OOTS #1068 - The Discussion Thread

[MoonCat]

See, in an environment where any weak links could be considered unacceptable, women taking their own fair share of credit might still be seen as being the weak link and being 'pushy,' because of unconscious biases on the part of their, let's say, managers.

And in this case, holding back could also be read as letting her male cohort take the lead, so she wouldn't be seen as 'bossy,' which might have meant following his sub-par commands in a case where she could have defeated Roy better in another way.

These are all distinct real life parallels, and sadly, the mere fact that they are in a gender-integrated workplace, even one that relies on everyone doing their best, does not save it from having these issues.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Either way, I don't so much have a problem with the point being made so much as that it interrupted the flow of the scene in its ham-handedness.

I don't know, it just makes no sense other than attempting to deliver a real-world social message that sounds kinda clumsy and awkward in this context.

These two comments remind me so much of the "complaints" about "bad writing" in the comic where Bandana off-handedly mentioned having had a girlfriend that I think I'll bow out of this conversation right now.

GW

[Spellbreaker26]

So if they fight people stronger then they are, it doesn't matter, and if they fight people weaker than they are, I think we can safely assume it doesn't matter.... so this system would only mean that the less competent wouldn't last long with the other one holding back, but only for a narrow range of skilled enemies?

I honestly don't understand what you're talking about.

Random chance can affect anyone, so in war you have to be going all-out during battle (within reason, i.e. keeping within rules of war).

Anything less is not only putting yourself in danger but your comrades as well. Whether you're fighting stronger or weaker enemies, the result of going at less than all-out means a higher chance of death.

*Neither* of them would last long if either held back.

Either way, I don't see this discussion going anywhere particularly enlightening, so the upshot is
"Laugh at the funny sexy shoeless god of war"

[Peelee]

I honestly don't understand what you're talking about.

Random chance can affect anyone, so in war you have to be going all-out during battle (within reason, i.e. keeping within rules of war).

Anything less is not only putting yourself in danger but your comrades as well. Whether you're fighting stronger or weaker enemies, the result of going at less than all-out means a higher chance of death.

*Neither* of them would last long if either held back.

OK, I can break it down for you. You said, "having anyone perform less-than-their best seems fairly low down based purely on the fact that you won't last very long."

Except that you also say that Roy is so powerful that they both wouldn't last long anyway. And if the giants fight anyone weaker than the weakest giant, then they would likely both survive. So, you are saying that the giants won't last very long, but only against a very specific level of enemy.

Better?

[SaintRidley]

I get the joke - that she feels sexist pressure not to overshadow her male colleagues. But it just doesn't work that well in this context; partially because the giants have gender-integrated combat units and partially because the intention of hyping up the bad situation Roy's in is unnecessary because we already know he's massively screwed.

We have a gender-integrated work force, but this is still a real thing in real world workplaces anyway. The joke works perfectly well because it mirrors the real world perfectly. And that's sad.

[Quibblicious]

Find the ship, save Roy, get the sword?


(re: lean in)

I didn't get the joke

I had to google it.

Still not 100% sure I got it right. Must've failed my bardic knowledge check.

Q

[Jasdoif]

*Neither* of them would last long if either held back.

That is indeed the problem being expressed: one of them held back, and the other didn't last.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

I didn't quite get the "Lean in" part of the joke, but the rest of it was hilarious and sadly far too relevant. I hope that when Thyrm remakes the world, he makes it a more equal one.

Also, those last panels remind me of that sinking feeling one gets when late and having missed the only form of transportation available.

[Knaight]

This makes no sense. Her comment only works if she's in an integrated combat unit. Her complaint is that there is pressure put on her to not overshadow less-able male fighters. If there weren't integrated combat units, how would she be pressured to not overshadow male fighters she doesn't fight next to?

I wouldn't say that. There need to be both male and female fighters/raiders/whatever, but if the individual combat units weren't integrated it's not like it would be that hard for the same pressure to show up in a slightly different form regarding an all female unit outperforming an all male unit.

[FlawedParadigm]

Maybe the next world will have more gender equality?

Ah, that's it. The Order will fail and the new world the Gods create will be an idealistic version of our world, which is why the Rift World isn't ours.

[Ganbatte]

See, in an environment where any weak links could be considered unacceptable, women taking their own fair share of credit might still be seen as being the weak link and being 'pushy,' because of unconscious biases on the part of their, let's say, managers.

And in this case, holding back could also be read as letting her male cohort take the lead, so she wouldn't be seen as 'bossy,' which might have meant following his sub-par commands in a case where she could have defeated Roy better in another way.

