Women in Warhammer Fantasy - Depiction of High Elf mages

 

Various depictions and designs of female High Elf mages: Age of Reckoning art concept and playable character, miniature, and an official illustration of mage Aurelion (©Games Workshop)

I'm always ready to rant about how there are so few miniatures of female High Elves in the Warhammer Fantasy range 😕, especially considering the representation got better (if not ideal) with  book characters and the art concepts and playable characters in online games and videogames like Age of Reckoning and Total War. In both of these media we do get more female mages and archmages, Sword Masters of Hoeth (or Mistresses, rather xD), captains and paladins, and so on. In more than one book most of these women are little more than mentions, though, which is still more representation than we get in other media, but still lacking. In other cases, however, we do get primary and secondary characters, as well as playable characters in the games, who are women mages, warriors, loremistresses and artisans 👍. It's not parity in representation by any means, but it's still a way better representation than what we ended up getting in more than one miniature range.

The Sisters of Avelorn, guards and handmaidens of the Everqueen and basically the only female unit (or unit with women, there are not mixed ones) the High Elf Warhammer Fantasy range offered.

But even the brief book mentions of High Elf women doing stuff á la Tyrion and Teclis series are still better that what we got in the miniature range. All infantry and cavalry are male. All special units except for the Sisters of Avelorn and the Handmaidens of the Everqueen, her personal all-female bodyguard, are male. The Everqueen Alarielle might be the only named female character the range has, in comparison to a handful of named male heroes, captains and paladins woth backstories in the High Elf lore. And then there's a lone female mage in the 2000s range, accompanied by at least six male mages. And I think that might be it for the whole High Elf Warhammer Fantasy range. And you know what's even better? I have two High Elf rulebooks, which include a whole section full of painted miniatures on display for each range. Well, none of them include any of the very few female High Elf miniatures, not even the Everqueen! Not even as illustrations! 😐🤨Which is quite telling, to be honest.

Seeing as the origin of this post came from having just read the short story Dragonmage (review here), which features a female mage, I will be talking about this lone female mage miniature today, and about the general depiction of female mages in the High Elf Warhammer Fantasy media ✨. But never you worry (in case you were xD), I'll also be tackling the representation of women in Warhammer, High Elven or otherwise, in other posts as well!

Back to the general discussion before that, though xD

I remember asking a question at a Q&A with some official Games Workshop (male) folks at a Warhammer convention back in 2011, about the reason why we weren't getting more female miniatures paired with the appearance of more female representation in the videogame media, in ranges such as the High Elves and others. The response I got was quite literally a carelessly dismissive 'We haven't really thought about the interest or need for it, so it's not anything we're planning at the moment' 😑🙃. The only thing they could have added to make it even better is something like 'But you already have like two female miniatures to choose from, I fail to see where the problem is!' Which was sort of inferred anyway, if you ask me 🤪.

 The utter lack of interest Warhammer Fantasy had to translate the (not stellar either) new representation female High Elves were getting in the rest of the Warhammer media to the actual miniature world, which is the backbone of this hobby after all, speaks volumes (but it isn't new to see that we often get more representation in the expanded universe of a fandom rather than the main medium, though). As is often the case in the geeky world, but most especially in the strategy battle games and other gaming hobbies, ➡️the scarcity of playable female miniatures (big bonus if they're designed in a non-sexualized and practical way) and its apparent low demand in the High Elf range and in others (as opposed to the highly sexualized 'warrior women' in the Dark Elf range heh) keeps on normalizing the male-dominated aspect of the Warhammer lore and the Warhammer hobbyists⬅️. 

In many areas of the media and also in the patriarchal discourse of real life, women are already seen as the Special and the Other. To frame women who are intelligent, courageous and capable, warriors, rulers or explorers, as an 'exceptional minority' rather than something all women are capable of depending on their own individual capabilities, aspirations and inclinarions is nothing more than a calculated piece of misinformation in order to maintain the control of the set of gender roles and stereotypes which are the foundations of the patriarchal statu quo. This statu quo must be always upholded and maintained, so apparently it's not that all women have different inclinations and capabilities, or that all women should enjoy the exact same rights as the ones privileged by a patriarchal society (men) to choose whatever they want to do. No, it's that most women are allegedly happy to conform to their set of gender roles in life (biological determinism at work), and then there are some "exceptional women", an exceptional minority that of course has *nothing* to do with men forbidding women to minimally deviate from their set place in the first place. These women are then sometimes 'allowed' by the system to choose a different path, a more proactive ""masculine"" one, and bonus points if their individual emancipation and empowerment suits the goals of the system by making these Exceptional Women work in its benefit, at the service of men and imperialist, monarchical patriarchies (we see this in the figure of Mulan, for example, which is a reason why I don't stan the character so much as I used to do in my childhood and early teens :S - but that is a whole separate post xD). 

Thus, in the militaristic, epic context of the worlds of Warhammer, a male-dominated hobby (with a hell of a lot of incels as its followers and probably creators, by the way, which doesn't help matters), the women that we end up getting are just like that - A lone female ruler or an all-women elite unit who more often than not serve an imperialist, patriarchal system rather than the emancipation of women as a whole or even their own (such as the personal bodyguards and handmaidens of Odin, the Valkyries, or the Greek goddess Athena, who is more often that not and very frustratingly at the service of her misogynistic father Zeus). And so, in the High Elf range we also get the lone magical Queen with her special and exceptional female guard (we will talk about them in another post, they're still pretty awesome), and the lone female mage surrounded by male peers, and why would we need to have any more when we already have a couple of women in the range?? How greedy female Warhammer hobbyists are, wanting more 🙄. 

