This never made sense to me. In Morrowind, Bosmer were short, and thin, and their women were normal height like the Dunmer. In Oblivion, the men were short and fat, and the females were, again, normal. But in Daggerfall, the Bosmer are described as a tall race. So why are Bosmers currently set up this way? I mean on Morrowind PC, I just altered their height, but I'd like to know why they're short, but the women are tall. Why not both be short?

Short (snicker) answer: me.

Longer answer (somewhat unsatisfying without a discussion): it was my commentary on Men versus Women in general, as encapsulated in one of the single, isolated cultures that I could use to express it.

It's an interesting gender role reversal, Michael. Were you influenced by real life tribal cultures in which the women do all the hunting and working and men sit around and gossip? I remember studying about them in high school and suddenly having this epiphany about how artificial and constructed our culture is, and how not everything is as it seems. Were you going for a similar commentary there?

I think he wanted to portray the men as women perceive us, and the women as we perceive them. They're more archtypical, than contrary. I like how one is repulsive-unatractive and the other is dainty-unatractive.

And here I thought it was just that someone on the development team thought that for variety, they should have one race where males are taller than females. Certainly, there's no reason not to do that, though, just because it generally doesn't work that way in humans doesn't mean there's any reason why it can't work that way with fantasy races.

Or maybe the Bosmer are more like animals... in some kinds of animals, the females are bigger than the males. I think this happens a lot for the majority of bird, reptile, and amphibian species... not so much in land mammals, though. =/

I like the gender characteristics reversal; there's no reason a fantasy world has to operate exactly the same as our world.

I heard that they were eaten by Peryite, and upon defecation, they were short. It's not just "Everybody Poops", but often we find that "Everybody is Poop".

Yeah, it's one of those universals of comparative anatomy. The reason it breaks down for real-world mammals is that there's a huge selective advantage to a male who can control a number of females, make of that what you will. So we look for the selective advantage in being small. In a culture whose scripture is "The Thousand Ways of Hiding", there just might be an advantage in being especially inconspicuous while hunting, or raiding, or fleeing from the Khajiit, and being small fits the bill. If females, by and large, stay at home, there is no such advantage in small stature for them.

It may also be that, for some reason, all the females we're exposed to in the game retain more Altmer or Ayleid blood than the males we see. *shrugs* just a random hypothesis. This may explain why there are more female Bosmer NPCs who are spellcasters than the male ones. (though their stats for INT and WILL are identical, this may be more of a lore thing. Remember in Shadowkey, the Bosmer had increased Restoration ability, something that hasn't been mentioned before in other games.)

I'm not favorable to applying real world evolution patterns on Nirn - there will be a selection, but the timeframe don't allows it to have much effect. Especially for the long-lived elves. There's simply not enough generations. Nirn's evolution of sentient races is more a result of mythopoetic forces (an awfully rought summary would be : you become what you believe). The culture and beliefs are what shapes the races.

Whith a bosmeri culture that enphasizes sneaking and hiding, the short stature of the bosmer males is fairly logical. If the bosmer myths ar right, there's also the root cause of Yffre's choice. He's the one who shaped the bosmers. It's doesn't give a clue to what was behind his choices, but it explains the results.

Truer words were never spoken.

I honestly love you, and if I ever got a tattoo it would be that, over my heart.

You're just a little off. Some better clarification:

Because Bosmer represent the idea that Women Are Always Beautiful and Men Are Always Short Ugly Trollish Creatures.

S'true.


Look, just face it, http://img504.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pulpsmallsi1.jpg

:turtle:

So what's that book about anyway?

Sin, crime and San Francisco. And booze, don't forget the booze. :woot:

:turtle:

kinda obvious, if natural selection is any indicator, the women like shorter males, and the males like taller women. perhaps in a few hundred years, the women will be as tall as nords, and the men will be even shorter.

i just wish the bosmer males kept their satyr horns from tes3.

I think a more obvious answer would be that game developers can't bring themselves to NOT make every female in a game a sixy supermodel.

Did you ever look at an Altmer female in Morrowind?

Did you see Mivryna Arano?

You ever played Morrowind?