Random Thoughts On Mad Max: Fury Road

It's been a week since Mad Max: Fury Road came out, and I think I can safely assume most of you have seen the movie and that we can now have a discussion about it.  So here are some random thoughts - some serious and others not - that occurred to me during the movie and over the past week.

In case you haven't seen it yet, SPOILERS AHEAD!





1.  There's an academic paper just waiting to be written contrasting this movie with Hell Comes To Frogtown. Both deal with a common theme of women being oppressed though HCTF has more comedic irony. Also, Rowdy Roddy Piper.

2. I love the drum-line vehicle. I want to stat this for Pathfinder and create the most awesome bard ever.




3. I can see why the MRA's hated this movie as it preaches radical feminist ideas like women shouldn't be forced into sexual slavery.

4. More impressively, it depicts the escaping brides taking an active role in their own emancipation rather than waiting for a man to rescue them.



5. For that matter, the movie shows that men are victimized by macho cultures too. Consider Nux and his treatment throughout the movie.

6. For all the talk about how feminist this movie is, I've heard precious little talk about how it also features protagonists with physical disabilities - both Furiosa with her arm and Nux with his anemia.



7. The movie is action-packed but also contains a surprisingly amount of artful symbolism. For instance, do you think it's a coincidence that it is the pregnant bride that gives Max water?  Fertility offering the symbol of life itself?

8. Texans and Californians make a lot of jokes about one another but we are united in one thing - making jokes about how Fury Road resembles our states.

Why Fury Road Is Like California - desert wasteland where everyone is dependent on social welfare.

Why Fury Road Is Like Texas - ruled over by violent fanatics who worship guns and oil.




9. Do you think there's a chance the delays in Fallout 4 have just been an excuse to buy time so they could wait for this to come out and then start adding new features/DLC based on it?

10. For that matter, how long before the modding community creates new material based on this for Fallout New Vegas?

Mad Max: Fury Road - A Spoiler-Free Review

Mad Max: Fury Road is a collection of paradoxes. It is both an action flick and an artsy film. It is both a testosterone-fest and a celebration of feminist ideals. It is gloriously over-the-top while simultaneously subtle.

But what it is above all else is a damn good way to spend two hours of your life.

No previous familiarity with George Miller's other Mad Max films is required.  Everything you need to know about Max as a character is explained within a few minutes before moving on to the plot.  I shan't say any more about the story beyond that.

I'll write a more in-depth review for those of you who'd like to talk philosophy later this week.  For now, I think it is enough to say that I liked this movie and I think everyone should see it.

Conan The Barbarian #15 - A Review

Last month, I wrote a fair bit about Robert E. Howard, his view of women and the thin line between chivalric Romanticism and sexism.  This was inspired, in part, by a story that centered upon the character of the pirate queen Belit without really involving her directly in the action.  Conan The Barbarian #15 is a similar beast, despite Belit being directly involved in the action of the story.


Brian Wood tells a tale of two romances in this issue.  These romances are, perhaps, not worthy of the name by modern terms and the characters involved lack the words to describe their emotions in those terms.  Hyboria is not a land that inspires sweet words of woo but it is a classically Romantic place, where passions run wild and the power of nature and natural things is greater than any civilization.  It is a place where love is forged amid lust when a pirate queen watches a barbarian rogue fight her men to a stand-still single-handed.  It is where love blossoms where a slavegirl is purchased by a warlord's son with more gold than sense, to be freed rather than to be used.  This later story, we find out later, is the origin of Belit's parents but it offers echos of Conan and Belit's own romance later on, when Conan meets Belit's father and discovers why Belit has returned to the Shemite fortress where she was born.  I've never thought of Conan as a romantic hero, in either sense of the word, but Wood's dialogue firmly establishes Conan as both.


