Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone,

Recently I have been having some thoughts about this title. I decided that my current goal in the game is to achieve the title “The Emperor” but I’ve encountered a tiny problem. Since all my characters are female, as I am in real life, I thought it would be quite odd seeing a female character with the Emperor title, as it’s made for a male person. And since I wanted it to be on my main character, I don’t really think it would be fair if I had to change the gender only because there isn’t a female version.
Not to mention that Empresses really did exist and that I’m not just making up a female title for an emperor

What are your guys thoughts on this? Do you think it should be implemented in the game so it would fit any character, not only the male ones?

Looking forward to hearing your feedback!

Rhea aka Syl Vardainiel,
Aurora Glade

If I were you I’d consider the word ‘emperor’ unisex. Most female counterwords aren’t even necessary.

Doctor Orderly MD PhD DDS.7625:

If I were you I’d consider the word ‘emperor’ unisex. Most female counterwords aren’t even necessary.

What you’re saying is even sexist.
The word Empress was made and exists for a reason: It’s for female versions of emperors.
If one would consider emperor as unisex, should we do the same for king as well? No queens then?

That’s just silly.

Vadainiel… its not silly at all it is a fair point… actually a feminist point too. Titles are created to suggest positions of power… if you then distinguish between male and female titles then you are making gender part of the power equation… why is it necessary to know one’s sex in order to hold that position of power? Surely, genderising a word is more sexist?

Any case, this is just a game… you can read all about this other stuff in books.

All that said… adding the title empress for female characters instead of emperor would appease the majority of players and is probably a better idea than explaining the power relations connected with genderised titles for positions of power to a largely uninterested player base.

So how will we ever get to a point where both genders are treated on the same level if people like you demand such things. Think about it.

Treated on the same level? How is it the same when a female is being called an emperor, a male title, when there actually is a word for that same female emperor and that is the empress. It was made for a reason.
Would a guy like to be called a woman’s title? Why are there queens then?

Would you like if, for example, your male character had the title “The Queen”? Would you rather be the king, instead, if there were such a title.

This is not about same rights or treating everyone the same, it’s about implementing a word in the game that actually exists, and it has been used for females who ruled countries when there were no men, aka Emperors.
By implementing this, you would have the option to choose between the Emperor and the Empress, depending on who you’re playing with at that moment.

When I said sexist, i thought of this “Most female counterwords aren’t even necessary.” which, by all means, is sexist.
How is that treating everyone the same? Saying that female counter words aren’t necessary? Why were they made then?

Queen Elizabeth is called The Queen. Not the king. Just saying. Just an example. Think about that.

Vardainiel.3674:

Treated on the same level? How is it the same when a female is being called an emperor, a male title, when there actually is a word for that same female emperor and that is the empress. It was made for a reason.

Yeah, the difference is that one word means “male monarch” and the other “female monarch”. The point that people are trying to get across to you is that in modern day, making such distinctions between the two genders is sexist.

And yes, if both are referred to with the same title, that is equality. After all, you cannot say that “Emperor” would be a male title since it can obviously refer to a female in this world. And it can also obviously refer to a male as well. Thus, it is equal.

Would you like if, for example, your male character had the title “The Queen”? Would you rather be the king, instead, if there were such a title.

Actually no, I would like to be called The Supreme Ruler. But maybe that’s just me.

When I said sexist, i thought of this “Most female counterwords aren’t even necessary.” which, by all means, is sexist.
How is that treating everyone the same? Saying that female counter words aren’t necessary? Why were they made then?

… I could go all linguistic philosophy on you, but I’d rather not do that.

Just because a word exists does not mean that it should be used. In fact, there are multiple work titles, such as “stewardess” that have recently fallen out of use in favor of unisex titles such as “flight attendant”.

Queen Elizabeth is called The Queen. Not the king. Just saying. Just an example. Think about that.

Well actually, in the case of most royal families, it makes sense to have the titles be separate, since often they have both a King and a Queen and it wouldn’t be possible to refer to them with the same title. Same is true of chess pieces, by the way.

