Why "God of War" and not "Goddess of War"

[Awonder]

The God Of War was not one of those brothers. None of that has anything to do with Ares being born into being the God Of War.

Apollo wasn't one of the brothers either. He wasn't born King, he became King through actions. Ares may have been born as God of War, but we know birth is not the only was to get the title and domain. Diana doesn't become Ares, she just gets his old job through her actions. So, Ares and his role as God of War are separable.

[numberthirty]

King is totally beside the point. It is neither "god" or goddess". Near as we know, this is the first time a mantle has changed hands. As for the mantle being separate from the man, I'll need a pretty waterproof case. We know it has aged him. We know it has a physical effect on him. From the way it looks to me, the mantle and the man are linked. That link being broken only upon his death.

[Awonder]

King is totally beside the point. It is neither "god" or goddess". Near as we know, this is the first time a mantle has changed hands. As for the mantle being separate from the man, I'll need a pretty waterproof case. We know it has aged him. We know it has a physical effect on him. From the way it looks to me, the mantle and the man are linked. That link being broken only upon his death.

I agree that the mantle and the man are linked, and that link is broken only upon death. But it is broken, and thus, they are separable. The man "dies" (well, death, of sorts, for a deity) while the mantle is passed to another. How is that not a "pretty waterproof case?"

[numberthirty]

I agree that the mantle and the man are linked, and that link is broken only upon death. But it is broken, and thus, they are separable. The man "dies" (well, death, of sorts, for a deity) while the mantle is passed to another. How is that not a "pretty waterproof case?"

My life and I are not separate if killing me is the only way to get us apart.

[Awonder]

My life and I are not separate if killing me is the only way to get us apart.

Killing you would end your life; killing Ares did not end the job of God of War.

[numberthirty]

I agree that the mantle and the man are linked, and that link is broken only upon death. But it is broken, and thus, they are separable. The man "dies" (well, death, of sorts, for a deity) while the mantle is passed to another. How is that not a "pretty waterproof case?"

Death calls Diana "God Of War". The mantle has not changed. It has just changed hands. You can't change that it is what it is.

[numberthirty]

Killing you would end your life; killing Ares did not end the job of God of War.

You keep calling it a job. A job doesn't have you leaving bloody footprints everywhere. It is a mantle. You can't change a mantle. It's why an "Iron Fist" stays an "Iron Fist".

Wu Ao Shi was an "Iron Fist". Her being female didn't mean you make some arbitrary change to the name of the mantle.

[Hawk80]

You keep calling it a job. A job doesn't have you leaving bloody footprints everywhere. It is a mantle. You can't change a mantle. It's why an "Iron Fist" stays an "Iron Fist".

Wu Ao Shi was an "Iron Fist". Her being female didn't mean you make some arbitrary change to the name of the mantle.

To be fair, "Iron Fist" has not a female form....

[Lax]

Interesting read, Lax; I particularly like your point about finding balance, which is tricky. Azzarello also touched on this a bit in the interview I quoted earlier.

But, I don't think I really understand your point here about appealing to "fanatical egalitarians." If "God" and "Goddess" as terms are equals, then, as you point out, "God" is not an accurate term for a female any more than "Goddess" is accurate for a male - no? Going by your definition - "those who believe gender is purely a social construct" - are you saying that the appeal is in inaccurately using a gendered term like "God" for a woman makes it not gendered?

The appeal is in uniformity or "sameness". If one believes that gender is purely a state of mind, then it will be preferable to see a term that ignores the existence of two genders.

That the word "god" is chosen as the standard over the word "goddess" is due to most modern-day gods being male and the male sex is often considered the aiming point of "fairness". Males serving as the default aiming point is a pervasive idea, it's even within a lot of the definitions of feminism.

"Feminism - The advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men."

The built in assumption is that women have it worse and must be elevated to be equal with men, when in actually that varies on a case-by-case basis depending on the issue in question. For example, there is inequality in an 18-year-old man being subject to the draft while 18-year-old women are not.

