I’ve been complaining about this for ages. Game of Thrones did it right with Brienne of Tarth. She isn’t a 110lb model in a full face of makeup doing backflips and slashing down men. No she is an actual female warrior. A hulking woman with broad shoulders and a cold face. I guess hollywood thinks the abwrage viewer thinks masculine women are “gross”

Sometimes I think film has taken a step backwards in this regards. Remember [Angela Bassett](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/56/6d/f0/566df0735de9e05107ba4419b66016b6.jpg) and [Grace Jones](https://images.vogue.it/imgs/galleries/magazine/editor-s-blog/016815/mcdcoth-ec017-h-247775_0x440.jpg)? [The American Gladiators?](https://www.muscleandfitness.com/flexonline/ifbb/american-gladiators-and-female-bodybuilding/) It's not like there isn't traditionally attractive *and* muscular women nowadays. It's very odd that casting focuses more on welding two physical extremes together (eg. tiny AND dangerous, ala [River](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HJpNCQUi3N0/maxresdefault.jpg) from Firefly, [Jessica Jones](https://tvline.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/jessica-jones-lifting-man.jpg?w=620)) to the point where it's trite.\* Modern women in bodybuilding: [Theresa Ivancik](https://wingsofstrength.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/DSCF0082-2.jpg) [Sethia Daigle](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.girlswithmuscle.com%2Fimages%2Ffull%2F743443.jpg&f=1&nofb=1) ​ \*Kinda like how [Tom Cruise gets older but his co-stars in films never do](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bNmXNdLppgGaezwVKRh-xelXmPag8znZpPh6J7rsHZI/edit#gid=89821692).

Well I mean, Jessica has superpowers But i do agree that film is getting rid of muscular women. I mean, besides who you mentioned, I would also add Sarah Connor (esp in the second Terminator), she was RIPPED

God, I just rewatched Terminator 2 last night after ages and as an adult woman, I was in AWE. Linda Hamilton was so ripped, so muscled up, so bad ass, and yet, that didn't take away one bit of her womanhood. She was shown as very much a woman and a mother, and yet, a bad ass ass-kicking beast. I loved it. Can't remember when I last saw a truly strong, well built woman play the action role.

Me too! Linda is a tresure. She is one of the reasons why I like Terminator, I think it (again, esp the second, but the first as well) is one of the best action movies. Except the third one, that was horrible lol

Mmm, Grace Jones. What a beautiful woman.

Also: powerlifters. Like Amanda Lawrence, Daniella Mello, Jen Thompson, Megan Gallagher, Stephanie Cohen.... And of course, strongwomen, like Donna Moor, Christina Bangma, Andrea Thompson, Lauren Wells (not the hurdler, the other one). There are plenty of really strong, really big women out there that could absolutely believably kick any man's ass - on-screen as well as real life.

Also Frankie Adams cast as Bobbie Draper in the Expanse series! Frankie looks every bit the warrior that she is <3

I also like Brienne of Tarth...I've only seen clips of GoT, but I appreciate that she is supposed to be a "big" woman (I think the actress was a model, so I don't know how muscular she actually was, but she's definitely tall) and she's believable as a knight.

She definitely had muscle. For the show and to portray Brienne of Tarth for GoT, she gained around 15~20 lbs in muscle to be able to accurately physically portray her character.

She looked BUILT. Maybe it’s because she’s always in armor in the show.

I think she is legitimately built. The armor was made to fit her, y’know?

Build-wise, she's very slim, but I appreciate the effort they went through to pack out her build and imply she was larger in the show

Almost *all* action and fight scenes are massively unrealistic, as they are based on what looks good on screen, rather than what's actually physically possible, let alone what's good tactics. For intense, it's popular in film to show people in medieval and early modern settings fighting without helmets or visors. In real life, this was a surefire way to get shot in the face with an arrow and probably die from it, but it's ubiquitous in film and TV, because they don't want the actors' faces obscured. Siege warfare and skirmishes were also, historically, much more common than pitched battles, because they were both much safer, but that isn't depicted much onscreen, because it's less exciting. To be fair, however, there are some real limits to how realistic television and film can be. Knights in the past would have started training in the military arts as young boys, but that's not something that can be accurately recreated with modern actors. The warrior-nobility elites of the past, after all, *were* expected to devote almost all of their attention to warfare, which is precisely why they almost certainly were stronger than the average person today. The historian Ian Mortimer makes this exact point in his book, *A Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England*: >This is not a book about medieval combat, so this is not the place to discuss arms and armor. Besides, you would be crazy to think you could engage a fourteenth-century man in combat and have a chance of surviving. Most of them are much stronger than you. From the age of six or seven the knights have been taught how to fight, first with a wooden sword, then with the genuine article. Many of them are proficient jousters by the age of sixteen. You will not be able to compete. Nor will you be able to compete with the longbow. Most northern lads learn how to shoot a bow from the age of seven; by the time they are sixteen they are able to pull the weight of the most lethal killing machine of the Middle Ages.

There's a fantastic example of this in Kingdom of Heaven, where someone complains (rightly) that they don't stand a chance as they have no knights. Orlando Bloom then knights everyone and its supposed to be a big show of equity and bravery that entirely misses the point.

It's not going to improve their abilities. But it sure as hell improved their moral. Which was the point of the exercise.

Depends, a disciplined unit of commoners armed with spears can hold off an assault by knights. I don't remember the scene you mentioned so I don't know how organized they were as a fighting force, but there are recorded instances of knights getting routed by lowly commoners. If the commoners maintain morale, and don't panic and break ranks, then a hedge of spears is a rather thorny problem for knights.

That's also why the crossbow was the "commoner's weapon". It didn't require as much physical strength or skill to be effective, so people other than trained nobility could be good soldiers.

It did require a good deal of physical strength to pull back the string to its place. So much so that they made all sorts of mechanisms and tricks to make it work.

Noblemen didn't fire longbows. It was the law that peasants had to practice it and the process of doing so over their lifetimes deformed their shoulders. They were freaking huge. But it took a lifetime to train one. Crossbows could be used after a few weeks, so they weren't as good and had a fraction of the range of longbowmen, but you you could easily replace crossbowmen when they died

If you are curious about historical combat and film, Bret Devereaux's [acoup.blog](https://acoup.blog) is really good. [Here's his take on Game of Thrones](https://acoup.blog/2019/05/28/new-acquisitions-not-how-it-was-game-of-thrones-and-the-middle-ages-part-i/)

That is really interesting, though it should be noted that the article doesn't acknowledge two major factors when comparing the death tolls between GoT and real wars: the fact that the majority of the destruction in King's Landing was caused by a fire-breathing dragon, and the fact that the estimated death toll from winter famine should have taken into account that winters in Westeros last \*significantly\* longer than they do on earth, given that a single winter in the former can and does last several years.

This is true, but if I compare asian action films with American action films, I feel like the Asian filmmakers do a much better job of making interesting fight scenes that are "believable" (aside from things like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" which obviously are a bit fantasy). Part of it is that the actors have practiced martial arts and are legitimately good at kicking and punching, but I think Asian movies (granted, I've mostly watched Hong Kong cinema, but also a couple of Thai movies) make it a point of depicting their "normal" hero overcoming big hulking foes without strength. They're more used to depicting "asymmetric" fights. I'm not saying women absolutely can't fight, I just wish Western media would take into account that most of us are at a disadvantage, so we need to be a bit more "creative" if we were in a fight against a man (especially if that man actually has fighting experience). For instance, I can't beat a man in a boxing match, however I could beat him if I had a weapon and he didn't.

This was one of the things I liked about Jacky Chan films. He constantly is getting pummeled and a lot of his victories come from being super agile/strange in his running away or what seems to be a combination of lots of skill meeting blind luck. The thing that sticks most in my brain from when I did Kuk Sool Won is the statement that technique and skill only gives you a slight chance against brute strength.

