This page seems quite butthurt. I don't understand what the big deal is.... Half of the insects mentioned aren't even insects (charmy and combee certainly don't resemble real world insects in any none superficial way)
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And six years seems old enough for Charmy to not be a larva.
Edited by hayleychaotix
Would it be an amusing aversion if a work had the drones be a group of Kings(despite still being called drones) surrounding the Queen/Queens(ant colonies are known to have more than one Queen) while the workers and soldiers remain female?
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I think some of the intro should be YMMV. Sure SOME women and probably all entomologists are bugged by this stuff, but I don't think a lot of this is any worse than rubber forehead aliens, and is done for the same reason-we make stories about things like ourselves, and when they're not actually like ourselves, we anthropomorphize them. There's not much room for biological accuracy in cartoons. You don't want Nemo changing genders because real clownfish do. You don't want Simba mating w/all the females in the pride. You especially don't want Tarzan acting like a real feral child (or the gorillas to react to him as a baby like real gorillas would). Back to insects, it'd be weird to have only female characters and it's nice to have a romance between Flik and Atta even though real workers are sterile females. (Maybe Flik should have been a female worker, and Atta could have been a drone "prince," but then there'd still be complaints about how workers are sterile, and kids know about queen ants, but they've never heard of king ants and they'd be questioning that). Ants don't have personalities at all, for crying out loud. Anything resembling a biologically accurate insect society would just be really alien, and unless they're minor characters, you're not going to relate to it.
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Agreed. Whoever wrote it seems to talking the trope a bit too seriously.
Edited by hayleychaotix
But here's the thing: there's such an obvious solution to the problem that it's amazing that anyone overlooks it. Just make the main character a tomboy! That way, you can make her traditionally masculine AND scientifically accurate. Win-win!
Also, this bit:
"and is done for the same reason-we make stories about things like ourselves, and when they're not actually like ourselves, we anthropomorphize them."
But what's stopping male writers from writing about female characters? If you just write a complex character with relatable flaws, and she just happens to be female, there shouldn't be a problem, right? As an aspiring writer who happens to be male myself, I find it disgustingly insulting to be told I'm completely incapable of writing female characters, as I'm hoping to enter the animation industry and make my own show about a young girl with autism spectrum disorder, who aspires to become a professional musician. Should I just make my character a boy because that's what male writers should always do? And what about media like Inside Out, The Buzz on Maggie, Daria, Punky Brewster, Buffy the Vampire Slayer... all of them created by men! And one of them even centres on an insect, albeit one with a standard male/female system, so she didn't even need to be female to make biological sense!
Not to mention there do exist female writers, so even going by the logic of "we write about ourselves", shouldn't THEY be writing about female worker ants/bees?
So yeah, there's my little rant/ramble about this whole ordeal. If you have any questions or anything to add to the discussion, feel free to write away! :)
Edited by GeekyBinka
Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: The intro needs to be rewritten
, started by SNESMasterKI on Oct 13th 2010 at 4:06:49 PM
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman