D&D 5E 5th edition artists need to watch Legend of Korra

[Sunseeker]

But the women in the art are not actual women with agency. They're made up people, created by the artist, drawn by the artist, put in the clothes the artist wants. And yes, there are women artists who draw women scantily clad. But how many fantasy artists are women? Rhetorical question, the answer is not many.

Modesty isn't the issue. Objectification is. A woman choosing to wear skimpy clothing in real life is not a problem, because it is her choice to wear that clothing. She made that choice of her own volition, with her adult brain. Which fantasy art women lack. Because they aren't real people.

Again, the women in fantasy art aren't actually choosing to wear chainmail bikinis. They can't choose to wear chainmail bikinis. Because they're not real. They're wank fodder for lonely nerds and horny 17 year olds. Sometimes both at the same time.

Have I repeated this enough times? They aren't real. They aren't choosing this. Other people are choosing this for them.

You can't rationally argue that their lack of existing means they "have no choice in it". In order to be forced into something, your choice has to be overridden. Your ASSUMPTION is simply that no women would want to wear those things, which is why when they wear "realistic" clothes it's fine and when they wear sexy bikini's its not. YOU are putting YOUR ideas of what these women want, and as you said, they're not even REAL.

It can't have an opinion one way or the other, they're only being objectified in YOUR opinion.

The adult's table.

Given that most of us are adults, I guess that means we're free to giggle!

 

[Kynn]

Censorship in all its forms is bad, mkay, including self-censorship. If you're not free to giggle with the boys at lesbian warrior princesses kissing during D&D, where are you? Who's stopping you? The PC police? puhleeeze.

I don't expect Wotc to break any major ground, but Core D&D is based on euro-centric fantasy archetypes, and I hope the art is of good quality, consistent, evocative, inspiring, and not guided by a committee on moral abuses of the female form. Victorian-era prudery was a bad idea then, it's even worse now. If I want softcore p0rn, I can get it easily. As an adult, I expect to not be treated like a child (at least if company X wants my money)

For an asian or other expansion, sure, let's have a different vibe, I love chinese mythology and culture, but it's not Core D&D, which has more, let's not kid ourselves here, euro-centric themes and biases.

plus...Anime is waaaay played out. I know lots of geeks love it, but I don't. I find it childish and tacky, better suited to a game with gamey-healing mechanics and nobody-ever-dies pew pew nerf combat.

Are you trolling here or have you missed all the previous threads about this topic?

Cuz, like, you've somehow managed to hit on pretty much all the inflammatory things people tend to say about art choices in D&D.

Just curious.

 

[Ettin]

You can't rationally argue that their lack of existing means they "have no choice in it".

Agreed. I for one wish that their lack of existing did mean they had no choice in doing things. You have no idea how awkward it is to have the major villain of your campaign duck out of his lair right before the final confrontation because he has a headache, or the wizard who's supposed to be giving out the next quest decide to go bowling instead.

 

[Alouicious]

You can't rationally argue that their lack of existing means they "have no choice in it". In order to be forced into something, your choice has to be overridden. Your ASSUMPTION is simply that no women would want to wear those things, which is why when they wear "realistic" clothes it's fine and when they wear sexy bikini's its not. YOU are putting YOUR ideas of what these women want, and as you said, they're not even REAL.

It can't have an opinion one way or the other, they're only being objectified in YOUR opinion.

Ah yes of course, it us feminists who are the true misogynists! Us with our dastardly "objecting to the needless sexualization of women" and our "wanting women to be taken seriously in a medium instead of being reduced to wimpering damsels or wanton sluts".

The people projecting their desires onto the characters are the artists. Because they are the ones who are creating the character. They are literally the gods of their world, deciding what they wear. Sure, some characters may have legitimate in-character reasons for wearing what they wear (note: this is actually rather rare beyond some flimsy in universe justification ). But most fantasy art women aren't even characters. They're pin-ups. They exist solely to titillate the reader. That is their entire purpose. How are you not getting this.

 

[Sunseeker]

Ah yes of course, it us feminists who are the true misogynists! Us with our dastardly "objecting to the needless sexualization of women" and our "wanting women to be taken seriously in a medium instead of being reduced to wimpering damsels or wanton sluts".

If you're not interested in having a discussion, I'd be more than happy to stop talking to you, just let me know mmkay?

I never said a word about feminists, mysoginists, or anything of the sort, that's all on you. I said you are projecting your assumptions on to the characters as much as you are accusing the artists of doing. If the artist is wrong in doing so as you accuse, then SO ARE YOU.

The people projecting their desires onto the characters are the artists. Because they are the ones who are creating the character. They are literally the gods of their world, deciding what they wear. Sure, some characters may have legitimate in-character reasons for wearing what they wear (note: this is actually rather rare beyond some flimsy in universe justification ). But most fantasy art women aren't even characters. They're pin-ups. They exist solely to titillate the reader. That is their entire purpose. How are you not getting this.

Now we're talking about two different subjects, first we were talking about a woman's ability to wear clothing without it being assumed that they were sexual fantasies, and now we're talking about art explicitly designed to be erotic.

We can't discuss both at the same time. The assumption that no woman wants to wear sexy clothes is as faulty as the assumption that no man likes to show off his big muscles. Some do, some don't. A character who does is different than a picture whose intent is to titillate. These are two distinct arguments and two distinct discussions. Not every woman in a bikini is there for the arousal of the male, and even if their goal in wearing so little IS to arouse the male, that can entirely be their want.

YOUR assumption that women wearing little must be forced into it by the evil artist overlords is just silly. They're no more forced into wearing impractical bikinis than another woman is forced into wearing full-plate. You CANNOT, not even for a second attempt to claim that these evil artist overlords are overriding the inherent choice of a woman, which is always "wear more". They're PICTURES, they have NO say one way or the other. You can no more claim that those warrior-babes really want more clothes any more than I can claim those heavy-armored fighters secretly want to strip down and pole-dance. Pictures don't have opinions.

