Depiction of women on card art in Shadowera

[Unfan]

Zailen Crusader's armor is worrying for two reasons. The first is that her boob-plate straight up has nipples on it, and the other being that armor that curves like that would be impractical. The reason most males have uniform armor that has a slight outward slant is because it naturally deflects blades. If Zailen were to take a strike to the abdomen the curvature of her armor could actually cause the blade to have more impact to her underboob. I'm all for ridiculous over the top fantasy art, even what some may consider sexist, but I have a hard time wrapping my head around how armor designed that way was even thought up.

Raven Wildheart has one tit that is perfectly spherical - it's like the artist just wanted to draw a single boob and then Wulven told them that there was supposed to be a woman attached to it somehow. Instead of fixing his drawing he just kinda filled the rest in.

[Proditer]

Raven Wildheart has one tit that is perfectly spherical - it's like the artist just wanted to draw a single boob and then Wulven told them that there was supposed to be a woman attached to it somehow. Instead of fixing his drawing he just kinda filled the rest in.

Crap. I can't unsee that now.

Regarding OP's argument on how Layarian Seductress is depicting woman as the weaker gender, using only their charms and looks, take note of how most, if not all, cards in SE have a relationship between their art, name and abilities. For example Sword Thief. The art depicts a random thief hidden in the shadows.His ability is that he can "steal" an opponent's ally's "sword" for 1 turn, thus disabling the ally for 1 turn. I believe that Wulven was just trying to make the Layarian Seductress' card art, card name and card ability fit as perfectly as possible. I will also like to ask, using the logic in your argument, if depicting men as thieves is right (Sword Thief, Rogue cards, etc.)

Since all female characters in SE are depicted with clothing, then shouldn't it be normal that all male characters be depicted with clothing too? And depicting males as only powerful and deadly can also be argued to be wrong. I am a male and I want to be smart and good looking, not just strong. Lastly, there are many female cards in SE that are just as powerful, if not more powerful, than male cards (Fateweaver, Scarlet Blade, etc.).

[Caitlyn0]

do you think its funny that one of my favorite cards is bloodlust? i am always trying to find room for it in a shadow deck (and its won me more games than any other single card )

[gamerhellborn]

Boring

[Sisyphos]

I can only offer you my personal somewhat contradictory tastes on the matter. Lily Rosecult or Raven hit just the right spot of being offensive even to me as guy. Eleanor on the other hand goes the extra mile to where her picture is so insane and ridiculous that it gets more hilarious the longer i look and think. But truth be told, as someone who didn't know he's into card games before SE, it was Majiya's magnificent navel that drew me in at first, not the gameplay or such nonsense.

[Shadows R Us]

SRU I think you meant Bloodlust.

.

I did, thanks. I'd like to blame autocorrect, but I think I just picked the wrong card.

[bobrossw]

I'm a man, but consider myself a feminist and am married to a feminist. I very much agree with the OP. Much of the card art comes off as misogynist. I think the OP is right to point out that there is a difference between sexy and sexist. If it were merely sexy, then we could expect to see some sexualized male figures as well. Instead we see macho, heroic manly figures and sexualized women. I do find it disappointing, and indeed it makes me a bit conflicted about playing the game. I do think much of the card art has improved, but Lily Rosecult will always be there.

Others have pointed out that flavor of cards has something to do with it. I really like when cards have good flavor, and when the image on the card goes with the name and ability to create a story. I think Layarian Seductress should be sexy for that reason. I do think that seduction has traditionally been a way that women have exerted power in the past, because they lived in a patriarchy. So I don't see anything anti-feminist about a seductive female figure. The issue is that it can sometimes feel like that's the only role that women are allowed to take, which of course perpetuates the message that 'the only thing women are good for is sex'. Consider Katrin Shieldmaiden: Her card art detracts from the flavor of a woman going into battle with men - which indeed was the role of shieldmaidens - although I suppose Midnight Sentinel (a male) is showing some nipple, so maybe it's just a requirement for buffing health. Similarly, what does Lily Rosecult's art have to do with her ability? So not only do the oversexualized women make the game feel a bit slimy, but they also detract from the coherent flavor of the game - the connection between card art-title-and ability that makes the game feel like a story, not just a dirty card deck.

