What's the deal with female knights? Were they ever a thing, or is modern fantasy just being politically correct?

I thought the Romans absolutely reckt Boudicca.

>sperg spergs about women warriors in his books about wizards and shit

Its not even a modern phenomenon. Tolkien had Eowyn and Howard had loads of female warriors in his stories. Fuck, go back further and you have stories about valkyries and shit. Its fantasy, its meant to be fantastic.

Dames? That's more of an honorary title for doing something good, but was never associated with being a warrior in combat.

Though I think there was some spanish women during the reconquista who got their own military order as a thank you for defending cities. You'd have to google that for more information I can't quite remember

ASOIAF only has one and she isn't even formally knighted.

To my knowledge there were effectively no female knights. You gotta remember that being an armored swordsman did not make someone a knight. A knight was both a social class and an official distinction with religious meaning. There may have been a handful of female swordsman and such running around, but I don't think any were actually knights.

Also dragons

It still has one. I want to know if she and others in the genre have historical precedent. So far it looks like a no.

>or is modern fantasy just being politically correct?

This.

There have been a metric fuckton of female warriors of varying degrees of formality within known military tradition. 'Knights' are just a euro thing, and Europe is pretty much the Fatherland aka the big bad patriarchy, so it would be silly to assume that woman were permitted by society to wield any physical power or access to armaments in an organised manner i.e. for the state/religion. Women probably had the most martial freedom in anarchist/mercenary roles across the ages, though how seriously they were taken and how long they lived before being gangraped/murdered for not doing normal wimmin stuff is anyone's guess.

>One
Brienne, Asha, Osha, Ygritte, Meera, Visenya, Rhaneys, the Spearwives

Coherence! Thanks Veeky Forums

>politically correct
no, it's just so the games are relateable since in this day and age men and women have roughly equal opportunity. they could also make your struggle in such games one of survival as it would be instead of defeating the evil wizard or whatever, but they don't because medieval problems aren't relateable to people living today. most people don't even think about it, and the developers probably don't either.

>Brienne
The one case and a freak scenario in her own world. The only child of an ass end kingdom that has a history of martially training both men and women and noted for being freakishly powerfully built. And she still gets shit for it.

>Asha
Another case of the only child and true heir of a king people literally can't say no to. Also she's more of a competent leader than proven battlefield warrior. She seems to have some skill but she's not noted as being a master swordsman. Just intelligent and not a pussy.

Closest to real life examples Anne Bonny, Joan, the Trung sisters.

>Osha, Ygritte
Literally just savages. They live in a stab or be stabbed world and happened to live to adulthood. Their job description is scavenge for food and occasionally stab a bitch with your mates, not super girl power warrior.

> Visenya, Rhaneys,
Who the fuck are these? Quick google implies they are mythical figures in the backstory when magic was still a thing and Targaryens rode dragons.

Men of old didn't have to put up with some dumb cunt running her mouth out of turn the way the submissive western men do today.

Any bitch that claimed to be a "stronk womyn" would simply get her teeth knocked the fuck out by the first dude that didn't feel like putting up with her bullshit. While there were some chicks used as figureheads, like Joan of Arc, there weren't enough actual "stronk womyn" for history to have made note of over the years.

They were the first Queens of the Targ Dynasty and powerful warriors. In the world of ASOIAF they were real people who lived only 300 years before the events of the series.

>Were they ever a thing
No woman was ever knighted.

But the Targs had dragon powers. It isn't fair to compare women in combat roles to magical dragon riders. It wouldn't matter how burly a man you were in the killzone of a dragon. Magical powers are the ultimate in equality amongst the sexes in fantasy. A woman mage can be far more powerful than a strong male warrior

I don't know man. If greeks liked their women with godly powers thousands of years ago, then I'd hope some of them might have wanted to have that kind of recognition by training their bodies.

Stop talking about gay dragon fantasy shit you autistic nerds.

She was a publicity stunt by Charles VII because he knew France was too spineless to fight against England and so he needed some religious zeal to fix that

>Let's try to keep the sexism to a minimum

>>tumblr

How are there so many retards who think Knight = anybody who can fight, in Veeky Forums of all places? It's a fucking title and specific job, you Mongoloids.

Mulan wasn't executed nor did she become a general. She got sent home immediately after she was found to be a woman, and was only in the army for a couple of weeks at best. It evolved from a quaint little story on filial piety to a national legend.

Mulan isn't real you retards.

She comes from a Ballad in the 6th Century, and her story is solidified in the 17th Century novel "Sui-T'ang Yanyi" (Romances of Sui and T'ang), which is romanticizes the events of the fall of Sui and rise of T'ang.

