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MasterOkiAkai — Wonder Woman Conceptual Comprehension

Published: 2014-05-12 22:15:31 +0000 UTC; Views: 2150; Favourites: 60; Downloads: 41
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Description For the last few days I've been researching and trying to understand the Wonder Woman character. There seems to be a lot of confusion and argument regarding the evolution from her creation and intent to the symbol that she's become.
So I tried to take in all the details of the character that I could and refine her down to the elements that matter and are compelling to me. 
This concept cherry picks canon and is not meant to be a commentary on the character as she is or argue with the camps who love or hate her. It is just my own bumbling process of better understanding a character that I believe to be an important symbol (though not for me personally) and a regular test of my notion of what "strong female character" is to me. 
Once more these are my own thoughts on the concept. Agree or disagree, it doesn't matter one bit. This is an exercise and the text that follows is only what i can think of at the time, still a jumble of questions and answers that constitute a logic train that may or may not appear off the rails.
Also, for copyright purposes, i'm still researching at this point so I'm not sure who all deserves credit for which part and I apologize. I will say that the pants+jacket costume is my favorite from what i've seen.

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A divine being, demigoddess, human-olympian. Crown princess Suprema of the Amazon tribe that lives in a pocket dimension called Paradise Island. There is a portal to Paradise Island on a non-specific island (Isla Pardiso for now) in the Mediterranean/Black Sea. 
Every 100 years a competition is held to choose the next warrior to venture into the world of men, protecting mankind and battling evil of the era. Every century the previous champion returns to judge the competition and carrying a new amazon life back to the island. Since Amazon life spans are considerably longer than normal humans, they tend to make their journeys without visibly aging a great degree.
During WWII an Allied Intelligence officer Steve Trevor crashed his plane into 'Isla Pardiso' prompting an early challenge and the dispatch of a second champion into the world of men. She nursed Trevor back to health and learned the plight of the world through his eyes. And from his heart her compassion grew determination, pushing her to win the challenge and take him back to his unit.
While at an Allied hospital she encountered a nurse named Diana Prince. Shortly after, the building was bombed and Nurse Prince killed. The Princess took the Nurse's identity at Trevor's suggestion to help her move about the world with fewer questions asked.
She worked with Trevor as an intelligence agent in the field, gathering information on the Axis movements and helping protect who they could from the Nazis whenever possible. Eventually the war ended and Trevor returned to the US and she remained behind, helping to heal the wounds one soul at a time.
It is a new century, a new millennium and a  new kind of war. While men battle for creed, country and cash she fights for the people lost in the cracks. The innocents caught in the crossfire and the children fallen between the cracks. Her war never ends but neither does her compassion and hope. 
Diana encountered the champion that preceded her, traveling back to Isla Pardiso with her husband. She had spent her entire tour in Africa and shared her story with Diana. This prompted her to finally travel to the US where she is eventually confronted by a new government agency (The Department of Metahuman Affairs).
She is asked to join as a field agent, investigating the existence, activities and treatment of individuals deemed superhuman (alien, mutant, god, monster, bot, etc). She is partnered with a smart mouthed agent named Tom Tresser and is able to pick and choose her missions anywhere in the world with much greater support than she had before.

As a divine being she has special powers and access to magical equipment.
Strength - halved by her bracelets she is still able to lift a car over her head. She can also jump superior heights and survive falls from even greater heights. 
Toughness - her skin is much tougher than a humans and requires significant impact from powerful weapons, magical effects or other super strong beings to break through it. She can also survive in deeper water and vacuum longer than a human but not indefinitely.
Healing - Wounds that are severe enough to affect her would be enough to kill most any human. Her divine healing ability mends most wounds in a matter of seconds or hours. She also has immunity to most diseases and poisons.
Heightened Senses - All of her senses are heightened beyond human nearly to the point of clairvoyance
Agility - With training her body she has achieved near perfect balance and physical control. Her divine nature gives her superior reflexes and reaction time to the point where she can deflect or dodge bullets
Intelligence - being divine she has superior recall and retention. She spent decades training in a wide variety of studies including warfare, crafting, psychology, sociology, history, medicine, and magic, giving her a lifetime of knowledge and the ability to use it.
Empathic - She can sense the truth of people and their emotions and intent (Diana Troy level). And with some members of her tribe and other psionic beings she can communicate telepathically. 

