First of all I would like to say; i'm not much into fantasy whether it be sci-fi or Tolkienesque crap with golems, elves and whatnot. I would also mention that "traditional fantasy" as Kael stated is really the same kind of dark fantasy as FFH. I've seen more other fantasy media near what FFH is than what Kael think is "tradional fantasy" (the "fairy princess" stuff). Most of this fantasy comes from Tolkien ultimately, and most of our video games and books come from him. So tradional fantasy is exactly what FFH is a part of.
Like i said earlier, fantasy doesent interest me. Until I bought a PC Gamer magazine only because it had a Civilization IV mod in the demo disc, yeah you know what mod it is. Tell you the truth, I was blown away. I ate up that Civliopedia, reading everything from the stories of the leaders to the Building descriptions. EVERYTHING. I was like: "finally a game with emotion and intelligence". The whole idiological thing with people fighting each other over it. With Good and evil really being alike in their fanaticism. So I respect what people have done in this mod. Although I couldn't help but think they are more into shock value than telling an intelligent story. Seems like the mod team has a little misogynistic leanings. Most of the stories that involve women, tell them either being raped (or alluding to it), or being airheaded and weak, as to stupidly fall under a "charming" sailor. Finally, the one woman who DOES try not to fall under man: is seen as EVIL. Most of the stories involve little girls being burned in a volcano; or being chopped up by an orc, or being raped or kidnapped and murdered.
So yea I respect the game, but i couldn't help but notice the amount of stuff directed at females. So yeah, the mod team may believe that females are the weaker species, but easy on the misogynistic stuff.
I've also noticed by reading the forums, that people tend to sell their proposals to the game as being more "realistic". Like someone saying "angels and demons" being used in the same way as paratroopers is "realistic". I never knew anything in the FFH mod is realistic. So I guess it's realistic to think that a city with a planar gate and a bar will spawn happy drunken soldiers with white makeup on. If only that planar gate can be built where i live....

...Although I couldn't help but think they are more into shock value than telling an intelligent story. Seems like the mod team has a little misogynistic leanings. Most of the stories that involve women, tell them either being raped (or alluding to it), or being airheaded and weak, as to stupidly fall under a "charming" sailor. Finally, the one woman who DOES try not to fall under man: is seen as EVIL. Most of the stories involve little girls being burned in a volcano; or being chopped up by an orc, or being raped or kidnapped and murdered.
So yea I respect the game, but i couldn't help but notice the amount of stuff directed at females. So yeah, the mod team may believe that females are the weaker species, but easy on the misogynistic stuff...

Misogynistic is a pretty strong word...it would be nice if you provided some concrete examples of this. Certainly much of the stuff is male-oriented (ie: portrait of Faeryl Viconia). Some of it could be construed as sexist if you stretch it, that is if you consider traditional gender roles and classical female character archetypes as sexist. Sure those concepts are archaic, but they still persist much in today's culture. Though I definitely wouldn't call it misogynistic .

Its an interesting take on the mod. Personally I feel like we feature a lot of strong female characters. We have a higher percentage of female leaders and characters than Civ4, and I would suspect any other civ4 mod out there.

As for the stories, there are some deeply horrible things going on in them. This is dark fantasy. We have pages and pages of material so you can find examples of just about anything. Valledia the Even is shown as powerful and effective leader of her people. Capria lead her people out of hell, couldnt imagine a much stronger role than that. Ethne is a retelling of the story of budda, certainily a positive source.

I'll comment on Os-Gabella's story since you mentioned her. Os-Gabella's story comes from the story of Lilith from ancient Judeo-christian mythology. The story goes that Eve was the 2nd wife god made for adam and the first, lilith, refused to be subordinant to a man. She defied him and has been causing trouble for mankind ever since. I mention it because lilith has actually had a pretty strong pro-femine conotation over the centuries. Many women see her as a very positive influence, especially during in particuarly repressive male dominated socieities.

The whole history of Lilith goes way way way back, you can see aspects of the story back during the time of gilgamesh, through greco-roman times and all the way up to new age and current wiccan movements.


Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told
(The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,)
That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,
And her enchanted hair was the first gold.
And still she sits, young while the earth is old,
And, subtly of herself contemplative,
Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave,
Till heart and body and life are in its hold.
The rose and poppy are her flower; for where
Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent
And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?
Lo! As that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went
Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent
And round his heart one strangling golden hair.


We could go through the sources for other characters as well. Feel free to ask if any particuarly stand out to you but I have always attempted to have a variety of women, dangerous, strong, fallen, heroic, just like the men.

I made Elizabeth in the Cassiel story a girl because it gave the story a lot more emotional resonence to me. I dont think it makes it misogynistic. I would hope that none of the stories of any of the horrible things that happen (to male or female characters) give any impression that those actions are idealized or glorified in any way.

Likewise Lita being raped in Mardero's story was because of the history of where the story came from. It was from the D&D game and I needed a brood of half-demon/half-human children because of what was happening in thar world (demons were blocked to one part of the world and the living to another, these half demons were the first that could cross between). It was important to me that the creation of these demon children be part of the failing of the society, and that Lita was given the option to chose good or evil and suffered for her choice (in the story as she was falling she had the opportunity to hate or forgive the people, she choose and if she hadn't Id like to think that the demon wouldn't have gotten her). I say that just because usually there are reasons for the stories that don't have anything to do with making it pro or anti women.

Interestignly, one thing that isn't in any ffH story is an example of a good marriage. All the characters portrayed so far are either single, or have had something tragic happen with their spouses. Einion's wife was killed, Eve and Talia had affairs, most never mention their wife. Im not sure what that says about me (except that most of the backstory was written before I was married). But I always thought that was interesting. BtW I did have married couples in the D&D games, its just that none of their stories have made it into FfH yet.

ps. I have no problem with anyone pointing this out. I think its a very interesting conversation and I don't take any offense from it (and the origional poster did a great job of taking care to not be acursatory about it so I know he didnt mean it to be offensive).

pss. You mention shock value as compared to telling an intellegent story. I dont know. I know we are limited to a few paragraphs so I feel like are stories as intellegent as that format allows (micro-stories), and we try to be origional for our genre.

I've also noticed by reading the forums, that people tend to sell their proposals to the game as being more "realistic". Like someone saying "angels and demons" being used in the same way as paratroopers is "realistic". I never knew anything in the FFH mod is realistic. So I guess it's realistic to think that a city with a planar gate and a bar will spawn happy drunken soldiers with white makeup on. If only that planar gate can be built where i live....
It is a huge pet-peeve of mine when people take this stance. Fantasy, for me anyway, has to be plausible. Of course it is fantasy - has magic and demons and all that - but if it is ridiculous, then I can't immerse myself in it. Hense, 'realism' or 'plausibility'.

Of course, 'realism' is subjective, so everyone will have their different flavours.

I think you are really reading too much into this. Of course I would think so unless an admitted misogynist, so I wil give specific examples of woman in FfH fiction, with some explanation.

1) You allude to Rhoanna. Her story portrays a young woman in a difficult situation (leading a tribe) showing creativity and strength of will, in the first half of the story. Then she meets a chrarming sailor. She enjoys his company, but no where in there is it meant to imply that they developed further romantic or sexual relations beyond that. Their were two points here, to show that falamar is charming, which is his defining trait. It is hard to show him to be charming if the other character reacts to him as a bufoon, no? But second, to show a capable woman able to take control of her own emotions when need be, admirable trait in a man or woman. Further, I don't think having romantic or even sexual urges, whether male or female, is necessarily a weakness--if controlled.

2) Flauros. Vampires are not nice people. We know that. Saying, "Flauros, immortal leader of the Calabim, killed many people" has very little rhetorical power. So in his story, another character was created. Taerry is a peasant in a land where humans are treated as cattle. She has no power in this situation, this is true, but human men, you can assume, are in similar situations. Having a female abused is meant to arouse a more visceral distaste of the leader in question, especially since, hopefully, our majority male audience would be particulary upset by the inversion of chivalry displayed. One more word about this scene--it is indeed a story of rape and murder, but there are little if any details of that, just her reactions, and I think it would be possible to read it and not know what was going on, if you were young enough. So, yes, this is a weak and helpless young woman; the point of the piece was to show Flauros as strong and vile. This is certainly a piece that you may think is just for shock, but again, it's not graphic, but is intended to be show a genuinely evil leader, not morally ambiguous.

3)Keelyn, is maybe who you mean as airhead and weak? Another abused young girl, this one by neglect. Perpentach, her father, is an insane and evil man. The civ is designed around insanity. So no leader here is going to be one to hold a philosophical discourse, by definition. The inspiration for Keelyn was of a woman holding court entirely with illusionary creatures under her control, the back story a way to explain why how a human could get to such a haunted point. Doesn't really show her in a positive light, but she is at least as in control of herself as the other leader of this civ, and has a strong will. In the end I don't think she comes off much worse than Perpentach or many of the evil male leaders; if anything, her evil disposition is at least somewhat explained.

4)Hannah--Hannah is a strong woman, harsh and perhaps not fully in control of her temper, but able to command respect of a nation of wild pirates. Some of the few real life woman pirates come to mind.

5)The girl thrown into a volcanoe; maybe you mean in Jonas Endain's story? Well, it was an overthrow of a rule by priestesses. Yeah, that scene is harsh, maybe one of the worst in FfH. I suppose it could have worked as a young boy orc, but Jonas had already been presented as carrying the head of a young girl, and this was the explanation for it. Besides, the Clan served a goddess, so it makes sense that she had a matriarchy at that time. And the evil rebel against it would attack that matriarchy. Orcs, our barbarians, don't have too high value on life--just see thier suicide tactics in game! (Also, I just remembered that at the same time several men were also burned alive, so they are equal oppurtunity murderers.)

6) Thessa's story is a tragedy, but characters experiencing tragedy can be shown to be admirable characters nonetheless. Is Thessa one? In many ways, her commitment to duty, her love, her unrivaled intelligence. In the end of her story she chooses duty over love. In Erebus, perfect solutions aren't always found, but a strong case could be made that her solution was the most moral, and most difficult, yet she took it, and bore the consequences.

7) Capria. Coming of age in Hell can't be easy, can it? But I don't think you can find Capria as anything other than strong, competent, and wise. In fact, I don't think you'll find a male character portrayed as stong and good as her, betrying my fascination with the Bannor, I'm afraid.

