Illidan Stormrage- The Antiheroic Christ

Despite the several commentators who have questioned whether it is possible for video games to have anti-heroes: Illidan Stormrage is a textbook example. He is also a textbook Messiah. His work is genuinely the salvation of everyone who lives on Azeroth, from the greatest threat to their existence: the Burning Legion. His body is literally broken, twisted, a tool for subjugating demons. He has been rejected by society, suffering with relatively little complaint the mistreatment of his own brother and sister-in-law. He has been betrayed by his erstwhile followers: Kael'thas, Lady Vashj, and Akama. Yet he presses on in his salvific quest. The reader expects a vindication and a heroic death.

But in what way is he an anti-hero? The man has never heard of consent. He takes what he needs without asking, without consideration for how people feel. He does what he knows needs to be done, assuming that everyone is out to stop him. He is self-centered in his understanding of how others think. He believes that everyone is either with him or has no other purpose than to oppose him. The things he asks for are not things anyone would easily give up, that is true. However, there are very few things a person will not give up to ensure the safety of their loved ones, and that is the prize that awaits at the end of Illidan's work. Yet, he won't tell anyone how he plans to stop the Legion. Quite the contrary, he leads everyone to believe it is impossible. They think he is Don Quixote, and so of course they refuse when he asks for things they care about.  This toxic masculinity doesn't help him in his quest: in fact it gets him killed.

By the players of World of Warcraft: the Burning Crusade. You enter the Black Temple, Illidan's base of operations on Outland, and you slaughter him for his shiny weapons. You are there with people you have no reason to question, on orders from your superiors. And besides, surely there is someone better to use the powerful artifact weapons he wields? After all, Illidan is crazy and working with the Legion after all right? The constricted nature of video game narratives is a useful tool in the hands of Blizzard developers for this story. The story they are telling you, the player, isn't wrong: it's simply not the entire story with all the details put in. The crucial detail here is that Kael'thas and Lady Vashj are indeed working with the Legion, but not on behalf of Illidan.

It is not incorrect that Illidan has in fact abused Akama's trust. Akama, who is goading you to kill him. The Legion uses machines that run on souls, and Illidan has stolen one of them. These powerful machines are necessary for creating and maintaining portals to and from worlds. Illidan can use these portals to strike at the Legion's strongholds, and to steal the Sargerite Keystone: which can take him to the Legion's home. Illidan then goes to the burial ground of Akama's people, a place called Auchindoun, and takes their souls for the machine. Now, Akama's people are the draenei: refugees from the Legion. They have fought the Legion for thousands of years, and experienced the Legion's cruelty firsthand many times. As a shaman, Akama has the ability to talk with the spirits. Illidan, working with Akama, could have asked if they were willing to give up their existence in order to fight the Legion. He might well have been able to talk them into doing so. 

If the machine processes an unwilling soul, the experience is painful. If the soul is willing however, the pain is less or perhaps even nonexistent. The power of souls is known and used not just by the Legion, but also by the good guys: the Titans, and their mortal followers. The machines of the Titans seem to function in exactly the same way as the machines of the Legion. Nor does this fact seem to be unknown. The paladins back on Azeroth know this is the case, because they use such a machine. They also use a burial ground as their source of power: but in one respect what they are doing is different. They are willing to have their souls used as a source of energy. Illidan, older and far more well versed in magic than they are, ought to know this as well. So, we cannot excuse his actions by saying he was unaware of the available alternative. Furthermore, if Illidan had asked for Akama's help and the draenei had been allowed to consent: then Akama would have had no reason to spring Illidan's nemesis Maiev out of jail. Because Illidan assumes that the draenei would not consent, he both tortures thousands of people and gets himself killed unnecessarily. Yet, as he falls he turns over onto his back with his arms spread out. The camera then flips to show him lying on the ground, his body making the unmistakable shape of a cross. His body is imprisoned hanging in a cruciform position as well. Make no mistake, Illidan is a Christ figure.

Now, Warcraft just like any other fantasy story reflects our world. It reflects and comments on the socio-political context in which it takes place. We thus cannot fail to read in Illidan a damning indictment of the modern Evangelical Church. But, not one that is created out of any malice towards the Church. Look up any video of former WoW developer Chris Metzen. He usually has a cross around his neck. No, this is what we would call constructive criticism. That is, the critic intends to improve the thing being criticized by pointing out it's flaws in a respectful manner so that they can be corrected. Much like Neil Gaiman's tongue-in-cheek depiction of the multiple Christs at Easter's tea party in American Gods, writing Illidan as an antiheroic Christ figure is a comment about the way that some churches' selective overlooking of some scripture passages characterizes Christ as bizarrely entitled and arrogant: thus encouraging a toxic masculinity. Illidan is the Christ of the Evangelical churches.

The irony is, he recognizes his flaw in everyone except himself. His nemesis Maiev is no better than he is, taking without asking because she knows it's the right thing to do. He hates her for it.  He complains about Kael'thas taking power without asking. Likewise the Prime Naaru X'era. A Prime Naaru is a crystalline creature, they seem to have the power level of an archangel in this universe. What makes a Naaru "prime" is her ability to create other Naaru, which also gives her greater intelligence and an explicitly female gender. X'era is no better than Illidan, she takes without asking and tries to make her plan happen without asking if everyone is okay with it. She tries to force Illidan to give up his demonic powers. He doesn't want to, he suspects she wants to control him (which is true). He ends up killing her over it. But this is a character that brags about forcing the hand of fate. He is hypocritical and arrogant.

Yet this final confrontation with X'era, or perhaps the amalgamation of all his confrontations with people he has wronged, seems to have changed Illidan. The very next thing he says, shows that he no longer believes himself to be the sole savior of the world. He explicitly denies the truth of X'era's prophecy that there is a single savior. He says that we are the only ones who can save ourselves, and we have everything we need already.

A daring thing to say when a man is trying to chop you in half, as High Exarch Turalyon is (more on him later).  But he's right. The Prophet Velen confirms what he says, that their faith and their strength are more than enough. Illidan is content to be one among many: and indeed even follows the High Exarch's orders. The last time we see him in the game, he is not sacrificing himself for the good of others. He is a warrior, staying behind to take a crack at the enemy he has been tracking all this time: the titan Sargeras. His cruciform appearance is gone: instead we see him with his blades unsheathed. If he's about to go down, it will be fighting.  The death of a warrior, not a Messiah. He also admits to his brother and to Tyrande, as well as to the player, the mistakes he has made along the way. He leaves it up to them to defend the world. He is no longer a Christ figure, but he is a better man. When we consider satire, it is usual to first try the hypothesis that it is satirizing the most powerful people of the time and place when it was written. Thus, it seems reasonable to read Illidan's story arc as a satire of the Evangelical churches, since they are the most politically and culturally powerful Christian organization in America (Blizzard's lead developers are all American). This matches up, Evangelicals do actually present a bizarrely arrogant and demanding version of Christ in their interpretations of scripture due to their selective reading and cultural filter.

Or at least, they did. To some extent the vision of Christ in the Evangelical churches is still a representation of what would outside of that context be called "toxic masculinity".  But I would be remiss if I didn't mention the way in which change is occurring. Blizzard has a bizarre habit of predicting current events in their stories: and this is one of those moments. In June this year, the Southern Baptist Convention (the Southern Baptists being the biggest of the Evangelical churches), acknowledged that they had treated women unfairly over the past century and half. They admitted they had protected perpetrators of sexual abuse, and that they had encouraged behaviors that led to rape. They recognized that women should be allowed to have leadership roles in the church, and that they should work on discerning which roles those should be with the input of women from the community. That is, the men realized that they could not do the salvific work that is the church's duty on their own. They needed the help of the women. They needed to be content to be one of two. Life imitates Art.

Ernst Thälmann vs. Cthulhu

Ernst Thälmann vs. Cthulhu


Hamburg, 1919.


It was a far cry from the finishing school, Franz thought to himself.  Stepping out of a clinic he’d hoped would hire him (they hadn’t) into a wharf district he’d been promised was easily navigable (it wasn’t), the first thing he noticed was that there were more people in the street than he had probably seen in his life.  Self-consciously, he checked his binder, and finding his chest still adequately flat, he stepped out.  Whatever was afoot, at least he was facing it in trousers.


All things considered, I’d rather be on the farm, Günther thought to himself.  He’d hoped he would find work, or something to eat at the docks, but had found himself sitting with men he presumed to be sailors, waiting on them to show interest in his companionship, or for something to change.  Apparently it had, and not for the better.  Curious,he followed them out.


The mood seemed rather agitated, even bereaved.  The strangest thing was the silence as masses upon masses poured out of the Kneipen and offices.  Others returned from the harbor waters aboard overloaded lighters, while windows opened, seemingly in a single wave as whispers murmured through the throng of workers.


Karl and Rosa are murdered!


Not much must here, Lotte thought to herself.  I could get into trouble here.  Her experience had taught her not to be around this many people at once.  Any one of the men could clock her and escape would be difficult.  It had been weeks since she had felt safe enough to venture outside unarmed.  Hopefully an old-fashion hat would keep them from realizing an Urningin walked among them.


All things considered, it’s much quieter than the Westfront, thought Marie.  She raised her hand to the brim of her Stahlhelm and squinted in the afternoon sun, scoping out the area as was her wont.  Her blonde braid fell out of the helmet and dropped down her back.  Walking along with the flow of the increasingly grief-stricken assemblage, Marie’s eyes alighted momentarily upon a young girl running up a gantry carrying a red flag with a black ribbon attached to the top.  Breaking her gaze, she adjusted the strap holding her “borrowed” rifle to her back.


I’m out of the lab for a few weeks, Ilse thought, and the world goes to this?  She dimly recalled the snippets of forbidden news she’d managed to glean on the factory floor.  “Karl’s out of prison, he’s circulating the truth about the war, you’ve gotta read this”.  “Rosa’s been arrested again for speaking against the war, here’s her last article about the National Question”.  “Karl’s speaking in Berlin”.  “Rosa is free!”  A lot of history had happened while she was cloistered in the weapons labs at Krupp.  Now she was living it on the outside.  And those who she had always thought of as making the history were dead, if the rumor was to be believed.  At least she was living it as herself.


