Vox Day #fundie

Vox Day #fundie voxday.blogspot.com

Of course, if we're going to start bringing reality into swords and sorcery, we should probably also take into consideration the fact that even a large, well-trained woman couldn't last thirty seconds against the average warrior. The correct and realistic portrayal of an armor-era woman is either one who is dead and buried after her brief foray into warrior womanhood or at home, caring for the children that she started bearing in her teens.

Awkward and combat-inefficient breast plates are the least of the problem. What it is time to retire is the absurd and ahistorical "warrior woman".

The amusing thing is that throughout the comments, no one even stops to realize that the entire premise of women attempting to fight with swords is physically ridiculous. If you doubt me, just hand a sword to the closest woman the next time you're in a medieval museum.

117 comments

old comment by Passerby

Julie D'Aubigny was undefeated in a long career of duels. Three men jumped her at the same time once and all three got sent to the hospital with a bad case of 'got stabbed' in short order.

Stagecoach Mary had a standing bet with all of Montana, 5 bucks and a glass of whiskey says she only needed one right cross to put your lights out. She got a lot of free drinks that way.

Violette Morris would find extreme pleasure in humiliating you at every possible sport, beating you senseless, seducing your wife, and then torturing you into insanity. She... wasn't a particularly good person.

A more modern example, Gina Carrano of the UFC would very quickly obliterate bones you didn't know you had. She has beaten the living shit out of men who are not only much larger than her, but trained MMA competitors.

For more women that could reduce men to quivering wrecks visit badassoftheweek.com and check out the female division of the UFC. Hell, the extreme pillow fighting league would surprise you. Deceptively hardcore.

old comment by Nomen Nescio

after a couple thousand years of killing one another with sharp pointy things, trying constantly to improve their weaponry and tactics both, the Europeans finally (just before firearms made sharp and pointy weapons irrelevant) ended up with the rapier.

which is a lightweight, narrow, weapon designed for speed and agility in attacking. using which a female fencer would be at a disadvantage mainly because she might lack reach and length of arm. and built for a quick, lunge-and-thrust fighting style where a fight that lasted thirty seconds was probably a demonstration bout, not any real attempt at killing somebody.

of course, a century or so after the rapier, all any woman fighter needed do was line up the barrel and squeeze the trigger, same as any other musketeer, and same as it still remains today. compensating for physical inadequacies using technological innovation is what we humans do.

old comment by Anon-e-moose

Sakura Shinguuji, from the Sega/Red Entertainment game/anime franchise "Sakura Taisen"

image

(with character designs by "Ah! My Goddess"/"You're Under Arrest"'s Kosuke Fujishima)

Now, Vox Gay: do you see her - wielding a Katana - wearing a breastplate there, even though Samurai did wear armour in ancient Japan?

And you'd better not watch the anime series if you know what's good for you, VD. 'Breatplates' Peh. How does entire body-covering mecha armour known as 'Koubu' grab ya? (I can heartily recommend this to those into Steampunk, seeing as said Koubu are steam-powered [as are all the vehicles of the scenario's era] - but require 'spiritual' power of their pilots to actually operate such; it's set in the early 20th Century).

--EDIT--

@zipperback

VD here would be scared shitless then, at the mere thought of the recent anime series "Moretsu Pirates". It's main character Marika Kato, commanding the good (space)ship Bentenmaru, conducting raids whilst armed with a particle-beam laser...?! <3

Eiichiro Oda, take note.

old comment by Skios

First of all, thanks for bringing up an involuntary shudder by bringing up FATAL with all its lovely tables descring various "circumferences".

Second of all, Saga of the Greenlanders:

"Freydis came out and saw them retreating. She shouted to them, " Why are you running away from these puny fellows, fine men as you are! It looks to me as if you should be able to cut them down like cattle* If I had weapons, I think I could fight better than any of you!"