Vardainiel.3674:

Would you like if, for example, your male character had the title “The Queen”? Would you rather be the king, instead, if there were such a title.

Yes please (to being called Queen on a male toon)!

Vardainiel.3674:

When I said sexist, i thought of this “Most female counterwords aren’t even necessary.” which, by all means, is sexist.

If ALL feminine words were never used again (or conversely all masculine words), then it wouldn’t be sexist at all. In fact it would make everything unisex, which, as someone pointed out already is slowly happening. What I think you are thinking of is “if all female counter-words were gone, we would only have male”, which isn’t 100% accurate. What we would have left are just words. We give meaning to the sex of words by focusing on that part, instead of the other, which is simply most words are just words with no sex at all.

Now if you meant counter-titles, that is a whole other matter. Since Anet has created a new world called Tyria (not new to gw2, but new as in separate from ours), they can choose which titles are going to be used, and which aren’t.

Vardainiel.3674:

How is that treating everyone the same? Saying that female counter words aren’t necessary? Why were they made then?

Think about WHEN they were made. Just because something WAS used at some point, doesn’t mean it SHOULD still be used today. Many female counter words were created to show a need for distinction between male and female, which is sexist.

Then i’d suggest the title be modified to “The Empress” and declare that to be unisex.

Vardainiel.3674:

Queen Elizabeth is called The Queen. Not the king. Just saying. Just an example. Think about that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Netherlands#.C2.A71:_King

Dutch constitution, not a single mention of “Queen”, even though we’ve had exclusively queens for most of the 20th century. (We have a king now, but that’s beside the point). The point is that “King” (or in your case, “Emperor”) is a genderless title so much as it is a gendered title. In the constitution’s case, it’s a genderless title, and simply refers to “the monarch”. It would, however, have been silly to go around calling Beatrix (our former queen) “King”, even though legally you’d have been entirely right to call her that.

You’re entirely right to want to have the title “Empress” instead of “Emperor”. I see no fault of logic in that, despite the fact that you could argue that “Emperor” works just fine if we take things absolutely literally. However, the arguments you’ve made so far for your case are a little silly, if not self-demeaning. From a gender egalitarian point of view, it’d be absolutely ideal to do away with the feminine title and just use the masculine title for everyone, regardless of gender. Why the masculine title? Because French. The French language treats masculine as being masculine, and as being gender-neutral.

Crash course:
“They” in French translates to “ils” (masculine) and “elles” (feminine). However, if you refer to a group that contains both sexes (even if it’s only one man and a lot of women), you use “ils” (neutral), which happens to be the exact same word as the masculine version. The French know this not to be sexist, but a simple fact of their language, though of course some feminist extremists will disagree and scream “historical patriarchy!”.

So you’ve absolutely failed to refute that argument, and you’d have to be a genius to indeed refute it. And yet, I agree with you to rename the title for one simple reason: Guild Wars 2 is not a work of ideology, and nowhere else in the game does it use gender-neutral terms (i.e., neutralised masculine words) on women. The French version of the game fairly uses the correct masculine and feminine prefixes where applicable, which means that rangers are either “rôdeurs” (masculine) or “rôdeuses” (feminine). This hints that the game’s text implementation is capable of taking the character’s sex into account, and I see no reason why it shouldn’t in case of this title.

The setting of the game is, generally speaking, would be when the upper echelons of the ruling class are extremely sexist, so it only makes sense to adhere to sexist nomenclature rules. I agree with Vardanial, we need more sexism in this game, any amount of gender equality is immersion breaking. Case in point: find a single woman in Hoebrak who is actually working on something. Loads of men are hammering on fences and kitten, but the women are just chilling out, presumably waiting to get pregnant or to give birth.

Vardainiel.3674:

Treated on the same level? How is it the same when a female is being called an emperor, a male title, when there actually is a word for that same female emperor and that is the empress. It was made for a reason.
Would a guy like to be called a woman’s title? Why are there queens then?

