Guild Wars 2

It is a bit unfair that there is only an Emperor Title… especially since the achievment is really expnsive >.<

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fashion#achievement223

How is it unfair? Everyone has access to obtain it so I don’t see how it is remotely unfair.

phokus.8934:

How is it unfair? Everyone has access to obtain it so I don’t see how it is remotely unfair.

Because Emperor suggests masculinity.

I believe that’s the point OP was trying to make, I may be wrong though.

It isn’t unfair because the title was based on the short tale. Just like “Killer Queen” won’t have the alternate because it’s based on a song title.

• The Emperor’s New Clothes
• Killer Queen

• The first is a story about how a shrewd clothing manufacturer marketed “invisible” apparel, to sell to a (male) dictator, while toadies applauded the waste of resources as high fashion. In other words, a tribute to wasting money pursuing exotic skins.
• The latter is a song by glamrock band, Queen, about, well, according to its composer, about whatever you want it to be about. Although Mr Mercury was imagining a high-class call girl, poetically suggesting that even (or especially) the rich can kitten themselves out.

There’s no particular reason why ANet couldn’t also add Childlike Empress or On His Majesty’s Secret Service as titles. On the other hand, no reason that they should, either.

Hmm!

It is a personal subject of annoyance regarding the specifics of language. The biggest example would be of the uncertain pronoun. Like I would write, “If a person saw a hundred dollar on the floor, [he] [she] [it] [they] would pick it up.” But they is grammatically incorrect. Other languages seem to have a neutral word for it and attempts to introduce a neutral word sound so horrific that I’d rather not bother. I end up using “one” which makes me sound pretentious but whatever.

And the whole -ess thing. Essentially, it assumes male by default, such as steward to stewardess and a bunch of words where knowing their gender is a rather pointless thing.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ess

This suffix tends to be regarded as sexist and as such is starting to fall into disuse; a single, gender-neutral term is preferred by some even though it is a less specific term.
Glenda Jackson is a famous actor.
Glenda Jackson is a famous actress. More specific language signaling that Glenda is a female.

So it is a subject of frustration. Now, I don’t really want to do the tumblr thing and remove all instances to differentiate people. I mean certainly, prince and princess have very different images in one’s head and these things are very useful in terms of literary use. They’ve also carried many meanings symbolically and it would be foolish to ignore them. And as borgs.6103 has pointed out, it is in specific reference to that tale.

But on the other hand, as suggested through the wikitionary link, a lot of the female suffixes where they don’t belong are growing out of use. Given Arenanet’s policies have been really sensitive to these issues maybe that was intentional. Emperor and Empress don’t seem to have the same difference to me as King or Queen would.

Then again, you could argue that since you do pick your characters gender (and can change it too!) that some extra differentiation adds more polish to the game.

tl;dr blame the language

It also depends on how you use titles – if you pick a title to show you’ve completed that particular achievement, or as a nod to the original pop culture reference (which I suspect is a big part of the reason Killer Queen is so popular) then it doesn’t matter.

But if you pick titles which sound appropriate for your character regardless of where they came from (like using Veteran of the Mists on a revenant who has never been in WvW) then gender-specific titles can be a problem.

Unless I’ve missed one this only applies to The Emperor and possibly Killer Queen, so I don’t think it’s a huge ask to have an alternate Empress title. And maybe Killer King, but that sounds weird to me. (Oh, maybe King Killer and make it a reference to the King Killer Chronicles books.)

And if it’s aimed at people who pick a title to suit the character it wouldn’t need to come from the same achievement or even a similar one. It could be pretty much anything.

(Although it’s kind of annoying when the perfect title for your character comes from something really difficult…says the person who wants A Light in the Darkness for exactly that reason.)

ArchonWing.9480:

It is a personal subject of annoyance regarding the specifics of language. The biggest example would be of the uncertain pronoun. Like I would write, “If a person saw a hundred dollar on the floor, [he] [she] [it] [they] would pick it up.” But they is grammatically incorrect.

‘they’ is not grammatically incorrect, even less so in the 21st century. It’s just never been popular among anyone, especially not English teachers. I use it exclusively, in preference to he/she.

It’s not a great choice, however, because there’s a lot of resistance to it. However, resistance in grammar is ultimately futile. Newspapers have long won the fight to misuse “may” (“The president may veto the bill”), even though it would be grammatically more appropriate to write “might” — the president always has permission to veto; they only choose to exercise it sometimes.

Sorry for the digression — I don’t oppose anyone choosing to stick with he/she; I just don’t think it’s appropriate to say it’s the only acceptable, gender neutral option available.

i find it weird to use they for a single person
random guy 1: where’s bob
random guy 2:they over there

DoN.8196:

i find it weird to use they for a single person
random guy 1: where’s bob
random guy 2:they over there

You wouldn’t for that example, since bob is a male. It’s for when the gender isn’t specifiable.

All grammar rules are weird, though, until you are used to them. Why do so many languages assign a gender to inanimate objects? (And for that matter, why doesn’t English?) And why should we assign the male gender when we don’t actually know?

English doesn’t do well with ambiguity, so until or unless someone comes up with a good solution that every grammarian and non-grammarian can live with, we’re stuck with choosing the lesser of evils: he, it, he/she, s/he, or, they; my preference is they, because it’s easily understood and remains ambiguous rather than indecisive or overly-specific. But, yeah, it’s a little weird, too.

Solution: Add a different but also expensive collection for “The Empress”
Have it be about collecting more clothes though. So you can so the achievement ..
…Dressed to Empress (But have the title be “The Empress”)

NyhilistTheBoring.2674:

Solution: Add a different but also expensive collection for “The Empress”
Have it be about collecting more clothes though. So you can so the achievement ..
…Dressed to Empress (But have the title be “The Empress”)

That’s very clever. I’m ’e’mpressed! =P