Fictive Warrior Women - myths and stories
Bradamante 
portrayed in a film called Rankka
taistelu (Rough or hard battle) in Finnish if I'm remembering
correctly. However the film is Hollywood or such, the leading
male role is played by Ron "Ridge Forrester" Moss. I
remember the film claims to be based on an old book. The story is
situated in medieval Spain, the times of war between Spanish and
Maurs. Bradamante is a girl who meets with a witch. After that
when she is travelling, bandits attack her and a knight in
silverish armour on a white horse rescues her. But it's a sort of
a ghost or something, there is nobody inside the armour. Then
Bradamante dresses in the fancy armour and takes the horse and
becomes a female knight who is also skillful. After some killing
she meets a Maur knight, a man, whose sister is by the way also a
knight. She and the man fall in love though they are supposed to
be enemies. You can
read the legend here (it's told in Orlando Furioso, one of the famous
medieval books)
Conina the barbarian a Discworld
character in "Sourcery". Discworld is fantasy parody
written by Terry Pratchett and there are also several other
interesting strong women in these books, like the witches Granny
Weatherwax who can outrun a horse on short distance and outstare
anyone, Nanny Ogg, Magrat Garlick, Agnes Nitt and the first
female wizard Eskarina "Esk" Smith, Susan, the
granddaughter of Death, queen Ptraci and dragon lady Liassa.
There is also mentioned queen Ynci the short tempered in "Lords
and Ladies", she is a moral support to Magrat on her weak
moment, though she is only in a painting and a story. It's said
among other things about queen Ynci that in the paintings she
held her enemy's hand - the rest of the enemy was hanging from
nearby trees. Conina is daughter of Cohen the barbarian and both
a great warrior and master thief trained by her father, though
she would like to be a hairdresser.
Herrena the Henna Haired Harridan
a Discworld
character and leader of her horde in "The Light Fantastic".
Also mentioned in "Erik" with Diome Witch of the Night
and another heroine. Her story is what we all should be reading - way to go,
Terry Pratchett!
Hippolyte an amazon queen in the Greek mythology,
though there are also other names used for her. Fictive amazons
appear also in Xena Warrior Princess with Ephiny as kind of a
leading role amongst them (though not the queen). More about
amazons on this web site.
Amazon link 1 - link 2 - link 3
Scathac a character in Celtic mythology.
Scathac is a god like (?) warrior woman who trains all who want
to become heroes. She trained also Cuchulainn (I hope I wrote the
name correctly) who is one of the great heroes in the mythology. The
legend
Xena Xena is the hero of Xena Warrior Princess TV series.
She was a quite ordinary girl until an army ravaged her village.
She then revenged with her brother. Xena became bad and ravaging
villages herself leading an army. However she once saved a baby
from not being killed and was forced to leave the command of the
army. Then she met Gabrielle who became her best friend.
Gabrielle is a bard and later also queen of the amazons. They
adventure together in ancient Greece. Xena is such a good warrior
that once she even beat Ares the god of war (it's uncertain
really if he is her father after all) in a duel. There are also
books and comics about Xena's adventures and the internet is full
of stories of her written by fans, they are called fanfiction.
Dark Agnes Dark Agnes is a creation of
Robert E. Howard whose most well known character is Conan the
Barbarian. She is a swordswoman in France, a kind of a female
musketeer. Here's
a link to a page about her - and
another page
Red SonjaA more well
known warrior woman character by Robert E. Howard. Red Sonja is a
barbarian like Conan and there's also a movie made about her
adventures. Red
Sonja photos - Review
of the film - another
Red Sonja link
GuiwennethA mythago in Robert Holdstock's
books Mythago Wood and Gate of Ivory. Mythago is a character in mythology that
appears as an almost real person in this ancient wood in England. Guiwenneth is
a celtic warrior girl - woman who is one main character in the books in her form
of the times of war against Romans. She is a part of several legends. In Gate of
Ivory there's mentioned the existance of several warrior women in Kylhuk's party
and more closely described one named Raven who is one of the smaller side
characters in the book. A strong woman as the main character in Lavondyss is a
sort of a witch girl.