 These women are still representation, and often awesome in their own right, but apart from the fact that we deserve *more*, they also reinforce this idea that these women are here at all because they're the Exceptional, the Other, or the Afterthought (a couple are more than enough!), and either the Special Unit, and often just one per range if any (mixed units are a rare sight in all Warhammer ranges), or the Token Strong Woman surrounded by male peers and isolated from the rest of her gender. That being said, I do love the concept of a female ruler with an all-female personal bodyguard because that sounds like there's a lot more subversion, sorority and feminism going on compared to a rightfully awesome female unit, but at the service of the patriarchal ruler dude or system of your choice. So yeah, I'm totally dedicating a separate post for the Everqueen and her Guard, like I said.

Alarielle the Everqueen (©Games Workshop)

I remember planning a High Elven army in my mid-to-late teenage years and juggling my rising frustration at this fact - well, I wanted some female foot soldiers in a mixed unit, at least, was that so much to ask? - with the hopeful possibility of converting male units with female torsos and faces from the Dark Elf range. This range mainly offers hypersexualization but also some female foot soldiers as well with actual armour (woah), contrasting with the all-male High Elven units (there's also boob plate going on, of course, but that was a given. Honestly, I was totally happy about that, at least I was getting some women in armour and that was saying something here 😅).   This project, of course, would have meant not only the bonus conversion time - which is a great part of the hobby if you like it, but men generally don't have to actually convert and/or sculpt miniatures themselves to get representation of their gender in vast quantities, you know -, but also double the price (at least) of having to get both an all-male High Elven unit and a mixed Dark Elf unit with more men than women anyway (I also find it pretty interesting that the Dark Elf range include women among the foot soldier miniatures, but all High Elven foot soldiers and cavalry are male. And the High Elves are supposed to be the 'good guys' in contrast to their dark cousins, so). And this was before we actually got the Sisters of Avelorn as female High Elf miniatures who were also not hypersexualized (so now I suppose the conversion would use multiple sets of those to create more women in other units , but the main problem still remains).  

  This is a project that ended up in the backburner because it meant a lot of time I didn't have, it was difficult to keep up with my daily (mostly male) painting as it was, but it's a good way to illustrate an example of what can happen if you wanted to play battles with your favourite Warhammer range as a woman hobbyist with a bit of representation of your actual gender, even if you were also OK (because that's the material you had) with painting and playing with 99.9% of male miniatures. You have to create those female miniatures yourself going to other ranges and another brands, even, and look for the already scarce female representation the Warhammer market offered you. This is still  completely normalized in many geeky areas. And when we asked why things were that way we got the dismissive afterthought of 'well, there's no need or interest for more female miniatures (or women in the hobby, really)'. The usual cycle of 'there's no demand so we don't make it' but when you ask for it and express actual interest for it, you get told they don't make it, so that's it, don't ask for it. And then the end result is the apparent 'there's no demand for it anyway'. Yay 😑.

Then there's another problem that joins and worsens the fact that the female representation in all Warhammer Fantasy miniature ranges is minimal - ➡️The fact that the small handful of existing female miniatures are more often than not riddled with hypersexualization, unrealistic female armour and double standards when it comes to the depiction of the same kind of character depending on whether it's male or female. This, of course, is another sign of the male-dominated aspect of this hobby, where the lone female miniatures are mainly there to appeal to the male gaze and the male fantasies⬅️. Warhammer playable female characters are hardly there to appeal to the female audience to want to see some representation or badass women, after all. That's why the most popular female miniatures and characters in Warhammer Fantasy are arguably the highly sexualized Dark Elves, from the enchantresses in navel-deep decolletages to the voluptuous (and sensually savage *sigh*) bikini-clad Witch-Elves (more about this at some other time as well, because wow am I salty about all the hypersexualization and sexist tropes in Warhammer) 😤.

But the Dark Elf range is not the only one with this kind of pattern. The lone Dwarf Queen with an (old edition) miniature has huge boob plate going on. Bretonnian damsels (enchantresses) go to the battlefield clad in extremely tight gowns with multiple tight belts they don't even need except for cinching their bodies even more, and huge cleavages that are not at all suspicious of male gaze. Female vampires (Lahmians) follow the corseted, thigh-high high-heel booted aesthetic to a T.  There is this Kislevite (basically Russian) ranger who travels through the tundra bare armed and shirt-free, with a corset so tight and a cleavage so large her nipples are practially showing - because that makes all the sense in the world, right, to travel the tundra like that, as a ranger?! 😑😵 Amazonian warriors from the jungle? More loincloths, of course, and this time we can even justify the not-at-all sus choice of attire on the weather! And so on and forth. At this point I think it's understandable to see a reasonably protected and practically non-sexualized Dark Elf foot soldier with a breastplate which also has some boob plate going on and well, be fucking elated. Even if as a rule I would say that boob plate is unnecessary as well, but you know, we get what we can get 😬 xD

Male gaze? WHAT MALE GAZE?? Yup, totally realistic and practical and empowered. THIS is usually what female Warhammer hobbyists have to work with. And we have to like it because that's the sign of the truly empowered geek girl, apparently.

