So far, the Witcher 3 seems kind of sexist

LonePunman

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There's a general rule of "attractiveness" that is simply part of nature. I know it can feel demeaning to women that big boobs, tight butts and slender bodies are considered to be the standard for what is attractive, but there's a fairly simple reason behind it - mens minds interpret those body types with good genetics, therefore assuming they would produce the best offspring. Over centuries we've marketed that image as a selfish sexuality sort of thing, but there is a logical scientific reason for it.

In other words, main characters being quote unquote "attractive" isn't necessarily sexist in nature, but rather a pretty typical way to appeal to OUR nature, which is desiring those with healthy genes.
 

James Theesfeld

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My only contribution to this thread is to point out that the game was made in Poland, by Polish developers. It's based on a popular series of books by a Polish author and is heavily informed by Polish culture. As such this game is very much a reflection of Polish society, and not western society (by which I mean US/UK/Canada and maybe France?).

It might be useful to take a look at how Poland understands domestic violence, abuse, infidelity, and the role of women. I think everyone is approaching the game with a very liberal modern understanding of feminism. It's completely fair to critique a piece of art through contemporary standards. But you must also have a conversation about the context from which it is derived.

My wife is an opera singer. A lot of popular operas have very .. difficult .. subject matter with relation to women and minorities. We don't ignore the problematic material in opera, but we do frame it in it's proper context and try to have a conversation about what that means.

The Bloody Baron is a fully fleshed out character who has complex motivations for his actions and does an excellent job of talking about domestic abuse in a fantastical setting. The line of dialog about how she started it by cheating doesn't negate that. But it's worth talking about. What is problematic about this line? What might we infer about the Polish view of infidelity and domestic violence?
 

James Theesfeld

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I was about to something similar myself.

People liked the Barons story, it was a rare portrayal of abusive relationships that is more like real life than almost any you have seen before (minus the supernatural elements).

Not to say there's anything wrong with the abusive spouse getting there's but this was fresh and fit the story better over Geralt caring about the day to day life of a couple he doesn't know.
LonePunman said:
There's a general rule of "attractiveness" that is simply part of nature. I know it can feel demeaning to women that big boobs, tight butts and slender bodies are considered to be the standard for what is attractive, but there's a fairly simple reason behind it - mens minds interpret those body types with good genetics, therefore assuming they would produce the best offspring. Over centuries we've marketed that image as a selfish sexuality sort of thing, but there is a logical scientific reason for it.

In other words, main characters being quote unquote "attractive" isn't necessarily sexist in nature, but rather a pretty typical way to appeal to OUR nature, which is desiring those with healthy genes.
This is literally untrue. Over centuries the standard of beauty and thus healthy or sexy has changed, and it has very little to do with any kind of "state of nature" conceptions of attractiveness.
 

Kerg3927

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James Theesfeld said:
I was about to something similar myself.

People liked the Barons story, it was a rare portrayal of abusive relationships that is more like real life than almost any you have seen before (minus the supernatural elements).

Not to say there's anything wrong with the abusive spouse getting there's but this was fresh and fit the story better over Geralt caring about the day to day life of a couple he doesn't know.
LonePunman said:
There's a general rule of "attractiveness" that is simply part of nature. I know it can feel demeaning to women that big boobs, tight butts and slender bodies are considered to be the standard for what is attractive, but there's a fairly simple reason behind it - mens minds interpret those body types with good genetics, therefore assuming they would produce the best offspring. Over centuries we've marketed that image as a selfish sexuality sort of thing, but there is a logical scientific reason for it.

In other words, main characters being quote unquote "attractive" isn't necessarily sexist in nature, but rather a pretty typical way to appeal to OUR nature, which is desiring those with healthy genes.
This is literally untrue. Over centuries the standard of beauty and thus healthy or sexy has changed, and it has very little to do with any kind of "state of nature" conceptions of attractiveness.
It's a combination of nature and nurture. There are certainly heavy cultural influences, especially in the modern age of TV and air brushes. But in general, I think it's pretty clear that human men around the world have always tended to prefer young and healthy-looking women who are likely to produce healthy offspring.
 
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Clockwerkman said:
It's too late!!! Ethical theory is a favorite of mine :D

Here's the thing. Without diving in to a broad discussion of broad ethical ramifications, in my mind, we can assume two things to be true. First, if no higher power exists, moral systems are not objective. Second, humans have a tendency towards viewing morality in objective terms.

Given this, I would say two more things. There is no apparent higher power, thus, no morality is objective. If no morality is objective, every morality is subjective.

In laymans terms, this leaves us with moral relativity. Philosophically it's a bit more complicated, but I'll leave it at that. Given this, the statement that "we are not objective morality machines" loses a lot of context to the reality of what we are. Which, in my mind, is machines that act as subjective morality machines, while viewing things along objective moral lines. This is why we can view moral repercussions as relevant to context, but still say the thing is "wrong" regardless of situation.

Given all that, I should clarify my view. As naive as it may sound, I truly love people. Even the stupid trolls on the internet that piss me off. Even terrorists in Iraq that make me weep at the state of the world. I think every one of them is of infinite value, albeit that some have squandered that value on pain and suffering. So when I see the baron, I don't see a victim and an abuser. I see two people who need help, with one unlikely to accept it.

Hope that made any sense ^_^
When I said objective morality machine, I didn't mean that it's a machine that carries out objective morality, I meant more an objective machine that carries out morality. IE: Given the morally correct action, however it's determined, the objective morality machine would devote all its efforts to carrying out that action.

I don't necessarily agree that there's an objective morality, but I think you'd need more of an argument to jump from "There is no apparent high power" therefore "Objective morality does not exist". But this thread of conversation is definitely off topic. I actually do agree with the notion that certain actions are wrong regardless, but they can be mitigated by context, and sometimes a "wrong" action can still be the most right thing you can do. I'm not arguing that she did the most right thing she could have, but the context mitigates her actions to escape a marriage she was not given an option to leave. Emotions and options available are both mitigating factors, and on top of loathing this man, she had very limited means of leaving with the powers at the Baron's disposal.

I also try to see the best in people, and one thing I like in this questline is that they explain why the Baron's doing all the things he's doing. He's not doing it because he's an evil cackling monster, he's got all of his internal justifications that are so understandable and relatable that there's a number of people in this thread that are saying that Anna is the chief person responsible for him beating her.