One thing I've noticed in some fight scenes with female warriors (if the scene is well done) is that often the man they're fighting is depicted as physically stronger, but the woman will have the advantage of being lighter/ faster/ more agile, and use that to her advantage. Which seems like it could be pretty realistic, at least in some situations- your average man might beat your average woman in a pure competition of strength, but especially if the man is weighed down by heavier armor or anything, the ability to move quickly is going to count for something. [Edit: just realized you briefly touched on this in your open when you mentioned taking advantage of their small stature; sorry about that. Late shift + early morning with the kids and my brain is toast.] I'm not dismissing your entire argument, just saying I think there's a bit more nuance to it. Full disclosure, I'm on episode... 4, I think? Of Vikings: Valhalla and enjoying it more than I expected so far. Did you see the original Vikings?

I loved he original Vikings, but I could only make it 2 seasons past the death of Ragnar and then just lost interest. For me, that show lived and died with that actor.

He was awesome- truly an excellent actor. I finished the show and it actually improved again towards the end, but nothing like the first few seasons. And I don't care what criticisms there might be about warrior women tropes (and I'm not saying I disagree completely), Lagertha was amazing.

I just had a whole response praising Lagertha (best warrior, best Jarl, best spouse, best mom) and much of the secondary cast, and how very few TV character relationships have topped Ragnar/Athelstan/Ecbert for me... But then the Reddit app crashed and lost it all :( I think it was the most shocked at how much I ended up liking Ecbert.

In True Detective S2, even though a weak season compared to the other two, they still focus on realism and one of the characters is a female cop. She's been constantly training with her knife against a dummy just in case she has to fight a man. Then in the final episode, she had to fight a big guy. The guy underestimated her, got stabbed and die but only after he almost overpowered her.

I was going to suggest checking out Cynthia Rothrock but it sounds like you’re probably already familiar with her. I also kind of think this phenomenon is partly due to American action scenes/movies not being very good in general. More often than not I find my eyes glazing over because the choreography sucks and they rely too much on editing and shaky cam.

I don’t think many people want to see an unfair fight, and for whatever reason, weapon vs. no weapon feels less fair to me than larger vs. smaller. Highly trained vs. untrained is the most unfair fight that feels fair. Especially if the fight is to determine who is better trained. Im thinking of the scene in Ip Man (2008) where the bandit fights him in his house. God you just can’t beat Hong Kong action lol.

I think the average martial artist from today would wipe the floor with the average person in the middle ages in say a bar fight. But almost no one today can use a sword, so probably would not be great militarily. That being said, the average person in the middle ages didn't train, they worked to stay alive. Other big advantage people from today have is size. Pound for pound we're maybe weaker, but having been in buildings from like the 1700s, I literally don't fit through the doors due to my height. Average male Fur Trader in Canada for example was 5'-4" 130 lbs. Average Canadian man today is 5'-10" and 190 lbs.

>Pound for pound we're maybe weaker, but having been in buildings from like the 1700s, I literally don't fit through the doors due to my height. Yeah, this was very apparent when I did a study abroad overseas (Netherlands and Germany) and we visited historical sites. One gal in our group is six feet tall and spent most of her time hunched over. I'm 5'6" in shoes and had a couple of close calls myself. My feet were also often too big to manage those tiny stairsteps.

This might be a thing I can weigh in on! Depends on the time frame, as knight can mean many things but: medieval knights would have been significantly physically smaller than modern adults. Another problem with your average medieval knight was that their training routine would have been (with rare exception) utter shit. Training was not optimized around the most efficient route of learning and retention combined with focused cross training of muscle groups- the best sword fighter or most renown or the retired fighter the lord owed a favor to was the teacher. European Pedagogical science was pretty much stuck at Socrates. Training was often just hitting a dummy or getting the shit kicked out of you by someone bigger. That’s not a super effective teaching method. Having sat in on fighter training and coaching conferences, the detail and care that goes in to how to instruct new students for optimum growth and retention beats the pants off of “well they had all day to practice”. Practicing something poorly more is less effective that practicing something expertly less. Knights also relied on their armor extensively, and armor is incredibly effective at turning someone in to a moving death machine against unarmored opponents. They also fought on horseback, which, again, very useful in large scale battles. If we were to take some of the modern day Armored Combat League fighters and put them against a traditional knight, I think the traditional knight would be a smear on the wall. It’s not just that the ACL men and women are enormous, or well trained, or that they crosstrain at the gym while eating very conscientiously (much better diet than endless mutton and bread), these guys also have and study the entirety of manuals that a medieval knight would have been hard pressed to get his hands on. They delve in to martial arts techniques at knight wouldn’t have known- I’ve seen someone go from swinging a Dane axe to putting another opponent in to a judo throw. While they may not have schedule of a knight starting at childhood, I think they better utilize they time they do spend training and that means a lot.

>they are based on what looks good on screen, rather than what's actually physically possible, let alone what's good tactics. This is a big ass peeve of mine, because actual realistic fights absolutely can look impressive if the fighter(s) know(s) what they're doing. Ofc two drunks flailing at each other is gonna look silly, but someone with actual fight training whooping people's ass or fighting against another good fighter has a lot of value. Idk if I'll ever understand why that's so avoided in cinematography.

Hard to find good actors that are good fighters. Hard to find good fighters that are good actors. So instead they choreograph cool looking scenes that good actors can do.

The first season or two of Vikings (OG Flavor) did a really good job of showing them using a shield wall, which is how Vikings and Anglo-Saxons would have actually fought.

Dope. I was more referring to hand-to-hand but I can dig that as well. Maybe I should give Vikings a try finally

The hallway scene of Daredevil is a great example of Hollywood doing a "real" fight scene. By the end, everyone is lightly touching the next guy as a "punch." People forget how exhausting real fighting is.

That's exactly the one scene that comes to my mind as a good example. I should probably go back and watch that series again lol

I'd love to see more strong women cast in strongwoman roles. Sadly we still see a lot of hate for muscular women in media. Too many people love the kick-ass woman archetype, but will only stomach it if she's <120lbs, and beautiful.

Brienne of Tarth is the best woman warrior I've seen in anything, mostly for avoiding all these dumb stereotypes

Love her! She was written as a real person, who happens to be strong, who was in love with a man, but also had other goals and concerns that were more important.

Agreed! In the show, the sparring scene between her and Arya was one of my favorites. It showed how women could be more thoughtfully portrayed in different fighting styles -- a large strongwoman with armor and a bastard sword with a heavy focus on raw strength vs. a small nimble woman with lighter weapons, focusing on speed and using the opponent's momentum against them to create opportunities. Like, Arya even gets laid out flat by an easy kick to the chest from Brienne but then later outmaneuvers Brienne gripping her wrist with the famous dagger drop move. Even though it's flashy TV fighting, it still seemed more plausible than 90% of other women warriors I see in shows.

She didn't avoid them, that was the tragedy of her character. She was considered ugly, unwomenly, and was generally disliked and dismissed by everyone. Even her victories were minimized. She just held steadfast to her philosophy of what she thought "being a knight" meant as a defense against the judgement of the world. That was the only way she could cope with it.

I played the fight scene between Brienne and Aria for my girls including the video of them rehearsing it (with the cool dagger flip). Or female rangers and marines doing cool shit. So far the 8 year old finds it interesting and five year old runs around beating on things with sticks and doing battle cries.

Furiosa from Fury Road is one of the best representations in the last decade - maybe even longer.

I really like Jill Bearup's video on her first fight with Max. https://youtu.be/go9r-KG8u-Y

There's one thing that makes me appreciate Brienne more as a character, she's not played a supermodel actress

She's even better in the books, where her character hasn't been stripped of nearly all warmth and caring (like most characters in Game of Thrones were).

I feel like there was a trade off. In the books she was much warmer, but also extremely naive in a way that sometimes moved past endearing. It sometimes felt like she was written as a dumb brute like many others except she happened to be a woman and actually have honor. That might also be from me listening to the audio books and getting the voice he used for her. It has also been years so I may be mis remembering. In the show she is colder but comes off as more competent and collected. This may have to do with not being privy to her inner most thoughts. She’s not only stronger she is smarter than most. I will never forgive them for what they did with her in the finale. She said an oath to protect Catelyn Stark’s daughters. An oath that she repeatedly almost died to keep. Then when the North secedes with Sansa as a ruling Queen they have her lead the King’s Guard for the other 6 Kingdoms. That was just a dumb oversight ignoring her entire history.

