Why Are Warrior Women Never Ugly?

[Roudi]

Why is it that female heroes are always depicted in art as lithe, flawless beauties with perfect skin and chainmail miniskirts?

Maybe in your game, bucko. In mine, characters come in all shapes and sizes, and MANY of them are not pretty.

I enjoy stories about ordinary heroes. Thus, in the worlds I play in, heroes appear ordinary. And there are many types of ordinary, let me tell you, and not all of them are attractive.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Because if they were ugly, male roleplayers wouldn't play female PC's.

Are you serious?

 

[Victim]

Why is it that female heroes are always depicted in art as lithe, flawless beauties with perfect skin and chainmail miniskirts?

Whoa. Silly question. It's because the fantasy genre caters to hormonal teenage boys and...hormonal adult men.

A better question - why are female heroes NEVER squat, muscly brutes?

It's a hard call for oxymoronic "fantasy realists", like myself. Anyone who lives by the sword can expect scars, disfiguration, and a physique which favours function over form. Why does this only apply to heroes, and not heroines?

So, is anyone out there is running a non-catwalk-worthy female character, and can anyone recommend some art/ists which depicts them?

How many ugly characters do you see in general? I haven't seen too many ugly characters of either gender, unless poor appearence is the justification for using CHA as a dump stat.

Since healing magic is fairly common in most DnD games, I'd expect scaring to be relatively minor.

 

[Oryan77]

Are you serious?

Do most gamers around here get a joke when they see one?

The answer is "no" to both questions

 

[Ranger REG]

Why is it that female heroes are always depicted in art as lithe, flawless beauties with perfect skin and chainmail miniskirts?

Because it is the same with male heroes ... we romanticize them and idolize them.

We prefer to think heroic qualities also include appearance as well as persona to attract followers and lead. Like comparing Bill Clinton to Adolf Hitler.

Or the WWE's Fabulous Moolah (back in 1970) to Sable (back in 1990).

 

[Professor Phobos]

The answer is...

GOOD fantasy doesn't always fall prey to those cliches.

Brienne of Tarth, for example, in a Song of Ice and Fire, is a monstrously ugly warrior woman. There are a fair number of good-looking warriors (Ser Loras, King Renly, etc) but just as many ugly or unremarkable ones (Sandor Clegane, Barristan the Bold, Greatjon Umber, etc).

It's definitely the most human and "realistic" fantasy setting I'm aware of, and it certainly doesn't have chicks in chainmail bikinis.

Conan wasn't supposed to be particularly attractive, as I recall.

Generally speaking, if I see a girl in a chainmail bikini, I put the book down and walk away. The better fantasy settings for RPGs avoid this sort of thing- Tekumel and Midnight come to mind.

Essentially, this kind of idiocy is a sure sign of suckage.

 

[Sejs]

Broaden the scope - how often do you see depictions of fugly heroes, period?


Not bloody often.

 

[Zappo]

It sounds as if this is confined to D&D, or to fantasy, or to geeks. How many movies, in whatever genre, have an ugly female lead?

 

[Moon-Lancer]

look in D&D 3.5 books. their you will see some of the worst professional drawlings. horrable looking faces, incorrect atomical bodies (impossible some times), and poor color choices.

Thats ugly at its worst.

although i dont think that wizards was going for "ugly" when they contracted the artests...

but their you go. uggly.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

I wouldn't play such a character. Role-playing games aren't about personal fantasies or wish-fulfillment for me.

This is what I found funny.

Then why DO you play it?