- Pronouns
- She/Her
This is sort of a review and contains massive, unmarked spoilers for Curse of the Crimson Throne from the very start.
Curse of the Crimson Throne is the second hard cover compilation of Path Finder adventurers paths. For those unfamiliar with this concept, this is basically a version of TSR old dungeon magazine, a series of adventurers that tired, busy GMs can just run with minimal prep work. Pathfinder goes one better by having, instead of a random series of adventurers, each path is a campaign that takes the characters all the way from level one to level twenty, over a massive, epic quest line with many twists, turns and adventurers.
In Curse of the Crimson Throne, you're in a fantasy city who's king dies and who's new queen, Ileosa seems to be bad news. You investigate what her deal is, and eventually realize she's evil, lead a rebellion and finally defeat her.
The art I saw for Curse of a Crimson Throne's art was one of the major things that attracted me to Pathfinder. It's no secret I really like female villains (and female characters in general) and the villain and her masked, female elite guard present a very strong picture (ignoring the flaws in the armour design) :
The Villain herself, Queen Ileosa also has a very strong look, with excellent art design, and a lot of thought obviously being put in. Like, look at this dress. It's literally got a cord to stop the hem getting dragging on the ground. It's so cool.
So, with this in mind, I was pretty excited by Curse of the Crimson Throne. . . Until I actually got it, and found out that it's really sexist.
Given probably 80% of all the villains and indeed all the major characters are female, it's quite a feat to mess things up this badly. However, Curse of the Crimson Throne manages this by making sure all but maybe one of the female villains isn't doing any of this because they want too.
Ileosa herself isn't someone who's actually hungry for power, she's possessed by an evil dragon artifact. Her guard aren't doing this out of loyalty to her, they're doing it because they under go weird torture and mind control initiations. Even minor villains, like the head of the Red Mantis Assassins (bug ninjas) has been geassed and tortured into her role of villainy. The Queen's chief henchman isn't doing this because of loyalty, she's doing it because she's in love with the Queen and Can't See the Truth.
In other words, none of them have any agency.
You might be asking, why is this a problem? They're evil. Isn't it better that they're portrayed as misled, or forced into it or otherwise treated with the sympathy that RPGs rarely grant their villains.
No, and for two reasons: first, because the trope of women, especially evil women, being mad or otherwise not in charge of themselves has a long and bitter history, but second and more importantly because villains are cool. The black-hearted villain is as much a fantasy as the hero, just of a different kind. Notice how few villains in fiction have traits that we associate with actual social ills in society. There aren't very many fictional villains who are actively racist or sexist. This is because a villain is just as much a catharsis as the hero. A hero makes the world right. A villain makes the world as they want it to be. Of all of us, the villain is the most truly free, and we wish we could be them. Strong and clever enough to get what we want, to take over the world and have it function as we wish it would. From Richard the Third to House of Cards, the idea of being the villain has its own allure.
By denying the women in this agency, you deny them that evil freedom which is the centre piece of any really cool villain. They are all basically just puppets, to the dragon artifact, to magic, to their own desires, and it gets worse from there.
Despite not having any agency, Ileosa still manages to fulfill all of the "bad queen" stereotypes in fiction. She's vain, and frames random women for murder because she's jealous of their good looks. She's a bad ruler, not in a cool way, but in an incompetent and dangerous way. Even if you wanted to accept the dragon possession thing, this makes her vastly less cool.
As much as I like villains. I've never been much of a fan of the old "Lex Luthor becomes president, fixes US economy" or "Doctor Doom actually runs a utopia" tropes. They're unrealistic, and far worse they play into a lot of very strange views about how if we only put some great man in charge he'll save us all, even if he's a ruthless ubermench. The Nazis used those tropes. However it's possible to go too far in the other direction. Rather than the Queen Ileosa doing anything actually oppressive, or making wars upon her neighbors, she's spending too much on luxury, and spreading a plague in a city she herself rules to get rid of the undesirables.
This of course plays into a long tradition of telling stories about how female rule is bad and unnatural, which stretches up into the 20th century. It's not enough for female rulers to be evil, or to want to do bad things to the hero, or heroine, they must also be incompetent, or do wickness to their own subjects. Curse of the Crimson Throne grabs just about every evil queen stereotype and runs with it to the moon.
I actually do recommend Curse of the Crimson throne because the art is nice and it's a great "how not to do it" guide to female villains. Maybe if everyone reads this stuff and learns from its mistakes, and we can allow women to have the catharsis of villainy too.
