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Discussion on Ethnicity and Gender in WH; split from 'No Kislev?'
Topic Started: 5th July 2011 - 12:08 AM (1,152 Views)
Firby
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Chieftain
Wow, I've never seen a topic so..... varied, before? Are we even sure what we are supposed to be talking about here? LoL. Maybe a Moderator could rename this topic into;

The "Whatever you wanna talk about thread, with an emphasis on discontinued Kislev armies, Sexism and Racism in WFB, and painting techniques."

:P :P :P

I have something I want to say about painting skaven skin, but I think this topic is too derailed already....
I wish Morgan Freeman narrated my life.
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scrivener
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*toot*

I don't mind a male majority in the armies, war has historically been male-dominated for rather practical reasons: it makes sense to get the stereotypically stronger gender to do the marching around in heavy armour and bashing at each other with big heavy weapons, plus from a reproduction-keep-the-species-alive perspective women are quite a bit more indispensible so you may prefer to keep them in jobs with not such a high mortality rate. :P Or something like that anyway. :unsure:

Besides, I'm rather thankful that there are no female orc nor ogre models... :P (besides that BB orc cheerleader)

About the race thing, there are/were races that reflected non-european races, like ogres, lizardmen, hobgoblins and chaos dwarves... not so common compared to the european-themed ones, true, but fantasy (at least the ones based off LotR the book) has traditionally been european-centric. Yes they tend to be nonhumans, but we only have two human armybooks anyway, it's all part of the diverse product line=exotic races marketing strategy. Cathay and Araby not getting a book has more to do with the reason Kislev and DoW (both europeanish or at least caucasian) have been "repressed" in the book department: they are human, and are just not quite unique enough conceptwise to be safe investments. To put it another way, the "Human" slots have already been used up, and they were spent on the most basic garden variety genres. Cathay/Nippon possibly has the most potential visually, but in terms of actual gameplay there still isn't much that can define it (empire already has the "cathayan" rockets, and a samurai on the tabletop is still just a guy with a sword).
hannanibal
 
*Angry mob assembles*

"WHAT DO WE WANT!!??"
"A THINNISH, WATERY PAINT WITH A GREENER TINGE THAN AGRAX EARTHSHADE!!"
"WHEN DO WE WANT IT!?"
"QUITE SOON PLEASE AS MY LAST POT IS RUNNING OUT!"
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Warlock Matik
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scrivener
8th July 2011 - 02:20 PM
Besides, I'm rather thankful that there are no female orc nor ogre models... :P (besides that BB orc cheerleader)
Someone's not looking hard enough :P

==> Ogre Kingdoms Female Maneater (ooo err :blink: )
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Firby
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Chieftain
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8th July 2011 - 02:30 PM
scrivener
8th July 2011 - 02:20 PM
Besides, I'm rather thankful that there are no female orc nor ogre models... :P (besides that BB orc cheerleader)
Someone's not looking hard enough :P

==> Ogre Kingdoms Female Maneater (ooo err :blink: )
Are u sure thats a female? She (it) has a beard. She definately looks mannish. I mean, if that is a female, she looks as if she fell UP the ugly tree, and hit every stick on the way back down.
I wish Morgan Freeman narrated my life.
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Warlock Matik
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FirbyClaw
8th July 2011 - 02:43 PM
Are u sure thats a female? She (it) has a beard. She definately looks mannish. I mean, if that is a female, she looks as if she fell UP the ugly tree, and hit every stick on the way back down.
It's in the name of the model. And she has the... erm... bosom, of a female. And fishnet stockings. Plus she's an ogre, what did you expect?
Now, I must hurriedly climb out of this hole before I dig it any deeper :P
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Sketch
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scratchings and squeakings

This was well worth reading through. I usually try to distance myself from arguments about sexism and multi-culturalism that happen in the real world as I just get the feeling that if I was ever to open my mouth I wouldn't be able to say anything that isn't either: a) ignorant and ill-informed or b) said a million billion times already.

That said, I do feel comfortable enough that I could at least offer up a few tiny tidbits in the discussion about these things in literature.

This link is to the blog of author Mark Charan Newton who IMO is very clued into these types of issues. The post is more about how the literature is marketed but there are many parallels between our discussion. I haven't actually read his novels but I understand they centre around the issues quite a lot as well. I mainly just follow his blog which is very thought-provoking and at the very least you'll learn a lot about whiskey. ;)

I agree with Olorin that a lot of the women in GW literature are sadly quite cliched and stereotyped but I'll also argue that they do the same to the men too. All the heroes are depressingly (to me anyway) noble and virtuous. The vast majority of them are infinitely, unquestionably honourable and harp on endlessly about 'serving the Emperor to their dying breaths' and whatnot. The High Elves are particularly bad in this respect IMO and any writing I've ever seen done about them is horribly dry and with characters that are as thin, uniform and boring as blank paper whether they're male or female.

