An anonymous fan submitted:
Maiden Exemplar, from Heroes of Camelot. It’s a free card game with the usual stuff—knights, monsters, mages. Unfortunately this card is the only one I found that had good armour for women; most of the women in the game don’t have exemplary armour design, though to be fair there are some fellows wearing sexy male armour as well :p
What I find interesting about this is that decent female armor seems to follow a similar pattern to token female playable characters in video games. A lot of products have a female character who is well protected – and then others who are dressed like they’re going to a pin-up shoot. Some examples:
- Soul Calibur
- Magic the Gathering
- Legend of the Cryptids
- Starcraft (Medic) (Ghost)
- Warhammer 40,000 (Sister of Battle) (Sister Repentia) (Dark Eldar Wych) (Callidus Assassin)
Generally, this become becomes very meta and breaks the fabric of the fiction because the choice of real protective armor over sexy couture is made based off moral judgments of the characters.
Virtuous women who believe in duty, sacrifice, honor and modesty wear protective armor – bad girls who believe in having fun, breaking rules to win, flirting and themselves wear sexy outfits with no regard for self preservation.
In Heroes of Camelot it’s those primitive, druidic/celtic warriors who are not as civilized that run around in impractical outfits made of hide and furs – nevermind the fact that Celts invented mail armor! Their culture was clearly different to ours and therefore should be diminished.
Women who use magic are also given cheesecake outfits because traditional views of women with magic always go back to witches, dark pacts and spiritual possession (rather than wizards who may gain their power through study, discipline and hard work).
Nice girls who want to be knights – they can have really nice protective armor because they’re trying to be just like really noble men.
– wincenworks