All of this is lovingly illustrated with equal boldness by Andrea Mutti, Pierluigi Baldassini and  Dave Stewart.  Mutti's pencils are detailed without being dirty and Baldassini's inks offer just the right amount of definition and shade.  Stewart's color palette, while being largely a collection of greys and browns, proves quite rich and visually inspiring in spite of that.  This book is as visually amazing as it is well-written and if you aren't reading it now, you should start immediately.

Conan The Barbarian #14 - A Review

Robert E. Howard has been written off by many fantasy fans as a sexist author.  I personally find this to be an unfair consideration but I understand it given how many of the original Conan stories featured women in peril and everyone's favorite burly barbarian slaying the monster, saving the girl and then 'saving her' again several times that night, if you know what I mean and I think you do.  (Thanks Joe Bob Briggs!)  While many of Howard's personal views are undeniably backward by modern standards, his views on the fairer sex and gender equality are less clear.

The original Conan stories do possess many sexist elements but that may have stemmed less from Howard's personal beliefs and more from his catering to the fetishes of his editor at Weird Tales.  Sex Sells and with The Great Depression in full-swing, Howard literally could not afford to stand on principle - hence all the slavegirls in bondage.  And yet, Howard's most memorable female characters - and the ones for whom he seemed to have the greatest personal affection - were the women warriors like the pirate Queen of the Black Coast, Belit, who refused to bow down to anyone or meekly accept society's expectations.   


Howard's personal letters also point to a different sort of man than the one suggested by some of his fictional writings.  Here we find a man who, while defying all but the broadest definitions of a feminist male, could be said to have a chivalric or romanticized view of women without a hint of misogyny.  He wrote that he dreamed of one-day being able to write and sell a "Conan yarn without sex interest." and indeed did so with the posthumously published Beyond The Black River. And in one personal letter Howard chided a friend for his own attitudes about women's influence on Western Civilization and named a number of great historical women (Joan of Arc, Catherine the Great and Sappho among them) in proving his point that there were many great female leaders, poets and philosophers.

I mention all this because the script for Conan the Barbarian #14 by Brian Wood is very much in line with Howard as he wrote Belit, yet she barely figures into the action of the story at all.  After a flashback where Conan remembers the active warrior Belit he chased into the Shemish desert. he confronts the strange new reality of a Belit who passively watches battle from the ramparts of a besieged city.  Forcibly conscripted into the opposing army, Conan quickly grows tired of waiting and hearing his fellow soldiers discuss the mysterious woman on the wall.  He plots to invade the city with a small group to break the siege.  Here we see the early signs of a Conan who will one day become a captain of mercenaries and eventually a general and king on the battlefield. 


The artwork of Mirko Colak continues to amaze.  There is a clarity to Colak's pencils that is as simple and powerful as Cimmeria's favorite son.  The palette chosen by colorist Dave Stewart also deserves praise, for perfectly capturing the muted shades of a city and military camp at night. 

All in all, this issue is worthy of Robert E. Howard's legacy.  The artwork perfectly depicts the excitement of combat and the mystery of a covert mission.  The script provides plentiful action and intrigue.  There's even a curious twist near the end that will leave the readers anxious for the next issue.

Tony Effing Harris and The No-Good, Very-Bad Day

SOURCE: Tony Harris Blasts Cosplay Girls: 'Yer Not Comics'


As you might guess from my nickname, Starman is one of my favorite comic series of all time.  Created by James Robinson and Tony Harris back in the mid-1990s, it is one of the more unappreciated classics of The Dark Age Of Comics and - in many ways - was as much a rebuttal of the ideals of The Dark Age as Kingdom Come and Astro City.  For those of you who haven't read it, despite my numerous reviews and writings on the series, let me thematically sum up what I think the series is about in a nut-shell.

Jack Knight, the youngest son of scientist/superhero Ted Knight, is forced to take on his father's identity as Starman.  A sarcastic bohemian generally more concerned about his collectibles and his junk-shop than the people around him, Jack slowly (and reluctantly) grows into the role of a hero.  More importantly, Jack slowly grows into a better person and realizes the difference between being a hero and being a good person.  By the series' end, Jack matures into both a respected hero and a genuinely good person who gives up everything he previously considered the most important things in the world in exchange for what really matters most - the people who love him.