MulanA girl heroine in a Disney film
based on an ancient Chinese story. Mulan doesn't want an ordinary girl's life
and when her old father is called to the emperor's army she decides to go in his
behalf, dressed as a man. The beginning is hard, but in the end she saves the
day.
UllannaAn Amazon huntress and warrior in
Robert Holdstock's Celtika, a tale about the adventures of Merlin and the new
argonauts. Her husband and children were slayed by an enemy while she was
hunting, so eventually she joined the crew.
Japanese warrior women - reality and stories
Tucows has lots of free themes, including one named offering in the fantasy section. Offering is a warrior princess theme, they say, offering to her gods.
The image of the warrior woman in
fiction:
It seems kind of strange that at the same time while
warrior women are said
to be admired for their wits and skills, their figures are almost
always
beautiful. One thing that I've tried to figure out is why they
ought to look
sexy and have as revealing clothing as possible? - Why a warrior
woman
should look desirable in the eyes of men, to be a sex object for
their day
dreams? Of course it's only fiction, but why then men can be
pictured more
normal (though not all are)?
For the first thing I doubt if real warrior women ever have been
so
beautiful, and at least perhaps not according to modern standards.
It's a
fact that warriors get for instance scars and they do have
muscles and all
in all the body just isn't the anorectic modern day ideal - I
doubt these
warriors ever were on no-fat diet either.
For the second thing it should be ok to think of a better
protection in
battle and against the weather anyway than the more or less
typical warrior
woman image has. It's only short of making them wear high heeled
boots...
Think of their life: riding, battling, hunting and whatever. One
thing is
also their flowing hair: has anyone ever considered it might be a
hindrage
in battle? Anyone with a long hair can imagine that.
Ok, I know, it's all only fiction, but now I come to the most
important
point: why to make them so? An author can and does make choices
according to
his (in this case mostly his) image of the person or the demand
of the one
who has the money. But is it because stories like that are
written and
movies like that are made for men? Did anyone ever think women
might be
interested? Actually myself I've never been so interested in
these fictive
warrior women - because I get really annoyed to see one that I
know could
never been real, but is much more like a playboy photo, because I
can't
identify myself in them.
Xena is nowadays an exception, though she neither has so lot of
clothing.
But Lucy Lawless and other women in the series don't act like
playboy dolls
and that's what makes me love it. They make the impression of
real women,
though perhaps "prettier" than real women would be.
Discworld books are fantasy parody and also have interesting
points of view
on real life at the same. Myself I enjoy the real life references
much more.
In those books there are also warrior women and such like, but
they, as all
Discworld characters are more realistic. And there's parody on
those
problems I've just written about. I don't think I've ever found
even a trace
of sexism in them books, a good reason to like them. I mean not
all women
have it so good, but if you get the meaning reading them, you'll
understand
what I'm talking about.
Bradamante even in the movie is different. She's a knight, so she's
dressed
as one. Why would it be more difficult than that? She has an
armour, a horse
and a sword and all that goes with it. Her enemy recognizes her
as a woman
only when she takes her helmet off. And they fall in love, by the
way...
The ideal of a woman or a man is made by the culture in which we
live, well
of course that means us people here. I doubt there is or ever
will be an
universal ideal of how a woman should look and act like. And
ideals are only
ideals that may lead to personal disaster if made too strict and
forced too
much. However it's impossible to fight an ideal if more and more
people
believe it's right and good.
And why do we expect all to act according to the gender roles
that change
with time anyway? More freedom, please! I feel it was easier in
past times
(what times varies on the country in question), not to everybody,
but at
least in general. A job was a job and it had to be done, no
matter by whom,
if it was done well enough. And to each job there was a proper
dress.
This applies to warriors as well as reigning a country, farming,
hunting,
fishing, merchandising, sewing, cooking. Did you know by the way
that in
medieval Central-Europe women were sometimes working on buildings,
masoners
and at least after the death of a husband could maintain a
business of their
own? Biologically human is an animal and men and women are more
or less
alike, the psychological difference is made by the culture we
live in.
Elina
- the author of these pages