How practical is a female fantasy armor?

[RepresentingWrath]

Internal realism or consistency is even in high fantasy, thinking in such a way is inane for every story. What you said should still be true for low fantasy. You're basically saying it's just a children movie about space wizards.

How exactly internal realism or consistency conflicts with anything I've said? Did I mention somewhere you have to break your own rules? Don't put words in my mouth if you can't, or don't want to understand my take.

Conan generally isn't portrayed as wearing armour, which makes perfect sense because he's not rich and in a hot climate.
Armour was expensive, even a gambeson was many times the price of a regular set of clothes which were often weeks of work.
In deserts you'd rarely see people wear armour for very long since it's quite literally fatal from the heat.
Without servants to quickly help equip the armour you'd either be forced to wear it and suffer heatstroke or just carry it around rarely using it.
Bikini armour literally barely protects anything, with none of what it protects being vital and would most likely be very uncomfortable as it provides no breathability while trapping all the sweat. And they will sweat as they need a fair amount of padding as I'm sure any lady who tried wearing a bra with metal wires in can attest to. I just don't see anyone making it outside fetish wear.

So if I write a novel that is set in desert, and have a lot of female warriors, I'm forced to describe them wearing niqabs since otherwise it would be consideres as fetishizing them? Ok. The next time I write how a bunch of people, men and women alike climb a volcano to hunt magma elemental, I will put them all in heavy, steel, fullplate armors. I like my characters steamed.

 

[AnonUnlimited]

Well i agree both have advantages a skimpy armor can be used in a distraction way which can make a difference during a fight

I bow down to you

In fantasy, mana comes from air sometimes, and is absorbed by skin. The armor therefore only need be a conduit to channel the mana for defensive magic.

 

[Deleted member 76176]

It does. High and low fantasy differs by the amount of magical in the world. In high fantasy you can have as much magic as you want, and by extension as much enchantments as you want. If you want to, you can make that bikini armor enchanted for speed or something, and give adequate explanation on why it is like that. Not enough material, this particular material conflicts with other material, the less material you use, the better the person wearing it conducts magic, and so on. Multiple explanations that can only be possible in high fantasy.

How many fantasy stories do you know give adequate explanations?

It's a fantasy. What real war? Real war with dragons, hippogryphs, trolls, giants, and magical bearded men flying in oversized pots casting firestorms on people below? This kind of real war? Are we still talking about high fantasy, or are we talking about low fantasy that strives to be as close to realism as possible?

Let's talk about suspension of belief for a bit. Fantasy falls under the speculative fiction category, where you can imagine how things might be if something were different. The speculative nature of it allows you to see flat earth, fire-breathing lizards, fairies that die with the touch of iron, etc., and not bat an eye. Because we are imagining a world where such things are possible within the world's internal logic. If the world allows it, we can make our skin stronger than stone (cultivation), we can fuse mana with body to make our body stronger temporarily (magic), we can wear bikini armor that can make us go faster for whatever reason—that's possible, and our suspension of belief will not mind it.

However, depending on the story, internal logic does not often extends to body armor or weapons. You have an ordinary sword, written like an ordinary sword, used like a normal sword, and treated like an ordinary sword. But the spikes mean it is going to stab the wielder more than it is going to hurt the enemy. How exactly does the sword logic differ?
Oh, it can zap you with lighting. That's a fantasy element, but the concept of a sword itself isn't magical. You are going against the concept of the sword you established in the word (a stick you swing at enemies to hit them) unless you have good reasons to break the convention. The word here is functionality rather than "realistic." Fantasy is all about establishing rules and following them.

 

[Prince_Azmiran_Myrian]

i can already see yours having to include dragon bones

Dragoness' don't need to wear any armor, their bare scales are more than enough. ? ??

 

[RepresentingWrath]

How many fantasy stories do you know give adequate explanations?

Are we talking about concept, or are we talking about how majority of people implement it? Anyway, I know a game that has adequate explanation, albeit through a gameplay.

does not often

I have to repeat my question. Because otherwise, we are comparing examples, which will lead us to nowhere. You will keep mentioning this simple sword that is completely impractical and unusuable, and say how this is the same as bikini armor, it has the same logic. Both are impractical and unusuable.

And I will simply reply with, are we talking about fantasy, or not? Are we talking about piece of metal and a piece of leather? Or are we talking about a magical artifact that draws magical force of the user through his blood, and gains double the length while weighting like a shortsword, less than kilo. The magic bloodblade is able to slice through stone troll's skin like hot knife through butter. And a small leather waisband made out of some fantasy creature that allows magic to flow better. Are we talking about real life objects, or fantasy artifacts?

 

[Deleted member 76176]

Are we talking about concept, or are we talking about how majority of people implement it? Anyway, I know a game that has adequate explanation, albeit through a gameplay.

I have to repeat my question. Because otherwise, we are comparing examples, which will lead us to nowhere. You will keep mentioning this simple sword that is completely impractical and unusuable, and say how this is the same as bikini armor, it has the same logic. Both are impractical and unusuable.

