Lesbian Archers for Rei

Well, since you asked nicely, and I see you're having trouble with this, I'll try to explain.What sets a work in genre? The presence of a sufficient number of features associated with that genre. Let's say that I told you I was going to show you a science-fiction story. You read my story and it was about a detective who takes on a case from an attractive, mysterious brunette, only to find himself at the center of a shadowy conspiracy to steal a rare art treasure.Now, you would get to the end and say "this isn't science-fiction. This is detective fiction." Why would you feel comfortable making that assessment? Because my story lacks any features commonly associated with science-fiction: A futuristic or speculative setting, alien races or cultures, advanced technology, a dependance of scientific theory for plot development. These features that define genre are called "tropes".Now, not ever genre work has every genre trope. For instance I could write science-fiction that was set in our world, contemporarily, without advanced technology or rayguns or whatever (like William Gibson's novel "Pattern Recognition.") Or I could write a detective story that was "soft-boiled", if you will. The more of these tropes I have, in fact, the more "generic" my work is likely to be - the more similar and unremarkable it seems.So it's possible, from all these tropes - from the features that define the fantasy genre, and all fantasy works share to a greater or lesser degree - to construct a generic fantasy work. As if you took all the fantasy works and mixed them together, taking out the specific unique elements of each work and leaving only what they shared.Get it, yet? There's a difference between the generic features that define the fantasy genre, and the specific works of fantasy that may or may not share all those features. (Those features would be, by the way, things like: mediveal or pre-Renaissance technology level, super/paranormal powers or forces, clearly defined good and evil characters, larger-than-life heroes, mythological themes, themes of martial endeavor, alternate sexual roles, racial themes writ large, etc.)Maybe this is new to you, but this is basic literary genre theory. It's actually pretty interesting. You just have to start asking yourself "how do I know what genre this work is in?" Here's a hint - it's not by finding where it's filed at Barnes and Noble.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 12-04-2003]

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Historically? Well I guess it depends on what you mean by "fantasy" and which nationality's writings you are talking about.

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A good point, and well taken. I've been mainly picturing anglo-american traditional.

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Correct me if I am wrong but we are living in the 2000's and that image was created well past the 80s. Thus Crash can certainly use modern interpretation to say she is not necessarily unfeminine or gay, just because of the way she is dressed (and what she is doing).

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Perhaps you misunderstood. I was stating that, in my experience, modern fantasy series/games/movies/etc have a much greater diversity on what is traditional for women.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 12-04-2003]

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It's that "odds are" that I'm most interested in. To me that sounds like what you're saying is "most women who are like this woman are gay."

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"Better than 50-50", although when I stated that, I was considering the "if she had short hair also" possibility.

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So, then, it appears you're taking one of the following positions:

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Women who wear armor and fight are mostly gay. I don't understand what experience you have with women who wear armor and fight, but the experience I have - with ones who pretend to fight, in games - says that the vast majority are straight.

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As we've already agreed, costume contexts are irrelevant. You're now substituting your already misleading word "most" with the word "all", which further brings you off base here.By the way - although you claim not to judge people's sexuality based on appearences, what percent of people who you've seen at these games have you asked about their sexuality? It's the same thing as with the hockey team: You didn't really ask, did you?

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Historically in our world, the women who wear armor and fight have been mostly gay. That's just untrue. While female combatants are rare, they're not unheard of - you yourself pointed out that Joa of Arc was not a lesbian - especially in Asian cultures. (Mulan?)

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Wrong. I did not point out that Joan of Arc was not a lesbian. There is nothing indicative that she was straight; at the very least she's asexual. There is, however, a fair bit of evidence suggesting that she might well have been lesbian. There's plenty of evidence that she was F2M (at the very least, it's pretty undeniable that she was CD), and the majority of F2Ms have the sexual identity of "lesbian/straight male" (I've seen informal statistics that say about 3 in 4, which roughly corresponds to my personal experiences; I've never seen any formalized statistics, however), so that's another piece of evidence.Mulan is mythical.Got any more examples? You're currently running at one "asexual or lesbian" and one Chinese myth. Note that I didn't pick these examples - you did - and you're only hurting your point. Want *me* to pick the examples?

