Guenevere (WIP)


Will insisting on keeping the sword be one of Guen’s acts that contributes to Arthur’s “hardening”? As much as my Dark Sorceress Guen wants to have the very powerful relic for herself, she doesn’t want Arthur to lose his wide-eyed idealism and optimism. She just wants him to grow up a little bit and think things through so as not to make rash decisions.
AND to actually listen to what she has to say. Essentially, they’re both fighting for the same cause, and my Guen is not any more “hardened” than Arthur, so it’s really not necessary for Arthur to become “hardened” just to see my Guen’s point.

Also, I’ve been wondering about this since book 2 came out; how come Guen visiting Arthur in his chambers is considered scandalous? I realize this might be some de facto medieval law, but I don’t exactly possess sufficient knowledge on the subject. :stuck_out_tongue:

Ah, Shrek the Third…
I believe the Arthurian aspects of the film were loosely based on The Sword in the Stone, albeit very, very heavily parodied. :grin:
Personally, I was at a loss when I found out that Arthur was voiced by Justin Timberlake.

@jeantown
I think I know the gender of Guen’s child. Can I post my thoughts in this thread?

My guess is that Arthur/Guen results in a boy and Lance/Guen results in a girl. This is because I would find it too gross for the possibility of a romance between Mordred and Guen’s daughter if it resulted in two generations of incest.

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I think the odds of romance between Mordred and Guen’s child are pretty low, regardless. The world would see them as cousins, for one, and secondly, Mordred would know Guen’s child is his half-sibling (if Arthur’s) or the child of his hated enemy (if Lancelot’s). I doubt he’d go for either of those.

(Besides, he seems to like older women, and Guen’s child will be younger than him.)

Neither can I. :slightly_smiling: Though I already suspect I’ll end up revising those parts a zillion times.

Hm, I know I didn’t see that one…

Right now that’s not planned to be a hardening factor, just a possible point of disagreement. I’m not 100% sure I’m even going to be able to work in a conversation about it, given the way things are planned for the final scenes of part 2, but we’ll see.

Sooooo, the Guenverse is a lot less sexist than the historical Middle Ages, but it’s still a very gendered culture. It’s less sexist in the sense that women genuinely aren’t considered inferior to men, and a woman who wants to fight or lead an army isn’t going to be shamed or told she won’t be any good at it. But the Guenverse is gender-normative in the sense that people expect that men and women generally tend to do certain things and act in certain ways according to gender. People assume that most women will be inclined to have babies and raise them (no birth control in this world, btw), and that most men will be inclined to protect and/or provide for their families. A man who stays home with the children or a woman who fights would generally not be seen as something negative, but definitely an exception to the norm. Because of that gender-normativity, there’s an assumption that women wouldn’t walk the castle halls at night, either because it’s not quite safe, or because they shouldn’t have to go to the effort, or maybe because of an underlying assumption that women aren’t as interested in sex as men are and therefore wouldn’t be seeking it out. Also, the queen’s bedroom is actually bigger and more comfortable than the king’s, because it’s assumed that she’ll spend more time in her room than he would in his. Even though the queen has servants to take care of the space, she, as a woman, is still kind of viewed as the “home-provider,” and her room is the “home” for the couple. Hence, the queen going to the king’s bedroom would be viewed as strange (but really, no one’s going to stop her – they’re just going to whisper and giggle about it.)

And yes, the gender-normativity of the Guenverse is a deliberate choice on my part, because I wanted to write a story where gender mattered. I probably won’t do that again. My plans for future games/stories involve much less gendered cultures.

Sure! I’m going to do my best not to give any hints, so I probably won’t comment at all if I can help it, but I’d love to hear any speculation (and it sounds like other people would, too). :slight_smile: I guess I’d better not “like” any posts speculating on the baby’s sex, though, because I don’t want anyone to take that as a hint.

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OK, here’s my theory on Guen’s child:
It will always be a daughter.

Reasons why I think so:

  1. The game is somwhat overloaded with male kids: Morgana has two sons and will have a third, Lancelot’s Galahad will also be male. A female child will improve the gender ratio.
  2. A female child will create more interesting dynamics between characters:
    a) Since the world is still somewhat gendered and sexist, Guen’s child being a daughter will make Mordred’s claim to the trone a bit stronger because he would be Arthur’s only child.
    b) The presence of several young men will allow several options for arranged marriages with already known characters like Gawain, Galahad or Mordred. A son’s possible brides would all have to be newly itroduced.
  3. Due to the way male and female roles are defined in Guenverse, it seems to be more acceptable for Guen to teach her daugher warfare and fighting than teach her son “girly” stuff, because the latter would allow people to criticise her for raising Arthur’s heir as a wimp. This would weaken her and her son’s position. A daughter would thus give the player more diverse options to raise Guen’s child.
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I agree with thinking it’ll be a girl, for the same reasons- we have a lot of boys and a girl would be different. And I’m used to everytime Arthur has a kid in something nowadays it’s usually a girl (though it’s not always Guen’s kid).