However, it is preferable for men to be elevated to the status of women than for women to be involuntarily thrown into the meat grinder along with the men. It is preferable for society to protect infant boys from circumcision as we would baby girls, not cut up the lips of the vagina as we would the foreskin of a penis.

Since you think this is driven, in part, by a desire to appeal to demographics, do you think DC is more interested in appealing to "fanatical egalitarians" than men (obviously, there's room for overlap there)?

In this case I think they're more interested in appealing to fanatical egalitarians than moderate ones, otherwise this shift makes no sense. She doesn't call herself Wonder Man, she doesn't call herself king/prince of the amazons, she doesn't blindly copy Ares as War and has apparently referred to other female deities as "goddess".

She was always female, she became a deity.

[Silvanus]

The strangeness is the disconnect between what you "see" and what you "hear". If we had never seen her we'd have no clue she was female at all, thus ignoring the female variant of the label doesn't bring attention to her sex but rather pretends it isn't there.

We wouldn't have a clue that Princess Diana, Wonder Woman, is female? I hear three clues in that sentence, without even having to see her. "Wonder Woman is god of war," "the god of war is Diana," "she is princess (or queen) as well as god of war"; all these implications or statements imply an interesting disconnect between the gender assigned to the title or "throne" and the gender of the throne's current occupant.

In fact, going back to the interview that AWonder quoted, calling Wonder Woman god of war may be one of Azz's ways of showing that having woman as her "last name" doesn't have to and should not hold Wonder Woman back, even though he thinks that it has historically done so.

I thought the message was supposed to be that a female can do a male's job?

Then we see this similarly, but not quite identically; I think the point is that a woman has taken over a job that has traditionally been considered masculine. The authoritative role has been gendered male and defined to exclude women, but today a woman can assume the role anyway. If Diana assumed a "goddess of war" role that had been held by Athena for millenia, that wouldn't have had the same "barrier-breaking" impact. (Is the idea of barrier -breaking "egalitarian"? Sure--at least, I would want it to be, although I suppose there are ways that it can degenerate into tokenism. Is it fanatical? I don't think so--at least, it doesn't have to be, and in the case of Diana as god of war, I don't think it is. There's no real "uniformity"; she exercises the god of war role in a way that's very different, and in some ways more traditionally feminine.)

If the first thought that came to mind after hearing "goddess of war" was "Oh--like Athena" then it's wouldn't be surprising that a female could fulfill a male's role in the first place. The reason it's considered a male role is because Ares is the one people primarily think of as the deity of war, Athena's influence is usually portrayed as benevolent concepts like wisdom or justice.

Athena is well known to be the goddess of war; it's in the first sentence of her Wikipedia description (along with wisdom, justice, etc.), and it's pretty visible in typical portrayals of her, with her helmet and spear. It's true that her "goddess of war" role implied a wiser and more just approach to war than Ares' "god of war" role. But it's more dramatic (because yes, more "surprising") to have Wonder Woman take over the masculine role/title/throne and inhabit it in a wiser and more just and more traditionally "feminine" (gentle, merciful, tender) way, rather than simply inheriting a traditionally somewhat feminine role like "goddess of war." There probably is something egalitarian about the author's choice to introduce this particular kind of drama--a crossing of gender lines, in a sense-- but I don't see anything particularly "fanatical" about it. The fact that goddess is the correct term in real-world English doesn't mean that fictional Olympians can't deem "god" correct; for them, apparently the proper title is determined by the gender of the "throne" itself, not the gender of the occupant.

I don't think we really know of another example (at least in current DC continuity) of a female Olympian taking over the role of a male Olympian, or vice versa. If there's no precedent, then there may be nothing to say what the correct usage is for a female exercising authority that has always been deemed masculine. In Diana's case, perhaps someone (in this case, first Hades) had to improvise. And maybe it was too hard or uncomfortable for Hades (who, in the current DCU, seems to be the poster boy for insecure males) to conceive of "goddess" being equivalent to "god." It might be easier for him to think of Diana as an exception--a demi-goddess who has become a god--than to recognize that goddesses in general can be equivalent in power and authority and dignity to male gods.Oh well--it's a start. Maybe if Pesephone or Hecate replaces him as sovereign of hell, he'll begin to see that it's not just a matter of one exception.

