D&D General D&D Red Box: Who Is The Warrior?

The Dungeons & Dragons Red Box, famously illustrated by Larry Elmore in 1983, featured cover art of a warrior fighting a red dragon. The piece is an iconic part of D&D's history.

WizKids is creating a 50th Anniversary D&D miniatures set for the D&D Icons of the Realms line which includes models based on classic art from the game, such as the AD&D Player's Handbook's famous 'A Paladin In Hell' piece by David Sutherland in 1978, along with various monsters and other iconic images. The set will be available in July 2024.

Amongst the collection is Elmore's dragon-fighting warrior. This character has only ever been seen from behind, and has never been named or identified. However, WizKids’ miniature gives us our first look at them from the front. The warrior is a woman; the view from behind is identical to the original art, while the view from the front--the first time the character's face has ever been seen--is, as WizKids told ComicBook.com, "purposefully and clearly" a woman. This will be one of 10 secret rare miniatures included in the D&D Icons of the Realms: 50th Anniversary booster boxes.

The original artist, Larry Elmore, says otherwise. (Update—the linked post has since been edited).

It's a man!

Gary didn't know what he wanted, all he wanted was something simple that would jump out at you. He wanted a male warrior. If it was a woman, you would know it for I'm pretty famous for painting women.

There was never a question in all these years about the male warrior.

No one thought it was a female warrior. "Whoever thought it was a female warrior is quite crazy and do not know what they are talking about."

This is stupid. I painted it, I should know.

- Larry Elmore​

Whether or not Elmore's intent was for the character to be a man, it seems that officially she's a woman. Either way, it's an awesome miniature. And for those who love the art, you can buy a print from Larry Elmore's official website.

 

[Dire Bare]

But to answer your question, Yes, I really do feel like there is a society-wide push to exclude and demonize cisgender straight white males in the name of diversity and equality.

When they came for the straight white men, I said nothing.

But, since I am a straight white guy, I get all confused when folks claim society is trying to exclude and demonize me.

 

[Azzy]

I'm not one to care strongly about this type of stuff, when I see something like this and I just don't buy the product and keep living my life without giving it any more thought.

But to answer your question, Yes, I really do feel like there is a society-wide push to exclude and demonize cisgender straight white males in the name of diversity and equality. This happens MUCH more so in Hollywood movies and TV shows than in DnD, but it is annoying to see whenever it happens. WotC generally does a good job of inventing new diverse characters (which is great!) instead of taking the lazy way and retconning existing iconic characters, which unfortunately they did not do in this case.

As someone who is a cisgender straight white male, I think your assertion that there's such a push is not rooted in actual reality.

 

[Azzy]

When they came for the straight white men, I said nothing.

But, since I am a straight white guy, I get all confused when folks claim society is trying to exclude and demonize me.

Right?

 

[DrJawaPhD]

As someone who is a cisgender straight white male, I think your assertion that there's such a push is not rooted in actual reality.

 

[Jahydin]

As someone who is a cisgender straight white male, I think your assertion that there's such a push is not rooted in actual reality.

We're talking about the company who's executive producer said, "In my viewpoint, honestly, guys like me [straight/white] can't leave soon enough for this hobby."

I'm tempted to say, there is certainly "a push".

Crazy radical idea here: there's room in this hobby for everyone. I hope we can all agree on that much.

 

[Gradine]

 

[MNblockhead]

What's weird about this hubbub to me is that Elmore was doing work for hire here. The final product wasn't even what he originally envisioned and proposed. His original sketch was larger, and had two more figures in the foreground. It was, IMO, a better piece of art, and more representative of the game. The red box cover always seemed "cramped" to me, I never knew why until I saw the original idea. This wasn't some unfettered work of artistic expression. It was spec work done at the direction of Gary Gygax. That doesn't make it bad art, it certainly isn't. But it also doesn't make it some sacred work, to be venerated as sacrosanct.