In truth, I'm somewhat embarrassed about how I got the Starman nickname now.  I was introduced to the comic through a friend who handed me a copy of Starman #29 and said "You'd like it. This guy sounds like you."  Sure enough, Jack Knight did sound like me at the time - an elitist, pseudo-intellectual who resented anyone he saw as a poseur and a fake, who hid his own insecurities behind a veneer of sarcasm and pop-culture references.  I think it fair to say that my emotional connection to Jack Knight as a character helped me to grow as a person as I recognized his flaws in myself and sought to correct them.  I'd like to think that, like Jack, I've gotten somewhat more tolerable over time, acquired some degree of wisdom and become generally more tolerant of those whose ignorance comes form inexperience instead of willfulness. 

That makes today's news all the more painful to me - that an artist whose work I have enjoyed so much and who had always struck me as a down-to-earth and respectable man should say something that, try as I might, I cannot reconcile with the lessons that Jack Knight taught me.

Starman co-creator Tony Harris made several comments today on his Facebook wall, regarding some female cosplayers  I note this because some chose to attack Harris as if he were addressing all female cosplayers.  Indeed, before I quote from those comments, I'd like to note that many people went beyond criticizing the comments to criticizing the man... and some of these people had no clue what they were talking about, descending into libelous personal attacks that did no credit to their arguments.

They said he was attacking all female cosplayers.  He wasn't.  At the very beginning of his speech, he said he was only talking about some female cosplayers. 

They said that clearly he'd been rejected by some cosplaying babe in the past and was lashing out in revenge.  By all accounts, Harris is a happily married man and father of two and I've never heard anything to suggest otherwise.

They accused him of creating gratuitously sexist artwork.  He hasn't.  He isn't in the same league as Greg Horn, Frank Cho or Jim Balent.  Not even close.  Indeed, apart from one of his Conan The Barbarian covers and one sex-scene in Ex Machina, I'm hard pressed to think of anything he's done that I've read which had sexual conten/nudity.  As I recall, all of those were tastefully done.

That being said, let us consider Mr. Harris' comments, in bold, with my own considerations in between.



I appreciate a pretty Gal as much as the next Hetero Male. Sometimes I even go in for some racy type stuff ( keeping the comments PG for my Ladies sake) but dammit, dammit, dammit I am so sick and tired of the whole COSPLAY-Chiks. I know a few who are actually pretty cool-and BIG Shocker, love and read Comics.

A fair start.  Nice and respectful.  Language is a bit saltier than I'd go with, but I try to be even-keeled on these things.

So as in all things, they are the exception to the rule.
And here is where we start to go south - the idea that women who like comics and cosplay are the anomaly - the unicorn, as it were.

Moving on...


Heres the statement I wanna make, based on THE RULE: "Hey! Quasi-Pretty-NOT-Hot-Girl, you are more pathetic than the REAL Nerds, who YOU secretly think are REALLY PATHETIC. But we are onto you.  Some of us are aware that you are ever so average on an everyday basis. But you have a couple of things going your way. You are willing to become almost completely Naked in public, and yer either skinny( Well, some or most of you, THINK you are ) or you have Big Boobies. Notice I didnt say GREAT Boobies? 

You seriously undercut any claim you have to not being sexist when you start off insulting women's appearance/weight and then try explain that big boobs are not necessarily desirable, quantifying the difference between Big and Great.

Just saying....

 

You are what I refer to as "CON-HOT". Well not by my estimation, but according to a LOT of average Comic Book Fans who either RARELY speak to, or NEVER speak to girls. Some Virgins, ALL unconfident when it comes to girls, and the ONE thing they all have in common? The are being preyed on by YOU.

*face palms*  I don't know what's more offensive to me.

1) The stereotype that the majority of male comic book fans are hapless virgins who don't know how to talk to women.

