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A Very Brief Modern History of the Chain Mail Bikini
If you’re a modern gamer of any sort, and definitely if you are a gamer of the fantasy sort, you’ve seen the memes and complaints about armor designs for female characters. Namely, the complaint rests around how little the armor actually covers.
The images are common, although modern sensibilities and the increasing popularity of gaming among women has decreased the appearance of such outfits somewhat. The criticisms revolve around the idea that such outfits are made just to tantalize as such armor is of course impractical. These were common enough that Blizzard, which held a weekly WoW comic contest, nixed comics mocking male vs. female armor. Apparently, it got to be too common a theme. However, the familiar “chainmail bikini” look didn’t start that way.
“My massive pecs will protect me from the venomous serpent!” (Art by Frank Frazetta)
Really, we can go back to the sword-and-sorcery tales from the days of pulp fiction. Much of this early fantasy, of which Robert E. Howard’s Conan is a prime example. These sorts of stories have worlds where men are real men, women are real women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri are real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. The John Carter of Mars series from Edgar Rice Burroughs, though more of a space opera, has similar themes. The Martians wear next to nothing – stuff that would be beyond scandalous on Earth but is perfectly fine on Barsoom, and such fashion choices are common in either gender.
“Bloodstone” by Frank Frazetta
Artists later tried to recreate the primal worlds of Barsoom or Conan’s primordial Earth. Frank Frazetta is one of the best known of this time (though, of course, there were plenty more). If we note, we can easily find women in scanty armor if that, but there are plenty of men in minimal clothes as well; sometimes Frazetta’s heroes are protected with naught but a codpiece, helmet, and layer after layer of rippling muscles. Such art is a theme of his. Today it would still offend modern sensibilities in that the men are the primal brutes saving the beautiful and sensuous women but, make no mistake, the state of little armor was a common theme.
“This is my codpiece!” (Art by Boris Vallejo)
Boris Vallejo followed this tradition, though he has more women with the role of the killer or hunter. Vallejo’s women range from the Frazetta look to the well-muscled body-built look. They are not scantily-clad damsels in distress, but warriors, sorceresses, and assassins. There’s still the theme of the well-built, well-endowed humans full of brutal power and virility. This continued to contemporaries and protégés of Vallejo, including Julie Bell who favors body-builders in her fantasy art, showing the power of the male and female form.
“Look at my horse; my horse is amazing …” (Art by Boris Vallejo)
Much of this continues well into the ’80s with comic books keeping the look. Conan had two comic book titles: one where he was still a barbarian wearing as little as possible, another where he was a king. Apparently, being royal means putting on a dadgum pair of paints. Other titles had a similar look, such as Warlord, where the title character wore a winged helm and a leopard-print loincloth. That’s all he needed to kick evil’s derriere. Of course, another of these popular titles was Red Sonja.
Pictured: Potential guest on “What Not to Wear”
Red Sonja was a spin-off of Conan and she had what is the iconic chainmail bikini. Sonja swore an oath to never lie with a man who could not defeat her in combat and, at the time, none could match her. Since she was within the Conan world, she maintained the Conan look, that is, fight wearing as little as absolutely necessary. One’s skill as a swordsman or swordswoman was the best defense against incoming blows, definitely not a full suit of heavy armor.
David Sim would later poke fun at this look in his Cerebus series with the character Red Sophia. The title aardvark character defeats Red Sophia who has made a similar oath. She disrobes in front of him and asks what he thinks of this. He looks at her bared torso and comments that the scars will heal once she ditches the chainmail bikini and goes back to regular clothes. It’s a little mockery of the popular image, noting the pitfalls of such attire.
Thus, the armor-kini remained a popular image to use for some time, and since the game industry, for some time, was dominated by geeky adolescent males, it was guaranteed popularity, that’s for sure. And, most likely, it’s a calculated choice for a company to go the scantily clad woman in armor as it’ll attract that large audience.
This has less to do with the history of such warrior women and more to do with the marketing maxim of “sex sells.” Unfortunately for us, the use of such marketing ignored why the original authors and artists sought such portrayals – to demonstrate the raw power and allure of the human form in all sexes, not just the female. We have sacrificed one aspect of art for something lesser. Except not for less clothes, we demand more nowadays.
Published in Entertainment
It’s about time this topic got the treatment it deserves here.
And illustrated, too.
I go pretty skimpy on my WoW toons. Most people think I’m a dude. :x
Some people avoid controversy, but I dive right in!
Another illustration from Edgar Rice Burrough’s The Gods of Mars. Not that the Thark is wearing more than our hero, John Carter, which is to say he’s wearing something as opposed to Carter fighting in his birthday suit.
Me, too! I built a warrior just so I could get that chain mail bikini, only to have it disappear from Azeroth by the time my weary 20-something made it to Westfall!