These are all distinct real life parallels, and sadly, the mere fact that they are in a gender-integrated workplace, even one that relies on everyone doing their best, does not save it from having these issues.

Regardless it's her own choice to take the road of "sucking it up and play low" instead of fighting the fight where it belongs. If she's as strong as she claims then she could easily duel her male colleagues or prove her worth in ways that cannot be ignored by her elders, but she apparently didn't do that.
What's certain is that throwing a fit at Roy berating her culture and God won't help.
I don't know if you watched the movie G.I. Jane but that's the correct approach to take in these situations. Less whining, more acting.

That is indeed the problem being expressed: one of them held back, and the other didn't last.

Maybe if she hadn't held back she could've saved her comrade and proved herself to be a valid asset. Just a thought.

[Unoriginal]

What do you mean? She's not doing anything for them, she's fighting with them.

And is expected to give them the credit.


Think of this like that: there is a group project in an office, with a sexist guy and a woman having to work together. The woman does her share, and even more when the guy dumps his work on her, then once she's finished the guy go "well, took you long enough", go to the boss and claim all the credit, downplaying the woman's part in everything.

And in a group one single weakling can mean doom for the whole party.

She wasn't pretending to be weak, she was pretending to be on the same level as her male peers, presumably because Frost Giant female fighters are expected to not overshadow them.

Which means they do know she's strong enough to pull her own weight, meaning that there's no reason for her to conceal her own strenght.

She was clearly known to pull her own weight, but seemingly hid that she was better than this.

I don't know, it just makes no sense other than attempting to deliver a real-world social message that sounds kinda clumsy and awkward in this context.

I admit it's a bit awkward, but I think it's because it's due to the pacing of how it was delivered.

But she's not doing that, in fact if you read the strip she's actually scorning her own God for that. What kind of frost giant is she? Does she not care for her own religion and customs as well?

As I said, she apparently had enough of the parts of her religion and customs that are putting her at a disadvantage. Doesn't mean she disagree about the rest.

[Jasdoif]

Maybe if she hadn't held back she could've saved her comrade and proved herself to be a valid asset.

The lack thereof is the problem being expressed, yes.

[Unoriginal]

Regardless it's her own choice to take the road of "sucking it up and play low" instead of fighting the fight where it belongs. If she's as strong as she claims then she could easily duel her male colleagues

Evil Giant society. They could just slit her throat in her sleep, if she does too much waves. Even if she's tough, there is a lot more of them than there is of her, so if they're pissed enough they can dispose of her.

or prove her worth in ways that cannot be ignored by her elders, but she apparently didn't do that.

She's doing this right now.

What's certain is that throwing a fit at Roy berating her culture and God won't help.

Mid-combat banter isn't about helping, it's about venting

Maybe if she didn't hold back she could've saved her comrade and proved herself to be a valid asset. Just a thought.

Again, Evil Giant society.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I wouldn't say that. There need to be both male and female fighters/raiders/whatever, but if the individual combat units weren't integrated it's not like it would be that hard for the same pressure to show up in a slightly different form regarding an all female unit outperforming an all male unit.

Slightly different is the key - in WW2, Russia had all-female flying teams (the infamous Night Witches), who got the worst equipment and fairly bad missions, so that even if they were better than male pilots, they'd never get the chance to shine.

In an integrated team, the mission, equipment and other crucial variables are much harder to segregate - therefore the better fighter would shine... which is why in this case, pressure is put specifically on the female to not claim any kills she does make.

The specific sexist issue here is when females are pressured into extol a male's performance above her own by giving him credit for her work - that is only possible if they are both in the same situation at the same time - i.e. a mixed team.

Grey Wolf

[Kish]

This is indeed very much like the reaction when Bandana casually mentioned a female ex.

What I'm wondering is how long it will take the people with these objections to realize that the never-reminds-them-LGBT-people-exist-and-sexism-is-real-and-bad comic they were reading is never coming back.

[Ganbatte]

Unoriginal I'm not gonna respond to pyramids of text. No offence I just don't like that sort of discussing. All I'll say is that a "group office project" is an entirely unrelatable and different situation than a fighting with your life on the line in a fantasy setting.
Honestly that's the problem with most "social messages" like these, they tend to forget that the setting of this story makes them look kinda wacky considering what's actually at work most of the times.

She's doing this right now.

She let all her comrades die by playing low against an obviously strong opponent then after their defeat she's going all out. Honestly I'd demote her or worse if I was an Elder of an evil Frost Giant society as you say. It's moronic beyond belief in terms of fighting and clearly, clearly shows that her emotional state makes her non-viable as part of a fighting team.

