasy society.

edited 30th Sep '14 5:13:17 PM by Imca

This is fantasy, that doesn't need to apply here. Not every fantasy writer has to be George R. R. Martin or try to imitate his style. I can never hope to reach that, so I won't try to copy that style of worldbuilding.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

"Not trying to be smart, but I didn't understand that. What are you trying to say? The setting can be limited by realism, but the characters can't?"

No, precisely the opposite. The setting can be anything you want it to be, but the characters have to be realistic enough that the readers can identify with them. This mostly applies to their personalities- how they think, act, and feel in response to what goes on around them. So you can have a bad-ass battle chick in a chainmail bikini, but she should have the sort of relatively normal emotions, problems and issues that anyone would have in her situation (which, of course, immediately raises the issue of why she chooses to run around in a chain-mail bikini, but the author can resolve that anyway he or she wants to).

What about if they choose to jet ignore it? The character outfit is just openly Fanservice that they attempt to make no sense with in the context of the story.

hashtagsarestupid

That's a very essentialist view on sexism and racism. In fact, including it in fantasy settings promotes the idea that sexist roles are inevitable and natural. In fact, that you have to include seyist roles because otherwise there's no immersion, shows that you already buy into the idea that gender equality isn't real, and can't be real.

To be fair, it's not that unreasonable an argument that a low tech medieval society is 'naturally' going to be an unegalitarian place.

edited 30th Sep '14 5:54:12 PM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

But that IS the case for that time frame, technology is the great equalizer that has made physical attributes unnecessary. Men ARE stronger then us, for instance, there are many scientific studies on this, they would thus make better warriors with a blade, and that influences societies biases. :/

Most stereotypes and isims do have some basis, they did not evolve out of nothing, basis that would still exist in a fantasy society that is grounded in reality.

Just because something does not exist any more does not mean the past should be whitewashed to account for it.

Now I feel kinda stupid for typing out something that long when you said what I was going to with one sentence. ._.;

edited 30th Sep '14 5:54:49 PM by Imca

And if it's NOT based around anything in history? Would I have to write paragraphs explaining why, for instance, a woman was the captain of an elite knight platoon? Or should I scrap that idea because it's not "grounded" enough for fantasy?

If I'm writing a fantasy culture, they are completely different than us in some ways, presumable because magic or monsters means that some of our prejudices seem kind of silly.

edited 30th Sep '14 6:04:15 PM by maxwellelvis

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

Not unreasonable but not inevitable. And that only counts for no-/low-magic fantasy.

In some fantasies, magic takes the role of technology. And has so since the beginning of civilization. Thus sexist notions and stereotypes would have had a harder time developing in a world where women can fling fireballs around.

There have always been female warriors. I think the fact that men are more expendable for reproduction has had more influence on gender roles than mere strenght.

Or in a world where the discovery of something like mythril would make weight concerns with armor obsolete.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

Women can wear regular armor as well. Individual strenght isn't that important if you move in a phalanx, shoot arrows from horseback or spears down from an elephants back.

edited 30th Sep '14 6:12:35 PM by Antiteilchen