A lot of examples don't work: Hot Amazon

For a character to be a Hot Amazon that character must be a female character who is attractive within the context of the story because of her Action Girl status or because she's incredible strong. A good example be Big barda of dc comics whose husband definitely finds her warrior's prowess a turn on.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of tropers are taking the name hot amazon a little too literally. A lot of examples are simply actiongirls or other strong women that while may be attractive, there's no hint that their Action Girl status is part of their appeal, within the context of the story of course.

Not helping matters is the picture for the trope while containing an amazon who most people would find attractive, doesn't do a good job of representing what the trope is about nor does it help that whoever added the playing with page has also missed the point of this trope.

edited 19th Nov '10 7:34:56 AM by captainpat

Hmm, good point, particularly about the trope image (I'm gonna start an Image Pickin' thread about this shortly.)

The trope isn't about "Amazons who are hot," but "women who are hot because they're Amazons." They may or may not also be "conventionally" beautiful.

I'm not sure it's that easy. The number of women who show up in these roles are likely to be heavily skewed toward conventionally attractive simply because of Hollywood Homely.

Even if the appeal isn't expressly stated to be that they are Amazons, that it would not be a problem should be a good enough reason to keep the example.

As far as I am aware, the point is more so to subvert No Guy Wants an Amazon... the notion that guys do not want girls stronger than themselves even if such girls are attractive... such an assumption is questionable at best...

The only good reason to keep the example is if it fits within the guidelines of the trope. My problem is that a lot of examples listed in this trope are actiongirls that other tropers have Perverse Sexual Lust for.

It doesn't matter whether or not the female characters in question is physically attractive. This is not a trope for tropers to list actiongirls they find attractive. The point is that part of her appeal or all of her appeal, in the context of the story, is her Action Girl status or other feature she has that are consider "masculine"(being really tall, muscular, or extreme strength).

Any examples like this dialbo one don't fit the trope

"* Diablo II features literal Amazons as a playable character. Yes, they're hot."

This is a case where a character is hot and an amazon but doesn't fit the Hot Amazon trope because there's no in-story proof that their any of their attraction comes from their Action Girl status

In a somewhat different vein, can we define whether or not this trope involves the woman's physical stature? To me the term "amazon" indicates the woman is both taller and more muscular than average. The lower limit should be around 5'10" and 150 lb. with muscle. For example, the second of my five sisters is 5'9" and a half and usually weighs around 150-155. She's beautiful (no Brother–Sister Incest jokes please)and doesn't have a bit of extra fat on her, and typically is the cause of many "your sister's hot" jokes and comments thrown at me. That makes her a Hot Amazon. My girlfriend, on the other hand, is a gorgeous and muscular Wrench Wench, can shoot her issued M4 as well as most infantrymen, and is generally aggressive and considered a badass by most. But she's only 5'6" and weighs 130. So she's not a Hot Amazon, despite having most of the qualifications of an Action Girl.

I think that the main page entry should reflect this. If it doesn't, than technically a Cute Bruiser could also be considered a Hot Amazon, which doesn't make a damn bit of sense. Amazon already means something, we shouldn't expand the definition just so tropers can fill the page with Action Girls they like to drool over.

That is confusing the title words with the idea that the trope is about. Yeah, then, your sister is a Hot Amazon, but she's not a Hot Amazon. Hot Amazon is the inverse of No Guy Wants an Amazon: not just "attractive and tall", or even "attractive and Action Girl", but "attractive because Action Girl". Like, if some guy was like "meh", and then she beats someone up, and he's like "woah! hot."

The name seems like it's causing misuse, pretty badly. Unless this is wrong. (I don't think so?) Either way the name should be more narrow I think. Some Guys Want An Amazon?

edited 21st Nov '10 10:10:18 PM by rodneyAnonymous

I completely support this statement. It's not just hot action girls. There is a certain body type assumed in the inverse. It should be included in this as well.

edited 21st Nov '10 9:58:58 PM by shimaspawn

I don't know. I mean, what's the point of including a body type with this? The name implies a body type, but I think "Action Girls are hawt" is a separate trope from "tall well built women are hawt" but they get conflated a lot because it's a common way of showing a female character is strong.

edited 21st Nov '10 10:08:46 PM by Deboss

I don't think there's much point, myself. At best, I'd see attempting to do so creating tons of Natter and edit wars.

I do think Cute Bruisers would generally be excluded from Hot Amazon, but Cute Bruiser seems to have a lot of Trope Decay itself. Per the definition, it's supposed to be about kids.

@rodney and Deboss: I couldn't disagree with you more. "Action Girls are Hot" is not a trope. 99% of women in fiction are hot. The idea is that they are hot because they are stronger and better than most men, and specifically have more brute strength. If your buddy says, "My new girlfriend's a gymnast, it's awesome." do you respond with, "holy shit dude, how can you be with a girl who's better at doing splits and the pommel horse than you?" Most men don't give a shit about women being better at things like that, or even shit like martial arts, because you can always say, "Well, you can kick me in the face, but I'm still stronger than you." It's when a woman is physically stronger, and especially taller and stronger, that men typically feel threatened. That's what No Guy Wants an Amazon is about. Otherwise you could take it to the logical conclusion of "she's a Hot Amazon because she's better at pool than most dudes."

edited 21st Nov '10 10:46:05 PM by Martello

Well, where would River Tam fit?