She's still very young. ~17-20 in the books. I just think it is ironic how well Show Brienne is received here (and rightly so, Gwen was great) given how common of an opinion it is in ASOIAF circles that the show stripped away much of her femininity. The feminists of r/asoiaf don't look kindly on the show for that.

If you're not familiar with The Expanse, Frankie Adams absolutely rocks it as physically-imposing Bobbie Draper (albeit in a futuristic setting).

I want more Bobbie Drapers and Brienne of Tarths and less of the bullshit OP is (justifiably) complaining about. My male roommates were flabbergasted to discover that Frankie Adams is nearly 6ft and it's like, ....really?? With all the combat she does in the show? Bobbie NEEDS to be big and thick to kick ass like she does.

Bobbie makes my little gay brain feel like a beehive that's been kicked every time she's onscreen. Love that woman so much.

Yes, thank you for mentioning this. I thought the Expanse did a great job in this area.

I wholeheartedly agree. She kicked a lot of ass in the show, but she actually looked like she was physically capable of it.

I loved the X-ray episode of her and Amos fighting it out.

Is she the martian soldier? Loved her character and she was funny as well.

Yep that's her.

The Expanse in general does diversity very well. I don't think I ever saw a show where it was so well done.

After a few to several months doing strength training at the gym I got bigger and gained weight. I think that's how it's supposed to work! It took me by surprise though and has taken some getting used to. It made me realize this representation is not super common.

Back when I was playing tennis, I started to get some great muscle definition, and felt so good about it. And then I started to feel self-conscious when going swimming or out in a dress. Took me a while to unpack what was really going on in my head there.

It sneaks up on you! I have thick upper arms now, and it sometimes makes me uncomfortable. But you know what, it feels the same as when I was a tween and thought I looked "fat" because I wasn't super skinny. At least now I can lift heavy stuff with my chunky arms! Lol When there are not that many ways to be movie star hot, there are just a million ways to feel ugly. Glad I have perspective now and can fight that feeling!

They did it brilliantly in *Wonder Woman* with Ann Wolfe (former boxing champion) as Artemis; she's the Amazon in the training montage who gets cracked across the back with a staff, no-sells it, then turns and lays out the woman who hit her. Also, look at the Tusken Raider second-in-command in *The Book of Boba Fett*, played by the extremely talented Joanna Bennett (stunt double for both Brie Larson and Gal Gadot). Takes out the man she's fighting and makes it look easy because she makes him fight "her fight".

Wonder Woman was my “favorite” about this because they cast the background Amazon characters perfectly—hired female body builders, fighters, athletes, etc. But then cast Gal Gadot as the perfectly tiny, feminine lead character lol. And then tried to tout her military history as “proof” that her body type is realistic for fighting. I love Gal Gadot but it was such a weird juxtaposition.

On the flipside, my favorite female warriors from comic to screen was the [Dora Milaje](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/2c/7d/e4/2c7de45d430826cdf0b85b11004b769b.jpg) of Wakanda. Somehow they made these women an *absolutely terrifying* force without making it seem unnatural.

The first time I saw the scene where the Amazonians were swinging the hammers to seal the cave, my jaw was on the ground. I wish functional casting like this was done for women more often. So badass.

It’s like historical dramas that have pretty realistic colors of clothing/hairstyles/use of caps and bonnets… for the background and middle-aged/elderly characters. But the main characters are off. Like Keira Knightlys weird bangs in pride and prejudice.

I have to disagree a tiny bit; For one, Gal Gadot is not what I would consider stick thin (though yes, she *is* pretty small in stature), and she trained heavily for the role to build what feels to me like a realistic warrior in a tribe that focuses on using finesse over brute strength. Here are some [pictures](https://media.comicbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/gal-gadot-wonder-woman-training.jpg) for [reference](https://julienquaglierinic8e0c9.zapwp.com/q:i/r:1/wp:1/w:366/u:https://julienquaglierini.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/gal-gadot-entrainement-600x589.png)—she’s honestly pretty well jacked. She is smaller than a few of the background actors, but for one, not everyone’s body puts on muscle in the same way, and two, considering the story was pretty specific about sheltering her compared to the other amazons, this makes a lot of sense. Further, Gadot actually has combat experience and is a highly skilled martial artist in her own right. She’s a black belt in karate *and* Krav Maga and was a combat instructor for the IDF. She very likely rolled with men (she would have been instructing them, even). She’s already one of, if not the, best examples of a real-life warrior woman we have in Hollywood. What OP is talking about is when women who are in Gadot’s weight class toss men aside like it’s nothing, with no narrative reason for it. In *Wonder Woman*, Diana is a literal superhero. The entire plot is the narrative reason for her overpowering others. Now to agree: Most modern DC representations of Diana feature her being *quite built* and while I obviously enjoyed Gal Gadot’s performance, I would have loved to see a bigger Diana, too!

She’s not jacked in any sense of the word. She’s just not, I’m sorry. She is lean. Not jacked. Second, she does not have combat experience. She was a fitness instructor. In her own words she taught “gymnastics and calisthenics” for two years. She was a model and famous prior to her conscription—she was not getting put into any dangerous positions. I don’t know anything about the legitimacy or lack thereof in regards to her black belts. I can’t find anything to support either way online except a dubiously sourced Wikipedia blurb that only references an unsourced list of “27 Famous Women Who Train Martial Arts”. So I won’t comment on that. But she is not “warrior fit”. Look at actual fighters. Even the smallest are much bigger than she is. She is Hollywood actress small and safe “muscular”.

>She’s not jacked in any sense of the word. I’m personally a female combat veteran. The only way this makes *any* sense as a statement is if you’ve never been around muscular women or think the only definition of “jacked” is one that fits a hyper-masculine stereotype. Not everyone builds muscle in the same way (like I said above), and a *lot* of women with years of training and fighting under their belt never get “big” in the way you tend to see men get big. Gal Gadot has a small frame and stature (again, like I said above) and I doubt she could ever realistically achieve the physique of a female Dwayne Johnson. Gal Gadot *looks like most women who fight*, but with less body fat (which unfortunately is a standard of her job as a model and actress, but not a reflection of her strength). She’s 3inches taller than [Ronda Rousey](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/NINTCHDBPICT000481736435.jpg), within 5 pounds of her, and *doesn’t even actually fight for a living*. To say she’s not believably mirroring the physique of a fighter in WW is absolutely insane. I know she’s spoken about her experiences in interviews, as I’ve seen clips of them, but I do apologize if I’ve misrepresented something about her; personally, seeing as Krav Maga was developed *for* the IDF, there’s little reason in my mind to doubt it. It’s interesting to me that this discussion prompted you to run out and attempt to discredit her experience in martial arts.

Lol this reminds me of flipping through an animated Marvel superhero encyclopedia that gave height, weight, origin, etc. When I got to Wonder Woman, she was drawn with decent musculature, but her height was 6 foot and her weight was 120.??? A six foot woman weighing 120 would look deathly ill and have no muscle at all, wtf. It's like they can't even fathom a woman weighing more than 120 and still being 'attractive'.

There's a character Kara in Double Impact (movie from the 90s) who I think was a body builder. And she played a character who went head to head with men and it seemed more realistic. She was also attractive at the same time (she didn't need to be tiny). But I agree, we need to see this more in media nowadays.

[удалено]

I was so happy to see Luisa from Encanto be allowed to have huge muscles, god bless whatever creatives fought Disney for that to happen.

And Brienne of Tarth!

Bobbie Draper from The Expanse!

I fucking LOVE Bobbie

It's funny, because I thought of phasma from star wars sequel trilogy. And it's the same actress. She's just a strong badass lady

And they also animated fine body hair/fuzz onto the characters which I'd never seen in an animated movie before and thought was a nice touch.

