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“One is nOt bOrn a ClaymOre”
Gender issues in claymore
Setting of Claymore
• Medieval European dark fantasy setting
• Demonic beings called “yoma” infiltrate and prey upon human settlements
• A nameless agency simply termed “The Organization” provides protection for a price from yoma with a force of female warriors
Who and what are Claymores?
• Half-human warriors created by implanting the flesh of a yoma into a human to create a hybrid
• Only females are made into Claymores
• Fight by tapping into “yoki”, or demonic energy to enhance strength and speed
This is your body on yoki
Philosophical Underpinnings “Existence precedes
essence”
• Humans have no inherent value or meaning, born as an empty vessel (Existence)
• It is through conscious choice do we create meaning
• Life is a struggle to create meaning (Essence)
“One is not born a woman, but becomes
one”
• What we understand “woman” to mean is a historical idea
• Concept that imposes a set of expectations and ideas we hold to be “natural”
• Claymores are humans turned into warriors by the Organization
• Meant to serve the Organization
• Role is to serve and protect humanity
Traditional vs Atypical
Feminine Clare
• Demure
• Submissive
• Non-confrontational
• Modest
• Raki defends her honor against Cid
Warrior Clare
• Aggressive
• Powerful
• Determined
• Practical
• Saves Raki from humans and Yoma
Clare, while undercover in Rabona
Clare, while on her mission in Rabona
ClaymOre as “Other”
• De Beauvoir spoke of women as “objects” that history and society treat them as a mysterious “other”
• Claymores are under the command of men who decide when and where they will go
• We learn that Claymores are merely an experiment in a greater conflict
• Claymores are expected to obey, to perform their function as tools
• The Organization is invested in keeping control of the Claymores for their own ends
OrganizatiOn as “self”
• Organization “created” Claymore
• Organization possess knowledge and goals beyond that of the Claymores
• The purpose of a Claymore is to protect humans from Yoma
• Yoma are also created by the Organization
• The agency, the ability of a Claymore to make an impact, is nullified as she is impotent compared to the Organization
Why is Subjectivity important?
• Subjectivity allows for Transcendence
• Transcendence is the moving beyond the limits of one’s situation
• It allows one to create meaning (Existence moving to create Essence)
• Clare, Miria and others realize they cannot continue serving the Organization
• To continue with the Organization would have been to live in “Bad faith”
• That is realizing one’s ability to choose and instead rejecting it.
Historical Reality
• Myths of women as creator/destroyer
• Belief in inferiority of women’s bodies and minds
• Pseudo-historical and scientific “proof” of said beliefs
• Real gains of women’s rights only latter half of the 19th century
Fictional analog
• Medieval European mindset and values
• Addition of yoma flesh enables a reconception of gender
• Claymores exist outside normal power structure of church and society
• Still subservient to patriarchal authority
Organization as oppression
• The Organization utilizes several methods for keeping control and limiting the transcendence of Claymores
– Perpetuates scenario that produces orphans to recruit for experiments
– Planned obsolescence of each Claymore generation
– Training of an anti-warrior Claymore to cull rebellious agents
Claymores as Transcendence • Beginning with the
survivors of the Pieta campaign ,each choose their own method of expressing their subjectivity.
– Clare’s search for Raki
– Tabitha’s dedication to Miria
– Deneve and Helen’s friendship
– Yuma and Cynthia’s sense of duty
• Galatea’s role as mother to the orphans in Rabona
• Clarice and Miata’s familial relationship to each other
• Anastasia’s loyalty to her comrades
• Biological determinism- belief that the sexual characteristics signify behavioral and psychological differences between men and women
• Sex is the biological reality while gender is a socially constructed artificiality
– Male/female vs Man/Woman
Bib page
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/#SexDis
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/beauvoir/#SH3a