Historically, people have certainly sometimes had trouble conceiving that "queen" could be equivalent to "king." For example, supposedly, no one quite knew what to call Mathilda when she was the first woman to claim the throne of England; eventually, she and her court seem to have settled on "queen" (before her side lost a civil war), but it wasn't immediately self-evident that the word queen could properly refer to a monarch ruling in her own right. Taking a masculine title like "king" may sometimes have been a better, or necessary, political strategy for female woud-be monarchs. In ancient Egypt, for example, there was no concept of a queen ruling in her own right, so, according to some historians, Hatshepsut had to be named "king" (or pharoah) and not just "queen" in order to assert full monarchical authority. See http://www.ancient-origins.net/histo...me-king-002181. There was also a Nigerian woman who was titled king in colonial times: http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/produ...ucts_id=406796 .

And there is at least one woman with the tile of king today, in the village of Otua, Ghana: see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...T2010030903477. In Ghana, according to this article, the title of king "refers to the person who wields executive power over a tribe or community regardless of gender," though it is unusual for the title to be held by a woman. I don't think the Ghanese are "incorrectly" using the title king for a woman; they've determined that, for their purposes and within their culture and body politic, "king" is the right term--and they get to make that determination. So I'd say that the "correct" term for a woman exercising traditionally male sovereignty is culturally determined and is not universal.

Sorry for the dissertation, but this stuff gets more interesting to me when I do a little research (even if it's just a few minutes of Googling), and once I've done it, I want to share it.

By the way, just to clarify what we're talking about here, when you say "fanatically egalitarian," do you think of that as a synonym for "feminist"?

I wouldn't be opposed, by the way, to Wonder Woman eventually saying "call me goddess; I've redefined the role, and I want the title to reflect that." That might be cool, in fact. But right now, it makes sense to me that titles and semantics are not her priority. Conversely, I think it might be cool to have Aegeus or someone be referred to by other gods as goddess of the moon, if he replaces Artemis after she (hypothetically) succeeds her brother as sun god. It might be funny to see Aegeus's reaction to that. Even funnier might be Hades having to swap with Perspehone and become "goddess of spring."

[LordMikel]

Actually anyone can correct me if I'm wrong, but Diana is not the Goddess of War. Ares was the God of War while Athena was the Goddess of War. If the mantle came from Ares, then yes, Diana is still the God of war.

[Silvanus]

Actually anyone can correct me if I'm wrong, but Diana is not the Goddess of War. Ares was the God of War while Athena was the Goddess of War.

This is true in mythology, but we don't really know if Athena has been considered goddess of war in the current DC Universe. She's been referred to as Justice, but not War. However, I'm thinking along the same lines as you; Azz may have wanted to at least leave open the possibility that Athena is, in some sense, goddess of war (goddess of just wars?) while Ares was (and Diana is) god of war.

[Awonder]

You keep calling it a job. A job doesn't have you leaving bloody footprints everywhere. It is a mantle. You can't change a mantle. It's why an "Iron Fist" stays an "Iron Fist".

Wu Ao Shi was an "Iron Fist". Her being female didn't mean you make some arbitrary change to the name of the mantle.

As Hawk80 pointed out, "Iron Fist" doesn't have masculine and feminine forms of the word, so it doesn't really compare well.

I agree that "mantle" is the better word choice here; "job" is just my cheeky shorthand version.

And if "mantles" can't be changed at all, how can Diana be an "interesting" God of War? Does she have no choice in her actions now? I see it more as a two-part title: "... of War" is the mantle/domain," and "God of ..." is referring to the person who holds that throne/mantle.

The appeal is in uniformity or "sameness". If one believes that gender is purely a state of mind, then it will be preferable to see a term that ignores the existence of two genders.