Boob plate is not ideal and stuff, but at least these Dark Elf female soldiers are actually wearing full armour! I mean, YAY, FINALLY!

 And yes, we do have *some* (keyword, not many) female miniatures in realistic attire out there as well (some ranges such as the Wood Elves offer a better gender parity as well, albeit not totally free of sexualization either), but pairing the hypersexualization with the fact that women are hardly to be found in the ranges in the first place, we might quite literally count with the fingers of one hand the number of reasonably portrayed female miniatures we can get in each range. And sometimes that's being optimistic, as some ranges have no female representation *at all*, both in Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000. A lone female character or two, or a special female unit, is often the best the ranges can do 😕.

So, after this (lengthy xD) intro - What happens in the High Elf range with the mage miniatures, and how are women portrayed there? And what about their portrayal in the videogames and online role-playing games, where we do get a bit more representation in that respect?

Several male mages alongside the sole lone female mage in the centre (Source)

Well, even though the minimal amount of women in the High Elf range are far less sexualized than in other ranges (Dark Elves *cough cough*), and that compared to what I've just reviewed we could say they're pretty decent depictions and designs, all in all, there's still ye olde double standards regarding the topic of gender versus clothing designs in some respects ⬇️.

The one and only female mage in the High Elven miniature range, to my knowledge (©Games Workshop)

Starting with the miniature range, Games Workshop has considerately cut my work very short because there's just one (1) miniature of a female mage to review (le sigh 😬). And yes, compared to other female miniatures in the Warhammer Fantasy ranges this mage is kinda great, I mean, in and for itself the miniature isn't super *hyper*sexualized in her attire and her pose is adequately badass (which doesn't mean she is still depicted with gendered differences in her design, as we'll see), and I would definitely have bought her for my High Elven army (not that I had a lot of choice of female representation anyway lol).

However, and especially if we compare her to how the male mages are portrayed in their respective miniature designs, we do see some gendered double standards and sexualization 👎, albeit less blatant than in other cases, of course, but still very much there, a continuation of the same problem. The most evident for me is that this female mage wears her wide belt pretty much as an underbust corset or cincher, accentuating her waist and cleavage, and she's also the only one who wears robes (hers is more of a tunic or dress, really) with a low neckline and bare arms. So even if she's not hypersexualized compared to other female miniatures in the Warhammer Fantasy range (she also wears flat boots, which is a definite yay 👍!), her attire is still pretty form fitting to reflect that well, she's a (sexy) woman, I guess 🤷‍♀️.

These differences look more evident if we compare her design to those of the male mages in the range (see below for some examples). The male High Elf mages and archmages are generally clad in more elaborate layered robes and cloaks compared to the more simple sleeveless dress with an unfastened cloak the female mage is wearing. Apart from the fact that I think this look is way more epic and regal for a fantasy mage, and I'm kinda disappointed they didn't give us female mage miniatures also wearing elaborate layered robes, the male mages' clothes are way less form fitting as well, making it evidently clear that in their case what is important is that they look epic, regal, arcane and magical, not sexy (as in, 'in form fitting clothes that focus on their physical attractiveness'). Compared to them, the lone female mage is wearing quite form-fitting garments which are arguably the less elaborate, adorned, layered and protective of the lot as well. Which kinda sounds like the main focus of her design was deviating slightly from the one of making her appear like a badass mage (surprise) 😬.

Male High Elven mages (©Games Workshop)

 

 

 

 

Regarding what I said about the female mage's belt design ressembling an underbust corset more than anything else, we do see some variety with the belt designs the male mages wear as well, and it's true that some of them also wear this kind of wider belt in the same shape. But I stand with what I said because in their case it isn't paired with a more form fitting tunic and/or a lower neckline, and so the effect isn't that of particularly sexualizing the character, nor does it particularly act as a cincher in their case, as it certainly does in more than one of the female designs (more on that below). In the case of the female mage's design for the miniature it has been pretty intentional to emphasize her attractiveness in this way. Like I also said before, her tunic is also the only one to be sleeveless among all the High Elf mage designs (male mages always wear long sleeves, either fitted, long, layered or puffy), and the only one to have a lower neckline, which in an for itself wouldn't be such an issue as it can also easily fit the aesthetic of a fantasy mage, especially (and we'll talk about this more below as well) if it isn't in a battle context. But apart from the fact that it's the only female design we got in the miniature range, there's the fact that the male mages don't wear sleeveless robes or low necklines in any case, so of course, it's a gendered differentiation as well.