Beyond that, ANY artist or writer who actually creates a character and not just a pinup will tell you that any character worth their salt does has preferences and opinions. You can't just throw a heavy-armor wearing, bastard-sword wielding woman into a plate bikini, it just doesn't work, likewise some characters are more apt to show some skin than others. Different, developed characters have different wants. There is no universal "women want to be sluts" or "women want real armor" that can be applied.

So sure, some images are created for titillation, some are actually of characters. Understanding the difference between these two types of images and not correlating them all under the umbrella of "fantasy art" is important to this discussion.

 

[Alouicious]

If you're not interested in having a discussion, I'd be more than happy to stop talking to you, just let me know mmkay?

I never said a word about feminists, mysoginists, or anything of the sort, that's all on you. I said you are projecting your assumptions on to the characters as much as you are accusing the artists of doing. If the artist is wrong in doing so as you accuse, then SO ARE YOU.

Now we're talking about two different subjects, first we were talking about a woman's ability to wear clothing without it being assumed that they were sexual fantasies, and now we're talking about art explicitly designed to be erotic.

We can't discuss both at the same time. The assumption that no woman wants to wear sexy clothes is as faulty as the assumption that no man likes to show off his big muscles. Some do, some don't. A character who does is different than a picture whose intent is to titillate. These are two distinct arguments and two distinct discussions. Not every woman in a bikini is there for the arousal of the male, and even if their goal in wearing so little IS to arouse the male, that can entirely be their want.

YOUR assumption that women wearing little must be forced into it by the evil artist overlords is just silly. They're no more forced into wearing impractical bikinis than another woman is forced into wearing full-plate. You CANNOT, not even for a second attempt to claim that these evil artist overlords are overriding the inherent choice of a woman, which is always "wear more". They're PICTURES, they have NO say one way or the other. You can no more claim that those warrior-babes really want more clothes any more than I can claim those heavy-armored fighters secretly want to strip down and pole-dance. Pictures don't have opinions.

Beyond that, ANY artist or writer who actually creates a character and not just a pinup will tell you that any character worth their salt does has preferences and opinions. You can't just throw a heavy-armor wearing, bastard-sword wielding woman into a plate bikini, it just doesn't work, likewise some characters are more apt to show some skin than others. Different, developed characters have different wants. There is no universal "women want to be sluts" or "women want real armor" that can be applied.

So sure, some images are created for titillation, some are actually of characters. Understanding the difference between these two types of images and not correlating them all under the umbrella of "fantasy art" is important to this discussion.

You are getting really worked up over defending fantasy cheesecake art. Most of what you just posted at me has nothing to do with my arguments. I think you should step away from the computer for a bit and calm down.

 

[Balsamic Dragon]

For an asian or other expansion, sure, let's have a different vibe, I love chinese mythology and culture, but it's not Core D&D, which has more, let's not kid ourselves here, euro-centric themes and biases.
QUOTE]

So lemme get this straight: you are saying that because D&D is modelled on European history and myth, which were dominated by white guys, it's ok for the art to be about and for white guys? Having a black woman, for example, in plate armor with a European sword is not D&D? Stick with military wargaming then please. I'll be over here playing my _fantasy_ games.

 

[Balsamic Dragon]

But most fantasy art women aren't even characters. They're pin-ups. They exist solely to titillate the reader. That is their entire purpose. How are you not getting this.

So what are the pictures of guys in fantasy art in D&D books? Are they pin-ups too?

The problem is that you assume that the men are PCs and the women are NPCs. Female players want to see pictures of people that could be their player character, not just an NPC that is there to titillate the male players!

 

[Hussar]

This is a common assertion and it is simply false. Being scantly clad is not exploitative, this style of dress appeals to many women. A great many of the comic book artists I watch on DeviantArt who do some of the sexist pinups are women. My fiance's favorite subject is pinup fantasy women.

Exploitation is forcing a woman to dress in a manner that she doesn't like. Exploitation is not as simple as dressing in a fantasy bikini, if life were that cut and dry I doubt we'd even be having this conversation.

It's a serious irony. We want women to be empowered to do what they want, wear what they want, act how they want, but then we damn them for not acting and dressing in the manners that we forced them to back when we wanted them to be empowered!

I understand all the "realism" issues that fantasy bikini's made of skulls/leather/plate/chain-mail bring. These aren't going to protect you in real battle. But are they respectful of women? That's up to the women in question, simply assuming that a chain-mail bikini must be disrespectful because in your opinion no woman would ever be to unmodest is just silly.

Umm, you are kinda missing the point. Choosing to dress scantily is a personal choice and not exploitative. When the director tells you that you either wear this scanty costume or you will not be in the movie, that's exploitation. Since the characters in a picture have no real existence, it's exploitative to put them in completely unrealistic costumes for the sole purpose of titulating the (mostly) male audience.

I mean, take this:

Gorgoroth is actually going to try to hold up Boris Vallejo as an example of art that isn't exploitative? Good grief. Do you now KNOW where those images are used? I love fantasy pin-up as much as the next guy, but, holy crap, let's be honest here - half naked lady's ONLY purpose in this picture is to be half naked.

Conan's not doing a whole lot better either. People bitch about how Hollywood screwed up the Conan image in the movies, but, there's a reason for that image - and Boris is at the top of the list. Cheesecake is cheesecake. Only difference is, in D&D art, you don't get a whole lot of male cheesecake, but, tons of female.

 

[Ettin]

The women in those pictures represent a male fantasy.

The men in those pictures usually also represent a male fantasy.