His actions are horribly wrong, but they're not born out of some cartoonish evil motives. He suffered from serious stress while in the war, and it was a traumatic experience for him. He comes home and finds his wife cheating on him, which understandably sparks him into a rage. He did something terrible, which he regrets, but he just can't get his wife to forgive him. He desperately wants her in his life, and is trying to give himself every chance to repair things. Unfortunately, she resists all of his attempts, and still hates him, to the point that she will verbally attack him. He has always had a rage, and alcohol doesn't help that, so he'll give into the rage and hit her. Which once again fills him with regret afterwards and the desire to make things better.

You can understand why he did what he did. He has his reasons, they're just not even close to sufficient, and they ignore all of his wife's feelings of hatred and revulsion, and her right to make her own decisions in life. He has the power to keep her with him, and he exerts it so he can just give himself "that chance" to make things right and convince her that she should love him. It's a very misogynistic view (The Baron's) that ignores her agency as a person, in favor of his desires for what he wants their marriage to be. A lot of the rhetoric in this discussion also ignores her agency as a person, and appoints the Baron as her protector, responsible for making the choices for her that would give her the best life in his eyes.

This situation actually reminds me somewhat of Kilgrave from Jessica Jones (If you've seen the show, if you haven't it's well worth watching). The distinction is that the Baron uses his powers of authority and strength to force Anna to remain as his wife, whereas Kilgrave uses his mind control. They both have a genuine desire for their victims to just know them well enough so that they can love them, while overwriting their strong desires otherwise.

Obviously they're not identical, and Kilgrave generally does more wrong while conscious of it, but in these respects it definitely reminds me of it.

EDIT:

Oops! I meant to throw in a reply to you as well. Sorry about that, I hope this still gives you a notification.

Psychotic17 said:
It's a bit weird to me that nobody made the point that when Geralt is supposed to say one of those two things, he is in the man's manor surrounded by a hundred guards in heavy armor. OP seems to want a "You're a terrible monster!" option, but that would be a bit risky and out of character, wouldn't it?

Even more so if you consider that Geralt was never really big on judging people, neither in the books nor the games.

---

On another note, OP's points actually made me sympathize with the wife a bit more than when I played the game, but... at the end of the day, she's still a sociopath and has done terrible things. I don't accept a murderer's sob story how he had a bad childhood and just the same I don't accept the whole "the poor soul had bad things happen to her" stuff. She deserves punishment just as he does.
I don't buy that, given that Geralt has plenty dialogue options that enrage the Baron. Leading up to the final reveal, you can pretty much tell him that he's shit and he'll take it. Your tune just changes after the sympathy story.

It's not just that she had bad stuff happen to her, she was having bad stuff happening to her all the way through. Terrible stuff she wanted to kill herself over, she she had no means of escape from. She's a prisoner in the relationship to the man who killed her lover, and her "emotional abuse" (Which I'm more skeptical if it qualifies now that I saw that the Baron gave examples of it) towards the Baron should be treated more as that towards a captor than a husband.
 

LonePunman

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James Theesfeld said:
I was about to something similar myself.

People liked the Barons story, it was a rare portrayal of abusive relationships that is more like real life than almost any you have seen before (minus the supernatural elements).

Not to say there's anything wrong with the abusive spouse getting there's but this was fresh and fit the story better over Geralt caring about the day to day life of a couple he doesn't know.
LonePunman said:
There's a general rule of "attractiveness" that is simply part of nature. I know it can feel demeaning to women that big boobs, tight butts and slender bodies are considered to be the standard for what is attractive, but there's a fairly simple reason behind it - mens minds interpret those body types with good genetics, therefore assuming they would produce the best offspring. Over centuries we've marketed that image as a selfish sexuality sort of thing, but there is a logical scientific reason for it.

In other words, main characters being quote unquote "attractive" isn't necessarily sexist in nature, but rather a pretty typical way to appeal to OUR nature, which is desiring those with healthy genes.
This is literally untrue. Over centuries the standard of beauty and thus healthy or sexy has changed, and it has very little to do with any kind of "state of nature" conceptions of attractiveness.
No, it's quite accurate. Just because or perception of what is a "suitable mate" has fluctuated (being overweight was once considered desirable in a time when many were starving to death), doesn't mean that at its core, our basic primal instinct isn't the driving force.

I mean, one of the ways we know homosexuality is a natural thing is that it occurs in the animal kingdom.

Know what else occurs in the animal kingdom? They seek out the mate with the best genetics.
 

powerneed

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Phasmal said:
Dragonlayer said:
I remember Geralt mentioning Yennifer's distinctive scent of lilac and gooseberries to strangers only twice, both times in the form of a question to discern her location; he's hardly "obsessed".
While my original comment contained hyperbole, I'm still allowed to think it's weird and creepy and it still took me out of the experience for a moment.
heres the thing you do know its a medevil society everything and everyone there probably has never had a bath and smells like horse manure so a good looking girl who smells amazing is going to be insanely rare and memorable and since she can change the way she looks would be a great way yo point her out
 

Joccaren

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LifeCharacter said:
So she should have basically completely submitted herself to her abuser, happily birthed and raised the child of her rapist, and never attempted to escape or fight back, because that only made it worse for her?
Did I say that? No, I did not. In fact I pretty explicitly pointed out that this isn't black and white. It isn't "Be a loving caring wife", or "Abuse and provoke your captor". There is an in between. She picked not a bad option for her actions, but the worst possible set of actions she could have taken. Doing literally anything else would have improved the situation. Getting back to WWII, prisoners in PoW camps managed to fight back against their captors through sabotaging the equipment they were working on. They didn't shout abuse and try to provoke their attackers into punishing them. That just sounds, and is, monumentally stupid. Especially 2 years later.

