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.

 

[rgard]

I wasn't planning on buying any of these minis but If I did I would get the Holmes Blue Book Dragon as this was my first D&D exposure and purchase.

Agreed, good thing it's not in a blind box and we can just buy it.

 

[rgard]

Re: authorial intent

IMHO, it absolutely matters, but it isn’t dispositive. It’s just the beginning of the conversation between a work’s creator and their audience.

In my case, I have definitely created written/musical/visual/physical IP within which others have found aspects that were not intended, but fair analysis strongly supported. Some had symbols I didn’t realize had multiple meanings.

A few years ago, I scrapped a musical composition that I had been working on for months when a new Joe Satriani single got released and the first several bars of my piece were eerily- but entirely coincidentally- similar. My intent was nearly irrelevant: if I had recorded and released it, it would probably have been dismissed as an amateurish copy. (And that kind of thing happens more than you think.)

Spoiler: Tangential anecdote

I’ve seen this in more than creative human endeavors. In my first semester of law school, I took Criminal Law with a professor who had just spent months helping the legislature rewrite certain sections of Texas’ criminal law code. Halfway through the semester, he was discussing a particular statute with a foreign student (for whom English was not her primary language ), and quickly realized she had a completely different and almost opposite understanding of the law’s language.

Class screeched to a halt as he analyzed her understanding of the law. Despite literally pages of documentation on the legislative intent of the law’s drafting, he declared her understanding was a perfectly valid interpretation of the text. He then said as soon as the class was over, he had calls to make to the team he’d been working with in order to change the law yet again to eliminate her interpretation from ever getting used in court.

Better check your studio for hidden microphones.

 

[Maxperson]

So is over interpreting an obvious metaphor as a literal wish.

Take a look at the wide world around you. These days it's no longer "obvious" that statements like these aren't literal. There are just too many extreme opinions and views floating around.

 

[Scott Christian]

For those arguing, here is an example:

Stuart Franklin took the most widely distributed photo of the famous Tiananmen Square "Tank" photo. One man standing up to many tanks. (He is still alive.) If say, Banksy, decided to paint the Tank Man on one side of a building, and then on the other side show the frontal image and make Tank Man a Tank Woman, it is more than probable Banksy's people would contact Franklin prior. If they didn't, would they be outcast? Maybe. Would they simply be heralded as rebels? Maybe. It's a gamble.

These two, WizKids and Elmore, are some of the biggest names in fantasy art. WizKids took a gamble, and it looks like it's paying off.

 

[dbolack]

If Elmore wanted to make the figure obviously male he probably would have. But he didn't.

I mean, we're all our own collection of assumptions that overlap with each other except when they don't. I'm sure he felt it was more than obvious; both within his particular artistic framework and in general.

 

[Cadence]

And now I find myself wondering what the various cultures from say 500BC to 1500AD around the world did in terms of shaving body hair and how it varies between social classes and genders. Were all of the mighty warriors seen in the pictures taught a depilatory cantrips?

 

[Warpiglet-7]

And now I find myself wondering what the various cultures from say 500BC to 1500AD around the world did in terms of shaving body hair and how it varies between social classes and genders. Were all of the mighty warriors seen in the pictures taught a depilatory cantrips?

I Only assume—-since I am not an anthropologist— thet they shaved their chest hair into intricate geometric shapes.

I therefore shaved my copious cheat hair into circles with my nipples as bulls eyes in hopes of of drawing on their mystical powers.

My wife has not said much since she left to stay with her parents a while

 

[Maxperson]

I'm pretty sure for the majority of people what defines male or female rests between the legs, and that wasn't depicted.

In the early 2000s I was playing in a group that had a few guys in it that I had been playing with since 1984. One of the guys had a bunch of old minis including a loin cloth wearing ogre. One day we were in a fight with ogres and that figure fell forward. To our surprise that old lead figure was anatomically correct and quite well endowed. We had gone 30 years without ever noticing that fact. Not that we went around looking between the legs of our lead figures.

 

[rgard]

In the early 2000s I was playing in a group that had a few guys in it that I had been playing with since 1984. One of the guys had a bunch of old minis including a loin cloth wearing ogre. One day we were in a fight with ogres and that figure fell forward. To our surprise that old lead figure was anatomically correct and quite well endowed. We had gone 30 years without ever noticing that fact. Not that we went around looking between the legs of our lead figures.

Ral Partha's orcs are the same way.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Re: authorial intent

IMHO, it absolutely matters, but it isn’t dispositive. It’s just the beginning of the conversation between a work’s creator and their audience.

In my case, I have definitely created written/musical/visual/physical IP within which others have found aspects that were not intended, but fair analysis strongly supported. Some had symbols I didn’t realize had multiple meanings.

A few years ago, I scrapped a musical composition that I had been working on for months when a new Joe Satriani single got released and the first several bars of my piece were eerily- but entirely coincidentally- similar. My intent was nearly irrelevant: if I had recorded and released it, it would probably have been dismissed as an amateurish copy. (And that kind of thing happens more than you think.)

Spoiler: Tangential anecdote

I’ve seen this in more than creative human endeavors. In my first semester of law school, I took Criminal Law with a professor who had just spent months helping the legislature rewrite certain sections of Texas’ criminal law code. Halfway through the semester, he was discussing a particular statute with a foreign student (for whom English was not her primary language ), and quickly realized she had a completely different and almost opposite understanding of the law’s language.

Class screeched to a halt as he analyzed her understanding of the law. Despite literally pages of documentation on the legislative intent of the law’s drafting, he declared her understanding was a perfectly valid interpretation of the text. He then said as soon as the class was over, he had calls to make to the team he’d been working with in order to change the law yet again to eliminate her interpretation from ever getting used in court.

Yeah, I worries about making comment on this because I thought it would get fed back into the red box warrior discussion (and this is a more important side issue IMO). I think intent of the author definitely matters. Doesn't mean there isn't also a subjective experience of the viewer/reader, or that a work can have different meaning as culture and history change, but I think trying to assess what a writer intended remains important (it is one of the things you do when you look at a classic work is also consider the author's aim, what they meant, especially in places where their meaning wasn't obvious). I see this as a separate issue though than what we are talking about