Guild Wars 2

I feel like i am familiar with the sons of svanir and their goals and such, but are there lore reasons why they dont allow women?

They more or less feel that women are weak and have nothing to do in fight and should be home taking care of the cubs/child/whatever Norn call them.

It goes back to Svanir himself. The day he embraced the power that corrupted him, his sister, Jora, was with him, but she rejected the power. For this the Sons are contemptuous of women, seeing them as too weak to be worthy of Jormag’s power. Svanir then went on a rampage, raiding norn settlements, and Jora had to put him down. For this, the Sons despise women, seeing them as deceitful and untrustworthy.

Better question: Where are female grawl and Jotun?

Female and children jotun are hidden away, as they’re considered each jotun’s tribe’s most prized aspect or some such. Was explained in the lore blog post on them a while back.

lordkrall.7241:

They more or less feel that women are weak

Which is funny as they’re getting their kittens handed to them by female player characters all the time, but I guess those do not live to tell.

I feel like misogyny in the GW universe is very forced. The parent cultures (Norn and Charr) do not have any misogyny and there is no indication it has ever existed in the past, yet the Sons of Svanir and the Flame Legion are like “Oh one member of our species who happened to be female defied us, it is time for MISOGYNY” which makes no sense unless misogyny was already present in the culture to begin with.

It’s like the Devs thought, hmmm, these evil factions aren’t evil enough, I KNOW LET’S MAKE THEM MISOGYNISTS.

It works for the charr. It’s not so much that they wanted the Flame Legion to be more evil, as it is they needed an explanation for why the females weren’t present in the first game, and religion was the answer. With Flame holding on to the religion, it fits that they’d hold to the misogyny. It’s not forced- great religious movements nearly always rapidly and drastically alter cultural values. With 450ish years to cement it, Flame misogyny definitely fits.

As for the females, remember, for the norn strength is a virtue rather apart from how much you can lift or how hard you can hit. It’s a more nebulous concept that is sought, chased after, without being defined. The Sons of Svanir have determined that the only true way to reach this ideal is for Jormag- therefore, someone who rejects Jormag, no matter how capable with arms, cannot be strong. It’s not a contradiction. As far as the history goes, male norn do and have always taken a certain pride in their manliness- back in GW1 Olaf was horribly disappointed when he didn’t have a son. Add to that pride the idea that you are entitled to being served by a different group, and you’ve got an attractive sales pitch. The Sons certainly typecast because of Jora, but in our world the largest religion for centuries cast women as morally weak and inferior because one supposedly once ate something she was told not to. People don’t tend to question things that don’t make sense unless they have a compelling reason to do so.

Good answer A-A-Ron.

Embolism.8106:

I feel like misogyny in the GW universe is very forced. The parent cultures (Norn and Charr) do not have any misogyny and there is no indication it has ever existed in the past, yet the Sons of Svanir and the Flame Legion are like “Oh one member of our species who happened to be female defied us, it is time for MISOGYNY” which makes no sense unless misogyny was already present in the culture to begin with.

It’s like the Devs thought, hmmm, these evil factions aren’t evil enough, I KNOW LET’S MAKE THEM MISOGYNISTS.

I would like to add two things to this:

• Disrespecting women is not the defining factor of Flame Legion or Sons of Svanir – just one factor of several.
• To balance things a bit: Harpies.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Female and children jotun are hidden away, as they’re considered each jotun’s tribe’s most prized aspect or some such. Was explained in the lore blog post on them a while back.

Hmm cool, might have to hunt that down for a read!

Embolism.8106:

I feel like misogyny in the GW universe is very forced. The parent cultures (Norn and Charr) do not have any misogyny and there is no indication it has ever existed in the past, yet the Sons of Svanir and the Flame Legion are like “Oh one member of our species who happened to be female defied us, it is time for MISOGYNY” which makes no sense unless misogyny was already present in the culture to begin with.

It’s seldom said, but so is the Flame Legion’s history for that matter, but it’s said a couple times iirc that the Flame were always a bit anti-female. They just used Balthea and her entire movement of female warriors (mentioned in the Ash Legion storyline if you talk to NPCs – also mentioned that Kalla’s underground movement was a continuation of Balthea’s own iirc) as an excuse to ban all women.