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Historically, in our world, women who act aggressive ar emostly gay. Again, this isn't even close to true - there's way more aggressive women than there are gay ones.

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To come up with this concept, you would have to ignore what I've been having to repeat over and over to the point of getting sick of it: that you don't judge from one factor. One factor alone only increases the odds.(you repeat the same fallacy again below - omitted).

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Basically what I'm asking you is: you keep saying that in your experience, women like the woman in the picture are mostly gay. WHat I need you to tell me is when you say "women like the woman in the picture", what women are you talking about?

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I've already spelled out the combination of traits that I find suggestive.A chosen lifestyle as a professional warrior. Not just a support person, but a direct infantry-type combattant in a mode that will take a very athletic lifestyle. Wearing armor that appears to be custom, but is not at all "feminine" armor. (i.e., compared to your examples of a woman in armor and a woman in a tuxedo). Armored "to the eyebrows", to quote Rrhain. No visible signs of long or midlength hair, although this is in dispute, and there's no way to really know (if signs of long hair *were* present, it would reduce the odds). An aggressive, forward posture.

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I don't think you understand what you're asking. It's like I'm telling you "the keys aren't in the kitchen", and you keep saying "I need specific examples of keys that aren't in the kitchen. Flatly stating that the keys aren't in the kitchen won't cut it."

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No. It's like you insisting that there's a white rhinocerus wearing sunglasses in the kitchen, and me asking what rhinocerus you're talking about. You're asserting something without backing it up. What features? Why are they relevant? Why are you not simply just answering the question?------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 12-04-2003]

(concerning tropes related to fantasy works)This requires you to consider "female knights" to be a trope of the "fantasy" genre. I disagree. Perhaps it might be a trope of a subset of the fantasy genre, but "fantasy" covers such a broad range (and when you encorporate what Holmes mentioned - to paraphrase, "which culture's fantasy genres, and what time periods?" it becomes even more broad). That's why I don't think you can make a fair judgement. If we knew anything about *what* series/book/movie/etc this knight came from - even the author, artist, or a general plot synopsis - we could narrow it down into a subset and determine whether this subset tends to have strong women, weak women, a mix, etc). Until then, I think that the "fantasy" genre as a whole is much too broad for such a line of argument.Again, I'm reminded back to Marion Zimmer Bradley's works (some of my favorites). She was undeniably a fantasy author. She's was undeniably a staunch feminist. Her characters were undeniably, for the most part, strong women. And yet, even still, I can't recall a book in which you'd find a professional female soldier.Was she merely missing a trope? I'd argue that that isn't nearly close enough to a universal fantasy theme (straight female warriors) to qualify as one. I would argue what *does* constitute fantasy tropes are magic, warriors of physical combat in general, a roughly medieval world setting, good and evil, powerful beasts, heroism, etc. These things seem common enough to what we define as fantasy works. "Straight female warriors"? Only in a subset.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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Perhaps you misunderstood.

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I guess I did, though doesn't that also support crash's point that one can't automatically say the elven avatar looks gay or other?------------------
holmes

I think the fundamental issue here that's being differed over is contexts. Crashfrog wants to apply a "fantasy fiction" context to it - specifically, a fantasy fiction context in which women knights are normal. My instinctive reaction, not knowing which fantasy context she is from, is to attempt to apply it to the real world (during the historical period in which knights fought).There are valid points to Crashfrog's context as well; it's just not how I looked at the picture, since I don't know where it's from. Applying pictures to reality just seems more applicable to me than speculating on the rules for the universe in which she lives in.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

Rei writes:

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My instinctive reaction, not knowing which fantasy context she is from, is to attempt to apply it to the real world (during the historical period in which knights fought).