Would you like if, for example, your male character had the title “The Queen”? Would you rather be the king, instead, if there were such a title.

This is not about same rights or treating everyone the same, it’s about implementing a word in the game that actually exists, and it has been used for females who ruled countries when there were no men, aka Emperors.
By implementing this, you would have the option to choose between the Emperor and the Empress, depending on who you’re playing with at that moment.

When I said sexist, i thought of this “Most female counterwords aren’t even necessary.” which, by all means, is sexist.
How is that treating everyone the same? Saying that female counter words aren’t necessary? Why were they made then?

Queen Elizabeth is called The Queen. Not the king. Just saying. Just an example. Think about that.

You can call me queen all day long as long as i get the perks that come with it. Hell ill even take princess if i get sone of that royal gold. Id love to live such a coosh life

empress sounds so powerful that i would like to use it on my male charater!
i approve! and i’m working toward it too… good luck to you future empress!

“The Monarch” would work for either gender, sounds impressive and references a Venture Brothers’ villain (one known for his style of dress that’s for sure). Sign me up for “The Monarch” please!

Psycho Robot.7835:

The setting of the game is, generally speaking, would be when the upper echelons of the ruling class are extremely sexist, so it only makes sense to adhere to sexist nomenclature rules. I agree with Vardanial, we need more sexism in this game, any amount of gender equality is immersion breaking. Case in point: find a single woman in Hoebrak who is actually working on something. Loads of men are hammering on fences and kitten, but the women are just chilling out, presumably waiting to get pregnant or to give birth.

Actually, they are chilling out because they’ve just given men their daily orders and are waiting for them to finish and come back for more. It’s a brains versus brawn thing. ^^

Note that female Seraphs are called “Sir,” as seen in more than one PS voice scene. Tyria is far more gender equal than Earth in many ways.

All I wanted to say and/or suggest is that the Empress title would look amazing on a female, and it would sound amazing too.
I didn’t want to bring up this whole sexist discussion. I am not separating two genders, I am up for equality but equality doesn’t mean women having men’s titles when there are titles for women too. I would find that demeaning, in a way.

The whole point is that every other title works unisex and it works fine, this one in particular caught my attention and I thought of suggesting maybe adding the empress too, because it would look really amazing, and you can’t argue with that. Plus, it would fit female characters more than emperor would, even though emperor indeed is a powerful word itself.

If Anet put the title The Empress in the first place, and that being the only title, I would see if it would be possible to have the emperor put in too. Not because of separation and sexism, but because it would look much much better on female and male characters, plus you’d have the option to choose between them, which is kind of cool.

By all means, I am sorry if I offended someone? Or if someone misunderstood me or whatever happened here, I just wanted to suggest a nice little feature and change.

There’s no need for you guys to get so upset like this, i was just making a suggestion.

i totally agree with you, and as i said i really like the empress title so much that i wanted for my character even if it is a male… it sounds just that much better… but i’m a weirdo.

anyway i hope they do it!

The cultural outfit title is “emperor” because it’s a play on “the emperor’s new clothes”. This has nothing to do with gender and changing it to “empress” undermines the whole reason it’s called what it is.

Case closed.

LOL! how funny would it be if you saw a male character running around with the title ‘’the Queen’’ haha, no but consider the word actor and actress, regardless of gender all want to be referred to as actors now because its sexist to distinguish, unfortunately not all titles cross gender boundaries with the same ease.

panzer.6034:

The cultural outfit title is “emperor” because it’s a play on “the emperor’s new clothes”. This has nothing to do with gender and changing it to “empress” undermines the whole reason it’s called what it is.

Case closed.

I actually do know that, I just thought this could be a nice little feature and that it would look really good on a character.

If you didn’t want the discussion you shouldn’t have falsely accused me of sexism :p.
Anywho, I’m not against titles such as The Empress, but I doubt it’ll be implemented (not enough reason to), hence my earlier response.