And I will simply reply with, are we talking about fantasy, or not? Are we talking about piece of metal and a piece of leather? Or are we talking about a magical artifact that draws magical force of the user through his blood, and gains double the length while weighting like a shortsword, less than kilo. The magic bloodblade is able to slice through stone troll's skin like hot knife through butter. And a small leather waisband made out of some fantasy creature that allows magic to flow better. Are we talking about real life objects, or fantasy artifacts?

Since we are talking from a design perspective, both works, I suppose.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

Know what? All this talk about swords, bikini armors, practicality, fantasy and reality is leading us away from what we should be doing: if you're an author, you need to write, or plan your next chapter/manuscript. If you're an artist, you should be drawing now. And I should be sleeping cos it's 2:30 am back here.

Sure, we can argue for the entire day about anything, and yet, we will still get to do what we believe is best. Isn't all this pointless?

Wasted time. Throbbing headache. And no productivity.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Since we are talking from a design perspective, both works, I suppose.

As a concept bikini armor, weird impractical weapons, and stupid armor works. It can work in games, I'm too lazy to name a lot, so I will simply name Bloodborne. The weapons there are impractical in our world, but they all have proper explanation on why this or that works. Obviously some stuff is omitted, but if you are going to say it is important, and it can't work without a full-blown report on how they work, and what kind of steel they use, I don't think we can have a conversation.

If we talk about how majority of people implement it, it is usually impractical, and does not have any explanation. Yes. I am not defending this, nor do I care about it. I only care about concept of impractical armors and weapons. I don't even care about bikini armor, it's simply part of the impractical armors category, so I kinda care about the concept by extension.

 

[AstreiaNyx]

Jokes on you, my MC's armor is her snarks. She battles in a school uniform, ordering her pet snek around instead of engaging in close combat.

Who needs clunky metal when you're a powerful mage? It would be more illogical for my badass characters to wear armor to protect their already indestructible skin. It's like putting a bulletproof vest on Superman.

We set the magic rules in this world. I can make my MC wear bikinis or heels if I want, but I wouldn’t, because it is out of character for her, not because my magic rules don’t allow me to.

 

[BouncyCactus]

It's like putting a bulletproof vest on Superman.

You know...imagine shooting someone wearing armor in their exposed head, thinking you circumvented their defense, only for the bullet ding off harmless. That man is just wearing armor for shit and giggle~

 

[Fallion]

How exactly internal realism or consistency conflicts with anything I've said? Did I mention somewhere you have to break your own rules? Don't put words in my mouth if you can't, or don't want to understand my take.

So if I write a novel that is set in desert, and have a lot of female warriors, I'm forced to describe them wearing niqabs since otherwise it would be consideres as fetishizing them? Ok. The next time I write how a bunch of people, men and women alike climb a volcano to hunt magma elemental, I will put them all in heavy, steel, fullplate armors. I like my characters steamed.

What are you on about? There are a ton of different clothes and armours for different environments and situations.
My comment was against bikini armour specifically because even just wearing a regular bikini would be better since your skin can actually breathe and you don't have to lug around a bunch of useless metal.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

What are you on about?

Back at you. You talk about how Conan is ok since "which makes perfect sense because he's not rich and in a hot climate." But for some reason we can't do the same for female characters? Really?

 

[Deleted member 1244]

you can argue that the king is a pervert or that the design somehow buffs your level to a stupid degree,

Or the

 

[BouncyCactus]

I think certain armor befit certain situations. If you want to slay the dragon, you grab the one from the armory, and if you want to lay the dragon, you grab the one in the closet.

 

[RepresentingDesire]

Or the

This should be a wonderful example of survivorship bias or was it failure bias?

 

[RepresentingCaution]

That depends on the artist.
https://carloarellano.artstation.com/projects/Pm8JbB

 

[Prince_Azmiran_Myrian]

Or the

But doesn't that argue AGAINST skimpy armor, not for it?

 

[Deleted member 1244]

failure bias?

╮(￣▽￣"")╭

AGAINST skimpy armor, not for it?

Against Usage? Yes
Against Existence? NO

In the context of that lore.
Reasonable to exist, but only used by morons.

 

[Brayblade]

My opinion is that “sexy” armor looks stupid and that full plate armor is cool and makes it look better.

 

[WinterTimeCrime]

As someone who's written two books on female knights, I can say that I wrote in heeled armored shoes and metal skirts only for the sake of feminity. However, in my second book, I gave a bit of thought as to why some female knights wear them over flatted shoes:

Along the trail that led down the town road, men flayed hay into piles, and children played with voices full of song. Dirt crunched under my heels and scrapped the metal shoes of Sakiiya walking in front of me. Though her armor was slim, it just occurred to me that she also wore armored heels. How was she walking in those? Even though this was virtual, my ankles felt like they were about to snap right off.

「Isn’t it easy to lose balance in fights while wearing heels in armor? You know… as a knight.」 I asked.

Sakiiya turned around and began walking backward with a hand up to her chin. 「Well, not really. Women have higher yields of vitalum, which gives us better muscle and blood control. Our armor enhances our vitalum rate so we can move faster and hit harder in combat. The extra length acts as an equilibrium balance to the ground so we can push off quicker.」

However, amateur writers (or just some writers in general) just want to write in heeled shoes because they look provocative and lascivious -- and I can't really blame them lol.