Martial Training - her ability to fight is supreme to any human and the majority of her tribes, short only to that of fully divine beings.
Aegis Bracelets - A pair of gauntlets made from the Aegis. They are impenetrable but are so heavy that they cut her strength and mobility in half, though they are still super human. For her they are an ideal shield against most any focused attack. She knows a spell that when used with the gauntlets creates an impenetrable energy bubble, but only as long as she holds it in place.
Golden Lariat - A psionic rope that reacts to her will, moving and shaping itself accordingly (whip, grapple, noose, etc) it also enhances the effects of her own empathic abilities, allowing her to place suggestions in peoples heads if she can touch them with it long enough (tell the truth, go here, open the cell, simple commands)
Breastplate - a custom forged body armor from her tribe crafted specifically for her on her quest. She wears it under her clothes and it protects her vital organs from many attacks that could be strong enough to break her skin, specifically magical weapons/effects. Even with only her breastplate and bracelets she is still more heavily armored than most modern soldiers. and her divine body precludes the necessity for most clothing and equipment that would otherwise hamper or chafe. 
Dagger/Sword - A gift from the previous champion before returning to Isla Pardiso. It is the divine weapon she had chosen for herself, a Hephastean dagger that channels lightning.

While wandering Europe she cloaked herself and tried to blend in, moving through the shadows, fighting in secret so as not to draw extra attention or allow evil to follow her from place to place. In time she was called the "Wandering Woman" in several languages and thought to be an angel of mercy and truth. She would take odd jobs as nurse, waitress, secretary, midwife, factory worker, whatever she needed at the time to gather resources or information she needed. 
When she joined the Department of Metahuman Affairs she was given a new outfit with additional though inferior armor and a utility belt to carry gadgets and medicine. She was given a pistol that she carries but rarely uses. Due to a comical linguistic mix up, her file at the Department registered her as Wonder Woman. 
Her involvement with The DMA would naturally lead her into conflict with more and more superhuman foes and to allies (but for the sake of this, i'm not integrating them into the concept)

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She is not her powers or her artifacts, she is about her strength and her beauty in all things. In her appearance, the strength of her arm, her mind, her heart and her soul. Her greatest power is her compassion and empathy, her inability to forget or ignore the suffering of the people in the face of lofty idealism. 
Her culture is one removed from time, the concepts of beauty, justice and balance are different, if only slightly, but enough to mark her and her kind as outsiders. 
As a divine being she is nearly immortal and stands close to her gods. As such she is a beacon of faith and hope for people searching for stability in sinking chaos. She views the world with a certain degree of detachment as she is reminded that for all her strengths and power the world of men, or any world, is too big for her to save, and too vast for the amazon's to marshal, and that is why that was never their charge. She carries in her heart enough compassion to hold half the world, and enough hate and disgust to burn the other half. The final testament to her journey will be after a century, how much forgiveness will she have left, and will she have any left over for herself?
She is not a tragic heroine, floating on a sea of sadness and depression. She is a warrior of the world whose good nature is a bulwark against the horrors of humanity. She knows no fear because none yet can match her might or deceive her. She knows no despair because she knows there is always hope. 

So what is her flaw? Where is her weakness?
In the face of the mission she is sent to accomplish, the only thing that could stop her is her own doubts and disgust at the atrocities she saw. And growing up in a pocket dimension there is always a degree of naive wonder and curiosity about her. 
Another divine being, super human, or normal human with a divine/magical weapon would have the potential to kill her. Beheading, piercing the heart, total irradiation, magical immolation, drowning, exanguination or exposure to an infection capable of compromising her body could/would be fatal. Psionic or sensory overload could debilitate her and potentially kill or destroy one of her senses permanently. 
So does this mean that she needs to be in the presence of other metahumans to become fallible? Does she need an opponent of greater strength to be tested against and all herself laid bare to see? 
Or can her other side be described simply as her rage, her emotional need for revenge when it arises, her outrage that overrides her ability to forgive and what she does then as a being with the power to tear nations apart. It has been said that her compassion is her greatest strength and greatest weakness. She is a warrior trained to fight and to kill to survive. However if her survival can hardly be challenged then the need to kill would be odd as well. Unless she killed to protect the lives of others who could not be protected otherwise, in which case she may find herself killing quite a lot. And with her empathic ability she could detect evil quite easily and be almost completely certain that she was right, and suffer little doubt or guilt as a result. She would still regret it and take note, looking for techniques, technology or situations where that need to kill could be prevented the next time around. But she would not dwell on it, unless she made a mistake that cost the lives of innocents or someone she was fond of. If her error cost even one innocent life that she otherwise could have prevented it would eat her up.
As for how far and how heavily it would weigh on her, that would be a compelling story to tell.

