There has, of late, been some significant and necessary discussion here about the role of women characters in various, mass-market games and one issue that I have raised consistently- despite my pinko commie leanings- has been the importance of advertising in shaping people’s perceptions and their desires. Much as we often do with regards to characters on this website, I thought it would be a good idea to start showing the world what advertising copy done right looks like. As always, examples of what to do well can be very instructive.
So, today, I thought I would begin with my favourite of all time, a promotional picture that is actually hanging in my room right now, a metre to my right. I got it from a strategy guide for Obsidian’s Knights of the Old Republic 2. It was an image that was quite prominent as marketing material when KotOR2 was being advertised heavily; a beautifully done painting of Jedi Master, Councillor, and Archivist Atris going to battle with Darth Nihilus, by artist Francis Hsu:
A white robed Jedi bathed in blue light of her lightsabre with white hair done up in a bun and light skin, striking against masked, black robed figure wielding a red sabre.
The badassery is difficult to put into words and I always melt with admiration when I look at this picture, partially because it’s so awesome unto itself, but also because it is all too rare. A woman character, being courageous, heroic, active, and with the emphasis on what she is doing and not how large her boobs are. It is, unfortunately, all too rare that we see this. But we find Atris here, fully clothed, in robes that we might expect a Jedi hero to wear; fighting in a way that is realistic, a powerful lunge, a stirring yell; the story told by this picture is a story of a heroic battle between Jedi and Sith, not OMG Atris is so hawt. She is beautiful but this does not define her; her skill and courage do in this picture.
The art depicts her in media of one amazing res. The iconic image of Star Wars, lightsabre battles between good and evil, now stars a woman who is clearly holding her own and on the offensive. Active, not passive. Making things happen, not being objectified.
In short, I want to be that character.
The curious and somewhat ironic story of KotOR2, however, is that Atris ended up being a relatively small character in the final cut of the game. Not because that was what the writers wanted, but because as fans of this series may know, Lucasarts rushed the game to market before it was finished. KotOR2 is an unfinished symphony, which is deeply regrettable for a number of reasons- not the least of which is that it curbed the development of Atris as a character and somewhat hindered the development of another wonderful woman character, Kreia (who I will devote an article to another time).
But the marketing for KotOR2 nevertheless put powerful women characters in their place: front and centre. To me, it’s a prime example of doin’ it right.
WoW. This picture is amazing !
PS. Kreia is the best NPC in cRPG imho (even with some narative gaps, thank to Lucasarts misfortunated rushed realease of KotOR2 you mentioned) but calling her a villian as you did in your other comment made my heart ache, she’s so much more…
*chuckles* I agree with you entirely, I was just looking for a quick, simple adjective that wouldn’t swallow the article whole (as you can see, I did want to keep this short and keep the focus tight). But yes, it is reductive to say Kreia is -just- a villain, and I will explore that in some detail when I write about her, certainly.
Kreia’s rather a detailed character, true. Shame that she’s also the Enforcer Of The Plot; nothing like watching someone undo my hard work to undermine my opinion of the character. I only ever voluntarily have her in the squad once: in one place she can start a fight that otherwise would result in a dark side hit. Clearing that fight out of the way is essential for a later quest.
As for Atris: yes, she needed more screen time. The Handmaidens as a group felt underexplored, and it would have been nice to have the extra hands on the Ravager.
Whats also interesting about KOTOR2 is that, if you choose a female character, quite a few of the movers and shakers of the game are, in fact women.
I’m not sure if you’re aware, judging by the article, but there is a content restoration mod (TSLCRM), that restores quite a lot of what was cut, including parts of Atris’ storyline.
I really can’t like this poster. I still see so much wrong with it. True she’s not being objectified, but she still is being “daintified”. While Nihilus is just standing there, she’s in the typical “ass out and up” pose for most all women mages from fantasy art. Also her hand that is up is in the typical dainty, feminine, pinky up pose and it looks like she’s falling forward. I don’t get a sense of movement as I do a sense of pose. I don’t see her other foot, I don’t see the movement forward.
Well the other leg, which you can sort of see, suggests the other foot is off panel?
I had actually thought to mention this in the article. Perhaps I should have.
Because to be honest, I simply don’t agree. There’s nothing wrong with soft feminine gestures- I use them myself and it has actually been quite personally liberating for me to do so. I reject the idea that the only picture of liberation for women is a posture that emulates that of men, which is no more neutral and no less gendered than the ‘feminine’ posture. Conflating the latter with weakness is, I feel, something that suggests internalised patriarchal values that conflate the feminine with things of less value.
It also suggests the only model of strength is a masculine one.