"They paid no attention to what she was saying. She tried to follow, but had trouble keeping up with them, for she was with child. She went after them into the woods, and the savages started towards her. In front of her lay a dead man, Thorbrand, Snorri's son, whose head had been crushed by a flat rock. Beside him lay his sword, and she picked it up to defend herself. When the savages approached, she pulled out her breasts from under her dress and slapped them with the naked sword. At this the savages were so appalled that they ran down to their boats and rowed away. Karlsevni and his men now came up to her and praised her good fortune."

old comment by RevDG

lol how in the fuck is the premise of women attempting to fight with swords become physically ridiculous?
are you retarded enough to believe swords are heavy vox? a man couldn't swing a sword over 5 pounds for hours on end, anymore than a woman.
swords were between 2-5 pounds on average, only a few weighed more and they were huge things.
ceremonial swords weighed a lot but only a retard thinks they used them everyday.

by the way vox, you ignorant twat, the celts and the germanic tribes taught their women to fight so they could protect themselves.
they also allowed women to own property and vote.

lol try giving the closest man a ceremonial sword and have them swing the thing, vox. i doubt he could swing it, since it wasn't meant to be swung as a weapon!
that is after all where the retarded belief that swords are meant to be huge and heavy comes from, because archaeologists were digging up burial mounds thinking people were buried with weapons they used, and in reality smiths were burying them with special ceremonial burial swords.

this of course doesn't even point out that warrior goddesses existed, freya is a warror goddess who takes half the battle-field dead along with odin.
what the fuck are the valkyries vox? what about the amazons?
fuck you vox you pig ignorant moron.

old comment by farpadokly

"girls are icky eww and I'm a boy so I'm stronger than them ha ha".

Counter-example: The women of Sparta. Kept in hard physical training, bore healthy babies, and went right back to training. The children were raised collectively, lived in barracks and were trained in military tactics from an early age. Do you really imagine these women were incapable of fighting?
What about the Amazons, who may have been based on a real group of people?
You're not allowed to touch exhibits in museums, especially not swords. A woman wouldn't know how to wield it, but neither would men. It would be a bit different if you grew up around swords and were trained in their use.
You should beware of sweeping generalizations, because someone will always dig out counter-examples to prove you wrong and make you look foolish.

old comment by Reynardine

It's further the case that the only difference between medieval kitchen implements and weapons was that the former were normally used on dead meat. Toasting forks, roasting spits, immense butcher knives and cleavers, were all employed by stalwart kitchen wenches if the castle walls were breached or scaled. But that happened seldom, because of the tar pots.

You ever wonder why cauldrons were associated with witches? When scaling ladder hooks were seen at the top of the wall, the cauldrons, frequently operated by said kitchen wenches, were rolled to the spot and tipped onto the siege ladder and its occupants. Many a man, as he fell to a fiery doom, called out, " ##@@&+"!! itch! " Thus, a legend arose.

In my Renaissance Guild days, I was quite handy with a six-pound broadsword. Right now, I own only a Solingen sword-bayonet and an ancient yataghan, but I still double-dare you, pansy.

In Summary. Killing is noble except when a conservative is defending it for any reason.
Women = Men at war.

And exceptions to a rule means you don't need rulers.

[I like women in dresses, and just as much when they're completely out of them. I know, I know, I'm a "bitch, homophobe, going to die in a fire, satan will wear my eye-balls for ear-rings, douchebag, misogynist, Freudian, sexist".....Yada, Yada, Yada.....as boring as it is wrong]

How well you've all proven the slide argument. The reason the slippery slide argument doesn't work is that there is no more down, like when you're on Everest, there's just no more up]

You are the end. You've arrived. Destination. It's a relief in a way. Magnotta, Gosnell, Cincinnati basements. Destination complete.

Unshockable is another word for Refractory to treatment. And refractory to treatment means hospice.

Francis Ford Coppola's Colonel Kurtz as a rework of Joseph Conrad's modern man in pagan madness caught a glimpse of what was just ahead. The Horror.

These two didn't need swords of any kind. Icepick and scalpel.
http://tanyagranicallen.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/a-tale-of-two-butchers-gosnell-magnotta.html

old comment by Really?

The stupidest thing is that there is SO much evidence that act counter to his claim. Focusing on individuals is not the correct way to refute his point as it lets him evade with arguments about how much fighting a general or commander actually has to do.

