Ruin Explorer
Legend
I'm not saying your post is "completely invalid" in all respects. What I am questioning is your use of the term "Asian courtly ideals", as opposed to "courtly ideals", because frankly, they were pretty similar to European ones, except a lot more likely to end up with women having actual, formal, weapons-training. If you'd said "courtly ideals" without the Asian, I wouldn't have blinked.
Also, as my link indicated, I'm not just talking about "on the battlefield". As noted, Japanese noble women were sometimes trained to use the Naginata for defense of the home. I cannot think of any similar Western noble customs (but perhaps I am missing something from Central or Northern Europe!), and as you say, there seem to be more standout examples of female battlefield combatants in Asian history/lore than European. It seems like it would be much easier to transition to being a soldier if you already had combat training.
I'm similarly somewhat mystified by [MENTION=14291]Azgulor[/MENTION] comments, when he says: "eye makeup, long hair, and hair rod & decorations". Uh, what? You know who else had long hair, eye makeup, and who often wore hair rods and elaborate hair/head decorations? Male samurai.
I guess what my feeling is, is that had this warrior been in plate, you wouldn't have been all "Well courtly ideals etc.!", you'd have just been "female in plate", and had the warrior been male, and in equally fancy hair, makeup and decorations (as a samurai might easily be), Azgulor wouldn't have said anything. If I'm wrong, let me know.
Samurai should be nobles is a more interesting point. I think you could go either way on that one, probably depending on how much of their life they had actually spent engaged in warfare.
Either way, this debate has actually made me think better of the picture, because whilst the artistry still seems kind of "meh", it's clearly challenging people's assumptions.