Women warriors are stock in Chinese fiction due to the exoticness of the idea. Some literary analysts and historians viewed the use of such heroines as an exhortation to manly virtues to a male audience. "Look, this woman is willing to lay down her life for the country. Why can't you, manly man?"

>Joan was a commander
More like a flag bearer. A glorified cheerleader.
There's no evidence of her commanding anyone.

They did she also was not a warrior nor leader. She may have been a member of the council the cells never followed one leader they were always confederations.

That is generally correct though, especially mass combat. F=ma

Not a metric fuck ton vanishing lyrics small to the point if irrelevance.

Female knights? not a single, that was a mans title, but, women swordsman/merc? yes, surely somewhere sometime a woman choose to fight. It would be ridiculous to assume that in more than ten hundred years no woman decided and succeeded in the arms path

VIETNAMESE TRIỆU THỊ TRINH
KIND OF GREEK ARTEMISIA I OF CARIA
ASIAN SOMETHING NAKANO TAKEKO
ASIAN SOMETHING TOMOE GOZEN
SEXY CELTIC BOUDICCA
THAT APACHE LOZEN
FUCKING PALMYRENE EMPRESS ZENOBIA

The closest thing to a female knight i know of is Khutulun.

badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=822456431891

that's just a list of le stronk meme women though

Fantasy mostly. Assuming that by knights you don't mean titular knights but also men at arms, mercenaries and so on, or in broader sense - warriors, including levies.

Women rarely fought mostly because they are shorter and smaller than men, how the fuck are they going to enter melee with a man who's much taller(longer reach) and stronger than them?

There were females following the armies here and there but they were mostly prostitutes, wives or were dealing with supplying the army in other ways.

To this day if we're talking about giving women combat roles in the army - it's rare and only limited to countries/organisations which have huge manpower problems - see Israelis, IRA or Kurds in Syria.

And even the Israeli's usually keep female soldiers away from combat intensive areas, or at least that's what I've heard from IDF soldiers on /k/.

Usually yes, but they train some of them for combat roles, because even shit reserve is still reserve.

>There's no evidence of her commanding anyone.
Except for the testimony of knights and nobles who fought with her at her trial of nullification.....

After a bunch of Spanish women protected their town from a Muslim attack while the men were away, the women were knight as the Order of the Hatchet. As far as I know, they went on to live their lives as before and didn't continue fighting or otherwise comporting themselves as knights, though they were exempt from taxes for the rest of their lives.

Personally I think the Order of the Hatchet is a cool historical anecdote because even though, as many anons have pointed out repeatedly, women's frames aren't as suited for combat as men and therefore they haven't participated in fighting nearly as much, it shows that people, including women, can do amazing feats when their lives or the lives of their children are on the line.

>were knight as
*were knighted as

What part of FANTASY do you not understand?

No that's the contrary.
After the coronation of CharlesVII, he made her and her family knights and she was a fighter, not a commander.
There are lots of testimony confirming this.
She had a horse, an white iron armor, a sword, a squire, etc and she was fighting on the battle field where she was wounded several times.
She never commanded a French army but at the end of her life, when she got wealthier, she had under her command about 120-130 genoese mercenaries.

the Orden del Hacha wasn't really a proper knight order, sure, they got free of taxes but all those Cavalleras didn't earn everything a typical knight would get, they didn't get the same rights as orthers nor any extra duties, it was pratically no more than a honorific title.

>Boudicca assraped the Romans after being raped and lived to see her husband rescue her

Boudicca burned a few poorly defended cities and then got her tribe slaughtered against a force she massively outnumbered.

Her husband was dead before all this started.

Where the fuck do you get your information?

Like 90% of Veeky Forums has no idea of what they're talking about.

You obviously haven't been here long enough.

Not a militaristic order, though awarded because of military merit.

>why is my fantasy fantasy
w e w

>is modern fantasy just being politically correct?
No it's modern fantasy trying to have cute cakes.

>Being sexist for the purpose of being sexist
watch out for the edge

Female knights didn't exist because only men were made to be knights, obviously.
Female warriors is another story.

Why would you waste all the resources and time to train someone who ultimately will be a shitty fighter? Back then fighting was more involved, even in modern point-click and cry for air support combat they suck ass.

I suppose they would make decent archers, as they make ok snipers today. Mental discipline and testosterone only help in those roles too though.

It's a short one with few characters.

La Orde de l'Atxa was a cofradie not a military order, and was granted to the women of Tortosa because they helped to raise the siege of they city when the men were in campaing, thus earning some tax free shit and fiscal help to them and they descendents. The simbol was a red axe and the descendents of those women carried it from the XII to the XV.

You had to be jacked to use a bow, and females lack upper body strength.
They would be good messengers tough, being little and lithe.

>They would be good messengers tough, being little and lithe.