Instead consider things like:

Feudal Japan: Female members of the samurai class were expected to be able to fight in the defense of their husbands. The naginata became synomous with women wielders.

Middle Ages Britain: There is some evidence that the armies of henry V and Edward the III must have included numerous women in the yeoman longbow men because there were not enough freemen in England to put together those armies.

Gladiatrix: Although rarer than their male counterparts there is considerable and incontrovertable evidence that Roman had female gladiators for as long as their were gladiatorial games.

Sword Duelists: By the late renaissance there were schools were nobels cound send their daughters to learn to fence, there were blade styles for woman's fencing, and there were several notable female duelists.

Now, if Vox is trying to argue that woman warriors are rare, and rarer in history than in fiction he is correct. However, the idea that there were not signifcant time in history were women took up arms is equally stupid.

Vox needs to learn to use google.

old comment by Canuovea

#1538680

Now, I don't buy the yeomanry bit unless you don't mean the Welsh Longbow. In fact, I hate when movies classify bows as the weapons of women. While some bows were definitely fireable by women, women do not tend to be genetically predisposed towards upper arm strength. Also, as the legend of the amazons points out, the breast can sometimes get in the way.

Most men couldn't fire a Welsh Longbow, it took years of training starting from around age five and the musculature of the arm changed so much that bones in the shoulder became deformed. I find it unlikely that in such a society women would be exposed to that type of training.

You want an example of a weapon that is possibly more predisposed to women than men? Perhaps rapier or smallsword. While the genetic tendency towards women being shorter than men might make reach and distance seem like a disadvantage, I've learned the hard way that someone shorter than you can block quicker and if fast enough will be able to get under your guard and hit. Plus, both rapier and smallsword actually rely on the legs for their power, speed, and killing potential. Women are genetically predisposed to having comparable or better leg muscles than men.

Also, consider that ballet is based on fencing and the muscle sets are quite different from track and field... so...

old comment by Anon-e-moose

@Rabbit of Caerbannog

'You are the end. You've arrived. Destination. It's a relief in a way. Magnotta, Gosnell, Cincinnati basements. Destination complete.'

"Is Phillip-George actually savagesusie's alter ego?..."

Nore like the alternate personality of (in)famous loono nutzoid mentally handicapped schizo Dennis 'ma(short)bus' Markarzi.

@Mister Spak

"Edit: "Of course, if we're going to start bringing reality into swords and sorcery, . . ."

And as it's said that Gainax used as inspiration "The Powerpuff Girls" for their 'WTF?!'-fest "Panty & Stocking (with Garterbelt)"...:

image

For a 'sugar-addict Goth "with stupidly long hair"*', she certainly knows how to dispatch those evil Ghosts with her hosiery that converts into Katanas.

*- Quote from the very first episode which plunges one head-first into the deep end of said 'WTF?!'-fest.

old comment by Really?

@ Canuovea

I think you are forgetting that historically middle classes have been small and substantually more egaletarian than either the upper class or the lower classes. Yes, the longbow does take a long time to learn to be proficient, and a lot longer time to master. However, this is also the social group with less requirements toward conformity (as would afflict the nobility) and with more wealth, calories, and available time than would be available to the poor or those attached to the land.

Further, the fact that archery is still a thing mostly disproves the "weak women" argument. I am not saying that they were all late crusades annie oakley's but the "they physically couldn't use it" is a bad argument because its clearly falsifiable.

Anyway, the idea isn't that the longbows of the english were all female, but they probably included women. However, I will concur that that is one debatable than the other examples I gave.

old comment by Anon-e-moose

"Of course, if we're going to start bringing reality into swords and sorcery, we should probably also take into consideration the fact that even a large, well-trained woman couldn't last thirty seconds against the average warrior."

Not taking into account how VD here contradicts himself, re. 'Swords and Sorcery', even with a little reality thrown into the mix, has he never heard of the concept of Plot Armour?