Curse of the Crimson Throne is the second hard cover compilation of Path Finder adventurers paths. For those unfamiliar with this concept, this is basically a version of TSR old dungeon magazine, a series of adventurers that tired, busy GMs can just run with minimal prep work. Pathfinder goes one better by having, instead of a random series of adventurers, each path is a campaign that takes the characters all the way from level one to level twenty, over a massive, epic quest line with many twists, turns and adventurers.
In Curse of the Crimson Throne, you're in a fantasy city who's king dies and who's new queen, Ileosa seems to be bad news. You investigate what her deal is, and eventually realize she's evil, lead a rebellion and finally defeat her.
The art I saw for Curse of a Crimson Throne's art was one of the major things that attracted me to Pathfinder. It's no secret I really like female villains (and female characters in general) and the villain and her masked, female elite guard present a very strong picture (ignoring the flaws in the armour design) :
The Villain herself, Queen Ileosa also has a very strong look, with excellent art design, and a lot of thought obviously being put in. Like, look at this dress. It's literally got a cord to stop the hem getting dragging on the ground. It's so cool.
So, with this in mind, I was pretty excited by Curse of the Crimson Throne. . . Until I actually got it, and found out that it's really sexist.
Given probably 80% of all the villains and indeed all the major characters are female, it's quite a feat to mess things up this badly. However, Curse of the Crimson Throne manages this by making sure all but maybe one of the female villains isn't doing any of this because they want too.
Ileosa herself isn't someone who's actually hungry for power, she's possessed by an evil dragon artifact. Her guard aren't doing this out of loyalty to her, they're doing it because they under go weird torture and mind control initiations. Even minor villains, like the head of the Red Mantis Assassins (bug ninjas) has been geassed and tortured into her role of villainy. The Queen's chief henchman isn't doing this because of loyalty, she's doing it because she's in love with the Queen and Can't See the Truth.
In other words, none of them have any agency.
You might be asking, why is this a problem? They're evil. Isn't it better that they're portrayed as misled, or forced into it or otherwise treated with the sympathy that RPGs rarely grant their villains.
No, and for two reasons: first, because the trope of women, especially evil women, being mad or otherwise not in charge of themselves has a long and bitter history, but second and more importantly because villains are cool. The black-hearted villain is as much a fantasy as the hero, just of a different kind. Notice how few villains in fiction have traits that we associate with actual social ills in society. There aren't very many fictional villains who are actively racist or sexist. This is because a villain is just as much a catharsis as the hero. A hero makes the world right. A villain makes the world as they want it to be. Of all of us, the villain is the most truly free, and we wish we could be them. Strong and clever enough to get what we want, to take over the world and have it function as we wish it would. From Richard the Third to House of Cards, the idea of being the villain has its own allure.
By denying the women in this agency, you deny them that evil freedom which is the centre piece of any really cool villain. They are all basically just puppets, to the dragon artifact, to magic, to their own desires, and it gets worse from there.
Despite not having any agency, Ileosa still manages to fulfill all of the "bad queen" stereotypes in fiction. She's vain, and frames random women for murder because she's jealous of their good looks. She's a bad ruler, not in a cool way, but in an incompetent and dangerous way. Even if you wanted to accept the dragon possession thing, this makes her vastly less cool.
As much as I like villains. I've never been much of a fan of the old "Lex Luthor becomes president, fixes US economy" or "Doctor Doom actually runs a utopia" tropes. They're unrealistic, and far worse they play into a lot of very strange views about how if we only put some great man in charge he'll save us all, even if he's a ruthless ubermench. The Nazis used those tropes. However it's possible to go too far in the other direction. Rather than the Queen Ileosa doing anything actually oppressive, or making wars upon her neighbors, she's spending too much on luxury, and spreading a plague in a city she herself rules to get rid of the undesirables.
This of course plays into a long tradition of telling stories about how female rule is bad and unnatural, which stretches up into the 20th century. It's not enough for female rulers to be evil, or to want to do bad things to the hero, or heroine, they must also be incompetent, or do wickness to their own subjects. Curse of the Crimson Throne grabs just about every evil queen stereotype and runs with it to the moon.
I actually do recommend Curse of the Crimson throne because the art is nice and it's a great "how not to do it" guide to female villains. Maybe if everyone reads this stuff and learns from its mistakes, and we can allow women to have the catharsis of villainy too.
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