The crowd seemed to stop as if the destination of the docks had been prearranged.  Workers doffed their hats as one under the cold grey sky.  A stout, balding man with a thickset face and the broad shoulders of a veteran stevedore climbed atop a crate.  He removed his fraying newsboy cap, and bowed his head.  His face expressed the pain of the thousands gathered around him.  When he raised his face, anguish had been replaced by cold fury, yet he spoke in measured tones, with no trembling of his voice.


"Karl und Rosa are dead.  Murdered by the same Ebert government that turns a blind eye to the Freikorps mercenaries attacks on all of us.  WHY WAS THIS POSSIBLE?  How did we lose the leaders of our revolution?  Because we were not organized.  The absence of a revolutionary party like the one that led the workers and peasants to victories in Russia killed Rosa and Karl.  We need a revolutionary party to see the struggle through!”


“We’re with you, Teddy!” shouted a gaunt young man with brilliant blue eyes.  All around, fists were clenching into the salute of revolution.  The speaker paused, then continued.


“Genossen und Genossinnen, Karl und Rosa were murdered to knock the workers' movement to the floor.  That must not happen.  Karl and Rosa fell where they did their best work:  At the press, forming the ideas which will deliver us from barbarism.  It took death to finally stop them.  Today we must swear it to Karl and Rosa that we will carry the struggle onwards!  The way that Karl taught us- some of you may remember his motto?”  At this, hundreds of voices, some quavering, some punctuated with tears, but all speaking as one bellowed out


“TROTZ ALLEDEM!”


“Yes!”  Teddy cried.  “Despite it all- like Karl taught us, Despite it all!  Trotz alledem!  We will build a Bolshevik Party, a revolutionary organization, uniting our comrades from the SPD, USPD, and Spartakusbund into a single front beneath the glorious red banner of the future!  Long live Soviet Germany!  She will yet live out of our struggles!”


A roar went up.  Someone shouted “Three cheers for Genosse Thälmann!  Long live Karl and Rosa!  Long live Soviet Germany!”  Günther found himself cheering along with the wharf workers.  Approaching a woman in an old army greatcoat, he gave her a smile as if to say “what did YOU think?”


In an unusually deep voice, she asked “you’re from the country, aren’t you?”


“Not since the Freikorps came through”.  Günther cursed bitterly.  “They took my goats, and when I tried to stop them they burned my barn.  Guess that makes me what they call a real prole now, huh?”


“Indeed it does.  I have some copies of relevant literature, discussing your new status, if you’re interested.  For myself, well, I get by with this from yesterday and that from last week.  A dealer in history, if you will.”  Günther looked nonplussed, so Lotte clarified.


“I sell antiques.”  She smiled as Günther’s eyes widened in understanding.  This seemed to be a rather simple soul.


“I’m Lotharianne.”


“Günther.”


Franz saw a young, strapping woman holding what looked to be a violin case as she crouched in a doorway.  She had stood up, craning her neck to get a view of the speaker, letting her red hair catch the sunlight.  There was little mistaking her after this.  He approached the woman.


“Ilse!  You’re alive!”  They embraced tightly, relieved at meeting once more.


“Yes.  War’s over, so Krupp didn’t feel the need to keep me around anymore.  Thought I’d find a job here.”


“Same.  You’d think with all the wounded somebody would think to send proper funding to the hospitals, but no.  Glad to see you’re looking a bit more yourself.”


Ilse smiled- free from the workplace, she could express herself the way she had always wanted, whenever she wanted.  And she felt pretty.


“It’s really wonderful.  I miss the lab, but…  I see you’re here.  Shouldn’t you still be in that ghastly school?”


“You might think so, but they didn’t” Franz replied.  “It seems that duelling to prove your manhood isn’t ladylike, so out I went.  About time I did some good in the world, anyway.  Besides poking holes in young Junkers.”  Ilse laughed.


“I always did value your contributions in that respect.  I’m sure Rosa would have too, if she had ever had the chance to meet us.”


“You cared about the woman who died, didn’t you?”  Franz asked.  Ilse swallowed, then nodded.


“I never met her,but her writings were special.  You might say she brought down the Kaiser from her prison cell.  Anyone who opposed the war felt a little bit better when she walked free.  And then with the Spartakusbund…  I really thought we were making progress, you know?”


“We are!”  Franz smiled.  “This Dr. Hirschfeld is opening a clinic to help Urnings and Urningins in Berlin!  Now that I’ve found you, shall we trek east?  I hear that plenty of folks need  some testicles to get fixed, and you’ll need to find some ovaries.  Wanna come do a tradein?”


Taken aback as usual with Franz’s medical frankness, Ilse blinked and swallowed.


“He-Help us, Franz?”


“You know- get our fluids and humors right, and you can develop where you want!  Oh, and it’ll keep you from ever going bald.  You in?”


Ilse gasped and smiled   “It sounds wonderful!  Why have you waited?”


Franz smiled and began swaggering along.  “I may have needed a place to stay in Berlin.  Come on, let’s go and then get back here.  I get the sense that that bald chap is going to make your Rosa proud”.


1920


    Günther was not having a good day.  He had been helping Lotharianne “browse” through a mansion while its owners were elsewhere, looking for anything old.  Today it was clocks.  Unfortunately, it turned out that some Freikorps goons were sleeping in the living room.  With Lotharianne nowhere to be seen, Günther had managed to snap his whip, knocking away the gun of the first one to reach his feet, and had then fled the room and the building, bullets thudding into the wall,door and then pavement behind him.  Shouts of “Country Tunte!” rang behind him, and he wondered fleetingly what part of his wardrobe betrayed him as a rube, or as an Urning for that matter.  Then more shots rang out and he ducked, rounding a corner with his whip ready.  Crouching behind the wall, he lashed out.  His whip struck true: coiling around the feet of the lead soldier.  He hit the ground hard, blood spattering the pavement.


The following two soldiers tripped over him, the next bumped into them, and shots went wild, some striking other Freikorps in the legs and feet.  As pandemonium reigned, Günther lashed the face of another Freikorps soldier, as others knelt to help their cohorts regain their feet.  At this, a vase struck down like a meteor, shattering twixt the shoulder blades of a goon.  He went down on top of the man he was trying to help, not moving.  The remaining Freikorps whirled their guns aloft and loosed a disconcerted patter of fire at the second story of the building as they began edging backward, then beating an all out retreat as pistol fire erupted from the windows above.


Günther turned towards the sound of footsteps from within,and saw the door open.


“You made a very fine distraction, thank you for your services.”  Lotharianne emerged, dusting her hands off.  Günther stood agape.


“You made it here?  So quickly?  How?”


“I poke around these old estates for my living, my dear fellow!”  purred Lotharianne.  “I know how to look for a secret passage.  Fortunately, on the way, I noticed that these two vases were fakes.  The proprietor will thank me, if he ever comes back.  I did him a favor in getting rid of them.”


Günther was looking down at the senseless Freikorps men, and noticed one of the shards was bigger than the others.  In fact, it seemed a complete symbol had survived the shattering.  His eyes were strangely drawn to it, and he felt shivers along his spine somehow.  It was a cross, but with sloping curves spiraling clockwise off of each arm.


Suddenly he wasn’t on the street any longer.  He felt himself enmeshed in a roiling sea, far greater than the Bodensee he’d visited as a child.  It was almost as if the water were wrapping itself around his legs to drag him down, as a mighty storm raged as far as the eye could see.  Light came only from a dim, red glow in the sky.  A star was flickering through the crowds,and Günther glimpsed a square rigged sailing ship, tossed about on the waves, disintegrating in places, yet still bearing on.  A swarm of smaller boats forged ahead in its wake, many of them splintering beneath the waves.


A sucking force drew Günther forward, towards the ship.  The sea was dropping as a wave approached, looming larger than any of the others.  As it reached above the ship and blocked the red star fromview, Günther felt the water harden around him, hooking onto his feet.  He felt a strange sucking pressure as he was dragged beneath the waves.


“Günther!  Günther!  Get your brain back in your head!”  Lotharianne looked worried as she gripped his shoulders.  Günther was still staring at the shard, he had knelt, and his hands were straining to throw off the suckers of the tentacles that he felt were gripping him.  He stopped, realizing that he was back on the street.


“W-what is that?”


“This?  It’s a Hakenkreuz.  A Swastika.  Been seeing lots of them around since the war.  There’s this weird collection of wannabe magicians.  I guess you’d call them Völkisch.  They call themselves the Thule Society.  They like this symbol a lot.”


Günther considered this a moment.
“Were they the ones talking about the purity of the German people?  Some of my boyfriends from the Wandervogeln seemed to be talking about this a bit…”


“Your scout troop was talking völkisch crap like that?  Günther, Günther Günther…”  Lotharianne play-chided the lad.  “We’re keeping you away from those nutters before they talk you into joining the Reichswehr or whatever they’re calling it now.  If you listen to them, you’ll have to turn on everyone like us.”  Günther allowed himself to be led along, back towards Lotharianne’s flat.


“I saw, I felt something.  I was drowning in a sea, there was a storm…”  Günther looked timidly at Lotharianne, wondering what she would think.  Lotharianne smiled.
“Looks like I was too late.  They’ve already filled your head with their mumbo jumbo.  Let’s get you a cup of tea, and we’ll just help it on its way out, hmm?  You were also very stressed today, just daily activity and you’re all a mess!”


“You used me as bait and got me into a gunfight.”
“It’s not like I was aiming at them.  Didn’t need to.  Just a few shots into the pavement and they scattered.  I’ve actually never shot anyone.  Had to use a rolling pin once.  Don’t recommend it.”


The pair walked towards Lotte’s flat as the sun began to set.


