Gorgon’s head in the bag? I’d say better than 50-50 odds. But, I’m willing to be surprised by something even more unpleasant.
Petrification offers two interesting conditions. One, will she actually die and go to the afterlife? Because, if she’s just frozen in place, Ranna will be denied immediate access to her knowledge. Because, second, we’ve already seen that there is a cure from petrification, at least within a certain time period that can be measured in weeks. Meaning she could be brought back, or eventually pass into the afterlife after a certain amount of time passes, or her stone body suffers enough damage.
Really hoping Trevor has something for her that makes petrification a wildly pleasant preferred option.
Oh, I did not intend to imply violence as a method Trevor would use. I don’t consider petrification to be violence so much as poetic retribution. The reason I like this scene is because it’s engaging my creative speculation juices. It’s Trevor. The gorgon’s head would be the lest violent and the most pleasant option I can imagine him using. Options after that would probably become more unpleasant on a logarithmic scale, and the horror of them would be dramatically increased by the lack of violence.
However. One can never discount the finale scene from Bakshi’s Wizards when Avatar gets the drop on Blackwolf. Sometimes you just have to go for the solution that is absolutely final and a sure thing rather than trying to be too clever and messing it up.
As well-read a scholar as Trevor is, I am quite certain that he has not only read The Top 100 Things I’d Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord, but he has actively participated in refining the rules.
One thing that is starting to bug me more and more is how even non-mammalian females have breasts. Lady Malyss is acceptable, as a naga seems to be part human grafted on to a serpent body, but for other egg-laying species, it seems breasts would be, well, unattractive to others of their species.
P.S.: this is not a criticism of Rich’s work, mind you: I was just reminded of other media where this is the case, especially with aliens who really do not need to conform to our naked ape ideals.
I myself have made very lengthy and similar arguments. So we’re on the same page on that. And yeah, this is an exception because as a creature of her kind (not what I would call a Naga, btw), she is as you said, an amalgamation rather than a true reptile. But my Lizard Women and other reptiloids don’t have breasts, they lay eggs.
If I remember my Greek mythology (Thank you Assassin’s Creed Odyssey for reinvoking it) I would guess she’s based on Queen Lamia, who was cursed by Hera to be part woman part snake.
Be interesting to see how much of your interpretation follows the mythology
Reptiles shouldn’t have breasts — it’s one of the things that really drove me up the wall about the redesigned Silurians in Doctor Who — but you can have lactating egg-laying creatures (the monotremes on our own world like the Platypus) so if we’re talking about aliens with reptiloid features and breasts, you can make a case for convergent development.
Still, it’s something I’d avoid unless there’s a compelling reason to add the feature — after all, even most mammals don’t have visible breasts unless they’re lactating. Humans are highly unusual in that regard.
Heres my theory with such things: this is a magical world where the dominants species are of the humanoid mammalian form as such such beings are shaped by said magic to resemble said dominant species. This shaping could be a weird form of magic evolution or the work of a magical being whom created them.
Or there is the other possibility this is a magical world and there is nothing more magical than breasts in this or any world so in a magical world all female should have breasts as either the embodiment of said magic or on of the sources of it.
Well sounds reasonable. But in my opinion, all these worlds and monsters were developed by some virgin nerds. So breasts are likely a kind of fetish to the developers of Fantasy Characters.
???
Note that in many cases, those monsters are CREATED by some mage. So, the IN-UNIVERSE reason for them having breasts could be that they were created by some virgin nerd.
(Also reminds me one dragoness: Why do you have breasts? Cosmetic surgery, to be more attractive to humans.)
Well, Star Control used that exact same explanation to the question of why most species in the galaxy look "humanoid"; symmetric faces, bipedal, etc. It turned out there is an extradimensional species that feeds on sentient species and "seeded" the galaxy, with the intention to come back at a later date and "harvest" them; so they used a "life-blueprint" they knew worked.