I don't even understand why you bring up the Holocaust as support for your argument and immediately point out all the people who escaped or fought the Nazis. Do you think life in the camps was somehow better than life as a guerilla fighter, or an escapee? Because that's pretty much what Anna's been trying to accomplish, getting the fuck away from the Baron, either by running away, killing him, or, when those don't seem to be working, killing herself.
I bring it up as if the majority had fought, everyone would have been massacred on the spot. It would have been a monumentally stupid thing for them to do. Some did. Many who tried, died. Some succeeded. In a sample population of millions, I acknowledge that a relative handful were successful.
The point here is, those in the camps suffered arguably worse trauma than Anna initially. They watched their homes, their families, their loved ones and friends burn. They were beat and abused, they watched the sick shot dead on the spot simply for admitting to being sick. They marched hundreds of miles across the land to what they likely knew was death. They stood on. Yes, these things can break people, take it as most of the Holocaust Jewish being amazingly heroically strong if you want, or you can take it that Anna likely had the chance to be better, but repeatedly took the worst actions, beginning a downward spiral of things just getting worse and worse.
Was life better in the camp than being a Guerilla or escapee? Who knows, both would have been pretty damn hard. Life in the camps as they were, however, was better than life in camps where the Germans are provoked into torturing the Jewish at all waking hours. Its not that life in the camps was good, its that it could have been so much worse had the prisoners not shown the slighest bit of common sense in trying to not make things any worse.

That he's so in love with someone that he murders her lover, abuses her, rapes her, and holds her prisoner should not be considered "reasons," especially when put in comparison with Anna's reasons for not being a good, meek wife to the man she despises.
He's so in love with her that he murders her lover, that's it. That's where that line of causation turns to Anna.
Anna who, in her grief, decides lets make the situation worse.
By mentally torturing the Baron [Potentially unintentionally through grief early on, later on it was almost certainly deliberate], he reacts - much like she was reacting - out of pain, and abuses her.
She reacts to this abuse by abusing him back. And so the cycle begins.
Each reacts to the other's abuse, but laying the blame on the Baron for murder, abuse, rape and imprisonment purely because of his love that caused him to make the initial mistake? No. Murder and imprisonment yes, abuse and rape are a mix of PTSD, and Anna provoking that PTSD.

Yes. Especially so when he follows it up by keeping Anna prisoner and violently beating her for years.
Ok, so a man suffering from mental illness and instability, who is constantly abused by his wife, is reprehensible because he abuses his wife, but she's a-ok, free from all criticism for her abuse, because he killed her husband?
I'm sensing some real lack of understanding of the effects things like PTSD have on ones life. I'd also I doubt we'd be defending the Baron so vigorously were their positions to be swapped. We'd be blaming him for being psychologically abusive of his wife, and cheating in the first place, and assume that he must have been able to get over his lover's death much easier than we'd assume Anna would. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm seeing a great bias of "The guy should be tough and strong", and "The girl can be greatly affected by emotions" here, excusing one partner's actions from their trauma, yet ignoring the other's so we can blame them completely.
If we're blaming Anna's actions on "She was upset", then a defence of "He had PTSD" is perfectly valid for the Baron as well. Of course, the Baron should just get over this because he's a guy, whilst Anna is fine to milk it for all its worth. Yep. Seems legit.

Here's the thing, what exactly is Anna supposed to be guilty of here? She verbally abuses the man who beats her, rapes her, and refuses to let her leave, all after murdering the love of her life and feeding him to dogs. Other than that, she makes poor choices in a desperate attempt to not have the child of the man she despises, which only harms herself. The Baron, on the other hand, violently abuses Anna and keeps her prisoner for years. He doesn't make some pact with witches that results in him and only him suffering consequences, he just forces other people to suffer.
To quote you, why do you ask what Anna should be guilty of, then acknowledge she abuses someone?
And yes, psychological abuse is actually a pretty major deal, its not lesser than physical by any means, and honestly I wouldn't be surprised if its responsible for more deaths through suicide too. Any abuse is shit, seeing as there seems to be a sort of attitude here that psychological abuse is 'just words' and not actually a thing.
She abuses her husband [Physically and mentally, actually, conveniently enough], she cheats on him, she tries to kill him and fights and beats him. She makes a deal with the closest thing this game has to a devil, and aborts a life out of hate for the father. During all this she has her daughter around, whom rather than try to protect or give a happy life, she constantly endangers to try and provoke the Baron, and the hags in the swamp, more. She has made a ton of mistakes. Yes, we look at her and say "She suffered trauma, you can understand why", yet we can also, as said, do this to the Baron.

Additionally, this lacks a bit of cultural understanding of the world and time that makes being forced to stay with your abuser less appealing than it would be in that time. This isn't the modern day. A woman can't just leave a man's household and move on with their life. If they do so, its the end of their life, often literally. The world is dangerous, and not being sorceresses, they're not equipped to defend themselves. Additionally, even should they survive, they have nowhere to go, at least nowhere that would accept them. Its a really shit time for women, yeah. Whilst the Baron is likely acting predominantly from a wish to keep Anna and Tamara, him stopping her from leaving is akin to him stopping her from suicide, and killing his daughter with her. We view that sort of imprisonment in today's context and say its horrible. At the time, it wasn't, in fact it was pretty standard. That doesn't make it acceptable behaviour, but the reasons behind why it was more standard behaviour - which do exist beyond simply "Patriarchy!" - do inform the context of the Baron's actions, and actually give his actions some utility for Anna. To be quite honest, given the war going on, had she run and not been caught by the hags, the most likely outcome would have been her imprisonment, rape and torture at the hands of soldiers. With the Baron, at least he cares about her well being and wants to improve things - even if she does continue to provoke him into acting against these interests.
As a further note to this, I actually think she knew this and agreed, during the times where her mind was more salient than when she was gripped by her depression. I would find it a remarkable convenience if this was the first time in the last 3 years that she knocked the Baron out during one of their fights, or that he passed out after getting too drunk. As shown this time, its quite possible for her to escape during these times. The funny thing; as far as we know, she didn't. I get the feeling the Baron would have mentioned it if she had, or he'd be more prepared, or the guards would know or... Yeah, I've seen the argument "The Baron would have just hunted her down and bought her back", but honestly that requires a higher level of salient thought than those here give her credit for. She's a hero of sorts for fighting and abusing the Baron, because its the only thing she apparently can do, yet she likely had plenty of opportunities to escape over 3 years, but she didn't. It would seem she knows that her only chance is with the Baron and is staying partially by choice, partially as forced by the circumstances, and is certainly salient enough to know that her abuse sends the Baron into a rage - and her actions are quite likely not entirely driven by her trauma.

