Too few female characters?

[Steerpike]

You can see it in real history too. As I posted before, look at Jean de Clisson or any of the similar links people posted in this thread.

I saw that. Good point!

 

[Trick]

... it seems weird not to acknowledge that the history of books which leave women out has done some harm, especially insomuch as those are the books which are setting the tropes used by modern writers.

I definitely agree. Not to mention the arguments it causes

 

[ascanius]

@Valentinator.

I think I get what you mean by women can fight the dragon differently, you need to explain things better. It's the same thing with rock climbing women don't have the upper body streangth to power through a route, they don't try. They use their legs and reach the top while the guy is stuck half way exhausted.

 

[Valentinator]

If you like, but you're doing some serious backpedaling from your previous over-arching generalizations.

OK I can give you more precise answer.

Only true if strength is a significant factor to begin with, which is an assumption you make that is not necessarily true. GIven the size ans strength differential, you just just as "realistically" posit that wit and speed are the significant factors and the 15% strength difference is negligible.

Somehow you are inferring that strong people lack speed. Well it's not true. Strong people are also fast, because speed requires strong muscles. Just look how sprinters look like. This is not a role-playing game where dexterity and strength are completely separated. Talking about wit - that's actually a good way for a female to succeed. I have nothing against that. And I actually told before that a woman would choose a different, more indirect way of killing the dragon (I was talking about intelligence).

I think I get what you mean by women can fight the dragon differently, you need to explain things better. It's the same thing with rock climbing women don't have the upper body streangth to power through a route, they don't try. They use their legs and reach the top while the guy is stuck half way exhausted.

OK, my bad. I'll try better next time.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I think the reason why women are often being left out is because many of the stories are about war. And men are predisposed to make wars that's why they are always in the middle of the action. My point is not to exclude females but to give them different roles. IMO, female warriors 'men with breasts' type is as stereotypical as housewife type.

Seriously, read "We Have Always Fought."

OK, as you wish. My dragon is not that big. A knight can fight him. And strength matters because he needs to cut through the scales that protect vital organs. There are no weak spots. 15% in this case make huge difference. Does it make sense?

Strength is useful for brute force action against stationary objects, like chopping firewood and taking a sledgehammer to a wall. You're discounting endurance, speed, and precision, which all come into play in combat.

I would suggest doing a little more research into actual fighting before attempting the "strength is superior to all" argument.

 

[Trick]

Strength is useful for brute force action against stationary objects

That seems sort of short sighted. Strength is also useful to make mobile things become stationary. KO or kill, doesn't really matter. I think you're discounting strength. Speed is directly related to strength. I don't know if you've ever wrestled a big guy but I have and regardless of how much more endurance, speed or precision I had, he only needed to get me in a hold one time and it was over. In the case of certain martial arts there is more balance than that but, strength is very often the determining factor in an unskilled fight. In a skilled fight, it still makes a big difference. You might land twenty punches but if Andre the Giant just lands one...

I know Andre is the exception, just making a point. A friend of my family was security at a hockey game. He watched a little guy (5'6" maybe 120lbs) pick a fight with a big guy (over 6', 250 lbs or so). A lot of shoving took place and then abruptly ended when the big man punched the small man once and killed him. He didn't mean to and cried in the office while he waited for the police. The little guy was definitely faster but how much did that really matter?

 

[Steerpike]

Somehow you are inferring that strong people lack speed.

No, I'm not. You've made that up entirely, presumably to bolster your faltering arguments. Speed isn't only about strength, however. Watch an NFL game and see some very strong, large lineman try to catch a lithe, mobile quarterback.

 

[Steerpike]

I would suggest doing a little more research into actual fighting before attempting the "strength is superior to all" argument.

Yeah. Or, joining the SCA would disabuse one of the "strength uber alles" argument pretty fast. Watching those tournaments, it is not often I see the strongest competitor win.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I would suggest doing a little more research into actual fighting before attempting the "strength is superior to all" argument.

Practical experience is a better education, in my view. Mine has shown that brute strength ranks #4 on the list.

A pure, unadulterated mean streak is my #1 determinant, followed by toughness, then skill/experience.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

I'm curious as to what your #3 is now. Aside from that you have strength at #4, your what-counts-in-battle list is similar to my top 3:

Strength
Skill
How far you're willing to go in a fight (I agree this is #1! - Same idea as your mean streak, but phrased differently.)

I suppose if I split skill into training and actual fighting experience, that might be your top 4 list. (?)

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

1- Mean streak
2- Toughness
3- Skill/Experience
4- Strength

I suppose if I split skill into training and actual fighting experience, that might be your top 4 list. (?)

I'll take experience over skill anytime. I grouped them for convenience.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Well everyone, it's been fun (at least as far as procrastinating at work goes), but it's time to call it. I'm gonna go home and work on the exciting grand finale of my WIP, which, while awesome, will sadly not feature any dragons at all.

 

[Guy]

Concerning fighting: skill and willingness. There are people who are skilled but aren't willing to take a life. They're usually defeated by those who are willing.

Concerning female v male characters: just write the damn character, already. Forget boobs or plumbing and just write the bleeping character.

 

[cupiscent]

Concerning female v male characters: just write the damn character, already. Forget boobs or plumbing and just write the bleeping character.