Fantasy Worlds might follow a somewhat similar logic. Yuan-ti females have breasts not because they need them, but because they’re designed to lure mammal humanoids, and male mammal humanoid LOVE boobs 😛
That’s long been my theory as to why creatures that prey on humans might have evolved breasts, or breast-like curves; there’s a real advantage in predation when one’s prey is conflicted, and staring instead of running. Mimicry and imitation regularly surfaces across the animal kingdom, in the oddest places — while I completely acknowledge the authorial element of "readers/viewers like looking at breasts" and its quite significant role in their presence in fantasy stories, I think there may be some reasonable intracanonical, rather than extracanonical, reasons for the shapes, if perhaps not the functions.
One other theory I entertain periodically, in the case of magically-created beings, is that, the Nerd And Girl Robot Effect ™ aside, there is a certain frugality of design effort to simply lifting "woman" and "something else" whole-cloth, and combining them, using the structures, shapes and elements preexisting for want of minimizing the difficulty of the magical combination ahead. For similar reasons, when I installed my aftermarket car stereo, I wired both sides of the bridge to a generic connector standard, and connected them, even though it meant many dead pins bridged. Easier to translate Honda to Universal, and Kenwood to Universal, than Honda to Kenwood directly. It’s not that I couldn’t have wired it directly, of course…but that would have involved more work, more thought. The "to Universal" wiring is well-documented, and there are easy, crimp-and-go premade parts for that.
I won’t suggest that some of those wizards didn’t appreciate the happy aesthetic accident, mind you. The "wizards are pervy magic-using otaku" theory holds water, and I’m not about to challenge it…only to suggest that it’s one of many elements in the particular gumbo that is the matter of fantasy snakeboobs.
Not exactly @EvilMidnightLurker; they’re reptiles, but, as I tried to say below, they have different chastes. The "human-like" Yuan-ti are infiltrators. Their shape has nothing to do with their biology, rather they’re made to blend in and lure prey. As most humanoid cultures in Fantasy have males in leadership positions, most Yuan-Ti Infiltrators are female, and have female-human-like bodies.
"Standard" Yuan-ti are snakes with an humanoid torso, with a snake-like head on top of it. They make the bulk of the species, and they have no evident sexual features whatsoever, so you can’t tell if you’re dealing with a female or a male Yuan-ti of that chaste.
"Abominations" are a more open-ended chaste, as in their appearance can be wildly different from one to the next; They’re huge snakes with extra humanoid and snake features and limbs thrown in almost randomly. They’re a sacred chaste as they’re absurdly powerful and they’re the Yuan-ti’s Pantheon pets.
But, regardless of their appareance, all Yuan-ti are reptiles, they’re not half-breed, as a half-dragon might be.
As an extra, the Yuan-ti have different snake-to-human ratio kind, but those aren’t true Yuan-ti, those are humanoids corrupted by Yuan-ti magic and gods; so those are (mostly) mammals with serpentine features magically/divinely grafted into them to the point they serve the purpose they’re being created/corrupted for
Without question or argument, the most frightening of possible timelines for Lady Malice … uhm, er, Lady Malyss. She just doesn’t realize it quite yet. But, pretty sure in very short order she will.
I do hope it’s time for a https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheReasonYouSuckSpeech. A polite one, naturally, but the more cutting for all of that. 😀
Reptiles shouldn’t have breasts — it’s one of the things that really drove me up the wall about the redesigned Silurians in Doctor Who — but you can have lactating egg-laying creatures (the monotremes on our own world like the Platypus) so if we’re talking about aliens with reptiloid features and breasts, you can make a case for convergent development.
Still, it’s something I’d avoid unless there’s a compelling reason to add the feature — after all, even most mammals don’t have visible breasts unless they’re lactating. Humans are highly unusual in that regard.
I totally agree about the Silurians, and wanted to mention them myself! In fact, the only case where this was subverted was in a novel – The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Manks – where it wasn’t until the middle where one of the Culture humans mentioned that he was staring at the protagonist because she didn’t have breasts, as she was a "non-mammalian species" and that coitus was not going to be as pleasurable as she imagined.
