D&D General D&D Red Box: Who Is The Warrior?

The Dungeons & Dragons Red Box, famously illustrated by Larry Elmore in 1983, featured cover art of a warrior fighting a red dragon. The piece is an iconic part of D&D's history.

WizKids is creating a 50th Anniversary D&D miniatures set for the D&D Icons of the Realms line which includes models based on classic art from the game, such as the AD&D Player's Handbook's famous 'A Paladin In Hell' piece by David Sutherland in 1978, along with various monsters and other iconic images. The set will be available in July 2024.

Amongst the collection is Elmore's dragon-fighting warrior. This character has only ever been seen from behind, and has never been named or identified. However, WizKids’ miniature gives us our first look at them from the front. The warrior is a woman; the view from behind is identical to the original art, while the view from the front--the first time the character's face has ever been seen--is, as WizKids told ComicBook.com, "purposefully and clearly" a woman. This will be one of 10 secret rare miniatures included in the D&D Icons of the Realms: 50th Anniversary booster boxes.

The original artist, Larry Elmore, says otherwise. (Update—the linked post has since been edited).

It's a man!

Gary didn't know what he wanted, all he wanted was something simple that would jump out at you. He wanted a male warrior. If it was a woman, you would know it for I'm pretty famous for painting women.

There was never a question in all these years about the male warrior.

No one thought it was a female warrior. "Whoever thought it was a female warrior is quite crazy and do not know what they are talking about."

This is stupid. I painted it, I should know.

- Larry Elmore​

Whether or not Elmore's intent was for the character to be a man, it seems that officially she's a woman. Either way, it's an awesome miniature. And for those who love the art, you can buy a print from Larry Elmore's official website.

 

[teitan]

Mainly cause I have 1 displate already and like the magnetic attachment over buying a print, framing and hanging it…and they were on sale last night when I looked at the site for it…win!

Alrighty then.

 

[teitan]

I think the main point here is, the mini is supposed to represent an iconic character from 50 years ago for a special occasion and WotC deliberately changed it for reasons.

Which probably wouldn’t be as bad if you could get the actual iconic figure along side the reimagined one but you can’t.

The one chance to get this character and they altered it first. Just a weird thing to do. And as mentioned the & symbol is kind of an odd choice on her chest.

Wizkids changed it deliberately. WOtC did not.

 

[teitan]

No I wasn't. Please stop telling me what I meant.

Feel a little like Elmore now?

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

Comic books take the opportunity reinterpret artistic (both writing and illustration) intent (or lack thereof) all the time. This is no different. Entire swaths of continuity have been built over a single (ambiguous/incorrect) panel (why was Shadow Woman white instead of blue in the Hall of Heroes in the Legion of Super Heroes?)

Starship Troopers (the movie) reinterpreting the novel as satire about fascism discards authorial intent (which nobody is clear about anyway).

In the Watchmen series, making Hooded Justice (a character, like this warrior, who was never seen clearly or completely) a black man was artistic genius. The showrunner took the opportunity to subvert both the hangman's noose and the klan's hood to tell a very powerful story, taking advantage of the ambiguity.

The issue — at least for me personally — isn't that they're reinterpreting or deriving a new piece of art (the miniature) from the original (the painting); it's that they're making all this hoopla about how it's the 50th anniversary, that they're celebrating the OG characters / creatures of the game by utilizing those historical pieces of artwork, and that they're hyping this set up as faithful 3D representations of those original pieces of artwork almost entirely across the board, with the "modern" versions of those NPCs / monsters being the "reinterpretations" or "derivative" works, except in the case of this miniature... and then really honing in on "we made this one female" despite it indisputably having been intended by not just Elmore but Gygax as well to be male.

I don't think there's anything wrong with retconning a male character to be female, a white character to be black, a straight character to be gay, etc. but it does seem odd for them to be doing this in seeming contrast with everything else they're doing in this set and really emphasizing it.

Some of Elmore's reaction was definitely overreaction. As others have pointed out, the art's out there and people are free to interpret it any way they want regardless of original intent. I think his clarification / correction was good.

At the same time I don't think anyone here is can honestly claim that the significant number of people have historically thought that the character was anything but a Conan-like male warrior, given the context of that time and era of the gaming industry and how the artist across the board depicted males and females in his art (and let's be honest pretty much how all the famous artists for the game at the time did). People who didn't grow up with the game and those boxed sets, and maybe saw this iconic artwork more "recently", perhaps, but definitely not people in the 80's and 90's when that art was first produced and was an iconic cover known by everyone in the space.

 

[michaeljpastor]

delete this please. hit backspace too far.

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

Wizkids changed it deliberately. WOtC did not.

I doubt that WizKids could have gone through with this without explicit approval from WotC.

 

[michaeljpastor]

Feel a little like Elmore now?

No. Artistic interpretation and accusations of maliciousness are not the same thing. And the last I'm saying on the topic.

 

[CleverNickName]

Here's another rendering of the original artwork, also by Larry Elmore, from his "Complete Elmore Volume III" Kickstarter a while back. There's a whole write-up in this book about "Red Dragon," one of his most famous and recognizable works. I believe the sketch below is one of the first mockups that was sent for approval.

 

[AstroCat]

There is no good reason to call people names (incel) or wish death/disability on them (coronary) simply because they disagree with you about what the gender of an action figure based on an old painting should be. Come on man, you gotta do better than that, that's not appropriate.

Agreed, not cool at all.

 

[Queer Venger]

thic & jacked, how I like my strong female warriors...

Ive for a long time l learned to separate the art from the artist.

And representation matters.