A character finds a woman that is an Action Girl hotter than an identical woman who is The Chick is a trope, especially if the author finds hot, is a trope as that character is more likely to be treated as more attractive. The physical build isn't the same thing as the capabilities.

edited 21st Nov '10 10:51:24 PM by Deboss

Not expressing a personal opinion, exactly, that's what the trope says: "The flip side to No Guy Wants An Amazon is the lady who's attractive because of her Amazon-ness". Laconic "She's hot because she kicks ass." (Emphasis from original.) The hotness and the toughness are related. If the character is incidentally both hot and tough, it's not this. Wonder Woman is a hot Amazon. But she's not Hot Amazon. (Is that clear evidence that the trope should be renamed?)

No Guy Wants an Amazon is where the girl's toughness is a turn-off. Hot Amazon is where it's a turn-on.

edited 21st Nov '10 11:08:00 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Does it have to be the primary reason? I don't know if we'll have anyone left if we start excluding women who are Hollywood Homely and also Action Girls. What's the threshold here? Is a simple "wow, her Action Girl abilities only make her hotter" from another character enough?

I didn't mean to imply that restriction. Yeah, I think if the character is specifically portrayed as challenging the idea that guys don't want a girl who's stronger than himself, she counts.

It sounds like this trope is misnamed. If it's the inverse of No Guy Wants an Amazon, then the name and description shouldn't treat it as though it were a character trope. It's a situation: A guy finds a woman's combat prowess or strength to be very attractive. If an example doesn't address that situation, what's its relevance?

I can dig that. No Guy Wants an Amazon is a situation. This Guy Wants An Amazon?

Sounds quite appropriate to me.

edited 22nd Nov '10 3:26:14 AM by Iaculus

renaming this trope into "every guy wants an amazon" or something of the sort would probably do some good (so would people actually reading the trope description).

Anyway the word amazon when used in this trope doesn't refer to a certain bodytype. Basically an amazon is a female character is an Action Girl or who has traits considered "masculine" like Super-Strength, extreme height, or extreme muscularity. Hot Amazon is for female character who have trait and within the context of the story are considered attractive or more actrractive because of it. So a Cute Bruiser can also be a Hot Amazon so long as there's another character admiring her for her strength.

If that's the case - and I think you're close to the mark - we need to make a whole new trope for that. Call it Some Guys Want An Amazon or whatever, but let's keep Hot Amazon and just redefine it to, well, Hot Amazons. Otherwise it doesn't make sense. A tall, muscular and hot chick who kicks ass is a valid Character Trope, so we should keep it. The current image still works perfectly.

I think it would work as a Turn On Trope similar to Wrench Wench, where a personality trait is considered to be Fetish Fuel.

It seems to me rather disingenuous to claim that because a woman would be hot even without being an Action Girl that that some how means that her being an action girl can't make her more hot.

Wonder Woman is one of the Trope Codifiers. I can't take seriously someone who argues that Wonder Woman isn't a Hot Amazon. She's an explicit appeal to this trope. She is a literal amazon, and one of the reasons she's considered so hot is because she's an action girl.

Is that the only reason she's considered hot? No, but the action girl bit certainly increases the hotness. As was explicitly intended by the authors.

edited 23rd Nov '10 8:53:48 AM by Sackett

I would say that classical attractiveness is a distraction from the trope. Wonder Woman at one end, Iris Babcock at the other, there are examples all along the spectrum.

Wonder Woman is an example, but the page image didn't show that and she's a bit too literal of an example to help people understand the trope.

@Martello

Agreed, clearly there is some confusion between the name of the trope and it's description so how about this. We make a new trope called Some Guys Want An Amazon and transfer the description of Hot Amazon to Some Guys Want An Amazon.

The basic premise of Some Guys Want An Amazon is to invert or subvert No Guy Wants an Amazon. In the case a female character is explicatedly stated in the ACTUAL STORY to be attractive or more attractive to other characters because of her Action Girl status or other "masculine" traits.

Hot Amazon can be defined to a bodytype/turn on trope. The basic premise of Hot Amazon is to invert or subvert the Brawn Hilda trope. In this case a tall muscular Action Girl, or non-Action Girl, is clearly supposed to be seen as attractive, either because of she provides a good amount of Fanservice or because of her Stripperiffic clothing that shows most of her body.

This way characters like Wonderwoman (depending on her artist can fit the Hot Amazon trope).

Obviously there's a more elegant way to put it but I'm just throwing ideas out there.

edited 23rd Nov '10 2:07:00 PM by captainpat