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(*blink!*)You did not just say that, did you?Your "instinctive reaction" to looking at a clearly fantasy-genre image is to try and interpret it using real-world standards? Who cares "which fantasy context" she's coming from...you think a real-world context is more appropriate?By your logic, if we are presented with someone speaking with a British accent, it is reasonable to interpret what they are saying in the context of the lexicon of a typical speaker from Atlanta, Georgia.Instead, it is obvious that any American context is completely irrelevant and that we need to restrict ourselves to the British Isles. We may not know if we're talking London or Newcastle or Orkney, but we do know that Atlanta is so far afield as to be a ludicrous suggestion.[Now, don't be disingenuous and suggest that there are British people who live in Atlanta. Do I really need to show you why that is irrelevant?]The picture was obviously of a fantasy scene. Therefore, any interpretation of it must necessarily be within the context of the fantasy genre. We may not know if it's a story where there's a whole battalion of fighting women or if this is the tale of a single woman defying the claims that women can't be warriors, but we know that it's a fantasy context and real-world examples are so far afield as to be ludicrous.And while I admit I haven't read as much fantasy as my friends, I think it's a fairly safe bet that the number of lesbians in general let alone lesbian warriors in fantasy is quite small. I can only think of one (Segnbora in Diane Duane's Door Into series...and in that storyline, everybody's essentially bisexual.)------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

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By your logic, if we are presented with someone speaking with a British accent, it is reasonable to interpret what they are saying in the context of the lexicon of a typical speaker from Atlanta, Georgia.

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Bad analogy. The vast majority of British people speak with a British accent. The same can't be said for female knights.

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And while I admit I haven't read as much fantasy as my friends, I think it's a fairly safe bet that the number of lesbians in general let alone lesbian warriors in fantasy is quite small. I can only think of one (Segnbora in Diane Duane's Door Into series...and in that storyline, everybody's essentially bisexual.)

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If you want, I can start rattling off a list (and I wouldn't know where to even begin with women who are deliberately left "ambiguous" - I may even wager that in some contexts, you encounter more for which there deliberately is no statement on their sexuality than ones who have a statement on the subject), but I think that's really beside the point I stated my context (one where I could make a reasonable judgement - I don't feel qualified at all to make a judgement for some random unknown fantasy series), I judged in that context - end of story. If you're asking me to make a judgement based on an unknown fantasy context, I'll just have to be sorry to disappoint you.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

Rei responds to me:

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By your logic, if we are presented with someone speaking with a British accent, it is reasonable to interpret what they are saying in the context of the lexicon of a typical speaker from Atlanta, Georgia.

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Bad analogy. The vast majority of British people speak with a British accent. The same can't be said for female knights.

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Bad response.The vast majority of fantasy images are from a fantasy context. The same cannot be said of real-world images.You were presented with a [I][b]fantasy[/i][/b] image and you thought that the best context in which to interpret it was a real-world one?

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I may even wager that in some contexts, you encounter more for which there deliberately is no statement on their sexuality

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Now I know you're reaching. "Deliberately"? You really know the author's intent that well that you can detect that the reason why it isn't mentioned is because it is being "deliberately" avoided? And, of course, when it's being "deliberately" avoided, that means she's gay, right?At any rate, you didn't really contradict my foundational statement: It's a fairly safe bet that the number of lesbians in general let alone lesbian warriors in fantasy is quite small. The fact that you can name more than me doesn't negate the claim that the number is quite small compared to the number of straight women in general and straight women warriors in particular in fantasy fiction.I can rattle off a huge list of lesbian people, too, but they still are tremendously outnumbered by the straight women of the world.

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I stated my context (one where I could make a reasonable judgement - I don't feel qualified at all to make a judgement for some random unknown fantasy series), I judged in that context - end of story.

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To quote from the play I was just in: I don't deny that you made your interpretation in the context that you chose. But what on earth made you think you were justified in selecting a real-world context to interpret a fantasy image?

