| Discussion on Ethnicity and Gender in WH; split from 'No Kislev?' | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: 5th July 2011 - 12:08 AM (1,149 Views) | |
| Olorin the Ancient | 5th July 2011 - 12:08 AM Post #1 |
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The problem is that by creating a world in which people of color are entirely banished to the fringes of fluff, and women are limited to damsels or hot Dark Elf babes-in-bikinis, GW is limiting its audience. Most of the people in the world are not white males. Stereotyping is unfortunate, but it's also, at the beginning, inevitable. The real enemy is invisibility. This actually bothers me less in Warhammer Fantasy than it does in 40K, where it seems to me inexcusable that all of the 'Eavy Metal Space Marines are entirely of Caucasian stock, thus making GW lag decades behind every major SF world created in the last half century. Even Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose original Tarzan book was clearly racist (his sequels were less so), allowed for different races on Mars, with racial intermixing permitted; that was over a century ago. It's time to wake up, GW: your customers are living in 2011, not 1911! We live, most of us, in a multiracial world. Most of us are comfortable with that; we grew up with it. The great majority of gamers were born after the major civil rights struggles of the 1950's and '60's (even me, and I'm one of the oldest people here). There's nothing inherently racist with basing the Warhammer World's Empire on the Holy Roman Empire, and saying that because of that there should be no blacks (though it has been proved that there were more blacks living in Renaissance Europe than previously thought). But at a certain point, GW's determination to avoid dealing with non-white humans--even if it means that in the Warhammer World, indigenous victims of Western colonialism are not humans with darker complexions, but are big, blue, bipedal lizards--becomes suspicious. GW should definitely develop army books for Cathayans and Amazons, being careful not to depict Amazons as babes-in-bikinis (You can easily dismiss my opinion as that of a feminized straight white male brought up in the Women's Lib era, burdened with a standard-issue liberal guilty conscience, but, the brilliant works of Joss Whedon aside, I think that sexism may actually be more of a problem in fantasy than racism; women deserve to be protagonists, the heroes of their own stories, not just victims, vixens, or love interests.) I'd also like to see the return of the Dogs of War as an official army, though preferably under another name; many people won't get that "the dogs of war" is a quotation from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, and may wind up imagining that the army is actually composed of dogs (which would be pretty cool, come to think of it). |
| - Olorin the Ancient | |
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| Firby | 5th July 2011 - 12:44 AM Post #2 |
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Chieftain
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Wow, Olorin, thats quite.... extensive, lol! I disagree on a few points, though. First, i have read a lot, and i mean a LOT of warhammer fantasy fiction, and women play huge roles in several stories. for example, if u read the sigmar trilogy, u will note that an old woman plays so much more significance in the founding of the empire than even sigmar. sigmar would have been an unsung hero if not for her. also, Ulrika, from gotrek and felix was a prominent character, who even got her own book series. Angelica fleisher also is the main character in a trilogy. Morathi, mother to The witch King of Naggaroth is one of the most powerful witches in the world. There was also a female main character in the Black Hearts. and look at the ruler of Nuln! There are many, many others, but women are far from lacking in warhammer fantasy. Also, the ethnicity issue is purely locational. The old world is based on medieval europe and black people didnt exist in europe yet. I do agree that some ethnic diversity could be beneficial, but the absense thereof is entirely unintentional, and is necessary to establish a plausable setting, in my opinion anyway. |
| I wish Morgan Freeman narrated my life. | |
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| scrivener | 5th July 2011 - 02:58 AM Post #3 |
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*toot*
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Ethnicity is a bit of a funny topic in a world where skin colours include green and having the same number of appendages isn't even universally common. I can't say that GW is avoiding dealing with non-white humans, it's just that adding lizards and ratmen into the mix gives us a wider range of interesting models than just humans, especially since they're all grey out of the box anyway, and whatever skin colour (white, brown, pink polkadot) you paint is up to you.And so the bottomline is, ironically, diversity: if you're not diverse enough you're probably not going to get your own armybook. |
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| Olorin the Ancient | 5th July 2011 - 08:00 AM Post #4 |
