The Great Hero knows how to be glamorous.
Inspired by female-armor-rhetoric-bingo by Bikini Armour Battle Damage.
Also, meet Lokpika, the rouge of the team.
I’m honored that my bingo inspired such clever and humorous subversion 🙂
~Ozzie
Save the boob plate! A fight worth fighting for, amirite?
Save the boob plate! A fight worth fighting for, amirite?
Liliana submitted:
So the Divinity: Original Sin artist is even worse than I thought. Know how the original design was a typical, pathetic, pandering and obnoxious bikini armour? It got changed later (for an obnoxious boobplate, but at least it covered a bit more skin), but apparently, only reluctantly so.
That poor, poor artist, having to censor himself like that. Of course he misses the point of the criticism of these armours completely (“it’s not about realism! also look at Conan!” are among his “arguments”), but that’s to be expected, I suppose.
Apparently that design we bingo-ed and discussed before was done by one of those guys who think that any criticism of their creation is not theirs, but the critic’s problem and feels honestly so attacked right now.
Thierry Van Gyseghem’s “argumentation” is worthy of a Rhetoric Bingo, though keep in mind that most of the linked rant is incomprehensible attempt at bullshitting academic MRA paper through bizarrely broken English (the insistence that “sexistic” is a word is my fav!).
It focuses mostly on how current game journalism supposedly is serving the nefarious pro-women “lobby” (which seems like a thinly-veiled way of referring to Anita Sarkeesian), and how it leads to self-imposed censorship of the game creators (a sure proof he’s one of the people who don’t know what “censorship” is).
Also, (not so) amazingly he seems to be caught up in thinking that bared belly is the only issue in his original illustration, even though it was literally 1 out of 17 bingo squares it checked… mind you, it could have potentially scored more if legs were shown.
So yeah, with such engaging “points” we would need a whole new custom bingo for this guy, therefore please don’t take my attempt at playing with what we’ve got too literally:
Wow, he scored ridiculously high even without a custom card!
TL, DR: There goes any benefit of the doubt we could have had for this artist when it comes to deciding how “creative” the final designs get.
Big thanks to Liliana for submitting!
~Ozzie
Curiously he claims he loves feedback… I guess he means feedback that doesn’t challenge any of his assumptions, privileges, etc.
What I really love about his strange notion though is – can you imagine if it was extended into any other field?
“I am a chef, and the restaurant owner told me we’re not going to serve pale veal any more due to animal cruelty concerns – I implore you all not to self censor your dinner tables!”
“I am a banker and we have been told not to use pressure tactics to get customers to sign up for credit cards – Do not allow yourself to be censored when manipulating others!”
“I am a janitor and we have been told not to use this chemical that upsets some people’s skin – Do not allow others to tell you what you what cleaning chemicals you should use at home!”
My personal favorite snippets:
- “Also blackmails in the form of ”change your game art or we won’t publish a single word about you.” is a common behavior found among those.“ – Given that the games industry and games journalism market is ridiculously competitive, I think this would be the smallest challenge publicity wise. After all, it’s a game that uses the core mechanics of what was the “new hotness” fifteen years ago. Not exactly ground breaking or that special given that the Indy games marketplace is flooded with nostalgia.
- “If by all means the opposition feels change is needed, let it NOT be by oppressing others art but by just offering an alternative for those who wish an alternative.“ – Apparently he believes there are game making elves (similar to cobbling elves, but different) out there who will just create quality games with equal armor without anyone in the industry having to do the work… strange stance for a man who should be aware there are no game making elves. Games require teams of professionals, budgets, investors, distributors, etc
- “This journal entry is all about judgmental journalism, offended-by-design opinionators and the fearsome white knights that the first two bring in its wake.” – I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who’s offended by the concept of design… it strikes me as a terrible life. I’m also pretty sure since most games journalism is reviews – that being judgmental is kind of a prerequisite for the job.
All of this vitriol because his boss asked him to… do his job.
– wincenworks
A gameshow that forces male nerds into the unnecessarily sexualized outfits female video game characters have that they defend as “practical,” and then makes them do agility training
this had sixty notes last night
SIXTY NOTES
Invitation to that show should be sent to everyone whose argumentation is worth playing the Female Armor Rhetoric Bingo with.