I would argue that in those worlds where classical female traits are left off (breasts, eyelashes, and so on) the race becomes more believable, if harder to identify as female.
Just going to copy/paste a comment I’ve left on a youtube video about reptiles and breasts to address the complaint a number of people have had.
Honest and biologically sound answer:
Quadraped bigendered species (i.e. reptiles, mammals, etc) pursue potential mates with specific anatomical features that indicate prime genetic material for reproductive purposes. Those features: Buttocks. A sexy ass is "big, round, and firm." A big, round, firm ass is the rump of a healthy, athletic, well fed potential mate. And any dog, cat, horse, lizard, ape, whatever, gets a good long look at that ass when it gets displayed… because that’s the part they’re going to be looking at during the reproductive act.
But humans are bipeds who interact via face-to-face positioning, both sexually and nonsexually. Every time a human being meets another human being, they spend the majority of their time facing each other while interacting. And if one of those humans is an amorous male and the other is an amorous female, then the female needs a sexual characteristic that’s very close to their faces… but which looks like an ass. Big. Round. And firm.
Mammary glands have nothing to do with breasts. You can get as much milk out of an A cup as you can a DD cup. Breasts are sexual characteristics – they’re like the feathers of a male peacock. They’re ornamental, they’re there to attract potential mates. That’s IT.
TLDR: breasts literally exist for the sole purpose of being sexy, and ANY bipedal species that engages in regular face-to-face social interactions is going to have them, regardless of the presence or lack of fluid producing glands.
But out of curiosity, which species of lizard has beautiful buttocks? Snakes, lizards, crocodiles… they all look pretty sleek and practically designed to me. Males and females seem to differ mainly in size or colour and maybe little spines or horns or whatnot. I guess your argument allows for shapely breasts to be similar to the little spines and things, just pretty decorative shapes for the opposite sex to be attracted to? If that’s the case… I reluctantly concede. BUT….
I still think that designing your reptilian humanoid as a human being with green paint and a forked tongue is the laziest, least imaginitive thing you can do.
Im’a cast some meh on your comment. Humans have only quite recently made face-to-face mating the primary method, evolutionarily speaking. And, even then, we only favor it culturally due to fairly recent religious indoctrination.
Even in the sense of civilization, as recently as Chinese, Greek & Egyptian art within the last 5000 years we have substantial records to document that face-to-face may not have been entirely common, it may have even been considered kinky and exotic, depending upon the culture. Delving back into early Bronze Age or Late Stone Age or earlier … it’s not a big stretch to imagine that face-to-face may just be a modern fad that’s only been around for about 10,000 years or so. Meaning, it hasn’t been around long enough to impact evolution of our species. The evolutionary angle you’re promoting would very strongly favor humans having genetic triggers set in stone for several millions of years prior to the advent of agriculture.
Keep in mind that where we sit in today’s modern Western culture is the end-product of a 2000 year program of morality shaming to impose political control and prop up various social power structures. Or, if you want to go deep-Abramatic on the topic, maybe about 6000 years or so.
tl;dr — grab a copy of the Kama Sutra and put it on your reading list for the weekend.
Archone does have one very solid point, however. Whatever the cause, Human breasts are almost purely decorative. Even in our closest relatives they aren’t so prominent all the time, like when not nursing babies.
"Mammary glands have nothing to do with breasts. "
Not quite — in mammals breasts/udders often swell when the female is lactating. Permanently swollen breasts are a "dig me, I’m fertile!" feature. Cosmetic? Yes… but cosmetics do serve a purpose.
Anyway, you can have mammary glands without breasts, or even without nipples (monotremes don’t have ’em), but there’s no point to evolving breasts without mammary glands — at least not in Terran biology.
So why do all the snake women have such amazing hips?
Its not just yours this seems to be a common trend.