I can certainly say that I doubt we’d readily find a man engaged in that posture, but that goes right back to what I was saying: what is feminine is devalued. As a feminist and a woman of trans experience I can’t, in good conscience, say something is disempowering just because it’s feminine. There are many ways of doing and expressing femininity. Some -are- disempowering, sexist, and male-gaze oriented. This, in my considered opinion, is none of those things.
As to the posture, she is running forward and the motion of the sabre suggests she is swinging her sword outwards. There is a long blue motion line of the sabre all the way across the piece, her robes billow behind her, the ties on her waist flutter behind her all suggesting she has suddenly rushed forward. It captures her in the middle of being active in a non-objectifying way.
Fencers have a sword fighting style that- as much homophobic mockery of the sport would indicate- is considered feminine, and fencing has been cited as an influence on some lightsabre styles (Count Dooku would be a well known figure from the films who used a similarly inspired style). So I feel the precedent is certainly there. I find that most critique-able daintiness is usually something that is a parody or mockery of femininity, or something that exploits it ruthlessly to juice as much cliched, male-gaze oriented sexuality out of a woman’s posture. Again, none of that is in evidence with this picture.
I do thank you for raising these issues as they do make one think and we should always be willing to critique even what we like, but I thought about this quite thoroughly before, and even after with the focus your comment has given, I do not feel that the concerns you raise could alter my view of the poster. I cannot see a way around the ‘femininity is always weak and bad’ problem that, frankly, I have spent much of my life trying to *de*socialise out of myself.
While I’d certainly never say that feminine mannerisms are in any way weaker or worse than masculine ones in everyday life, I’m not entirely sure if that applies to combat in the same way. Combat stances are, in a way, non-gendered, because they’re designed for practicality rather than presentation, and daintiness (as defined by Wiktionary, “delicately small and pretty”) is very much impractical in a fight.
That’s just in general terms, though; I’m honestly confused as to how Atris’ posture is supposed to be dainty in any way. She’s not doing some kind of small, careful attack — she’s throwing caution to the wind and trying to chop Nihilis in half at the waist. She’s leaning forward because the artist thinks that makes her attack look stronger, not to show off her body. And, while one definitely could interpret the image to suggest she’s at a disadvantage in the face-off, “furious hero vs. collected villain the hero can’t beat yet” is pretty gender-neutral.
Thank you for your reply.
I generally do not like to go to the dictionary to define terms whose cultural meanings often exceed Webster’s boundaries, and this is one such case. You are absolutely right that dainty as defined in Wiktionary is impractical for a fight. Yet, as you can see in this discussion, that hasn’t stopped someone from *calling* something that *is* practical “dainty.”
It is, in other words, the difference between this: http://images.asadart.com/sources/com/halloweenexpress/images/imagecache/567-768-ua83094.jpg which is impractical for a fight, and…
This: http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/255/PreviewComp/SuperStock_255-18952B.jpg
or this:
http://www.martialedge.net/images/stories/techniques/article-images/woman%20fencing.jpg
Which are not. However, some people will certainly -call- various fighting styles, no matter how effective, ‘dainty’. As I said above, some such things might even be called ‘gay’ because of their association with femininity. Everything is gendered, including various techniques we may use for self defence, regardless of their practicality. That was really my point.
I agree with the interpretation in the rest of your comment, however!
Yet, it had different layers, on the picture Atris is making powerful swing on Nihilus which looks pretty badass, but we see that it is blocked, that can lead to consderation her attack stance is impratical -> and dainty. If Atris was presented succesful i don’t think it would matter that much, simply cuting someone in half, or if we resort to fencing analogy stabing rapier between someones eyes is enough badass that it doesn’t matter if in that stance second hand used to counterbalance is curled into fist, put behind back, let loose or formed like Atris on the picture.
I’m largely in agreement here, but I have two concerns:
Firstly, what Atris is doing does not strike me as a great fencing stance (see where the hands go in the photos linked above), which makes it hard for me to see criticism along these lines as anything in the vein of ‘fencing getting ragged on for being dainty’. (It’s honestly more of an anime-esque “fling yourself forward all akimbo” pose, haha)
Now, I do get a sense of movement from the picture, and I’m generally fond of it, since it’s not often you get a female character wholly on the offensive and the baddie kind of passively (but successfully) defending. But I can also see where Maverynthia’s coming from.
I also don’t quite grok what makes “dainty” poses inherently feminine to the point that complaining that they always crop up in particular pieces of character art is itself a sexist thing to do. There’s a layer of performativity/culturally-enforced affectations there that I think complicates matters, particularly given that female gender norms were hardly, you know, decided upon by a panel of women/designed with combat in mind. But that’s just me being dense, likely.
