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 - All Hail the Queen (Frozen short story)

Book: All Hail the Queen, by Erica David.

  2/5. Goodreads review also here.

I do really like Frozen and Elsa in general (I'm generally pretty obsessed with Frozen 2 xD), so I dislike rating anything Frozen less than 3 stars, but this one is a solid 2/5 for me. I found the writing to be a bit two-dimensional and bland and well yes, obviously it is a short story aimed at children, same as many other Frozen comics I've read this year, but I do think the characterization could be a bit better anyway. However, that isn't the reason why I gave this a 2. 

 

The main reason is that its treatment of social class and monarchy, a general pet peeve I personally have with Disney in general, is particularly atrocious in this story. I kept mentally ranting at the ebook nearly every single page because my gods, it's terrible.  And the fact that it's a short story aimed at children kinda makes it worse, because well, making something 'easier' for children to read means that the writing style and the storyline are generally more simple to follow, it doesn't mean that they should be learning about backward gender roles (not an issue in this story, Frozen actually was a big improvement in this respect, thankfully), or about romanticized ideas of monarchy and class imbalance (which is a Disney trend). More of this below, because wow did this book deliver on this respect.

Social criticism incoming xD

This review contains spoilers

 

+1 The story has sisterly female bonding going on and Elsa's icy powers appear, two of my fave Frozen things. But that was pretty much it 😕

-1 But even when it comes to Elsa's powers the story showcased them as wrong, in a way! Like, Elsa tries to make the villagers like her (or rather, does her job as queen for a couple of days until she falls ill from the exhaustion :S) by helping them out with her powers (the villagers themselves ask for her powers specifically for various needs), and Anna insists that she's exerting herself too much and that she should offer alternative solutions without using her powers so that the villagers like her for what she really is, not just her powers. But isn't the general idea of Frozen that Elsa learns to accept and love herself as she is, and hopes that Arendelle will do that as well, and a sizeable part of who she is *are* her magical powers, which she has had to repress and hide for so long?? To say that her powers don't define her is almost like the opposite thing, because that's like the main symbolism in the whole Elsa arch :S 🙃.

 

-1 And then there's the social class issue. I'm just gonna list a few examples of how it goes in this story, because wow:

• Elsa and Anna are royals living in a huge castle with servants and minimal obligations, right? Well, Anna spends the whole story being a quite insufferable entitled brat (I generally quite like her in the movies, but wow, I couldn't stand her here 😬). She insists that Elsa works too hard in her role as queen and should take a lot more time off to be with her and go on picnics and adventures and gallivant in the village eating pastries for free. 

I did enjoy the description of the desserts they ate xD Puff pastry with cream, chocolate and fruit? Sign me up xD

 

Elsa wants to be more focused on 'helping' the villagers to come to ask her for help in the audience hall (it's rather called 'doing your job', but hey, royals need to feel good about themselves by saying they're helping the poor peasants out, I guess). But Anna keeps enabling her to 'take more time off' and go off with her on picnics, visits to local bakeries, and so on, because they need to bond and stuff and she works too much (yay for female bonding, but how entitled and irresponsible can you be lol). At the end, Anna decides on the following timetable, and I kid you not, this is it: Elsa does her job as queen (aka listens to the needs of the locals, aparently that's mostly it here) for 3 days a week, and the rest of them they have 24/7 free time to do all the fun things in Anna's bucket list. Um 😐🤪.