I do agree with other posters that it is getting better, but some of those cards will not be changing any time soon (until they re-release a set with new art). I think Aramia and Tala are good examples of this, where they just seem like powerful women and not sexually powerful women.

[Peithoson]

DISCLAIMER: This might be a sensitive topic for some and I don't mean to offend anyone nor start an argument. But I wanted to ask this out of curiosity.

I am one of those rare players who is a woman and found this game after playing Magic the Gathering for years and quitting it (although I just tried out Magic 2014 few weeks ago - I am not completely satisfied with the game).

Shadowera is an excellent TCG and I have tremendously enjoyed playing it... However, I noticed how sexist card art was being towards women in this game and some card abilities being sexist as well.

Practically all women on the card art is depicted as sexy with enormous and ample breasts and always showing cleavage. They are dressed pretty skimpily. Also their poses tend to be suggestive and some of their abilities were sexist. They just scream "sexualized" to me. Examples include: Jasmine Rosecult, Sandra Trueblade, Brigette Skullborn, Erika Shadowhunter, Braxnoxian Temptress, and so on.


I don't recall seeing the same amount of blatant sexuality in Magic when I played it. It just made me feel women were being potrayed as the weaker sex and having to rely on their charms/looks/sexuality to get what they want on the cards arts and in abilities (Layarian Seductress, I am looking at you!).

On the flip side, I hardly see men being shirtless on card art, even for human warriors (look at the movie 300 and countless other war movies with greek/roman themes). Men also are portrayed as powerful, intimidating, and forceful in most of the card art and abilities.

I am very aware that most of the TCG players are men and they probably prefer seeing those sexy women over sexy men on cards. My question is: why is there so much sexualized women in Shadowera card art and them frequently having abilities related to their looks or sexuality? Is this necessary to draw into male players?

Would the game be any different if we covered up all the women and eliminated the sexualized terms such as "seductress", etc? Would I feel better if there were just as many shirtless male heroes on the cards? Maybe? lol.

Magic also has it's fair share of scantily clad females and males so kind of a moot point.

However, I don't mind the female art the way it is (fantasy art 101) since that seems to be a draw for the game and the majority of it is pretty good. Things like pillows seem over the top, and cards like Jasmine, Elanor, and Bloodlust are laughable honestly. I like to keep more overt sex separate from my games (not a fan of "fan art"). Covering up the women and eliminating sexualized terms seems really nit picky since to be fair you would have to apply similar measures to the plethora of unrealistic male body types in SE (the Wulven tribe would need covered for example). I would consider the majority of muscular "macho" bodies to be sexualized.
As for women being the "weaker" sex in SE you should know that Amber, Majiya, Eladwen, and Zhanna decks have made appearances in the World Championships on multiple occasions. To that end one could argue that women are actually pretty dominant in SE.

[Lahiri]

I agree for what regards artworks, some of them pass the line, even if you need to understand it's always a game with a target which is 99% males so Wulven tried to "play dirty".
I would have preferred if Wulven had avoided this kind of artworks but I can understand them.

Regarding abilities I think Layarian Seductress and Jasmine are ok, I don't see problems with them. There are tough women like Tala or Amber and other women that use other tools... It's quite realistic (obviously exaggerated, it's a game, never forget it)

Tl;dr: OP is basically right, but it's a game so you don't have to take it too much seriously and I hope in future sets there will be more sober artworks.

[jcbow]

an important thing to look at is the community here. I forget the women's name and I'm too lazy to look her up but she began to speak out against women in video games and received horrid hate messages. Here we gave constructive conversation. The art is scaling back because we are a good group (aramia art is perfect example). Need a point here so what I'm trying to say is based on the group we are I wouldn't be too alarmed by the older art.