2) The idea that most female cosplayers are some form of predatory animal or monster.

And what's so bad about being a virgin anyway?  There is such a thing as saving yourself for the right one.


You have this really awful need for attention, for people to tell you your pretty, or Hot, and the thought of guys pleasuring themselves to the memory of you hanging on them with your glossy open lips, promising them the Moon and the Stars of pleasure, just makes your head vibrate.

So... the majority of women who cosplay enjoy thinking about how many guys are masturbating while thinking about them in their costumes?

Keep that thought in mind for later.

Moving on...


After many years of watching this shit go down every 3 seconds around or in front of my booth or table at ANY given Con in the country, I put this together. Well not just me. We are LEGION. And here it is, THE REASON WHY ALL THAT, sickens us: BECAUSE YOU DONT KNOW SHIT ABOUT COMICS, BEYOND WHATEVER GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH YOU DID TO GET REF ON THE MOST MAINSTREAM CHARACTER WITH THE MOST REVEALING COSTUME EVER.

So the vast majority of women who cosplay pick the skimpiest outfits possible?

If this were even remotely close to true, I'd have seen a lot more of Phoenix Five Emma Frost this past year than Black Widow.  Or any version of Emma Frost, come to that.  


And also, if ANY of these guys that you hang on tried to talk to you out of that Con? You wouldnt give them the fucking time of day. Shut up you damned liar, no you would not. Lying, Liar Face.
 
Yes.  All these women who cosplay, - who are really quite average looking and are desperate to have their egos stroked, whom enjoy thinking about men masturbating while thinking of them in their costumes -  would never think of talking to any of you stammering male virgins outside of a con!

... wait, wha?

Seriously, if I never hear this argument again it will be too soon.  We're supposed to believe that, on the one hand, most of the women who cosplay are repulsed by the average male comic book reader and would never dream of pursuing a romantic relationship with one... but on the other hand, they are utterly dependent upon the approval of said male comic fans and will parade around in next to nothing in public in order to fuel their egos?

If that were the case, there would be a heck of a lot easier ways to get the attention of more socially-acceptable males than by cosplaying!  Hanging around a sports bar in short-shorts and a jersey for the local sports team comes to mind.

At this point, I think it's a toss-up who should feel more insulted - female cosplayers or male comic readers.

For that matter, what about male cosplayers?  Why do they do what they do? 


Yer not Comics. Your just the thing that all the Comic Book, AND mainstream press flock to at Cons. And the real reason for the Con, and the damned costumes yer parading around in? That would be Comic Book Artists, and Comic Book Writers who make all that shit up.

You know what - he's right  The mainstream press frequently is  more interested in the people who dress up at conventions than they are the creators at the convention.  I know that following Dallas Fan Days, I saw more galleries of photos than I did articles about the creators who were in attendance.  But that's the nature of visual media - you need images to hook people and people who bring superheroes to life and do it well are a perfect visual summation of the magic of comics.

Take it from a writer.  My 5000 word essays upon the themes of isolation and martyrdom in Silver Surfer are not going to get as much attention as the guy who spent six months building a screen-accurate set of Iron Man armor out of parts he scavenged from an old '72 charger and a Tandy.  And that's fine.  Creation is creation, whether you draw, paint, build, act, write or whatever and should always be honored.


That being said, I honor Tony Harris as a skilled artist.  I'm sure he's a wonderful husband, a loving father and was good to his mother.  But I'm just as sure I won't be buying any more of his work in the future.  Because I can't reconcile what he's said with any reality I want to be a part with. 

I recognize what he was trying to say.  I have encountered some women who were desperate for attention and saw conventions as an easy place to carve out a niche as a queen bee.  And there have been some Wizard World-sponsored cons I've been to where porn starlets dressed in cosplay had booths where they were trying to sell their swag.  But those women are not the majority.  They are the exception - not the rule.