That the word "god" is chosen as the standard over the word "goddess" is due to most modern-day gods being male and the male sex is often considered the aiming point of "fairness". Males serving as the default aiming point is a pervasive idea, it's even within a lot of the definitions of feminism.

"Feminism - The advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men." ...

"Sameness" is an interesting point. It may be easier to treat things as equal when they are the same. Add in differences, and one may be treated better or as lesser.

So, the use of "God of War" is to make it uniform and the same for Diana (a woman) as it was for Ares (a man)? Does that really work in a story where the characters, including the hero, still use the term "Goddess" for the other females gods? Isn't that potentially reinforcing the idea that we treat "God" as better than "goddess"? That the masculine is the normative, and the feminine is somehow lesser?

[numberthirty]

And if "mantles" can't be changed at all, how can Diana be an "interesting" God of War? Does she have no choice in her actions now? I see it more as a two-part title: "... of War" is the mantle/domain," and "God of ..." is referring to the person who holds that throne/mantle.

Don't see how the technical name of the mantle has anything to do with the actions the person who winds up with the mantle takes.

While I can see a bit of what you are saying(they did shorten it to "War", "Moon", and so on), there is a reason the titles were shortened. No breaking the entirety of the mantle into anything but what it actually is.

[Awonder]

In fact, going back to the interview that AWonder quoted, calling Wonder Woman god of war may be one of Azz's ways of showing that having woman as her "last name" doesn't have to and should not hold Wonder Woman back, even though he thinks that it has historically done so...

If Diana assumed a "goddess of war" role that had been held by Athena for millenia, that wouldn't have had the same "barrier-breaking" impact...

But it's more dramatic (because yes, more "surprising") to have Wonder Woman take over the masculine role/title/throne and inhabit it in a wiser and more just and more traditionally "feminine" (gentle, merciful, tender) way, rather than simply inheriting a traditionally somewhat feminine role like "goddess of war." ...

I wouldn't be opposed, by the way, to Wonder Woman eventually saying "call me goddess; I've redefined the role, and I want the title to reflect that." That might be cool, in fact. But right now, it makes sense to me that titles and semantics are not her priority.

Another interesting "dissertation," Silvanus. I shortened it a bit for convenience and emphasis.

You say it's "barrier-breaking" to have Diana take over what was traditionally a male-dominated domain. I agree, but only to a degree, because I think it also runs the real risk of also being barrier-reinforcing. Males as the mentors is very pervasive in superhero comics. It's everywhere and reduces and restricts females from these roles. Ares may be very flawed, but he's still gets the dominate focus as Diana's divine mentor. The once-mentor goddesses are significantly reduced and restricted from a strong personal connection to our hero. That's not barrier-breaking.

Hippolyta and Athena have a daughter together would be barrier-breaking. Diana as powerful, due in large part, because she's now yet another "daughter of Zeus" is barrier-reinforcing of patriarchal archetypes. Hades (and some of the others) may have a hard time grasping that "Goddess" is equal to "God," but how is Diana not reinforcing that idea by assuming that "God" in her title should be the norm and go unchallenged?

And, yes, Diana was interested enough in titles to declare to her sisters (paraphrasing): "Follow me not as your princess, but follow me as God of War!" She's trying to build a bond with her sisters by setting herself apart and above them? Why would she think the Amazons would rather follow a "God" than a "Goddess?"

It's "surprising" and "dramatic?" But not really, as its basis is quite common in comics. Just as Batwoman needs Batman's stamp of approval to be a "Bat," we get God of War's approval for Diana to be God of War - she carries his title. She even sets herself apart as better than those other divine ladies that are only "goddesses" because she's the better girl that takes on the masculine title. It's relying and reinforcing male-centric hetero-normative archetypes. It's old and very out-dated.

"Woman" shouldn't keep her from being the equal of others, like Superman and Batman, but "woman" also shouldn't keep her from being a woman. She doesn't have to be a "God" to be their equal. She doesn't have to avoid her last name.

Edit- In short, my point is not that there are not arguably barrier-breaking elements to this and other aspects of the story. My point is that I think there are also barrier-reinforcing, male-centric archetypes.