 

•  Anna spends the whole story insisting on the idea that Elsa is exhausted for minimally doing her job as Queen for a couple of days, right, so she needs a lot of breaks from you know, her glorified royal job (why do we have royals again? I question this notion everyday). So, she says, 'she has given the villagers the day off' *so that the Queen can rest* 😨. Oooh, the benevolent princess has given the villagers the day off in spite of them not being able to do that because they have to work daily for a freaking living, be they shop owners, merchants, ice gatherers, sewists or what have you! 😑

And do you know what Elsa replies to this? Literally that 'The villagers don't need a day off' 🙃 (but, Anna, says, Elsa totally does because she worked herself to exhaution for two days while helping them out in the audience hall with her powers!). I was just facepalming so hard at that moment. The royals who live in a castle with servants and nice clothes and food they don't have to sweat for are saying the villagers who work daily for a living don't need a day off, but they sure do!! Do Arendelle's working classes even have days off, then?? Seriously, WTF. Am I the only one who thinks children shouldn't think these concepts are OK??

 

•  There's also this emphasis on the fact that the villagers keep queuing up in the audience hall to ask Elsa to use her powers to help them with various things, and they frame this, I kid you not, as if the villagers are exhausting Elsa by asking her favour after favour all day, but she doesn't want to say no because she doesn't want to let them down. So it's almost like the Queen is doing them 'favours' and being super benevolent by wanting to 'help them out' (it's her job!) while the villagers are being too 'greedy' and 'taking advantage of her' because she has magical powers....I don't know, the setting was really, really cringy for me, the fact that these villages don't only not need a day off, apparently, but they're also exerting their Queen with their uncontrolled wishes to help them have working plumbing systems, iceboxes and efficient transportation. How greedy the working classes are! (but not the royals living in actual castles 🧐).

And I mean, it seems to me that Disney often seems to have this conception with monarchy where their role as "benevolent providers of the people" is focal, be the story set in the Middle Ages or the 1830s (a conception that seems a bit obsolete to me in the 1830s - I mean, there's little mention of a Council of State, a Privy Council or a Cabinet in Frozen, right? I mean, there must be one, and if I remember correctly, Cabinet members or similar do appear in some comics when it comes to treaties, delegations, visits of state and such. But Elsa in her throne working as Queen by 'granting favours' or 'looking after her people' in this way kinda reminds me more of feudalism (which isn't all that great, but theoretically) or 'ring giving' thanes of Anglosaxon society, more than anything else :S xD Granted that I'm not a monarchy expert either xD). So, with this conception in mind, wouldn't it be, like, Elsa's 'job' to also help organize and/or provide all that, and not just benevolent favours you do a couple of days and that's it? (in exchange for, you know, your whole life in a luxurious castle with super nice clothes, good food and riches). And why are the villagers suddenly queuing in their dozens to ask for all that two days in a row when the Queen should be working on that kind of stuff more or less routinely as part of her freaking "job"?? 🤔

Like, I get it that Elsa doesn't have a calling for ruling and queendom and tries hard to make people accept her and her powers and so on and forth and the whole thing is just not for her (she's still privileged af because of her social class status and position, tho), but this sends a whole different message. And Anna's supposed to be way more into caring about the ruling parts and the village, so much more that she ends up being the queen in Frozen 2, but that most certainly doesn't show here at all either. 

• The story does mention that Elsa has been working on some plans for a more functional plumbing system and she offers that as an alternative solution to her magic near the end of the story (yeah, that theme that using her magic is not as good or something). Which involves she, the Queen, in her dress, and Anna, the princess (also in her royal clothes, I guess), actually working elbow deep in setting it up 🤣. What? Like, yes, we have magic in this universe, so why am I talking about things being realistic xD, but talk about realistic. This is extra cringy because it's one of the classic Disney moves glorifying just how good royals and rich people are, willing to dirt their hands and clothes *one day* (mind you) so that the whole village cheers for them and all the things they do for them (it's.their.freaking."job" and it comes with a hugely unfair class imbalance all the same!). And so the royals work hard one day, and gain the everlasting adoration of their subjects and all is well, and we continue to romanticize the redundant institution that is monarchy and the social class imbalances. In stories for children of the 21st Century 😕. 

