Look at that; warriors in the same (issued) armor, some of them are even *gasp* female. Without the “boob plates”, how will we know?
It’s sad that there are still men out there who “need” gender specific armor in their fantasy worlds.
What I really love about this set is that rather than mess with the female character’s armor to make overly telegraph her gender (and sex appeal) they’ve instead made the armor a standard and let the differences between the characters do the work.
The boyfriend has been playing Fate/Extella: Umbral Star. When he showed me Sabre’s ultimate form I immediately thought of Female Armor Bingo. I couldn’t find a better picture of the armor, but this get the point across.
So for those that aren’t aware, the trailer for Breath of the Wild shows a costume design for Zelda is pretty awesome:
Needless to say, many people were thrilled about this design and generally praised Nintendo for this step forward. Of course, there’s a few folks to who’s primary concern is that you know nobody cares… but there’s also a lot of folks who are very excited and have created cosplay and all kinds of fan art.
So basically the message to take away from this is that when certain people say “who cares” they really mean “I’m deeply upset that other people are enjoying a thing that wasn’t made exclusively for me”.
Absolutely excellent post. As a viewer, I’m absolutely distracted (by the mostly nude man), but there’s no way that I’d be facing him on the battlefield going “and now I’ll just wield this polearm and … oh no, he’s hot!”
By far my favorite point is that there is a difference between telling a realistic story and a naturalistic story. A naturalistic story tells a story that is completely plausible in our world. No wizards, no dragons, no secret vampires, no alien invasions. Telling a realistic story is telling a story that is logical and consistent and makes sense (even if the setting is in a fictional world or in a reality very different from our own).
PS: About the chainmail bikinis, specifically? Don’t say “oh okay but what if she were wearing it like a joke and then ended up being stranded somewhere in that,” because then it’s clear that, as a writer, you’re just using a “crowbar” to force your character into a bikini. Same thing if the bikini armor is somehow magical and sufficiently protective—it’s obvious and awkward because you obviously just wanted an enchanted bikini in your story.
There are plenty of opportunities to make characters wear less clothing. For one thing, people in the privacy of their homes tend to wear less (and everybody loves a good in-the-room shirt-change—they’re almost mandatory on supernatural dramas). Also, an kind of shape-shifter who does much more than swap faces is going to have a clothing problem. Unless you are using fairytale/Harry Potter magic where clothes transform, too, most versions of werewolves are going to have issues with their clothing. Same thing for someone who turns into a hawk or vapor or a fire golem or a giant squid.
But if you’re telling a story about a fantasy world and you want a warrior man or woman who is under-dressed, consider other things. Take Young Justice (the recent television series). Superboy often ends up with his shirt partially or completely destroyed, because while he is all but invulnerable, his shirt is made of cotton and does not take as well to being slashed at by claws or set on fire or hit with a blast from an energy weapon.
An invulnerable warrior would not necessarily have invulnerable clothing or armor, and if there were some rare material that was nearly as invulnerable as the warrior herself/himself, it might be expensive. I think that it’s a bit of a cheap move, but someone who is invulnerable and on a tight budget might spend the money on “modesty” armor that can survive a blast of dragonfire or being gnawed on by a pack of wolves. After that, you keep the story engaging and stakesy by deciding upon that unbreakable warrior’s vulnerabilities (drowning, starvation, suffocation, inhaled or ingested poison, magic, telepathy, kryptonite, whatever).
But even if you got yourself a dragonscale loincloth or a diamondmail bikini, you’d still wear clothing of some sort over that. And it probably wouldn’t be skintight. You don’t have to be ashamed of your body to not wear a catsuit—you might just want to be comfortable or not stick out like a nothing-to-the-imagination thumb in the middle of a crowd.
(You needn’t make such a character completely indestructible — there are a lot of superpowers that make a person not need actual armor, including unbreakable skin (which leaves you immune to cuts, not to bruises and crushing attacks) and regeneration (like a vampire or Wolverine), though most regenerators would probably want armor anyway)
Great response! simonjadis makes some really good points!
mod note: best parts bolded for emphasis
This week’s throwback: a real blast from the past! Comprehensive explanation of why “bikini armor makes no sense” is a completely different issue from “bikini armor is unrealistic".
When there are so many more reasonable scenarios to put fanservice in your work than fashioning female armor into lingerie/fetishwear (and there always are), “fantasy isn’t supposed to be realistic” rhetoric just won’t cut it.
~Ozzie
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So, while it’s good that Blizzard recognized the Chinese New Year in Overwatch and game Mei a neat costume… it’s really disappointing that they seemed to feel the need to give it a pull in waist… to the extent they managed to glitch it.
Unsurprisingly, there seems to be quite a few people in the community who are skeptical of the idea that this @eschergirls worthy design is actually a bug.
You may have noticed our posting schedule isn’t quite a regular as it used to be – that’s due to a combination of factors but in order to address it we’ll be aiming for one post per day for a while rather than our usual two.
She’s Mandalorian and artsy and it shows. So far she’s had a different design in each season and this one has been easily the most protective yet. Her chest plate is larger, her sleeves look thicker and she even has a convoree design on one of her shoulderplates as a tribute to a lost comrade. And she’s only 18-19 years old and looking very strong and tough and ready for battle.
I’m sure she’ll look fantastic in the Force Arena mobile game! After all, everybody else who was translated from show to game got pretty accurate representations!
…oh.
This reminds me a lot of the story of how Lara Croft was originally going to have a modest bosom, but then the 3D modeler accidentally extended the polygons too far and was told by his boss to “just leave it like that!”
Only in this case I get the feeling they originally made the model rather true to the design, then just kept getting told “make it rounder” until they started to worry it would be too ridiculous, even for Star Wars.
If they’re going to pretend an armored plate is a sports bra the least they could do is give it some straps.