“masculine” pronouns are historically gender neutral

the very acknowledgement of distinguished pronouns for each gender is, itself, sexism. this thread is hypocrisy

Supported. All my characters are female, mostly because I don’t want to look at male posteriors for extended periods of time. This title is also a future goal of mine so I’d like my characters to have a proper title.

This is one of the most stupid titles from all of the few GW2 has ..

It absolutely doesn’t fit all all to the work what you did for that title.
If that title should get renamed, then to something, that also fits genderwise to the work what you’ve doen for the titles.

Example:

Male: Fashion King
Famel: Fashion Queen

That are fitting titles, but not such crap like “the emperor” …
How in hell did Anet come onto the point, to make out of all of us emperors, just only because we own (ed) multiple different armors oO ??

Thats a title, that no single player should ever receive, because it would imply that your character has far more political power, than the Queen of Kryta, because an Emperor stands over a single Queen or a single King in regard of the political might, because an Emperor owns and reigns over far much more land, than a Queen/King

A King/Queen is, when you rule over a single country sizewise.
An Emperor compared to that is, if you rule over likely a whole continent or something similar of size that is far more, than just a singly country alone!! like Asia for example (thats why countries, like China/Japan had over multiple centuries Emperors, there existed no kings/queen)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor

Emperors are generally recognized to be of a higher honor and rank than kings.

lupercaleb.6041:

“masculine” pronouns are historically gender neutral

Given that all Roman emperors were males, this is a pretty silly thing to say. Being emperor was anything but gender neutral.

the very acknowledgement of distinguished pronouns for each gender is, itself, sexism. this thread is hypocrisy

Did you ever study latin or classic greek? Distinguished pronouns have been used for thousands of years.
That’s not to say masculin pronouns were the default, but that merely points to male superiority during the last 5000 years. To deny that is, indeed, sexism. To equate criticism to sexism with sexism itself is nothing short of hypocrisy.

Don’t bring gender roles into the game, it never turns out good. If someone calls you a “godlike” player, would you happily take the compliment or lash back at them saying “it’s goddess to you”.

Same concept, get the title and be glad you have what most don’t.

Just a tidbit of information here.

I always thought that King and Queen were gendered descriptions of the same job. A friend of mine from the UK educated me otherwise. In the UK at least, the King always outranks the Queen. The rank in ruling the monarchy goes King → Queen → the rest. King and Queen are not equal.

The current queen’s husband was never the king, and never will be. As he didn’t start out a monarch, but only married into the whole thing, his title is “prince”. But this is not how it works for a native king who marries.

So, no, legally, “King” and “Queen” don’t mean the same.

Olba.5376:

… I could go all linguistic philosophy on you, but I’d rather not do that.

Please do! I’m genuinely interested.

Vardainiel.3674:

Would a guy like to be called a woman’s title?

“Nurse” is a traditionally female job title that is now used for both genders, but there are very few examples this way around.

I agree with status of power, are really hard to get this title.

But bring gender to game will result in change of severals titles.

The title with what is needed to get it is obviously a reference to the emperors new clothes. This is not the empress’ new clothes. It has nothing to do with being sexist or anything. Why are people all kitten about this. Know and accept where the titles come from.

:munch:

GuardianOMS.8067:

:munch:

kitten , only like 3 hours too late
Ah well, pass some along please~

Emperor has its roots in “imperator” which means the person who has the (unlimited) imperium, the power to command. The thought that this person could be female had probably never crossed the minds of the Romans (at least not at about 0 AD, the time around which the first imperator in the “emperor” sense held office – not counting C. Iulius Caesar). So they had no word like “imperatrix” and “empress” (like in Queen Victoria, Empress of India) is all made up in a time where empresses were possible but women still thought inferior to men, mostly.

It is not a forceful argument in my opinion to say there is a special female title to express that a woman rules instead of the then normal case, that being a male in power.

In my view it would be better to use emperor for both sexes (and not the made up word “empress”).