A shot echoed through the near-deserted street, followed by screaming.  Two figures raced towards the alley from whence it emanated.  Lotte sprinted after them, her pistol drawn, and Günther tagged along in her wake, unsure of what else to do.  They rounded the corner to see four people in front of them.  A small man had a sword out and was advancing cautiously while a larger, redhaired woman covered him with a small, wicked-looking machine gun.  Their gazes were fixed on a man in a brown suit, with a dark stain spreading from his cradled kneecap, staining the sheaf of posters scattered beneath him.  A soldier stood over him, with a Mauser rifle aimed at the prone man’s other kneecap.  The dusky light glinted off his dull Stalhhelm.
“What’s all this, then?!” Lotte bellowed, her voice hard and rough.  All 5 others looked quizzically at her.
“What?  I’ve been to London, it’s what the bobbies say when they come across a grisly torture scene.”


The soldier bristled, and spoke, her voice and long blonde braid revealing her to be a woman, not the man that Günther had expected, spoke.


“This filth was putting these posters up.  Have you seen what’s on them?  Proclamation of a new government under Kapp.  Outlawry of the SPD, KPD, USPD and Spartacusbund!  Repeal of the 8 hour workday law, and the death penalty for anyone participating in strike action!  He’s lucky I didn’t start with his toes, and just went right for the kneecaps”


The small man standing near her with the sword spoke slowly
“That’s…  A lot of blood.  And screaming.  I’m not really used to just letting people bleed.”  Lotte leaned in.
“We’ll treat him after he talks.  I say, you there, you with the screaming.  I’m guessing you’re not doing your little redecoration alone.  Are you Freikorps?”


“He’s not Freikorps, they wouldn’t take a Tunte like him” the soldier grunted.  Günther felt anger mingling with his fear, but stood patiently, taking his cue from Lotte.  The man, steadily losing color, unclenched his teeth to swear”


“Gesindeln!  We’ll come through here, and our power will smash your pitiful little mobs.  When Germania rises we shall swallow you up!”  He resumed panting in pain.


The soldier raised her rifle to his face.
“Done talking to him?  I’m Marie by the way, and I’m going to be killing him now.”
“Go ahead” Franz and Lotte said in unison.


CRACK.


The rightist slumped on the pavement.  Ilse bent down to begin checking his pockets.  She tensed when she found three grenades inside his coat.  Marie smiled as she picked them up.  Franz looked at his three new acquaintances, and stuck out his hand.


“I’m Franz.  The prettiest graverobber on this street is Ilse.”


“Lotharianne, a dealer in antiques, and this is my associate Günther, a simple mountain man from Bavaria.  You’ll forgive him for not yodelling at present but I recommend we beat a hasty withdrawal before anyone else sees the body.”


At this, Ilse rose.
“Has anyone seen this symbol before?”  The map the corpse had had stuffed in his jacket pocket bore the Hakenkreuz Günther and Lotte had seen on the vase.  They exchanged knowing, troubled looks.


Ilse broke the silence.
“I hear that there’s a mass meeting tonight, don’t know what it’s about.  That Thälmann fellow from the dockyard march is going to be there.  Maybe he’ll know what to do?”
…


The warehouse was packed.  People shouted with fury, wailed in terror, and fists pounded upon crates, tables, the wall, and whatever other surfaces presented themselves.  It took a stentorian roar from the familiar figure of Thälmann to restore order.  The gaunt, almost skeletal young man with the electric blue eyes finished whispering his message to the stout Thälmann, whose bald head shone in the lamplight as he bent over a table.


“Genossen und Genossinnen.  Here is the situation.  The military has proclaimed a new government under their favorite newscaster, Kapp.  Many of you have already become acquainted with their demands of the citizenry, as brought to our attention by this young man and his Genossinnen here.”


“Genosse, actually” Franz muttered.  Thälmann blinked in interest, and went on.


“The Freikorps has mobilized to complete the generals’ coup.  Half the south is already in their hands, but the people in München are refusing to work for the army!  The major railyards have been blocked and our comrade engineers are stealing the engines.  Meanwhile, peasants all over the countryside are hiding their stores of food from the troops.  This Putsch is being blocked at every step by the German workers and farmers.  But they are coming.  A column of troops is going to enter the city tomorrow.  They have trucks, at least 200 Freikorps Lumpen, all armed to the teeth.  And we are going to stop them, kill some of them, and take their leaders prisoner.


The Spartakusbund’s central committee for the city has outlined a plan, which I will now present with your permission.  We know they will be coming up Church street to reach the city center.”  Thälmann pulled out a map, and gestured expressively.


“Here is where we will make our attack.  Where the slope of the side road towards the column is steepest.  Now, ordinarily we like to remember that all workers in all jobs have their parts to play in the revolution.  But today, revolution particularly depends on the transit workers.”  Laughter greeted this from many assembled workers.  Günther scratched his head in puzzlement, but saw that Lotte, Franz and Ilse were laughing, so he did too.  When he saw the sharklike grin on Marie’s silent face, he suddenly found himself unable to laugh anymore.


“”Now, we just need a team of volunteers to go find a transit worker who will help us borrow a trolley or a bus.”


Franz’s hand went up immediately.  Günther found himself looking intently at the small man’s face, and bright, eager eyes, and raised his hand as well.  Looking from one to the other, Lotte grinned and volunteered herself to accompany them.  Ilse and Marie rose as well.


“Good luck, Genossen und Genossinnen.  Let us know once you’ve found one”  Thälmann bade them.
...



“We’re going to need you to leave that unlocked”  Marie stated flatly.  The confused look on the faces of the watchman and driver who had just backed the trolley into a roundhouse seemed oddly calm to Franz, after what he had seen Marie do hours before, but hopefully he could keep things from escalating.


“We need this trolley.  Soldiers are coming, and many are going to die.”


“Genosse Thälmann has a plan to save the city” Ilse chimed in, “but it will only work if you stand with your class brothers.”


“We don’t need much from you.”  Lotte explained.  “Just notice that this padlock is obviously defective, and don’t try to latch it, for fear of damaging your employer’s property yet further!”


The two men glaced at each other, shrugged, and walked away.  The driver muttered “Good luck, Spartakus” under his breath.


“Good enough for me!”  Franz proclaimed.  “Marie, stay here and make sure no one else gets into the shed.  We need to go get Thälmann and the others.”


Günther finally voiced his confusion.


“Why are we trying to get a trolley?”  Marie answered with her familiar grin


“You see, they’re going to be coming along the base of a hill.  Probably in a column- that street isn’t very wide.  Imagine that trolley smashing into the side of a truck.  Lots of dead Freikorps will be happening.”  Günther and Ilse exchanged worried looks, then looked to Lotte and Franz, respectively, who both bore their resolve plainly.


“Let’s go get the others.”  Said Lotte.  The four comrades disappeared into the night.


Morning broke on a scene of Hamburg’s masses heaving the “borrowed” trolley up a hill overlooking the street below..  Thälmann and his thin companion Jansen pulled and struggled with the rest, until the chocks were in place and the trolley rested.  Hundreds of Proleten stood, tense, yet visibly proud of their makeshift tank.  Thälmann addressed the crowd.


“All right.  I’ll wait here with a sledgehammer team.  Genosse Jansen will give the signal to begin.  Once they’ve crossed our path, we’ll cut it loose, and smash them in the middle of their column.  We’ll run down to reinforce you all then.  The fight will be hard, but it will be swift.  We win quickly, or we don’t win at all.  We know what is at stake here.


Now I need the women and children to return to your dwellings.  Every able bodied man is needed here to repel the Freikorps, but we mustn’t endanger our families.”


At this point, Marie, Ilse and Lotte stepped forward in unison.  Ilse gritted her teeth and said


“Whose revolution is it if not the women?  Genosse Engels said we were the first working class.  Rosa fought for us, and paid the price.  Now I fight for Rosa.”


“Really, Genosse,” Lotte chuckled- “you don’t expect me to let that little mountain boy go into this alone, do you?”


Finally Marie spoke up.


“If I can shoot well enough for the Kaiser, I can shoot well enough for you.  I’ll take these kids to that rooftop and give you some sharpshooters.  The men can use their sword and whip to cover the stairs.”


Thälmann grinned, and looked quite surprised.  “Jawohl!  But…  You’re all Urnings!  Urnings, here!”


“Urninginen here” - Ilse pointed to herself, Lotte and Marie.  “Those other two are Urnings.”  And Franz joined in “We’re everywhere, not just here, and we’re ready to fight for our freedom!”


Thälmann shrugged, and nodded.  “I’ll never keep anyone from playing their part in our revolution.  For Soviet Germany!”  The crowd echoed him loudly.


“FOR SOVIET GERMANY!”


Franz, Lotte, Ilse and Günther followed Marie to a tall shop building.  They entered, seeing a drab, unused first floor with a stairwell leading up.   Marie scanned the room, and barked out instructions.


“Right then.  Lots of old wooden furniture we can use to barricade that door.  Ginger, here, you cover the door, but only once the enemy gets past these two.  Günther and Franz- kill whatever gets inside that door.  Lotte come cover my back.”


Lotte and Günther climbed to the rooftop, Franz and Günther shifted the old chairs and Kaffee tables to obstruct the door, then drew their weapons.  Ilse knelt on the stairwell, inserting a stick magazine into her machine pistol.  Already the rumbling of motors could be heard in the distance.  Günther shivered with worry, but stopped as his eyes met those of the tiny, handsome man holding a sword ready opposite him.  Franz radiated determination, and Günther felt that determination welling within him as well as he stared at Franz’s hair, so smooth, so brown, brown as the finest Münchener Bier...  Other things were welling within Günther too, but he thought he should focus on surviving at the moment.


The windows were boarded up, but not so thoroughly that one couldn’t see movement in the daylit street outside.  Ilse saw the first truck draw past, full of grinning,  well armed soldiers with swastikas painted on their helmets, and chalked on the side of the truck.  Another followed it.  Then another.  And another.  As the 8th truck rolled past, they could all hear a shot ring out to their right- the direction the convoy had taken.  Almost immediately after, there came a new rumbling.  Shouts of “Stop!  Halt!” came from the lead trucks, and they quickly slammed on their brakes, trapping one truck in the path of the descending juggernaut.


CRUNCH!


The sound of smashing wood, metal and bone as the trolley impacted on the Freikorps’ fourth truck was the signal for the Spartakists to rush in force.  From her rooftop vantage point, Marie could see hundreds of workers pouring forth from the boarded up buildings, and knew that Thälmann’s trolley team wouldn’t be far behind.  But the Freikorps, though divided by the trolley, were springing into action.  Marie lashed her grenades together, pulled the pins, and hurled them towards the ninth truck just as its troops were about to disembark.  The explosion decimated the truck, and with twenty Freikorp goons’ worth of meat getting tossed about, it was clear that that squad was out of commission.  Stifling a twinge as the screams rent her ears and reminded her of the front, Marie shouldered her rifle, and began firing at the troops in the tenth truck.


Spotting her, they rushed for the building.  Two of their number fell to Marie’s fire before the first of them reached the door.


This was it.  As the freikorps kicked the door open, they found their way barred at the waist by the piled tables.  The door couldn’t swing all the way in, so they had to leap over the barricade one at a time.  Rifles at the ready, they started swarming over.  One raised his arms to steady himself on the jump.  Franz’s blade struck out, hacking through the outstretched appendage.  Silently gazing at his blood spurting stump, the soldier fainted.  Others pushed past.
Günther was ready with his whip, coiling it around the legs of the second soldier, bringing him to the ground with a crunching sound from what had been a handsome face.  Franz finished the man with a quick stab to the neck, but this lapse allowed three more to force their way in.


“Duck!”  Ilse called.  As Günther and Franz scrambled to comply, she began loosing bursts from her gun.  Two Freikorps men had fallen, cut down by her fusillade before the survivors got a bead on her.  Two remained standing, the final two entered behind them, guns at the ready.  Four rifles blazed at the stairwell, smacking into the splintering wood.  Ilse felt what seemed to be a punch to her gut and she crumpled backwards, falling off the opposite side of the stairs.


Screaming in rage, Franz sprang into the midst of the remaining soldiers, swinging his blade wildly.  They knocked it back with their rifle butts, and tried to swing at him, but his small size worked to his advantage here.  Günther followed Franz into the melee, lashing out with his whip, pulling another rightist to the floor, and stomping his face in.  The two remaining soldiers began shooting, hoping to hit the enraged Urnings in the melee.  Günther felt the blast of the rifle swoosh past his face, and sprang to grapple his assailant, only to meet a rifle butt to his belly.


Atop the roof, Marie continued firing into the masses of Freikorps.   Their advance squads had felled dozens of workers, but were fully engaged in fist and knife fights by now.  Her fire sent the trailing squads ducking beneath the trucks for cover, leaving their comrades to be swallowed up by the roiling, resolute mass of humanity that was the workers of Hamburg.  Lotte peered over the roof’s edge long enough to see Thälmann seize a rifle and fell its erstwhile wielder with a single punch.  Jansen rushed nimbly through the melee towards a soldier who bore a Swastika flag, and plowed into him.  Scores of workers surged forward, some shouting war cries, some visibly shaking, some spitting on their hands and looking quietly resolute as they looked for the next target.  The remaining Freikorps were still firing, and what looked like a hundred figures were slumped, twitching on the pavement.


Lotte turned down towards the sounds of struggle emanating from beneath.  With her pistol at the ready she slid down the banister, seeing Günther and Ilse lying on the floor next to seven Freikorps, and Franz engaged in a fierce struggle with the remaining soldier.  Lotte aimed, waiting for Franz to see her.  He soon did, and disengaged, taking a rifle butt to the leg, forcing him into an awkward hopskip and a curse from his lips.  Lotte found her hand trembling, but she fired thrice, and the soldier shrieked as his arm was pierced.  Franz quickly turned and plunged his sabre through the man’s throat.  He then turned and ran to Ilse’s side.


“Grazed in the abdomen, hit in the leg.  I’ve got this.”  Pulling out a box full of forceps, whiskey and bandages, the budding medic went to work.  A dazed Günther came nervously over, and was rapidly pressed into bandage detail.  Ilse was moaning, but conscious.  Günther held the whiskey for her to drink after Franz had poured some on the wound.  Lotte moved to the door, Luger at the ready.


On the rooftop.  Marie reloaded, and notched her tenth kill as Thälmann’s voice boomed out


“Hold fast, boys!  Get their weapons!”  Surviving workers scurried to pry rifles and pistols from the fingers of dead Freikorps goons.  As the first three cars of soldiers rounded the tail end of the trolley, they were met with enthusiastic if erratic fire, thick enough to fell several of them.  Between this and the sight of workers seizing the middle trucks, and their nearest help hunkering beneath the rear ones, they hesitated.  Some began stepping back towards the aperture from whence they’d just issued. An officer produced a sabre.


“Return fire and advance!”  As he pointed his blade forward and advanced in demonstration of his order to his troops, Marie felled him on his second step. At this, the rightists broke and fell back past the trolley, a third of their number lost for no gain.  Workers followed Jansen, clutching the liberated guns as they swept towards the pinned down enemy in the rear.  The Freikorps broke and ran back the way they had come, only to be met with a force of workers with cudgels and rifles that had disengaged and run through a back alley to encircle them.  Marie broke off her fire as she saw the Freikorps below lay down their weapons and raise their hands.  She moved downstairs, and strode into the street to replenish her cartridge box, without pausing a moment by the wounded Ilse.  Lotte joined her after one more look at Günther and Franz tending to the injured woman.


Franz had been probing methodically, his green eyes focused grimly on Ilse’s wound and his forceps. Accordingly, Günther was a little surprised to see the medic quickly pull his forceps out and toss a badly misshapen bullet into the palm of his hand.


“Got it.  Now to stitch her up.  You’ll  be just fine, Ilse, you’re very good at getting shot.”  His fingers flew over the wound, stitching and suturing, holding Günther transfixed the whole time.
Thälmann stepped into the ruined storefront.  He had a black eye but looked thrilled at the victory.


“If you can fight like that, we should have made an effort to get Urnings and Urningins on our side long ago!  How is she?”


“She’ll live.”  Franz said, and stood up after affixing a bandage over the wound.


“Could you stitch some others up?  We have over a hundred dead and injured, not counting the enemy”  Thälmann sighed at the devastation the Freikorps had wrought.  Franz hurried into the street without a further word.


Marie stalked back, grinning broadly, with grenades crammed into her rucksack.


“That was fun.  Where to next?”  By this point, Günther was not the only one finding Marie somewhat frightening.
The dockyard was awash in celebration that night.  But the proceedings were marred by the high death toll, and by the relative scarcity of food.  Leaders from the SPD and USPD spoke, congratulating the workers on their victory.  Once they had finished, Thälmann rose to speak.


“We kept them from seizing the city itself.  That is a great blow against reaction.  We routed the troops with which they meant to bring a swift end to our revolutionary strike.  However, a significant portion of their forces were able to withdraw and regroup, and while we have the jail under guard, the prisoners we took today may be set loose upon us once more if the police have their way.  We must remain vigilant.


Meanwhile, there is the matter of food.  The army’s march through the countryside has disrupted distribution, and we’ve been informed that the police have redirected lorries bearing provisions away from our city.  Despite this, help is on the way.   While our own government allows the bosses and their lackeys to slaughter us in the streets, the people's democracy of the Soviet Union is sending grain for us.  The first steamer is due to arrive tomorrow, and the steamer is named Karl Liebknecht!”  applause broke out.


 “Tomorrow” Thälmann said.  “We must own the docks.  There will be police, and we know that they will block the unloading of the grain.  We need to persuade them otherwise.  You all must spread the word.  After our victory today, we should have ten times the forces at our disposal.  Fifty times!  And the enemy won’t have nearly so many rifles as he had today.  We’ll win tomorrow as we won today, and let it be know that Kapp is not welcome in Hamburg!”


At this, the assembled masses began singing “Brothers of Freedom”, and its glorious refrains wafted out over the docks.  The workers were ready for the morrow.



Morning broke red over the docks.  A chill wind had blown in during the night along with the Soviet Steamer Karl Liebknecht.  Its crew stood on deck, staring fixedly at the cordon of policemen on the wharf, interposed between their precious cargo and the cranes and stevedores. .  The policemen who had been guarding the wharf clawed at their eyes in exhaustion, waiting to be relieved.  Some of them exchanged glares with the crew of the Karl Liebknecht, which was moored, ready to unload tons of grain for the hungry people of Hamburg, but was blocked by the police cordon.  Others merely wiped the night’s drool off their green uniforms. Tired or otherwise, the police had no intention of allowing the food to be dispensed to the people of Hamburg.



    
.
A young Feldwebel greedily eyed the Soviet sailors’ thick coats.  He had been on duty all night, staring down the hungry workers who haunted the wharf at night.  He had run after some of the children and cracked their tiny skulls and broken their malnourished arms, just to get his blood moving, but he needed sleep.


Secretly he was a little worried.  Headquarters had promised that no less a person than General von Lettow-Vorbeck was leading the troops into Hamburg.  The Feldwebel had recalled reading of the General’s exploits as a boy, cheering with his father as the news of Von Lettow-Vorbeck’s extermination of a hundred thousand Negroes had reached the papers.  And he had conscripted an army from the survivors of the tribes he’d ravaged, and force-marched them all over Southern Africa, smiting superior forces of freedom fighters and British troops alike until the end of the war.  Von Lettow-Vorbeck was just the man to rescue Hamburg from this disgusting rabble of degenerates.  And yet, after yesterday’s defeat of his troops by the commoners, the general was nowhere to be seen. 


A truck rumbled up with more police on it.  The Hauptmann dropped to the ground with a wicked spring in his wicked step.  The Feldwebel and his men saluted, and rubbed their hands as they made to move off. The Hauptmann spoke.


“Good morning, meine Herren.  No relief, I’m afraid.  The soldiers should have been handling it but after yesterday they’ve scattered.  We can’t count on any reinforcements after yesterday.  You must all remain here, or else those vermin will be able to break through and feed.  We’re going to hold here.  Any effort by the mob to reach the ship must be met with the utmost force.  We have some civilian supporters coming in private craft to patrol the harbor.  The menace of the reds must be squelched.  I know you’ve been working hard all night with no relief, but give it a few more hours.  There is a bit of good news- our informants tell us that the women will be in the vanguard, with their flour pails.  I hear those pails are quite empty these days”    The cops grumbled at the extra work, but began chuckling at the thought of the starving workers.


    “Permission to target the women?” one officer asked. The Hauptmann grinned.


“You are encouraged to correct the behavior of the women, as a reward for your service to the Kais… To the government.  Long live Kapp.  Long live Germany.”


The Feldwebel grinned.  As he hefted his nightstick in anticipation of splintering more bone, something else also rose with the thought of free reign over the women.


Workers assembled en masse, with the women of Hamburg carrying their empty flour pails, on which they rhythmically banged.  They were flanked by the brawlers from the day before, with Thälmann and Jansen at the head of the column.  Marie, Lotte, Ilse, Franz and Günther trailed in the rear of the formation.  Marie eyeballed a broken crane on the outer edge of the dock. 


“This is the spot for me- don’t wait up.” And she scampered up the girding without another word.  Ilse had her eyes on another one, closer to the ship. 


“If we need to bypass the cordon…  I think I can work it.  Günther, can you help get me there?”  The youth nodded, and began pushing forward with Ilse behind him.  Franz stopped Günther with a tap on the shoulder.


“Watch your back” and pecked him on the cheek.  Günther blushed, grinned, and resumed escorting Ilse.  Franz turned to Lotte.


“That leaves us.  Urning and Urningin.  Let’s get up front and see if we can help Teddy.”  Lotte grinned and jogged forward, toward the pallet attached to Ilse’s crane.  Franz sprang up alongside her, and they clutched to the chains holding the pallet in place.


Whatever Thälmann and Jansen had said to the cops seemed to have worked.  The thin green line had buckled and dispersed, and Thälmann charged up the gangplank, backed by the women of Hamburg.  The crane lowered Lotte and Franz to the deck as German women and Soviet sailors began heaving the sacks of flour aloft.  Franz saw Thälmann grinning like a schoolboy, tightly embracing the bemused captain.


“Comrade Captain!  Thank you for your aid to the people of Hamburg.  This is my first step on socialist soil!”  The captain beamed.  A sailor stepped forward and spoke in broken German.


“Captain will something get you.  Moment please.”  The captain strode towards the wheelhouse Thälmann walked for the nearest pile of flour sacks and hefted one aloft easily, resting it on his shoulders.  He worked alongside the other stevedores and their wives to load the sacks onto the crane. Someone in the crowd broke into “Sailors of Kronstadt”, and was soon joined by virtually the entire assembly, german dna Russian singing together.


Franz and Lotte’s pallet descended towards the deck.  Lotte kept scanning the joyfully singing crowd, then did a double take- a small boat was slipping alongside the Karl Liebnecht!  Four men stood inside it- two Freikorps troopers, and two bespectacled men in civilian clothes.  They flung grappling lines aloft and one soldier began climbing.


Lotte nudged Franz.  “See that?  They’re coming from behind.  Move!”  They dropped to the deck.  Lotte pulled her Luger as Franz drew his sword.  Seeing the flash of steel, Ilse dismounted from the crane and started sprinting for the gangplank.  Günther joined her, feeling a twinge of fear, as if he would see something terrible on the windward side of the steamer.

The first soldier didn’t have time to fire a shot before Franz ran his throat through.  He fell backwards into the harbor with a muffled splash.  This strangely didn’t seem to faze the remaining three men in the boat.  Lotte looked curiously at them.  The remaining soldier had knelt in the boat, while the men over him hadn’t reacted at all to the fight atop the Karl Liebknecht.  They were holding a book together and seemed to be murmuring something.  Lotte called out
“That’s far enough!  Stay where you are, don’t move!”  Franz whirled towards the flour sacks
    “Teddy!  We have Freikorps!”.  Thälmann deposited his bag at the foot of the gangplank, and began rushing, kampfentschlossen towards the cry for help, his stout fists at the ready and his eyes flashing with determination.  Günther fell in beside him.


    At this point, Franz and Lotte stared, agape.  The soldier had vanished!  Lotte brandished her pistol, shrieking “where is he?!” to the two remaining men, who merely flashed wicked grins.  Suddenly, there came a tearing sound, and shreds of what had clearly been Reichswehr charcoal fluttered to the bilge of the boat.  The boat heaved, and Franz felt a mighty weight slam into the side of the Liebknecht!  It seemed impossible, but something invisible was crawling up the hull.  What sounded like claws were clearly raking the hull!  Franz stepped back, holding his sabre at the ready, while Lotte scowled, and began firing into the boat.


    High in the crane tower, Marie squinted through her sights.  She couldn’t see what Lotte was shooting at, nor what Franz was backing away from, but pulled the bolt all the same, ready to take her chance.  She continued watching as the fight unfolded bizarrely.


    Hearing the shots, Günther and Thälmann, now joined by a panting Ilse, darted towards the windward side of the Liebknecht.  They skidded to a stop, watching Franz fencing with the air, looking increasingly scared as his blade found no mark.  He tried a wide slash up and to the right, where he was reasonably sure a human’s neck would have been, and felt his blade strike something!  He saw a trickle of violet fluid blur as the thing, whatever it was moved on him.  Franz screamed as his chest was pierced by massive teeth!  He felt them meet in the middle, and knew his breasts were gone.  As the blood spouted from his chest, the tiny duelist collapsed to the deck.


    Ilse reacted first.  “Look!  The blood- we can see some of…  That’s a chest, of it, it’s a…” 


    Thälmann, Günther and Ilse could see the red-stained outline of a creature’s front, it looked human shaped but if the chest was human proportioned it must have been 9 feet tall.  Franz’s blood was draining off of it though, the image was growing fainter. 


    Ilse sprang for the nearest flour sack.
    “Help me with this!”  she called to Thälmann, who rushed to her aid.  Together they hefted it easily, and Ilse drew a pocket knife across the sack, splitting it open.  Thälmann grasped her plan
    “Throw it on my mark!  Now!”  and they heaved it at the dripping shape menacing their comrades.  The flour filled the air, covering the creature, and the revolutionaries gasped at what they saw.


    Barrel chested, with long arms over 4 feet, tipped with hideous claws, it towered over them all.  The most horrible thing was the face.  Its claws had reached for its eyes, which were squinted and apparently blinking the flour out.  For some reason, as it approached, the eyes began glowing, revealing that they were bright red and ran the full circumference of the head!  Flour had coated a row of three-inch fangs populating a lipless maw, and it began to emit a roar, standing over Franz’s senseless body.


    Marie saw the flour clear, and saw the creature.  She shuddered, aimed, and fired.  Her bullet struck it cleanly in one of its many eyes, and a purple, viscous blood was splashed as the creature fell lifeless  to the deck!


    Günther peeled off from Thälmann’s advance and darted to Franz’s side, kneeling and pressing, wordlessly on the wounds.  Ilse ran towards the wheelhouse, just as the captain was emerging with a large portrait of Comrade Lenin. 


    “We need a doctor!  Arzt?  Medico?”  The captain dropped the portrait and rushed below decks, hollering something in Russian.  A young woman, barely 20 came scampering up with a bag of instruments and she sped with Ilse towards Franz’s side.  She started upon seeing the grisly character of the wounds, but immediately went to her work.


    The two boatmen remaining- the ones who had read from the book- swore, and began rowing away, but this was too slow to evade Thälmann’s leap.  He sprang over the railing and landed, swaying on the edge of the boat.  With two quick haymakers he knocked one cold, and one into the harbor.  Lotte had reloaded, and finished the one in the water.  Thälmann, seized the remaining mystic like a sack of flour, and climbed up the deck. 


“Search him.  How in blazes did they do that?  I think it was the soldier that vanished!” Lotte rifled through the unconscious Putschist’s pockets.  She pulled out the book, a musty old tome of the sort she had spent so much time with, and a swastika ring.  There was also a gun and a wallet containing money and calling cards.  Lotte looked them over.


“It’s the Thule Society, Comrades.  This is the book they read from.  Looks like it’s called “Unaussprechlichen Kulten.  Unspeakable Cults.  I’d say the Thule boys qualify as unspeakable.” 


The ship’s doctor stood, having bandaged Franz and stitched some of the wound shut.


“Him need Krankenhaus now.”


“I’ll take him”.  Günther clutched Franz’s hand and pulled him onto an empty sack.  He and Ilse carried Franz down the gangplank. 
Thälmann gestured to Lotte to deal with the body, while he turned towards the returning captain and officers of the Karl Liebknecht.
“Thank you for your aid.  It will break the back of the Putsch, now that they can’t starve the workers of Hamburg.  Our last numbers have 12 million out on strike.  That’s 12 million German workers who are looking to you, the Bolsheviks as our liberators and leaders in the struggle for freedom.  I salute you, Comrades!” 
Grinning, the captain presented the portrait of Lenin, and Thälmann held it aloft before the singing, cheering crowd of workers.


“Trotz Alledem!”


Ilse and Günther sat next to Franz’s hospital bed.  He was pale and wan from loss of blood, but in good spirits.
“Nice to have that off my chest, eh?  I’ll be ready to go again soon!” 


Ilse was still shaking, days after seeing the creature.
“They…  They turned that man into that thing.  How did they do that?” 