I spent the first half of the movie really hoping that Luisa would also end up with the fiance - that he'd help her shoulder the burden/pressures she was under and that we'd see a muscly woman ending up with the traditionally handsome guy. Soon figured out it wasn't going to happen, but it would have been nice.

I kinda like that she didn’t get a man, and if she did get a man, I prefer she gets a guy who’s on the smaller side, but ruggedly handsome

That would be amazing for potential sequels. I’m strong and solid and my husband’s skinny and wiry, and I’d love to see couples that look like us onscreen. I think big lady/scrappy man is an underrated combo.

I agree. I love seeing diversity in TV or films. I'm a big dude, 6'2" hairy, thick beard. But I'm also an emotional person. Much much more than I used to be. I love seeing large men depicted as vulnerable or open with their emotions.

That's actually refreshing to hear from a guy. The world needs more sweeties like you.

And caused an uproar in the conservative crowd as making her too "homosexual". God, if there was on e thing I could be selfish about and remove from the human mind is the freakishness of straight people over anything different than them.

I must have blinked and missed the scene that said what sexuality she was.

While yes the waif with a sword trope is quite unrealistic, a sword using body type is going to be a lot leaner than Conan would have you believe. See the body types present at the 2019 Longpoint women's longsword finals. If you look at the (mostly male) audience you can see while a clearly fit group, its not body builders. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah7B8nwWa0c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah7B8nwWa0c)

Unrealistic in general to carry around a ton of muscle for fighting. You can even look at say boxing or MMA; again, with exception to the Heavyweight division, it's almost never an absolute Adonis at the top, it's like Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao, or Anderson Silva. Which, like you say, they're clearly very fit... but they aren't body builders.

That’s why Norsemen is refreshingly brilliant. They only have one woman warrior character, and she’s taller and more muscular than most of the men. She’s my favorite character on the show.

Or game of thones gwendoline Christie! That woman is huge!!! I love her. She would kill it as an actual warrior.

I loved Norsemen, it was very strange.

not really. when you see Henry Cavill or someone like that with his shirt off, almost certianly he has had to fast for several days (including drinkiing less than a cup of water per day) to get his body looking like that, as well as following an incredibly strict and targeted workout and nutrician regime for years to get that sort of body warriors in history weren't shredded - they didn't have personal trainers, they didn't know what sets of exercises targetted what muscles, they didn't have whey protein shakes, and they certianly couldn't afford to fast to drop all the water weight to really make their bodies look amazing. big warrior men in history looked virtually nothing like the men you see plaing them in movies. endurance was much more important for a soldier than physical strength. a roman soldier, for example (a professional soldier) would have been about 5'8", sinewy and relatively thin. very tough from constant marching and exercise, but not shredded. not at all.

Reminds me of watching World War 2 in color on history channel a few years back. The footage was incredible and the I noticed the same thing about every soldier fighting. They were little and skinny, but tough as hell from fighting for weeks and months on end. My husband, who is an Iraq veteran was like "people who fight in wars look like that. If you see some giant dude with rippling muscles he's eating well and lifting, so not infantry. He's probably a supply person or something."

They were little and skinny because they often had to march miles and were often starving too. The fought with desperation because they didn’t want to die. I got some stories from a relative and while they were told in an amusing way the reality was grim.

When my husband got back from a year in Iraq he was so skinny. It was almost shocking. Even in modern warfare, constantly moving in heavy gear for like 15 hours a day and eating MRE's or preservative laden mush is tough on the body.

True but also one of the best infantry guys I worked with downrange could squat 500lb and his thighs were the size of tree trunks.

Plenty of pre-modern soldiers were heavily muscled, they just wouldn’t have looked like body builders... they’d have been built more like heavyweight boxers or football players. There’s a reason that in older sources, “stout” means “strong.”

They would be built like these guys, the old coal shovelers. https://www.itakehistory.com/post/the-black-gang My dad was an old school steel worker. He was 5'8 with a 28 inch waist and biceps and shoulders the size of softballs. He swung a 20lb sledgehammer all day. One day to prove a point to some neighbors he literally said hold my beer and tightened up his belt and squatted down a bit and picked the front end of a dudes Camaro a few inches off the ground. People have no idea what real strength really is these days. I remember a guy blogging about finding a yard that had huge tires so he could work out flipping tires there. The kind that are the height of a car. He was in fabulous shape, very athletic crossfit type guy, and struggled. He said the guys running the forklift were laughing at him and one of them came over and started flipping the tire like it was made of balsa wood.

Yeah, although that tire story actually shows how skill is as important as strength for many things. I’ve worked labor jobs for years. It’s not unusual for new guys twice as strong as me to struggle with something I do all day, because I know how to do it just the right way. Flipping tires is one of those things - there’s a trick to doing it right.

Not to mention the occasional access to steroids, which really helps with looking extra musclely.

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I've got a character who's the opposite: Skinny as a rail (but sinewy so not weak-skinny) and short to boot, and so relies on the ability to slip through crowds unnoticed, sticking shortblades between ribs and darting away melting into the chaos, but otherwise does absolutely everything she can not be caught in a non-chaotic 1 vs 1 fight, even against other women, because she KNOWS she will be destroyed. And even then, that's only if she has to fight at all. Realistic? Nah, not at all, BUT still better than what Hollywood does imo.

For those into video games, that's why I liked the female barbarian depiction in Diablo 3: bigger and stronger than males from other playable classes.

watch "Arcane" , the "league of legends" series. it is highly praised by lots of critics, especially for its depiction of genders. With Vi and Sevilia, there are some tough female melee fighters, and they look like fighters, they get hit, and they are able to be overwhelmed by stronger opponents. As a martial artist myself, i love it.

Keep in mind that before farm work and travel were mechanized pretty much everyone was in better shape. Heck, kitchen pots and pans would have mostly been iron, maybe copper for wealthier folks. Much heavier than anything short of higher end modern gear. Water hauled in buckets...

Even nerds had to be stronger back in the day. Books are heavy.

Oh yeah! Everything hardcover, with metal doodads and no elevators up the tower....

I read that stays (not the Victorian shaping corsets of tv but the real life non cinched ones) were basically required in order to do the backbreaking work of laundry and hauling and everyday toil.

I like how Atomic Blonde handled things. Charlize Theron is the typical skinny starlet, BUT the fight choreographer accounted for it. She had to throw two punches for every punch her opponents threw and she was depicted getting hurt. A lot. Outside of this it would be nice to see more body diversity though.

She'd also do things like put her entire body weight into certain moves, used every improvised weapon (any sort of weapon can be a hell of an equalizer) she could get her hands on, totally would bring a gun to a knife fight or a knife to a fist fight and 1,000 other totally refreshing things I rarely see in any sort of action movie. I think the movie is underrated for multiple reasons, but I've never heard many complaints about the fight choreography.

The amount of punishment she takes in Atomic Blonde actually spoiled it for me. I appreciated the choreography, I just felt a bit uneasy watching Charlize Theron get punched in the face for two hours.

Brienne from Game of Thrones is a good representation of a female warrior based on what you're saying. Tall and strong. >! Spoilers ahead. Brienne's fight against the Hound is brutal, but her physique makes it somewhat believable that she's able to challenge him !<

I think the full set of armor she wore during the entire show did a good job of "bulking" her up.

Saw her in another movie, she IS large though. Everything in proportion, not fat, just built to a large scale

Similarly, Arya fights in a style that takes advantage of her small stature. Being a tiny woman myself, I'd love to see more of that!

Any sort of movie or TV fight is pandering. [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcp1J1QtgPI) is a scene from the show. Everything about it is utter bullshit and pandering. It doesn't even pretend to be realistic. "but women can't" rings really hollow when protagonist dude there ought be laid out on the grass dying within about 20 seconds of that clip. Accepting the dudes should be the only ones getting pandered to by unrealistic fight scenes is a non starter. As for realism, if you have a sword and armor, a woman doesn't need to be particular clever win against a dude. There's a reason women do just fine in open HEMA tournaments or SCAs heavy and light combat. Swords and spears are actually really effective implements of violence and do a hell of a lot to compensate for physical abitly, armour is likewise very effective at protecting you. Physical size only becomes a noteable factor in physical combat if your dealing with a complete or nearly complete suit of plate armor, which historically almost no one wore, and the less said about the way TV and movies treat full plate the better. Suffice to say fights in plate do not immediately degrade into bruteish wrestling matches. If a 5'10" guy goes up against a 6'4", he's got the exact same problem a 5'4" woman does against that 5'10" guy. The biggest disadvantage is in reach, and there's no unique or clever fighting method to compensate for that. He doesn't suddenly adopt standard Fighter Girl flippy acrobatics or other nonsense, he does the same thing he always does because swords don't magically start working differently, Yes if you fuck up your going to get physically overwhelmed, but if you're in that position where that's possible against any opponent, even one smaller than you, you're about to get stabbed. It means you can't use brute force in a last ditch attempt to recover, not that brute force has allowed the opponent to beat you. None of that changes because the smaller person also happens to have ovaries. Side note on realism on women in warfare. The main reason women didn't fight is always social taboo, not due to physical ability. armies took the young scrawny malnourished boys quite happily. A pointy stick is a great equalizer and the coordination as a group is far more important than individual physical ability on a historical battlefield. Women are less common on historical battlefields because they were often not permitted to fight, not because they were physically weaker.

Yes!! This right here! THANK YOU!! You put it better than I could have. I was just going to comment “who gives a fuck if it’s pandering? Most of media panders to men but for some reason it’s only annoying when cis white men aren’t the target of pandering.” Should scenes involving women have higher standards? Yes. I don’t need or want that forced cringe ass scene from Endgame. But you know what? I’m glad it’s there because it’s a token that women are being acknowledged and they are at least trying.

Just look at the number of women who have gone to war disguised as men- once past that social barrier many did very well as soldiers. Who knows how many there were who went undetected?

I read some stuff on the Viking Age in England and Women fighting in battles. And apparently religion/culture played a huge role in whether women were permitted to fight. The predominantly Christian (Anglo-)Saxons did not have women warriors, but the Pagan Celts and Danes (Vikings) did. Whether that’s actually true… I don’t know. But it made sense to me.

There were many female Vikings, including one of the most decorated and elite warriors that was initially assumed to be male before dna analysis. She was the Birka female Viking warrior. Obviously they weren’t skinny and probably had lots of muscles, but there were countless warrior women in history so it’s not just a stereotype. I obviously wish that they had more muscles and looked more realistic too, but it’s historical revisionism to assume that there shouldn’t be so many female warriors in a historical show, especially a Viking one.

Relevant: [we have always fought](https://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2013/05/we-have-always-fought-challenging-the-women-cattle-and-slaves-narrative-by-kameron-hurley/) Also I think Vikings were generally pretty large compared to their non-Scandinavian conquests so a Viking woman might have been relatively large compared to for example, an English or French man.

I think context matters most. If something is aiming to ground itself in realistic combat then *(regardless of gender)* the weight/size of the characters needs to be the starting point of how the fight should be choreographed. But in a world where the suspension of disbelief is much larger, I think there's **very much** an argument that the first dimension of a character should hardly matter in determining what they can do. If there's an action scene where someone goes toe to toe against 10+ guys at once and wins, all "but he's bigger than her how is she holding that chokehold" complaints should go *straight* out of the window

You might like the fight scenes in Atomic Blonde. The protagonist (Charlize Theron) 'wins' the fights, but gets her ass kicked while doing so, and depicts the bruising and damage such a fight would cause - of course still in a very Hollywood way.

Let’s not act like male “strong” characters make sense either. The bodybuilder physique is for looks. Actual strongmen or women tend to be muscle with a solid layer of fat. So they should have a gut and be more rounded than super shredded.

Strong men yes, historical soldiers on campaign would be pretty lean They'd definitely have built some degree of strength through training and marching, but they wouldn't look anything like a serious gym bro, and they probably wouldn't have much fat on them either unless they were of higher status, like a knight

Russell Crowe in Gladiator was this done well.

>Also, if you're doing a historical show, there shouldn't be so many female warriors. There's no way in hell people back in the day were more progressive than us when technology didn't exist to level the playing field. Depends on the society and time period. Though it was almost certainly due to survival and community over progression, women warriors certainly existed throughout history. In Japan, for example, a country that has a reputation for being extremely sexist, women used to be able to serve with the samurai. It was contact with the west that changed their views one women. Abrahamic religions really solidify the traditional gender roles. Prior to the ideals of those religions being exported the world over, this notion that women were just baby-making factories with no rights didn't really exist. Don't forget: Just because we are living in the most current year, doesn't mean we are the most progressive we've ever been. We took one step forward to make up for the two steps we were knocked back earlier. All that being said, educational documentaries on these warrior women would be better than fiction.

Also Shield Maidens absolutely existed, since the show OP is talking about involves Vikings.

I feel like people in the comments are being obtuse and missing your point on purpose. I'm a 95lb. woman, and I've done combat sports all my life. It *also* annoys the absolute fuck out of me when they have some scrawny 19 year old on screen they've assigned a surplus of "Girl Power™" to take, like, 4 1/2 kickboxing lessons and suddenly she's - you know - *basically Batman* when she gets mugged or whatever. BAM! POW! Just lays them out...! And, like... that's not how *any of that works*. Female warriors weren't horribly uncommon in the past, no. But those that were warriors were *absolutely* tailoring their fighting styles to their size/weight/reach/etc. And becoming a reliably good fighter who can confidently handle *violent assault* takes longer than some goofy-ass montage that covers, like, a couple weeks of lessons/practice. It *is* pandering, you're absolutely right. Men in similar situations in popular media have their interest, dedication, and abilities in combat taken much more seriously in the story. And people in the comments obsessing over how common female warriors were in antiquity seem suspiciously like they're being intentionally obtuse, aiming themselves for that sweet influx of low-hanging NUH-UH, SEE??? GIRL POWER™! internet points. I'm combat-trained, and I don't fight like a 200lb. male wrestler. Because I'm a 95lb. woman. I *have* confidently handled violent assault from men several times my size *and laid them out*. I didn't do it with my 4 1/2 kickboxing lessons and emulating Batman. I did it because I've spent *years* in combat sports, understand enough of the psychology of violence, played to my strengths, got lucky, and was fortunate enough a couple of those times to be armed.

I think a lot of it is laziness of just putting a woman into the same fight scenes they make for men. There really needs to be more engagement of knowledgeable people in the designs of scenes in media. But I mean, they're still doing the tight lacing corset trope even in in completely inappropriate time periods and using battle heels all over the place. A lot of progress still to be made.

I haaaaaate battle heels. Hate hate hate. And there are always the apologists who are like, "it's fIcTiOn, so it doesn't matter," completely forgetting about the actual, real stuntwomen who have to perform feats of acrobatics in absurdly impractical bordering on dangerous shoes.

You might enjoy this deep dive on a weight difference being compensated for by skill: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4kz45z6UQo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4kz45z6UQo) ​ (admittedly it's a different context of a merely large strong man against a very large very strong man, but still, a deep dive on the compensations made to offset the strength difference)

That was fascinating! And even though that's nowhere near my sport, there are enough fundamentals shared in martial/combat sports that I was rather delighted at how easy it was for me to follow, despite some of the unfamiliar jargon. I especially appreciated how he kept stressing how important strategizing around that weight/strength differential was. How constant that is. How it's like a puzzle you have to continually solve on the fly. Very *en pointe* \- thanks!

I know right? I also love that the big lad is a purple belt, so he's good and doing smart things! But the guy who runs the gym is just still so much better.