"MGLNStrikerS"' Fate T. Harlaown's 'magic' is mostly tech-based (her 'Intelligent Device' Bardiche, and how it forms itself from a small gold triangle into a multi-function axe-like weapon via elemental particles in the air, during her 'Transformation Sequence'. And the basis of her 'power', her Linker Core. Then the little matter of - post-'Transformation Sequence' - her 'Barrier Jacket', with it's armoured 'Aura'.

The worlds of "Conan the Barbarian" and particularly "Red Sonja", and how the latter wears a Chainmail Bikini. Enchanted charms, talismans & other objects. There's a lot of Magic around in those worlds.

PROTIP: The Technomages in "Babylon 5". Even Tony Stark's tech, especially in recent years' issues of "Iron Man" comics and the three films.

'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'

-Arthur C. Clarke

One word: Nanotech.

@Reynardine

It says so much about trolls...:

http://www.fstdt.net/QuoteComment.aspx?QID=94280&Page=2

...when they're reduced to copypasta. P-G here has found a nice shiny new word - 'Cofactors' - and has added it to his vocabulary, thinking it has any relevance, certainly any potential impact, to his so-called 'arguments'.

So what about those who - through no fault of their own - have contracted HIV via infected blood products, eh P-G? Kinda destroys your - and the religious fundies' - 'morality' argument.

Time to ban the shit-stirring troll, methinks.

old comment by Canuovea

Really,

Perhaps. But I don't buy that the middle class was more egalitarian in the middle ages. The lower classes, maybe, as everyone works or starves. But I'm not convinced that the longbow would be used by the middle class more than, say, the lower class.

The Welsh Longbow is what we're talking about, though... And it is possible that Welsh society was somewhat more egalitarian than English at the time. But the longbow would be something that a lot of men learned early on as a way of life, maybe as a tool for hunting too.

I'll grant that maybe you're right, that women were trained in the use of the shoulder deforming longbow from a very early age in a society still very much dominated by men. I'm not an expert, so I guess it is more open.

old comment by Reynardine

I can't say I'm an expert, but my understanding is that the highest reputation belonged to the Cornish bowmen.

I am not terribly acquainted with the longbow. Women compete in archery, however, and did so in Victorian times, and Central Asian horsewomen used the same bows as the men. The larger crossbows were operated with cranks, sometimes with several people, in the manner of WW II ack-ack, and the large ones, which were mounted on defensive walls, could take out an armored knight and his equally armored horse with one well-placed shot. Women have always fought in defensive warfare, because they had to, and I don't doubt that when defenders were under siege, they manned arbelests and other engines of war at need, as well as the afore-mentioned tar pots.

old comment by Reynardine

Canuova, I have just stated that the kind of bow you referred to was only one of many kinds of bows in use, and I suspect that any kind of bow that had to be used from childhood so it would produce the proper deformity wasn't used by many men, either. Only a career army could afford to do that, and at most, only commanders did nothing but that. Usually, those were nobles who held military tenures, which meant they had to answer a call to arms with a retinue of vassals and serfs, whom they were required to train and arm themselves. The chief peacetime business of all but tenants-in-chief of the King was farming, and anything which would have impeded that would have threatened starvation to all concerned.

Peasants, by the way, learned to turn their scythes and pruning hooks into big can openers, which they used to take enemy knights and their horses out of their metal shells. The knights were held for ransom; the heavy war horses, almost all stallions, were taken home to make little horses, and that's where we get Shires, Clydesdales, Suffolk Punches, Percherons, etc.

old comment by ProfessorJimboSpice

@#1539456, Adrian

"VD reminds me of this (Too Dumb To Live) Commissar who forgot that one does not piss Sisters of Battle off lest one wishes to be the first human to enter orbit without the aid of a shuttle:

(Posted image)

Wow look at this combination of TV tropes, a (presumably) Warhammer inspired manga and geeky "humor" ("the first human to enter orbit without the aid of a shuttle" *snerk, snerk*) that's some kind of nerd trifecta.

Your post would've been faggoty enough by itself. However, the context makes it really special; you're trying to argue trying to argue about the historicity of female warriors on the basis of a FUCKING CARTOON OF A SCI FI BOARD GAME.

Vox Day #fundie voxday.blogspot.com

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