More male mages (©Games Workshop)

 

Also, the regalia and decoration the male mages carry are often more elaborate and abundant, as well as their magical artifacts - The woman basically carries a pouch and wields a simple staff, while the male mages carry a variety of more elaborate staffs (the fact that we do have male archmages and not female ones counts as well), books, orbs, and weapons. And of course, the fact that we have way more male mages than female ones means that we get more variety with them as well - We have mounted mages, levitating ones, in battle stances, mages with helmets and crowns, with weapons and without. The pose the female mage got is pretty great as well, standing on an elemental orb and pointing her staff in an spell casting stance, but that's the thing, we only got one design, one pose, because there's only one miniature. If we got more female miniatures wearing more elaborate robes and regalia as well as this one, the differences of course would have been way less blatant. I mean, there's some irony in making a post about the designs of female miniatures and then showing more examples of male portrayals than female ones 🙄 xD

Art concept for the female mage miniature (©Games Workshop)

And finally, the way the female mage carries her cloak unfastened over her arm, paired with the lighter tunic, also makes her whole design not only less elaborate and regal, but flimsier and less protective as well, way less battle ready than many of her male counterparts. Because let's also remember that High Elf mages may dwell and lounge in their Saphery tower being loremasters and loremistresses in their lavishy decorated chambers, but they are often battle mages as well, certainly in the specific setting of the miniature battle games. All the male mages are portrayed in a way that they look like fantasy mages in all their elaborate magical regalia (which granted, wearing encumbering layered robes and cloaks isn't the most realistically practical thing ever, but that's the thing with mages xD), but way more battle ready as well. Many of them wear helmets and/or weapons, and they wear vambraces and more armour elements as well, while the female attire in the miniature version is more centred on her attractiveness and so much less battle ready. Which is another blatantly gendered thing just because 😕.

 I mean, like I said I don't completely hate the design they went with in and for itself, but especially setting her side to side with the rest of her male counterparts and taking the battle context into account, I'd much rather see her with vambraces, a more layered robe, a fastened cloak and maybe a sword or dagger at her belt (enchanted weapons or normal weapons aren't necessary, though, as many mages only use magic and artifacts such as staffs to wield it in battle). But it seems that isn't 'feminine' or 'sexy' enough for the Warhammer hobbyists and designers, apparently 🙄.

Art concepts for male mages for miniature designs (left and right), and the Age of Reckoning game (center) (©Games Workshop)

 And what about the official art and the design art concepts for videogames and online games? In these cases the scenario improves somewhat, as we finally get more layering and more elaborate outfits for the female designs, and also a bit more variety of designs for female mages. However, the same problem remains in that male designs, characters and art are still prevalent, and also in the fact that sexualization and gendered design choices is still present in some of the designs in the same ways discussed with the miniature range.

Games Workshop is also letting me end the official art section quickly because to my knowledge there's not a single piece of art depicting female High Elf mages in the official miniature rulebooks (like I said at the beginning of this post, the scarce number of female miniatures don't even feature either). There's one piece of, to my knowledge, official art of a female mage in the Warhammer Fantasy Wiki, though, a depiction of Aurelion, a named High Elf mage princess of Saphery. Her design is  more elaborate than that of the miniature we discussed above, and she's also depicted more like a battle mage, with what looks like a ceremonial magical battle crown, some vambraces, a pauldron (just the one xD), and a sword at her belt. Similarly to the miniature, she wears flat boots (yay), and a simpler tunic rather than more layered robes, but with longer sleeves and her cloak fastened (yay, lol). However, she also follows some of the same gendered design choices already discussed, as her attire also focuses on the wide underbust belt, the lighter tunic, the bare arms (uncommon or nonexistent with male designs), and so on. And that wide metallic underbust cincher/breastplate? Looks pretty uncomfortable, not to mention that the design leaves her chest fully unprotected, which sounds pretty stupid in a battle setting (something that also happened to the baffling design of Sif's 'breastplate' in MCU's Thor I). If you're wearing a more encumbering piece of metal around your midsection and not just a belt, at least make sure it protects everything, but not, men said emphasize the (unprotected) chest and cinch the waist, I guess 🙄. At least it's segmentated? Sigh.

Aurelion, a high mage (©Games Workshop)

 Then we have some art concepts and designs for female mages in Age of Reckoning (a multiplayer online role-playing game) and the videogame Total War. The main art concept of a female mage for Age of Reckoning is one of my favourite portrayals, aesthetically, and maybe also specifically because we finally don't have an underbust cincher or metallic breastplate thingie going on 😅. I like how they went for a more layered look with the underdress and the overrobe (finally also a design which doesn't leave the arms bare and doesn't have a low boat neckline, good to have some variety xD), paired with vambraces, pauldrons and, again (yay), flat heeled boots. I'm missing some more regalia action, but all in all it's a design I quite like, and so far it's the least sexualized of them all as well.

Concept art of a High Elven female mage (©Games Workshop, Age of Reckoning)

 Of course, while I love this design, once again, if we look at some Age of Reckoning designs for male mages we see that they continue to be clad in more elaborate robes and are more bedecked in epic regalia (Teclis the archmage and high loremaster of Hoeth is the prime example of this, pairing elaborate robes with full-on ceremonial battle armour). Also, of course, they're completely devoid of any sexualization once again.

Concept art for male High Elven mages (©Games Workshop, Age of Reckoning)

 

  And for those who may think that the reason why female mages wear less elaborate robes and armour is because they're less strong or whatever, let's remember that 1) High Elves as a whole species can look misleadingly 'frail and slender' to other races but are actually really strong, and 2) Teclis the archmage, who wears ceremonial armour into battle and a very heavy battle crown and staff, was born with a lot of health problems which made him particularly frail among his Elven kind, and he has to drink potions daily and use magic to maintain his health and mobility (which in my opinion is also rather good representation on how disabled people can be incredibly badass and have agency 👍, but that's also a whole separate post). So if Teclis happens to be one of the mages to wear one of the heaviest armour looks in all the High Elf mage designs, female mages certanly can as well.