“With this.”  Lotte strode into the room, holding the book.
“Turns out that that Völkisch crap might actually be based on something other than sausage-measuring.  And we have their playbook now.  We’re going to learn so much more than we ever wanted to about what they believe, but hey, I’m looking forward to having some mumbo-jumbo of our own.”
“That’s exactly why I’m here.”  Thälmann stood in the door.  He approached Franz’ bedside.
“My boy, you’ve fought so bravely, you all did so much for our movement.  I fear we’ve only uncovered the tip of the iceberg of this cult.  If more of their kind are working with the Freikorps, we need to be ready.
I spoke with some agents of the CHEKA.  They agree that the threat to the revolution is too great to leave this unanswered, uninvestigated.  To that end, they’ve encouraged the KPD to form our weird-objective team, our Merkwürdigkeitsbeauftragte Kommando, to discreetly investigate this Rightist magic.  You’ll be working directly with local leadership, namely myself and Fiete Jansen.  Do you accept?”
Four clenched fists in the air answered his question.  Thälmann smiled. 

Tohsaka and Tyrande-Writing badass women

You know the woman, the hardened stone-faced one who dresses like a man and likes "boy things".  The one who never has an emotion that isn't anger. The badass woman.  Except, there's a problem isn't there? yes, there is. She may be a great character, funny, interesting, exciting. There's nothing actually wrong with this character. But...is this a woman? Can a person who shows no vulnerability, who dresses and acts in a way that is stereotypically masculine, really be called a woman? She is female, that is determined by biology. However, a female need not be a woman. Now, are there people who are really like this female character? yes, of course. But are they women? debatable. A real life person, should be allowed to define themself: but a fictional character needs to be defined appropriately by their author.  This type of character really should be written as transgender or third-gender, this is the 21st Century and we can say those words in public. 

Readers, for better or for worse, look up to fictional characters. What message are you sending to your reader? Are you sending a message to a reader that affirms their gender identity? Or are you telling girls that the only way to get respect is to be masculine? Are you telling women who usually would show their feelings, dress and act in a stereotypically feminine way, that they are not strong? Are you sending the message that femininity is weak? if so, you are not writing a feminist text. A feminist text affirms femininity, not just female characters. Now, am I saying that you should never write a female character who is "one of the guys".  No, of course not. Those characters can be very good: they can be interesting and funny and cool.  Just apply a little thought to what the character's gender identity actually is. But, what if you do want a badass woman. How do you write someone who is badass, and a woman?

Tyrande Whisperwind, leader of the night elf civilization in the Warcraft mythos provides an excellent example. She is, without question, a badass. She rides a sabertooth tiger, uses a magic bow, and commands a ghost eagle. She is an effective combatant, using both her weapons and her magic to do damage to the enemy and make her allies stronger. However, it is important that we first meet her alongside her husband Malfurion Stormrage and while playing as his twin brother Illidan. One of the biggest problems with the usual stereotype of the "badass woman" is that she has no emotional expression. Usually this is because she is isolated from others. She generally has no family or friends, nobody that she is truly close to. Tyrande isn't isolated at all, quite the opposite. She is the motherly leader of a whole society, with a small but important and complicated family. Malfurion and Illidan have grown apart over the years, but they are in some ways so much alike: and Tyrande's presence helps to highlight that fact. They are both arrogant in their own ways, and both so convinced of their own rightness that they are both blind to each others' perfectly valid points. 

Tyrande is notably selfless, lacking the arrogance and need to be correct that her husband and brother-in-law both display. If this were a typical fantasy, we would expect Malfurion to be the leader with a grandiose title. But Warcraft is not a typical fantasy.  This society is gynarchal, that is it privileges women. Women make up the clergy, who control the elite military units (which are thus, all-female) and in addition are more likely to be given positions of political leadership. But this is not the only reason that Tyrande is the leader. Tyrande emerges as the de facto leader of the night elves, or Kaldorei as they call themselves, during the War of the Ancients. This war overthrew the previous government, led by Queen Azhara and the Highbourne because they collaborated with an invading army. 

True, she was the high priestess in the Sisterhood of Elune: the main religious organization in this society. However, that is not the only reason that she becomes the de facto leader of the Kaldorei rebellion. Her intrinsic talents justify her leadership position: something that is very important when writing any leader. Tyrande's intrinsic talent is her ability to see the big picture, and stay focused on it. This is an important trait for a leader, obviously. Of course, Tyrande has flaws: she is xenophobic to the point of paranoia, and blindly utilitarian.  The festering trauma of Queen Azhara's betrayal causes Tyrande to distrust anyone or anything that resembles the Highbourne even slightly: without giving consideration to how the situation might be different. This extends to being willing to execute her own brother-in-law. Even though Malfurion convinces her to spare him, she values him only insofar as he is useful to her despite being an actual family member. 

However, because of this story of the War of the Ancients, Tyrande's flaws are sympathetic. We understand why she acts the way she does, even if we wouldn't agree with her actions. She is someone we can criticize and yet profoundly respect. She has worked hard to not only achieve victory for her people, but to subsequently create a mostly harmonious civilization. Tyrande has no title, even though she does the job of being a Queen. This puts her as not just a leader, but a specific kind: embodied by the real life George Washington and the mythical Cincinnatus. While this type of character is hardly unusual in fantasy settings, what is unusual is that this character is a woman. 

Tyrande puts her own pride aside to join the Alliance of Lordaeron: and forms a great professional relationship with the human King Varian Wrynn. While some of her people look down on the humans, elves being so long lived see them as childish, but Tyrande notably does not. Of course, she challenges him: but her challenges come only from a genuine desire to help him make the best decision possible for the Alliance. She isn't constantly pushing her people's agenda, or trying to steal the spotlight the way some other leaders in the game do. Her ability to always see the full context of someone's actions, means she is respected-one might even say revered-across all of Azeroth regardless of faction: one of only a few mortal characters to have that distinction. A truly strong and heroic woman.

On the surface, Rin Tohsaka the protagonist of Fate: Stay Night, could not be more different. She seems like a fairly traditional Japanese high school girl, living in a fairly traditional Japanese town. The story seems to be set in the 1980s, amid Japan's explosive but uneven economic growth, since there are electric heaters and televisions but no desktop computers or cell phones. But, Rin Tohsaka has a secret. She is a mage, indeed her family are famous as mages. A mage, is a person who can summon and control spiritual beings known as Servants.  The central conflict of the story, is the Holy Grail War. Yes, the words "servant" and "holy grail" actually appear in the Japanese text: and yes, Japanese is one of those languages that doesn't distinguish 'r' from 'l'. I can only guess that the writers intended for the voice actors to want to murder them. 

Speaking of murder, that is what this Holy Grail War is about. It is about killing other mages and their Servants. Seven mages are chosen to summon seven powerful Servants: only one can claim the Grail. While it is possible to knock a mage out of the tournament by making them lose their Servant, this is prohibitively difficult. What this does, is set up a story that questions the very notion of heroism.  The Servants are all heroes of the past from around the world, but despite their talk of honor and heroism: what they are doing is little more than a glorified bloodsport. Rin herself is inexperienced, and makes some rookie mistakes. However, even over the course of a few episodes she grows to the point where she initiates another mage into the tournament. Rin is a strong character, and endowed by the writers with some traits usually associated with male characters: such as a sense of honor and duty. She grows into the trope of the samurai warrior: placing duty to family before personal preference, and honor above all else. By "honor" I mean that Rin follows a code of ethics for fighting, it's not made totally clear whether this is a personal code or something taught to her by her absent father. 

But at no point is she coded as unfeminine. She wears a dress, a red dress in fact. She flirts with male characters. The high pitched Japanese voice acting helps a lot in her characterization, by never letting her be seen as masculine even as she acts aggressively. The writers can let her be a little bit masculine as she grows from schoolgirl to commander, but they feel no need to present her as unsexed. There are several scenes where she is carried by her Servant, recalling the romantic ending sequences of old Hollywood movies: but hilariously recast as a vehicle for some indulgence in kung fu movie physics. There is sexiness in this anime, it's about high school after all and emerging sexuality is thus a part of it. But, there are none of the upskirt or cleavage shots that have become standard for the genre. Characters flirt through words, and posture. 

The show uses the honorifics of ordinary Japanese language to characterize the different girls. While I don't know precisely what these words mean: it's easy to get the feeling for them by listening to the tone of voice. Rin speaks softly but with purpose, she never speaks unless she needs to and never says more than that she means to. She speaks to everyone with respect, but reserves deference for the teachers.  Emiya, the naive quiet boy with a special gift for fixing electrical appliances, speaks in a way that shows his lack of confidence. Emiya's adopted sister runs around calling everyone "senpai" which anyone who has been on the internet knows is a bit extreme: indicating that she is trying too hard to be liked. These three main characters all have a strong sense of duty, but to different things. Emiya feels a duty to help those in need, because he was orphaned as a child and brought up by a stranger. His sister feels a duty to her household, to keep it clean and pretty and in accordance with tradition. Rin feels a duty to bring glory to her family, and succeed where her father did not. To highlight this, the show gives them a perfect foil: an incompetent adult. 

She isn't grossly negligent like some of the adults in 90s YA novels: but she is absent-minded and thus irresponsible. She isn't their parent either, which takes the edge off somewhat: she's the daughter of the absentee landlord for Emiya and his sister's house, and one of the teachers. As such, she has privilege: and she exercises it by refusing to be responsible for herself, or others. She doesn't cook her own dinner or breakfast, and she doesn't really try to keep the kids from going out when the city issues a warning. Her lack of a sense of duty to those who are under her care (since she is the only adult present), makes the childrens' sense of duty more obvious. Privilege, what is supposed to be the reward for doing your duty: is blinding her to her real duty. Rin on the other hand, having lost the privilege that her family once clearly had (the house she lives in is large and ornate, obviously a manor house of some kind), has a strong sense of duty to the only thing her family has left: their name. Emiya, forced to depend on the generosity of strangers for most of his life, has a strong sense of duty to help society in any way he can. His sister simply wants other people to like her, and being dutiful helps her accomplish that. This story is one of recovering the most important aspects of the past that is about to disappear, and holding onto them while going towards the future. It is about being a samurai, and a modern woman: about being a hero, in a corrupting and degrading world. A story for our times, and a story for the ages.