That said, I love KOTOR 2 to bits, and these pieces of promotional art as well.
Thank you for your comment! What follows is an extremely long clarification that I feel I need to make considering the points that have been raised and I do not want people to walk away with the wrong impression of what I was trying to say.
And people wonder why I write extremely long articles usually…
I am really not sure how many ways I am going to have to slice this, nor how many ways I am going to have to qualify this in order to make my point clear. But in the hopes that perspicacity might be fully achieved here, let me give it one last valiant try.
1) Atris’ hand is not strictly in a fencing pose, no. It strikes me as the position of her hand after it was thrown back when she released the lightsabre from a two handed stance to slice it at her opponent. My point in bringing up fencing was to suggest, however, that a hand in that posture is not in and of itself necessarily impractical nor should it be automatically seen as a sign of dantiness. Even if the fencing posture and Atris’ hand are not identical, they would- I argue- occupy similar cultural space, and for the reason I stated above apropos what the picture seems to depict her doing, I do not think it’s weakness in any event.
2) Let me make this clear, because it seems no matter how many qualifiers I use this point is not being fully processed: I did not say under any circumstances that complaining about *any* daintiness was always sexist. Let me show you what I said:
I am, I feel, heavily underlining distinctions here, discussing what it is that might make feminine and/or dainty posturing and artwork misogynist.
In my initial comment, I was emphasising that there is a trend I’ve seen that tends to devalue femininity even in progressive spaces, which is (and I stand by this claim) a serious problem that requires deep reflection.
“There’s a layer of performativity/culturally-enforced affectations there that I think complicates matters, particularly given that female gender norms were hardly, you know, decided upon by a panel of women/designed with combat in mind”
Can you please show me where I have said otherwise: here or, indeed, anything in the tremendous amount of writing I have done on the subject of gender construction? Masculinity and that which is associated with men, is overvalued even among progressives and feminists. It is no less gender and no less constructed, no less a gender performative, but it is treated as more gender-neutral because of ‘male-as-default’ ideology.
Nothing is inherently anything. Women do not have to be feminine. My point is that because those cultural signifiers we -associate- with femininity are also linked to the group that is gendered as “women”, we automatically devalue those signifiers relative to what it is culturally determined to be masculine. In making this point I have nowhere said that it is innate to anyone, that it is -not- socially constructed, that it is -not- culturally enforced, and that it was somehow decided on voluntarily by a convocation of women.
If I sound annoyed, please forgive me. I just didn’t expect this article to generate this many complications and I’m beginning to regret making it so short.
No, I apologize; I didn’t mean to put words in your mouth, much less accuse you of anything. I was slow on the uptake (on lots of pain meds) and moreover I tend to self-consciously pepper my comments with superfluous modifiers, hoping to make my angle clearer and instead making things worse.
Sorry to have frustrated you; your elaboration is appreciated.
Not a problem, Ubiq, ::hugs n snugs:: And I really hope you feel better from whatever you need the meds for. Thank you for your commentary, however, at least it enabled me to make things much, much clearer.
You’re welcome.
You have a good point about dictionary definitions — they’re certainly not the only meanings a word can possibly have. But I do think they can still be useful to explain one’s own personal understanding of a word, and that was the way I personally understood the term. I’m still not convinced that it’s common to use “dainty” in reference to a fighting technique without intending to imply it’s ineffective, nor that Maverynthia was using it that way.
I’m not sure we disagree all that much, actually. There’s nothing wrong with “feminine-looking” fighting styles (in the sense that “feminine” is equated with “graceful”) in principle, and I’d argue against anyone saying otherwise. I just think that Maverynthia has a point when she says that female characters tend to be “daintified” (whether or not that’s the right word to use for the phenomenon) — not because “femininity” is inherently disempowering, but because it’s often displayed in disempowering ways, and that’s a problem.
Nope, I don’t think we disagree much if at all. Just seem to be coming at the same point from opposite ends, I feel.
Can you show me where I said otherwise, Ikkin?
Earlier in this thread I said the following:
The point I was making was that, yes, there is often a trend in media that depicts femininity in -deeply problematic- ways but that after careful consideration, I felt this poster was -not- one of them. In other words, I agree with Mavernythia that this is indeed a very common problem and was not at any time suggesting otherwise.
I didn’t mean to imply that you said otherwise — my argument was an entirely semantic one, that “dainty” is a good word to use to describe one form of problematic depiction of femininity, and that a dislike of “daintified” female warriors doesn’t necessarily indicate that one devalues femininity, which you initially seemed to be implying of Maverynthia (“Conflating [feminine posture] with weakness is, I feel, something that suggests internalised patriarchal values that conflate the feminine with things of less value.”) . As I said in my last post, though, I don’t think we really disagree all that much.