This is by no means a complaint or meant to discourage the continued proliferation of said sexy snake woman hips, in fact I dare say we need more, this is a question of curiosity as they seem to out class other races in the abundance of said amazing hips.
It feeds into my argument against reptile women having breasts, too. Snake women have great hips and boobs not to appeal to snake men, but to appeal to the appropriately oriented very human readers.
I generally try to avoid this -but it’s hard. And in this case, she’s not just a snake-woman… she’s a special corruption of Human/snake creature created by Ranna.
Well. Thing is, whatever the reason, human females did develop round breasts to attract their males. The question should not be why other species have shapely breasts too, but rather why shouldn’t they have? Orcs, elves, dwarves and all those humanoid beings could have taken in this case the same track through evolution as humans did, and for the very same reason. In the end, it really doesn’t matter what the reason is. Especially, if we consider the fact, that these races can produce half-blood offsprings with each other, it even makes sense – increased pool of possible fathers. And that could be the case for ANY other race as well, that can reproduce with humans/elves/orcs/etc.
Indeed, the races that are (possibly) not capable of such things make a different case. But as Fnordius said, most of these beings are carnivores, so it could really be a way to lure their pray. If we take into account all races that have such breasts, not only humans, it can be a very effective strategy. Must admit though, I have no idea whether harpies could have children with orcs for example, but they definitely can mate with each other -look back at some earlier strips with Glon.
As such, above arguments could be used on reptilians as well. Why not evolve in a similar fashion, for either or the other purpose? Or for both? Its a fantasy world after all.
Aliens are a totally different thing though, as they generally not evolved on the same planet as humans, so there is really no reason to take the same evolutionary track, or to be able to have kids with them at all.
TL,DR: In my opinion it makes sense to have similar traits with similar species, especially if reproduction is possible between them. If the lizardmen can make kids with humans, they can run around with boobs, if not, than its stupid.
You know, I think you just stumbled onto an in-world answer: by imitating Human females, a reptilian creature would be more able to lure male humans. A case of adaptation to get closer to their prey. Those with exaggerated human female attributes were more successful, and thus more able to pass on the trait to their offspring.
Had to look them up. I remember seeing them in the monster books, but never really paid much heed. So the answer is no, she’s not a Yuan-ti. Their history doesn’t fit into YAFGC history at all, and she’s part of a more consistent race (Remember the snake-lady who popped out of the desert and attacked Prince Kassim?) That being said, these people were made in a similar sort of way, with Ranna playing around with mashing creatures together. And she’s very fond of snakes.
Well, at least in Faerün, Yuan-ti are pretty much just that; they have a lot of grades in the sanke-to-human ratio; does that look very much like human are, mostly female and infiltrators (meaning, the purpose of their looks is mostly to blend in and lure victims); standard Yuan-ti are snakes with human torsos, but snake heads. It is never stated their sex, so it is safe to assume there are male and female, just with no eviden difference. And then, Abominations that are amalgams of snakes of human with no other purpose that be scary, awful and please the Yuan-ti Gods.
Looks like another "The Fog" reference. The scene where the babysitter is tricked into opening the door by repeated knocking…and yes, in the movie, it was a series of triple knocks (BANG….BANG…BANG)
Pick up your copies of YAFGC Volumes 1 - 5 at our online store. Multi-book bundles and sketch editions available.
Hmmm, what’s in the bag?
"Kitty!"
/improbable_response
A very LOUD kitty….. 🙂
She’s actually quite cute for an ophidian. ^_^
This question should have been asked a few pages back, but how did they summon the fog?
There’s a lvl 1 spell
Wow.
NOT what I was expecting. Panel 7 last time really suckered me; nice job.
Nice subtle job with the bag, since we’re mostly looking at her reaction.
t!
Gorgon’s head in the bag? I’d say better than 50-50 odds. But, I’m willing to be surprised by something even more unpleasant.