I know a lot of female cosplayers.  Some of them are models.  Most of them aren't.  And I don't doubt for a moment that they all love comic books and video games and other geeky things just as much as I do.  And I don't think for a moment that they have to try to impress me. 

Your Logic Bomb For Today

SOURCE: So, The Back Cover Ad on Batman This Month Is a “Fake Geek Girl” Joke
SOURCE: Over 90,000 Copies Of IDW’s My Little Pony Comic Book Have Been Pre-Ordered

You have to love the timing on these two stories breaking at nearly the same time.

On the one hand, we have an ad for a website using material from a piece they did on the super-villains of the fandom world.  And out of all the characters they could have chosen to include in the ad, they chose to focus on the fake geek girl stereotype.

The image in question is presented with my own alteration to make it more truthful.



And then, we have this other news - this news that based on pre-orders, the first issue of a new My Little Pony comic has outsold Uncanny X-Men.  Already this news has caused some to claim that the only reason the numbers are so high is because of the large number of Bronies among male comic fans and that there's no way that many women want to read a My Little Pony comic.

They believe this.  They actually believe there's a large number of men who are buying comics centering around strong female protagonists and cute, funny stories.... and we can't get a Stephanie Brown Batgirl book like the one Bryan Miller was writing just over a year ago?

I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

Help Fund A New Web Series - Damsels & Dragons

Are you a gamer or a fantasy fan?

Do you watch The Guild, Awkward Embraces and other web-series that showcase geek-life?

Do you enjoy series about strong, smart women sticking it to the society that tries to tell them what they can or can't do?

Have you ever, like Leopold Bloom, harbored a secret desire to be a Producer?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes and you have at least five bucks to spare, then I have got a deal for you!

Originally produced in 2008, Damsels and Dragons was the brain child of actors America Young and April Wade. The series reached the attention of Awkward Embraces' Jessica Mills, who approached Young about helping produce a second season. The ball began rolling and now a second season is in pre-production, with a dream-team of talent behind it. In addition to Young and Mills, the show will feature scripts by original Damsels and Dragons author Eric Collin Campbell and be directed by Greg Aronowitz, who has worked on both The Guild and the Dragon Age: Redemption as a director and executive producer respectively.

Sound exciting? It gets even better!

For the next two months, they'll be taking donations to fund the series. And what do you get for your money apart from the knowledge that you're helping to bring what promises to be an amazing bit of entertainment to fruition? Like most things in life, it depends on how much you're willing to invest in it.

For five American Dollars, you will get a personal thank you on Facebook or Twitter, talking about how awesome you are. For ten American Dollars, you get the personal shout-out on Facebook and Twitter AND a personal e-mail letter of thanks with a photo of the creative team thus far holding swords. This goes all the way up to the grand $1000 donation which gets you (among other things) a producer credit on the show and a role as an extra in the show!

So please - give generously. Give often. And help support geek culture. Thank you.

I feel a great disturbance in The Force, as if millions of fangirls suddenly cried out in anger...

SOURCE: Star Wars Kinect Wants to Help Us Discover the Slave Leia in All of Us





...

Seriously?

Yes. Seriously. Watch the video footage, beginning at 4:30 and weep.





*face palms*

Do I even need to begin to explain everything that is wrong with this? Probably not. But beacuse my OCD demands it...

1. Was there really a huge demand for a Star Wars themed DDR rip-off? Or was it added because some marketing weasel thought that only boys would be interested in a light saber dueling/pod-racing game and they needed to add something girly like a dance game?

2. If that's the case, why set it in Jabba's Palace with dancing slave girls? Granting that was the location with the most prominent musical numbers in the whole trilogy, why couldn't it be set at the dance club from Episode 2? It would make just as much sense and the people there WANT to be dancing.

3. Does anyone really think this is a fun basis for a family game? Dance well for your giant slug overlord or Jabba will straight up murder you?

4. She just undoes her own chain collar? Just like that? Then why the hell isn't she escaping unless she... oh gods, are they implying that Leia WANTS to be there?!?

I need a shower.