Yo.
So, Q here has a good article; I also understand the concerns being raised over the impracticality of Atris’ overall pose. I’d noticed that, and I’m not a big fan of it, but I believe that it ultimately owes considerably more to the general tone of the part of the Star Wars Expanded Universe which Atris calls home. Atris is from a little under four thousand years prior to Star Wars: A New Hope. This is part of the era which is culturally dominated in many ways by the Jedi (ending in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith), and this extended period of haute couture is intentionally represented by a shift in fighting styles between the prequel and original trilogies.
The lightsaber duels in A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and the materials which follow from them tend to have a heavy basis on European Broadsword combat as well as more practical components of Japanese swordplay. They represent a brutal, unpolished time where combat effectiveness is the bottom line.
By contrast, the Old Republic era of the Jedi places heavy emphasis on what has been cinematically both praised and mocked as elaborate dance-fighting. The fighting styles are meant to represent certain philosophical ideals in their very appearance, which empowers one in the Force to still be effective.
Now, I find it dubious that the artist of this piece intentionally was thinking about what philosophical-and-martial elements make up Atris’ fighting style (personally, I peg her for an Ataru/Form IV, by the way), but the entire piece still clearly is calling on the themes of the Old Republic aesthetic rather than the New Republic and Rebellion. Both characters are beautifully dressed in fine garb, Atris’ hair befits a high society lady, the color contrast is overpoweringly striking, and you’d never see Luke, Old Ben, or adult Vader doing such impractical moves in their movies.
What I’m getting at is that the odd daintiness in Atris’ technique has nothing to do with her being a woman, because Nihilus’ blocking guard is equally awkward and purely to show off. It has everything to do with the mood of the era they come from.
tl;dr: Old Republic Star Wars really likes to be pretty more than practical.
Aside: I feel like if the picture was cropped tighter you get a sense of motion from Atris, but close attention to her body near the right edge ruins that feeling. It’s an image not to be examined too closely, basically.
tl;dr:
But it’s not actually a fencing stance itself depictured, so in my opinion her left arm positin is actually pretty correct, when you dash forword and make powerful swing from left to right/right upward, left arm almost automaticly move to the position to conterbalance like on the picture, what is rather incorrect is the fact that with that attack, Atris should have her right leg forward not the left one.
Heh, I don’t put any stock in “old style versus new style” from an IC point of view, especially since the godsawful new movies are chock-full of fanciness. An old guy and a guy in a clunky helm just can’t do the same acrobatics as the stuntmen from those newer movies, from the actor’s perspective — for which I’m glad. Yes, the “duel” looks highly awkward, but at least it is only there to ADD to what is going on, instead of DEFINING it like the I-III fight scenes do. Plus, some of those flashy moves look extremely awkward and silly too, like Maul holding up his staff and standing perfectly motionless just long enough for Obi-Wan to brainlessly but obligingly hammer his saber down on the staff in the same spot twice.
And from an IC perspective, Obi-Wan knew he was going to die, making a big production out of it would have taken away from that IMO, both for the other characters and for the viewer. As for Luke’s lack of fancy moves … I simply attribute that to the fact that, insanely gifted or no, he was still a complete greenhorn. You can only cram so many new skills into a person in a relatively short time, and Yoda’s teachings seemed more focused on general fitness, the Jedi mindset and the Force, not on creating a lightsaber god.
But I’m just a very casual fan, and mainly Jedi fan, so of course that’s just my POV and I don’t care overmuch if it clashes with any official statements.
(I stopped caring about “canon” when they made Revan male.)
I didn’t play KotOR2 because it clashed too much with my view of things, but I LOVED that image we’re talking about here. Call me jaded, but hey, it’s a *fully dressed woman* who doesn’t look like a photoshopped, silicon-powered pornstar, in an action pose holding her own against a Sith. We probably can’t ask for much more than that. :p
Yeah, I don’t think the “Old Republic Jedi canonically fought in flashier ways than original trilogy Jedi” thing is what’s going on here, either. It’s a lot simpler than that — artists like to make their art visually impressive, and no matter how impractical they might be, those poses are visually impressive. As far as I can tell, there’s not much of a reason to think that the characters were positioned the way they are for any reason besides looking cool.
This was really well written. I have this poster and love it for a lot of the same reasons you do.
I only don’t like it because these characters never even meet, much less fight, during the course of the game. Although, they probably would have been the most visually interesting characters to watch dueling.