faetal on 5/7/2012 at 14:03
I can see 2 things which sit either side of the fence you two are shouting through:
1) The guys are all fairly stereotypical too. Basically, they are all American Football players whose steroids are on steroids. Nothing about cock size, but I don't see breasts as an equivalent, since they are not a reproductive organ. Exaggerated musculature could reasonably be held to be equivalent to large breasts.
2) Dethtoll did pick his example pretty carefully - the attack nuns aren't just women with large breasts in big fuck off armour, they feature things like gaps in the armour at the tops of the thighs, reducing the leg armour to being ultra-thick hold-ups essentially. It can definitely be argue that their design incorporates titillation equal to or greater than combat focus. Dethtoll doesn't seem to be saying that all of 40k is a giant morass of sexism, just that the women do tend to be sexually exaggerated, but as mentioned above, so are the men.
This whole discussion seems to have escalated a bit and I can't see either of you backing down, so can we maybe switch to talking about androgynous the Eldar are?
Vivian on 5/7/2012 at 14:24
TITS ASIDE, is there an actual explanation for people bred and armoured to be massive bullet-sponges wearing two-ton armour to take their helmet off? Even if they have magic space skulls, they're literally running around firing rocketlaunchers into everything. One frag of space-crete in the eyeball and they're gonna have a bad time.
The tits thing though, there is no valid excuse. Even if five-inch thick armour plate had to be form fitting for some reason, you wouldn't stick a massive bullet-trap right in the middle of your centre of mass like that, you'd just extent the chest piece out smoothly. It's just sexy battle-nuns.
BTW I definitely know how space armour is built, just saying
Chimpy Chompy on 5/7/2012 at 14:58
Quote Posted by Vivian
TITS ASIDE, is there an actual explanation for people bred and armoured to be massive bullet-sponges wearing two-ton armour to take their helmet off?
Because in 40k, rule of cool beats practicality.
Space marines are the champions of the imperium, the Emperor's avenging angels. Their leaders go bareheaded because heroes work better thematically when they have a face.
On a similar note whilst you might criticise the stylistic direction of Sororitas armour for being a bit titilating, there's not a lot of point commenting on what that does to impact ballistics or whatever.
There's loads of impractical stuff thrown in just cos it looks awesome - like chainsaw-swords (you'd probably break the mechanics if you hit something hard enough) or giant bipedal war machines (highlighting yourself against the sky -> good way to be targeted.)
Vivian on 5/7/2012 at 15:01
Yeah, point.
DDL on 5/7/2012 at 15:02
Quote Posted by Vivian
TITS ASIDE, is there an actual explanation for people bred and armoured to be massive bullet-sponges wearing two-ton armour to take their helmet off? Even if they have magic space skulls, they're literally running around firing rocketlaunchers into everything. One frag of space-crete in the eyeball and they're gonna have a bad time.
The tits thing though, there is no valid excuse. Even if five-inch thick armour plate had to be form fitting for some reason, you wouldn't stick a massive bullet-trap right in the middle of your centre of mass like that, you'd just extent the chest piece out smoothly. It's just sexy battle-nuns.
BTW I definitely know how space armour is built, just saying
People like to see faces. That's basically it. Hell, generally it's the officers who are most likely to be helmetless, too (so it's not just "I will make myself vulnerable to snipers for some reason!" it's "ONLY those of us most likely to be targeted by snipers will make ourselves vulnerable to snipers..for some reason!"). But yeah, faces=more identifiable character. Pretty much in the same line as "tits+hair = more identifiable female character". So I think the battle nuns are helmetless too, more often than not: gotta show off that long hair somehow.
Edit: hell, if we're critiquing 40K as a whole for practicality now, there's the fact that every battle seems to end in 80+% casualties (often on both sides), which means an entire war footing is utterly unsustainable for everyone except tyranids, and possibly orks (coz they..like, grow from fungi or something now?). Space marine tanks are frequently mentioned as being priceless artifacts of long standing pedigree, utterly irreplacable, and then get minced like tissuepaper left right and centre.
Pyrian on 5/7/2012 at 16:20
Quote Posted by DDL
...hydralisks get all the good jobs because biovores are expected to stay at home and raise the spore mines...
They're called Ravenors, dang it! :cheeky: Hydralisks are the Starcraft equivalent that GW deliberately ripped off when they failed to sue Blizzard. Per netlore, anyway. GW denies everything, but they would have to, wouldn't they?
DDL on 5/7/2012 at 18:35
....shit, you're right. :p
O god. If I'm wrong about this I COULD BE WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING
catbarf on 5/7/2012 at 19:47
Quote Posted by faetal
1) The guys are all fairly stereotypical too. Basically, they are all American Football players whose steroids are on steroids. Nothing about cock size, but I don't see breasts as an equivalent, since they are not a reproductive organ. Exaggerated musculature could reasonably be held to be equivalent to large breasts.
That seems to me to be the exact same false equivalency that was talked about in the sexism and games thread, that big muscular macho men aren't demeaning men the way over-exaggerated tits and ass demean women.
Although I'm not sure how the Space Marines being sterile with zero sex drive factors into it, or with the women being just as violent. It's definitely a little less clear-cut than with, like, Gears of War but I can definitely see 40k as being overtly sexist in the differences it portrays between genders. It's part of its stylization (ex. sexy space battle nuns), but it's still there.
DDL on 5/7/2012 at 20:56
So..wait. Bear in mind that the sisters of battle are a (relatively) recent addition to the canon, so are you arguing that by actually including women AT ALL (as opposed to essentially dismissing them entirely), they've become more sexist?
That sort of comes back to my point regarding "include no women: cause no offense, include women: get criticised to hell for not depicting them exactly right, where exactly right varies from person to person."
Which seems to be a bit of a shitty way to view things.
As noted, I give them huge plus points for putting women in and NOT sticking them in chainmail bikinis (not, perhaps, something we can say for the fantasy battle side of things -looking at you, witch elves), but the impression I'm getting is that people would be happier if they just produced another line of space marines and said "oh and btw these ones are female"?
And of course the whole "human" side of things is STILL a tiny part of the 40K universe, but I'm not sure what the general consensus is on "perceived sexist element makes up substantial part of canon" vs "perceived sexist element makes up small fraction of canon" when it comes to toting up overall sexism. (my personal feeling is that yes, sexism is a dilutable thing -less is always better than more)
(Also, fwiw, as far as I know the S.o.B are about as interested in sex as the space marines, and are every bit as insanely zealous..they're not really depicted as anything desirable, more..terrifying. Possibly there's some inherent sexism in that, but it's not the 'sexy, demeaning' kind of sexism)
(how am I doing, sulphur? :P)