Agree 100%, but nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

I cannot prove the intent of WizKids, but it seems to me that their choice to gender the miniature as female is a cynical attempt to use subversion of expectations to generate "buzz" around their miniature and improve sales. In other words, I think it is a calculated attempt to rankle the "grognards" in the RPG community but not out of a genuine desire to challenge expectations in order to enlighten people, improve representation of traditionally underrepresented groups in the hobby, etc. ... I think the move was done as a calculated attempt to annoy in order to effect a cynical cash grab, and as such, I find it distasteful.

I also can't prove the intent of Wizkids, but I feel pretty confident that they did this to generate buzz and they were very successful. I don't get why folks keep saying this is cynical. Maybe there were other characters and artwork to introduce a bulked up female warrior for the 50th anniversary, but the Red Box cover is one of the most well known pieces of D&D art and was one where the character was only shown from the back. What other piece of art could they have used to as successfully subvert expectations and create as much buzz with?

I see this line of thinking popup all the time (as if it's even a bad thing), but disagree that it was designed for horny adolescent hetero boys anymore than the scantily clad, muscle dudes were designed for horny adolescent non-hetero boys.

I just think at one time we were all in agreement that we all liked beautiful people in general. To be clear, I still think we all do, but for reasons that are beyond me it is now polite to pretend that we don't.

I think a much healthier take is beauty is just one of many desirable traits and by far not even close to the most important. Paizo does an amazing job of getting this across with their characters I think.

The female art is definitely targeted to appeal to heterosexual guys, just like the covers of pulp adventure fiction. The male figures are also targeted as men as aspirational. The target audience was guys.

@Whizbang Dustyboots
Agreed with what you wrote, just not the way it's presented.

"Built around the male gaze" sounds much more nefarious than just "created what came naturally". The former sounding like a conscious decision to be exclusionary in my mind.

Which is why I'm not thrilled about this miniature, because it is a conscious decision to be exclusionary pretending to be "progressive". A trend I'm seeing more and more in WotC products and public announcements.

We can be representative of others without it being at another's expense.

Nothing nefarious about it. Whether it was good for society (lots of conservative types decried it as trashy, and many women's group decried it as exploitative at that time) or exclusive (probably not trying to exclude, they are just making assumptions of who their target audience was and probably had numbers to back it up), it was definitely capitalizing on the male gaze and did so successfully. I appreciated it then and I appreciate it now. But I can also see why people might have other preferences. It is not as if straight guys have less access to depictions of beautiful women in revealing garb and suggestive poses in 2024 than they did in 1984.

Anyone who was would rather have the actual character in the 50th celebration set is what I had in mind while typing.

You can't always get what you want. There have been minis of the D&D cartoon characters, minis of iconic D&D monsters from the OD&D and AD&D era, there is a mini of the Paladin in Hell art, and probably more that I forgot about. But Wiz Kids makes ONE mini that doesn't fit some folk's expectations and they throw a tantrum.

Like I did with my kids when they threw tantrums at stupid things, best to ignore them.

This isn't a Bud Light or Harry's Razor situation. Those upset enough over this are likely a very small minority of the potential consumers. They may be very vocal, but that will likely just be free advertising that will drive up sales of this miniature.

 

[Jahydin]

@MNblockhead
Well said. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

 

[Jahydin]

I'm in agreement with most have responded with. Understand there's probably a lot of hateful things being spewed online, but just because I'm not thrilled with this decision doesn't mean I'm on "team terrible".

Inclusivity is important to me; I just don't like the way WotC goes about it. It feels like it comes from a place of resentment rather than love. The news release for this miniature is just another example of it.

Which is fine. More money for Paizo and the OSR.

 

[Morrus]

But to answer your question, Yes, I really do feel like there is a society-wide push to exclude and demonize cisgender straight white males in the name of diversity and equality. This happens MUCH more so in Hollywood movies and TV shows than in DnD, but it is annoying to see whenever it happens. WotC generally does a good job of inventing new diverse characters (which is great!) instead of taking the lazy way and retconning existing iconic characters, which unfortunately they did not do in this case.

Read. The Rules. You won't be posting in this thread again.