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If you're asking me to make a judgement based on an unknown fantasy context, I'll just have to be sorry to disappoint you.

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I'm asking you what made you think the real world was an appropriate context in which to interpret a [I][b]fantasy[/i][/b] image.If you were truly flummoxed by the idea of judging a fantasy image in a fantasy context because you didn't know which one to choose, then the only logical response is to say, "I don't know."Your logic is akin to searching for your keys under the street lamp because the light is better there. Yeah, you lost them over there where it's pitch black, but you can't see anything over there so you came over here where you could actually look around.Yes, it's true that you can see better under the street lamp, but that won't make the keys come over there. The keys remain wherever they happen to be in the darkness. You may have a better understanding of real-world contexts, but that won't make the image anything other than a fantasy image. It remains within the realm of fantasy and must be interpreted in a fantasy context.If you are uncomfortable choosing one, then say, "I don't know."------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Of what, exactly? One or two lesbians in armor aren't going to prove your point. In order to prove your point you'll have to prove that the majority of women who have ever worn armor, in whatever context you feel is appropriate here, were lesbians. And you believe that the majority of women with these qualities are gay? Based on what evidence or experience? That's the point, here. The armor is of a style that is not historical! What's hard to understand about that? Jeez!Maybe you're having trouble with the idea that there's "styles" of armor. Maybe you don't know anything about putting styles in a historical context. I don't understand what your problem is with this. If you will, there's an absence of evidence that people wore armor of that style in our past, and the history of armor is sufficiently well documented that we can conclude therefore that that style of armor has never been worn. I just don't understand why you don't get that.

Well, if you insist, it's pretty obvious to me that that's a character portrait from one of the various Dungeons and Dragons video games (Baldur's Gate I/II, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights). So it's Dungeons and Dragons we're talking about. Uh-huh. And what works would you find represntative of that subgenre?"Works with non-combatant women" is a much more likely candidate for a sub-genre, as it represents considerably fewer works than works that include fighting straight women. I could shoot you a two-page list of titles with fighting women off the top of my head, and another ten pages after a stop at Barnes and Noble. I challenge you to come up with as many titles that lack any fighting straight women whatsoever.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 12-04-2003]

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My instinctive reaction, not knowing which fantasy context she is from, is to attempt to apply it to the real world

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I guess I see this, but then I am totally in the same boat as Crash, but that may be due to the same exposure to fantasy that he has had.First of all it looks like an elf to me, but even if not it totally looks like a character portrait from Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights (which ironically me and my gf just finished playing a few moments ago).Generally any cartoonish or high art looking image of a person in dramatic pose with medieval arms makes me think of fantasy and not reality. But that is me.------------------
holmes

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Most modern fantasy springs from those older tales and even in Conan (some of the oldest English fantasy novels) women could fight (though not as well as Conan).

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...who could fight as well as Conan in any of the R.E.Howard
stories (even the one's cobbled together from other oriental
adventure-story notes) !?!Belit was pretty formidable -- Queen of the Black Coast and all
that -- as was Valeria (Red Nails(?)).No hint of sexual identity issues in the Hyborian age.

Robert E Howard (creator of Conan and King Kull) also
wrote stories about a warrior woman set in France in the 1600's
(I think) times. She was a professional mercenary.Hardly typical, though, so ...[This message has been edited by Peter, 12-05-2003]

After some thought about it, I'm surprised you make this analogy. It demonstrates an inability to discern the difference between a positive claim - "something exists" - and a negative claim - "something doesn't exist."I'm saying that specific style of armor - seeing as how it's a combination of un-fluted Maximillian armor from 1650's Europe and Indian armor circa 12-1400 - never existed in our history. If you say it does than it's you making the positive claim, and you who has to support it. Not the other way around, remember?Given our mutual history of setting other people straight about the burden of evidence for negative vs. positive claims, it's very shocking to see you make that exact mistake.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 12-05-2003]