Daenerys Stormborn and Wonder Woman-The Warrior Matron

Boudicca, Zenobia, Artemisia, Theodora, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Yoko Ono, Victoria Beckham, Queen Elizabeth II: strong women of history yes...but also all married. Yet in fiction, we almost never see this: certainly not with human characters (elves and/or space elves are often an exception). Our fictional strong or warrior women are single or even actively disinterested in men. Almost all our strong women in fact fall into a single archetype: the shieldmaiden. There is, of course, nothing wrong with this archetype or creating characters based off it. It simply shouldn't be the sole archetype for strong women. Not every woman wants to be that person, not every woman can. Some women desire men. Some women want a family. Some women enjoy their sexuality, and want to share it with someone else. Why can't we consider these women to be just as strong as the unmarried women? 

Because when she takes part in sexual activity, according to our society, a woman becomes impure. She is demeaned and degraded in the act, no matter how much the man who does it loves her. After that point, she is no longer a full human being. She is a wife, and not assumed to have the same capacities as she once had. Something was taken from her, but what? The answer of course, is nothing, and this ideology is absurd. Most of the strong women we know and love in history, were in fact married women. We also at one point told stories of women who were strong, not despite but because of their families. Women who were loved by men not despite but because of their strength. Women like Daenerys Stormborn and Wonder Woman. 

Daenerys (or Dany) doesn't exactly start out seeming like she will become a warrior mother, the Mother of Dragons. She starts off as a scared girl being abused by her brother, who is her only family. He then packs her off to the seemingly savage Dothraki. But, this is Game of Thrones and so all is not what it first seems. Khal Drogo is not the stupid oaf he first appears to be. More than being unexpectedly intelligent however, the Khal is also more interested in Dany as an individual than he has any reason to be. He demonstrates this by giving Dany's brother his well-deserved comeuppance. Later on, there is a tense scene where Dany attempts to communicate her sexual preferences to her new husband in the few words of his language that she knows. Props to GRRM here for delivering appropriate suspense despite the sensitivity of the material. He really keeps the reader on tenterhooks for a while wondering how Khal Drogo will respond. 

Of course this is Game of Thrones, Drogo immediately accommodates her preferences: subverting the expectations of readers around the globe. This gives Dany an inkling that he might truly love her, not simply want to get rid of his wife's enemies. So, she asks her handmaid to show her other sexual techniques. Although this is initially framed as an attempt to seduce Drogo, it soon becomes obvious that isn't really necessary plotwise. But law of conservation of detail: why then does GRRM write out these scenes in excruciating detail? They aren't sex scenes, there is no attraction between Dany and her handmaid Irri and they are doing all of this while fully clothed. There is another purpose to these scenes: Dany is gaining control over her sexuality. 

Sexuality is a form of power, that is why discussions of it are so fraught and so politically charged. Sex is the basis of politics and ultimately warfare, but also art, spirituality and every other form of cultural expression. In gaining control of her sexuality, Dany is gaining the tools to change the world. Khal Drogo [spoiler alert] dies, and Dany expertly turns the tragedy into the beginning of her own story. From fire and blood, she gives birth to dragons: from Dothraki and mercenary she gives birth to a nation. A nation built on the ideal of freedom and justice for all. As she later says to Varys: not to turn the wheel, but to break it. To establish a new order upon the world. But first she must survive the winter.

Wonder Woman is a different, but equally interesting sort of Warrior Matron. She's different in part because she looks to us like she is going to be a shieldmaiden type of heroine: a warrior woman, who has a pretty poor opinion of men. But then she meets a man who changes her opinion about men, and humans in general (since she apparently isn't, despite looking exactly like a human).  Thus, more directly than Daenerys, Wonder Woman is a subversion of the shieldmaiden trope: and given the author it's reasonable to assume that was the intention. She has to teach this man a thing or two about the right way to treat women, but unlike most men in the WWI era would have been: he's an eager student. 

Wonder Woman is placed opposite Ares, a representation of the toxic masculinity inherent in Colonialism. Ares in Greek Mythology is both brutal and bloodthirsty, but also daft as a post and emotionally fragile. He's all ego, and when something threatens his ego he throws a tantrum. When Diomedes spears him in the Iliad, he goes running to his mommy like a scared child. He romances Aphrodite, but also abuses her such that she's constantly running between him and her actual husband Hephaestus. Far from representing an ideal man to the Ancient Greeks, he was something of a joke. A god to be feared for his power, but laughed at behind his back.  

Diana (Wonder Woman) represents what Ares is missing: the calming and rational feminine spirit. She represents how Europeans (but not Americans-subject for another post) largely became disillusioned with the idea of Colonialism, upon seeing the horrific violence that it took to maintain Colonial control. But of course, Ares is immortal: he is an ideology, this egotistical ideology of Colonial Empire. He was only defeated, not killed. He returns again and again. Diana however, is also in the world still. Again, she represents an ideology: of protecting the weak and teaching the ignorant. 

She is not fighting for the Allies because she sees nothing wrong with what they are doing, but because she sees that they have the potential to be something better with her guidance. They have the capacity and willingness to learn.  She is still working with men, teaching them how to embrace the feminine both within themselves and outside themselves. Rather than sequestering herself away and letting the world burn like the rest of her tribe, Diana is here with us. She is fighting against DAESH in Syria, and working with survivors of sexual assualt. She is speaking against sexual predators, and for women's rights. She was there when the Southern Baptist Conference, formally split from the Republican Party and acknowledged it's unfair treatment of women.  

Wonder Woman fights for the world, because she has found a man worth fighting for. An inversion of the trope that we typically see in literature where the male warrior (the most recent example being Harry Potter) fights for the female love interest.  Not that there is anything wrong with this, it is very realistic after all. Nothing motivates a person to fight more than the thought of their loved ones being in danger, that is how we are hardwired as human beings. It is simply that we do not often acknowledge that women also fight for their loved ones: indeed, that is typically the only time a woman will fight unless she is in a political position where it is required. This is because women prefer to avoid situations where their physical bodies might be damaged, at least if they ever plan on having children. Wonder Woman has sometimes been slammed as sexist because of this (and, to be fair, her costume), but this is actually the opposite of sexist. It is an acknowledgement that women feel sexual desire, and behave similarly to men when they feel it. If that isn't feminism, I don't know what is.

Here there be no Monsters: The turn of the milennium, & the mothers of the MOBA.

It is the spring of 2003, and the nascent internet is buzzing with news of an expansion to the already famous Warcraft III, from Blizzard Entertainment. The Warcraft games are real-time strategy games with a high fantasy setting. The gameplay is similar to Go, where the aim is to out-think your enemy and control areas of the map. You are given different sets of abilities to work with in order to accomplish this task. The Warcraft games were particularly famous for their ability to use these mechanics to tell a story, grabbing the attention of RPG fans as well as strategy game fans, and Warcraft III was widely considered their best entry in the franchise yet. But the poster for this expansion to Warcraft III was not simply being talked about on Blizzard's official forums, or on the websites dedicated to gaming.

No, it was being talked about in AoL chatrooms, MySpace, Neopets and Club Penguin: the parts of the internet inhabited in the early naughts by teen and preteen girls. It wasn't the Warcraft name or the Blizzard logo which had grabbed the attention of these girls: it was the face in the center of the poster. The smouldering green eyes set against tanned skin and framed by long blond locks, the smirking mouth framed by a hint of stubble. For many girl gamers seeing Arthas Menethil for the first time, was like what male gamers experienced when they first saw Cortana (the AI in the shape of a beautiful woman from Halo).  It was a revelation.

Games could offer more than simply a way to waste a few hours, a video game character was someone you could fall in love with the same way that you fell in love with movie characters.  It started of course with girls who were sisters, cousins and next-door-neighbors of avid gamers. Nobody reposts faster than a teenage girl, and before long Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne had reached a far wider audience than any game of it's kind before. It was the kind of audience that video game companies could only dream of: the kind of audience that only card games had ever reached before. But this was not a card game, it was not a game which appealed to children but which adults would leave behind.  It was a game for adults, and it was challenging. But the girls who bought it were motivated to overcome the challenges, or find the cheats, because of the other things the game offered.

Prince Arthas Menethil is not a character you would expect a game, let alone a strategy game, to do justice to. The game struck the tricky balance between fairy tale and reality, between the fantasy hero and modern-day military commander. Of course, fans of the other Warcraft games were unsurprised about this: Blizzard was always able to strike this balance well. But the girls who picked up the game had no knowledge of those other games, and they were shocked. The trick was the relationship between Arthas and his girlfriend Jaina. Their dialog was witty, flirty, and realistic: in that it used language which real people would actually use. They might be a Prince and Princess in a fantastic world trying to solve a zombie plague, but they talked like your mom and dad. MySpace exploded with fanart, much of which can still be found on tumblr and Deviantart.

Jaina was not simply a Princess to be rescued, in fact she was more likely to do the rescuing. She was more than capable of handling herself even in the chaotic situations that inexperienced players frequently got themselves into. She had a distinctive character that was related to, but did not depend on Arthas. Her identity as a mage set her apart from him, and she drove the story independently of him. She was also actually useful in gameplay, unlike so many female video-game sidekicks (this was mere months after Goldeneye's infamously useless Natalya).  Her mage abilities synchronized well with Arthas' paladin spells, so that the two fought together in a natural way when they had to face the enemy themselves. The game set them up as a perfect pair, a King and Queen in all but name.

Does one need spoiler warnings for games that are over a decade old? well, spoilers ahead. This being a Blizzard game of course, the perfection cannot last. At the climax of the story, Jaina must choose to follow her lover in killing innocent people or abandon him and face a hopeless future alone. She chooses the latter.  Acting on the words of the mysterious Prophet, Jaina gathers up the survivors of the zombie plague and sails into the unknown. Jaina could have considered the plight of Lordaeron to be no longer be her problem, after Arthas' betrayal. Instead, she takes up the responsibilities of Queen, without any of the perks. Here was a woman that a girl could look up to, a woman she could wish to become. In 2003, that was virtually unknown in the gaming world. There were women in games, but none of them were role models. But this game was far from done amazing it's new audience.

