The hilarious front line in the tragic war against ridiculous female armor
Tag: leather armor
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While her kit certainly isn’t as bad as say, Cindy’s, it’s safe to say that Aranea Highwind’s battle gear has a lot of room for improvement – mostly due to some questionable priorities. The most baffling of which being headgear that would stab her in the throat and/or chest if she looked down in a panic.
And while it’s certainly true that they boys on the road trip are wearing some very nice, very tight fitting black leather there’s two important points I’d like to bring up:
They’re supposed to be dressed to go out on a nice road trip which will end in a wedding and it’s the whim of fate that puts them on perilious adventure.
Their clothes are actually clothes, this is a weird fetish outfit.
Final Fantasy, as always, continues to be a very oddly mixed bag.
Hi! (o‿o)ﾉ I was wondering if I could get your thoughts on the designs of Sayla, Jayma and Batari from Far Cry Primal (set in Europe around 10,000BCE); Sayla (a gatherer) and Jayma (a hunter) are allies of the protag Takkar while Batari leads the Izila, one of the opposing tribes (Jayma has a high-res cosplay reference along with several other members of the cast). Some of the other cast members: Tensay, Karoosh, Wogah
Far Cry Primal was about what I’ve come to expect from mainstream media producing a game set in the pre-Neolithic eras (basically the end of the hunter/gather dynamic’s dominance) – that is to say it was fairly well researched technically but came with a hefty dose of problematic politics at many levels.
Obviously since fur and plant fibre are biodegradable and it is literally a matter of several millennia – we don’t have much evidence of what kind of clothes people from this era wore. In fact most of the debate over when the earliest clothes were made focuses on the species lice that were in them and the presence or absence of sewing tools.
So that said, the structure of the outfits for Sayla and Jayma are pretty good in that they have a practical purpose and don’t seem to make use of any sophisticated sewing techniques. There’s also really no inherent problem with people in this era running around nude or near nude… the problem is how all these elements were fitted together.
There is, of course, the obvious issue with them once again dipping into the “evil is sexy” trope with the character who goes topless and is heavily decorated being the one who wants to conquer and burn all those from outside their tribe.
Combined with the other outfits and the overall story and characterization: the general modern day politics and problematic tropes start to become visible.
“Good” women keep their decoration modest and subdued, “evil” women decorate themselves and flaunt their sexuality.
The primary male antagonist is a mighty warrior who armors himself (as best he can) and gets a noble end, the female protagonist is a manipulator who decorates herself and gets a pretty terrible end.
And honestly, there was no reason for Batari to be a rarity for decorating herself, because while people of the era didn’t have jewellers or makeup companies they had access to flowers, ochres, and all manner of other things they could apply to themselves and their clothing as they pleased.
There was a lot of potential here and the art team certainly did the technical research, just it seems other priorities got involved.
can we take a second to ponder on the fact that a kids movie did lady armor better than the entire film and comic industry
guess who i’m talking about
did you guess? Well you’re fucking WRONG because it’s Susan goddamn Pevensie
They gave her light armor, appropriate for a small archer:chainmail, an arm brace, chest plate, and a light skirt she can easily run around murderizing dudes in the face in
her hair is also only loose in the promo pictures because Susan is fucking busy not dying because her hair was flying into her eyeballs so she braids that shit back
her mail shirt is also loose enough that it doesn’t impede her arm movements it’s almost like she’s dressed for a fight wow
I like the pinks and purples under her bitchin as hell leather armor here, because you don’t have to be masculine to shoot someone in the goddamn face
I feel it’s a worrying statement about the state of media when a movie set in a universe where wardrobes can literally be trans-dimensional portals for the sake of narrative convenience has one of the better examples of making fantasyfemale armor that is styled around something other than sex appeal.
Because while one could, if really determined, pick out all the points by which this armor is not “really functional” the fact is that it does convey a sense of readiness and being larger than life… without resorting to the usual tropes.
can we take a second to ponder on the fact that a kids movie did lady armor better than the entire film and comic industry
guess who i’m talking about
did you guess? Well you’re fucking WRONG because it’s Susan goddamn Pevensie
They gave her light armor, appropriate for a small archer:chainmail, an arm brace, chest plate, and a light skirt she can easily run around murderizing dudes in the face in
her hair is also only loose in the promo pictures because Susan is fucking busy not dying because her hair was flying into her eyeballs so she braids that shit back
her mail shirt is also loose enough that it doesn’t impede her arm movements it’s almost like she’s dressed for a fight wow
I like the pinks and purples under her bitchin as hell leather armor here, because you don’t have to be masculine to shoot someone in the goddamn face
I feel it’s a worrying statement about the state of media when a movie set in a universe where wardrobes can literally be trans-dimensional portals for the sake of narrative convenience has one of the better examples of making fantasyfemale armor that is styled around something other than sex appeal.
Because while one could, if really determined, pick out all the points by which this armor is not “really functional” the fact is that it does convey a sense of readiness and being larger than life… without resorting to the usual tropes.