But girls can inherit in this world, so it would go straight to her rather than Mordred. And guys into feminine stuff or women into masculine stuff is considered odd, but not a bad thing, so I don’t think the kingdom would care if he like sewing or whatever. And she wouldn’t be able to be matched with Gawain- he is her first cousin and I think Arthur and Morgana would be a little weird on incest all things considered…

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Just to follow up on that a little more (maybe I should make a blog post about this)…

Here are three hypothetical kinds of cultures:

culture #1 (sexist): Man wears a dress. It’s either comedy, because men wearing women’s clothing is degrading to men (because women are considered weak/inferior), or it’s dangerous, because he’ll be seen as unmanly and therefore a possible target of hate/violence.

culture #2 (gender-normative): Man wears a dress. People think, “Huh, that guy is wearing women’s clothing. That’s odd. I guess he’s just a feminine kind of guy.” Not a negative judgment per se, but a very gendered one.

culture #3 (gender-neutral): Man wears a dress. Nobody thinks anything about it, because clothing has no association with gender. Pants and dresses are worn by everyone regardless of gender.

The Guenverse is culture #2. By default, girls are given dolls and taught to sew; boys are given wooden swords and taught to fight. If a boy likes sewing, he’s not necessarily going to be seen as wimpy or be teased/shamed about it, but if he doesn’t fight, he might be thought of as not fulfilling his duties (just as a noblewoman who refuses to have babies would be seen as not fulfilling her duties). The attitude is not that liking things associated with the other gender is bad; just that people are born with a set of gender-assigned social obligations. The pressure to fulfill those obligations is strongest on the people at the very top and the very bottom of the social hierarchy; people in the middle (scholars, priestesses, artisans) have more autonomy.

Someday I would like to write cultures that are more like #3. Sadly, our own is still pretty much #1, and men “cross-dressing” in “women’s” clothing is generally considered hilarious. For myself, I know that I will NEVER write cross-dressing as comedy. It’s not funny to me.

(edit: Another thing you’ll never see/hear in the Guenverse is anyone shaming anyone else by comparing them to women. No drill sergeants motivating soldiers by calling them “ladies;” no one saying that someone throws or punches like a girl. It just doesn’t happen.)

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Biology is still at thing, right?

I’m all for not using gender as an insult and gender neutrality. …But Biology is still a thing, right? Namely sexual dimorphism among humans. …Cause that’s a thing. No matter how often people insist it isn’t. It’s most likely part of the reason (aside from arguably old fashioned mindsets/the nature of men) that i’m going to have to sign up for the selective service this year (I turn 18 this year and you’re required to sign up if you’re a guy in the U.S. after turning 18) [Read: The Draft] and no woman is required to sign up for it.

Also Drill Sergeants are still absolute assholes in the Guenverse, right? Like… to take something from my dad (He was in the military for a bit. Met my mom while in it.)… stealing food sent from your parents and eating it?

…Even though i’m pretty sure they aren’t allowed to do that anymore.

Yet. A bill is being passed currently (or has passed) which will require us women to sign up for the draft upon reaching 18, just as men do. This bill comes into force once the combat positions are officially open to women.

idk if this answers your question, but Arthur will not be giving birth, nor is it possible in the Guenverse, even with magic, to make a baby without both an egg and a sperm cell, or to grow one without a uterus.

The majority of the army is just peasant militia who show up with clubs or axes or pitchforks or bows and do the best they can. Arthur’s smaller number of professional soldiers are trained, but given the nature of the Guenverse, I doubt that their trainers are quite the same as contemporary drill sergeants.

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More wondering about physical strength differences.

As humans DO have physical strength differences naturally. (Despite what some people say.)

Whether or not humans “really” have strength differences according to gender doesn’t matter for the story I’m telling. The primary reason for the Guenverse’s gender-normativity is that in the Guenverse, only people with uteruses can give birth. Strength varies greatly from person to person, and not having as much muscle as someone else doesn’t prevent someone from being a good fighter.

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Not contesting that. Just a random question, even if it doesn’t matter much.

Never said strength didn’t vary greatly, ya know. Just basing my statement off base biological facts.

I sometimes just wonder fairly pointless things for a story.

@Fallaner could you please stop spamming machist comments? Or at least sound machist to me. The reason women are no forced in many countries to serve in armies (not in Israel where everyone has to kick ass) is a Machist one. We Males has to protect our countries because Women has to stay home having babies. Women are so feble that cannot be into army, Army is a man stuff . Funny thing one of main reasons Spain quit the force military service was because was considered no equalitarian. So now no men or woman has to serve and every one happy.

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…What? Okay, I had to look up what you meant by “machist”, as I didn’t even know that was a word.

I don’t understand how my comments came across as such. I fail to see how anything I ever said fits the definition for that word I found.

I don’t care for a reason behind it. Quite frankly, I don’t want to potentially be forced to join the military or anything else. The majority of what I’ve said is simply factual OR my simple opinion/how I feel about something.

Seriously. I don’t see where you’re coming from with that. At all.

I think Mara is just suggesting that the posts are starting to go off-topic after @jeantown 's answer. At this point either PM or a transfer to another sub-forum might be called for.

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Ah, I was planning on dropping it after my “I sometimes just wonder fairly pointless things for a story.”

I was curious about fairly pointless things. I got my answer, so I have no more reason to ask about this point.

It not mattering for the story is a fine enough answer for me. It’s a story. I don’t insist any story absolutely follows reality. Just sometimes I wonder.

Exactly Thanks, you were more polite than me. And fallaner you sound like women are the guilty of created forced service when it’s all the contrary

I’m aware. I don’t think I ever intended to imply that. Women are simply guilty of being exempted from it in my country. …Then yelling about equality.

If I did come across as such, then I apologize. I did not mean it as women being guilty for creating the selective service.

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