You know, they are also slower and can run less. Women can do combat roles to a certain degree of efficiency, no question, but there isn't a single one where they would be better.

It's also funny how we have this thread two times everyday. People are so insecure here.

None of those were knights.

In the lore books that came out there was a tribe of people that only let women fight, they are also the only people to successfully repel the dothraki.

Also fucking Dorne. I fucking hate Dorne.

>condemns escapism

>Has skinchangers, faceless killers, and war dragons
>An entire plot arc is about soldiers fighting ice zombies
>"Condemns escapism"

>MUH STRONK WOMYN
>not politically correct

Fuck off sheila

>Cracked

Usually I have better sources, sorry.

S-sauce

I never understood why artists potray people wearing plate protecting their shins, but never their thighs. You'd expect mail or something to shore up the gaps, but their upper legs and other such vulnerable bits are almost never protected. I could understand if it was meant to be pseudo-Classical period, but its always fantasy Medieval art that does it.

Is it an A E S T H E T I C S thing?

The sniper role is a meme. The effectiveness and extent of Snipers in the USSR was a good chunk propaganda and exaggeration to say "See, even our WOMEN are better then baby Nazi soldiers".

I have no idea myself, but its stupidly prevalent.

Its basically standard at this point.

You see it a ton in sci-fi art as well.

except there's literally no way to know if either of your claims are true, there are multiple writings about female knights from the middle ages, specifically the Old english poem "Silence" a story about a female knight who was the greatest knight of her time, it's an extremely interesting read as it has knowledge of the female body and social commentary not thought to exist in old england. In fact it was thought to be fake simply because of the story's content until quite recently. Similarly there are multiple versions of the king Arthur legend that tell of a powerful female knight who performs great deeds and lays down the smackdown on some of king arthur's knights. In every case, as well as in almost every case of women fighting in combat, women do not fight as women, instead they cross dress as men. Which shows that the societies they are a part of do not accept women as soldiers.

Too inflexible for horse riding?

Nah, its just a dumb this artists do.

Like armouring the chest but leaving the belly unarmored/lightly armoured.

thing*

wtf am I looking at,

What seems to be the problem.

I didn't ask for this.

Knights weren't just guys in armor who went fighting. They were nobility who owned land and paid fealty to the king, and acted as governors for the people living in their land. There's actually accounts of knights revolting against their king because they were too busy running their shit to just fuck off and fight a war.

In a society as patriarchal as medieval Europe, yeah, knights were men. But that doesn't mean women, particularly widows or wives whose husbands were out of town fighting said war, wouldn't have a hand in matters.

But bear in mind when discussing anything medieval that you're talking about a literal millenium of history. Shit like Joan of Arc happens.

Yeah and Brianne is treated fairly and equally by all the other knights right?

At least they're interesting characters, usually.

CHEER

My sister literally had to start weight training just to acquire the strength to pull a 50lb bow.

To be fair, your sister probably hasn't farmed her whole life.

There's Ulrich von Liechtenstein who according to his autobiography participated in tournaments in drag, calling himself Lady Venus. He may not have necessarily been fully honest there though.

>Boudicca assraped the Romans
Correction: she "assraped" defenseless settlements and colonias. When she fought an actual Roman legion, she got wrecked.

>Joan of Arc
>executed
She wasn't executed for being religious or the clamor of believing she had a connection of God, it had to due with the English nobles bribing Church officials and creating a sham trial over her crossdressing.

Another shameful display by the eternal Anglo.

to be fair people 300 years ago (let alone thousands)
were fucking manlet pieces of shit.

Is it as bad as that time a French king burned a bunch of Templars because he couldn't pay denbts?

They'd probably still kick both of our asses.

To be fair.

they would probably die sooner from my sneeze than anything to be fair.

Yeah, but to be fair that'd probably be like a week after they rolled their sleeves up and beat you half to death with arms toned by years of harvest and husbandry.

To be fair average peasant would have hard time reaching my face, let aside the fact I am better fed, much healthier
my reach is longer and I can pop a cap in his bitch ass.

though tbf if I hit his face there is a decent chance his teeth or whatever would tear skin on my fist and I would die from infection.

tough luck fighting someone like that.

they had precedence in town halls and property ownership

>Boudica was flogged, her daughters raped, and Roman financiers called in their loans.

yeah but they also would weigh less making them better on horseback. women are also excelent spies and sabotuers.

House Mormont you tosspots. Maege, Dacey, Alysanne

Nymeria (historical). Obara Sand.

That gladiator chick in Meereen.
Pretty Meris in the Windblown.

>290 years ago, in well recorded history
>mythical

Shit dude you probably think Washington was just a legend.

>to be fair people 300 years ago (let alone thousands)
>were fucking manlet pieces of shit.
Except they weren't.