The Almighty Aardvark said:
And it's good that they always saw the Baron as in the wrong. It'd have been a lot worse if they didn't and they determined that the Baron. She's not innocent in the way that someone who steals a candy bar and gets their hand chopped off isn't innocent, but if someone told me that they chopped off their hand for stealing a candy bar I'd say "How is that the slightest bit of a justification"
Eeeeh, not quite. Going with that analogy, its someone who steals a gold brick from the bank, gets arrested, and their partner killed by the over-eager police, then begins to beat and abuse the guards, resulting in them getting their hands chopped off.
The only thing Tamara did is not cheat. Its the action that set off the whole chain of events, but it isn't the only thing she ever did that was wrong.

He tries to make things better sure, because he wants her in this relationship. She doesn't want to be in this relationship. Why is she supposed to try to make a relationship work that she's not willingly engaged in? If it was a relationship with a coworker sure, if it was a relationship with an alcoholic, violent, murderous baron who won't let you leave, that's a different story.
His violence was non existent until she began to provoke it. Drunkeness? Yes, though again it seems he wants to cut that down and is abused into drinking by Anna. For all intents and purposes, she could turn this into a relationship with a co-worker, by not dishing out as much or more abuse than the Baron. Honestly she doesn't have to try and make the relationship work, she just has to not provoke the Baron to violence and drinking. Sure, maybe he won't be fully happy. I doubt he'd be violent were she not to abuse him to make him so, and that's a great increase in her position already.

Famine and starvation are realities. But would you in that case condone someone kidnapping someone else who might eventually be a victim of famine and starvation, bringing them into a rich life of luxury on the contingency that they love them? All against their will? This scenario sounds pretty horrible even without adding in the context of "They also killed your lover before deciding to protect you from the world"
As said above, I find it amazingly surprising, and somewhat telling of her character, that she has not tried to escape yet, but has consistently abused the Baron. Either way, she's had the chance to run away before, and near we can tell, hasn't taken it
As for what you just described, welcome to marriage in its entirety in that day and age. Oh, but the guy paid their family to let him kidnap them. Marriage wasn't this grand romanticised thing it is these days, and there are a shocking number of stories where the husband and wife are together by convenience, more than because they love each other. Yeah, there are some who do, there are tons that don't.
In either case, if we were to throw in a few more facts that are relevant to this situation, you'd be arguing that we today should release the mentally ill out into the streets to kill themselves, rather than keeping them contained whilst they're highly unstable, and on suicide watch if they're that bad. Put simply, its a very different situation to getting a healthy young woman and holding her captive. The whole situation is fucked up on so many levels its not even funny.

You are arguing what would be the smartest option for a completely objective person, not what is morally acceptable of a prisoner. The fact that we're comparing her position in this marriage to being a prisoner of ISIS doesn't really give a glowing impression of her situation. Sure, the objectively smart thing for her to do would be the perfectly loving wife and try to make things work because escaping isn't much of an option. There's just two problems with this.

People aren't objective. She can't just turn off loathing and suicidal thoughts and do the objective smart thing. She loved the man the baron killed, and she's forced to be kind, gentle and loving to the man who murdered him. I couldn't do that, I honestly don't think many people could. Someone murdering someone I love would make it impossible for me to in a loving relationship with them. In fact it'd sicken me to have to pretend to be.

Secondly, this isn't about what the smartest thing to do, this is about what she's culpable for. In the situation where someone was kidnapped by ISIS, screamed at them and shot, would you respond to the situation like "Well, ISIS did some wrong, the prisoner did some wrong, they both made mistakes."

It's also worth noting that she wasn't trying to avoid the stillbirth, the spell that the crones used was draining her life as well. She got the protection to save herself from the negative effects, not to save the child.

I can't emphasize enough that he murdered someone she loved, and then expects her to be happily married for her. To me, that's not something anyone should be expected to just get over, particularly not to the extent that they could be married to the murderer. She made mistakes, no question. His mistakes were just on a whole different level. Cheating on someone, versus murder, holding prisoner and beatings.

Honestly, his "Sympathize with me" story just put every thing he did in a worse light, rather than a more positive one.
Well, sure, its the smartest thing to do, rather than a circumstantial thing to do. The thing here, we blame the Baron for the actions he takes, after Anna's actions push him to those actions. When we blame the Baron, everyone forgets the stress that he's been put under by that, and the dissonance is something I'm trying to show. You go on to say that's she's not of objective right mind, and is affected by her trauma to cause her to take these actions, yet the Baron is the same. We don't use them to excuse his actions, however.
We excuse the moral wrongdoings of Anna, and her actions, on the grounds that the Baron is abusing her, yet ignore that the whole reason he does abuse her is because she abuses him. We absolve her of her actions by saying she's simply reacting to trauma, whilst we blame the Baron for his actions and ignore the trauma he has faced that impacts his actions. I mean, lets be honest, by all accounts he was a rather non-violent man until he got PTSD out at war. His namesake was a misunderstanding, and honestly he isn't presented as the most rash or violent sort of man. Then he gets PTSD, and his mind and actions are affected by this trauma. Rather than trying to help, Anna just goes looking for another lover. Honestly, from the start, she has not made a morally right choice. You can maybe excuse her abuse of the Baron as grey, but certainly not uphold it as an actually moral action.

The culpability of her actions? Two wrongs do not make a right. Were someone to know about one ISIS member's sick daughter, and yell and scream that he hoped his daughter got raped and died... No, its not moral for ISIS to kill him, but his abuse of that ISIS member just because of captivity was far from moral either. The Baron's abuse does not excuse Anna's abuse, physical and mental, just as her abuse does not excuse his.

Cheating on someone vs murdering the cheater also wasn't that out of hand in those times. Different moralities, and hell, as has been pointed out its been accepted as OK in a relatively modern world in some areas until quite recently as well. Both are inexcusable by old moralities, however our societies changing views on sex in general mean we are more accepting of it these days.
And after that it becomes abuse vs abuse, which honestly I'm not going to get into a discussion where one abuse is worse than another. Any abuse is horrible, and just shouldn't happen.
Anna's only mistake was not cheating. It is not the only thing she's done that was wrong.

