It looks like the better question wasn't "what is Philo's class," but instead "what is Philo?" (Insert Evil DM Laugh here).
Found out something interesting the other day. Not through any conscious effort on my part or anything, but MeatShield passes the Bechdel Test.The Bechdel Test was created by Alison Bechdel of the comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For and can help determine gender bias in media. In order to pass the Bechdel Test, the work in question has to satisfy the following requirements:
- It has to have at least two women in it,
- who talk to each other,
- about something besides a man.
We have Becky and Jaine, who do talk to each other and I don't think either of them have ever talked about men. I don't win anything for passing this test and I shouldn't. I just thought it was interesting to point out, as I hadn't heard of this test until two days ago. So, there you go.
Take care,
~Rob
My guess is Doppleganger (or Changeling from more recent editions of D&D, starting with the Eberron campaign setting, if Rob is allowing that race ^_^).
More important, IMHO, is “Is this Philo?”
And if so, does Jaine’s dad know the person he sent to guard his daughter is a shapeshifter? I’m thinking yes, since he seems to have some trouble holding his Philo form. If he was working with the Elves for a long time, it’s likely that someone would have noticed, unless he had someone covering for him.
(I use the masculine pronouns since we haven’t seen any female forms for Philo yet, at least that I know of. But if we see a new female character named Phyllis…)
Another question is, would Day’l have had shapeshifting abilities under the influence of that potion, if he’d realized he use the hair of a shapeshifter?
Also, kudos to Philo for maintaining his form while chloroformed!
@Norman: No one ever said Day’l was a genius.;)
The Bechdel Test is a meaningless piece of crap. It only determines whether a story contains women, not whether it contains gender bias. A work of fiction can easily pass the test while being the most sexist thing in the world, or fail the test without being sexist at all.
The only thing it’s good for is inventing a reason to complain about something.
@doornik1142: I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m aware that the Bechdel Test isn’t a scientific test for determining gender bias; I simply found it interesting and thought it worth sharing. 🙂
The actual interesting question in my mind was just how the potion might interact with a shapeshifter in other ways. Day’l probably dodged a bullet there in that it worked on Philo’s current assumed form rather than giving him Philo’s natural form, but what would have happened if Philo had shifted while Day’l was still under the influence of the potion? Would he have shifted too?
@Rob: Apologies if I came on a bit strong. It’s just that…I have an intense dislike for political correctness and for those who style themselves as crusaders against “-isms” in works of fiction (e.g. sexism, racism, etc.). By and large I find their claims to be wildly exaggerated at best and little more than an excuse to complain and beg for attention.
The Bechdel Test particularly annoys me because “gender bias” crusaders have somehow convinced people that it makes some kind of sense, so it gets a lot of mileage. I can’t tell you how many arguments I’ve had with people who claimed that some comic or some movie is sexist because it fails the meaningless standards of the Bechdel Test.
Doppelganger! At least if you are being fair it would seem that is what he is. Yellow eyes, no hair, gangly features, and shape shifting abilities.
Oh, just what we need, the DnD version of Odo.
Has anyone noticed a gender bias in Gender Bias?
How come there is no reverse-Bechdale test?
I’ve seen a few cartoons that would fail that test and no-one ever accused them of being sexist.
On the Bechdel Test…
I’d say what’s deservedly failing the test is when you have two or more women, that talk to one another, but only about men, or when you have no good reason to fail on the first or second point. One could think of a lot of stories that have good reasons not to meet the first or second particular, but if you meet the first two and fail on the third (such stories may be less likely to be of interest to women for other reasons, but aren’t necessarily inherently sexist), that’s a definite warning sign.
This is potentially a magical fart-joke.
Aaaaand…. GO!
1.) Holding a fart is a -2 to will saves for the duration of said holding for shapeshifters.
2.) NEVER eat the cookies the villain offers you. They’ll get you in the end. In some cases? Out the end.
3.) Dhur wasn’t the only one in the potions…..
4.) “I’d better light a candle…..”
5.) ‘Magical Exhaust’ is a little known, and closely guarded secret among spell casters. There are consequences for holding it in too long.
6.) No more letting Dhur pick the restaurant. Orccish cuisine just doesn’t sit well. With anyone.
7.) “UGH! EVERY time I eat gnoll-ese food…..”
And I can go on….. 😀 I do it out of only the highest respect. 🙂
Nice, two shape shifters in the party now. I wonder. Do shapeshifters have a sex, or just a preferred one? Guess it depends on the shifter.
@Mike Lewis raises an interesting point. Where do shapeshifters fit in the Bechdel test […substantively, the “test” provides an interesting point for discussion. No test is perfect and if someone doesn’t like it, then they don’t have to use it. It’s like a red flashlight: good for illuminating some things, not others….]; since they can be any gender they wanna be at any particular time.
But the women DO talk about men to each other: “What an idiot!” “How pathetic.” “I bet if you told Ch’p to roll over and beg, he’d do it.” Those all constitute “conversation”….sorta…
I’m going with “Doppelganger” “Your time has come, primate!” from BGI
Wow, Andor. Don’t bother ducking, because the point went way over your head. The point of the Bechdel test isn’t whether women talk to each other about men. No one disputes that. The point is that women talk to each other about topics other than men, and there are people out there – both women and men – who would like to see that reflected in fictional works as well.
doornik1142 has an excellent point in that it’s not a surefire test – theoretically, one could have a couple of women discussing, say, tax law to start with, and then the author could plagiarize from American Psycho after that. That doesn’t make the test a “meaningless piece of crap,” though. Half the people out there are being marginalized, and that’s not good, whether you like that being pointed out or not. If nothing else, it’s something to make people think. And while the test itself may have been whipped up in five minutes, everyone else has had 28 years to come up with something better.
Stardrake has the best take on it, though. Not every story needs to pass the Bechdel test, but if you’ve knocked off the first two, why not make a clean sweep of it? It’s not that difficult.