Petrification offers two interesting conditions. One, will she actually die and go to the afterlife? Because, if she’s just frozen in place, Ranna will be denied immediate access to her knowledge. Because, second, we’ve already seen that there is a cure from petrification, at least within a certain time period that can be measured in weeks. Meaning she could be brought back, or eventually pass into the afterlife after a certain amount of time passes, or her stone body suffers enough damage.
Really hoping Trevor has something for her that makes petrification a wildly pleasant preferred option.
I dunno, Trevor doesn’t seem the type to engage in violence. If he does have a Gorgon head in a bag, I figure it’s to remove her without killing her.
But then, given he’s probably not as fast as her, why wait? Why not just have it out already?
Okay, having written that, to answer my own question: Perhaps, in keeping with his character, he’s going to try reason first.
t!
I agree I think talking to her is much more Trevor’s style, and I hope it is Malyss needs more screen time
Oh, I did not intend to imply violence as a method Trevor would use. I don’t consider petrification to be violence so much as poetic retribution. The reason I like this scene is because it’s engaging my creative speculation juices. It’s Trevor. The gorgon’s head would be the lest violent and the most pleasant option I can imagine him using. Options after that would probably become more unpleasant on a logarithmic scale, and the horror of them would be dramatically increased by the lack of violence.
However. One can never discount the finale scene from Bakshi’s Wizards when Avatar gets the drop on Blackwolf. Sometimes you just have to go for the solution that is absolutely final and a sure thing rather than trying to be too clever and messing it up.
As well-read a scholar as Trevor is, I am quite certain that he has not only read The Top 100 Things I’d Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord, but he has actively participated in refining the rules.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilOverlordList
Well, I’m thinking it’s not a pig in a pokey 🙂
But he’ll let the cat out of the bag soon enough 😀
One thing that is starting to bug me more and more is how even non-mammalian females have breasts. Lady Malyss is acceptable, as a naga seems to be part human grafted on to a serpent body, but for other egg-laying species, it seems breasts would be, well, unattractive to others of their species.
Just a thought I had about our expectations.
P.S.: this is not a criticism of Rich’s work, mind you: I was just reminded of other media where this is the case, especially with aliens who really do not need to conform to our naked ape ideals.
I myself have made very lengthy and similar arguments. So we’re on the same page on that. And yeah, this is an exception because as a creature of her kind (not what I would call a Naga, btw), she is as you said, an amalgamation rather than a true reptile. But my Lizard Women and other reptiloids don’t have breasts, they lay eggs.
If I remember my Greek mythology (Thank you Assassin’s Creed Odyssey for reinvoking it) I would guess she’s based on Queen Lamia, who was cursed by Hera to be part woman part snake.
Be interesting to see how much of your interpretation follows the mythology
I can explain the phenomenon in two words, Fnordius: "sex sells"
And yeah, it breaks my immersion sometimes too in other works, like any kind of random fanservice.
It’s the rule of cool, and breasts look nice 😉
Reptiles shouldn’t have breasts — it’s one of the things that really drove me up the wall about the redesigned Silurians in Doctor Who — but you can have lactating egg-laying creatures (the monotremes on our own world like the Platypus) so if we’re talking about aliens with reptiloid features and breasts, you can make a case for convergent development.
Still, it’s something I’d avoid unless there’s a compelling reason to add the feature — after all, even most mammals don’t have visible breasts unless they’re lactating. Humans are highly unusual in that regard.
Heres my theory with such things: this is a magical world where the dominants species are of the humanoid mammalian form as such such beings are shaped by said magic to resemble said dominant species. This shaping could be a weird form of magic evolution or the work of a magical being whom created them.
Or there is the other possibility this is a magical world and there is nothing more magical than breasts in this or any world so in a magical world all female should have breasts as either the embodiment of said magic or on of the sources of it.
Well sounds reasonable. But in my opinion, all these worlds and monsters were developed by some virgin nerds. So breasts are likely a kind of fetish to the developers of Fantasy Characters.
???