Concept art for Archmage Teclis (©Games Workshop)

 When talking about the miniature designs especially I was saying that I wish we saw more female mages and archmages dressed like the male mages in more elaborate get-ups with layered robes and regalia and son on, and it seems like Age of Reckoning does deliver more in that respect when it comes to the playable characters. In the player guide we see the standard design for the female archmage in her simplest version of an undertunic and overrobe, and, in the background, bedecked in full battle regalia in a way that's pretty similar to the male designs (including layered robes with a high neckline and long sleeves, pauldrons, vambraces, a helmet, and flat boots). Similarly to the art concept, this version also ditches the underbust cincher in favour of a regular belt (yay 👏). 

And even though the proportions are still a bit exaggerated to follow the canonical thin but curvy hourglass body type videogame female characters (and all High Elves) are more often than not limited to, the playable models don't look oversexualized to the extent many female videogame characters do either, so overall I'm pretty happy with these designs, and I really wish we could have gotten them in the miniature range as well.

Player Guide showing the High Elf female options for Age of Reckoning  (©Games Workshop) (Source)

Now, this is a look I would have loved to see in a miniature 👏

We get more battle mages in regalia looks going on more with the art designs and final videogame playable characters from the videogame Total War. First we have the main design for the female mages, which is more similar to the depiction of Aurelion, and here we also get more layering (and the quintessential fantasy high collars finally make an appearance for the female mages!), more ornamentation, more armour elements, and also (yay) underpants and flat boots once again (I'm so happy they went with flat boots for each and every design, kudos for that). But once again they go back to the underbust cincher which, paired with the already pretty sexualized videogame body proportions (way more blatant and hypersexualized than in the case of Age of Reckoning, unfortunately)...well, it isn't my fave concept 😕. 

Because it really makes no sense, apart from the sexualization aspect of it, to have a warrior or battle mage wear an underbust cincher or corset. It isn't a functional breastplate and it isn't just a belt to hang stuff from. It may provide with more protection than wearing nothing, true, but it can also restrict the wearer's mobility just because, and all in all, well, it's just there for the sake of making her body look nice and hourglassy, let's be real. It's just a design geared for the male gaze, and it gets repeated again and again in the designs for fantasy warrior women, and ugh, pet peeve 😩.

Concept of a female mage (©Games Workshop, Total War)

The underbust belt-corset is even more glaring if we compare her design to Teclis at the front sigh. We do have more layering in these designs, though, that's nice (©Games Workshop, Total War)

It's a truth unversally acknowledged that you can't cast spells if you're a woman unless you go to the battle looking snatched in a very cinched underbust corset 🙄 (©Games Workshop, Total War)

And finally, Total War 2 has a design for female archmages as well, and freaking finally, we get another design (after the archmage design of Age of Reckoning) in full armour and an elaborate get-up more similar to Teclis and other male archmages, which additionally doesn't include boob plate (yay) 🙌! The underbust element isn't quite gone, though, but in this case, paired with the non-sexualized chest armour, it's easier to see it more like a wide belt, like some of the male mages also wear, and less as an underbust cincher for the sake of making her waist look super snatched (a priority, as we know, for the battlefield). The fact that the final rendering of the character for at least some screenshots I've come across doesn't hypersexualize her body and over-emphasize her waist so much 👍 - like the main mage designs did - also helps a lot to see it that way. Alongside the Age of Reckoning art concept and final archmage design, this archmage design from Total War 2 is definitely my favourite (and objectively the least sexualized, which for me goes side by side).

Concept of a female archmage (©Games Workshop, Total War)

 

This is the other design closest to the ones male (arch)mages are allowed to have, and what a missed chance not to have designed miniatures like that, tbh (screenshot from Total War 2)

So, in conclusion, I'd say that the designs and poses of female mages and archmages in the High Elf range are generally fairly decent and sometimes pretty cool, and especially in comparison to the hypersexualized designs Warhammer Fantasy often creates for its female characters. Some designs, such as the archmage concepts from Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning and Warhammer Total War 2 scream fantasy battle mage, and are virtually non-sexualized and very similar to the male mage designs 👌. In other cases, however, such as in the actual miniature range, there are some gendered choices going on compared to the design of male mages: Female designs include bare arms, low necklines and more figure hugging clothing paired with underbust cinchers, and/or less armour and a less battle-ready portrayal. Meanwhile, male designs in the miniature media (and all media, really) are always non-sexualized and more elaborate, with less form-fitting layered robes, covered arms with various sleeve designs, high necklines, no cinchers (even when wearing wide belts the result is never sexualized), more regalia, and a more battle-ready attire with vambraces, pauldrons and/or weapons.  ➡️These gendered differences are clearly there to prioritize the woman's attractiveness over protection and practicality from a male gaze point of view, and while in this case the end result isn't as offensive or blatant as in other ranges, the intention and mindset behind those design choices are still very much there⬅️.