And regardless of saving the stillborn or not, she still had at least periods of clarity where she didn't want to die, and saw another way to move on with life.

And again, I'm not saying she should be happily married and A-Ok with it. There is a huge difference between that and all out household war though. Its not a black or white, lovely marriage, or horrible abuse, situation. She just needed to not be abusive herself, and things would have improved immensely for her, the Baron wouldn't have beat her, and odds are she'd be much happier, whilst also not performing an action that is morally wrong - even if we justify it with "She's had trauma" or "She's received abuse". Its wrong, and it puts her daughter in danger, which is even more wrong. Subtle rebellion, not all out war, would be to her advantage, and far more morally justifiable.

As for the ISIS comparison, they're about the only well known group these days who would behave remotely the same under most circumstances. You could replace them with the police if you wanted to, but the police tend to not abuse prisoners. Well, depending on where you go anyway.

And I've kept saying that dialogue choice was poor reasoning. I think it's poor reasoning, the developers think it's poor reasoning, the Baron's can't be blamed for his wife's cheating by being away at war.
And I provided an explanation for this somewhere in all my posts. Its the last avenue of discussion that hasn't been explored. Everything else the Baron has answered to. This is the one 'crime' that he hasn't. And yeah, no shit he defends himself against any accusations made against him. He ain't going to just accept them. Overall the only option you really have to go on is that its both their fault, and they included an option to follow through and try to pin one last thing on him - 'cause lets be honest, he's rejected any other claim you could make against him already, it'd be a waste to say "But you killed her husband!", and have him say "But she cheated on me!" - we already know that.

EternallyBored said:
Even ignoring the emotionally charged context, your comparison to the holocaust seems to do more harm than help to your point.

The Jewish people that fought against the Nazis and escaped or fought back are generally seen as heroes, their actions are usually viewed as not only justifiably moral, but generally laudable in the context of their situation.

The only thing your example points out is that many people accepted their fate in the camps, which is understandable, and there would be little point in looking down on them for something that most people do in such similar hopeless situations, but those that resisted are generally viewed in a more positive light, even by survivors that accepted the situation. A lot of survivors write or talk highly of those brave enough to resist the Nazis in some fashion.

Especially now, after the fact, the comparison is even worse, those that kept their heads down were only saved by outside circumstances, if the Allies didn't win, those people that accepted their fate would all be dead, most of them killed in an absolutely brutal fashion. Other genocides in history did not have the advantage of one side coming in and freeing those rounded up to be killed, those that accepted the situation may have had an understandable reaction, but it doesn't change the fact that those that acquiesced died and those that resisted at least stood a chance of escaping and surviving.

What a terrible comparison, by the logic of the holocaust, pretty much everything Anna did to try and hurt or escape the Baron would be considered morally justifiable, as accepting the situation would be understandable, but in a comparison to the holocaust would mean Anna basically leaving it up to fate that either the Baron is killed in action or she is inevitably beaten to death in one of the Baron's drunken episodes.
The main thing I'm pointing to, is that had everyone in those camps tried to revolt, it would have been slaughter. Things could have been SO much worse for them, and yet, despite the huge amounts of trauma they had faced, they made the most of the situation, and lived as best they could. They didn't try to make things worse, and yes a handful escaped and were counted as heroes. That was an exception, rather than the rule. Additionally, Anna didn't try to escape. Until that last moment. Point to me an example of a Jewish prisoner walking up to the Nazi guards and yelling and abusing them, throwing things at them and attacking them, and being counted as a hero. I'll wait. There may have been a handful of examples at best, because everyone knew that would be a monumentally stupid decision.

And yes, emotionally charged context. I said I'd probably regret it, but I use it as people use the "She's suffered trauma" excuse to vindicate her of any responsibility for her actions. Had you pointed to a normal prisoner or something, you could argue things are different from her, as she has suffered trauma and they didn't. With the Jewish in WWII, you cannot argue that they didn't suffer unimaginable trauma. Yet they still managed to persevere. I don't think anyone reached Nelson Mandela levels of "Bring the peace", but they persevered. Even after seeing their families and friends killed, homes and possessions stolen, the few survivors culled even further, being persecuted for doing no wrongs, simply for their very identity, and marched on foot on a journey a fair number never survived. They went through hell, yet they didn't do anything like what Anna did. Yes, trauma can affect one's actions, it doesn't have to to the extent she let it.
 
Sep 13, 2009
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Joccaren said:
As said above, I find it amazingly surprising, and somewhat telling of her character, that she has not tried to escape yet, but has consistently abused the Baron. Either way, she's had the chance to run away before, and near we can tell, hasn't taken it
As for what you just described, welcome to marriage in its entirety in that day and age. Oh, but the guy paid their family to let him kidnap them. Marriage wasn't this grand romanticised thing it is these days, and there are a shocking number of stories where the husband and wife are together by convenience, more than because they love each other. Yeah, there are some who do, there are tons that don't.
In either case, if we were to throw in a few more facts that are relevant to this situation, you'd be arguing that we today should release the mentally ill out into the streets to kill themselves, rather than keeping them contained whilst they're highly unstable, and on suicide watch if they're that bad. Put simply, its a very different situation to getting a healthy young woman and holding her captive. The whole situation is fucked up on so many levels its not even funny.
This seems to be the big point of contention here, am I correct in assuming that if you believed she were not a willing participant in the marriage that you wouldn't be faulting her for emotionally abusing her captor? At the very least fault her in a moral sense, as opposed to a pragmatic sense.

She did try to escape, the Baron responded to that by tracking her down, killing her lover, and dragging her back. The second time she tried to escape the Baron put up wanted posters everywhere, and hired a Witcher to bring her back regardless whether she wants to or not. This does not inspire much faith in her willingness for the marriage. Either she didn't try escape again because it would have been fruitless, and she needed better preparation, or because she was scared, or because of how the Baron described she just gave up and stopped caring about anything anymore.

Frankly, as far as I could tell in the universe most of the marriages are not portrayed in this way. At the bare minimum Geralt does not participate in relationships where the spouse is bought against their will, so it seems odd that he'd think it's fine for the Baron. Even given all of that, just because something's customary doesn't make it acceptable. Stuff like that did happen, and it's incredibly misogynistic for all of the reasons that I've described. It robs a women of all of her agency, and then gives her this apparent moral responsibility to be loving to their captor no matter how they treat them. If you're keeping someone as a captive and you don't like how they're treating you, stop holding them captive. You have a choice, they don't.