8) Sheelba. By now, young woman who thrives in adversity is becoming almost tired (though I hope each interesting on their own rights.). Sheelba is probably the most sympathetic evil leader. Her story plays out in her and the hero Rantine's entries. At the time she is vulnerable, having been spurned by her father and reacting in a torrent of emotion. (This is due to being a woman as much as it is young and an orc--a civ symbolized by fire.) So for a time she relys on Rantine to bring her home. But once there she doesn't let the huge orc leader intimidate her, nor her people's savagry entirely corrupt her. She is the one who brings civilization to the wild orcs, or some measure of it at least.

9) Os-Gabella is based on a real world myth of Lilith, Adam's apocryphal first wife. Much suffering comes from this ancient woman, but she does follow a fantasy archetype appropriate for an evil leader, and besides, I'd say Tebryn, her male counterpart, comes off even worse--trying to trade the entire world in to redeem his own soul.

10) Valledia--Ah, she's a cold one. After reading her's and Einon's story, I was rather incensed at her. But she is anything but weak, a manipulator who would like to see her people left alone to their studies, but forced to play politics will do so with all ruthlessness required to survive. For man or woman, that is often quite a bit.

11) Arendal and Faeryl, the good and evil elven queens, are again capable leaders. Of course, shouldn't any leader the player chooses be so? But there are a high number of female leaders, compared to vanilla civ, or, well, history. These two aren't show in action, but in contrasted with each other; still they are foil enough for each other, and no man is involved in either, nor is any terrible stuff directed at either. :)

12) Ethne the White, the Elohim leader, is shown to be a caring and determined student of statecraft.

There aren't many female heroes, largely because they need a differnt model than males, and the assassin doesn't even have animations, so they are more work.
13) Losha Valas. Another vampire. Evil, but calm and clever.

14) Typhoid Mary... yeah, sucks to be her...

I think on balance, the female leaders are show to be no more lacking in morals or capacity than their male counterparts, who also run the gammut from jerks to heroes, with more of the former.
----
Also, regarding realism in fantasy fiction (as opposed to gameplay). When creating a fantasy world, you can have magic do anything you want. BUT you have to set the rules early and stick to them. It is cheating readers to have the wizard pull off a spell that doesn't work according to the previous descriptions, and say, well it's fantasy!
Realism in fantasy fiction is code for: Do characters behave in believable ways? or Is the magic internally consistent.

No time to come up with a formal response, just some quick thoughts:

- Another approach to this issue is to think about the possible reasons, or circumstances, that will lead to a world where women are relegated to a lower status, whether they are morally good reasons or simply natural reasons. My opinion is that in order combine the extreme fantasy of Erebus with highly realistic ways of responding to such external circumstances, an inevitable, statistically likely (I wouldn't go so far as to say logically) consequence is for many of the natural responses to, one way or the other, lead to relegating women to a lower status. Mostly because of war and the subjugation of conquered peoples, mostly women and children. In the old times, wifes captured from the enemy tribes are usually not very highly regarded.
- Even in a world where women have equal or higher status than men, physical, mental and emotional differences between the genders would still mean that measures such as rape or forced marriage are extremely effective in breaking a woman, while other forms of brutality are used against men instead.
- In our own world, it was circumstances that lead the primitive tribes to develop into nations, and relegate women to a lower status, respectively. It is also circumstances that is leading to women having increasing status today than before, even though the two are still far from equal on average. The analogy would be press control during war, and free speech during peace. One is for the war effort, the other for economic power.

As for pictures of women wearing very little... yeah, I am very, very much against it. Please have women that are covered; in fact, very conservatively covered. For many reasons, it just adds a lot more realism and power to the whole fantasy world.

This, and I would like to give an example: some time back, Canada issued an advice to travellers advising that women travelling to China for tourism should be dressed a little more conservatively, because scantily dressed women may be mistaken to be "more open to invitations", and because it's a less safe country. The Chinese government responded by accusing the Canadian government of holding the archaic belief that it's the woman's fault for attracting male attention to violent crimes, and that "dressing more conservatively" would actually help at all. I don't even know what's right anymore...

As for realism, games are abstractions. We use dragons, and moen and cities and mountains as symbols for the game play that is really going on (making strategic decisions about resource allocation). Realism to me means that those symbols behave in a way that the player expects, thats the point of using symbols.

For example we need a map symbol that blocks off tiles or areas. We use a mountain for that. The player sees the mountain, immediatly knows what it is, and understands that his units cant move through it. The symbol makes the game rules easier to understand. If something isnt realistic then players are confused about how it works, if it is realistic the game seems more intuitive.

But fun time realism every time. Im also not a fan of introducing new mechanics just for realisms sake (remember the point of realism is to make the game easier to understand, adding complexity doesnt do that).

6) Thessa's story is a tragedy, but characters experiencing tragedy can be shown to be admirable characters nonetheless. Is Thessa one? In many ways, her commitment to duty, her love, her unrivaled intelligence. In the end of her story she chooses duty over love. In Erebus, perfect solutions aren't always found, but a strong case could be made that her solution was the most moral, and most difficult, yet she took it, and bore the consequences.

I forgot about Thessa's story, another case of a bad marriage.

Makes me wonder if it is a poor depiction of women to have her kill her husband? Or if we would have reversed the roles and had the husband kill his new bride would that have been more anti-women? At some level I think that just being in a FfH story means bad things. Maybe we are anti-people? ;)

I also wanted to comment on the origional posters dark fanatsy definition. I consider FfH dark fantasy because we don't have good guys, everyone is flawed. The "princess rule" is a thematic choice to go along with that but not the defining characteristic. Dark fantasy as a genre doesn't have a set definition, usually it carries some horror characteristics and blurs the lines between good and evil (typically sympatedic monsters, ie: the vampires in Anne Rice's novels) which I feel like we do.

I dont consider Tolkien to be dark fantasy (through Jackson put a pretty heavy dark cast on it) as it has more dicotomy and heroic archetypes than I prefer (Im actually not a fan of Tolkien, though I admire and appreciate what he did and I know the fantasy world would be where it is without him). Likewise Warcraft, Heroes of Might and Magic, Age of Wonders, anything with the general these are the pure holy good guys and these are vile mean evil guys I think of as typical fantasy genre stuff and not dark fantasy. But thats just my personal opinion, and I dont have anything to back that up one way or the other.

Absolutely Correct!

High Fantasy as introduced by Tolkien is basically a retold and fine tuned copy of legendary tales of Humankind. It is a characteristic of human legends to have only either good or evil characters. The reason for this is simply that the story has to appeal to a very wide audience with very different levels of education. Therefore simplicity became a necessity.

Apart from this there is the fact that the early original forms of these legends do not exists anymore. The original form got altered and extinguished simply because the legends were only told (but not written down). Naturally a narrator will remember his own characters better, when they follow certain simple archetypes.

Maybe the original Beowulf had a very strong dark shade over him, but the current mythical Beowulf is quite pure / became quite pure (I chose the example of Beowulf because it was one of the most inspiring stories for Tolkien and I talk about the Legend of Beowulf not about a certain movie with the same name). In general High Fantasy a'la Tolkien is funding itself out of the heritage of Nordic Mythology. Only much later companies like TSR started to plunder African, Mesoamerican, Ancient Mediterranean and Asian Legends as well to enrich their fantasy products. Besides Jackson (the editor of Lord of the Rings) made indeed very dark movies. These movies are a clear product of our current time. Tolkien wrote down a much more brighter story.

But back on topic :
The story element of shaded heroes with different layers and differing emotions was basically only evolving post Mid-Age when advanced technology for archiving, reproduction and distribution of stories became slowly available for the majority of humankind.

In anyway Kael has every right to brand FfH as dark fantasy. Like he pointed out the characters in FfH are way more facetious than your average 'Slayer of Evil, Protector of Meek' - Hero.

The only criticism that I could (ever) put on Kael's Story is that he draw his inspiration almost exclusively from the Christian Heritage. But that is his own preference and frankly speaking ... FfH had really brushed up my own knowledge on these Christian Legends .. maybe this more widespread in US, but actually in Europe we do not have very much knowledge anymore about these stories.

Regarding Gender Political Correctness in FfH.... has anybody lately read original human legends, be it Greek or Nordic or Hindu or whatever ? In comparison with these stories FfH is set in an almost modern world. The women in FfH are way too overpowered and free minded for a Fantasy Setting that is supposedly spanning the Ancient Age and the Mid Age of our planet.
A simply example : Women in the Mahabharata (one the most important Hindu-Tale Collection) are regularly getting abducted, traded around, force married, raped and banned to live only in the house or the forest.
Not to mention that they always have to share their husband with at least one other woman. (Lord Krishna brings with him one NEW wife from EVERY adventure (and even more when they are sisters) .He gets them as a kind of .. present ...)
Not to mention that women regularly get punished by the Gods themselves if they EVER dare to think, act or even care for themselves.
But now comes the best thing ... they like that way ! They feel morally right if they obey these rules. They feel flattered when Krishna chooses them to be his XXth wife .. so much for Gender PC :)

Has anybody heard some stories from the war torn lands of Africa lately ? Then you know how women are treated if the world of FfH would be a real world.

(So FfH is actually a idealistic place, but frankly I like it better that way :) )

I feel misogony has been addressed, so won't touch that.

"Traditional Fantasy" is Good Guys Vs. Bad Guys, with the capital letters there for a reason. It is also generally self-serving, escapism, or meant to convey a moral/lesson. This most certainly does not fit in with that. Another branch of "Traditional Fantasy" is just flat out children's stories. There is no intended consistency, and whatever comes to mind, comes to fruition.

As for "Realism" when you are talking about magic and fantasy: It means Believable, and self consistent. It is what you look for in a movie, TV Show, Book... everything around you really. Do you think people fall madly in love in the span of a week? No, but the movie needs to rush things to fit it all in 2 hours. Do you think that someone can "use the force" to choke someone across the room? Well, I guess I can buy that if they were able to use it to pick up their light saber from the same distance...

Rules are needed, consistency is required. And if we know how something SHOULD work, then it ought to work as close to that as possible, or we quit believing in it. And sometimes, the word "realistic" is just what people know. We are dealing with all ages, and all educational levels. We do not expect people to know the difference between: realistic, mechanistic, probable, feasible or any other variations on the same connotation. Plus, we aren't always talking the "earthen reality."

And finally, as for "Tolkein-esque crap," go spend a couple hours with an English Professor (full Ph. D preferably). They can fill you in on every potential source that Tolkein drew from, and go on for weeks about how his stories parallel the World Wars. They can also point out that his work is COMPLETELY unoriginal.