The additional representation and sometimes pretty great designs the videogames and online games offered are a positive addition for sure, and online games such as Age of Reckoning are still active at the moment, but like I started this post ranting about, regarding the miniature range I would have definitely loved to see 1) more than one female mage miniature, because we got just one woman vs a lot of men, and 2) Women dressed exactly like the male mages, because it looks epic and we deserve nice things too. And now that the Warhammer Fantasy miniature range is a thing of the past (it has been discontinued from some time and rebooted into Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, which I'm not very much into and don't know much about anyway, but in my quick searches I haven't found practically any 'Aelf' female characters either), I guess that we shall see if the new range will change this issue at some point in any of its ranges.

Goodreads feminist reviews - Warhammer Fantasy: Dragonmage (Storm of Magic II)

Caledorian High Elf riding a dragon (©Games Workshop)

Book: Dragonmage, by Chris Wraight.

 3.5/5. Goodreads review also here. A rather shorter review than the last Warhammer post, although  this review ended up inspiring a whole other post about Warhammer female representation in the miniature ranges xD

This review contains some spoilers of the plot of this book.

+1 Well-written and engaging, I especially liked how the initial battle scene was constructed, as well as the action scenes featuring the Caledorian dragons.

+1 I'm quite a fan of the Warhammer Fantasy dragons allied with the High Elves, and they feature quite a lot in this story (including a female dragon, which was my fave). The fact that they can communicate telepathically with the Elves make them not just cool steeds, but characters on their own right with their own distinct personalities.

-1 Of course, there's the fact that the bond between the High Elf and the dragon is not always one of mutual understanding. Even though they're far older and powerful, both physically and mentally, dragons are also seen pretty much as servants bent to the will of their Elven riders, and they're supposed to go fight the Elves' enemies whenever they're woken from their long sleep :S In the story's plot, the dragons ultimately were pretty proactive in this respect, but there's that too.

+-1 Female representation was minimal, to say the least, and there's of course no Bechdel 😕. Apart from the female dragon and mentions of house servants, there's only a main female character, a mage called Anlia. All the rest of players in this story - All the soldiers (we assume), the other mages, the Sword Masters of Hoeth, the Elven Lords, most dragons (we assume), most Chaotic antagonists (we assume), they're all men. At least the ones directly mentioned. Which amounts to pretty much the same thing when it comes to representation.

Anlia's powerful and proactive, yes, but her powers also keep being used by more than one man in order to achieve power and glory, and her backstory includes the trope of the too powerful woman who lost control and accidentally killed people (and this is not particularly subverted as Frozen's Elsa's story is). So she also spends the whole story being chased by her own people, who want to bring her to justice. And she does the men's work while pretty much being locked up in a tower, because assassin mages and emissaries from the White Tower will try to kill her as soon as she sets foot in a village for a stroll. To cap it all, it turns out (spoiler!), that she has been possessed by a Chaos daemon all this time (I really hope the 'being super powerful' stuff wasn't related to that :S), and said daemon ends up killing her just as she seemed to be finally enjoying her fully-fledged power. So yay 🙃😕.

I just wanted some badass-in-her-own-right female mage content, why can't I have nice things

+-1 There's no explicit sexualization in the descriptions, which is unfortunately quite rare in Warhammer books (and miniatures heh). Of course, Anlia is also repeteadly described as beautiful specifically, even though technically all High Elves, male and female, are supposed to be canonically very beautiful. But what else is there when it comes to the women, you understand, you have to remind people they're pretty 🙄 xD

That double standards is oBVIOUSly a classic

-1 There is a very cringy moment when the Ellyrian Elf Lord Anlia is working for gets into her bedroom uninvited at night to discuss plans and stuff, and Anlia jokes that he shouldn't be in a lady's room at that hour. The entitled Elf immediately replies without missing a beat that 'pah, if I were after that I would have had it a long time ago lol', and just eww 😣. If you're going to portray rape culture in your universe and your story, male writers, at least criticize it or something, make that inclusion to be about social criticism, and do it respectfully and productively. It isn't enough to say 'we're showing another example of how arrogant he is!' because Anlia, the recipient of this, doesn't seem to particularly mind about that incredibly creepy reply. it's all just so...cheap and disrespectful, the way it's handled. Can we please stop adding rape "humour" to fantasy stories? Thanks 😑.

Don't. Just don't. It really isn't funny and it doesn't add anything to the plot except to tell me that you don't care about women, really.

+1 There's some anti-war and anti-binarism content as well, from the part of a follower of the Caledorian Elf Lord. The story features the war between the Ellyrian and Caledorian factions, with two Elf Lords who are vying for the throne of the Phoenix King (same old story, time and again, eh). This character keeps seeing the war between both sides and all the hunger for power as unnecessary and horrible, and his inner commentary was one of the most interesting parts of the story for me. He's also the one riding the female dragon, so bonus point 👍 xD

Goodreads feminist reviews - Warhammer Fantasy: Blood of Aenarion (Tyrion & Teclis I)

Tyrion and Teclis (©Games Workshop)

Book: Blood of Aenarion. A Tyrion & Teclis novel, by William King.

3.5-4/5. Goodreads review also here.  This is the first part of the Tyrion & Teclis Warhammer Fantasy trilogy, telling the story of the famous High Elf twins Tyrion ('unparalleled swordsman and tactician') and Teclis ('greatest natural sorcerer of the age'). Some (lengthy xD) thoughts below, as always focusing on a feminist pov and tackling points such as representation and female characters, social criticism and other intersections, and other issues that interest me. This review contains spoilers of the plot of this book.

