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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!) » The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!): General/Updates
[TRIVIA] Femininity?
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chaotic_mind
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Joined: 03 Aug 2004
Posts: 325
Location: Inside my head, behind the eyes

 		[TRIVIA] Femininity?
Hello all,

Bit of a newb over here, so I'm trying very hard not to need a trout. Still, I think someone must've noticed this before, so if I am really not being original here, I apologize for this bit of repetition.

Something I noticed, and was struck by after I read the Widow's Story, is that almost all the characters involved in this game seem to be female, save one. There are some mentions of male guards and the Manticore (which was refered to as he in the Widow's story), but these characters are dead and gone by the time the game starts for us. The only active character that seems to be male is the Pious Flea, seeming to alienate it somewhat. Unless I missed one of the entities we've been dealing with being called a he. Besides the Flea, any person that I've seen mentioned as an active part of the story has had a female gender associated with it.

I list:

Computer Entities
SPDR (Widow, refered to as her in the Widow's Story)
Operator (Melissa, Queen)
Sleeping Princess

Real Space People
Dana
Aunt Margaret
Chloe (not an active character)

Just a little bit of history, it was a post made by Shad0 in the Interaction forum that sent me on this path. He wrote an allegorical story in the style of the Widow's Tale, and sent it to ladybee777. When I read it, something seemed off stylistically. I realized it was the introduction of the strongly male architypes of the Hero and the High Magician. It seemed to disrupt the tone of the allegory, and thus lead me to believe that the lack of males in the story could be important.

Nothing occurs to me as to where to take this idea off the top of my head, so I submit it to the forum for comment. I'm not really sure if this important, hence the TRIVIA tag. Still, I think I may be on to something.

Anyone care to disabuse me of this crazy notion?

Luke P.

edit: Fixed some grammar and structure for the post that was awful (*sigh*), and reworded it to take into account Shad0's confirm of the male Flea.

PostPosted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 7:08 pm
Last edited by chaotic_mind on Fri Aug 06, 2004 10:14 pm; edited 5 times in total
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Shad0
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Joined: 20 Jun 2004
Posts: 2180
Location: Southern California, USA

 		Re: [TRIVIA/PUZZLE?] Feminitity?
chaotic_mind wrote:
Something I notice, and was struck by after I read the Widow's Story, is that all the characters involved in this game seem to be female. There are some mentions of male guards and the Manticore (which was refered to as he in the Widow's story), but these characters are dead and gone by the time the story starts. The only active character that I can think might be male is the Pious Flea, but that's only because no real sex has been assigned to it. Unless I missed one of the entities we've been dealing with calling it a he. Besides the Flea, any person that I've seen mentioned has had a female gender associated with it.

No trout for you! There has been some discussion of gender in this thread, among others, but nothing devoted entirely to it.

And yes, there is text support for the Pious Flea being male: it's in the Widow's Journey story, where the narrator (the Sleeping Princess, I presume) tells us that the Widow, "with her sharp eyes, could hardly see him, and when she looked his way, he hid."

chaotic_mind wrote:
Just a little bit of history, it was a post made by Shad0 in the Interaction forum that sent me on this path. He wrote an allegorical story in the style of the Widow's Tale, and sent it to ladybee777. When I read it, something seemed off stylistically. I realized it was the introduction of the strongly male architypes of the Hero and the High Magician. It seemed to disrupt the tone of the allegory, and thus lead me to believe that the lack of males in the story could be important.

Yeah, that was back when I thought the Flea might've been the one that wrote the story and was hijacking ladybee777, so I tried to make him the star, hoping he'd tell us what he wanted us to do next.

And I threw in the High Magician on a whim, just so the Widow would have someone from whom to be widowed. Mr. Green
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These were the puzzles that would take a day, these were puzzles that would take a week, and these puzzles they'd probably never figure out until we broke down and gave them the answers. ... The Cloudmakers solved all of these puzzles on the first day.

PostPosted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 7:32 pm
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Astald
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Joined: 01 Aug 2004
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Location: Just outside of Pittsburgh (Go Steelers!)

 		This deserves at least some thought. They might have made the Pious Flea a male as a way to segregate him from everyone else, sort of as saying, one of these things is not like the other. The reason this interests me is because it reminds me of M. Night Shamalans(sp?) The Sixth Sense. It that movie, he explains that he used the color red to signifiy every important event that was taking place. It was something somewhat noticeable, but kind of on the subconsious level, maybe thats with the PMs are doing with this game. He is not a female like everyone else, so maybe he is the bad guy, or maybe he is the good guy. Whatever he is, I think they are trying to make him individual, special in this game.