I am absolutely not! Women are not in the same position as the mentally ill. She is potentially in a poor financial situation, but we still expect to give agency and freedom to poor people. Being in a state of mental well being where you are capable of choosing what's best for yourself is relevant factor in giving people this sort of freedom. That's why children have limited freedom, and why the some cases of the mentally ill have limited freedom. It's not a reason to restrict an adult women's freedom. This is largely what inspired such limitations of women's rights. The belief that they weren't mentally or emotionally capable to choose for themselves what they want, and they needed a man to tell them what they needed. The Witcher is full of women who blatantly defy this, women who Geralt is very intimately familiar with. Therefore I sincerely doubt he believes this of women.

And if you're talking about this particularly woman being comparable to mentally ill because she is suicidally depressed... she is suicidal because she has to remain married to someone who killed her lover and robbed her life of love (in her own words). I'm assuming your prescribed treatment for a suicidal person is not to keep them as close to the sources of their depression as possible for their own good.

Well, sure, its the smartest thing to do, rather than a circumstantial thing to do. The thing here, we blame the Baron for the actions he takes, after Anna's actions push him to those actions. When we blame the Baron, everyone forgets the stress that he's been put under by that, and the dissonance is something I'm trying to show. You go on to say that's she's not of objective right mind, and is affected by her trauma to cause her to take these actions, yet the Baron is the same. We don't use them to excuse his actions, however.
We excuse the moral wrongdoings of Anna, and her actions, on the grounds that the Baron is abusing her, yet ignore that the whole reason he does abuse her is because she abuses him. We absolve her of her actions by saying she's simply reacting to trauma, whilst we blame the Baron for his actions and ignore the trauma he has faced that impacts his actions. I mean, lets be honest, by all accounts he was a rather non-violent man until he got PTSD out at war. His namesake was a misunderstanding, and honestly he isn't presented as the most rash or violent sort of man. Then he gets PTSD, and his mind and actions are affected by this trauma. Rather than trying to help, Anna just goes looking for another lover. Honestly, from the start, she has not made a morally right choice. You can maybe excuse her abuse of the Baron as grey, but certainly not uphold it as an actually moral action.

The culpability of her actions? Two wrongs do not make a right. Were someone to know about one ISIS member's sick daughter, and yell and scream that he hoped his daughter got raped and died... No, its not moral for ISIS to kill him, but his abuse of that ISIS member just because of captivity was far from moral either. The Baron's abuse does not excuse Anna's abuse, physical and mental, just as her abuse does not excuse his.

Cheating on someone vs murdering the cheater also wasn't that out of hand in those times. Different moralities, and hell, as has been pointed out its been accepted as OK in a relatively modern world in some areas until quite recently as well. Both are inexcusable by old moralities, however our societies changing views on sex in general mean we are more accepting of it these days.
And after that it becomes abuse vs abuse, which honestly I'm not going to get into a discussion where one abuse is worse than another. Any abuse is horrible, and just shouldn't happen.
Anna's only mistake was not cheating. It is not the only thing she's done that was wrong.

And regardless of saving the stillborn or not, she still had at least periods of clarity where she didn't want to die, and saw another way to move on with life.

And again, I'm not saying she should be happily married and A-Ok with it. There is a huge difference between that and all out household war though. Its not a black or white, lovely marriage, or horrible abuse, situation. She just needed to not be abusive herself, and things would have improved immensely for her, the Baron wouldn't have beat her, and odds are she'd be much happier, whilst also not performing an action that is morally wrong - even if we justify it with "She's had trauma" or "She's received abuse". Its wrong, and it puts her daughter in danger, which is even more wrong. Subtle rebellion, not all out war, would be to her advantage, and far more morally justifiable.

As for the ISIS comparison, they're about the only well known group these days who would behave remotely the same under most circumstances. You could replace them with the police if you wanted to, but the police tend to not abuse prisoners. Well, depending on where you go anyway.
I think there's a bit of confusion over why I was discussing the extent of the emotional turmoil the Baron put Anna through. My main purpose wasn't to say that the severity of his actions give Anna a license to do whatever she wants to him. It was to emphasize just how much she wasn't a willing participant in this marriage, and how it's ridiculous for us to treat this like a regular marriage.

That being said, I think there is a certain amount of severity that can be overlooked given the situation. If Anna was the person in power, killed the Baron's lover and forced him to live with her afterwards, I would not fault the Baron if he tried to hit her. It is a horrible thing to do kill someone (On its own, on a completely different level than infidelity), and to make someone who loved them live with you in a facade of a loving relationship is, at the very least in my mind, torture. I honestly think that most people in this thread would try to kill the Baron or themselves if put in her position. I would. Particularly knowing how I'd be hounded for the rest of my life even if I did manage to escape. There's no authority who would dispense justice or save me, since the Baron is that authority.

If Anna was left to her own devices, had been able to leave as she wished, and still insisted on hounding the Baron and emotionally abusing him, I'd have a different tune, and I'd accept Geralt's interpretation of them both having blame (Though murder is still on a very different level than emotional abuse). She was not given that luxury though, every time she left the Baron did his utmost to drag her back.

Just to try to summarize things.

Evidence that Anna didn't want to be married to the Baron:
- She left him before he murdered her lover (Things never got better than this)
- She tried to kill him after he murdered her lover
- She tried to kill herself on multiple occasions during the marriage because of him
- She tried to kill the Baron again on later occasions
- She told him that he robbed her life of love, and that the idea of love to her had been destroyed and he might as well just kill her
- He beat her regularly. No matter how much someone is purportedly "asking" to be beaten, it is incredibly painful and unpleasant, and would only make you feel negatively towards the person who did it.
- She couldn't stand the thought of bearing his child, and resorted to consorting with witches just to get rid of it
- Arguably, he raped her
- She spent 2 years hating him continuously, and at the best after that she fell into total indifference

As far as I can tell, the only evidence for her wanting to be married to the Baron is that we only know of her trying to escape from him on two occasions, both of which involved the Baron forcibly attempting to drag her back.

I don't want to retread this more than I already have, so I'll refer to these reasons when it's argued that she was consensually married to the Baron. I really, really don't see it being otherwise. The Baron desperately wanted this marriage to work, it's hard to think of more she could have done to try to sabotage it.

At this point though, I don't think we're really adding much new. I still adamantly believe she's not willingly in the marriage, as I do that he doesn't have any right to force an adult women into a marriage for what he percieves as her own good. There also seems to be disagreement on whether it is immoral for a prisoner to emotionally abuse their captors. My stance is that it is to a negligible degree, particularly in this context, and I'm also unlikely to be moved from that at this point.

If that's an accurate idea of where we're still at, it might be best to leave it at this, to avoid rounding back to the same impasses
 

tzimize

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Adam Jensen said:
People just have to see sexism in everything. If they can't find it easy, they'll dig and dig and dig until they can find something and call it sexist. It's bullshit.

Just to remind you, you're talking about a medieval setting where men had all the power anyway. What the fuck do you expect from a medieval period? Progressivism and equal rights?
My exact thoughts.
 

runic knight

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The society of the game is sexist, this is true. Considering it is sort of a period piece trying to capture the environment of pseudo-medieval europe, this is actually a good thing (since, much like other aspects of culture, history and environment of the setting of the game, it is seeking to be true to that regard so that the more mystical parts, such as the griffon killing and what not, feel more grand medieval adventure and less, well, like skyrim I suppose.) The grim and dark world is excessively violent, often bleak, and, yes, fittingly reflects medieval europe's harsh views on things ,from being sexist, to also being racist (a common theme, especially with the whole war part of the game's background), and superstitious.

That the game reflects a sexist society does not itself mean the game is sexist. That is no better an argument than to try to claim that because a book has racism in it, say, such as Harry Potter, that means the books are racist. It just doesn't work that way.

Geralt, being a character of the time, and one in his own right and not actually an avatar of the player, is going to reflect the ideals of the setting he lives in, for good or ill. While he may be more open to some things and thus push on the setting these differences fro mthe standard, (given how his story and history shaped him in the setting) other things will be native to his character because of the setting pushing on him. again, this all seems sort of intentional, and reflects a deeper character than just an audience mouth piece attached to a swordarm.

The idea that specific named female characters are good looking is not surprising given specific named male ones are. Compare either to the run of the mill peasants you run into and it is generally like comparing models to people of walmart, but given main characters get a lot more investment into their looks by the creative team, this doesn't surprise me nor does it seem that noteworthy or damning of the game itself as sexist.

On the topic of the baron quest, I really liked that one. It was dark and sad and as you went through it you learned everyone involved were not great people, and it really did hammer the point home that the people you see as total monsters are still just flawed human, and regardless your judgements of their actions, you can still see why they did what they did, be it weakness, desperation, fear or whatever else. I really doubt the story there was to try to get you to think the baron's wife was to blame, but rather that everyone involved was human making choices, often poor ones with consequences. Some of them being weird spirit fetuses.
 

Kerg3927

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To quote Geralt...

"They call me the Butcher of Blaviken, and with good reason. Sometimes heads just roll."

This is a guy who walks across the countryside, charges into "bandit" camps (How does he know they are bandits? They could just be some guys out camping.) and hacks everyone to pieces just so he can get some sword practice (XP) and loot all their belongings.

So it shouldn't be terribly surprising if he has other flaws like being a tad bit sexist.
 

Gengisgame

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LonePunman said:
James Theesfeld said:
I was about to something similar myself.

People liked the Barons story, it was a rare portrayal of abusive relationships that is more like real life than almost any you have seen before (minus the supernatural elements).

Not to say there's anything wrong with the abusive spouse getting there's but this was fresh and fit the story better over Geralt caring about the day to day life of a couple he doesn't know.
LonePunman said:
There's a general rule of "attractiveness" that is simply part of nature. I know it can feel demeaning to women that big boobs, tight butts and slender bodies are considered to be the standard for what is attractive, but there's a fairly simple reason behind it - mens minds interpret those body types with good genetics, therefore assuming they would produce the best offspring. Over centuries we've marketed that image as a selfish sexuality sort of thing, but there is a logical scientific reason for it.

In other words, main characters being quote unquote "attractive" isn't necessarily sexist in nature, but rather a pretty typical way to appeal to OUR nature, which is desiring those with healthy genes.
This is literally untrue. Over centuries the standard of beauty and thus healthy or sexy has changed, and it has very little to do with any kind of "state of nature" conceptions of attractiveness.
No, it's quite accurate. Just because or perception of what is a "suitable mate" has fluctuated (being overweight was once considered desirable in a time when many were starving to death), doesn't mean that at its core, our basic primal instinct isn't the driving force.

I mean, one of the ways we know homosexuality is a natural thing is that it occurs in the animal kingdom.

Know what else occurs in the animal kingdom? They seek out the mate with the best genetics.
Beauty is no really in the eye of the beholder to put it another way, the best type of body for breeding is statistically measurable.

Homosexuality does not exist as in males exclusively sleeping with males, it exists in the same way that a normally exclusive straight man outside prison may have sex with another in prison.
 

Woodsey

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The Almighty Aardvark said:
Why is this sexist? The notion of years of spousal abused being even close to equivalent to cheating on your husband is incredibly dismissive of the severity of spousal abuse, and gives the suggestion that somehow she was asking for it by goading him, and cheating on him.
That's a character trying to justify his own actions knowing (or at least suspecting) full well that the man in front of him thinks he's a scumbag. Geralt can respond in several ways, and while one of those is to suggest that they're both as bad as each other, that's entirely up to the player to judge.

Besides which, once you reach the quest's ending epilogue, it's pretty hard to argue (at least in the two versions that I've played through, not sure how many there are) that the developers themselves are treating the characters as having been equally bad.
 

JUMBO PALACE

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Thought I'd pop back into this thread just to see what's transpired. All I learned is that a lot of people on the internet have even more free time than I thought.
 

kuolonen

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runic knight said:
The society of the game is sexist, this is true. Considering it is sort of a period piece trying to capture the environment of pseudo-medieval europe, this is actually a good thing (since, much like other aspects of culture, history and environment of the setting of the game, it is seeking to be true to that regard so that the more mystical parts, such as the griffon killing and what not, feel more grand medieval adventure and less, well, like skyrim I suppose.) The grim and dark world is excessively violent, often bleak, and, yes, fittingly reflects medieval europe's harsh views on things ,from being sexist, to also being racist (a common theme, especially with the whole war part of the game's background), and superstitious.