How To Woo A Geek Girl - By The Lady Geeks of ToplessRobot.com

SOURCE: Ladies Night, Round 2!

Lots of good, earnest advice here, though a lot of it should be common sense. Maybe it's the cosplayer in me, but I don't see why it should have to be stated that if a woman is willing to dress up as your geeky fantasy then the favor should obviously be returned. She dresses as Slave Leia, you dress as The Doctor. She dresses as Cheetara, you dress as Malcolm Reynolds.

It's only fair, right?

A Noteworthy Quote, Somewhat Related To The Subject of Geek Girls

"They don't want to be spectators. They're courageous and imaginative and adventurous. That's why you like them. They fit into the world you've chosen for yourselves. If you'd wanted a pair of silly, primping maidens who are good for nothing but gossip and needle-point, there are plenty of those around. But I doubt they'd interest you."

--- Senior Ranger Halt, The Emperor of Nihon-Ja by John Flanagan


Okay, he isn't talking about Geek Girls in the scene above. But the sentiment fits, I think.

Ranger's Apprentice is a great series for Young Adults of all ages, by the way. I highly recommend it.

Let's Cheer Up A Geek-Girl In Training.

SOURCE:Anti-Bullying Starts in First Grade

A first-grade Star Wars fangirl got made fun of by some boys because "only boys can like Star Wars".

While I'm sure cosmic irony will ensure that this girl is fighting those same boys off with a Tusken Raider staff in ten years when she's attending her first Con, she needs some comforting now. Particularly from geekish ladies.

So if you can spare a moment to write something encouraging, follow the link above.

Rides a Dread Legion and Raymond Feist's heroines

Tough this isn't really comics related, I thought I'd write about it here since this is on my mind now, following the disappointment of Justice League: Cry For Justice.

It's a terrible thing to grow up loving an author and then, later on, to be disappointed by them. I had a number of friends who dealt with this not too long ago - they being big fans of Orson Scott Card and being horrified by his horrible comments regarding gay marriage. Recently, I had a similar revelation regarding one of my favorite fantasy writers' - Raymond Feist.



It was sparked by an article I read on When Fangirls Attack! (I apologize for the lack of a direct link, but an hour's searching has left me unable to find that article again) by a woman who complained about the lack of decent heroines in most fantasy novels outside of the Young Adult market.

In the wake of reading that article, I thought "Well, that's a very good point. Most high fantasy IS written in societies based on Middle Ages life where women were treated badly." And as a teen librarian, this subject touches me deeply. There are a lot of young people - mostly women - with an interest in fantasy and I am hard pressed to think of that many series written on an adult level that feature female protagonists.

Which is silly because - and I agree with this point made by the author - there really is no good reason why - if you're going to make the leap and say that magic, dragons and elves exist in your world - to be obsessive about historical accuracy and say that your society MUST be patriarchal with women having little role outside of bearing children, unless it is strictly relevant to the plot somehow.

It wasn't until later I thought about my own tastes and realized something about my favorite high fantasy author - I was hard pressed to think of more than five female characters in Raymond Feist's work I could point to and say without any doubt that they are "strong, positive female characters". At least, in the sense that their character has a purpose outside of supporting the male characters in the story.

To give a quick summary of all the major heroines I can think off of the top of my head...


Princess Carline - the first girl our main protagonist Pug has a crush on. Daughter of the Duke who adopts Pug into his household and sister to Arutha and Martin.

PROS: Insists on being taught how to use a sword since her home is now on the frontlines of war and might need to protect herself. Winds up single-handedly holding back a group of tunneling soldiers until help arrives. Is feisty, strong-willed and still lusting after young men well into her senior years.

CONS: While she does learn how to use a sword, we never see her fighting alongside the other men after that first battle. She also doesn't do much in the second or third books of The Riftwar Saga other than nag her boyfriend about getting married, nag her brother about giving her permission to marry and comfort everyone else in the family as various other family members are dying or near death.