She was created with the notions of strength and femininity being mutually exclusive. Is she a symbol for femininity or female strength? Is there such a thing as female/male strength or is it just strength of body, mind and heart? I don't like to think that she is just a token cape playing a game of catch and match to superman. 
It also doesn't seem nearly as moving to be a symbol of human strength and resilience when so many arguments about her safe simply how strong she is compared to other capes. As a divine outsider with almost none of the frailties of humans what is there to invest in besides her body, her beauty, her love and her quest? But then again, that's probably not so different from any other character, in any time or place. Does her mission and story mean more because she is female or does it just mean she is regarded differently and all the events and decisions remain the same? Who would join her in the sysphean task of picking up the pieces of broken people one at a time and how long would they last?

Before her return to Isla Pardiso it is expected that she will have had or will have a child. A new amazon to bring back to the island and train. Who/What would WW consider a suitable mate? She intends to follow the tradition at least as a matter of duty but looks forward to falling in love. But how would her love bloom on a battlefield? Would she have a husband to bring back with her? Would she even want to go back if it meant leaving him behind? 

When WW was created it was (to the best that i understand it) with the assertion that women are weak because of their uncontrollable emotions. I would assert that anyone who can't control their emotions is weak, male or female, probabilities be damned. However cutting oneself off from emotion has not proven to be strength either. So then it would be fair to say that strength her would be maintaining the balance. There is also the assertion that being feminine is beauty, but this was in the 1940s and much has changed. In a time when people are set upon to be themselves or be what people expect them to be, and when applied to a warrior who fights a mission according to tradition and custom, what does femininity really mean other than being female? And on a battlefield, to a warrior, what value does it hold in a foxhole, and how much can be accomplished with divine beauty alone?

So where does Wondy fit? I would say that she fits in the trenches, on the ground, evacuating and gathering up the casualties while the damage dealers blast away at each other. She's the one looking out for the people when others are more focused on the greater battle. She's the healer, the tank, the paladin, the shield, the 'look out sir' that keeps people running for the hills rather than stand in awe as a mushroom cloud washes over them. A storm chaser and one who is not afraid to enter harms way to free those thought lost, forgotten or abandoned. Her attitude would be that the demon horde crashing towards us is important, but only because, saving lives. And it takes a team to do the job right, whether it's holding a hose or pulling people out of a building, she watches out for the people who are neglected in the name of the higher purpose. She does not believe in acceptable losses.

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The war doesn't end when the last shot is fired. It's only over when all the wounds have healed. And some wounds run deeper than others, while some wounds never heal, they only get infected and spread.
A soldier's duty is to fight the enemy, but who is it that cleans up after? The victors are celebrated, the dead are mourned and the survivors are left to rebuild. 

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American Maid - The patriotic quicker fixer upper. 
Wondy's stars and stripes is a product of WWII, marked as a message of peace to the nation that she was sent to defend. However I figure if she's sent into the world of men to protect it as a whole, then such symbolism isn't necessary, nor is there a a unifying symbol for man/humankind.
Her role of protecting innocent bystanders from collateral damage while allies route the demon hordes gets her criticism as cleaning up after the boys. But scrambling through the trenches to keep heads down, while not so glamorous is a heroic duty indeed and deserves respect. Just like the medic who stays in back or the rescue team that sits on stand-by while the front lines are duking it out. In war, glory and glamour are not concerns for soldiers, saving lives is. 

Xena & Gabrielle
All of Xena's abilities are pulled directly from Wondy's tool chest. Catching arrows/bullets, boomerang razor disc/tiara, whip/lasso, superhuman strength and agility, i have many skills, lasso of truth/nerve pinch, superior martial skill from training with Ares, greatest fighter among the Amazons
Gabrielle carries Wondy's benevolence, compassion and ever forgiving nature and the duty as an amazon princess (under duress). Put them both together and you get WW. Separate them and you have what could be called the full range of femininity. The dark, light, good, evil, mother, sister, daughter, wife, warrior, healer, demon, angel, young, old, romantic and seductress. However the only thing that strikes me as feminine about these qualities is the language used and the images that they conjure. The emotions, actions and roles they imply are just human. But the important point remains that when these two are together they are a complete super heroine. However in this case they're measured against Hercules instead of Superman.
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Comments: 4

Silvermoonlight [2014-05-14 16:29:31 +0000 UTC]

I think the sketches are amazing but I to me the let down is the breast size as its the main focus of the drawings, the character is lost. I think if your going to create female heroes you need to make the breasts smaller and normalized. As big breasts cause issues to the back bone and make fighting more difficult, and young teen women shouldn't be shown with breast implants as good as they look to the male gaze they can be harmful and rupture causing internal harm. If you downsize the chest then I think this will be a 10/10.

I'll also be deeply disappointed if your reply to this is to shut up and hit the road. I say this as I've put honest comments like this before on artist work and received hateful  comments, I'm guess I'm hoping you'll be different.