[Keltest]

She let all her comrades die by playing low against an obviously strong opponent then after their defeat she's going all out. Honestly I'd demote her or worse if I was an Elder of an evil Frost Giant society as you say. It's moronic beyond belief in terms of fighting and clearly, clearly shows that her emotional state makes her non-viable as part of a fighting team.

Agreed. Letting a male warrior take credit for your work is entirely different from deliberately holding back so as to not upstage them, even if they do stem from a similar societal problem. The former is significantly more plausible than the latter, but is not what is going on here.

[Snails]

Random chance can affect anyone, so in war you have to be going all-out during battle (within reason, i.e. keeping within rules of war).

Anything less is not only putting yourself in danger but your comrades as well. Whether you're fighting stronger or weaker enemies, the result of going at less than all-out means a higher chance of death.

Real people are not necessarily practical and rational in that way. Sometimes it is for a very good reason: they fear the wrath of the their leaders far more than the danger posed by their enemies. That can be perfectly rational, for the individual.

There is risk to doing stupid things, but sometimes that is the only path out of a 100% certain lose-lose scenario: damned if I outperform my male colleagues, damned if I die. By sandbagging, she gets a real chance of both winning laurels (even if an unfairly small share) and not getting exiled.

In terms of not trying all out, something similar can happen at the highest levels of strategy, too. Fearful of sudden defeat or even fearful of one's own generals, a ruler may keep the best loyal troops far away from battle. Of course, that can create a track record of death by a thousand losses, where the bad troops know they are considered expendable because they are. It also makes the ruler absolutely terrified of losing control of his precious few loyal quality troops, after so many losses. Example: Arguably the Nationalist Chinese purposefully kept their precious few good divisions away from the battles with the Communists, until the war was decided by little loss after little loss, and those elite well-equipped well-trained troops never got to do anything but cover a retreat to Taiwan.

[MoonCat]

Regardless it's her own choice to take the road of "sucking it up and play low" instead of fighting the fight where it belongs. If she's as strong as she claims then she could easily duel her male colleagues or prove her worth in ways that cannot be ignored by her elders, but she apparently didn't do that.
What's certain is that throwing a fit at Roy berating her culture and God won't help.
I don't know if you watched the movie G.I. Jane but that's the correct approach to take in these situations. Less whining, more acting.

It seems evident that you have never been in this type of a situation. Fighting with your colleagues is just as easily described as being unprofessional behaviour when they're supposed to be working as a team. She could just as easily get called an insecure woman being unnecessarily aggressive because she wants to prove herself for attempting such a thing.

In terms of proving herself to her elders, the whole point is that she is not seen as an equal by her elders despite being equal or better than her colleagues. You can't tell someone to prove themselves equal by being good at what they do when their issue is that their being good at what they do is ignored.

I find it interesting that you call her behaviour 'throwing a fit.' She is a warrior in combat, showing the same aggression literally every other fighter is. Why is she the one throwing a fit? How is it different from any other wordy war-cry we've seen in OoTS?

I have not seen G.I. Jane, but how is anything of what this ice giant has done whining? She is competently kicking Roy's butt right now, while also talking as a free action, in a way that is hardly whining but sounds exactly like all the other combat-banter we've seen in OoTS. What is she doing wrong here?

[Shining Wrath]

There is exactly one person who knows the details of Frost Giant society and its gender roles: Rich Burlew.
And he has told you that from the perspective of Fur Bikini Giant, she is expected to give credit for her achievements to less-capable men. And that she has to not display greater competence, which is somewhat different than using greater competence.

Now, she may be exaggerating. And the difference between her best effort, and her not-showing-up-the-men effort, may be 1% or less. Or huge. We don't know.

Nonetheless, she has told us that her society pressures her to be subservient to men. And the only person who knows how true that is, is the person who those words in her mouth.

It's not just seen in the male-female context. For example, in In the Heart of the Sea we saw how there was pressure on the mate to not display greater competence than the captain, because of family status, even though having a ship sink in the middle of the ocean is a survival matter. Similar things have happened in armies where the officers were of noble birth and the non-coms were not; or in armies where the officers went to college and the non-coms did not.

Since we can establish from observing our real world that people of lower status are expected to not show up people of higher status in life or death situations, we can believe the giantess that such a thing happens in OotS-world without any quibbling or complaint. If she becomes a recurring character we may learn whether or not she's exaggerating the level of sexism she faces, but no one should doubt that real-world people are willing to die in order to maintain rank and status.

