I have finished The Crippled God. What a trip this has been! Madness, I know you are stuck on Midnight Tides, but I'll just say that it's at the end of The Bonehunters that one can really get a sense of the direction that the story is going.

A preview: Japanese Malazan

http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=sr_nr_n_3?rh=k%3A%E3%83%9E%E3%83%A9%E3%82%B6%E3%83%B3%2Cn%3A507300&keywords=%E3%83%9E%E3%83%A9%E3%82%B6%E3%83%B3&ie=UTF8&qid=1378006560&rnid=2321267051

Firstly, it's not as if money given to NASA is sucked into a black hole never to be seen again. It is spent in various industries, and contractors from many fields are hired to do various tasks related to the NASA projects. Secondly, just like with spending money on any other endeavour, there are often unintended technological innovations that benefit the public at large that fall out of NASA projects. See here for some examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies

Third, while Neil likes to wax poetic about the exploration of space (doing so is part of his job, after all. He is, first and foremost, the director of a planetarium.), there is something to be said about the value that comes from inspiring the masses, which space exploration does for many.

It all depends on what results one values. If pure job numbers are the ultimate goal, then the money can certainly be better spent elsewhere.

I have finished Dust of Dreams and am making good time on The Crippled God.

However - in thoughts to your question, Meyna:

Quote from: Meyna on October 29, 2013, 12:07:46 pm

The question, really, is: why, in our culture, must depictions of female combatants (superheroes, mages, warriors, whatever) be sexualized in order for them to be the most popular/profitable?

- appeals towards sexual attraction work a percentage of the time.
- the existing consumer base is majority male.
- the possible consumer influx due to appeal to female (whom may or may not already view the masculine characters depicted as appealing towards sexual attraction) is not great enough to consider their market population.
- the loss of existing female costumer base is acceptable when compared to the sustained population over time.
- the fallout from concerned advocates is too easily appeased.

Yes, agreed on all counts. My issue is that our culture results in those conclusions to begin with. I always hesitate to declare a thesis stating that society is wrong and should change, because the process of amending a culture is a lesson in futility (or luck). Unless I'm a Dunyain, there is no telling whether my micro-effort will affect macro-change in a way that I intended, or have the opposite effect (or not change anything at all, which is the likely statistical outcome).

Quote from: Meyna on October 29, 2013, 12:07:46 pm

When it comes to the companies profiting the most, the illustrators are drawing a style dictated by their higher-ups, who make those decisions based on what their marketing team tells them will make the most money. The question, really, is: why, in our culture, must depictions of female combatants (superheroes, mages, warriors, whatever) be sexualized in order for them to be the most popular/profitable? Sure, one could look into niche markets to find female characters where who they are has less to do with their looks and more to do with their skills and other parts of their personality, but it's disheartening to have to dig for these characters while they're overshadowed by their physically endowed counterparts. With male characters, sure, some of them are sexualized one way or the other; but, most of them get a few sentences of description, an illustration or two with modest yet unique features and wardrobe, and then they let their actions and personality speak for themselves.

One frustrating trope that comes to mind is that when there actually is a competent-yet-modest female character, attention is drawn to that fact as if in fascination. Whether this is commentary of our own culture on the part of the author, or a subconscious march in lock-step with that same culture, it still stinks

Long story short, picture 1 looks like cosplay and picture 2 looks like a serious warrior because of the feedback loop between our culture seeing them as such, and the producers of these fictional characters giving us what we want, and that situation is maybe undesirable.

How do you mean, 'giving us what we want', Meyna? This is how you make it seem you're not making your own preferential judgment. From what I understand, you don't want this - so how is this what 'we' want this? 'We' don't, not when you are included amongst the voices involved.

What I'm seeing here are two preferential judgments
1. Women cannot do adventure unless they have enlarged fitness indicators and show them.
2. Women cannot do adventure unless they have modest fitness indicators and are modest about showing them.

I agree that #1 is both problematic and largely perpetuated (for cash).

But as much as #2 is pushed into a corner, I see it as problematic as well.

Both of them are extremism.

Sure, I'd pay one wouldn't want to take any edge case/an inch one gives towards perhaps 5% of women adventurers possibly having enlarged fitness indicators and showing them and someone taking that a mile, increasing the 5% to 10%, then 20%, etc (because it's profitable and easy to do) to essentially go right back to #1. I pay that people exploit edge cases like that. So anyone being very wary of adding edge cases/exceptions like that, I can undersand that entirely.

But on the other hand who has interest in dogma? And #2 is dogma as much as #1 is. Worse, the practitioners of #1 are actually more lax in their dogma, having an occasional modest female adventurer on their retinue. I suspect currently that anyone supporting #2 would never be so lax in their dogmatic practice.

By "we," I meant the fanbase that is being catered to, and, equally, the culture that conditions the fanbase to respond so strongly to that type of content to begin with. That was a problematic use of words on my part. Sorry!

Your 2 example above is indeed more dogmatic because those following 2 are, whether they know it or not, striving to subvert the cultural preference towards 1, so they need to be stringent. Those following your example 1 have a bit more freedom so long as they follow the underlying formula for success. What I see as negative lies not in whether a particular writer/artist/company chooses to go with 1 or 2, but that our culture rewards those who go with option 1.

Something I've just thought of but can't think of examples right now: I'd like to compare the average descriptions/depictions of male fantasy/adventurer human/near-human characters to the descriptions/depictions of female characters of equivalent role but who happen to be either humanoid but far enough away so as not to be able to relate to them, or bestial/mythical races and see how the general characteristics of those two sets of descriptions and depictions align. I would think they would line up pretty well.

As if I need to pay for more gold!

A woman's sexuality can be a source of power (you use the example of belly-dancing), but the problem arises when that concept is applied too much, and in places where it has no logical place being. In this case, Wizards is essentially saying "This is how we want players to picture a prototypical (in the psychological sense) female battle-mage," or whatever. The male battle-mage gets some practical garb, but let's make the female sacrifice some wardrobial practicality for the sake of tapping into her "sexual powers". Ditto for the female hunter, paladin, wizard, dragon-knight, etc. Sure, a person in battle would want to use whatever advantage they can, but having excessive female sexuality in the art sends an unattractive message.

I'm a few months into one of my periodical phases where I let hobbies and intellectual stimuli pass me by, so now I generally come home and do "nothing". Darn my long commute and low pay. And excuses.