Elves and fridgehorror in OotS

[krossbow]

As we've seen so far in the order of the stick comic, Its incredibly hard for Female elves to be told apart from male elves; they are, to put it bluntly, apparently flat, and they apparently are not paradigms of Human beauty;.


Conversely, Hilgya is instantly recognizable as female, and on sight easily seen to be have numerous human characteristics normall assigned to females.


Adding all these together, logic dictates that Dwarven woman are more feminine and (apparently) beautiful than Elven woman.

[MoonCat]

Lirian would like to have a word with you.

Also, what's so fridge horror about that?

[Gift Jeraff]

There are at least 3 nameless elves in SoD with breasts like Lirian's.

I wouldn't be surprised if gender ambiguity varied by subrace.

[krossbow]

Lirian would like to have a word with you.

Also, what's so fridge horror about that?

Dwarven woman being more feminine than elven woman is a paradox Its like the order universe is dividing by zero.

[ORione]

Dwarven woman being more feminine than elven woman is a paradox Its like the order universe is dividing by zero.

Eh, it doesn't really horrify me.

[MoonCat]

Dwarven woman being more feminine than elven woman is a paradox Its like the order universe is dividing by zero.

How the heck is it a paradox?

I'll take it you don't mean paradox as in the actual meaning or paradox, but I don't get it. The only difference between a Dwarven woman and a human woman wearing similar armor is height, but that has nothing to do with femininity. Or are female dwarves not typically considered feminine because they're short?

[krossbow]

How the heck is it a paradox?

I'll take it you don't mean paradox as in the actual meaning or paradox, but I don't get it. The only difference between a Dwarven woman and a human woman wearing similar armor is height, but that has nothing to do with femininity. Or are female dwarves not typically considered feminine because they're short?

Dwarven woman in fantasy are often described as having full beards, being of duplicate body shape as males, and generally lacking most (or any) of the general characteristics of the human female. This was the source of the joke in the Two towers movie and in the original Dungeons and dragons movie about Dwarven woman and beards. (as an addendum, even in early days of Warcraft, dwarven woman were described as possessing beards and being difficult to tell apart from the men, prior the MMO's prettying them up). It has nothing to do with height but Body hair and body shape.

Elven woman on the other hand in most mediums are described as generally being supernaturally beautful by human standards (including breast size); Dwarven woman (at least in early fantasy days) were depicted as being ultra lacking in femininity while Elven woman possessed ultra feminity. I am pointing out the fact that this fairly long established paradigm is inverted, hence the paradoxical nature. Its similiar to having an icecube be hot while fire is cold in the universe.

[Flame of Anor]

Dwarven woman in fantasy are often described as having full beards, being of duplicate body shape as males, and generally lacking most (or any) of the general characteristics of the human female. This was the source of the joke in the Two towers movie and in the original Dungeons and dragons movie about Dwarven woman and beards. (as an addendum, even in early days of Warcraft, dwarven woman were described as possessing beards and being difficult to tell apart from the men, prior the MMO's prettying them up). It has nothing to do with height but Body hair and body shape.

Elven woman on the other hand in most mediums are described as generally being supernaturally beautful by human standards (including breast size); Dwarven woman (at least in early fantasy days) were depicted as being ultra lacking in femininity while Elven woman possessed ultra feminity. I am pointing out the fact that this fairly long established paradigm is inverted, hence the paradoxical nature. Its similiar to having an icecube be hot while fire is cold in the universe.

Note: dwarf women have beards in Tolkien, too, it just doesn't really come up in LotR.

[FujinAkari]

What in the world makes you think Elven Women are not distinguishable from Elven Men? We have a lot of evidence otherwise, in fact there are at most two cases in the entire comic of those which are ambiguous, neither of which were intentional but more developed from an inside joke (Remember, V was intended to be unambiguously male, but when there was some confusion Rich decided to make it ambiguous)

[MoonCat]

What in the world makes you think Elven Women are not distinguishable from Elven Men? We have a lot of evidence otherwise, in fact there are at most two cases in the entire comic of those which are ambiguous, neither of which were intentional but more developed from an inside joke (Remember, V was intended to be unambiguously male, but when there was some confusion Rich decided to make it ambiguous)

Actually, The Giant has never revealed what V was originally intended to be, just that V was intended to be something before he ran with the ambiguity thing.

[FujinAkari]

Actually, The Giant has never revealed what V was originally intended to be, just that V was intended to be something before he ran with the ambiguity thing.

While technically correct, Rich has said, quite explicitly, that the "V-man" reference in Comic #9 was what caused the forumites to begin talking about gender and their preconceptions of Gender. Until then he had always had a specific gender in mind and never thought to make it vague.

While, technically, he never said what gender that was, it's pretty hard to think it was female :P

[Dr.Epic]

Lirian would like to have a word with you.

Yeah. It's just V and V's mate as part of a running gag.

[zimmerwald1915]

Dwarven woman in fantasy are often described as having full beards, being of duplicate body shape as males, and generally lacking most (or any) of the general characteristics of the human female. This was the source of the joke in the Two towers movie and in the original Dungeons and dragons movie about Dwarven woman and beards. (as an addendum, even in early days of Warcraft, dwarven woman were described as possessing beards and being difficult to tell apart from the men, prior the MMO's prettying them up). It has nothing to do with height but Body hair and body shape.

Actually, in OOTS we've seen dwarf women both with and without beards. Hilgya had no beard, both when we see her in the Dungeon of Dorukan and in her flashbacks to her time with Ivan in the Dwarven Lands, though it's possible she could have shaved to be iconoclastic. Meanwhile, in SoD we see a bearded dwarf woman billed as a Bearded Lady freak show, and the audience reacts as though they've been cheated, the assumption being that the audience expected dwarf women to be bearded by default.

Meanwhile we've seen elf women run the gamut of secondary sexual characteristics as they've been translated into stick figure style, from the human-with-pointy-ears look of Lirian and her cohorts, to the rounded posterior but flat chest of Team Peregrine's Lieutenant, to the lacking-any-identifying-marks Vaarsuvius (assuming V's female).

[Gift Jeraff]

Considering how much she loathed the dwarven lifestyle, Hilgya probably isn't a good example of typical dwarven women.

[Flame of Anor]

Perhaps there are no dwarf women, and dwarves just spring out of holes in the ground. (Hilgya was a cosplayer.)

[ThePhantasm]

Perhaps there are no dwarf women, and dwarves just spring out of holes in the ground.

Ha ha ha ha of course that would be ridiculous.

[Ancalagon]

Note: dwarf women have beards in Tolkien, too, it just doesn't really come up in LotR.

Where is that said? Is there some source from Tolkien that proofs that?

So far the "Dwarven Women have beards and look like the men" is a parody from the Pratchett-books. Does anyone actually know a original, serious work of fantasy where dwarven women have beards and are otherwise indistinguishable from the males?

I must say I do not know one, which would make the Pratchett books to be a parody of something that never occurred anywhere...

edit: Never mind, found some Tolkien source. Dwarves there have beards from birth... both genders.

[hewhosaysfish]

Adding all these together, logic dictates that Dwarven woman are more feminine and (apparently) beautiful than Elven woman.

Even if we accept the premises, the conclusion doesn't necessarily follow.

If male and female elves are equally feminine, and female dwarves are more feminine than male dwarves...

Elves (male and female alike) could be more feminine than female dwarves, less feminine than male dwarves or more than males but less than females.

Assuming, of course, that femininity is a simple and linear mumerical scale.

[Solaris]

So this is where all of the incredibly lame, not at all disturbing examples of 'horror' on TV Tropes come from.

[SPoD]

Considering how much she loathed the dwarven lifestyle, Hilgya probably isn't a good example of typical dwarven women.

Yeah, this. Maybe the fact that she shaves makes her particularly alluring or beautiful, which would explain Durkon falling for her so hard.

Like how human women naturally CAN grow hair hair on their legs, armpits, etc., but many (most?) choose to shave it to appear more feminine. Technically, there's nothing biologically more feminine about being hairless in those areas, but that's how standards of beauty have evolved.

[Dvandemon]

So this is where all of the incredibly lame, not at all disturbing examples of 'horror' on TV Tropes come from.

Now we need to just find and delete them

I think people just want to bring something up on the main subject page but don't know how

[Blisstake]

Fridge horror?

What does this have to do with refridgerators?

[ORione]

Perhaps there are no dwarf women, and dwarves just spring out of holes in the ground. (Hilgya was a cosplayer.)

We can ask Durkon if Hilgya is female or not...

[TheSummoner]

Elf men and women being indistinguishable doesn't make the Elf women any less feminine... Just makes the Elf men moreso.

[Flame of Anor]

Fridge horror?

What does this have to do with refridgerators?

It's a derivation of the term "Fridge Logic". Go to TvTropes.org for more, but basically fridge logic is when you're watching something and you get up for a drink from the kitchen, and just when you get to the fridge you think Waaaaiiiit a second--that doesn't make sense! And fridge horror is when the thing you realize is horrifying.

[MoonCat]

It's a derivation of the term "Fridge Logic". Go to TvTropes.org for more, but basically fridge logic is when you're watching something and you get up for a drink from the kitchen, and just when you get to the fridge you think Waaaaiiiit a second--that doesn't make sense! And fridge horror is when the thing you realize is horrifying.

And while you're right, this isn't really fridge horror at all. Or a paradox.

[ORione]

At most it's Fridge Logic, and I don't really see that either, for reasons that have been listed.

[The Pilgrim]

While, technically, he never said what gender that was, it's pretty hard to think it was female :P

Oh, come on, Rich assigned PINK as the magic-signature color for V back in the first panel of the FIRST strip. Not that you can't assing pink to a male, but traditional color-sex conventions mean it's FAR more probable that Rich assigned pink to V because he thought V originally as a female.

Not to mention V and Haley were shown engaged in girly talk at the begining of Strip #3. Which brings in the issue that, from a storytelling perspective, it's better to have 2 girls in a 6-people party than just one. That way you can exploit puns and situations that require the presence or/and the interaction of two female characters. In the comic, V has served plenty of times in the role of a female for such purposes.

Not to mention a trillion other points, like the fact that "man" is a neuter word.

Really, it would be fine if people stopped trying to shove that "V was originally intended to be a male" in every discussion like if it was a fact, when it's not.

[The Pilgrim]

Adding all these together, logic dictates that Dwarven woman are more feminine and (apparently) beautiful than Elven woman.

Or, on the other hand, logic dictates that Elven men are more affeminate than Dwarven men, thus making it hard to tell them apart from the females.

Which, by the way, is the conclussion that led to the running gag about elves that has been around since, like, fantasy-role-playing was born.

[Flame of Anor]

Not to mention V and Haley were shown engaged in girly talk at the begining of Strip #3.

It's only Haley who is girly-talking. "A most grave conundrum you faced" is hardly girly-talk. They were just two friends talking, one of which is a girl and one of which we don't know.