[Ruslan]

So, uh, the giants have no problem with integrating women into their fighting lots (where one weak link in the chain might spell doom for all) but at the same time they don't feel like acknowledging their strength? How does that work?

Same way it does in the real world. Most on this board could recognize the blindingly-obvious parallels. It was a good allegory. Well played, Giant!

[Ganbatte]

It seems evident that you have never been in this type of a situation. Fighting with your colleagues is just as easily described as being unprofessional behaviour when they're supposed to be working as a team.

Then earn the trust of your team. Beat them up (friendly) sometimes. Save their lifes a few times. Sometimes play it slightly low, sometimes show them you're worthy of respect by kicking their faces to the ground. Show them you're not what they believe or would like you to be.
If given no choice, eventually, they'll learn to accept who you actually are.
If they believe you to be a weakling and want you to fit that status the worst possible thing you can do is kneel down and act like the weakling they see. You'll never earn anything like that.

She could just as easily get called an insecure woman being unnecessarily aggressive because she wants to prove herself for attempting such a thing.

Then succeed and put all that to silence. As a wise guy said "Talking is free action".

I find it interesting that you call her behaviour 'throwing a fit.' She is a warrior in combat, showing the same aggression literally every other fighter is. Why is she the one throwing a fit? How is it different from any other wordy war-cry we've seen in OoTS?

Because unlike all the other warrios her aggression is entirely directed at herself and her colleagues/society. It's like she's not even seeing Roy there, so it's totally throwing a fit.

[Adeptus]

I have a feeling there will be no showdown with Xykon in the near future.

[Spellbreaker26]

I have a feeling there will be no showdown with Xykon in the near future.

But I mean, that would be the end of the comic.

Priorities:
1. Get to the dwarves and stop Durkon*
2. Get to the North Pole and reunite with O-Chul and Lien.
3. Stop Xykon.

It's one thing to say "gosh, they've been fighting the giants a while". It's another to say "when is this oveeeer".

[Snails]

Since we can establish from observing our real world that people of lower status are expected to not show up people of higher status in life or death situations, we can believe the giantess that such a thing happens in OotS-world without any quibbling or complaint.

Indeed.

There have been airliner crashes where the 1st mate thought the captain was probably making an error, but kept his mouth tight shut because embarrassing his higher status boss would be too painful. Or it seemed so in the moment.

These are incidents where people died and potentially every life on board the airplane could have been lost. We know the details because enough of the crew survived to validate that the instruments said what they were supposed to say, and at least one member of the flight crew noticed as much as the danger approached.

This has happened multiple times. It happened at SFO not very many years ago with a Korean airliner.

[Ganbatte]

This is indeed very much like the reaction when Bandana casually mentioned a female ex.

What I'm wondering is how long it will take the people with these objections to realize that the never-reminds-them-LGBT-people-exist-and-sexism-is-real-and-bad comic they were reading is never coming back.

Heh. Probably the same it'll take for people to realize that hand-waving someone's points and arguments doesn't make them disappear.

[hroþila]

Then earn the trust of your team. Beat them up (friendly) sometimes. Save their lifes a few times. Sometimes play it slightly low, sometimes show them you're worthy of respect by kicking their faces to the ground. Show them you're not what they believe or would like you to be.
If given no choice, eventually, they'll learn to accept who you actually are.
If they believe you to be a weakling and want you to fit that status the worst possible thing you can do is kneel down and act like the weakling they see. You'll never earn anything like that.



Then succeed and put all that to silence. As a wise guy said "Talking is free action".



Because unlike all the other warrios her aggression is entirely directed at herself and her colleagues/society. It's like she's not even seeing Roy there, so it's totally throwing a fit.

"Why don't you just overcome sexism and be done with it?"

[Joerg]

Hmm, I would not have expected that frost giantess to be someone who downplays her own abilities because of social pressure. But then, I didn't know much about her and even less about frost giant society.

It's somehow sad that she was holding back and that perhaps contributed to the death of her colleague. Also that she seems to be more concerned with these issues than with that death. But then, perhaps the death isn't that terrible because of a probable "raise dead" spell. Or perhaps she really hated him?

Anyway, it's difficult for me to imagine that if I was fighting together with someone and he was killed (and it was partially my fault) my primary thought would be "finally I can show how good I am at fighting". I guess frost giantesses in OotS world are too far away from my own experiences.

[Basement Cat]

The Title "Ship Abandon" made me wonder if someone's romance (Elan and Haley's?) was about to come to an abrupt halt. *phew* Dodged that bullet!

I don't get the "Lean in" comment either.

My Playground sense is tingling: I detect many pages of Frost Giant gender culture debates to come!!!