Princess Anita - Daughter of Prince Erland. Develops crush on Prince Arutha at the age of six and becomes obessed with marrying him afterwards.

PROS: None really. She's Princess Peach - she's there to get rescued.

CONS: See above. She's Princess Peach. She's there to get rescued.


Katala - daughter of a barbarian tribe on the distant world of Kelewan. Serves as a slave in the same household as Pug after he is enslaved. Later, has his child and returns to him with his homeworld, where she oversees the daily operations of his magical college.

PROS: We're told repeatedly how strong, intelligent and wise she is.

CONS: We're given surprisingly little evidence of this. Spends most of her time taking care of kids, running the household while Pug is away doing magic things and the greatest indicator of her strength in the text is, according to her husband, not having a nervous breakdown after being told she has to give up everything she knows and travel to another planet.


Gamina - Pug's adopted daughter. We first see her as a six-year-old with strong telepathic abilities. Later, she falls in love with and marries James/Jimmy The Hand - and uses her powers to aid him in his role as the Kingdom's chief spy.

PROS: Proves her bravery even as a little girl, confronting things she'd rather not with her powers. Had a major role doing spy work in Prince of the Blood and apparently served in that capacity in several unseen adventures. Had perhaps the coolest heroic death ever, along with her husband.

CONS: None, really - save that she meets her future husband after he accidentaly sees her bathing, thinks "She has the most beautiful bottom I've ever seen" and she telepathically stuns him on reflex, accidentally scanning his mind in the process and instantly falls in love with the little boy afraid of being abandoned underneath the jaded ex-thief. It's a bit pat even if it is written off as being true love with Gamina and James complementing each other perfectly.


Bree - second in command of the armies of Aremengar. Falls in love with and marries Martin, becoming Duchess of Crydee.

PROS: Strong warrior woman who can hunt, fish and fight as well as any man. Is also the aggresor in her relationship with Martin, telling him plainly that "I would not be alone this night". She also resists a commitment at first, noting that with where she lives (big fortress surrounded on all sides by dark elves) it is not wise to plan past tomorrow. Also gets heroic death, fighting slavers at a point when she is well past Social Security age and taking a lot of them with her when she finally falls from blood loss.

CONS: None, really. Bree kicks ass and only has one tearful moment in the whole series after she and Martin share one last night together as he goes off to run a message to the calvary and she asks him to tell her what future he would have for them.


Margaret - Martin and Bree's daughter. Definitely takes after her mom.

PROS: Despite spending most of the one novel she stars in being a captive - first to slavers, then to cultists - she does not despair, does not give up hope of escape and winds up killing a lot of her captors directly and indirectly, risking her life to stop one slaver from raping a young girl. Also pimpslaps the girl who says "give up... we're going to be drudges and whores for the rest of our lives", refuses to be ashamed as she is forced to march and bathe before strange men in nothing but chains and winds up making several escape attempts that would probably work if she didn't have to worry about Abigail.

CONS: None, save that the scenes in which she is stripped by slavers, chained up by slavers and bathing before slavers suggest that Ray needed a cold shower.


Abigail - Margaret's lady in waiting. Crush of the two main male protagonists in The King's Buccaneer AKA The Load.

PROS: Eventually toughens up after repeated prompting by Margaret.

CONS: Just about everything else. She's beautiful but utterly useless in a fight. Serves to provide most of the cheesecake, as we are informed when being accessed by the slavers that while Margaret has a lean, fighting figure that would serve her well in the arena, Abigail has a body that men like and that she could go for as high as 50,000 gold if she is a virgin. Provides most of the "oh woe is me" dialogue in the above describes scenes involving stripping, chaining and bathing.


Brisa - street girl in the pirate city of Freeport. Joins the party and proves invaluable in acting as a scout and thief.

PROS: Smart enough to hide her good looks under grime and boy's clothes. Is said to tell dirty jokes as well as any sailor and curses about as often. Confident enough - when being strong-armed by four of the heroes - to declare "Stop it! I don't like being grabbed that way! *smiles at male Protagonist 2* Be polite and maybe I'll show you how to grab me."

