Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor

10 Responses to Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor

1. 1

   Robert says:

   March 13, 2012 at 7:56 pm

   I looked through the whole front page, and something is wrong with the site. There are like twenty ladies there and none of them are showing cleavage.

   You’re not gonna get a man without showing some cleavage, girls! Or at least sideboob. Or baking a cherry pie. Something.
2. 2

   Hugh says:

   March 13, 2012 at 11:05 pm

   It’s particularly encouraging how many of them come from official game art.
3. 3

   KellyK says:

   March 14, 2012 at 4:48 am

   This makes me really happy. There’s some great art in here.

   I just finished reading the 4-issue comic series Princeless, and it does some really entertaining things with all the cliches about women fighters. I definitely recommend it (and am hoping for more–it ended, but it didn’t exactly wrap up).
4. 4

   nobody.really says:

   March 14, 2012 at 7:37 am

   “Reasonable Armor” is relative, I guess. Each of the images depicts a woman almost COMPLETELY exposed — at the head! I only saw one helmet in the series.

   (Of course, it’s a bit of a Catch 22: a depiction of people really wearing reasonable armor would likely obscure the gender of the person in question, defeating the purpose of the tumblr.)
5. 5

   Hugh says:

   March 14, 2012 at 8:57 pm

   @nobody: The cliche of fantasy warriors not wearing helmets is indeed unrealistic, but it’s a pretty across-the-board lack of realism, akin to the presence of elves and orcs and one hero’s ability to topple an evil Empire and so on.
6. 6

   Max says:

   March 16, 2012 at 1:24 am

   Love the idea, the execution is somewhat wanting… Plenty of the lady warriors are wearing less armor than they probably should be, and not just on the head. Looking at the front page now, at least two have very exposed leg areas. One has a big flowing dress that would be hard to run in, much less fight. One has armor that looks…constricting, to say the least.

   Still, it’s a step up from average representations of female fighters.
7. 7

   Mandolin says:

   March 16, 2012 at 5:02 am

   A) I agree that some of the armors are more about aesthetics than practicality. (I don’t object to that in fantasy necessarily, just when it’s all about tits and ass in a disproportionate way, but it does make the adjective “reasonable” less applicable.)

   But B) There are historical examples of armor with exposed legs and flowy, skirty things so I’m not sure those particular examples are relevant to your point.
8. 8

   Robert says:

   March 16, 2012 at 7:23 am

   Some armor designs prioritize freedom of movement above maximizing protection, Max. And some real-world armor, particularly that of leaders, had aesthetic/signaling functions.
9. 9

   Max says:

   March 16, 2012 at 1:10 pm

   So “aesthetic functions” are cool if they’re historical? Jeez, high heels are an aesthetic function too…
10. 10

    Mandolin says:

    March 16, 2012 at 1:22 pm

    Well, plate mail isn’t really reasonable, come to that, unless you’re defending against certain kinds of weapons.

    Favoring western armor from a specific time period over, say, Japanese armors is a bit… interesting… when you’re deciding who’s reasonable and who’s not.

    But mostly, yeah, high heels *are* historical. They are not, as far as I know, historically part of armor. However, they are historically part of fashon. So if at some point there’s a big, weird movement of drawing ladies from 1940 in nothing but drawn-on-liner-stockings and high heels and claiming it as “ladies dressed like in the 40s!” then it would be perfectly reasonable to publish a “women in reasonable historical costume” page in which ladies are wearing full dress–and high heels.

    (Unless I am misremembering and heels are not a part of 40s costume–I think they are, but shoes aren’t my focus–but if they aren’t, pls translate my argument to an appropriate period.)