You may be wondering at this point why I bother with Warhammer at all and it's a) that I like the gaming and painting aspects and b) that I like the potential of the background. I just reject the waffer thsin characters they provide us with and substitute my own. My High Elf Archmage is ruthless (to High Elves as much as anyone else) instead of noble, bitterly sarcastic instead of impeccably mannered and otherwise a pretty horrible person in general (you'll like him ;) ). For one of my mages I decided to parody the moany melancholy of the GW High Elves and made him manically depressed. For my BSB I wanted to turn upside down the assumption that all the High Elves are pretty and so I have him that he's been horribly mutilated by a Hydra (and none too pleased about it!). Another of my Noble's acts happy, cheerfully polite and cheekily to everyone but he is in fact a mentally unhinged mass-murderer (you'll like him even more ;) , or maybe not...). My point is that GW rarely seems to go into complicated, morally ambiguous characters for the army fluff whether they're male or female. (I will admit Black Library does have a couple of nice, MA characters I like. Felix has some nice selfish motives at times and I've heard some good stuff about Brunner...?)

I'd also quite like it if they let Skaven females play a greater role in the fluff. It just becomes hard to identify with the race when they're so different in this respect that there's basically no women! And by that I mean women with personalities.The human brain can only think so far outside the box when it comes to imagining alien races like this and it makes it harder to write. I certainly wouldn't mind it if Flit could have some interesting interactions with female characters. Heck, I don't see why Flit couldn't be female even?

As regards the ethnicity issue I suppose I have to agree with the people who say it's because it's all based on history. But I would quite like it if they released a black character who was somewhere far up in the Empire's nobility having married/been born to multi-cultural parents/worked his way up through ranks of military or merchant systems. He'd have a nice interesting set of motives and unique challenges IMO.

I would definitely like Tilea to get a supplement! Anything with analogies to Renaissance Italy is brilliant IMO!!! :D



My two warptokens,
Sketch
Edited by Sketch, 8th July 2011 - 05:54 PM.
Raining Blood / M(elrik)atriculation / Twikitch's Triumph
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ShuNian
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Self-Proclaimed Miss Skavenblight

*snaps fingers*

Scrivener is right! Some of the non-human races ARE supposed to represent certain human cultures! That could explain it, pretty much.
After all we see no African styled humans, but we do have the Savage Orcs.
Dwarves are the Norse types.
Etc.

It probably is more interesting to find how each race is influenced by different cultures, more than just re-reading humans in them.
Come to think of the Ogres, they are pretty much the Eastern representing race (though I could say the same for the Eshin skaven, but thats just that particular clan.) Well, I'm satisfied to remember that.

Sketch, I see what your saying, and I'm sure a lot of us would like to see it too. But thankfully we have some awesome fluff writers with belivable female skaven. that's the tricky part about skaven, and I believe this came up in the Skaven Novel topic- Skaven can be tricky to write for because they aren't human, but they have some human tendencies.

*looks at the Ogre model* This reminds me of a bad dream I had once about female Ogres is dancer's clothes...
*shudders*

"All tunnels lead to Skavenblight..."
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Sketch
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scratchings and squeakings

ShuNian
 
*snaps fingers*

Scrivener is right! Some of the non-human races ARE supposed to represent certain human cultures! That could explain it, pretty much.
After all we see no African styled humans, but we do have the Savage Orcs.
Dwarves are the Norse types.
Etc.
I thought this was obvious? :ermm: We go on about it all the time over on Ulthuan about how the High Elves are British Empire/Ancient Greece/others I can't remember. There was a whole thread on it a while ago I think...

As for the Norse, we have... the Norse... :ermm: You're right that Dwarfs have Norse connotations too though.

Tomb Kings are pretty much Ancient Egypt (and if the new sphinxes are anything to go by, Babylon and Assyria too) so there's at least one African lot. Incongrous timelines but close enough... (They are dead after all. ;) )

Anyway, short post as The Beach is on now,
Sketch
Edited by Sketch, 8th July 2011 - 10:10 PM.
Raining Blood / M(elrik)atriculation / Twikitch's Triumph
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Firby
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Chieftain
Sketch
8th July 2011 - 05:09 PM
I agree with Olorin that a lot of the women in GW literature are sadly quite cliched and stereotyped but I'll also argue that they do the same to the men too. All the heroes are depressingly (to me anyway) noble and virtuous. The vast majority of them are infinitely, unquestionably honourable and harp on endlessly about 'serving the Emperor to their dying breaths' and whatnot. The High Elves are particularly bad in this respect IMO and any writing I've ever seen done about them is horribly dry and with characters that are as thin, uniform and boring as blank paper whether they're male or female.
You should read the Malus Darkblade saga. Or Bruuner the Bounty Hunter, and Blackhearts Omnibus..... and.....

