Wow and the Concept of the Female Warrior

Community General Discussion
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World of Warcraft as well as most modern mmorpg games include female hero Warrior characters. Wow is not a gender-class locked game like some of the early rpg games were.

If you play Wow you can create male or female characters of all classes.

But are female warriors only just part of myth and legend? The Greeks spoke of Amazons who fought at the gates of Troy.

The Celts had a Warrior Queen that fought from a chariot. Everyone has heard of Joan of Arc who road on horseback leading the French soldiers to battle. How about the Dahomey female army? And of course In many modern countries there are female combat troops at this time.

But what about the historical significance of Women’s participation in War and as fighting troops on the battle field?

Does our modern acceptance of the woman fighter as a giving, actually mesh with Historical evidence? Is modern concepts in gaming concerning women in combat believable or is it just a fictitious element? Born from heroic novel stereotypes?

And here we can proceed from a historical perspective as apposed to our modern conceptions which can be regarded as historically recent ideals.

So does Modern concepts of the Female Warrior have any relevance and historical accuracy? Which is faithfully reflected in our mmorpgs? Or is the modern concept of the Female Warrior Pure Fantasy? And not a realistic portrayal of women in a combat environment.

Now, having said all that comes another question; If the powerful female fighter stereotype in present day entertainment media specially movies and gaming is not a valid representation of historically significance. Then where does this portrayal of a near super powered Heroine come from? What are the origins in literature, theater, mythology and recently modern day fiction.

When In general fiction was the birth of the super heroine fighter? Was it Hippolyte? Or was it Penthesilea? Marvel’s the Black Widow and Dc’s Wonder Woman are two well known Heroine/super heroes. but too recent in the history of literary/cinematic history.
Then where did the “Super Heroine”/Powerful female fighter ideal originally emerge from?

And What do you think of the way World of Warcraft has handled the presentation and portrayal of female fighter characters Human and non-human in the game’s world? In character creation. Wow writing, lore and art as well as the in-game CG cinematic movies?

And finally: What is the fascination with the archetypal powerful heroine in modern fiction?

EDIT: I have noticed that some people have taken exception to my use of the female Heroine as an example of literary exaggeration for dramatic effect. But which challenges
believability.

So as an attempt to be fair. Take everything I said above and transpose it to a Male Character. So, consider this question: Is the character John Wick really capable of pulling off the kind of fighting he does? Or Spider-Man? Or the most over the top hero ever created in modern times Superman? Can a Human male do any of the spectacular things
Superman can do? No he can’t. Most guys can’t even perform most of the wrestling moves that Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson can do in the wrestling ring. That is just the truth.

Are the male characters in “Saving Private Ryan” realistic and believable as apposed to the male characters in The Marvel Universe? My point is that from a belief-suspension point. I consider well written believable characters preferable to ridiculously over-powered ones. A good example of this is Frodo “Lord of the Rings” He is a hero but a believable one. Living in a fantasy fiction world. But very believable! Even the Ranger comes across as a believable character. Lets look at Harry Potter who also exists in a high fantasy world but is extremely believable. The character is written in such a realistic way that he garners our sympathy.

So Is Zena Princess Warrior a believable Character? No. Is Thor God of Thunder a believable character? No. Can the writers of these fantasy stories exercise literary license? Yes of course. But sometimes they can go so over the top that it derails the story itself. The same thing can happen in games. And it becomes immersion destroying.

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This thread will probably go places.

:dracthyr_comfy_sip:

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I don’t know. Let me go ask my dragon friend who has lived for thousands of years how people did it in ye olden historical times.

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Yeah, dude, the well you’re fishing from doesn’t go that deep.

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the better question is who cares.

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Weak flame thread, I grabbed some marshmallows for nothing.

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you’re posting on a magical elf man

and you’re worried about women holding swords?

at least try to be subtle about your trolling.

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You’re playing as a purple man who can pull full-sized kegs out of his butt and chuck them 30 yards away.

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this whole thread is just people clowning on the OP. for the first time I’m proud of GD.

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Can confirm, 98.6% of warriors thousands of years ago were women. It’s really only in the last 20 minutes that men started fighting.

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Go home tree hugger , you need to get to bed

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Great bait mate.

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Historically no, mostly comes down to body mass and sexual dimorphism.

Fantasy there isn’t any harm in it.

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Hello, I see you posted a thread about something. It’s a bit of both but generally speaking, most of it is indeed fantasy, haha! Like 99% of all deaths in wars is by men historically! Even today, the vast majority of nations aren’t going to let women fight on the front lines unless they are just super, super desperate! There are reasons for that such as 1) only women can have children, 2) there is a clear biological physical gap between the sexes, and 3) women are much, MUCH more likely to be
um, something that sounds like ‘graped’ in wars!

Thanks for your post and have a great day!

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All I know is that the more nude they are, they more of a badass they are likely to be!

You see a woman in full combat armor? HA!!!

But you see one in a plate-kini?? You better run!

This is what “modern acceptance” has taught me.

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What’s most ironic is that up until last year said Elf man’s racial army was almost entirely women with the men taking up Druidism and sleeping all day
 The Sentinel Army and The Wardens were 100% women up to about BFA.

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You should see how skimpy my female warrior’s armor is, too. Who is also a small fox person. How much realism are we going for here, exactly?

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I was about to mention Jarod shadowsong, but he wasn’t actually part of the sentinels or wardens was he.

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Not until very recently I don’t believe, the Sentinels and by extension Wardens started letting men join about the time of BFA (five years ago).

As for women in combat: Spartans, Scythians, and Nords among many others allowed women to undergo much of the same training as their male counterparts and fight alongside them in major battles, as did certain tribes in Africa.

Women were also important fighters in the Mexican revolution, some in the revolutionary war, etc. Lyudmila Pavlichenko a female sniper, wracked up 309 kills in WWII.

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