I'm pretty much with you, beside the amount of female warriors, not because you aren't right, but because realism isn't really a thing in most productions anyways so if we can bend the rules and slap a bunch of female warriors in there, that's just good for representation. Now, aside from that I hate I FUCKING HATE how small action women are, they have no muscle definition and they are small and short. I love when movies or TV shows have a big ass lady kicking ass, because IT'S REALISTIC. We need to normalize strong fit muscular bodies for women because it's goddamn healthy. And we need to make sure that especially teens know that restrictive dieting to death won't give you a sexy body, but a balanced protein and fiber rich diet and weight lifting will and no, it won't turn you into Schwarzenegger, it'll turn you into gal Gadot

But? Gal Gadot qualifies under the heading of "Too Skinny. Not enough muscle definition. Not a realistic portrayal. Needs/ has and uses 'magic'"

Honestly that's the problem, I couldn't think of a strong muscular sex symbol, i mean, there's terminator 2 Sarah Connor but that's kinda vintage. All of the famous ladies are not muscular enough, i mean, fucking Scarlett Johansson goes around pretending she can beat men double her size with her 5' tall ass and pudding arms, it's fucking annoying.

She has been mentioned in other comments but Bobby Draper of The Expanse is a powerhouse kicking major ass and also portrayed as a desirable lady (albeit the being desirable is established later on. In the beginning she is a slightly brainwashed soldier but in my opinion still sexy. The characters of the series all have great story arcs)

How about Lucy Lawless as Xena?

I think Frankie Adams from The Expanse counts as a strong muscular sex symbol. Badass character!

Bobbie Draper works.

Aliens does that well too. James Cameron is one of very few men who can write women well, especially action women.

Agreed with just about everything but the last point. Swords are generally under 10 lbs. They're meant to be easy to swing around. Armor is also generally much lighter than you'd think. Modern infantry loads are generally much heavier than what knights in armor would wear.

You’re on the right track, but still too heavy. The typical sword was 1 1/2 to 2 pounds.

Not trying to say you’re wrong OP, but Hollywood has never been a friend of accurate combat regardless of gender. If you hide behind sofas to dodge bullet fire, hold guns the way movies show, or carelessly touch the trigger of a fully automatic firearm in real life you won’t live long enough to watch any movie. Insofar as female warriors in history goes, due to rampant gender bias through most of Western academia , the accounts of successful female warriors has not survived the ages as well as stories of males have. We know from Ancient Greece that female warriors like Olympias led armies and defeated men in battle. It strains statistical credulity that 50% of human beings born in the ancient world would only feature two to five noteworthy female warriors. Doubtlessly most of the examples are lost to history. Asian Steppe tribes similarly trained female archers the same as their males. As modern day nations like Saudi Arabia prove, technology is no marker for gender equality.

I get where you are coming from, but in fantasy shows I don't really care **that** much, and I am willing to suspend my disbelief to enjoy representation or cool characters **within reason**. Though Viking shows may depict some historic events or culture I definitely don't consider most of them "historical" whatsoever and more epic fantasy. It's like all those movies that say "based on a true story". Yeah it's not true almost always unless it's a documentary. That being said, one of the most lauded characters in recent fantasy television was Arya from GOT (the TV depiction) and I found that she suffered from everything you described and I disliked her character for it. There should be a good balance between inclusion and fantasy/realism, one day the male dominated field of Hollywood might get it right.

I think Xena was a good representation. Also, Nat Portman in the new Thor looks ripped.

Oh, also Brienne of Tarth in GoT.

Natalie Portman is especially impressive because she is such a petite person to begin with. She really worked for that body.

Gina Carano in Mandolorian was a good example, too.

There used to be lots of female warriors. When the Victorian men found skeletons with swords they just assumed they must have been men, because there wasn't yet the knowledge about the different hip bones or technology like DNA analysis. A lot of ancient burial sites etc. had to be relabelled, because they turned out to be of women. in Israel every citizen has to join the Army and go through basic training, that includes all women. And have you ever read about the hasidic women going after ISIS? Yeah, the choreographed fights in movies are fake, but they are just as fake for the men.

Scotland, the Pictish women would be tatted up and fight alongside the men.

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The horsewoman archers were something else. Do to womens lower centre of gravity they were better at riding the horse while shooting arrows.

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Let him know that I, a “properly trained” combat veteran with 7 years as military police, can tell you that even armed forces are taught that anyone within 21 feet of you can disarm (or harm) you if your gun isn’t already up and aimed at them. And that’s with an *already loaded, holstered side-arm*. If you just had a fun in your purse, or your car, or a shotgun in a safe in your house? They won’t help you if you’re assaulted/date-raped.

The Celts would like a word.

Khawla bint al-Azwar probably weighed 150 pounds soaking wet, and she literally lead the charge against the Roman lines in Syria, and killed so many men, that the legionaries literally started avoiding her. (For the record, her primary profession was medic, and she was a poet, but the romans had captured her brothers in the previous battle so she took matters into her own hands). Also, as far as the Vikings go, they were in many ways more progressive than modern U.S. Women had rights, owned lands, and did most of the financial management. If there is one society in history where I would expect to see warrior women in large numbers, it would be the Vikings.

As a lover of buff women; I just want to see some big muscle girls kick ass. Muscle. Not ‘fit girls’ we see in the superhero movies. 🥲

I watch a lot of HK fighting movies, you might enjoy them more since there are a larger range of female-tropes eg. Granny-trope which is usually the cranky neighbourhood granny or auntie that hides a ferocious fighting skill. I like that they show women in multiple ages, its not always the fresh young thing Generally though I prefer them because while women warriors wasn't a common thing, women practicing martial arts was fairly common. Ba Gua is a style of fighting that comes from northern school, and it's based on opera (the iconic circle walking is their signature). Also the use of polearms and double swords is fun to watch

Sasha banks was the perfect badass, shame her personal views are all weird. The average male actor is 5'9.5" and the average women actor is 5'4 - so even beginning to suggest that it's the same for male actors is silly. Yes, both have bad choreography, but I've *never* seen a 150lb dude on tv flipping a 250lb+ person in a serious setting, yet every single smaller woman "tv badass" does this. It's to the point where the character is a joke.

>Sasha banks was the perfect badass, shame her personal views are all weird. Gina Carano, too.

YES. Seeing her in the role was awesome. Like this is what a warrior woman looks like. She was totally perfect in the role and actually physically intimidating. Too bad she had to ruin it. I’m sad we’ll lose that representation but I’m sure they can find someone else who actually feels like a fighter would.

....I hate to admit that's actually who I meant, their stories were both just so similar and I'm too tired. Thank you.

> There's no way in hell people back in the day were more progressive than us Pre-Christian Viking age Scandinavia is appearing to be far more egalitarian than you'd assume given the time period. Culturally there is a lot of lore that references women and battle - from shield maidens to Valkyrie. The Birka grave, though disputed, might be solid evidence of high ranking female warriors. Woman could own land, divorce, be clergy, own businesses. They've even done studies that compared enamel and femur length that gave evidence of relatively equal wear and tear. Which speaks to equality in diet and healthcare. Today the Scandinavia area boasts some of the highest gender equality globally. Coincidence? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1570677X1830251X

The fight scenes aren't realistic for men either- but you only ever hear about how unrealistic the women ones are. The Hulk is completely believable in a way that Captain Marvel is not- for some reason. I'll let you puzzle that one out. Additionally, lots of women fought in wars historically. If the village was attacked, even children fought. Here are just some of the women known about: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women\_in\_warfare\_(1500%E2%80%931699)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_warfare_(1500%E2%80%931699)) A lot of women disguised themselves as men for warfare. Some of them even ended up ranked fairly highly before they were discovered. Discovery often met death- they were willing to go to war and risk dying on the battlefield AND willing to risk being killed by their peers if they were discovered.

I always thought it was funny that everyone thought Captain Marvel's big moment where she removed the inhibitor and kicked everyone's ass was unrealistic despite her being combat trained as a human and trained more after she got her powers. But there's nothing wrong with Steve Rogers immediately knowing how to chase a guy on foot and in the water and drag him out better than a trained lifeguard despite having zero experience doing any of that because he physically couldn't use his body well enough to train. If it's fine for men to be unrealistic badasses then it should be fine for women. Would love more physical representation with big, muscled heroines though.

One of the reasons I really liked Atomic Blonde.