What it all boils down to is that people tell stories which are remakes of stories they have heard, seen, or been in. We all do it, and we do it at various levels of competency. I could probably draw parallels between the last excuse you gave someone for being late and Tolkein's works, or the Bible, or the Dead Sea Scrolls... You know why? Because there is a large body of work there, and thus it can be connected to ANYTHING if you put your mind to it. That is kinda the point of our minds, making connections (well, actually my take is that the point of most of humanity is breaking things apart, but that is a philosophical distinction which would take years to debate fully if someone disagrees).

I just wanted to put in my two cents about what "realistic" means in a fantasy setting.

For a story to be realistic it does not need to be true to the earth or the universe as we know it. However, for a story to be realistic the individual components of the fantasy universe must to true to their universe and the people must act like people.

For instance, Kael talked about how the story of Mardero came about. Since the fantasy universe he was creating in D&D did not allow daemons and people to cross over a given point he created a logical way that some beings could. Kael could have done many other things as well, I'm guessing, but any option he chose would have to leave the rest of the world intact, or be acted to accordingly. The trick with any large story is to make sure it doesn't contradict itself. For how convoluted FFH is, it is amazing how well everything lines up.

People, however, are the big thing that makes any story "realistic". People in any story must be made of the same metal as people are in real life. They must be able to be transplanted to any situation and have their action be constant to their character. In any good fantasy you should be able to look around you and find parallels of the people in the story to people in the modern day. Heroes are sort of an exception to that, as they do not act like normal people. However, for any given hero to work, they must think logically and their actions must be justified. Basium, for instance, is nuts about killing daemons at any costs to the point of insanity. Yet throughout history it is possible to find people who come close to that obsessiveness and as long as all of Basium's actions are constant with his obsession he works as a character.

[QUOTE=Kael;6232286] I made Elizabeth in the Cassiel story a girl because it gave the story a lot more emotional resonence to me. I dont think it makes it misogynistic. I would hope that none of the stories of any of the horrible things that happen (to male or female characters) give any impression that those actions are idealized or glorified in any way.QUOTE]

You mentioned Elizabeth's story; I first loaded FFH, then went into the Civliopedia to read about each leader, I tend to play Civilization the way I view the real world. Always trying to get either a cultural or diplomatic victory with the UN wonder as one of my goals. Being a real-life Agnostic and being very respectfull of Humanity and what it has done (all the races); Cassiel caught my eye right away. he also had the coolest portrait. Then I read his story, which was really a story of a young girl. Like you said, it was very emotional. It was the deepest story i've read in video/pc games. Reading this story made me want to read the whole Civilopedia top to bottom. if i had started reading, say Falamir's story, I don't think i would have been interested enough to read the rest of the civilopedia. Although I like to think that the death of a male child in the place of Elizabeth would resonate the same way, I am a male who took offense to the way woman were portrayed; meaning I paid attention more when women were involved. Whether I should had taken offense or not. It wasnt the female leaders i took offense at, but the regular women in the universe. Unforutnately i did get the impression it was glorified, when maybe i shouldnt had. Just goes to show that for me at least, this game is a little TOO deep. When you get a non role-player to RP, thats good stuff.

sorry about that quote mess

You're just misssing one of these at the end of the quoted part:
[

Actually, it's a "[/".

And one of these / :P

Absolutely Correct!

High Fantasy as introduced by Tolkien is basically a retold and fine tuned copy of legendary tales of Humankind. It is a characteristic of human legends to have only either good or evil characters. The reason for this is simply that the story has to appeal to a very wide audience with very different levels of education. Therefore simplicity became a necessity.
Small point of clarification...if you read the backhistory of Middle-earth (re:Silmarillion) you will find a lot of dark fantasy elements, especially in regards to the Elves and the house of Feanor.

I agree. The history of the Grey Elves and of the Edain is pretty dark there too. The Vala aren't perfect either. I'd say the min reason Tolkien isn't dark fantasy is because of the naivety of the Hobbit perspective.

Its strange to see this thread title in the forum. I hate to bump it up and help it to remain on the first page. But I want to add my voice to the choir for the sake of those who come here to learn about the mod and haven't yet experienced it for themselves. I see Nothing in the mod which even comes close to suggesting that the team has "a problem with women". The OP goes further and says they have "misogynistic leanings" ie: hatred of women. That is absolutely Absurd! And for some reason I find it to be offensive.

And I completely disagree that the mods writers are "more into shock value than telling an intelligent story." On the contrary I think the story behind FfH has been created quite intelligently! They have created a deep and interesting world which is realistic within the confines of a suspension of disbelief.

I for my part love women ;)

I'm glad I'm not the only one who raised eyebrows at Os-Gabella's crime being defiance. Reminded me about that line in the Lich spell blurb about the one thing gods really hate is a threat to their authority.

Now what would a civ that actively saught to oppose/usurp the gods look like? Most probably a smoking crater.

You mentioned Elizabeth's story; I first loaded FFH, then went into the Civliopedia to read about each leader, I tend to play Civilization the way I view the real world. Always trying to get either a cultural or diplomatic victory with the UN wonder as one of my goals. Being a real-life Agnostic and being very respectfull of Humanity and what it has done (all the races); Cassiel caught my eye right away. he also had the coolest portrait. Then I read his story, which was really a story of a young girl. Like you said, it was very emotional. It was the deepest story i've read in video/pc games. Reading this story made me want to read the whole Civilopedia top to bottom. if i had started reading, say Falamir's story, I don't think i would have been interested enough to read the rest of the civilopedia. Although I like to think that the death of a male child in the place of Elizabeth would resonate the same way, I am a male who took offense to the way woman were portrayed; meaning I paid attention more when women were involved. Whether I should had taken offense or not. It wasnt the female leaders i took offense at, but the regular women in the universe. Unforutnately i did get the impression it was glorified, when maybe i shouldnt had. Just goes to show that for me at least, this game is a little TOO deep. When you get a non role-player to RP, thats good stuff.

No problem, Im actually very happy to hear that the story did have some emotional resonence with you.

From a process perspective I tried to make the best case possible for religious fanatism. Everyone reading that story would be fine purging the veil from the world (and we certinaly never portray the veil to have any redeeming qualities so that message is consistent). I thought that was the best way to contrast Cassiel's perspective later in the story. I love that Cassiel only says 3 things in that story (2 to elizabeth and one to her father) yet so much of his character and ethos comes through.

Personally this entry is my own arguement against fanatism of all sorts. Cassiel is probably my favorite character in the FfH universe (I know he's Loki's favorite too) and I spent a lot of time and thought on his pedia entry. And I think his character is pretty unique to the FfH universe (there are so many fantasy characters out there its hard to be unique, especially when we only have a few paragraphs to do it in, but I think we did it with Cassiel).

A lot of literature is pretty misogynistic, same with many videogames. Actually really, a lot of our cultural output is so laden with patriarchal tropes and assumptions that it can be hard to see unless you're actively thinking about it.

But FFH really isn't a big offender. It's no Ursula le Guin story, but it's pretty good on the gender front, all things considered. This is especially because it's not telling a story which is in any way utopian. It's dark, it's casually and often randomly brutal, it's ruled by hardcore religiousness and people exercising fairly absolute power.

Its strange to see this thread title in the forum. I hate to bump it up and help it to remain on the first page.
From his response I think Kael will agree with me on this one, but were I in his (and the team's) shoes I'd definitely want to be told if somebody had this sort of reaction to something I'd written so I could try to understand why and evaluate if anything should be changed to prevent it from recurring or even simply to address that individual's concerns. I'm glad it was brought up, it gave rise to an interesting discussion, and added to my backstory knowledge; I've not read some of the pedia entries, especially ones added after I started playing the mod. Mainly because the box is so tiny I think. I'm writing similar things (though generally lighter in tone, with more jokes :)) for the Mordor remake linked in my signature at the minute and it's useful to get a feel for others' work. Once you start doing it it's interesting how much story and atmosphere you can get into a couple of hundred words, or into a number of entries which won't necessarily be read in any particular order by players and which have to stand on their own. Negative (constructive) feedback is far more valuable in many ways than positive, even if it's not immediately as nice to receive :)

I must be very bored at work to bother reading all of this post.

Basically, you are saying :
1. You know nothing of fantasy
2. The FFH team must be misogynist because you read a couple stories about rape and 1 about an evil woman.

First of all I would like to say; i'm not much into fantasy
That shows indeed :

whether it be sci-fi or Tolkienesque crap with golems, elves and whatnot. […] Most of this fantasy comes from Tolkien ultimately, and most of our video games and books come from him. So tradional fantasy is exactly what FFH is a part of.

Ouch… well first, science-fiction is not a sub-genre of fantasy. To make it simple „science-fiction“ = possible future, „fantasy“ = impossible past.

Secondly, saying „most“ comes „ultimately“ from Tolkien is plain wrong. As it stands, Tolkien, and several other writers (Leiber, Kipling, Burroughs, Haggard, without mentioning Howard with Conan the Barbarian, which you should have heard of because of the movie) had „most“ of their influences from a certain George MacDonald (not the father of the junk-food chain).

All these writers, have had their influences from mythology, mostly germanic with Beowulf (which you should have heard of because of the movie), the scandinavian Eddas, the Niebelungenslied (Wagner’s opera), etc, but also the arthurian legends (which sports fairy creatures) greek, roman or even older (epic of gilgamesh).
Saying „most“ comes from Tolkien just because of that commercial success from Peter Jackson (have you seen „bad taste“, „brain dead“ or even „meet the muppets“ from him? I really think you would LOVE them), is like saying that Mel Gibson invented Christianism because he played Jesus in this movie.

It shows that you must have only read Tolkien. Well, famous as Tolkien is, he is by far not the best fantasy writer and some critics point the following:
Tolkien was living in victorian England with all that it implies. So you will never see, anything near sexuality in his books. This, plus the fact that fantasy was considered „children literature“ shows the lacking in this department.
So of course, a story of rape must be horrible to read in a game after this.

I respect what people have done in this mod / I couldn't help but think they are more into shock value than telling an intelligent story.

„intelligent story“, please define.

Most of the stories involve little girls being burned in a volcano; or being chopped up by an orc, or being raped or kidnapped and murdered.
So yea I respect the game, but i couldn't help but notice the amount of stuff directed at females. So yeah, the mod team may believe that females are the weaker species, but easy on the misogynistic stuff.

Considering the facts that these kind of disagreements, happened ALOT in the past, medieval times, where crusaders raped people not the same color/religion to „cleanse“ their race, not even did it happened in the past, but it continues to happen NOW, and will continue, I think the stories are a bit too soft, compared to the reality.