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Of course women are going to have important parts in Warhammer novels: they're novels. Over eighty years ago, in A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf asked but did not answer the question as to why, if women were as unimportant and powerless in Ancient Greek society as historians agreed that they were, the women in Greek plays and poems (like Clytemnestra, Electra, Medea, Penelope, Antigone, etc.) were depicted as being so important and so powerful. Women were frequently at the center of Greek tragedy, where they were just as important as men. Why were women so significant in art (written by men), and yet so insignificant in history (also written by men)? Virginia Woolf didn't know, and I don't either. But I do know that we really shouldn't consider the Black Library as saying anything about GW, since Warhammer isn't a series of novels, but a game. The novels are, at best, deuterocanonical materials produced by freelance writers in consultation with GW. Some of them are very good, indeed, but Games Workshop fundamentally considers itself a toy soldier company which also writes wargaming rules to go with the soldiers; the Black Library novels are merely one of the many ways in which GW leverages its intellectual properties across multiple platforms. So what matters is the games: how are women represented in the playable armies? Sexism isn't like racism: even the most chauvinistic of men still have women as their mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives.... Sexism isn't about creating a world where women are completely absent, but about one where men and men alone are the heroes, the protagonists, the doers, and women are their helpers (as indeed the word "woman" implies etymologically, being derived from the Old English "wyfman", meaning "a person's wife"). I think about my roommate freshman year in college, who insisted that when he married he would naturally be the head of his household, but he would give his wife full control over the family's draperies, kitchen, furnishings, and tableware patterns. Traditionally, most soldiers are men, but Shakespeare created some fairly tough women (think Lady Macbeth, Volumnia in Coriolanus, Imogen in Cymbeline), not to mention, in early part of his career, some pretty ferocious female warriors (Tamora in Titus Andronicus, Margaret of Anjou in Henry VI Part Three, and of course, the ignorant, viscous, slutty French witch La Pucelle--aka Joan of Arc--in Henry VI Part One). What's so striking is that even where GW has already created a window to let in a few women--as in the Sisters of Battle in Mordheim, who could easily be incorporated into the Empire Army Book--it doesn't allow them in its flagship games. Lots of people--white guys included--would love to play an army from Cathay or Nippon. The only GW core game which does allow for playing strong female characters and people of color is The Lord of the Rings, which is ironic since Tolkien was a very conservative Catholic, writing, according to his own account, to create a distinctly English mythology. |
| - Olorin the Ancient | |
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| WillQueek | 5th July 2011 - 09:35 AM Post #5 |
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Got Nerfed
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We need to get Kera Foehunter from The Slayer brotherhood in this discussion, but this challenges me, why doesn't gw make some more female models exept from: Packed in camouflage elves, dark elf chicks in bikini's. White amazones in bikini's, or 'beautifull' damsels. (i personnally find them ugly) I am going to try something out with that. Females in a army. And some blackskins are also not wrong. (no offens) Edited by WillQueek, 5th July 2011 - 09:42 AM.
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FOR THE GLORY OF THE HORNED RAT OF COURSE!
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| mellr0 | 5th July 2011 - 01:28 PM Post #6 |
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Why U do dis?!
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Sexism is certainly not "rampant" in fantasy, olorin.
Ever even looked at Dark elves, Wood elves or high elves? Their entire species has a nice mix of both sexes. There aren't that many examples of our own ancient civilisations allowing women into war, and GW has simply reflected this in their fantasy game, picking the most enlightened species to freely intermix females and males in their rank and file. In Roman society, it was quite accepted that women weren't "inferior" but had different skills, and therefore while the majority of them weren't physically or mentally suited to warfare or banking, they were considered fantastic at managing groups of people or politics. As well, bringing up Shakespeare's view of women is weird as well... considering that of the strong women who he wrote, their strength was to manipulate a male character into murder and deceit. I am pretty sure that the choice in 40k to paint most characters white is simply due to the difficulty painting a different skintone. I do believe the salamanders space marine chapter is supposed to contain a large amount of non Caucasian recruits, yet the heavy metal team still only paints maybe 1 in 6 guys as being non caucasian. |
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I am looking to get a hold of the following items, as many as possible: The new style skulls from numerous kits (less heroic scale skulls) Any bits of skeletons (both older skeletons and new vc skeletons) Toppers from stormvermin banners (grey seer type skulls) I have lots of fantasy and 40k bits to trade, including: Imperial guard special and heavy weapons Daemonette bits Bits from land raiders, and chaos space marines clanrat arm weapons hellpit arms Ghoul and zombie bodyparts older metal Chaos marines Message me if you can help. | |
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| Olorin the Ancient | 6th July 2011 - 10:06 PM Post #7 |
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I'll give you Wood Elves, to a certain extent, but as far as I know, there are currently no female High Elves, and the female Dark Elves exemplify the two trends that I said were wrong with depictions of women in Warhammer, namely, that they're either 1) victims, vixens, or love interests (Dark Elf, and for that matter Dark Eldar women, are all vixens) and/or 2) babes-in-bikinis.