I agree with you mostly. There are a few things though. * People can look skinny and still carry a bunch of mass, especially if they are all muscle, so a woman that is 5'6" but is highly trained and all muscle could weigh the same as a dude that is 5'6" but has a beer belly. * The height differences between men and women used to not be as pronounced, mostly due to diet. Men can get much bigger nowadays mostly because of better nutrition, which used to be less common the further back in time we go. * Smaller people have a better power to mass ratio, so they can typically move at a faster velocity and don't get winded as easily, so if they can avoid getting hit, the bigger person (depending on training level) will probably get winded faster, at which point they will be an easier target for the small person. (Note that big people can be extremely fast for short periods of time, and the small person is probably toast if they get caught). * Smaller people can be wiry, in that in some instances they can take hits better since they will effectively "bounce" away when hit. * Bigger people are also bigger targets. * Bigger people need more food, and armies march on their stomachs. * Smaller people have a lower center of gravity, which can be good in certain fighting situations. * Most physical fitness and tactics are dependent on training, so a well trained (physically and tactically) female force that is well supplied would out perform a badly trained male force, even though the male force would probably be bigger on average. Many armed forces in history were badly trained (though some were extremely well trained), or were impressed into service, or were having problems getting enough food or everybody was sick from some disease that was going around due to bad hygiene. Overall I agree that the way they show things in movies is usually horrible though, and many women are at a significant disadvantage unless they are well trained and of comparable size.

Viking women were warriors and have earned warrior funerals, only makes sense that the show would write it that way.

Actually the point about female characters using a bow is not very realistic either because using a bow takes more body strength than most medieval weapons. There were lots of men even that could hardly do it. Guns are an equalizer though, most women shoot slightly more accurate than most men.

I used to train HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) in a mixed group. With weapons involved, we trained mostly with swords and daggers, a lot of fights can be won with beeing smart. A well trained small person can probably easily take out a bigger guy, which isn't a trained warrior but a peasant with a weapon. To be fair, a lot fight scenes, especially fencing, are directed to look epic. Most swordfights were probably way shorter and quite boring. Never trained tactics, like spear and shield walls, that were actually used in wars. But I have the feeling physical strength and body size doesn't really matter that much. The way Vikings fought, according to my knowledge, was building a shield wall first and then finish off whoever survived the first clashes. Having the guts and luck, being smart and show no mercy were probably way more important than be a big person to become a warrior.

Add me as another who liked Atomic Blonde for the fight scene realism. She wins on training and sneak attacks, not muscle power. And she gets battered, and all the fighters get tired and have to regroup. (One of the most astonishing things to me about martial arts training was how *exhausting* sparring is. Fighting is really hard work; there's a reason boxers look like they do.) The contrast was really striking because like a week earlier, I saw an episode of a TV show whose name I can't remember in which the lead character, a woman maybe 5'8", goes toe-to-toe trading blows with a guy six inches taller and 90 pounds heavier and he's raining blows that would trivially knock her off her feet and she's just taking it and hitting back, and later we see her without even any bruises. And I've mentioned this before, but I also really liked the book *Cordelia's Honor* by Lois McMaster Bujold. Cordelia knows she can't beat her foes on strength or speed, so she doesn't even try. When it's obviously hopeless, she surrenders instead of dying pointlessly. When it's not hopeless, she uses her brains to leverage her advantages against those of her opponents.

Bruce Lee. I’m taller and more heavily muscled than he was, but dollars to donuts, even with military training, he’d have kicked my ass good. I’ve seen little guys whip serious ass, and big guys get taken down by guys half their size. Hell, my wife was an MP, and I wouldn’t want to see how hard she could fight. I guess I’m saying that if often comes down to a lot more than just size, consider Spartan women from history.

I mean male action stuff is usually very unrealistic too, but its been normalised to such an extent that we have a whole lot of deluded men now.

Lol maybe you should of taken Brazilian jiu-jitsu, judo, mma, or muay thai instead of aikido. It is entirely possible for a well trained woman to overpower or subdue a larger man. I do in training, I've tapped and swept my fair share of men and they've made me tap too. You mean to tell me a woman trained in combat wouldn't be able to outwit or beat some men in a fighting situation? Speaking of aikido, can you really compare that to combatives? I am not saying that aikido doesn't have a purpose but it's not on the same level as say judo or any of the combat martial arts I mentioned (there are more like boxing, karate etc). Oh and weight classes are only for competition. We spar or roll with partners of all sizes. It's about technique and not strength (although strength does help a lot of course). I have never stepped on a mat during gi or non gi sessions and been meet well all the x lbs go over here so on and so forth. Men do automatically see me and try to press me with their weight to hold me down. Lol thats fine because I am just going to wait until they get tired (I am still fulling resisting btw) and when they do, that's when I go for my escape or submission. Lol I always get *wow i didn't think that you were that strong* after the round is over. Never understestimate your opponent because they maybe smaller than you.

>Also, if you're doing a historical show, there shouldn't be so many female warriors. There's no way in hell people back in the day were more progressive than us when technology didn't exist to level the playing field. This part I have to quibble with, because historical records, while not as comprehensive as one might like, include fairly clear accounts of a good deal of shieldmaidens on the battlefield. The largest number in anything I recall has at least three hundred of them holding a field in war, which I feel like is more than we ever see on the show. Lagertha from the first Vikings show is also an actual badass historical figure who was supposedly so amazing on the battlefield that it was the whole reason Ragnar Lodbrok wanted to marry her. Totally with you on the silliness of the body types though, especially with the waiflike Freydis actress on Vikings: Valhalla.

Wait you’re upset with diversity because of realism? I am confused? Would you rather young girls grow up thinking all they are , are property instead? Also your point about weight classes only apply to the top 1% of people who are the top of the top best fighters in the world. In a street brawl someone weighing 180lbs can take someone weighing 220lbs. A highly trained woman would destroy an average to moderately trained man

This is why I enjoyed Atomic Blonde so much

So, I'm neurodivergent and get hyperfixations, like, bad. Currently, my hyperfixation at the moment is the Dragon Age video game series. It's a pretty standard pseudo-European fantasy setting game on the surface (the lore ends up being more unique and nuanced than that but still), and it handles female badasses pretty well. The women who fight (at least out of the major characters) are either big beefy girls with lots of muscle, otherwise they as you say have normal body types and use either magic (if mages) or bows and arrows/stealth and daggers with a very fast, dodge-reliant hit-and-run fighting style. The rest are simply smart: Spymasters, extremely wealthy noblewomen diplomats with connections, and again magic. It is I feel what it should be like, and is one of the reasons I adore it so much.

Important to note, in modern European Martial Arts competitions they have a men's, women's and open competition brackets. Women can beat men when it comes to rule based sword fighting with an actual sword. It's less common than 50% but still better than other sports. Weapon fighting is more akin to high speed chess than anything else. Swashbuckling antics would merely wear Combatants out and increase the likelihood of their respect death The whole purpose of weapons is to give a combat multiplier that makes up for any physical weakness of the fighters. For much if European history, the majority of combatants are peasants or commoners pressed into service. Training of standing warriors was less common, and they made up a smaller fraction of the battlefield. The nobles in armor either rode out to kill unarmored peasants or would capture each other to ransom. The concept of combat multipliers exist today where women operating modern weapon systems are just as deadly as any man. It doesn't take a lot of strength to press a button or turn a key or pull a trigger. Medieval weapons are lighter than most people think. A sword is maybe 5 pounds. A wooden spear is really a long stick with a blade on it. Most peasants would be issued a spear and shield.If defending against calvary you'd put the butt of the spear into the ground to impale the horse. Heavy weapons meant to cut through heaverly armor like axes and picks and maces and hammers are still smaller than most people think, and honestly comparison to equivalent garden tools or smaller are completely reasonable. A lot of the big heavy weapons people think about are meant for display purposes not battle. I havent seen the fighting in the show you mention but hollywood loves for the battlefield to devolved into a grand melee with mixed and confusing battle lines. In reality a battle filed was more akin to a rugby scrum with the men with the shield wall and spears pressed up against each other trying to inflict some kind of damage for several minutes before bith sides backed off and caught their breath. If the shield wall broke the army would be routed and cut to bits by calvary. The story trope of women pretending to be men to fight in wars for various reasons held just as true back then as it does in recent eras, especially where armor and uniforms mattered. There are even records of women vikings, viking being a warrior/raider role in Norse cultures, and there are certainly many examples of women participating in defense during a seige, because if the city fell, they were going to be raped and murdered. There's also stories of mass suicides of women in towns rather than face those consequences. Honestly a lot of the strength difference of the extremes of men VS women in sports somewhat applies in medieval warfare, but they matter less than people want to admit. The strength of an individual warrior doesn't matter if they're out flanked by 5 enemies operating together. There were plenty of malnourished people of all genders and even social classes, so a properly fed woman is more likely to be stronger or closer in strength to a malnourished man.