At least making a leader called „gill bates“, an ugly gnome with the fin/org traits, would make the game more intelligent. :D

I agree. The history of the Grey Elves and of the Edain is pretty dark there too. The Vala aren't perfect either. I'd say the main reason Tolkien isn't dark fantasy is because of the naivety of the Hobbit perspective.

Don't forget the clear good-evil divide, the Rohirrim didn't burn their POWs alive after all...

I am a male who took offense to the way woman were portrayed

Male patronage... That is what someone may call sexism. ;)

(which sports fairy creatures)

Slightly offtopic, buy Fairies are a group of creatures that i think deserve to be in the mod.

i know they break the princess rule, but before being corrupted by disney, fairies would have fit FFH perfectly. think about it: fairies were once fickle creatures, powerful enough to play with time, who had fun stealing mortals away, or granting them wishes.

maybe fairies would fit in as some svartalfar units?

Slightly offtopic, buy Fairies are a group of creatures that i think deserve to be in the mod.

i know they break the princess rule, but before being corrupted by disney, fairies would have fit FFH perfectly. think about it: fairies were once fickle creatures, powerful enough to play with time, who had fun stealing mortals away, or granting them wishes.

maybe fairies would fit in as some svartalfar units?

well, we would not call them fairies anyway. and well it is ffh, think of something new ;) we dont need fairies :D

I had a recent dream I think was based on FfH, in which fleas from hell were causing all sorts of chaos for the people of my small town. Their antics reminded me of imps and faeries.

I had a recent dream I think was based on FfH, in which fleas from hell were causing all sorts of chaos for the people of my small town. Their antics reminded me of imps and faeries.

Of course you put this in the "Signs you're playing to much FFH" thread...;)

I don't have much to add but I would like to say when I read heartofgrigori's first post, I immediately thought of Capria. She is at the top of my list of favorite leaders/heroes for reasons already stated. I never thought to take into account her gender. Misogyny. I learned a new word. Finally, Cassiel's pedia entry is the best. Thanks for the food for thought.

well, we would not call them fairies anyway. and well it is ffh, think of something new ;) we dont need fairies :D

pixies, brownies, gnomes, unicorns, mermaids, Pegasus? No? :D

Rape won't be a very common phenomenon in the Tolkien world I don't think, as most of the battles are between different races. To rape one from another race... EEWWWW... I sure as hell won't (how does one get a human male to mate with an elven princess anyway?!)!!!! And when elves fight each other, they would never succumb to physical lust, as their bodies have absolutely no sway over their minds, anyway. If they fight each other, the purpose is plainly to kill, and that they will do immediately, methodically and ruthlessly, with no pause for pillage and plunder. So no, I don't think Tolkien's universe had to deal with the issue of rape in wartime. As for the Numenoreans capturing slaves, remember that there is a physical, genetic superiority that they have over the other peoples, and so I count that as "different race".

I've been talking about rape and slavery during war, of course, but you're talking about the designers having problems with women in peacetime also. As I've tried to explain before, it is a natural social result of a warlike Erebus, because the physical strength of males are valued in war and women are treated by the victors as breeders and workers. It becomes a caste system that is hard to break as time goes by, much like our own world.

Now fairies, if they were included simply as a race of smaller speaking humanoids with wings on their backs, would truly be a special race to behold in Erebus, even though their 5-feet-tall bodies would need to be supported by 5 times that in wingspan, which would create rather unique architectural, cultural and, the cool part, military styles. Besides, we need some mention of the neutral angel of air somewhere. We have way too many races, so fairies would be included with the Hippus perhaps, like Centeurs are included with Kuriotates?

Of course, if you're referring to fairies as "scantily-dressed females" or as a derogatory term for homosexuals, then you need to leave this forum. Now.

Or, if you're thinking more in terms of the Celtic traditions, not downright evil but nothing good either, you could include them with the Balseraphs.

This thread is so cool :)

Here comes a long long post ... sorry :D (I hope ideas are not too messed-up)

just about rape and all that 'misogynic' stuff (hope there is no spelling error)

IMO, in FfH, there are not male/female inequity... because male and female are inegal !!!! (shocking no?) really.. we are not the same : one can bear child, one cannot, one get (usually) a stronger build, one doesn't, one can easilly be forced to have sex, for the other it is a bit more difficult.. achievable but a bit more difficult.. add to that that our emotional system doesn't function in the same way, that our gonad system (and thus maybe lust) are different, (women being in cycles and men not) this allows for much more differences between the two sex as a standard equality would mean. Both sex are humans, but there are many inherent differences... it doesn't mean one is worth more than the other...

and you may add that most male are more compelled to have sex with a female than with another male...
having a guy rape another male is less frequent (not unheard off but..) than doing it with a female. (how many time do you heard on the radio or TV of guys raped or killed with signes of aptempted rape ??)
in a world with untold horrors, so much chaos and evil, it is "normal" that female destiny (even strong ones) when caught/prisonner or pillaged is to be ravished. You won't hear of the man because either : they are forced into the army, they are killed if too old, too aggressive, too young, they are slod as slaves and that end here. maybe the orc, demons and vampire eat them.

then with women they can do the same thing + have forced sex... more fun to them.

not-using prisoner (or lower-level) women as such asks for a degree of civilization and of public morallity that is sparse in FfH evil-civs but not inexistant.

furthermore, mostly, having strong leaders and charcter includes them having had very hard times before "you forge the better blades in the hotest forges". In fantasy lore it means real hard times : having familly killed, being an abused slave, having friends betray you...etc most colorful charcters comes form those sources. (ok, or jsut being totally evil) that is why some leaders are portrayed has having such hard debuts.

I would propose you two book series that are really really treating women as equals to men (best way to envision male-female relation IMO) one is SF, one is Fantasy (oups, dark fantasy).
-honor harrington serie from dave weber : women are typically equal to men, the heroine is a woman, maybe one of the most strong-will caracter ever made. but when you leave the protection of civilized peoples, the women are badly treated... maybe more so than men.
-fifth millenium from stirling and Meyer : women and men are equals. heroine are women, they are treated just as bad, and can accomplish just as much. but women in those barbaric land are more often raped than males...

you won't ever find those books misogynics..

just saying your issue with women in FfH is maybe more a problem with accepting differences between sexs and that when in position of bloodlust and barbarism, men and women act differently, that maybe women tend to do more data processing with there emotions than men and men more with brute strength... adn both with intelligence, sometimes.

then, men (enven dark fantasy men) are more emotional about girls than about boys. they are more willing to go to war over their only girl than over there only son... (well, not really, but there will be different emotion behind) and reverse is true. so having die little boy instead of a elisabeth would need a woman to speak with cassiel to get the same emotional intensity... changing the whole story and not just a 'sex detail'... because having a desperate farm woman coming to cassiel would lose some appeal. so she would have to be interesting, meaning not your usual peace-town citizen... and thus the back story would have to change...etc.

as for 'princess rules'.. I'd love to have back soome unicorns you know, the mean viscious horse shaped creature, that impals all that moves...

and I really love the cassiel entry... one of my prefered charcater in FfH I don't play him often as I'm not a very good grigori player but I love this guy !!

Well, as far as I'm concerned, the Svartalfar are the Faeries of the FfH universe, in the good, old-fashioned mischevious and harmful sense.

about christian lore ... and tolkien..

some fantasy is tolkien based.. think forgotten realms / D&D.
but most recent fantasy is no tolkien based...
if it were it won't be read anymore.. there is already much of it.

and IMO, maybe you are putting your tolkien-based conception of fantasy on the civ and character of FfH...
coz FfH kazad, luirchips and ljosalfar never made me think of dwarves and elves more than that.. the hippus are not the rohirrim.. etc. (only things like a red firebreathing dragon on a hoard with mithril, gold an gems seems a bit like a bilbo thing...
I really can link those civs with other ones, from other books that are totally different than tolkien. It isj just that for many people, 'inculing me) we are really eager to link any elf-kind race with tolkien elves.. be if Alfen, eary-people, old-ones, first-borns, Eldars, Alfars, sylves, wherever they are tall, small, magic, technicians, treehugger, cave dwellers or else.

(oh, what about a bug-civs ??)

sure there are lot of thing taken from tolkien, but the order, bannor and malakim seem coming from jordan's wheel of times, orcs and more warcraft and DnD orcs than tolkien orcs, sidar are coming from I not know where, Loki is totally coming form the chaos god of nordic mythology, lanun are your typical pirates from ..., OO is lovecraft inspired IMO, ashenveil may come from many sources, even the "deed of paksenarion", mercenaries may come from anywhere but surely neither tolkien nor christian lore... the way magic works may look like mercedes lackey's, cleary not a standard DnD or gandalf type. the battle between angels/god is clearly not christian stuff, maybe a bit of tolkien lore.
...etc

(I would love to have somewhere a thread on sources that inspired most charcater such as : Ljosalfar are inspired from lothorien elves mixed with a bit of this and that... ) lol

I always thought as the Svartalfar as the FfH fairies, as well.

Rape won't be a very common phenomenon in the Tolkien world I don't think, as most of the battles are between different races. To rape one from another race... EEWWWW... I sure as hell won't (how does one get a human male to mate with an elven princess anyway?!)!!!!

Saruman cross-bred men with orcs - I don't think many of those were volunteers. Though I'm not sure if that counts as war-time or peace-time rape.

and IMO, maybe you are putting your tolkien-based conception of fantasy on the civ and character of FfH...

...etc


Tolkien created fantasy genre. Before there were mythology and fiery tales but they are different in style and ideology. Tolkiens product is a kind of eclectic mixture of Mythology, Christian and National-Socialist ideas. For me its characteristic feature is the dogmatic division of the echologically more-less similar intelligent races into genetically good and evil ones. From this point of view FFH is pure tolkienistic.

repeat please ... ???:dubious: :hmm: :wallbash: :confused:
I think I didn't understand...

fantasy existed before tolkien IMO... but not so much.
Tolkien made it be known.