+1 Rereading for the second time, I still found this book to be well-written with an engaging plot, focusing on the teenage years of Tyrion and Teclis, their beginnings as the famed warrior and sorcerer they will become, and their first encounter with Demon N'Kari.

Tyrion leads the forces of Ulthuan (©Games Workshop)

• Epics, war and the Good/Evil binary
  

+1 Anti-war and Good/Evil binary critical content: Even though this is a Warhammer epic book focusing on a fantasy society with a heroic ethos and including plenty of battle scenes, some parts of this book also challenged the Good/Evil binary and included some anti-war content:

-"Too many people kill without thinking in this world." White Lion (the elite guard of the Phoenix King) Korhien Ironglaive has more than one conversation with protegé Tyrion about the dangers of idealizing war and battle, the concepts of glory and prowess, and how killing people is not something to be enjoyed. I personally really appreciated these scenes in the context of what is basically a very binary, epic genre which often disregards these matters and amps the glory and honour of battling your enemies. In spite of these pep talks, though, Tyrion - the good guy protagonist with a charming personality - turns out to be one born for war who actually claims to enjoy battle and even killing the ones who oppose him or his country, and will end up conforming more to the epic ethos of the genre :S.

-Dark Elf assassin Urian also offers some critical content of the Good/Evil binary when he muses on the centuries-long feud between the High and Dark Elves and how masquerading as a High Elf noble for decades and living among his enemies has made him see that both groups are not as dissimilar or as black and white as they think they are.

• Female characters: Representation, roles and sexism
  

Concept of a high Elf female mage (©Games Workshop, Warhammer Online)

+-1 Warhammer is not the best genre for a lot of (good) female representation, to be honest, as most in-universe societies, and the stories and authors, are overtly male-dominated and sexist tropes and sexualization are often to be found both in the miniature and online game designs/roles, and in the books.

+(-)1 This particular book is still quite male-dominated, but I found to be a bit better regarding positive female representation, even though many women in interesting, subversive and proactive roles are still little more than mentions. Still, contrary to other Warhammer books and *ahem* the miniatures Warhammer Fantasy's range of High Elves offered (which was minimal and literally extended - if I recall correctly - to the Everqueen, her guard, and a mage), there are mentions of female (arch)mages and loremistresses, sailors and captains of ship, huntresses and rangers, archers and warriors, priestesses, and women taking part in political circles. Like I said, most of these roles are little more than mentions, but the bar is so low sometimes in this genre that it's still a refreshing sight :S xD

+1 Female characters with interesting and proactive roles that I enjoyed: The main one is Lady Malene, a mage and loremistress who is also active in political circles and the leader of her House of Emeraldsea apart from her father, and is described as serious, capable, powerful and intelligent. She is the aunt of Tyrion and Teclis and mainly acts as Teclis' mentor in matters of magic. I also liked that she is in a relationship without losing any iniciative or her role being ever reduced to a love interest trope.

 Another character I liked is Joyelle, a ship captain who answers to Malene and is described as capable, tough and stern (in a good way, although Tyrion first wonders at the fact that the captain's answering to Malene instead of her (male) lover and bodyguard Korhien - sigh - and then remarks on the sterness of both women, feeling relieved at seeing smiling sailor girls in the ship as well *le double sigh*). There's also sailor Karaya, who acts as kind of a love interest for Tyrion but is seen as capable in her job and shows plenty of iniciative of her own during her scenes with Tyrion. 

High Elf female mage

-1 Female characters with problematic characterization and tropes: Enchantress Morathi, the Dark Elven Queen, is always a character that's super sexualized in the Warhammer world (often wearing little more than a metal bikini and loincloth), and who follows a lot of femme fatale tropes (even though she is also an intelligent and powerful leader). Her appearance in the intro also included the love/hate relationship with Aenarion, which is not my fave thing. N'Kari the demon is also super sexualized and male-gazey when in female form. And characters such as Lady Malene's daughter Liselle followed the trope of the shallow, vain female character more than anything else and was there mainly to be one of Tyrion's love interests.

-Bechdel test: Pass. Malene and Joyelle talk to each other, and I remember conversations between Malene and Liselle, and between Liselle and another noblewoman called Lady Melissa (although they were talking mainly about Tyrion there, so maybe that conversation doesn't count :S).

+-1 Male characters and their treatment of women: To finish talking about the treatment of women in this book, there's also the theme of how men treat and think of women. Some thoughts -

-Lady Malene's relationship with Korhien the White Lion is quite refreshing and healthy, and she's always seen as the authority figure in her group without question (the ship's crew and her entourage answer to her, for example). Teclis and Lady Malene also get on well in a mentor/pupil dynamic.

-Tyrion is written with the intention of being charming and likeable, but he also revels in violence quite a bit and is quite a womanizer, sometimes bordering on dudebro material. His one-off relationship with the sailor Karaya is a pretty healthy example of a casual encounter, but the one he later has with his cousin Liselle showcases his entitlement and internalized sexism more, as he clearly views her as vain and shallow and later thinks of her in a quite disparaging way, showing he was using her more than anything else. Lady Malene also tells him to make and effort not to extend his womanizing to his close kinswomen, but there he went anyway and with Malene's own daughter no less lol (le sigh).