Zorby.8236:

GuardianOMS.8067:

:munch:

kitten , only like 3 hours too late
Ah well, pass some along please~

Judging by the comment above it’s not too late. They’re still going!

marnick.4305:

lupercaleb.6041:

“masculine” pronouns are historically gender neutral

Given that all Roman emperors were males, this is a pretty silly thing to say. Being emperor was anything but gender neutral.

the very acknowledgement of distinguished pronouns for each gender is, itself, sexism. this thread is hypocrisy

Did you ever study latin or classic greek? Distinguished pronouns have been used for thousands of years.
That’s not to say masculin pronouns were the default, but that merely points to male superiority during the last 5000 years. To deny that is, indeed, sexism. To equate criticism to sexism with sexism itself is nothing short of hypocrisy.

thank you for your painfully specific examples that clearly apply worldwide in every point in time

Considering the vast majority of people who play Guild Wars 2 are males I think it was a no-brainer just to make the title “Emperor”. Obviously they aren’t going to screw with the continuity of the title system just to pacify a singular whining person.

I hope you all realize that this title was made in reference to the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes…

Tikky.6231:

Then i’d suggest the title be modified to “The Empress” and declare that to be unisex.

I love you. XD

I would love some correctness though, because the female word is Empress. Females are not the same as men, we do not want to be the same as men. We do not need to be called the same thing to be equal. Lol.

As soon as something touches on sexism all the troll feminists come out, how about you read some literature and educate yourselves first?

The Title “Emperor” in GW2 is referring to the fable; “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. There was never a fable “The Empress’ New Clothes”. This title is fine as is.

I believe ‘The Empress’ title is a good idea.

Why doesn’t the title just differ depending on the gender of your current toon in which the title is being displayed?

never seen a mountain made out of a mole-hill so fast in my life.

the title should be called COF EXTREME FARMER because it needs hundreds of gold which can be spent on legendary weapons instead of stupid title that you can’t even see

King/Queen is European, while Emperor is Eastern(China/Japan..ect).
Different Dialects different parts of the world. Europe Shared power between Man and Woman (Queen/King) while the eastern countries did not. With out force anyway. There is no changing history.

If we are going to get all cut up over titles like this, lets stream line it.

Master/Mistress, and remove the rest. But you cannot be neither the Master Nor the Mistress.

But as said above, this title is from a fable/story. Nothing more. Changing or adding another option to it is kinda stupid IMHO.

The Emperor – The Moron who bought Invisible clothing….do you think a woman would be as stupid to do that? Hence why its Emperor and not Empress.

sirsquishy.8531:

King/Queen is European, while Emperor is Eastern(China/Japan..ect).
Different Dialects different parts of the world. Europe Shared power between Man and Woman (Queen/King) while the eastern countries did not. With out force anyway. There is no changing history.

If we are going to get all cut up over titles like this, lets stream line it.

Master/Mistress, and remove the rest. But you cannot be neither the Master Nor the Mistress.

But as said above, this title is from a fable/story. Nothing more. Changing or adding another option to it is kinda stupid IMHO.

The Emperor – The Moron who bought Invisible clothing….do you think a woman would be as stupid to do that? Hence why its Emperor and not Empress.

Wow dude your knowledge is impressive.
You ever heard of when Hungary and Austria made a coalition? Was that a monarchy to you? An empire has differing views, political approaches and internal affairs from a monarchy, or kingdom.

That aside, it’d take extra server load to invest into running a gender check for that. To better explain to you, you just asked on a more elaborate tone for more lag.
Emperor is indeed universal, but if you really want “that” title why do you complain about it? It means you want a completely different title altogether. Don’t know if that made much sense.

sirsquishy.8531:

King/Queen is European, while Emperor is Eastern(China/Japan..ect).

No. Emperor as a title was used by Europeans. What we call “Emperor” in Asia, the Chinese/Japanese call something like “Son of Heaven”. And while Emperor is a bit similar, the root of power of the Roman Emperor is very different from the Chinese and Japanese “Emperor”.

You could say by a long stretch that “Emperor” is Republican (the institute of the “imperium” was ironically used during the Roman Republic to limit the power of a magistrate) while “King” is Feudalistic but even that could be debated. Both titles are European though.