Gender in the AVP Universe

preatorians:

Praetorians are created only when a queen alien chooses a random drone alien to bathe in her royal jelly. Which means that the selected drone alien only has a matter of time to escape the hive before the other xenomorphs kill the drone because of the drones hormone changes. If the worthy drone succeeds, it will then find a safe place to mold into a praetorian. Once done, it will return to the hive and be strong enough to fend off the other xenomorphs attacks. The queen will see that he succeeded and will allow the praetorian back in the hive, making it guard the queen herself.

This is quite a way to piss off a lot of people mate.

Not sure how it'll piss anyone off. It's just a couple of fact-files about two different Xenomorph types. One canon and one non-canon. It's on-topic and everything, just I don't see how it's a point for discussion, besides that it DOES seem like an attempt to get us to include a King Alien.

EDIT: OK, so I appear to have written a goddamn thesis paper here. Sorry about that.

Ellen Ripley is the first real sci-fi action heroine in movies. She was fighting to defend her adopted daughter, and humanity as a whole. She needed a female nemesis. Thus, the Alien Queen.

In sci-fi/horror fiction of old, the men would battle invaders from the stars in order to protect what's theirs' (ie: Earth and/or women). Look at stuff like Creature from the Black Lagoon, or It, Terror From Beyond Space, or even King Kong. What's the common thread between all of them?

"Hey, those foreigners are taking our women/planet/property!"

It's an inherently male fear.

The battle in Aliens, though, is between two mothers trying to ensure their children's survival. It's a female fighting a female, and the conflict itself is inherently female. That's the whole point.

It is, on a fundamental level, what makes the Alien movies work. They're primarily about WOMEN.

By eliminating this, by usurping the Queen and having a specifically male alternative rule the Hive (because apparently there NEEDS to be a male in charge) you hamstring the entire thematic thrust of the Alien movies.

It's doesn't work. It just doesn't.

The fact that it doesn't work is the whole point of that "Rouge" comic you keep mentioning. The villain thinks that by creating a King, he will create a "pure" hive. In reality, the King is a deformed brute that kills every drone in the hive because because it views them as competition. The Queen than proceeds to kill it, because she's faster and smarter.

A specifically "male" alien doesn't work because, speaking from an evolutionary standpoint, male animals are primarily concerned with spreading their seed. Females are primarily concerned with nurturing and defending their young.

To put it another way, a Queen wants to defend The Hive at any cost. A King would want to start his own hive. So even within the non-canon EU, the King doesn't work.

Are you implying that there is an air of sexism in the attempt to include a king?

Honestly? Yes.

I don't think it's intentional, but I think there's a notion that a Queen needs a King, and that the Xenos are somehow flawed because of the reliance on a female. Especially where RPGs are concerned, being ruled over by female isn't appealing to teenage boys.

People seems to hate the idea of female Predators being bigger and stronger than the males for what I would guess are similar reasons.

I don't mind the whole queen thing, I actually think its cool, but I do have a problem with the female pred thing. Xenomorphs don't really comply with biology, but predators do, sexual dimorphism never goes that way with mammal-like reptiles, and yes, I know they are aliens and evolved on a different planet, but still, it just doesn't work that way. And im not saying the females are smaller, in all honesty they would probably be the same size, only having different patterns as any indication from male and female.

But the idea of a sort of "captain of the gaurd" xeno would be cool. But I don't think there needs to be a king alien, only a queen.

Oh...king alien talk again...




Seriously. It's getting painful now. Not that i'm trying to enforce a new ruling here or anything, but do we think we can leave this nonsense alone, if not just for a while?

We have a queen. We have Eggs. We have Drones, Warriors and the odd weird one here and there (Runner, Deacon, newborn & predalien) Anything else is simply pants and not part of the canon universe, no matter their gender.

/Semi rant over.

Nice gif. is it from liar,liar?

"I know they are aliens and evolved on a different planet"

Once you say this, the rest is kind of moot. There are plenty of examples in nature of females being larger and more dangerous. Hell, supposedly female T-Rexes were a lot nastier than the males.

I cant articulate my point so im just gonna drop the size thing.

Fair enough.

I just want to make one point here.


Xenomorphs are mutch like insects, with their hive structure. If there were males, they would be weak, live to mate, andbe eaten by the queen after sex. This also implies all other Xenomorphs are female.

Good point. There's not a King Ant or King Bee, so why would there be a King alien?

Anyways, how can we assume a species as perfetct as the xenomorph needs a male? Or gender, for that matter.

Very true.

^Exactly. The title of "Queen" is both unfortunate and very, very important. It's unfortunate because it automatically forces people to think there are Kings... but it's important because this is a battle between women, and if no gender was given, a majority of the film's fans would likely fight to say the Queen was male.

I'm afraid this goes beyond Aliens/Predators and all the way to society's view of gender roles. If they were called Kings from the get-go, no one would wonder about a Queen.

As personally not identifying as any gender, I think gender roles are stupid. Anyway, on the no gender, I was refering more to the original Alien.

The Queen is "female" only in the very literal sense of "lays eggs." Beyond that, I doubt they have any appreciable concept of gender.

Dronehive i applaud you. They aren't from earth so we cant apply earth values such as gender. The only similarity is that they lay eggs.

But in the FILMS its 90% sex. The films are an attack on sexuality and i think Giger accomplished what he set out to do.

You want a King because the idea of a woman dominating you makes you cross your legs. The Xenomorph was designed so that men and women were scared in the theater. So that MEN were scared of being raped, Suffocated and threatened by a giant penis.

Giger set out to rape both genders and the fact that you are so scared to play as a symbolic female just shows how well he did it. You're so threatend by the idea of a female leader that you're grasping at straws to make it so that its not your gender who's being threatened.

Look at some of Bloos older posts. He doesn't kill his victims. He fucks them. And he plays a female character. And I'll be the first to say i crossed my legs throughout Alien.

Long story short you don't get a king aline. Aliens are all about Mothers, Birth trauma and rape. All of these are female issues being applied to a gender neutral foe. Get over it.

Pardon my poor structure, Its 2am.