I really enjoyed this post. I enjoyed the attention to the display of the physical form.
Adequate armor can hide imperfect forms where less puts on display the full power of a well-built body. It creates a display of power, rather than utility.
Right, which is what artists like Frazetta, Vallejo, and Bell are all celebrating in their art. It works so well for the Conan or Mars stories because the strength of those characters comes not from the tools of civilization but in their primal nature or in their strength of character (and superhuman abilities because a guy happens to be from Earth).
Why, I ask? It doesn’t make much sense,
That a man of my stature should have to wear a dress.
I’d comment, but then I’d be telling more than I care to on a public forum.
I think it must be a law that there is someone associated with every film produced whose job it is to get all the armor wrong.
I only played gnomes because they had the only male toons that didn’t look like sloth.
My human warrior made me feel good about my thighs.
Seriously, did you ever notice how *big* they were?
My guild’s name is Aspect of the Sloth.
Technical Advisor: This armor is all wrong. And he’s not even wearing it right.
Director: Looks cool. Great job, wardrobe!
The 2004 movie King Arthur had the knights (actually the last Roman forces in Britannia) riding around on horses and equipped with stirrups. Except that stirrups weren’t introduced to Europe for at least another century and didn’t instantly catch on when they were.
These mopes look like they looted the dumpster back behind a Visigoth army surplus store.
What was I watching last week? Oh, right: the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice. During the finale, a Bond girl accompanies an invading army — all whom are dressed in identical gray jumpsuits — wearing a bikini. My almost-9-year-old daughter sat down next to me and commented on how what she was wearing was inappropriate for a battle. I told her that in James Bond movies, the women wear very little clothing. “Why?” Well, James Bond and a lot of the men who watch his movies like to look at pretty women wearing very little clothing. She looked at me, scoldingly, and said, “Even you, dad?” I shrugged.
Like most fathers, I don’t want my daughters to feel demeaned by growing up in a sexualized society, but I also want them to accept and become comfortable with themselves as part of the world we live in, and that includes, for women, knowing how to present yourself for certain occasions. Someday, it will be a good thing for one (or many) men to find both of them sexy, and I think it enriches our culture to celebrate the beauty of women outside and in (but, c’mon, the outside is a lot more fun in superficial contexts). I shouldn’t have to feel ashamed to admit to my own daughter that a James Bond girl is a glorious thing in a silly and fun kind of way, and it’s OK for girls to think that it’s fun, too.
I know what you mean, but the mental picture of wearing a bikini while men are in uniform being “how to present yourself for certain occasions” is really too funny!
I quit playing WoW with a million gold and a guild bank full of mats if anyone needs anything.
Man. I was going to say that I got up to level 38 on Tetris…
…but suddenly I don’t feel like quite the big shot I thought I was.
I think the best guild name I ever saw was Sultans of Swing. Though I liked my personal one, too: Baker Street Irregulars.
Oh, I wasn’t a very good player, just a good hoarder.
Actually, in one of my favorite Japanese movie series, Lone Wolf and Cub, there is a female assassin who uses nudity as an effective weapon. She has a demon tattooed on her breasts and will flash her opponents to disorient and frighten them before going in for the kill. She knows what’s what and uses it to her advantage.
There’s probably something even predating the barbarian virility image. Roman gladiators wore armor that is remarkably close to the chain mail bikini in its form. The chest was unprotected, and only a heavy belt protected the lower abdomen. Their sword arm might be armored, and they wore a helmet (sometimes). Also, they appear to have eaten a very carb-heavy diet, so they were probably had a layer of fat over their muscles (which were still pretty impressive: they did fight for a living).
The hypothesized effect of this is that the gladiator battles were very bloody, but also lasted long enough to be entertaining and demonstrate the heroic resolve of the fighters.
The sword arm is protected, so you can’t just disable your opponent and finish them off at leisure. Likewise, the helmet is protected, so you can’t kill them quickly with a blow to the head. A strike at the chest would have to be perfect, or else likely glance off the ribs. A blow at the abdomen will be caught by the belt and directed away from the guts and to the flanks -which are covered in a layer of fat that will bleed beautifully, but not actually slow the gladiator down.
It is an armor kit intended not to protect the wearer, but to prevent a quick fight. It is armor intended for entertainment.
That the Gauls and Germans that the Romans fought also tended not to wear much armor (mostly just using a shield, except for the chiefs) probably added to the entertainment value.
Nice article. There were not enough illustrations for us to disapprove of though.
I always admired ‘Gnomeland Security’.
My sever has “US Horder Control.”
Armor is expensive. It also requires a minimum level of skilled craft. Each ring of chain mail has to be fashioned individually then attached. It shouldn’t be surprising loosely organized tribes did not have the industry to make armor. Spears, shields and swords are simpler and can be produced much easier.
Realism? Women even fighting is silly and they’re in a story purely for prurient reasons.