Actually, the only woman in Shakespeare whom I can think of who would fit that description would be Lady Macbeth, and it can be argued that she was simply persuading her husband to do what he really wanted to do in the first place. There are evil women who pair up with evil men, or dominate weak ones, but by far the most common female manipulation in Shakespeare is in his comedies, where it's done by good, virtuous, intelligent women, who lead their unworthy husbands/fiances/lovers to do the right thing.
If anything, Caucasian skin tones are among the most difficult to get right. (Especially when using Citadel paints--I like Tallarn Flesh and the Ogryn Flesh wash, but I don't care for their Dwarf Flesh, Elf Flesh, etc., and feel that the Reaper Master Series contains a much better range of skin tones for all races.) Aside from historical gamers, who've been painting African and Asian warriors for over a century, there are plenty of people who've chosen, for example, to desegregate their Space Marines, regardless of what GW shows. The 'Eavy Metal Painters are among the best in the world. I'm pretty sure that whatever reason GW has for preferring to keep its soldiers whiter than the golfers at a private club in the Hamptons, finding it too difficult to paint non-Caucasian skin is not among them! |
| - Olorin the Ancient | |
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| Razuli | 6th July 2011 - 10:14 PM Post #8 |
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Grey Seer
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This is going to be off-topic, but the conversation has strayed way away from the OP anyways. I really like Dwarf Flesh as a skin tone for skaven since rat flesh is more pink than humans. It also works well as an under coat for less colored skin tones and for dry brushing a character who has a flushed face. |
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| Olorin the Ancient | 7th July 2011 - 12:31 AM Post #9 |
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You're right about this getting off-topic, and it's at least as much my fault as anyone's. Okay, more. Sorry about that. I agree with you about the suitability of Citadel Dwarf Flesh for Skaven. I'm using Reaper for pretty much all my flesh tones now because I like the flexibility of the triads (I like the Rosy Flesh triad for Skaven, with additional Pale Flesh mottling for Clan Pestilens), but Dwarf Flesh with white added for highlights is perfect for Skaven skin, with its rosy pink tone. It just isn't quite right for most humans. Getting away from politics and paints, and back to Firby's original comment about Kislev, what I'd really like to see is a move towards larger, more flexible army books. Not just in terms of playing style--Empire armies are already pretty flexible that way already--but in terms of fluff. Incorporate Kislev into the Empire army book; find a way to reward players who take their Daemons from only one of the Chaos powers--or, for that matter, who adhere strictly to one Skaven Clan. (That, by the way, would not be me--my Skaven are not at all fluffy, and I made a decision early on that I would mix clans freely.) Or perhaps Kislev could be part of another army book, one allowing various smaller human powers to fight, a bit like Dogs of War. I'm not sure whether it's true, but it somehow feels to me like GW is concentrating now more on major releases, with fewer actual new models than they were doing a few years ago. It's like, they don't feel like they have the freedom to release random models anymore: everything has to be part of a big push. |
| - Olorin the Ancient | |
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| mellr0 | 7th July 2011 - 07:57 AM Post #10 |
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Why U do dis?!
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this? Yes... this dark elf male has massive manboobs... or is a dark elf spearman female chestpiece, though I have found a distinct lack of high elf female models. Volumnia is, what I would consider, where the character of Morathi came from. Her controlling personality, forcing him forwards. The difference between her and Morathi is that Volumnia wouldn't mind her son dying in battle and morathi hates to see her son in pain.
I lol'd. I'm not a fantastic painter, but having met several 'eavy Metal guys in a casual setting, there are few excellent painters, even by their admission. Often, 1 person is made to do a single piece of 50 models, be it faces, armour, heraldry, highlights etc. Lots of the large scale photo's of huge armies tend to be composites. Also, I'd say its actually really hard to get non-Caucasian fleshtones that don't look absolutely rubbish. All it takes to pale up a caucasian flesh tone is more bleached bone/skull white highlights. Its harder to produce other skintones that don't immediately become caucasian looking if you lighten them up.
I would love to see Dogs of War back. Give me their silly but colourful backstories, fun models and just downright interesting units any day of the week. Edited by mellr0, 7th July 2011 - 07:58 AM.