~Ozzie
Just saying “weh weh this isn’t actually an issue, let the designers do what they want” is actually ignoring the cultural context in which this bikini armour exists. It is a classic example of women as a [sexual] commodity to be sold, and gives the o.k to treating women like said commodity. That sexy armour is the default is concerning in itself. Is it not possible to be sexually attracted to a girl in armour designed for fighting rather than sex??? The bikini armour problem exists in a culture which is obsessed with sexualising women at every turn. Male warriors get to be “rugged”, “dark”, “complex”, an “anti-hero”, while female warriors get to be “sexy”, and on the rare occasion they do have the aforementioned characteristics, they are added as a secondary characteristic to that sexiness, or as an afterthought.
“It’s not an issue, blah blah.” No, it is an issue, it contributes to an overall culture. “Why do we have to debate this?” sounds a lot like “I don’t want to think about the attitudes and beliefs in which art functions, and ways in which certain art may be damaging.”
“Historically, women didn’t fight/wear armour.” Congratulations, you’ve completely missed the point. We are talking about fantasy genres here, worlds where slaying dragons, leading campaigns of hundreds of soldiers, traipsing through a haunted forest are normal occurrences and yet we can’t treat women like people rather than toys. Plus, “historically”, you have people like Joan of Arc, and outside of Western history there are lots of cultures in which women fought battles.
That post about “attractive armor without bikini” actually left me wondering: why would you actually want an attractive armor? Sure, everyone loves an aesthethically pleasing armor, but we can’t just forget that armor is mostly made to be, well, intimidating. It’s supposed to make people both safer in combat and also more powerful. Not having to battle – because you look so threatening or even downright unbeatable – is some 40% of the purpose of an armor piece. Why does it need to be attractive?
Regarding: this post
That’s actually a very good question! In short, the answer is (and better get your body ready for that)…
Believe it or not, some of the Female Armor Rhetoric Bingo arguments hold up under specific circumstances.
But let’s set some things straight first: armor is done primarily to be protective.
It sure helps if the design makes the wearer intimidating enough to make the opponents surrender right away, but at its core it was invented as a physical barrier between a person and whatever or whoever threatens their life or health.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for decorative armor in the history. Highly ornamented muscle cuirass (male equivalent of boobplate) was designed to impress and worn by high-standing officers during non-battle special occasions, like parades.
That said, in the world of fiction the distinction between purely functional and decorative armor is not necessary. It’s not real, and unless the setting of choice is gritty life-like naturalism, the armor (and any other design) needs just to be believable, not realistic. We commented on it before.
This is where those two bingo squares come in. Fictional worlds, especially the more fantastic ones, can be stylized, sometimes even to ridiculous degree, as long as all of the world is consistent with its level of stylization.
That’s why it’s not inherently bad to have people fight monsters in G-strings… It just needs to all make sense within its own narrative and preferably not be gendered (which basically never happens).
Hope that answers it.
~Ozzie
Female Armor Rhetoric BINGO (PDF) by OzzieScribbler (again, yours truly)
[…]
I only have one bone to pick with this bingo card, and that’s the “male barbarians also fight naked” part. Part of any fictional world are the many smaller cultures and areas that make it up. If a harsh (hot/humid/insert condition that would make being completely clothed impractical) environment has people living there, and the guys are walking around in loin cloths or just enough clothing to be considered decent, then I don’t think its such a bad thing for women to either. It’s when we have guys walking around comfortably in full plate (well, as comfortable as one could be in it I guess) while women are in the whole chainmail bikini thing that I feel we should cry foul. This is just my opinion of course, but consistency is important. Other than that one block, the rest of this is spot on.
Not to be rude, but…
guys are walking around in loin cloths or just enough clothing to be considered decent, then I don’t think its such a bad thing for women to either.
That’s the thing: barbarian women usually DO NOT walk around in loincloths. They wear fur or metal bikinis (scalemail seems to be the standard). If Red Sonja was dressed like Conan, there would be no problem. THIS IS THE DIFFERENCE
[Please give the artist much deserved love!]
Edit: Added deviantArt link to the piece, in case you guys didn’t follow the link above the picture!