PostPosted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 8:06 pm
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Aelith
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Joined: 21 Jul 2004
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Location: Missouri

 		I tend to think visually and this 3 to 1 mix of genders is another one of the factors that keeps reminding me of the Bee Hives.
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 8:25 pm
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IcyMidnight
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Joined: 31 Jul 2004
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 		I tried searching for this (and have been keeping track of much of the discussion around) but I haven't noticed anyone pointing this out. Female roles: Queen and Princess. If these are the only two royalty around, then it is the princesses job/role to take over from the Queen. Sometimes that is because the queen steps down, and others the princess takes over by force.

Any thoughts?

PostPosted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 8:30 pm
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chaotic_mind
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Joined: 03 Aug 2004
Posts: 325
Location: Inside my head, behind the eyes

 		Hmmm....
Hello all,

First of all, glad that a six post greenhorn didn't get trouted on his first big topic. Now to keep this up.

Astald wrote:
They might have made the Pious Flea a male as a way to segregate him from everyone else, sort of as saying, one of these things is not like the other.


I noticed this as well. Being *somewhat* of a follower, if not supporter, of the theories explaning Pious Flea as "Covenant Spy", I thought this might tie in to that theory. It wouldn't necessarily be confirmation, but perhaps a subconsious basis that people might have to single out the Flea. Any one else have some evidence that the Flea might somehow be *different*?

Luke P.

PostPosted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 8:51 pm
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chaotic_mind
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Joined: 03 Aug 2004
Posts: 325
Location: Inside my head, behind the eyes

 		Not quite a PUZZLE...
Based on the responses this thread had been getting, I've decided we don't quite have a puzzle on our hands yet. I'm gonna drop the PUZZLE? tag.

I'll change it now, if any one has any objections, just PM me, and I'll put it back.

Luke P.

PostPosted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 10:14 pm
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chaotic_mind
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 		(Me, again?) Time to talk about the Widow.
Hey all,

I realize this topic hasn't been getting much attention, so I'm loathe to keep posting to it (don't want to seem like a attention hog), but this is something else I think might be important.

Shad0 wrote:
And I threw in the High Magician on a whim, just so the Widow would have someone from whom to be widowed.


Who exactly IS the Widowed widowed from? I realize the Widow isn't one of the major characters (personalities might be a better word) in this drama, but there may be something to the strong connection between "a widow" and a lack of male presence.

Of course, since Widow likely comes from the Spider/SPDR reference, maybe it was the Widow herself who killed the male.

Hmmm. Well, it's a thought anyway.

Luke P.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 07, 2004 6:50 pm
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Shad0
I Have No Life


Joined: 20 Jun 2004
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Location: Southern California, USA

 		Re: (Me, again?) Time to talk about the Widow.
chaotic_mind wrote:
Who exactly IS the Widowed widowed from? I realize the Widow isn't one of the major characters (personalities might be a better word) in this drama, but there may be something to the strong connection between "a widow" and a lack of male presence.

Personally, I'm in the camp that's inclined to think it's just a bit of a pun. Widow = Spider = Black Widow. Dunno
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These were the puzzles that would take a day, these were puzzles that would take a week, and these puzzles they'd probably never figure out until we broke down and gave them the answers. ... The Cloudmakers solved all of these puzzles on the first day.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 07, 2004 9:35 pm
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chaotic_mind
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 		Puns...ew.
Shad0 wrote:
I'm in the camp that's inclined to think it's just a bit of a pun. Widow = Spider = Black Widow.


And I'd be inclined to agree.

Course...Why did they (the PMs) name the repair program SPDR? Is that something?

Naaaaaah.

Luke P.

PostPosted: Sun Aug 08, 2004 12:31 am
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GunsmithCat
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Joined: 05 Aug 2004
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 		Just noticed - there's one other male in the Widow's Journey.

The Manticore is referred to as "he".

PostPosted: Mon Aug 09, 2004 4:45 pm
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clamatius
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Joined: 24 Jul 2004
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Quote:
Why did they (the PMs) name the repair program SPDR?


Well, the in-game reason it's called that is from the countdown text:

SPDR = System Peril Distributed Reflex

The meta-reason is that spiders make for good imagery and metaphors and they wanted an acronym to fit a computery-sounding spider name (IMHO, of course).
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 09, 2004 4:53 pm
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