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I am looking to get a hold of the following items, as many as possible: The new style skulls from numerous kits (less heroic scale skulls) Any bits of skeletons (both older skeletons and new vc skeletons) Toppers from stormvermin banners (grey seer type skulls) I have lots of fantasy and 40k bits to trade, including: Imperial guard special and heavy weapons Daemonette bits Bits from land raiders, and chaos space marines clanrat arm weapons hellpit arms Ghoul and zombie bodyparts older metal Chaos marines Message me if you can help. | |
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| WillQueek | 7th July 2011 - 08:20 AM Post #11 |
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Got Nerfed
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Since this tread is SO UTTERLY DERAILED. please discuss here: http://s6.zetaboards.com/The_UnderEmpire/topic/8750880/1/ |
FOR THE GLORY OF THE HORNED RAT OF COURSE!
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| Warlock Matik | 7th July 2011 - 01:25 PM Post #12 |
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(Z–>)90º – (E–N²W)90ºt = 1
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No need for that Will, I've dismantled and remantled the original thread to two separate ones ![]() Now, I believe someone was looking for examples of female models in the High Elf army? ==> High Elf Mage on Elemental base |
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| BobMakenzie | 7th July 2011 - 02:30 PM Post #13 |
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Clanrat
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Whats really strange I think is that they swapped the salamanders chapter away from being a dark skin tone to being ashen with blood red eyes. It makes it seem their decision was something along the lines of "we cant have a chapter of only black people that would be racist!" Although I suspect it was something more akin to (possibly whilst intoxicated) "WOULDNT IT BE COOL IF THESE GUYS WERE LIKE MADE OF LAVA?! WOOOOO" |
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| Olorin the Ancient | 7th July 2011 - 02:42 PM Post #14 |
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Thank you, Matik, both for splitting off the discussion--which clearly needed to be done--and for finding that High Elf Mage on Elemental figure, which I like a lot, but had never seen before. |
| - Olorin the Ancient | |
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| ShuNian | 7th July 2011 - 07:08 PM Post #15 |
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Self-Proclaimed Miss Skavenblight
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I think when it comes to fluff on the Empire lacking as many female protagonist as males, this could just be the fact its taking place in a time period where they are emulating a society that’s not fully used to the idea of women taking the lead of anything. True, we have some really awesome main character girls in various works in real life- but generally (I’m guessing that Warhammer Fantasy takes place around the Renaissance in accordance to real life) this would be considered a time period where very few Females did take a traditionally ‘male’ role. But you did always have the few that broke this mold, example- Queen Elizabeth I. I usually only consider this with the human races, though. Elves were brought up, and you usually only see the ‘sexy’ bikini girls with the Dark Elves- but they are Slaanesh like so it’s not surprising. High and Wood elves are mixed in gender and they are certainly well respected and clad very nicely. Vampires had a many of female rulers, and if I’m not mistaken the first real Vampire was a girl- so they seem pretty equal as well, if not more by the way they rule. Other races can be used to say the Warhammer world is ‘sexist.’ I read a whole discussion someone had on another website, saying the Skaven were one of the biggest examples in the sexism department. What with Breeders being nothing but mindless slaves and baby machines- but I think that’s the entire point. Skaven aren’t very nice, and wouldn’t treat each other as humans would. Ethnicity- I think this is limited to a few tidbits because the whole focus is supposed to be on the already established Human armies. Agreeing with an earlier point, there are already two big human armies and expanding would outnumber the other races. This doesn’t excuse the point that there SHOULD be more fluff on the other regions. I think they should get more love personally, especially in Tilea considering that fits in nicely with their dealings with Skaven. All in all, I don’t think its GW’s whole intention to purposely be (not saying any of you are accusing them!) ‘racist’ or ‘sexist.’ I honestly couldn’t tell you why they didn’t decide to expand, but I’m sure it wasn’t to be spiteful. My personal opinion, and I could be entirely wrong altogether, was that expanding and making new armies and whatnot would take a lot of fluff/time/resources to get the army in the world without stepping toes on the already established fluff and get a firm grip in gaming without being cancelled. Just my two cents. ^^’ |
| "All tunnels lead to Skavenblight..." | |
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I can't say that GW is avoiding dealing with non-white humans, it's just that adding lizards and ratmen into the mix gives us a wider range of interesting models than just humans, especially since they're all grey out of the box anyway, and whatever skin colour (white, brown, pink polkadot) you paint is up to you.