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MasterOkiAkai In reply to Silvermoonlight [2014-05-14 17:28:51 +0000 UTC]

If all a person can focus on in a female character ais their breast size, or conversely if that is all it takes to negate every other aspect of the character's value, that says more about the viewer than the character itself.
These are 3 incomplete body shots of a female character so naturally tits will make an appearance.
Female heroes do not have a requirement for any part of their body. That's the old concept of "how to draw super heroes" all being so many heads high and muscled or beefy/lithe and then Liefeld comes in. 
Furthermore having small breasts does not have anything to do with normalcy. Nor does it have any play on averages. I have one study here that says the average american bust is 34DD, but the voracity of such studies are not relevant. Characters are allowed to be in any shape and there's no measurement limit to ride the superhero train.
The Wonder Woman character (majority) is not a teen and does not have implants, nor does this conceptual adaptation. Additionally, not all large or 'appealing' breasts are implants. 
As for back problems, it is a fictional character, a divine being / clay made person / demigod (depending on the arc) with physical strength comparable to superman, so having physical health issues is not in the logic.
So if you prefer women with smaller breasts that's your business. Or if you can't take a woman with large breasts seriously (at least as a character) then that is also your business. 

If you wanted an honest response to your honest comment there it is. There is honestly nothing wrong with the incomplete doodles that i have posted. What's wrong is the layer upon layer of flawed logic with hypocrisy that goes into these kinds of comments.
I am of the mind that women and men are no different in real life, except on the individual ability level and the genital/reproductive systems. So I have wondered (seriously, not to be humorous) what a period or pregnancy would be like for a superhuman/god like being. But I can't understand either so it'd be speculation at best, poor taste at worst.
But as such, to say that a person/character is too attractive, has hair too long, breasts too big, ass too wide, face too X or anything else that has nothing to do with their ability to perform their job is backwards.
And again, it's a fictional character. A symbol for an idea that was much more lude in her creators mind than my own hybridization.
Skipping over the artistic license and aesthetic choice and the freedom that goes with it. There is no insistence on realism, never has been. Only on believability or suspension of belief. And that's a balance between reader and writer.
And lastly, large breasts that cause enough strain on a woman's body to cause physical problems is possible, but it is not the rule. And again, Divine being, super strength, endurance and healing powers (as per original character). Not a teenager, i don't know why you assumed that, a grown mature being with a different life span to humans and not implants as there would be no need and it would make no sense with the character. 

So, your comment is fallacious logic with incorrect information and hinges more on your own subjective preferences, which you are more than welcome to, but has no bearing on the character or the sketches.

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RakaiThwei [2014-05-12 23:15:15 +0000 UTC]

I actually saw this version over at your Tumblr! I actually like your version of Wonder Woman, and excellent work on re-interpreting the story to your version of how the character came to be. I always like these fan re-interpretations because they don't necessarily have to adhere to canon too much. Very cool idea!

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MasterOkiAkai In reply to RakaiThwei [2014-05-13 00:22:42 +0000 UTC]

Thing is, i have yet to find any focused commentary on her that's not full of hate. Hate her as a sex symbol v a sexist symbol. Hate for being 99% superman in a skirt, a token female. I just read one where a fan documents the evolution of her costume and bashes every idea, every change every artist every details for 60 years. 
And with all the retcons, reboots, alts and what-ifs there's a lot of diverging and converging ideas and logic to work with. But so many arguments I see made are either simply about how powerful she is compared to superman or confusion on what she was, is and should be. 
Just had a few conversations with folks who were more invested in the character but no more versed in her narrative than I was, and they universally regarded her as Superman in a skirt. 
And I didn't hunk that was right or fair so i started researching. And what i found was a character that was not as far reaching as others, but scrambled to keep up with the decade and her male teammates. It seemed really odd when there seemed to be no more effort put into her creation than any other super babe we'd see today and she got put through the same tongue-in-cheek wringer as others, just not as deeply. 

So there is nothing particularly special about my exercise her. If anything i'd say it's a diluted version covering just the things that i think matter to the character. And in my initial thinking on her capabilities, I imagined that she'd be a better match for a character like Captain America more than god like beings like Thor or Superman. That imagines the amazons as being a group of super humans similar to Steve Rogers, but the connection to the olympian gods logically necessitated that she be more powerful than that. And that shift in power and resilience makes a huge difference in how such a character would behave. 
And i prefer lower powered characters but I felt that wouldn't quite be fitting, at least not yet.
I'd prefer to think that not adhering to canon or other existing material in this case is trimming the fat and removing the circumstantial and non-essential shiny toys and plastic upgrades.

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