EDIT: and If I understand I totally disagree...

orc and gobs and uruk-ai are gene-modified (tortured) humans-dwarvs-elves...
but some human are evil, some are good.

orcs and gobs are not really peoples... they do not seem to have a real individual thinking in tolkien. (ok, maybe a bit)

then I don't understand the parallelisme to national socialism... IMO there is effectively a big undercurrent that specie is very important on behaivour... but thats not racisme !!! even if there are some undertones. That has nothing to do with Nat-soc.. maybe a bit more with anti-black , pro-KKK pro south-USA of the time. Nat-pro was that each people was a race, with a huge scale of variation, differences between germanic (aryan, english, prussian) slavish(polish russians..Etc) latin (ilatlian, french) and rubbish (jew, rom) and in each big cathegory there were differences and ranking between each under casts.
in kkk it is more : each that is not-white is bad.

tolkien is more about manicheism than about racisme. and what is best to shows manicheisme than having many races, all differents, all with strengh and weakness all good... opposing a race of monsters, of evily (w/ or w/o pun) modified version of the former races.

and FfH is as opposed to manicheism as to other racial hierarchy. There are more differences between civ than between races (almost)

repeat please ... ???:dubious: :hmm: :wallbash: :confused:
I think I didn't understand...
Some copy-past? :lol: Sorry for my english. :( Ask exactly, I'll try to formulate better.

fantasy existed before tolkien IMO... but not so much.
Tolkien made it be known.

What and who exactly do you mean? May be it was not quite fantasy. :) Even Columb did not create America but just made it widely known. That just what means to create genre. No? And I believe this ideology as it is now is mainly from Tolkien.

I
Ouch… well first, science-fiction is not a sub-genre of fantasy. To make it simple „science-fiction“ = possible future, „fantasy“ = impossible past.

Then what is something that is neither of these, or both?
Like Sci-fi with clearly impossible aspects, or hybrids like Geneforge (if anyone here has played it)

Rape won't be a very common phenomenon in the Tolkien world I don't think, as most of the battles are between different races. To rape one from another race... EEWWWW... I sure as hell won't (how does one get a human male to mate with an elven princess anyway?!)!!!!

bestiality...
half-elves...

As for the Numenoreans capturing slaves, remember that there is a physical, genetic superiority that they have over the other peoples, and so I count that as "different race".

Different, superior human race?:rolleyes:

That's nationalsocialist...:mad:

it-ogo... I had edited my post before your answer ...sorry :)

fantasy already existed... tolkien 'invented' the fantasy with elves-dwarvs-orcs and dragons (ie high fantasy). (I am checking my memories with wikipedia on tolkien and fantasy... it tells that tolkien did not at all invent fantasy but created the book that propusled it as a mainstream genre) (and following those definition, dark fantasy is totally different from tolkien's high fantasy)

but fantasy is not limited to that. and some of what is not inclueded in the tolkien realm existed before him, and then neither as myth nor as legend nor as fairy tales (even then, Narnia was written before lord of the ring... but after the hobbit) (another typical exemple is the round table serie that is not a myth and not a fairy tale. it is just so old that people classified it in a genre that was not fantasy as such a definition didn't exist).

And what I said doesn't lessen Tolkien work at all. maybe you can say he is a founding stone of modern fantasy ? IMO, He made fantasy something for grow-ups and he made it reach a large audience instead of a genre for initiated peoples or poorly balanced/dreamer ones . and he influenced it a lot. that's still huge!!

orcs and gobs are not really peoples... they do not seem to have a real individual thinking in tolkien. (ok, maybe a bit)


Well... First, if two kinds of creatures can produce children which can again produce children(not mules) then these two kinds are of the same specie from the biological viewpoint. About individual thinking... what is it exactly? Maybe cultural difference? Or just propaganda? :cool:

but some human are evil, some are good.

So the race overall is neutral.

About Tolkien and Nazi ideas. It is not my personal idea - there are many discussions on this topic (I do not remember where.) But for me this parallelism is clear. While it did not prevent my pleasure from the good fantasy. :p

Of cause it is not perfectly the same. And I do not mean political applications of Nazi Ideology (it is a different topic). What is crucial? There is a creature who can communicate, work, use tools, build cities e t.c. But he is evil (or good) from his birth to death and nothing can be done to change it. And you will be necessary in war with him as you can never coexist in the same world. That is Tolkien. No?

Parallel with manicheism is also acceptable.

and FfH is as opposed to manicheism as to other racial hierarchy. There are more differences between civ than between races (almost)

Yeah, there is discussion but in frames of the given ideology and style. A kind of weak heresy. ;)

but fantasy is not limited to that. and some of what is not inclueded in the tolkien realm existed before him, and then neither as myth nor as legend nor as fairy tales (even then, Narnia was written before lord of the ring... but after the hobbit) (another typical exemple is the round table serie that is not a myth and not a fairy tale. it is just so old that people classified it in a genre that was not fantasy as such a definition didn't exist).


Yes, I think it is terminological problem. I did not read abour Narnia or see the movie so can not classify it in my formalism. :) Postmodern fiery tale genre was historically unavoidable. :D And there is always something out of any proposed system in humanitarian areas.

fantasy already existed... tolkien 'invented' the fantasy with elves-dwarvs-orcs and dragons (ie high fantasy). (I am checking my memories with wikipedia on tolkien and fantasy... it tells that tolkien did not at all invent fantasy but created the book that propusled it as a mainstream genre) (and following those definition, dark fantasy is totally different from tolkien's high fantasy)

From Wikipedia:

High fantasy
These stories are generally serious in tone and often epic in scope, dealing with themes of grand struggle against supernatural, evil forces. It is one of the most popular subgenres of fantasy fiction. Some typical characteristics of high fantasy include fantastical elements such as elves and dwarves, magic, wizards, invented languages, quests, coming-of-age themes, and multi-volume narratives.


Low fantasy
Low fantasy is an umbrella term, describing various works within different sub-genres of fantasy, to contrast specific works with high fantasy. As such, it can indicate fantasy that tries not to emphasise magic; fantasy set in the real world; fantasy that contains realism and a more cynical worldview; and dark fantasy – among others.
--
Fantasy with a large degree of gritty realism about conditions of life in a medieval society, dirt, disease, power, or money. George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire cycle is, by this criterion, low fantasy, though having many high fantasy traits.



Heroic fantasy
Heroic fantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy literature which chronicles the tales of heroes and their conquests in imaginary lands. Stories tend to be intricate in plot, often involving many peoples, nations and lands. Grand battles and the fate of the world are common themes, and there is typically some emphasis on a universal Good versus Evil conflict.
Frequently, the protagonist is reluctant to be a champion and is of low or humble origin, and frequently having royal ancestors or parents but not knowing it. Through events, usually beyond his control, he is thrust into positions of great responsibility where his mettle is tested in a number of spiritual and physical challenges. Although it shares many of the basic themes of Sword and Sorcery the term 'Heroic fantasy' is often used to avoid the garish overtones of the former.

--

Many new authors now shed, at least partly, the traditional concepts of heroes and even of good and evil. They tend, like George RR Martin, Robert Jordan, or Robin Hobb, to use several viewpoints, of "heroes" or "villains", and to blur the distinction between those two categories.
A recent rewriting of the Tolkienian myth by Jacqueline Carey that, while not located in the same world, also describes the struggle of a company against an evil god and his army, showing this evolution well. The main characters of the book are actually the "villains", shown not as inherently evil, but as the victims of betrayal and bad choices. On the other hand, the "heroes" are portrayed as arrogant, narrow-minded, and unforgiving. In other words, there is not much difference between the two sides. Even the "evil" god has been forced into the role, not by fate, but because of his brother's pride.



Sword and Sorcery
Sword and Sorcery is a fantasy subgenre generally characterized by swashbuckling heroes engaged in exciting and violent conflicts. An element of romance is often present, as is an element of the supernatural. Unlike works of High Fantasy, the tales, though dramatic, focus mainly on personal battles rather than world-endangering matters.


Dark fantasy
Dark fantasy in this context refers to stories that focus on darker themes, sometimes akin to those of horror, but which take place in a setting more alike sword and sorcery or high fantasy.
There is a strong overlap between this style of fantasy and sword and sorcery, due to the often bleak, pessimistic tones, and moral ambiguity (especially when compared to the more dualistic themes of high fantasy).


FfH-like things are in red

Calavente,

Just to be clear, did you refer to Jews and Roma as rubbish (trash)?
Hopefully it was something lost in translation.

Calavente,

Just to be clear, did you refer to Jews and Roma as rubbish (trash)?
Hopefully it was something lost in translation.
Not lost in translation, but just explaining what the nazis thought

Nationalsocialist ideology[?] was that each people has a race, with a huge scale of variation, differences between germanic (aryan, english, prussian) slavish(polish russians..Etc) latin (italian, french) (mongol (finnish, asian)) and rubbish (jew, rom) and in each big cathegory there were differences and ranking between each under casts.

I understand now. Thanks for the clarification.

To make it simple „science-fiction“ = possible future, „fantasy“ = impossible past.


I fear that it is comments like this that keep fantasy and science fiction pinned down in their unrightful pigeon-holes. Neither genres are constricted by time or place, or even by what is possible or impossible. The only constrictions and limitations are in the mind of the reader.

Alternate history is occasionally counted as science fiction.

I vote for just making both scifi and fantasy subgenres of the speculative fiction umbrella term.

Critics of Tolkien have claimed his works to racist against black, Arabs, Asians, etc, and to have similarities to Nazi ideas, but Tolkien himself vehemently denies this. Although his works may contain some taint of the racism found in European culture, Tolkien was strongly opposed to racism. His works are far less racist than most from his time.


I too think Elves and men may be considered the same species biologically. The difference between their bodies is a result of them possessing different types of souls, and to the elves having more direct knowledge of the Valar (The greater hight and beauty of the Elves is due to their association with the Ainur. Those who spent time in the uttermost west or with Thingol's wife (a Maia) are said to have grown significantly taller, fairer, and wiser.) Both the Eldar and the Edain are the Children of Illuvatar. Elves and men clearly can crossbreed, as can their offspring. It is often difficult to tell them apart based on physical appearance.

The Silmarilion make it clear that the Elven soul is immortal in this world, but will cease to exist when the world ends. It also states that the Elves were once far more like humans (as are younger elves), but that over time they become less like men because their bodies are supernaturally sustained by their souls. Tolkien's elves actually remind me a lot of the Sidar, although they were created to be "shades" and did not rely on sorcery to gain their immortality. Also, If their spirits are weakened due to depression they can lose the ability to sustain themselves such, and their bodies succumb to the laws of nature and age, grow sick, and even die just like the bodies of men. The Human soul is different; it isn't designed for this world. It is made has a deep desire for thing this world cannot provide, and to have this desire fulfilled when, upon death, the soul leaves Ea. Not even the Valar know for sure, but it is believed that the soul of men leave the world to meet Illutatar himself, and that they will truly live on forever and take part in the creation of a new and better earth. Men were made to be the "gods" of the world to come.