That the game reflects a sexist society does not itself mean the game is sexist. That is no better an argument than to try to claim that because a book has racism in it, say, such as Harry Potter, that means the books are racist. It just doesn't work that way.

Geralt, being a character of the time, and one in his own right and not actually an avatar of the player, is going to reflect the ideals of the setting he lives in, for good or ill. While he may be more open to some things and thus push on the setting these differences fro mthe standard, (given how his story and history shaped him in the setting) other things will be native to his character because of the setting pushing on him. again, this all seems sort of intentional, and reflects a deeper character than just an audience mouth piece attached to a swordarm.

The idea that specific named female characters are good looking is not surprising given specific named male ones are. Compare either to the run of the mill peasants you run into and it is generally like comparing models to people of walmart, but given main characters get a lot more investment into their looks by the creative team, this doesn't surprise me nor does it seem that noteworthy or damning of the game itself as sexist.

On the topic of the baron quest, I really liked that one. It was dark and sad and as you went through it you learned everyone involved were not great people, and it really did hammer the point home that the people you see as total monsters are still just flawed human, and regardless your judgements of their actions, you can still see why they did what they did, be it weakness, desperation, fear or whatever else. I really doubt the story there was to try to get you to think the baron's wife was to blame, but rather that everyone involved was human making choices, often poor ones with consequences. Some of them being weird spirit fetuses.
Well, I was going to write pretty much the same content as this post, but I see I don't have to. Word-for-word exactly my thoughts, especially Geralt being part of the world, not some space-time traveler who brings the enlightened ideas of 21st century western world to the masses. If he was some holier than though "This is wrong because it is against the values held in other world that I have inexplicably absorbed" -person I couldn't stand playing the whole game.

And I love how people are zooming in on Red Barons worst aspect being an abusive husband, when he is condoning his troops raping as they please all over the countryside, with some victims being so young the rapists aren't even sure if the victim is a boy or a girl at first. (or even after, somehow)
 

Adultratedhydra

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I mean. Are you skipping over the fact that the response is said in a way by Geralt that shows he practicall has disdain for both at the end of the conversation? It's not a "d'awwwww you deserve eachother." It's more said in a vein like "Well dont you two pricks just deserve eachother." and implies he really doesnt like either of them and is tired of going through their shit just to get to Ciri.

But i mean the main question here becomes, does it get boring not having fun?
 

kurupt87

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LifeCharacter said:
The Almighty Aardvark said:
This is how I'm interpreting how the writer was trying to make us view the situation, and this is what I take issue with. As I mentioned in the OP, and Phasmal mentioned in one of her posts, there is this notion that this scene conveys that she made him beat her. That she was verbally abusive to the point he had no other choice. This not only absolves him of responsibility, but it ignores the incredibly horrifying context of their relationship. To summarize things:

- She fell in love with another man and cheated on him
- She announced her intention to leave him
- He killed the man she loved in front of her in a fit of rage and fed him to dogs (Which he admitted he was wrong to do, good for him!)
- She gets into a fit of rage and tries to kill the Baron.

Now as things go, we've established that she didn't love the Baron anymore, and that she now loathes him to the point of wanting to kill him. Over the next however many years of their marriage, she attempted to kill herself multiple times, kill him, and escape. It is very clear that she is being kept in this marriage against her will to a man who she'd rather kill herself than be with. On top of that, the Baron beats her and rapes her, resulting in her trying to abort their child.

No shit she's "emotionally abusive". She loathes this man, and she wants nothing more than to be out of this marriage. In a normal, healthy relationship, emotional abuse is terrible. When you're trapping someone in a relationship with you, beating them, and raping them, you lose the right to expect them to be nice to you.

"But he loves her" and "She knew how to push all the right buttons" are two of the prime justifications that people who engage in spousal abuse use to defend their actions. If someone is emotionally abusive, you leave them. You don't hit them. It's never an excuse, even in relationships without so much context behind them.
Having played Witcher 3 (so anyone who wants to keep going on about how anyone who finds the game sexist didn't play it can go away right now), all I can say is all of this. There's absolutely nothing wrong (it's, in fact, quite laudable and a sign of good writing) with making an abusive husband three dimensional and have his own characteristics that someone might find sympathetic. The problem comes in presenting this man, who murdered his wife's lover, brutally beats her, rapes her, and holds her prisoner as somehow morally equivalent to his wife because she isn't nice and polite to her abusive, rapist, murderer husband or claiming that she's somehow responsible for the way he treats her.
She is responsible. The way he treats her however is not justified.

He goes off to war and spends years doing horrible things, seeing horrible things. Shell shock is a thing, alcohol as treatment of shell shock isn't particularly effective. He comes home to find his wife with another man, he's not going to take it very well.

And this is not set in our world, where violence is not an acceptable action. It is set in a fictional world where violence is not only acceptable, it is the go to solution for those with power.

Again though, there is NO WAY the Baron's actions are justifiable to us. Given the setting though, they should be totally expected.

OT: Yeah, Witcher 3's pretty sexist. Now, don't get me wrong, it's certainly better than some other games and other fantasy series supposedly set in a medieval period, but that doesn't somehow make it perfectly egalitarian. And the claims of historical realism or some other similar nonsense falls apart because of things other people have said: apparently introducing magic and monsters and powerful sorceresses results in a society that still views women as inherently inferior and subordinate. And let's not forget the apparently super historical and realistic strumpets (and whatever else the random NPC's were called) in hot pants and skimpy tops in what I imagine is pretty damn cold climate.
I don't see how introducing magic and monsters somehow changes the fact that women are physically smaller and weaker than men. Power through physical strength is very effective in a society where violence is the norm, it's also really easy to exert over those smaller and weaker than you.

There needs to be a reason why men won't exert their physical strength over women. Take Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, that does it in an interesting way. That is set in a matriarchal society that has come around because of a societal gender guilt, men are responsible for breaking the world.