Diney heroines

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

10 points to Spriggan

[fuzzyoctopus]

Just thought of another cartoon diva, but I am not sure if it was a "diney" character.

Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Any thoughts?

She should have won that poll.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Oh she did...

[Mistress of Darkness]

That doesn't change the fact that I have a hard time accepting a female character weilding one. They are long if nothing else and that takes more strength to swing than a smaller sword of the same weight if only because of the increased surface area and therefore air resistance.

Thank you for the article. I'm going to enjoy reading it.

[Fellfrosch]

The fairies in Sleeping Beauty are pretty strong female characters--I hadn't thought of that.

The strongest woman I've ever read in a novel, who stayed completely "female" the whole time, was in Mama Day. That had a few, actually.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

and for more reason than that, actually, the length of an object means that the weight furthest from where it is held requires more strength to lift. Spinning weight is even more, and while that's not directly analogous to swinging it, the swinging certainly adds a lot more inertia.

I'm not a physicist or a biologist/physician, so I don't know how easy/difficult even a light weapon of that size would be to weild.

[Entsuropi]

MoD, when swinging a sword the edge is tapered down to a point. In other words, they are aero-dynamic by default.

And remember women in the army will be expected to run around with 20, 30 pounds worth of equipment at least - their supplies and equipment plus a rifle if they have one. Tents, water canteens, cooking and survival gear - it all adds up. Modern soldiers carry a lot more than medieval soldiers did, since they carry the stuff that used to be taken around in the wagon trains.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I dunno, Ent, I'd still have to talk with someone who actually did it. Or else SEE a woman fight successfully with a Claymore. For several reasons.

1) swiging a large sword is a very different kind of muscle strength than the endurance of carrying a load. If you don't think so, I challenge you to do 50 reps with 150 pound curls. After you've rested, try carrying a 150 pound weight for fifteen minutes. Both will probably make you tired, esp if you're not used to it, but the reps will wear those muscles out more. You'll also find that the aches are in completely different parts of your body.

2) There's the whole going up against men thing. A claymore isn't a delicate, stylized weapon, whatever the weight. It's a club with a cutting edge. That means it's strength against strength. And as Skar has pointed out before most women will lost against most men in such a contest. The shock of blocking blows alone will wear them down eventually, leaving them less capable of blocking more. This is the sort of fight where women would be inherently less capable.

3) It's not as much of a factor as MoD pointed out, but because it's aerodynamic does not ELIMINATE air resistance. And as a bigger object, it's going to have more air resistance than a smaller object of similar design.

[Entsuropi]

The article disagrees with your 'club with a cutting edge' thing SE.

And again: A woman who pushes to become physically fit could concievably have equal strength as many opponents.

[Skar]

But her time would be far better spent training to emphasize her inherent strengths(or rather equalities) rather than weaknesses.  Such as speed and ruthlessness.  I suspect that women can be just as fast as men...

Though thinking about the difference in 100 meter sprint times between men and women and the fact that women ping-pongers don't compete with men ping-pongers leads me to doubt it now that I think about it.

...and speed of hand carries a great deal of importance in all hand-to-hand combat.  A speedy and skilled opponent can beat an unskilled and slow but very strong opponent.   Of course, everyone knows this and if a woman were to go into battle expecting to fight only very strong, slow, and unskilled opponents she would soon be shockingly disabused of the notion.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

except that she's up against opponents who have also trained, and therefore would also have reached higher levels of strength. Given the relative capacities for strength, my point still stands.

as for the article disagreeing with me "where they would hack paths through knocking aside poles, possibly even lobbing the ends off opposing halberds and pikes then slashing and stabbing among the ranks" sounds like they're mostly swinging it around.

The picture of the guy actually stabbing with it shows a man with no guard up. This technique would be used against a man who is not prepared to strike back soon. ie, it wouldn't be something used when fighting against an armed and mobile opponent. The opponent would have to be disarmed (or had his spear knocked aside, as in the above quote, then the attacker moving inside the spear's effective striking area) before the stabbing part could come into play.

The closest I can see to that article "disagreeing" with me is this quote: "the late 15th and early 16th century two-handed greatsword was not a crude excessively heavy bludgeoning weapon but a fairly agile and balanced weapon designed for close-combat in war and occasional duel."

Which it doesn't really. My comparison implies the crude and heavy bit, but that's not the important part of the comparison. What I was really saying is that it was used as a swinging weapon. You can argue about the skill and finesse it can be used with, but compare it to say, a rapier, and your argument is gone. Relatively speaking, it isn't as graceful or accessable to fighters with less strength.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

it also says that they were used as pole arms too... so thats not club like either... but we're getting off target

[MsFish]

The strongest woman I've ever read in a novel, who stayed completely "female" the whole time, was in Mama Day. That had a few, actually.

One of the things I liked about that book was that I don't think the male character was weak either, which is usually what happens when an author tries to write strong female characters.  You end up with stereotype reversal rather than avoidance.

[Fellfrosch]

Such as what happened in Ever After. But I agree, Mama Day managed to have strong characters of both genders. I was impressed.

[MsFish]

Gloria Naylor is just altogether awesome.  What impressed me most about the book was the things she did with point of view.  Amazing stuff.

Have you read anything else by her?  I tried reading Bailey's Cafe, but couldn't get through it, cause the misery was just too graphic.  I'm wondering if all her other stuff is so painful.