>> Exactly. People roleplay to do things they can't do in their real
> lives.
>> I have never known *1* role player (and I've met hundreds) who say they
>> want to roleplay to "do what I can already do". I've also know a
> lot of
>> female roleplayers who want to play female characters that can pick
> up a
>> sword and hit someone. If you try to put straight jackets on that
> option
>> - and Vinga being the only one that didn't come with restrictions
> (hmm, I
>> wonder why she is so popular with the *real* community?) what damage
> are
>> you doing to Glorantha in this world?
>
> And Michael hit this discussion squarely on the nose - Vinga is the
> only Orlanthi religious cult that supports women "picking up a sword
> ... that doesn't come with restrictions". In short, Vinga has become
> a cost-free female powergamer cult.
Yes, in exactly the same way Orlanthi is a cost-free male powergamer cult. So why is one bad and the other good? To be more precise, the real restriction the other warrior cults that take women (Humakt, Urox and the Gors) have is that you are no longer a normal member of society. So what is being attempted with the changes to Vinga is that women are being told, ok you can a be a warrior, but have to be Lesbian or a psycho who is outside normal society. Boys, however, can have it all. Is it just me or is there something wrong with that?
>> As to the line that female soldiers in the current day are "seriously
>> wierd",
>> 1. that sounds like a bit of a generalisation for me. Got any
>> scientifically sound evidence for it?
>
> I'm basing it only on the women I know who have been (1) in the
> military, and (2) in combat situations (Gulf and Iraq). Purely
> anecdotally, they have all been mad as hatters. As I said before, it
> is based on a sample size of about a dozen.
So you admit it's anecdotal. Leaving aside the ability of the US military to turn any of its members seriously wierd, you have said nothing to argue against my point that your experience arises from a particular set of social circumstances and says nothing universal about women and combat.
>> 2. even if it is true , could it just possibly be because of the
> conflict
>> between the remnants of the passive female gender role versus the
>> requirements of combat. That is, is it a result of particular social
>> circumstances rather than an automatic result of putting women in
> combat?
>> Or is that reasoning trying to say women in combat, in any
> circumstance,
>> including everywhere in Glorantha are "seriously wierd"? Oh boy,
> sexist
>> hardly begins to cover that one.
>
> I said neither. I just said that the women combat soldiers I have
> personally known, have all been seriously weird. I'd also say that
> all the Army Rangers I have known (even smaller sample size) were also
> seriously weird dudes. I've known many many more regular Army
> soldiers and they are pretty much a cross-sample of the rest of the
> community (although certain groups tend to be overrepresented in the
> Army).
But you were using it as a basis for arguing for your preferred treatment of Vinga. I see no reason for using it in such a way. It certinaly provides no good rationale for any structuring of Vinga.
>> Oh yes. The thing that struck me immediately about this one was
> *why* was
>> Vinga's pregnancy such a problem? Couldn't those macho types manage
>> without her? There's a flaw in the logic here. Either Vinga is *so*
>> important that the Thunder Brothers don't know which end of their
> swords
>> (of any type) is which without her telling them. Or they made her a
>> scapegoat. So either she is more important than your average thinder
>> brother or the defeat wasn't really her fault.
>
> Neither. Vinga is a Warrior Goddess who shows women how they can be
> warriors. Full-time warriors in the service of their chief. When a
> full-time warrior fails to muster - for whatever reason - the warband
> is greatly weakened. If Urox fails to muster because Eurmal feed him
> too much beer with his grain, the Thunder Brothers are weakened. When
> Destor fails to muster because he is off on an adventure, the Thunder
> Brothers are weakened. And so on.
So why is Vinga not allowed to get pregnant but Destor is still allowed to
adventure? Urox still allowed to drink? Why is Vinga's failure so
special? Why is her absence the one that makes them fail?
Either
1. Vinga is the lynchpin - her failure matters more than others - so she
is very special. The band can afford others to not show, but if she
doesn't it is a world of hurt.
2. She isn't special but her failure is being unfairly singled out
3. Any failure of any of the thunder brothers means the Storm Tribe
warband is fatally weakened.
Pick one of those, there is no 4. #1 is very interesting. #2 seems to me
what is happening. #3 has some fascinating mythical repurcussions. Can't
wait to see what Lunar heroquesters would do with that. "Hmmm, let's just
make sure one thunder brother doesn't make any battle they won". Pretty
soon the hero plane will be littered with Orlanthi defeats and the
heortlings will all be stickpickers. I can see why the Lunars conquered
Sartar.
"I am Prince of Sartar and I have summoned my army. We shall defeat the
Lunars"
"Um sorry Prince, but Joe the pathetic has twisted his ancle again, the
warband will be one short"
"Arggh, no, our myths say that when one person is lacking from the warband
we loose. Sartar is DOOMED."
Oh, please.
>> Get over it. Sure Vinga let's women into men's societal roles, but
>> Orlanthi sexuality is so relaxed that a man's *societal* role says
> nothing
>> about a man's *sexual* role. Or a woman's societal role anything about
>> her sexual role. Everything said about Vinga applies to Nandan. My
> bet
>> is a whole lot of Nandans prefer women in their beds.
>
> Could be. But probably not most.
You have not commented on my real point, which is that functional gender role and sexual gender role do not have to be linked and the evidence that Orlanthi are rather relaxed about sexual roles tends to imply they would make no hard and fast link between "a man's role in society" and "a man's role in sex". Given that we can easily have "Vingan's are men" meaning the have a man's functional societal role (ie fighting and/or farming) without it having to say *anything* about their sexual prefernces. Ditto for Nandan. So why bother pushing the line that it does?
Michael
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