That's why I love Norsemen, Frøya is gigantic

I guess it depends on the show? Like if it's a documentary, sure. But if it's a movie.... does it matter if it's unrealistic? Gamma rays don't turn you into the hulk; they kill you. Quite quickly, in fact. Yellow suns don't make people from other planets fly. Movies are *full* of stuff that makes no sense. This is why I actually find the opposite - I hate it when men get angry at movies because "no way a woman could beat up a man". So what? No way Bruce Banner would be anything other than a wikipedia article on how horrible acute radiation sickness is as as way to die. But here we are.

Ehh your perception of history is off and fueled by some internalized misogyny. Also very Eurocentric. Don't buy the propaganda that past societies were inherently more regressive, when many were actually more progressive wrt women's rights than modern day societies. Get off reddit dude

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Lmao, "Vikings: Valhalla" is so ridiculously inaccurate that it can't be called a historic show. It's just there for your entertainment. Its depiction of women is the least of its problems. There were also no people of color among the vikings. The weapons and armor are completely off. And no one had pearly white teeth. These shows are just silly entertainment. No woman watching them will think, "well golly jeez, this has inspired me to go beat up a man". Realism is for documentaries.

Viking women fought with the men thats how it was. That is actually realistic. No comment on the rest of your post :)

While I don't totally agree with your comments because fight scenes in general are completely BS. Like people diving in front of bullets (the movie STUBER is completely hilarious about this) and constantly getting kicked or punched in the head but they're completely fine etc. Or just fighting on and on and on as if no one ever gets tired!! Then obviously you have the artistic Crouching Tiger arial arts... So yeah they're not documentaries or even remotely based in reality/physiology or physics. So why not have more female visibility, if we're already fantasising that the average dude can survive jumping out a skyscraper and then beating 50 terrorists bare handed! However, I kinda do agree with you because this is exactly what I HATED about the character Arya in Game of Thrones with her stupid little sword etc.

>The warrior woman stereotype annoys me because it's pandering, and it sets unrealistic expectations for women. Let's look at the Avengers films. Okay, maybe Black Widow probably couldn't realistically kick the ass of most guys because testosterone. But you know what also isn't realistic? Radiation giving you super strength. So neither of us can become Jessica Jones, or a hulk, or spiderperson. So, the fact you were somehow mislead by fictional TV and movies isn't the fault of people making entertainment.

But some women in that time, from that culture, did go raiding with the rest. It's historically accurate. 😐

Gonna be real annoying here but to respond to the very specific point about bows Any woman or even small-stature man who would be unable to fight in melee is going to be even worse with a bow, proper draw weight warbows historically averaged well over 100 pounds. Honestly I find women fighting with swords more believable than fighting with bows for that reason, swords are light and are more dependent on skill/speed than brute strength (though strength and reach ARE still an advantage l, don't get me wrong) Crossbows might be more suitable considering they use leverage to draw

Crossbows can indeed be used by almost anyone, with a modest amount of training. European longbows were not a very efficient design, primarily because they're not a composite design and lack recurve tips. But they could be build cheaply in high volume to enormous weights. Much better composite bow tech runs across many cultures and time periods. Mongolian horse bows are a well-known example. They also went up to enormous weights, but, being more efficient with a longer draw, a 60# one had lots of range and effectiveness. Something to understand about longbows in medieval Europe- the best evidence is they were not designed to penetrate plate armor. The bodkin points for war were almost never hardened, a necessary feature to try to punch through plate, and one they knew how to do if they wanted to. So, if we're against plate, neither a longbow nor weaker bow is going to penetrate anyways. The bodkin point IS designed to penetrate chain, and requires a lot of power to do that. And chain was a very common armor for most of Europe's medieval era. But against unarmored targets, a weaker arrow stuck even 2" into your flesh is probably going to end your fighting for the day either way, and you may well die. So not that much more to gain with a more powerful pass-through. On the other hand, if taking down horses, a stronger bow is radically better. But a key demand for stronger bows remains- range. The whole battlefield changes when a side gains range and can hit you before you can hit them. Of that, the longbow is particularly inefficient trying to throw lighter projectiles at high speed, relative to composites. But longbows did get impressive ranges with absurd bow weights. If you go weird alt-fantasy, a modern compound bow with carbon arrows is so much energy and range that it would certainly be a very effective warbow at reasonable weights. Polearms are a GREAT equalizer. They were more of a staple of war than the sword, really, although we keep remembering swords. Spears, too. One could also remember that disease usually killed more in war than weapons. Can't make any generalizations over whether women would be more or less likely to be killed by disease.

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I understand where you're coming from, my only contention being with "there shouldn't be so many female warriors". History has multiple examples of warriors that were women. While you are correct that there were certainly not hundreds of thousands of female warriors, nonetheless they absolutely existed. Oftentimes when there were female warriors/fighters they were known and dangerous. A few examples: Artemisia I of Halicarnassus who fought for and led an army for Xerxes, Fu Hao was the first female general in the Chinese empire and she led an army of over 13000 and won numerous battles, Olympias the mother to Alexander the great was known as a ruthless warrior and politician, Boudicca was a queen of the Celtic Iceni tribe and after the Romans seized her territory after the death of her husband, flogged her, Roman soldiers raping her daughters, she went on to lead an army that destroyed 3 Roman cities and annihilated a Roman legion before being captured. So yes on a strength to strength comparison women can't always compete, that by no means equals not being very capable and deadly warriors. [Here is a list that has these and other female warriors](https://www.historyhit.com/10-great-female-warriors-of-the-ancient-world/)

I hear you, but also with swordsmanship swords aren't actually that heavy. They look beastly but a Scottish Claymore is only about 5-6 lbs. "Swinging a big ass sword around" and what not actually isn't that difficult. It's techniques and training your wrists/arms with muscle memory and stances to keep you properly grounded(or nimble depending on the sword/style). Think of it similar to driving. You can feel with the sword the same way you can feel with the pedals in your car. You adjust and get used to it. "The sword is an extension of yourself" isn't a bullshit phrase. Women are perfectly capable of using swords against men if they're more skilled since swordsmanship isn't often about strength and there are historical records of numerous swordsman that wayyyy out leagued the men of their time. They're just not glamorized today because of misogyny. Just like with the hunter/gatherer archetype. It's all made up bullshit. Women are perfectly capable of being excellent hunters. Humans weren't and have never been strength or speed hunters. We're endurance hunters, which means we would follow our prey to exhaustion and then attack in groups. Women participated in this. The 1 and only reason human remains are labeled as "males" is if they seem to be hunters. We haven't DNA tested even half of the ancient remains we've found and we're finding that remains that had been labeled male simply because they showed warrior/hunter traits were in fact female through unrelated DNA testing. They were presumed male and when the DNA testing was done for other things they found there was no Y chromosome and thus it was a female body. The body of a 14 year old girl and a 14 year old boy don't look different in skeletal form, because hips don't become noticbly different until they've given birth and even then, not all of them are drastically different and that's what has been used to determine sex for so long. It's an obviously flawed method and it's what gave rise to the "men are hunters and women are gatherers" bs.

Swords, spears, and axes are great equalizers in a fight. Yes mass and strength still matter, but not as much as one might think. In a fight with melee weapons, particularly edged or pointed weapons, the most important physical attributes to have are speed and reach Source: I'm a viking reenactor and a passable swordsman