Tag: videos

Women and Swords



This particular subject has come to my attention more than once in the last few days. As it happens, I recently submitted an essay for a book on writing (I’ll let you know if my submission is published) on how to create likable and believable “strong female characters.” This expression, “strong female character” gets tossed around a lot these days by people who never clearly define what they mean by it; and the characters presented to us nowadays in comics and film as “strong female characters” seem often catty and unlovable as well as overpowered.

My perennial interest in this topic has led me recently to return to the first two Alien films, which created a memorable and believably tough character in Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, and I’ve also been exploring the original Video Girl Ai and Battle Angel Alita, manga that are now considered “old” according to the short memories of weeaboos, and both of which offer some high-octane feminine ass-kickery.

I’ve recently started watching Shadiversery, a YouTube channel by an Australian sword, history, and RPG enthusiast. The channel is mostly him going on about his subjects of interest, and I’m sure other enthusiasts or qualified experts would disagree with him on points, but he nonetheless appears for the most part to know what he’s talking about, and he offers an array of interesting opinions and factoids. When writing Jake and the Dynamo, I relied on him (and a few other YouTube channels) for the descriptions of Magical Girl Lady Paladin Andalusia’s sword work. Without the miracle of the internet, the descriptions of her sword would have probably been more Hollywood-ish.

Discussion

I’m fond of Shad because he avoids political dogmatism and just discusses his hobbies and interests with honest enthusiasm. Here, he takes on Andrew Klavan, another YouTuber I’ve sometimes appreciated, who sharply criticizes The Witcher for its depiction of women and swords. Shad reasonably breaks down the subject and corrects Klavan’s over-generalizations. Especially, Shad points to actual, real-life European martial-arts competitions that are mixed-sex, and in which women can effectively compete. He admits the disadvantages of reach, strength, speed, and endurance, but also emphasizes that weapons and skill can sometimes overcome these.

He points out something here that also happened to come up in another interaction I had recently: Klavan drastically overestimates the weight of a typical sword. Another acquaintance of mine, the prolific pulp author Ben Cheah, commented that he was reading an isekai series in which a guy who could handle an AK-47 could not lift a sword because it was too heavy. Cheah points out, correctly, that the sword should be considerably lighter than the variable-fire rifle.

Back to the original topic, I notice this issue coming up a lot when I listen to people skilled in martial arts talking about women in combat. Knowledgable as they are, they often get quite rigid on the subject. They correctly point out the physical disadvantages that a woman will almost always have in a fight against a man but tend to ignore other factors like differences in skill or technique—or chance.

Biology

After rebutting Klavan, Shad explains, reasonably, why it was practical, historically, not to have women in combat. He points specifically to biology: Men are naturally more aggressive, women are severely disadvantaged physically when pregnant, women are needed to produce the next generation when the men are off killing each other, and men naturally want to protect women.

Something else I would mention that he doesn’t—females generally fight differently from males, as attested by bar bouncers, soldiers, and anybody who scrapped on the playground as a child. Men create honor codes and fight for pride, and they peacock around before they start beating each other. Women, by contrast, can go from zero to claw-your-eyes-out in under a second. The reason for this may also be rooted in biology: Males establish social rank, either individually or nationally, through combat and dominance. Women, however, fight to protect their lives or their children. That’s why it’s usually the men go to war while the women only fight when the men are all dead.

Edit: As an additional forehead-slapper, someone in the comments on Shad’s video mentions St. Joan of Arc as a real-life warrior woman, so it is worth pointing out that, although St. Joan rode with the troops, she never fought herself and claimed she never personally killed anyone. However, I am made to understand she was a decent strategist who advocated an aggressive use of artillery, but that’s a role quite different from wielding a sword and hacking people.

Tod on Historical Armor

Came across this interesting video from Tod’s Workshop on why movie props in “sword-and-sandal” films are often inaccurate. As he explains, the reasons are often purely practical rather than because of poor research.

There are interesting points here. In a few of these cases, I can possibly think of ways of getting around these problems. He points out, for example, that sabatons—pointed armor shoes&dmash;are a safety hazard on-set. He’s undoubtedly right, though they could possilby get around that by making them with rubber instead of metal, something that’s often done in movies anyway for armor or other props used in stunts.

Some of his other points, though, are things that probably couldn’t be got around easily: Brightly colored props causing strobing in the camera, helmets covering A-list actors’ faces, and swords with sharp points presenting an insurmountable safety issue.

Chobits: Peace and Fear

I hate Chobits, as I’ve made clear more than once. I have enough on my plate that my essay on it is long in coming, but in the meantime, I recommend the above YouTube video from a user by the name of “Hiding in Public.”

Hiding in Public has a very different take on Chobits from my own, but I find it quite thoughtful, so I think it is worth hearing, and after I get my own essay up, his discussion will make for a good counterpoint to what I’ll have to say. Check it out.

Cherry 2000!

I am, against my better judgment, presently working my way through the anime adaptation of Chobits in order to write my long-promised essay on the same. In the process, however, I have inadvertently discovered that the campfest Cherry 2000, which I haven’t seen since I was a kid, is available free and legal on YouTube.

So I’m going to watch that, and I’ll put up a review when I’m finished. This will be relevant to my discussion of Chobits, since Cherry 2000 is about a man who goes looking for a replacement for his robot sex doll and finds a real woman instead—almost the opposite of Chobits’s plot.

I’m kind of excited in a silly sort of way. The last time I saw this movie, I was a little kid and came across it randomly while flipping channels in a motel room. My reaction was along the lines of, “What the hell is this?”

Working Away

I’m over here working on the third volume of Jake and the Dynamo, which is going all right, though I’m a tad frustrated that I still haven’t heard anything from potential publishers. Anyway, while I’m writing a rough draft, I often listen to music, and I have recently found some dude on YouTube who does “ambient metal,” which is kind of nice because it’s a style I like and doesn’t have any words to distract me.