Of Phoenix Lords and Aspects

[eldargal]

Women are a different shape. It's not just a matter of breasts, that's just an easy way to differentiate and you can't blame them for taking it. I get really, really ****ing sick of the 'they could be any gender under their argument' because in most cases they are in fact quite obviously male and it's an excuse not to make more effort*. FW even pulled this for ****ing Imperial Guard for gods sake. Look me in the eye and tell me a Cadian could be mistaken as a female. Women have smaller waists, wider hips narrower shoulders, smaller hands and feet, longer upper arms and quite a few other small things.

The fact is none of the Aspects have any female soldiers in them, you can assume all you want but they are quite clearly and distinctly males. You can get away with it to some extent if you add a female head to the body but that's still quite unsatisfactory. If you read the Path series you will read that the armour of each Aspect Warrior shapes itself to their bodyshape, which means the differences in female form should be obvious. They aren't on the models because the models depict males. That's all their is to it I'm afraid.

There were rumours the SS Phoenix Lord was going to be female but sadly not. I've actually written to FW to suggest they retcon it in the pdf update but they won't of course. Apparently for a race that has no distinctions between gender and soldiers are just as likely to be male as female there is still only one female Phoenix Lord out of nine.


*Crankiness aimed at GW and FW, not either of you.

[AirHorse]

It has always struck me as a bit odd that the apparently indiscriminate Eldar have a female dominated aspect at all, but then perhaps they also have a male dominated one we've not heard of yet(not counting model ranges)? I personally would've preferred it to just be the model range that was predominately female with banshees.

But I guess the aspects are all super mythologically rooted so its maybe just me over thinking it there!

Definitely agree would be nice to see more diverse models in the eldar range(well all ranges really, but the eldar background seems to be trying hard to emphasise its diversity compared to some other factions).

As a side note, would a female phoenix lord not be a phoenix lady? :P

[eldargal]

The Aspect of the Banshee is female so it may attract more females to it, the other Aspects of Khaine oddly enough aren't gendered. Gav Thorpe has said several times he really wants to write a story about a male Banshee whose Banshee persona/War Mask is female. So all Banshees are female, but not all the time. Imagine the uproar amongst fanboys if BL published that.

Having said that I would happily sacrifice a female gendered Aspect for an equal gender ratio in the models range. Plastic Aspects have that potential, enough male and female torsos in each to make whatever you want and a couple of bare heads for each gender.

Jain Zar is referred to as a Phoenix Lord so no. I look at it a being a translation thing, in the original eldar it is a non-gendered word analogous to Lord so Lord gets used.

[AirHorse]

That's an interesting thought actually. I guess it wouldn't be unreasonable to guess that even though the armour of howling banshees depicts a female(i.e. badonkadonks sculpted on the armour) it doesn't determine the actual gender of the warrior inside. That's quite a cool reversal that never occurred to me before.

Also, I was just being daft with the phoenix lady thing :P. Lord isn't a male only title, the queen is a lord!

[eldargal]

You still have the issue that eldar armour shapes itself to the wearer, so breast cups are kind of superfluous on a male. I'd rather a male Banshee look like a male.

[Kyban]

Aren't there some stories where a male autarch has been through banshees? I seem to remember one, just no idea where...

[Nabterayl]

I don't know any stories, but there'd have to be male autarchs who have been through banshees.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

One of the Alaitoc Autarchs in the Eldar Path series is mentioned as having been a Howling Banshee. He's a male. It's just an offhand reference, mind. Credit to Gav Thorpe, he really wants to put more of the Eldar's cultural attitude towards gender and so on into his books - mostly that they really don't believe in gender distinctions - but they played it a little safer with the first Eldar-specific series. (A decision I dislike, honestly; underestimating what your audience is interested in and is willing to read is an awful trend in genre fiction publishing) I'm sure more will creep in as we go on.

If he does the Phoenix Lords series, that's a good angle for it. Over ten thousand years, female Eldar must've taken the mantle of Asurmen, Karandras, Maugan-Ra and so on plenty of times.

[Archon Charybdis]

I think it's be quite interesting to see a story of a transgendered persona for somebody in their Banshee War Mask, and I'm a white heterosexual male (which much of the internet tells me is a very bad thing).

As far as the Wraith Spider thing, wasn't that mentioned in a single CS Goto book, and never actually called a Phoenix Lord? Inadmissible. I do love the idea of a "Spider Lady" kind of theme for the Spider PL.