The souls of Men are also given greater free will than the souls of the Elves. The Elves and even the Valar are constrained to only act according to the Music of the Ainur which they created before the creation of the world (although they, especially in the case of Melkor, may not realize or intend their actions to have these consequences). Men are free from Fate. Illuvatar freely gave them the power that Melkor always wanted: the right to make the world what they wanted it to be, not bound even by the will and plans of The One. (Elves and sometimes even the Valar look down on men for their disregard for fate, thinking it makes us just like Melkor. However, Illuvatar himself elected to make men rebellious by nature, so this is not in fact a sign of corruption but of our original intent.




Orks were corrupted elves. (However, Tolkien is said not to have liked this idea, and later tried to change it to make them corrupted men. It is also possible that some are corrupted men, some are corrupted elves, some are crossbreed of the two, and a few of the strongest may actually be fallen Maiar.) The fact that they are described as shorter and uglier than men while elves are taller and fairer is a result of them being corrupted by evil instead of enlightened by good. (It could also indicate that the original elven stature is intermediate between these two, i.e., the same as human stature.) Orks and golblins are the same, with the terms often but rather inconsistently used to describe different types of orks. It is possible that the different types may have originated from different races. Although they are very corrupted, they aren't pure evil. They only serve evil out of fear. They are redeemable.


Dwarves were created by Aule when he got impatient of waiting for the Children of Illuvatar. He was confromted by Illuvatar and chastised for creating being that could never be more than slaves, as only The One had the power to create a soul. He repented and almost destroyed the dwarves, but Illuvatar forgave him and granted souls to the Dwarves, provided the Dwarves not be brought to life until after the Firstborn. No one really knows what the dwarven soul in like, whether it is the same as a Human or elven one or totally different. Dwarves live far longer than men, but are not by any means immortal. The custom of reusing names has led many to believe the Dwarves believe their souls are reincarnated into their descendants. (One group of Dwarves, the petty dwarves went extinct long ago. These were smaller than most dwarves, and I think I recall that they had less facial hair but more body hair. They were the first Dwarves to move east. The Elves didn't recognize them as a sapient species, and hunted them for food. This led to their extinction (although the last petty dwarf was killed by a Man, not an Elf, iirc))

Aule's wife (Yovanna? the Valie of nature) was upset with him for creating Dwarves, and though that since she had no part in their creation they would be hostile to nature, destroying the trees (she was right). Thus, she created the Ents to guard them. They too were granted souls by Illuvatar.

Trolls are the only life that Melkor created on his own in stead of corrupted. The made these as mockeries of the Ents. Unlike the Ents, these did not have souls. Any semblance of intelligence in them comes from Melkor (or latter, Sauron). They don't have any free will.


I'm not sure about Hobbits. Halflings are said to be closer relatives of men than are the Elves or even the Dwarves. They are likely just a "subspecies" that evolved from men. A few places seem like they might imply that some may be related to dwarves. Perhaps they are a men crossbred with with dwarves (or maybe with Petty Dwarves, since I believe hobbits were said to be smaller than dwarves)?

I'm not sure about Hobbits. Halflings are said to be closer relatives of men than are the Elves or even the Dwarves. They are likely just a "subspecies" that evolved from men. A few places seem like they might imply that some may be related to dwarves. Perhaps they are a men crossbred with with dwarves (or maybe with Petty Dwarves, since I believe hobbits were said to be smaller than dwarves)?

Flores humans, island smallness:p

sorry broken hawk I didn't mean to be aggressive.
as zxcvbnm said, I was clarifying the ideology of the nazis. so as to oppose it to tolkien. IMO, for nazi each races were scaled. not as evil-good, but from "aryan/perfect to rubbish/parasit" whereas tolkien just make a manichéan opposition of good vs bad (as if saying that books with angels fighting demons with neutral human in the middle are pro-nazi)

furthermore, orcs and gobs in LoTR cannot sire, they cannot build a civ :
here is a creature who can communicate, work, use tools : monkeys ?? + build cities : ants ?? and orcs-gobs cannot build cities : they are compelled by saruman or morgoth. (do you remember how the urukai are born : not by natural ways, did you ever heard of orc/gob women?? how do they grow? )
yes they were "people" but not really, they appeal more to the lower demon catagory than to "geneticaly evil people that are called evil just due to social differences"

oh and tolkien is in fantasy !!! so producing fertile children does not mean being of the same specie ... aka : do god and mortal be of the same specie ?? some books have mixed blood of dragons and umans : are they of the same specie ..? half elves in tolkien are fertile but have to chose if they will be elves-humanized or elvish-human so the half-elf breed is not fertile per-se. I'm nto sure the are of the same specie.
plus : different sub-specie need to have a common ancestor at least + have fertil offspring : in Rl 2nd proposition means the 1st is true but in fantasy it is not: especially tolkien : eldars or human or dwarves do not have a single common ancestor : therefore they are not same specie ... fertility of mixed offspring can be explained by : 'the gods created differents species that can mixe therr DNA togethers'.

furthermore, orcs and gobs in LoTR cannot sire, they cannot build a civ :
here is a creature who can communicate, work, use tools : monkeys ?? + build cities : ants ?? and orcs-gobs cannot build cities : they are compelled by saruman or morgoth. (do you remember how the urukai are born : not by natural ways, did you ever heard of orc/gob women?? how do they grow? )

Um, where's this from? As I recall, both LOTR and The Hobbit had mentions of orcs/goblins breeding quickly (I don't think it quite used the expression "like rabbits", but close to it), and I never saw any implication of it being an unnatural process in any way.

Nor do they necessarily need to have somebody else commanding them - the ones in The Hobbit were clearly pretty independent.

EDIT: To make the point, the following doesn't like they need an outside ruler to manage their civilization:

I will tell you what Gandalf heard, though Bilbo did not understand it. The Wargs and the goblins often helped one another in wicked deeds. Goblins do not usually venture very far from their mountains, unless they are driven out and are looking for new homes, or are marching to war, which I am glad to say has not happened for a long while. But in those days they sometimes used to go on raids, especially to get food or slaves to work for them. Then they often got the Wargs to help and shared the plunder with them. Sometimes they rode on wolves like men do on horses. Now it seemed that a great goblin-raid had been planned for that very night. The Wargs had come to meet the goblins and the goblins were late. The reason, no doubt, was the death of the Great Goblin, and all the excitement caused by the dwarves and Bilbo and the wizard, for whom they were probably still hunting.

In spite of the dangers of this far land bold men had of late been making their way back into it from the South, cutting down trees, and building themselves places to live in among the more pleasant woods in the valleys and along the rivershores. There were many of them, and they were brave and well armed, and even the Wargs dared not attack them if there were many together, or in the bright day.

But now they had planned with the goblins’ help to come by night upon some of the villages nearest the mountains. If their plan had been carried out, there would have been none left there next day; all would have been killed except the few the goblins kept from the wolves and carried back as prisoners to their caves.

Continue discussion? OK. I like it. This topic is already far from FFH so I consider it as a discussion club on general topics. :crazyeye: If someone is against I'll stop and my apologies.

Calavente, below when I say "you" - it means no offence, just ritorics. :)

IMO, for nazi each races were scaled. not as evil-good, but from "aryan/perfect to rubbish/parasit" whereas tolkien just make a manichéan opposition of good vs bad
Perfect, rubbish, good, evil in this case are categories of ethical value. Both Tolkien and nazi claim dogmatically some ethical value as absolute immanent property of some genetical branch.

The problem is that if you accepted this ideas for orcs then you may be ready to accept this idea for anybody else just from analogy. Without any criticism. It forms your way of thinking.

(as if saying that books with angels fighting demons with neutral human in the middle are pro-nazi)
You say "pro-nazi". I say - some influence of ideas.

The book where main positive hero believe necessary to kill with his nice sword all "demons" species and burn their cities is definitely pro-nazi. Here I really do not mean Tolkien.

Your reasoning is coming from dogmatic believe to the Tolkien statements. Let us roleplay. Imagine that we found a historical memoire manuscript by somebody Frodo Baggins (plus Silmarillion by unknown elven priest). Will you believe all his statements or ony his descriptions of what he have seen with his own eyes (and even dividing number of enemies by 4 and interpreting some observations in different way)?

In first case you will find that Morgoth and Saruman were really very mighty! They have produced an enormous number of orcs and urukhais from few elves without natural breeding. They kept them in a desert for a long time as orcs has a magic metabolism and do not need food. (Just a few occasional human bodies of desert wonderers for evil pleasure.) Their magic made these creatures without individual intellect make and use good weapon and armor from desert sands, joined them into effective disciplined army, able to assault greatest citadels. There are many, many such magic issues. I do not understand why they after that all did not just eat this world for breakfast.

furthermore, orcs and gobs in LoTR cannot sire, they cannot build a civ
That black guys in Africa can not build a civ. And my neighbour say they are spawning in completely unnatural way: there are too many of them. ;)

fertility of mixed offspring can be explained by : 'the gods created differents species that can mixe therr DNA togethers'.
:lol: What I tried to formulate was a definition of the biological term "species". Common ancestor is what can not be checked experimentally but only derived logically. You see... there are facts and explanations. For the person from the Tolkien world crossbreeding is a fact which can be observed, while origin of species is a matter of Mythology, Phylosophy, (Science?) and Religion. Like for all of us. :) So are you (roleplay) ready to accept a dogma from your mythology to make a decision to start genocide?

Your reasoning is coming from dogmatic believe to the Tolkien statements. Let us roleplay. Imagine that we found a historical memoire manuscript by somebody Frodo Baggins (plus Silmarillion by unknown elven priest). Will you believe all his statements or ony his descriptions of what he have seen with his own eyes (and even dividing number of enemies by 4 and interpreting some observations in different way)?

Sounds like it-ogo is talking about a conflict between the literary and suspension of disbelief modes of interpretation, here. For those unfamiliar with the difference, I suggest reading http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Analysis.html (it talks about "how to analyze science fiction", but I don't see why the same principle couldn't be applied to fantasy as well). Both methods have their ups and downs.

I still don't understand why people are having difficulties distinguishing between the mod team having a problem with women, and the characters in the story having problems with women. Remember, this is a dark fantasy, good people do bad things and bad people do worse things. We have our own beliefs of fairness, and a harsh, brutal world has their own ways of doing things. Think of dark fantasy in this way: Europe in the dark ages, with fantasy making it even darker and more evil. Please don't mix it with high fantasy. If people can get away with mistreating women, or anyone not in a position of power in their society for that matter, it will happen. Magic is a way to make it worse, not better.