CONS: Does wind up in a harem girl outfit at one point, acting as a distraction to the City Guard. However, she does give the rest of the team hell about this immediately after.


Miranda - powerful sorceress who has traveled far around the Universe. We eventually find out she is the daughter of Merlin-level magician Macros the Black and she marries Pug at the end of the Serpent War books, eventually having two children with him.

PROS: Is presented as Pugs equal in power, if not knowledge. Is better at some forms of magic than him. Does many heroic deeds on her own in Shadow of a Dark Queen before teaming with Pug.

CONS: In the more recent novels, her role as an active hero has lessened, with her seeming to have assumed a role similar to that of Katala in running Pug's secret magic school on Sorceror's Isle. Spends most of these books worrying about Pug, worrying about her sons and doing percious little adventuring on her own.



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So what prompted me to start considering all of this and writing all of this recently? In the latest book, Rides a Dread Legion, we are introduced to one new female heroine; Sandreena. Sandreena is a Knight-Adamant - a special group of warrior-priests appointed by Dala, the goddess of war (aka The Shield of the Weak). She is an expert in fighting demons and, we are told, stunningly beautiful. Despite this she is not the least bit vain. Indeed, she considers her beauty a weakness and is loathe to use or even acknowledge her good looks to the point where she allows her battle wounds to scar, not caring if they mar her natural beauty.

A woman driven to protect the weak and fight evil by taking up arms who also has to fight the perceptions of beautiful women in her society. And yes, she does wear men's tunic and trousers and wears full-plate armor and a helm when in the field. None of this chainmail bikini shite. Sounds pretty awesome, right? Well, she might be if it weren't for her past and the exact reasons why she considers her beauty a flaw.

Sandreena's mother was a whore and a drug addict. And when she died of an overdose, Sandreena was adopted into the local thieves guild and put to work in one of the higher-class brothels. She was eventually sold off to one of the guild's more valuable business contacts (The Kingdom outlawed slavery years ago, so the guild arranged a contract for "extended professional customer service for an indeterminate period of several years") but was found and rescued by Knight Adamant of Dala who took her in, saw her taken care of and eventually oversaw her training.

Now why does this bother me? Because the "whore becomes warrior who loathes her body" background in fantasy is nearly as cliched as "orphan boy becomes Chosen One"? Yes, but also because it really ads nothing to Sandreena's character for her to have this background or be distrustful of all men, save for the priest who saved her.

It also doesn't add anything for her to have a previous relationship with the other new protagonist introduced in Rides a Dread Legion - a con-man/demonologist who uses his talent for summonining and banishing demons for good... when he isn't robbing people blind by convincing them their houses are haunted and only he can save them. Somehow, he managed to work behind her defenses just long enough for a one-night stand with honeyed words... just before ditching her and leaving her convinced that all me are scum... again.

So now not only is Sandreena a 'whore turned warrior' stereotype, she's also the "man-hating amazon" stereotype to boot!

But what really gets me is that Miranda dies at the end of the book... and it serves no purpose other than to make Pug really pissed off and drive home just how powerful the enemy they are fighting is... even though Miranda basically dies like a punk, getting her throat slashed by a demon monkey that all the people without magic powers have no problem with.

It's just so anti-climactic after the last book in which Nakor (one of the other powerful mage characters) dies... just after snapping the neck of the main villain, thus preventing the destruction of at least two universes. It's a long story but basically, this beloved character who has been around since the fourth book of the saga got a nice, solid heroic death that wound up having a hand in saving all reality.

Miranda deserved something like that but she didn't get it. She got her throat cut by some random demon. Cut to a Valeria funeral, Pug swearing revenge quietly and that's it. Fade to black. Tune in next time.

And thinking about all of this... it just bugs me in ways I can't articulate any further.

I dunno... anyone else have any thoughts?