Wonder Woman #43 Preview

[a_clericalerror]

Source.
PG's boob window? It's empowering or a symbol placeholder or something.
Helena's bare abs? She worked out a lot.
Wonder Woman's whole ensemble?



It has been explained before with the Diana Trevor story, though I guess a tip of the hat to a woman who gave her life to aid them wasn't good enough. Really drilling that in with Hippolyta wearing the flag in the scene right before this yet dropping the connection in favor of some coincidental weather and a few stars that might be Cassiopeia.

For a moment there I almost thought this was closer to the present day, ignoring the sudden break in the story, and they might actually be trashing the swim suit in favor of something less ridiculous.

Silly, optimism. Sensible clothing is for kids* (and men).

*If you know of something that contradicts this, please don't tell me. I don't want to know.

Comments

[icon_uk]

You're assuming that everyone in Ancient Greece shared that mindset, when they wouldn't have done. The warriors of Greece would have had the same perspective, but that;'s far from everybody. The average PERSON (farmer, trader etc) would have been aware of the perspective but would not have shared it automatically, since not everyone would have carried a sword. A trader would be more wary of someone carrying a sword when there was no actual war on.

[bluefall]

Wary, sure, he'd be wary. He'd also realize that a) this is a person of authority and status, and b) this is a person who might be able to help me if I'm in danger. He wouldn't automatically assume "she's gonna cut me," and he certainly wouldn't pick a fight with her, as he might with an unarmed woman.

And from her perspective, well... she's a diplomat. The people who she needs to talk to, the people she needs to make an impression on in order to enact change, are the kings and generals. She needs to have their respect and she needs them to see her as an equal. Not as a laborer, trader, or farmer - Theseus would be rightly skeptical of an envoy claiming to represent a powerful and wise nation who showed up without even a dagger to protect her on the road, much less the ornaments and insignias (read: arms and armor) of authority.

[icon_uk]

No, he'd instantly recognise that "This is a person with a sword, when I do not have one", their societal status would be a secondary consideration compared to the big sharp cutting thing. And someone not picking a fight without you solely because you're armed is not a good grounding for peaceful communication.

And wearing a weapon to meet a king is a definite grounds for care and consideration. Usually it's limited even amongst their own subjects for obvious security reasons. Bearing that in mind, just try having an unknown person from an unrecognised country walk in on the President of the USA whilst carrying a deadly weapon, and see how far they'd get before it'd be assumed they were hostile and appropriate action taken.

[bluefall]

And someone not picking a fight without you solely because you're armed is not a good grounding for peaceful communication.

No, but it's excellent grounding for avoiding confrontations with people who won't be receptive to peaceful communication in the first place. And status is a bigger deal than you'd think, and a more instinctive classification of the people around you, in a society that highly stratified.

And wearing a weapon to meet a king is a definite grounds for care and consideration.

Ah, but we're not talking about just the sword, we're talking about the whole ensemble. Having a sword or spear, which you then surrender at the gate, is a very different thing than waving the thing in a sitting monarch's face; having armor even more so, since it's a purely defensive measure, and something you're expected to possess as a matter of course if you're really the heir to a meaningful throne.

[gailsimone]

No amount of discussion changes the simple fact. There's never a point in Diana's story, no matter which origin, where Hippolyta wanted her to go to the outside world with her weapons visible. The whole idea is completely the opposite of the mission in the first place.

It just doesn't make any sense at all.

[koschei]

Armour isn't a weapon.

But part of the problemis that Diana isn't an ambassador, at least not in the traditional idea of the position. She's an evangelist. The entire point of her being in Man's World is to deprecate its cultures and values as less intrinsically worthy than her own.

Her mission is, in fact, intrinsically hostile.

[q99]

I reeeeally gotta disagree with that. Just because she's promoting some values doesn't mean she's degrading the values of the people she's talking to as less worthy.

That Diana respects many of the good parts of the other countries of the world is often brought up, the Amazons also just view some stuff like peace as universal and something all should strive for.

[gailsimone]

Thank you, q99. That bit is so hugely canonical it's indisputable.

It's like saying Batman's mission is actually about helping criminals. There's nothing to support it at all.

[gailsimone]

I can't believe the reductionism here.

No, armor isn't a weapon. Armor is armor. It's still being dressed for war.

I don't know how to say this again. This scene isn't meant to explain why DIana doesn't match your fanfic. It's meant to explain some symbols in her classic costume, that's all. Any failures to not accomplish things it never attempts to accomplish are really your own business.

And I don't accept your definition of her mission even slightly, since the opposite is both implied and explicitly stated a thousand times.

[koschei]

So basically, its purpose is to match your fanfic. That's okay, you're the one at the helm, it's your perogative.

Her mission is to make us all nice by turning us to to loving submission of the Greek gods. Logically that means unseating monotheism and getting polytheists to switch pantheons. Which in turns means -- just within America -- unseating the Christian churches from their positions of social, economic and political power. It means instituting in a meaningful way the basic tennants of gender, sexual and racial equality. It means destroying the corporate culture of greed and environmental rape to replace it with one of ecological sustainability. It means ending political corruption.

While the end goal is noble and ultimately for the benefit of all -- leaving aside that with the sole exception of Diana herself the only atheist/apostate amazons we've ever come across are universally portrayed as evil or that the gods are guilty of often petty interventionalism, so what does that mean for freedom of religion in the new world order? -- though the balance might be different the process of achieving it is as much one of violence as it is persuassion and demonstration of benefits.

It's why I've always found the concept of the Mission to be deeply problematic. If we can't have the [DCU] affected in any meaningful fashion by the seemingly ubiquitous Kirbytech that fills the lives of superheroes and villains because it would creatr a world on page too dissimilar to our own -- the whole cancer storyline in Supergirl comes to mind as a prime example -- that inexorably means we will never see Diana achieve any sort of significant or enduring victory related to it.