Shieldbangers (and upgrades) are Varl women!

[BrainFreeze]

Raiders are men and move 4 tiles.
Archers are women and move 3 tiles.
Warriors move 4 tiles.
Shieldbangers move 3 tiles.

Theory: Warriors are men, Shieldbangers are women.

You may ask: "WTF? They have a beard!!!111", but i read about bearded dwarven women in many a book. So women can have beards in fantasy worlds, and seeing how Varls love their beards that may be the case.

What do you think?

[Arnie]

This is a very, very interesting hypothesis. What makes you think Varl are either male or female?

[raven2134]

I am also intrigued...never thought of this. How are Varl born/where do they come from too?...I have no idea what the lore/mythos is on that.

To the OP, I guess that could work? Though I'd be sad cos shieldbangers are so fat.

[BrainFreeze]

This is a very, very interesting hypothesis. What makes you think Varl are either male or female?

Indirect evidence.
1) Warleader's fluff. He uses phrase "run off wailing to your mother". If he adresses Varl, then Varls have mothers. If he adresses human then we should think some more: "run off wailing to your mother" is not a literal action, but an idiom, describing some cowardly behavior. If varl uses this idiom, then either
a) Idiom was created in Varl society, which means Varls have mothers (you generally don't include alien concepts in proverbs)
b) Idiom was borrowed from human language, which implies that Varl and human societies have long history of cultural exchange(which is not the case iirc)

2) Provoker's fluff. He talks about "explicit romance with foe's daughter". I assume that the foe in question is also varl. If he is so angered, then he really have daughter and there are female varl in banner saga universe.

I did my research)

[Aleonymous]

Yet another argument to support the position that Shieldbangers are female Varl is the following: All three SBs (PK, SM, SRM) decorate their horns with different color variations, whereas the manly Warriors do not!

[LoliSauce]

I dunno aleo...

Nothing says manly like ~☆★ACCESSORIZING★☆~

[raven2134]

LOL. I think Alex needs to weigh in on this...but as far as I know, there are no female Varl. It's got story implications as well for the Saga ...

[Arnie]

Interesting hypothesis indeed...though, as Raven says there are no varl women. Are the varl men, "men"?

[Yth]

I posit that Varl come in only one gender (men/neuter), and that they reproduce via Mitosis.

Since Varl are so tough, it is quite actively difficult for them to convince their cells to split and the survival of the species is always in jeopardy. This issue is solved by having a suitably well-fed Varl, ready to split, getting assistance from another friendly Varl. Basically one Varl chops the other in half, which is a happy occasion as it heralds the birth of a new member of the race. The whole species is very devoted to this activity of chopping each other in half (and eating a lot), and as a whole the Varl are very confused when the similar-looking humans become sad when one of their race is chopped in half.

...

[Aleonymous]

I posit that Varl come in only one gender (men/neuter), and that they reproduce via Mitosis [...] The whole species is very devoted to this activity of chopping each other in half (and eating a lot), and as a whole the Varl are very confused when the similar-looking humans become sad when one of their race is chopped in half.

An interesting theory. I wonder where do the Horns fit in...

[mindflare77]

Shards of broken weaponry/armor, clearly.

[Rellarella]

Indirect evidence.
1) Warleader's fluff. He uses phrase "run off wailing to your mother". If he adresses Varl, then Varls have mothers. If he adresses human then we should think some more: "run off wailing to your mother" is not a literal action, but an idiom, describing some cowardly behavior. If varl uses this idiom, then either
a) Idiom was created in Varl society, which means Varls have mothers (you generally don't include alien concepts in proverbs)
b) Idiom was borrowed from human language, which implies that Varl and human societies have long history of cultural exchange(which is not the case iirc)

2) Provoker's fluff. He talks about "explicit romance with foe's daughter". I assume that the foe in question is also varl. If he is so angered, then he really have daughter and there are female varl in banner saga universe.

I did my research)

I wouldn't trust the dialogue, the modern colloquialisms don't fit in with the setting at all. It's just bad writing. Varl have no use for gender because they don't reproduce.