MagisterCultuum: nowhere in Tolkien's work is the fate of men mentioned, other than their souls are taken somewhere else. Likewise, the elven body dies when the world ends, but nothing is said of their souls, except that they truly never gain the freedom to shape the world. A true storyteller leaves these things in suspense. If it were for my imagination, humans will inhabit the new Earth and elves will be the angels.

I'm pretty sure orcs are elves though. In the third book of the trilogy, a couple orcs are overheard by the hobbits talking about the great siege that ended the second age!

How do you consider elves and humans the same species biologically anyway? To elves we are like apes and gorillas, and we don't mate with apes.

How do you consider elves and humans the same species biologically anyway? To elves we are like apes and gorillas, and we don't mate with apes.

half-elves half-elves
How they are formed if elves and men don't mate?
Aragorn and Elrond's daughter, Lúthien and her human husband

Yes, I know, I KNOW half-elves are there, I know Tolkien's world very well. I'm saying the SHOULD NOT be there. Perhaps I haven't made myself very clear, but then again, this is exactly the problem that created this thread in the first place.

The difference between what IS, and what SHOULD.

Everyone in this forum agrees that women, whether it be in our world or Erebus, should be equals to men. I'm saying that women are NOT equal to men in Erebus for much of the same reasons why women are not equals to men in our own world.

I vote for just making both scifi and fantasy subgenres of the speculative fiction umbrella term.

Yes I agree. It`s time to move away from terms that in the minds of many will always be derogitory. Gulliver`s Travels would be classed as fantasy today, and would probably have been disregarded as the classic it is because of this. There`s no point catering to people who clearly don`t understand the genre that they`re dismissing, by simplifying the terms of reference into `fantasy` or `science-fiction` dump-bins.

The Silmarilion does speak of the final fates of Human and Elven Souls, but in a way that makes it clear that not even the Valar know these things for sure. This was presented more as what the Valar suspect.


Yes, Orks are/were elves, but Tolkien is said not to have changed his mind about that later. He was working on revising Arda's history to make men show up early enough for them to be the source of the orks when he died. He never finished this, and personally I prefer it the original way. (There is also some controversy about whether that siege was really the one from the second age. Many think it spoke of a more recent siege, but that would still have to be over 200 years earlier.) Multiple origins is another possible explaination. Some think that the orkish hero Baldog may be a type Maia of slightly lower rank than the a Balrog.


By your reasoning the Elven women don't seem to have a problem with bestiality. Of course, Luthien herself wasn't wholly an elf. Her mother was a Maia who took on an elven form in order to mate with Thingol (and was unable to maintain this form when he died). I suppose it is possible that this some of her "DNA" was somehow designed to facilitate "interspecies" mating. That might help explain the offspring of Luthien and Beren and of Arwne and Aragorn, but not of Tuor and Idril Celebrindal.

I don't understand the point of the first post. Firstly it goes on about how fantasy is a waste of space, then how the poster liked the whole FFH background and how it was so realistic before finishing up with a rant about how unfair it is to women and finally about how unrealistic it is.

1 - Its a game, which not to denigrate CIV 4 or FFH, is hardly realistic.
2 - This game has one of the strongest female lead line ups I've ever seen in anything. Frankly I think the guys are rather dull in comparison. Airheads? obviously he didn't read up many of the female backstories.
3 - If the poster has such a low opinion of fantasy why did they bother?

It just doesn't match up with my experience of FFH. I like it because its not formulaic, can't see half of these characters ever making it to an EA title anywhere soon. Tactics that are just plain mean or so outright nice that they're fascist are available.

Rape won't be a very common phenomenon in the Tolkien world I don't think, as most of the battles are between different races.

Sex is almost non-existent from Tolkien, as is much of relationships, he didn't write about them. However the time period he was writing about (the sagas) didn't tend to go into the squishy details much.


Tolkien was living in victorian England with all that it implies. So you will never see, anything near sexuality in his books. This, plus the fact that fantasy was considered „children literature“ shows the lacking in this department.
So of course, a story of rape must be horrible to read in a game after this.


You really want to look harder at some of those children's stories!

Critics of Tolkien have claimed his works to racist against black, Arabs, Asians, etc, and to have similarities to Nazi ideas, but Tolkien himself vehemently denies this. Although his works may contain some taint of the racism found in European culture, Tolkien was strongly opposed to racism. His works are far less racist than most from his time.


You can find just about anything, and everything, in Tolkien's works if its deconstructed enough. It was meant as a saga type story and should be taken as such, I wish people would stop looking for hidden meanings all the time. Sorry Magister, this isn't aimed at yourself I just wanted to add to your comment.

so far, silmarillon does give the historicity of Arda and midle earth, it is not mythology so much as fact. some elves living in Bilbo time were born at that time. therfore it is not myth but history.
then, a common ancestor is not myth or philosophy, but biology and archeology (eventually). in RL, being able to have fertile offspring between two "race" (I hate this word) means that there is enough common ancestry to be of the same specie.
in fantasy, the myth of creation are not myth but facts given by the author so as the reader understand the world. finding the silmarillon is not the same as finding 'the hobbit'. thus, creation of the different race of dwarves elves and humans is possible (oh, what do you say about the SF serie "farscape" so many different alien races !!! but there are mix-blooded people... are they of the same specie ??)

duh. :D
and really, good vs evil (even race of good vs race of evil) is more manicheisme than anywhere close to nazi ideas...
the fact that actual litterature always try to find almost good in the evil race and bad guy in the good race is more a trend than anything else. it is a bit easy to judge the way litterature worked compared to haw we do it now, as plots that are common now and even necessary where not invented yet or not as "inevitable".

I find this thread distressing. What surprises me is not the first post -after all we are all used to see from time to time some degree of mental disorder- but the fact that such nonsense has been generally addressed as if there were something that needed explanation or, worse, excuse. We need to get rid of this cancer refered to as political correctness. And the first step is not to feel forced to treat with extreme care what is simply ridiculous. It'd suggest to simply laugh at it.

Thanks to the mod team and Kael in particular for their awesome work.

Threadcromantic post here but..

I was wondering and this seemed a nice place to ask.. is everything sourced from your old campaigns or could someone like me invest some days worth of creativity and say " Hi kael, here is a backstory and concept art for a female Sidar to serve as leaderhead or hero" or something like that?

Threadcromantic post here but..

I was wondering and this seemed a nice place to ask.. is everything sourced from your old campaigns or could someone like me invest some days worth of creativity and say " Hi kael, here is a backstory and concept art for a female Sidar to serve as leaderhead or hero" or something like that?

We have created a ton of material outside of the campaigns. We just use them as inspiration, we aren't trying to recreate them (whatever is best for FfH is what we use). That said the civs and leaders are fairly locked down, we probably won't add any more.

But if you'd like to writeup a pedia entry for an existing character that doesn't have one I'd love to read it. No promises that it will be added though. In fact I would just assume that it won't be. I tend to be overly picky and there is a lot of background stuff that the story would have to mesh with before it would be useable.

hmm hmm hmm, ok.

Threadcromantic post here but..

I was wondering and this seemed a nice place to ask.. is everything sourced from your old campaigns or could someone like me invest some days worth of creativity and say " Hi kael, here is a backstory and concept art for a female Sidar to serve as leaderhead or hero" or something like that?

But don't try for a female Sidar...we hate women.

:eek: just kidding.

Here here Don Pelayo! Heres to Kael's awesome mod (good luck in finding someone who can do better) and LOL to the random poster for being a big waste of our time :D

Al

But don't try for a female Sidar...we hate women.

:eek: just kidding.

I for my part love women ;)

I also think people should look back in time and recognize that fantasy did not start with Tolkien. Fantasy had a strong tradition. The Gormenghast trilogy was very popular among fantasy fans. (The first book, Titus Groan, came out in 1946. The other books were in the 50's after Tolkien was published.)

There is no question that fantasy as an art form exploded after Tolkien, and created a whole genre. But it didn't start there, or work independently. What Tolkien did is make fantasy 'mainstream', so you weren't a member of a weird and odd cult.

Tolkien completed Lord of the Rings in 1949 or so, I'm pretty sure. Most fantasy critics immediately declared it as a masterpiece, but it didn't become a phenomenon until the 1960's. It's 'break' was when Harvard University made it part of its literature review -- Tolkien was literature! But so is Mervyn Peake! And Lord Dunsany. And William Morris.

Is Tolkien 'dark'? As pointed out above, the Silmarillion is incredibly dark. But Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit were not, and its light tone dominated its acceptance. For older people like me, we had Lord of the Rings from 49 (Ok, even I'm not that old) until the 70's before the Silmarillion came out, and Lord of the Rings was 'traditional' lighter fantasy. Yes, the Tolkien movement as a phenomenon began in the '60's, a period of incredible change in the United States and in the West as a whole. Society changed, and the anti-traditionalism also lead to the explosion of civil right, rock and roll, and other movements; all of these had earlier antecedents but they both impacted and were impacted by the change in society.

Michael Moorcock is derisive of Tolkien specifically because of the 'Merry England' view, that there is something better about pre-industrialized societies. It fit the 60's movements perfectly.

Moorcock, also an amazing author, is very dark. To him, fantasy is not classic escapism to a 'better' time, and his worlds of fantasy are very harsh.

Anyway, my take on this -- Kael and his colleagues have done an amazing job. Not just as an amazing mod, which it is, but in creating so much back-story. I love Civ, but to me FFH is just so much better. It is great strategy and immersive. If this can be done with dark fantasy, great. If it can be done with light fantasy, that's good too.

Best wishes,

Breunor

I still don't get what the OP's problem with Rohanna is. She's slightly attracted to a wispy, androgynous, non-threatening boyband-type. All too common, I fear.

Still, if I were going to pick the single most awful thing I could see setting across from me at a negotiating table, a pretty, confident woman with her own horde of screaming Mongol horsemen would be a definite contender.

LOL to the random poster for being a big waste of our time nah, it was an interesting thread and no offense taken.

It has some good lore info. The thread name is misleading now, but it is what it is.

Everyone in this forum agrees that women, whether it be in our world or Erebus, should be equals to men. I'm saying that women are NOT equal to men in Erebus for much of the same reasons why women are not equals to men in our own world.