Not to sound like a broken record: but please don't just "forget plumbing". Consider whether you're defaulting to one type of plumbing without thinking, and whether things might be more interesting with a little more diversity represented in aforementioned bleeping character. And if you then decide that yes, the characters all need to have that particular kind of plumbing and/or relationship between their sense of themselves and that plumbing, then fine. Just think about it, is all.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

1- Mean streak
2- Toughness
3- Skill/Experience
4- Strength


I'll take experience over skill anytime. I grouped them for convenience.

Ah, I see now. I was lumping toughness and strength together, though I can see why you wouldn't.

 

[Guy]

Not to sound like a broken record: but please don't just "forget plumbing". Consider whether you're defaulting to one type of plumbing without thinking, and whether things might be more interesting with a little more diversity represented in aforementioned bleeping character. And if you then decide that yes, the characters all need to have that particular kind of plumbing and/or relationship between their sense of themselves and that plumbing, then fine. Just think about it, is all.

Not sure what your point is. Every writer has their own method, but when I create a character I start with personality and go from there. My MC is an exceptionally gifted warrior, but has no desire to conquer or dominate or harm anyone. The character's main ambition is to simply be left alone but is forcibly dragged into the world and forced to deal with it. I'm interested in telling this person's story with a focus on how these personality traits interact with each other, how the character deals with them and with the challenges encountered in the story. For what I want to focus on in this story and how I want to tell it, the character's genitals are completely irrelevant.

 

[Trick]

Not sure what your point is. Every writer has their own method, but when I create a character I start with personality and go from there. My MC is an exceptionally gifted warrior, but has no desire to conquer or dominate or harm anyone. The character's main ambition is to simply be left alone but is forcibly dragged into the world and forced to deal with it. I'm interested in telling this person's story with a focus on how these personality traits interact with each other, how the character deals with them and with the challenges encountered in the story. For what I want to focus on in this story and how I want to tell it, the character's genitals are completely irrelevant.

I think that cupiscent was saying that is not always the case and you should consider gender, at the very least to eliminate it from important factors influencing your character. It is usually an affecting aspect of a person's life but if you have thought about it enough to know that it doesn't matter, that's enough for most people.

 

[cupiscent]

Not sure what your point is. Every writer has their own method, but when I create a character I start with personality and go from there. My MC is an exceptionally gifted warrior, but has no desire to conquer or dominate or harm anyone. The character's main ambition is to simply be left alone but is forcibly dragged into the world and forced to deal with it. I'm interested in telling this person's story with a focus on how these personality traits interact with each other, how the character deals with them and with the challenges encountered in the story. For what I want to focus on in this story and how I want to tell it, the character's genitals are completely irrelevant.

Much as Trick noted, yes. (Sorry, Trick, I seem to have run out of "thanks" today, courtesy of this wild rampaging thread. )

a) Not everyone does it your way, Guy. Gender can be an assumed non-choice (or unthinking default-choice) earlier in the character or story creation process than you've suggested is the case for you.
b) Presumably at some point, your character gets a gender regardless of the importance of genitals or otherwise. Whenever the decision takes place, I'm just advocating for a consideration of all options (hey, yeah, all options; I'm all for thinking beyond the notion of two genders as well, but baby steps).
c) Gender has a role in your worldbuilding - even if gender is a non-issue in your world, that contrast with the highly gendered world of your readers is interesting and the delivery of the world to the audience in that regard should be thought about. If gender is an issue in your world, your character's gender will be a facet of who they are and how they relate to the world.

I wish gender was irrelevant to who people are. I wish we could just ignore it as storytellers. But it isn't, and I don't think it does any justice to characters, stories or readers to ignore it.

 

[Valentinator]

No, I'm not. You've made that up entirely, presumably to bolster your faltering arguments. Speed isn't only about strength, however. Watch an NFL game and see some very strong, large lineman try to catch a lithe, mobile quarterback.

Well that's a nice substitution you made. Now I have to compare male linemen to male quarterbacks. How about comparing male linemen to female linemen and male quarterbacks to female quarterbacks? It's slightly more logical, don't you think?

 

[glutton]

In real life, the 15 percent stronger thing isn't really accurate - if you look at weightlifting records, the strongest men are usually about 30-50 percent stronger than the strongest women in the same weight range, depending on what lifts you look at.

That said, since when does dragon fighting in melee bear even the slightest similarity to 'realistic' writing? Fighting a typically portrayed dragon is like fighting a tank with a flamethrower that can fly... any knight without massive magical help should be crushed in an instant. A tail flick from the dragon would turn the knight into a bag of pulped flesh and shattered bones, a breath would burn the knight to death through a shield male or female. I mean, a human with a handheld weapon would probably get murdered by a lion or gorilla unless they killed it in the first blow, a pack of such animals would be nothing to a dragon. What I'm saying isn't that you shouldn't write a knight fighting a dragon, but if you do, you're probably already letting the character go past human limits and at that point, their genitals should hardly be a big deal compared to the fact they're blocking the equivalent of a battering ram using a piece of wood/metal strapped to their forearm.

Let's face it, any melee character capable of 'dragon fighting' in the usual depicted manner if we're being consistent with their abilities should be able to grab the strongest real life man by the throat with one hand, toss him across the room through a wall into a bedroom and have their way with him... whether the dragon fighter is a 6'4 240 lb man or a 5'2 120 lb woman. I may be exaggerating slightly but not by much. In my writing which is full of feats like dragon fighting I just embrace the unrealism and assume any top tier warrior has the 'Exceed Human Limit' ability to some degree lol.

Also if we accept the existence of stuff like magic without question in most fantasy worlds why does anyone have an issue accepting that women may be closer to men in strength in a given fantasy world than in real life?