The campaign continues and Arthas continues to become evil after taking possession of a cursed sword. Playing the game is a devastating experience, because you aren't simply watching Arthas destroy everything he loves. No, you are Arthas as he destroys everything he loves. It is a great example of a story that could really only be told in a game, because it's emotional weight comes from the player feeling the same way about Lordaeron that Arthas does. The transition from hero to villain is not sudden, it is gradual and insidious: you can't pinpoint the moment that it happens. Even to this day fans of the series still debate whether Arthas was right to kill the citizens of Strathholme, or not. Although they were innocent, they were cursed to a fate worse than death: undeath. The undead in this world, you see, are also enslaved to the will of the Lich King. Was Arthas showing compassion, or was he murdering them?  Was he using his power to save them, or was it an abuse of his position as Prince? it is genuinely difficult to say.

But there is no difference in how the fans feel about this moment: it is horrifying. And you, you the player, are doing it. You are cutting down innocent confused people, and every time you do it it hurts: no matter how many times you play the game. People like to say that dictators who turn on their own people are monsters: but that is to say that they are not people, not humans. It is a pitiful attempt at equating humanity to goodness. Warcraft III, unusually for a game at this time, confronts the player with the darkness in their own soul. It confronts you with the fact that if you were faced with the same choice as Arthas, you would have done as he did. Even if you believe Arthas is saving the people, you know he is damning himself. In most stories, this is where Arthas would die: either a noble hero sacrificing himself for the good of his people, or a tragic hero overcome by his attachment to his country.

Remember, this is 2003: two years into the Iraq war.  The country was gripped with a fever of blind patriotism. Prince Arthas' zeal was something everyone could identify with, even those who opposed the war were worried about the country's safety. And like Prince Arthas, we were all willing to sacrifice some people for the good of the many. But because we carried out this action in a fictional world, we could be a step removed from it: and understand just how horrifying it really is.
To make matters worse, the story doesn't end with Strathholme. No, Arthas goes on to betray his friend and pick up a cursed sword of evil. Frostmourne is still an icon in gaming, not simply because of it's excellent visual design but because of this story. Frostmourne is a weapon of death, and it turns whomever wields it into a grim reaper.

We've seen the grim reaper before in games of course, but never one quite so terrifying or so human. Slowly, the golden locks turn white and the once glowing skin pallid. The green eyes no longer smoulder with life, and the attractive smirk becomes a grimace. Arthas transforms before our eyes into a mockery of himself, as he destroys the Kingdom he once protected. They can't show the downfall of Lordaeron in the game, not truly: instead they show it in the person of Arthas. His former friend and mentor Uther might call Arthas a monster, but the player knows the devastating truth is that Arthas is still very much a human. There is no escape from that truth for us.  It is not simply a Lovecraftian "the monster is us" message. The message is: there are no monsters.

There are simply people who have different agendas, and people can easily jump between them. The undead Scourge is without a doubt evil, but it is not as monstrous as it first appears. That reaction is a product of our inherent bias, and it's wrong. With Arthas leading it, the Scourge becomes as human as the defenders of Lordaeron. It's evil cannot be dismissed or downplayed, it must be dealt with directly.

Enter, the Banshee Queen. After destroying Lordaeron, Arthas turns on Quel'thalas, the elven kingdom. Like you would expect from an elven kingdom, it is hidden and it protects a fountain of magical power: which Arthas needs in order to resurrect the necromancer Kel'thuzad, and summon the demon Archimonde into the world. During the invasion of Quel'thalas, Arthas captures Ranger General Sylvanas Windrunner who is in charge of the defense. She begs for a quick death, but he instead tortures her and then rips out her soul turning her into a banshee. In addition to being extremely painful, this also gives her additional powers. However, other forces are at work in the world and the Lich King's ability to enslave the undead weakens. Sylvanas and some other of the stronger undead are able to free themselves from the Lich King's control. She realizes this, and gathers them up into a fighting force: which she takes to the ruins of Lordaeron.

Now, Sylvanas is a rape victim. The rape is metaphorical rather than literal, this is a game directed at teenagers after all, but there is no question that's what it is. She behaves and talks like a rape victim. She is someone that a woman can look up to, because she is an example of how to deal with trauma in a healthy way: gather up other people who have experienced the same trauma, and forge a new path together. Sylvanas and the Forsaken, as they call themselves, cannot ever escape their trauma. They are literally walking corpses.

What they can do, is transcend it: that is, they do not have to let it define them. Indeed, they need to. They need to, because the humans who are still around do define them by their physicality (most of them, anyhow).  They cannot allow these people to define their nascent society, otherwise it will never work. But it is the older and wiser elves who recognize them for what they represent: the best chance for the Scourge to be beaten. They are, after all, former members of the Scourge: they know how the enemy operates and have information about it's weaknesses. The practical elves decide to ally with the Forsaken: giving their new nation the legitimacy it needs. As I mentioned, elves are long-lived: and thus, patient. Sylvanas is no exception. Although she thirsts for revenge, she does not rush it. She works intelligently and methodically. First she turns the demons against one another, then she finds out the secret to the plague of undeath. This tells her what can harm the Scourge. Then she crafts her poisoned arrow. Then she shoots it at Arthas, and he is paralyzed. Only the arrival of the necromancer Kel'thuzad foils Sylvanas' plan.

Sylvanas isn't simply an anti-hero: that is, a hero who uses morally questionable methods and doesn't model virtue.  Sylvanas' existence questions one of the pillars of fantasy: the notion of the monster.  She is reviled for what she is: but at the same time she is loved for who she is. The players of Warcraft games have been divided over this character since her very first appearance. She is a smart and competent leader with an unerring eye for talent and the confidence to go against convention. Her decision to train and promote the human Nathanos Marris proved to be crucial for the Alliance's victory in the Second War.  At the same time, Sylvanas is not a kind or generous person and she has no real right to even exist. Her methods can be both morally questionable and truly horrifying. Especially because she is female, her lack of empathy can be shocking and repulsive. It is this last thing which is so revolutionary about Sylvanas for female gamers (or indeed women in general). Her presence gives us permission to not pretend that we care, when really we don't.

Women are particularly vulnerable to emotional manipulation in our culture because we are taught to pretend that we care.  Again it's this issue of pushing the burden to create and maintain relationships onto women. Obviously, emulating Sylvanas completely would be bad. But this too is unusual in fiction: a leader that people want to follow, who they would never want to be. While there is a vocal portion of the fanbase that hates this character, and not without good reason: there are also legions of loyal fans. Although she is definitely a sexually appealing character: sex appeal only serves to pique interest, it cannot sustain that interest. People love her because she is an effective and experienced leader, who values talent over anything else. People hate her because she does not validate them and she acts in a way that is contradictory to their morality.  She doesn't have honor and doesn't subscribe to an ideology. Some people find that monstrous, others find it inspiring.

This ambivalence is unusual in video games. Most of the time the vast majority of a game's fanbase feels one way or another about a character: they love the character, or hate them, think they are good or bad. Then again, most video games do not attempt to tackle questions like "what is humanity?" That is the question however that a character like Sylvanas presents us with, by her very existence. Is she human? at first blush one tends to think the answer is no. But then, if you play as a blood elf in World of Warcraft you can find a locket in a tower which you learn once belonged to Sylvanas. If you bring it to her, she sings a lament for her home and it's one of the most beautiful songs in a game that is well known for it's beautiful music. She might tell everyone else she feels nothing, she might even believe that herself: but you know better. She has a heart, and she does feel. That's why she bothered to free others from the control of the Scourge.  That's why she raises new Forsaken, despite the pain of that existence. She has, in truth, found joy in even these circumstances. Being strong enough and wise enough to find the good in life despite it's horrors is something we can all admire and emulate.

Warcraft as a mythos has plenty of standout characters, male and female, which I could spend a lot of time talking about. Most intriguing however, is that these characters did not simply become foundational to the MMORPG World of Warcraft. No, these characters inspired the creation of an entirely new gaming phenomenon: the MOBA. It's a simple enough type of game: defend your base and take down the enemy's. You have regular units, called creeps for the way that they move slowly forward until annihilated, and hero units which are controlled by players and have special abilities. This is based off of the general structure of Warcraft III, because Defense of the Ancients (or DoTA as it has become known), was originally a custom map for Warcraft III. This is extremely important in the history of gaming because for the first time we have a game genre which was built around having strong and capable female characters. The archetypes represented by Jaina, Sylvanas, and other female characters in the game shaped the entire genre from it's inception.

This is a game genre that could very easily have never featured female characters, look at the (probably) all-male cast of Team Fortress 2. Games are, by necessity, bound to traditions. Gaming is an industry, not yet a true art form: and therefore it is all about what will sell. Most companies prefer to play it safe, and stick with what they know will work. That is why most games have generic white male protagonists and tell the same sexist, racist, homophobic stories over and over again. So, establishing good traditions at the foundations of genres is key.

But more than simply having strong female protagonists, the MOBA genre is also defined by Warcraft III's central message: there are no monsters. This is inherently an anti-prejudicial message: without the need to resort to display of visual diversity that could very easily end up being seen as condescending, rather than affirming. If there are no monsters, no bogeymen, then there are only stark economic and social realities. There is only the reality of economic exploitation and the loss of supremacy. There is only the reality of tyranny oversees and at home, and the slow creation of the inevitable enemy of that tyranny: the terrorist. There is only the reality of eager technocrats rushing to play God. This way of understanding the world can be seen in games like League of Legends through the lore and character concepts. Better than any survey of political beliefs, these games prove what the majority of people believe: the truth is something to be confronted, not avoided. There are no monsters, only people who act on their own agendas.