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

I have seen one example of boob-armour done realistically in fiction, and that was for in a completely non-combat role in the The Belgariad where an A-Cup Angst Princess had to go on a recruiting spree giving Rousing Speech after Rousing Speech and it was important that she looked like a Warrior Princess rather than a teenager and so she had a blacksmith make golden armour for her with exaggerated female features.

@Charles: No one's saying that armor has to be entirely functional and not decorative at all, but the overwhelming majority of "literal breastplates" are A) entirely decorative, structurally, and B) actually worn into battle by characters who are shown as people who ought to know better. And even if it is ceremonial, there's no excuse for a boob window in a breastplate, ever.

This.

See, there's this thing about having decorative metal boobs on your armor. That thing is called "cleavage". It's something that most sets of boobs have; a gap in the center, between boobs.

Do you know what metal cleavage looks like from the other side of the breastplate? It looks remarkably similar to this◊. That's a splitting wedge. It's used to crack open hard surfaces by applying blunt force to the outside, which drives the blade in and splits the target surface.

As a general rule, you should not wear armor that places a splitting wedge against the center of your sternum. It's rather counterproductive to the intended function of armor. You may actually be better off in a chainmail bikini.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 6th 2020 at 1:45:37 PM

Like I said - you might not survive falling on your front in boob armour.

It's funny how this thread come to discussing fantasy writing, when the original point was how far right believes that "women can't fight" and "Medieval Europe was white only".

Like remember Kingdom Come: Deliverance? And how one asshole scientist talked about how black people genetically dumber?

I said is good, I mean nobody care about that guy and we all nerds.

I kind of want a gritty just-post-Hundred Years War meets fantasy meets Rocky Horror, now.

Good luck going by the breastplate "bodice", the giant metallic codpiece, the mirror shine or the flayed dog look, because it's all mix-and-match at sports events, baby.

Don't judge the interior by the tin, or you get maced.

A new skin for Overwatch's D.Va has drawn criticism from female fans, particularly Korean ones.

I can't say I am surprised. D.Va has been under some pretty heavy objectification since Overwatch started in general due to being the cute Asian girl stereotype coupled with the gamer girl stereotype in the OW fandom, probably moreso than even Mercy. Blizzard being Blizzard kind of fed this mentality in the fandom.

The sad part is D.Va was given a bit a depth in her own animated short but that short came after such a long while that pretty much everyone either remembers D.Va as either being a gamer girl stereotype or a lust object for neckbeards with a Asian fetish.

Man, the OW fandom has some pretty shitty elements. And shame on Activision-Blizzard for pandering to those elements. But what do you expect from a publisher that more or less sold its soul and integrity to the CCP?

One on hand, anime/manga do that kind of pandering all the time, but on otherhand I don't really feel like giving blizzard break because of that

I hold a game marketed towards a global mainstream audience to a higher standard. OW reaches a far wider audience than even some of the most popular anime and manga, combined.

Edited by M84 on Jan 10th 2020 at 3:47:26 AM

I don't think that sexual objectification of school uniforms is okay for niche audiences either?

I am honestly a bit confused: why is D.va considered a feminist icon by the same group when in her default skintight pilot outfit, but not when she wears a skirt or a school uniform? D.va already has a sexualized appeal in her design from the beginning, so I'm left wondering if the objections are more likely due to the Japanese inspirations of the latter skins, and trying to mix certain Japanese and Korean elements is unacceptable to Koreans.

I'm all for calling out pandering, but to me this is more a case of making a reference to popular anime fashion trends (although it's worth noting the schoolgirl uniform is also common in K-pop performances), which have popular appeal among anime fans but are now under question in Korea in the wake of #Me Too! and various K-pop scandals involving sexual misconduct.

Edited by Alycus on Jan 9th 2020 at 11:57:19 AM

The point is that it doesn't get exposed to a wider audience. It's why I hold mainstream movies' treatment of gender relations to a higher standard than, say, porn. Sexism isn't really cool in anything, but it's obviously a more serious issue when it's in something that is experienced by far more people. Especially younger ones.

The article mentions why the Korean female fans are particularly disturbed by the uniform.

It is honestly really fucked up that something teenagers are forced to wear at school is fetishized.

The skintight pilot outfit is also iffy, but at least most Korean girls have never been forced to wear such an outfit on a daily basis.

Edited by M84 on Jan 11th 2020 at 4:15:13 AM

So besides it being gross, its extra tone deaf in case of Korea?

It is extremely tone-deaf on Activision-Blizzard's part. Especially since back in 2017 it seemed like they actually cared about what Korean women had to say on such issues.

Have to say that even from business point of view I don't see benefit for pandering, its just creates bad press for them and as you said, they are too mainstream to pander for niches without getting attention for it.

Like, people with fetishes are going to like the character that appeals to them even without being pandered to, but when you start to pander them, you turn character into marketable object to print money which is just gross. Heck, I'm pretty sure not even everyone in the target audience will like being pandered to There is difference between people knowing they have a fetish and actively engorging on it without conscience.

Yeah, it's exceptionally short (narrow?) sighted. But that seems to be becoming the norm with Blizzard in recent memory.

Like I said, it's not really surprising.

Blizzard has been plenty shortsighted recently and has been hit on presenting OW characters as stereotypes of certain cultures or insensitive portrayals before. The article mentions Pharah's First Nations skin. Albeit in her case Pharah is half First Nations but judging by it the complaint in that article is due to the skin having a mix of native american/first nations cultures?

Another example I can give of a toxic misogynistic part of the OW fandom is that Mei if I recall correctly gets shit on the Chinese part of the OW fandom because she isn't skinny. That fandom is kind of notorious for being a hive of sexism and shittiness towards women and Blizzard does not help it at all.

OK, I get that everything Blizzard does is now going to be interpreted in the most critical way possible thanks to what they did to blitzchung, but what exactly are they supposed to do with some Chinese fans not liking Mei's body shape? It's not like they went back to the drawing board and slimmed her down to appease those people.

Edited by Alycus on Jan 10th 2020 at 12:56:36 PM

The difference is that Mei being a different body type is a bullshit complaint. Sexualisation of the enforced clothing of minors isn't.

I was just using that as an small example of the general sexist shittiness that is present in the OW fandom.

And Blizzard can take a stance about stuff like this, they just choose not too because they got to have money.

This current controversy is indeed worse though and it does come across as insensitive at best on Blizzard's end, very neckbeardy at worse.

Edited by Wispy on Jan 10th 2020 at 2:17:57 AM

Don't know if we've talked about LGBT representation in regards to this thread but here goes.

There's a notion that lesbian or bisexual female characters are more prevalent in media, particularly film and t.v. due to Girl on Girl Is Hot. But according to this report by GLAAD, female characters only make up 46% of LGBT representation on t.v. in 2019. In 2018, it was 45%. It makes me wonder if the reason lesbian and female bisexual characters actually stand out more because they are relatively few.