-Dark Elf assassin Urian is probably the most blatantly misogynistic character in the book alongside fabled ancestor Aenarion (who clearly hates his second wife Morathi but still lusts after her and is quite abusive in the way he goes about it :S). Urian may give us some anti-binarism commentary which makes us relate a bit to him, but he's also a creep who's proud of the "harem of slave girls" he had back home to do as he pleased with (ugh), and who fantasizes about making stern Lady Malene, who dares distrust him, succumb to his (violent) charms. Eww.

-1 A bit related to this, even though I have a higher tolerance for it in reading form than visual, I personally find the gorier and more graphic side of Warhammer so not my cup of tea. Especifically the sections in which the writers indulge and focus too lengthily in torture scenes or anything related to the cult of pleasure of Slaanesh (which is always a good opportunity to also include sexualized women or sacrifice scenes, yay).

• Poc and LGBT+ representation. Colonialism and xenophobia.
  

-1 No representation of poc except for very brief mentions of poc humans from the Warhammer equivalents of North Africa and China (merchants, traders and people who live in the foreigners' quartet of the High Elven capital Lothern). As per usual fantasy white-centrism, it is assumed that all High Elves are white (something that in my opinion doesn't make a whole lot of sense if we're talking about a whole species :S, but OK), and all Elves whose appearance is described have fair to very pale skin (Tyrion in book 2 has tanned skin from his journeys, but yeah).

Ulthuan and its colonies in a map of the Warhammer version of the world (©Games Workshop)

 

+1 Some critical content tackling racism and xenophobia between High Elves and humans is explored. Ulthuan (the Elven insular continent) is a nation with a colonialist history which now trades with other races but at the same time is politically aislacionist (more than once this goes hand in hand with the colonialism bit), and consequently off bounds to anyone who is not a High Elf everywhere in the country except in Lothern's "foreigners' quartet", where humans and even some Dwarfs are permitted to live (with the main aim of trading). When Tyrion visits said quartet and sees humans for the first time in his life, these topics of Elven aislacionism, xenophobia and prejudice come to play in the narration. Tyrion's first impression of the humans is coloured by the xenophobic and racist prejudice he has been taught in his society, seeing them as inferior in all things and comparing them to 'apes' and 'monkeys', to the extent that he is then surprised to meet humans who are more intelligent that he and many Elves gave them credit for. He in turn also experiences xenophobic violence and slurs ('elfie', 'cat-eyes' - because of the High Elves' almond-shaped eyes) from some drunken humans, so there's also a bit of that other side as well.

-1 Practically no representation of LGBT+ people. Demon N'Kari can easily be seen as genderfluid, as many demons often are, but is portrayed in a quite problematic light. N'Kari uses 'he/him' pronouns the most, but also appears in female form at least twice. The problem is, when N'Kari is female she is incredibly sexualized and cast in the 'seductive femme fatale' role as per male-dominated fantasy standards. The fact that N'Kari is a demon who serves Slaanesh, the Chaos deity of pleasure and all things lascivious and perverse, is not helping any matters. 

• Other intersections: Class and ability
  

+1 There's also some social commentary regarding classism, the hypocrisy and snobbery of the aristocratic classes and the difficulty of learning how to navigate and survive in a world full of protocol and courtly intrigues, as rural-raised Tyrion and Teclis find out when they go to the capital to live with their wealthy relatives for a while.

Teclis (©Games Workshop)

+1 Ableism critical content: While Elves see themselves as the superior race for their beauty, longer life, and the fact that most never get ill, Tyrion's twin brother Teclis is frail and disabled (he gets ill often to the extent of being in the brink of death, has a severe limp and mobility problems, and is considered to be less canonically beautiful), and thus he has experienced constant disapproval and insult from his Elven fellows, who look down on him for being 'inferior'. Compared to his able-bodied, beautiful-even-among-the-Elves brother Tyrion, he feels insecure and bitter, but relies on his intelligence, acerbic wit and remarkable magical ability to shine.

Thankfully, the treatment of this issue was pretty positive, being critical of the classism and ableism of the High Elves from the pov of Teclis, who is never seen in a negative light by the narrator because of his health problems and disabilities. Teclis will also end up being the High Elven character who seems most understanding of humans (also seen as frail, uglier and inferior by the Elves) and one of the few Elves more interested in helping them and sharing his knowledge with them. There's also the fact that even though Teclis ends up gaining more health and mobility that allow him to do adventuring of his own and live a long life to perfect his lore and magic powers, he ultimately also gains a more able-bodied lifestyle mainly by his own agency, choice and powers (as well as receiving help in this book, for example, which is also a positive thing, of course).

+1 And finally, I also like that Tyrion and Teclis maintain a pretty healthy and supportive brotherly relationship in this and other respects, which is a refreshing subversion of the often competitive, love/hate trope dynamic based in jealousy issues of the 'golden, athletic brother pitted against the dark, bitter brother' (hello, Thor and Loki xD - that particular relationship also has its character development and is really interesting, of course, but I could not let that reference slide xD) 

 And finally, the IG storytime with more or less the same text content, but including direct quotes and a bit more specifics sometimes (also here)