Actually, now that I come to think of it, there is a large quantity of 'not - so - virtuous' heroes throughout the warhammer world. Malus Darkblade is a villan through and through, there are no redeeming qualities about him whatsoever (Malus Darkblade was also the greatest warhammer novels ever written, in my opinion.) And Bruuner and the Blackhearts are also of very, very questionable moral virtue.
I wish Morgan Freeman narrated my life.
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Jarrq Krush-slay


Olorin the Ancient
5th July 2011 - 08:00 AM
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.
Sorry to join in on the conversation without really adding anything,
but I fail to see how it's ironic that Tolkien was Catholic, care to enlighten me?
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Silas
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The Great Bunny. Now with a mop. :)

Without going into religion I believe it's because it is believed by some that the majority of conservative Catholics are not very open to the idea of strong character that are either female or of a different colour.

Now let’s back away from the religion discussion slowly with our hands in the air and our weapons on the ground. :P

*back away slowly*
Gate keeper of the Armoury of Poking Sticks. :duel:

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THE BUNNY WILL EAT!!!
THE BUNNY SHALL FIGHT!!!
THE BUNNY SHALL WIN!!!
THE BUNNY SHALL INHERIT!!!
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Sketch
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scratchings and squeakings

Silas
 
Now let’s back away from the religion discussion slowly with our hands in the air and our weapons on the ground. :P
+1

FirbyClaw
 
You should read the Malus Darkblade saga. Or Bruuner the Bounty Hunter, and Blackhearts Omnibus..... and.....

Actually, now that I come to think of it, there is a large quantity of 'not - so - virtuous' heroes throughout the warhammer world. Malus Darkblade is a villan through and through, there are no redeeming qualities about him whatsoever (Malus Darkblade was also the greatest warhammer novels ever written, in my opinion.) And Bruuner and the Blackhearts are also of very, very questionable moral virtue.
2-D villians are just as bad as 2-D heroes. However, some of my argument does fall down in that Black Library does in fact have a decent stock of nice original, morally ambiguous characters. I retract any ill-thought-out complaints I might have made about BL. I'll also follow up on your recommendations to read the Malus and Brunner novels as soon as I have completed my divine and solemn duty to read Dance with Dragons ASAP! :P

However, I still think that a lot of the characters we see in the army books etc are a bit... thin. I know they only have a paragraph or two to get across the whole character and that the fact is they're stuck with a lot of them from back when the game was being developed and that there'll obviously be a bit of colouration from the kind of 'from the races' POV tone' the army book is written in but I mean come on. Caradryan was an arrogant Noble but then he went into the Chamber of Days and now he's all pious and holy. Surely someone could do better than that?! The main reason I liked Hinks' IOB novella was because Tyrion was portrayed as not really all that nice (would use a word beginning with b if it weren't for the filter) rather than some immaculate, glorious superman who's all-round brilliant and lovely (which he seems to be in the fluff).

(Sorry if I sound a bit moany in this. :P )
Sketch
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L1qw1d


I only got to read a little, so I'll re-post after I FULLY read but:

Fluff wise, if you're 40K into the future? heck all races probably blended together. I also have quite a few black soldiers in my SMarrreeeeens army. It's just the way I paint. Can't give guns to all the honkys and not expect a brotha not to get love too!

Sexism is... complicated. Esp: WHFB. Why? History class. We hear about greeks (Spartans etc.) but rarely stuff like Zenobia, or the real one boobed amazons, Queen of Persia (who was rumoured to be half demon). I think for DE, we have QUITE a robust female assortment.

That having been said: Who is up for painting 6 teats on a beastman or an udder for his cow?
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scrivener
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*toot*

On the topic of stereotypically virtuous heroes, the thing is that apparently many players do want that sort of archetypical classic perfect hero. Even an evil hero will be perfect in everything he does. Flawed heroes make good reading but if you're putting up something for the average person to look up to and want to have as an escapist representation of themselves, then it has a tendency to be a flawless stereotypical James Bond-type hero. There was quite a bit of drama about this during the last animosty campaign, which more or less came down to whether it's a good idea to make a bretonnian play a gritty realistic knight instead of a glorious paladin. :P
hannanibal
 
*Angry mob assembles*

"WHAT DO WE WANT!!??"
"A THINNISH, WATERY PAINT WITH A GREENER TINGE THAN AGRAX EARTHSHADE!!"
"WHEN DO WE WANT IT!?"
"QUITE SOON PLEASE AS MY LAST POT IS RUNNING OUT!"
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Silas
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The Great Bunny. Now with a mop. :)

Scriv
 
quite a bit of drama

Talk about understatement. :P

The perfect heroes are good but they only work in a world of black and white where you can easily make the distinction between who is 'Good' and who is 'Evil'. In other situations where the lines blur the 'perfect' hero comes across as two dimensional. I think it is possibly to have a knight in shining armour in a setting with shades of grey but it is not easy. (It also depends on what you count as a knight in shining armour).
Gate keeper of the Armoury of Poking Sticks. :duel:

THE BUNNY HAS AWOKEN!!!
THE BUNNY WILL EAT!!!
THE BUNNY SHALL FIGHT!!!
THE BUNNY SHALL WIN!!!
THE BUNNY SHALL INHERIT!!!
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