Olaf and Elsa's powers are more realistic than this scenario, tbh

An accurate depiction of my reaction

• But this is not all. I'm not letting this go (lol 🤣) just yet. Because a major storyline of this book is Anna taking Elsa on fun outings, like I said, and these involve the whole team (Anna, Elsa, Olaf, Kristoff also appears) literally messing everything up for the hard working locals. And of course, because they're the royals, the locals laugh it off, and actually thank them in adoration when they "help them" out of messes *they themselves created in the first place* by butting into working people's businesses!! This was so frustrating to read 😑.

Let's play at being working people for a day!

 

Like, they get pastries for free in a bakery (because the royals get everything for free, of course, paired with special treatment in everything, salutations and adoration). And then they dabble in trying out what it is to be a baker (for a day, mind you) and Anna - who's just too obnoxious in this story, complete with loud belchs wtf 😣 - freaking destroys the whole kitchen. But the baker, although rightfully angry, has to laugh it off because it's Anna, the princess, and she's so charming and good with people no one can stay mad at her anyway! 🙃

 

Still thinking you shouldn't teach children that this is OK

 

This trend continues a lot. Elsa accidentally makes a fisherman drop all his fish on the ground, and then the fisherman has to literally thank her for helping him to pick them up instead of her being angry at him for being in her way (wtf 🤨). They also make a huge mess at the ice gatherers' and go on a lot of stupid shenanigans trying to 'help them out' (maybe don't interfere in the first place with people who are working for a living) until Elsa realizes she can easily do so with her powers. Cue all the cheers and adoration from the ice gatherers, and Elsa the day afterwards still feeling the high of having 'helped' them save the day's work, conveniently forgetting that she and her friends were the initial reason why they nearly lost a day's work. And so on and forth. Also, isn't Kristoff supposed to be a professional ice gatherer? Because he sure seemed pretty inept at it in this story :S xD Like, they favoured *Olaf* trying to lift heavy ice blocks (and obviously failing) as a first option over Kristoff or Elsa doing it! 🤦‍♀️ Where are everyone's brain cells?  

 

The story does specify that there are women working as ice-gatherers and fisherwomen and so on, so I guess there's that another one for the (kinda scarce :S) pros list.

• And finally, there's this scene when Anna is having a picnic with several female friends, who are middle class (daughters of merchants, fisherpeople, farmers, etc), and said friends are commenting on how Anna lives on a big palace with servants and probably doesn't even have to make her bed ever (I mean, true), and how that's amazing (it's 100% correct to call out class imbalances, but can we also stop glorifying monarchy and high aristocracy as the ultimate goals thanks). And Anna retorts with something along the lines of 'Living in a castle is not so different as living in a farm, I guess. It's not the house that counts, it's the people that live in it' 🙄🙃 (aka 'Oh no, I don't have it better than you'). Also, she says, their servants 'help us take care of the castle, but we still have big responsibilities'. Sure thing, Anna, sure thing, keep on not being aware of your privilege. Sigh.

 

And in this scene it is interesting to note that Anna totally sidesteps and derails the comments of her middle-class friends on how she lives in a castle and has servants with the classical Disney theme of 'It's not the actual house that matters, or my social standing, it's the people who love me and my family that make the castle a home, so *we are equal after all*'. To which her friends readily reply that yes, they wouldn't envision their boats, farms and middle-class homes without their families either. That's all very well (apart from the fact that we're now in the let's glorify the family unit area now as well, another classic Disney staple xD), but this way Anna has successfully navigated the conversation and surfaced victorious without having to address her class privilege at all, with the result that the story makes it seem like this way they're all equal because they all value their families and 'a home is just a home when your family is in it', so it doesn't matter if huge class and wealth imbalances exist as well. 

 

So yeah, I began reading this series as a way to catch up on my Goodreads yearly books with some short, light, simple reads (lol), but yeah, this wasn't a lot of fun. I'm really hoping the rest of short Frozen stories are not like this, tbh, although quite a lot of the comics did veer in this direction :S