In this blog post,
I will look at how women are portrayed as warriors in the 1999 video game King
of Dragon Pass. King of Dragon Pass (from here on KoDP) is a role-play strategy
game from A Sharp. The game is made up of painted scenes, in which the player
is confronted with a situation and must then choose from a list of decisions. The
player leads a bronze age clan, which is inspired by Norse culture and mythology.
The people of the clan are called Orlanthi, after their main deity Orlanth. Men
and women are attributed with different emotions as we can see in the following
excerpt from the manual.
“The differences between the sexes, as you Orlanthi
perceive them, are that men are more emotional, prone to uncontrolled anger and
impulsive acts. Women are more calculating, capable of keeping track of their
original reasons for choosing a path instead of getting caught up in the
moment. Men are more often warriors and fighters, but a substantial number of
women put aside cooking and rearing children to practice with the sword. The
abilities of your clan’s heroes and leaders have less to do with their gender
than with the gods they worship: worshippers of war gods excel in combat, the
farming gods’ devotees are more at home behind the plow.”[1]
-King of Dragon
Pass manual
We see that
Orlanthi society allows for a great flexibility in gender roles. This is
highlighted by the presence of a group of warrior women in the game, also
called the Vingans. Vinga is the Orlanthi goddess of adventure and the patron of
women. She is often depicted as a warrior with short orange hair. Followers of
Vinga are exclusively women and dye their hair orange in honor of their
goddess.
 |
| A Vingan clan chief with characteristically orange hair, KoDP[2] |
The player can sacrifice cows to Vinga to gain two blessings with important game effects. The first blessing is Fyrdwomen, this inspires more women of the clan to join the Fyrd (war party). This comes at the cost of lowered childbirth. The second blessing is Pathfinder, which protects the explorers who the player sends out on the game map. This blessing is more powerful if a Vingan leads the exploration party. Another excerpt from the manual shows us how gender is not a barrier to pursuing other professions and positions in Orlanthi society.
“The population categories make no distinction between
men and women. Both men and women farm, fight, hunt, and serve as nobles
responsible for the ceremonies that maintain contact with the gods. More men
than women fight as weaponthanes and as footmen in the fyrd, but even that
balance shifts slightly if the clan worships Vinga, goddess of adventurers.”[3]
-King of Dragon
Pass manual
A point of critique
on the portrayal of the Vingans could be that they are presented as aggressive
and violent. These are usually attributed to masculine behavior. There is
little room for Vingan femininity.
In conclusion, we see that video games such as KoDP can portray women successfully and positively in non-traditional gender roles. The flexibility of gender roles in KoDP is worthy of further study.
[1] http://a-sharp.com/kodp/ios/KoDP-Manual.pdf
p4
[2] http://kingofdragonpass.wikia.com/wiki/Forming_a_Tribe:_the_Female_Chiefs_Clan
[3]
http://a-sharp.com/kodp/ios/KoDP-Manual.pdf p13
[4] http://kingofdragonpass.wikia.com/wiki/Vingan_Mercenary_Attack
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