I still don't get it. What exactly IS the reason woman are not equal to men?
I just can't see ANY disregard of women in western society (e.g. North America, Europe and Russia) on Earth (edit: of course there are individuals who still treat women as "possesion", but it's not a majority anymore - at least I hope so!), nor do I on Erebus, aside of the feeding on village people by some vampires, which is - at all - also a matter for male Calabim "cattle".

Women in Western Society are in fact MORE free to do whatever they LIKE, than men. Most Countries in Europe know conscription only for men. Conscription only for one gender is quite unfair, isn't it?

Well anyway - in Europe a Girl can get a Woman and there are no strong feelings against the idea, that she does any job she wants (if nescessary diploma achieved), nor is there any such thing as the term "a real women". While on the other side, if you're a man and not so much in cars, football (soccer for the Americans) and other "male" thingies - you are disregarded not only by your "fellow" men, who think your gay, but also by women, who think fantasy and computer games are some kind of love affair which has to be destroyed...

so WHERE exactly is this Mixigenoplumbification - in the civilized zones on this planet? of course if your looking on other parts of the world which are not willing to renounce the will of the church (whatever religion this curch has), and get in an age of Enlightenment, which europe and america had by 1700s, women are mistreaten, true.

but to say such a thing - of course - is considered "racism"...

Now for the Erebus World. There, women are equally strong, they are equally crazy, they are equally brutal, and they do rule over their people equally, like all the male characters. They all got a background story (unlike in Tolkin, aside of Luthièn), they are treated by the designers of this marvelous mod as equal beings as their male counterparts - absolutely inessential which race (orc, human, elvish etc.) they are. The Designers of this mod respected the role of the women in this world.

So what is the matter?

Both Khazad leaders are male, and Luchuirp... I think dwarven races have some problem with gender equality... Something is hidden in the Lore and needs revelation. :lol:

Actually women "equality" in Erebus is one of many concessions to contemporary esthetics and ideology. Nice to see a woman-warrior if the war is a kind of art. It is quite acceptable even if the military service is enough clean and safe and needs just some professional skills and does not really need your life to be spared or your body to be crippled. But males genetically are spending material and more eager to die while females should be kept for the benefit of specie and usually prefer to submit rather then to die. So if warfare and leadership in some society imply big permanent risk of violent death (as well as dirt and brutality) then women there will be in great minority in theese areas even if they are welcome.

Both Khazad leaders are male, and Luchuirp...

You sure? We're talking dwarves here, after all...

The Civilopedia does say that Keldon Ki created both male and female Dwarves, but it never confirms nor contradicts the Lord of the Rings movie's assertion that female dwarves look just like dwarves, beards and all.


It could be that the Dwarves are extremely traditional and that their women all stay at home in the underhome (doesn't explain it so well for the Luchuirp), or it could be that the genders are so equal that no one even knows who's a male and who's female.


Still, I believe the civilopedia does use masculine pronouns to refer to all the dwarves mentioned, so it is a safe bet that the leaders are indeed male.

Terry Pratchett says most of Dwarven countship is tactfully finding out your partner's gender. Who's to say Erebus dwarves aren't the same?

Well...
I will not use beautiful words and high concepts and show my lack of knowledge in "Tolkien", "fantasy words" and so on, especially after so many lectures...

I do not play many games.
I have started FFH not long ago (last September), and I am not a specialist of fantasy things.

However...

I do recall having thought the same thing as the 1st poster when I first red the stories., but in milder terms,
Perhaps because I have fresh eyes and little knowledge of all Dungeon & Dragon stories, and I was surprised to see so many things available for reading, whilst I am thinking very simply: a game is made for enjoying a time against others or yourself (i.e. the computer).I expected to see somehow a manual (click there for getting that), and I got an ambiance…
I did thought “they are tough on the women” because I did not expect so much depth in all satellite stories. It is confusing for a casual player to see so much information available on an imaginary computer game. And it still let me confused as it is like a puzzle and a matter of patience.
I recalled having even thought: this should be in a book on its own. After all, it is not a very optimistic reading, and everything has always to be fought for, or destroyed at the end, and there are many stories that are in fact too short and some strong situations are put forward without time for introducing a balance of events…

Some months later, I would say that all these darks stories about women are just a reflect of our world. I live in Mozambique, I worked also in Chad, Rwanda, Kosovo, Sudan, Timor Leste and some other pretty places. What I see right now through my window, and what my nightmares recall me is actually so much worst in “misogyny” or “sexism” that what is mildly set out in the texts.

Where I work/worked, women are even not the cost of cattle…

"does the mod team have a problem with women? "
I don't think they have a "problem". I think they are from various countries, and they give their artistic view of what they see through their windows...

It bears remembering that, in order to have the dark atmosphere Kael was after, he had the gods of hope, trust, foresight, and peace all turn evil. This doesn't mean this things don't exist at all, but that they are much harder to attain and not the natural inclination of people. In international affairs, but also domestic. Worse treatment of weaker by stronger is probably explained by such a setting, but we don't really want to go on at length about every horrible thing.

Speaking of Africa, Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel is a good lesson on inequality in some parts of the world most of us are probably unfamiliar with.

I'd just like to write a female sidar, myself :/ that civ is a sausage party.

It bears remembering that, in order to have the dark atmosphere Kael was after, he had the gods of hope, trust, foresight, and peace all turn evil.

And then he went and killed off the God of Stasis to ensure the despairing, paranoid, impulsive, and violent world would have a fun and eventful future? ;)

No, he just could not afford the upkeep and had to sacrifice it.

No, he did Acheron

Not funny - warned for trolling.

None of those are funny.

Is that supposed to mean anything beyond that their author is an average citizen of FfH world?

Yeah... there is no reason for those to even exist. It could MAYBE be SLIGHTLY funny if used in a proper place/time to be purely sarcastic. But this isn't the proper place, nor time, because there is nobody to satarize with it. And sarcasm is never effective in volume. You posted far too many, with no supporting "setting the mood" to make it even plausible that it was meant jokingly.


Comedic timing: Learn it, Live it, or stay the heck away from it.

I just want to throw out a real quick comment on the whole "Tolkien didn't give individuality or personality to the orcs and goblins" idea. Did you miss that chapter where Samwise overhears two Orcs on guard duty chatting like girls at a hair salon about what their plans for the future are?

I just want to throw out a real quick comment on the whole "Tolkien didn't give individuality or personality to the orcs and goblins" idea. Did you miss that chapter where Samwise overhears two Orcs on guard duty chatting like girls at a hair salon about what their plans for the future are?
is it in the 3rd LoR, toward the end when then reach the Mordor? Can you tell us which chapter?

prolly the last chapter of two towers, The Choices of Master Samwise, when sam overhears two orcs discussing shelob for the most part.. but theres a part where the orcs mention getting away from it all and working for themselves and such

Sureshot has it right I believe. It has been a few years since my last read through. I always loved that part, these two bestial orcs having a conversation between friends.

its also important to note that goblins/orcs in tolkiens world are corrupted elves, not simplistic evil beings; morgoth used to take them deep into his dungeons and torture them, he wasnt able to create his own life, only corrupt others. the trolls could be said to be unintelligent and simplistic tho, as they were supposed to just be earth animated by saurons (or maybe left over morgoths) will, which is why they return to stone when exposed to light (the evil will driving them is dispersed), as opposed to goblins which merely cower in sunlight since it reveals the depth of their corruption under the light of their true creator (likely inspiring shame and fear of what theyve become).

The Valar were quite capable of creating life, but cannot create a soul. Their creations would not have free agency, but be merely soulless slaves to the will that created them. The Dwarves would be as soulless as Trolls, had not Aule repented and almost destroyed his creations. Eru took pity on him, and granted them souls so long as they would not wake until after the elves. This upset Aule's wife, the Vala of nature, who believed that because Aule had acted without her the Dwarves would have no respect for nature. Ents were created specifically to protect the trees from the Dwarves (and because she was mad at her husband), and the she somehow too convinced Illuvatar to grant them souls. Then of course Melkor created Trolls as mockeries of the Ents, but he had no desire to give them souls.

He wanted all the rest of creation to likewise merely bow down to his will alone. I don't think their lack of agency necessarily made these creatures are stupid; they usually are, but those in Mordor close to the dark will of their master are said to have grown quite cunning, in a brutal kind of way. Also, I don't think they were destroyed by the absence of his will; they just became rather helpless and confused, unable to make decisions on their own.

ya by life i meant souls
when you say "those in mordor close to the dark will of their master" do you mean trolls or orcs? theres no doubt as to whether orcs could be cunning, they had souls and such however corrupted they might be. but as for trolls, id think any intelligence would be more like that of a golems programming or orders. trolls were destroyed by the absence of morgoths (or whoevers) will (atleast in the hobbit) which left in the presence of sunlight as i understand it. orcs would likely get confused because sunlight did similarly to them, caused the absence of their masters will.

I'm pretty sure that LotR said that some of the Trolls in Mordor were becoming cunning, but that they were usually quite stupid. Orc were often quite cunning anyways, even when not serving a master. I'm pretty sure that it does describe trolls still alive after the destruction of the ring, but no longer having any idea what they are supposed to do. I haven't read the Hobbit since I was quite little (actually I think it was read to me) and don't remember what it says about trolls and sunlight, but I did read the LotR trilogy and the Silmarilion last summer.

Trolls minds probably are more like golems, but I don't think all golems minds are equal. The Trolls in Mordor were probably more like Barnaxus before he was given life by Mulcarn. He was already said to be the best crafted and the most efficient of the golems, and would need some sort of intelligence (probably problem solving skills like a very advanced computer, not true sentience) in order for that to be the case. Troll intelligence was probably of the same kind. They wouldn't be capable of moral reasoning or of developing personal philosophies, but cold calculations and military tactics would not be beyond them.

I am a woman and I love ffh2. I certainly did not notice any signs of misogyny. Sure some horrible things happen to women in the backstory but the men also get killed, tortured, betrayed as well.

I personally love the fact that almost every faction has a female leader as an option, and they are part of the story rather than just an afterthought thrown in.

There are many games I have problems with, but ffh2 wasn't one of them. I havent set out to read every backstory and compare the fate of the women as opposed to the men, but I have read quite a few. Mostly the impression I have is that this is a very harsh and very brutal world for both genders (or indeed anything capable of losing its life).

Aurore

well...
It makes me realizing that we (I posted in the thread) spoke much about this, without asking a simple question: "What women think about it?"
Hum!... (caugh) ... sorry .. again our "male" egocentrism thinking that we can ask the question AND answer it "on behalf"...
Ooooops . :blush:

well, to be fair, there are probably not many of us here to answer :)

Aurore

You, Claire and Su