Comments on: Cage match

By: How Very Unlike the Linkspam of Our Own Dear Queen (23rd March, 2010) « Geek Feminism Blog

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 20:23:06 +0000

[...] Slam!: In response to the suvudu cagematch which had not enough women, this LiveJournal community is doing the same, but with all female [...]

By: Jake Jesson

Jake Jesson — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:55:22 +0000

[Moderator note: This comment has been edited down at Quixotess's request ~ Mary]

I’m not particularly convinced that godlike strength and godlike intelligence is a male concept – do I understand that phrasing correctly? I find it odd, myself – and annoying – that Ultimate Power only tends to end up in the hands of male characters, and if it ends up in the hands of female characters, they either choose not to do anything with it, or don’t do anything with it because of some emotional failing.

This seems to be an issue no matter what area of the fantasy genre you go for. I can’t offhand think of popular female characters with Ultimate Power in written fantasy, so I’ll go for a couple fantasy TV shows as completely random examples: The anime/manga “Bleach”, in which the single most powerful character is a teenage girl with the power to literally undo, stop, or erase any event or object in existence… but ends up being useless in a fight because her will isn’t strong enough. Instead, her effective superpower appears to be crying and occasionally healing someone. Or how about Gaia from Captain Planet, the Goddess Who Can’t Do Anything? Silly examples, I know, but they serve to illustrate.

I don’t see why men tend to get the All Powerful button pressed for them, and women get the shaft. Sheesh. But is this because Ultimate Power is a male concept? Hardly. It’s because we live in a sexist society.

By: dillene

dillene — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:41:21 +0000

Sorry- you think Hermione is going to throw birds at someone when she’s in a fight for her very life? The words you are looking for are “Avada Kedavra”. Let’s see Jaime’s armor deflect that.

As long as they’re letting deities onto the field, I’d like to put Tiamat and Sekhmet out there. And frankly, I think Kali would wipe the floor with Aslan.

By: Milli

Milli — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 21:23:38 +0000

And check out another female:
http://www.suvudu.com/2010/03/16-kahlan-amnell-versus-17-drizzt-dourden.html
It has her husband showing up, failing to rescue her, and the last line asking who will save her now.

The whole thing is pretty gross. It’s one thing to peg the super powerful against the super powerful, but throwing in a bunch of relatively normal (for scifi/fantasy values) in there and the whole point falls apart. Especially when the normal people are mostly women.

And putting in God and an Old God is just silly, unless they’ve got ways for them to be defeated planned already.

George RR Martin lost a potential fan with that right up, hardcore. That right up made me ill.

By: Quixotess

Quixotess — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:12:10 +0000

I completely agree. Notice how Martin’s vision of Jaime beating Hermione is predicated on her casting the bird spell as her attack. There are a lot of comments under that match that really underestimate Hermione. For example, I saw a few saying that she had no battle experience and didn’t know how to take pain. Those are of course things that men are generally supposed to be quite good at. I guess they missed the torture scene from the seventh book, not to mention her involvement in several magical battles in which people certainly died. It’s true that Jaime has more experience than she does, but as Feast shows, the benefit of that experience is a) completely gone in the case of weapons mastery and actual physical fighting now that he’s lost his sword hand, or b) probably outmatched or evenly matched by Hermione, as it’s about tactics and smarts, which she has in abundance. Plus, yeah. Magic.

By: Kat

Kat — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:59:05 +0000

Yeah, I checked last night and voted for Hermione. And I’m a member of GRRM’s fanclub, knighted and everything, but seriously…all the spoilers are right there in the description of that match. How can a guy known mainly for his swordsmanship, missing his good hand, defeat a wizard? I think most of these matches are going to come down to popularity and/or numbers of fans who come out. I know there are a bazillion Harry Potter fans out there, but these matches seem to be geared toward the epic fantasy crowd (based on the picks, and the people responding in the comments) and a lot of those fans like….testosterone-fueled badassness. (Much to the dismay of the not-small contingent of vocally feminist fans of GRRM.)

By: lian

lian — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:49:57 +0000

I think Hermione losing to Jaime is absolutely laughable.

Hermione is cunning, courageous, and freakishly resourceful. She’s been up against Death Eaters, for heaven’s sake! Jaime is arrogant and *does not have magic to his disposal*. He wouldn’t even get close enough to harm her.

(while I agree with S. Brust’s one-liner “no matter how powerful the sorceror, a blade through the back will seriously cramp their style” [somewhat mangled], that refers to assassin vs. a wizard, not a duel situation.)

By: Princess Backpack

Princess Backpack — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:44:08 +0000

I'm still kinda pissed at them for not bothering to find a decent picture of Ged. I mean, a book cover that *doesn't even show him* is probably better than putting up one of his white depictions, but really... IT'S NOT THAT HARD.

By: Crosspost: Suvudu’s Cage Matches « Reconcile

Crosspost: Suvudu’s Cage Matches « Reconcile — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:06:21 +0000

[...] March 12, 2010 at 10:06 am (Uncategorized) Crossposted. [...]