Note that in many cases, those monsters are CREATED by some mage. So, the IN-UNIVERSE reason for them having breasts could be that they were created by some virgin nerd.
(Also reminds me one dragoness: Why do you have breasts? Cosmetic surgery, to be more attractive to humans.)
Well, Star Control used that exact same explanation to the question of why most species in the galaxy look "humanoid"; symmetric faces, bipedal, etc. It turned out there is an extradimensional species that feeds on sentient species and "seeded" the galaxy, with the intention to come back at a later date and "harvest" them; so they used a "life-blueprint" they knew worked.
Fantasy Worlds might follow a somewhat similar logic. Yuan-ti females have breasts not because they need them, but because they’re designed to lure mammal humanoids, and male mammal humanoid LOVE boobs 😛
That’s long been my theory as to why creatures that prey on humans might have evolved breasts, or breast-like curves; there’s a real advantage in predation when one’s prey is conflicted, and staring instead of running. Mimicry and imitation regularly surfaces across the animal kingdom, in the oddest places — while I completely acknowledge the authorial element of "readers/viewers like looking at breasts" and its quite significant role in their presence in fantasy stories, I think there may be some reasonable intracanonical, rather than extracanonical, reasons for the shapes, if perhaps not the functions.
One other theory I entertain periodically, in the case of magically-created beings, is that, the Nerd And Girl Robot Effect ™ aside, there is a certain frugality of design effort to simply lifting "woman" and "something else" whole-cloth, and combining them, using the structures, shapes and elements preexisting for want of minimizing the difficulty of the magical combination ahead. For similar reasons, when I installed my aftermarket car stereo, I wired both sides of the bridge to a generic connector standard, and connected them, even though it meant many dead pins bridged. Easier to translate Honda to Universal, and Kenwood to Universal, than Honda to Kenwood directly. It’s not that I couldn’t have wired it directly, of course…but that would have involved more work, more thought. The "to Universal" wiring is well-documented, and there are easy, crimp-and-go premade parts for that.
I won’t suggest that some of those wizards didn’t appreciate the happy aesthetic accident, mind you. The "wizards are pervy magic-using otaku" theory holds water, and I’m not about to challenge it…only to suggest that it’s one of many elements in the particular gumbo that is the matter of fantasy snakeboobs.
Yuan-ti can have breasts because they’re human-snake hybrids, so the option exists.
Not exactly @EvilMidnightLurker; they’re reptiles, but, as I tried to say below, they have different chastes. The "human-like" Yuan-ti are infiltrators. Their shape has nothing to do with their biology, rather they’re made to blend in and lure prey. As most humanoid cultures in Fantasy have males in leadership positions, most Yuan-Ti Infiltrators are female, and have female-human-like bodies.
"Standard" Yuan-ti are snakes with an humanoid torso, with a snake-like head on top of it. They make the bulk of the species, and they have no evident sexual features whatsoever, so you can’t tell if you’re dealing with a female or a male Yuan-ti of that chaste.
"Abominations" are a more open-ended chaste, as in their appearance can be wildly different from one to the next; They’re huge snakes with extra humanoid and snake features and limbs thrown in almost randomly. They’re a sacred chaste as they’re absurdly powerful and they’re the Yuan-ti’s Pantheon pets.
But, regardless of their appareance, all Yuan-ti are reptiles, they’re not half-breed, as a half-dragon might be.
As an extra, the Yuan-ti have different snake-to-human ratio kind, but those aren’t true Yuan-ti, those are humanoids corrupted by Yuan-ti magic and gods; so those are (mostly) mammals with serpentine features magically/divinely grafted into them to the point they serve the purpose they’re being created/corrupted for
Without question or argument, the most frightening of possible timelines for Lady Malice … uhm, er, Lady Malyss. She just doesn’t realize it quite yet. But, pretty sure in very short order she will.
I do hope it’s time for a https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheReasonYouSuckSpeech. A polite one, naturally, but the more cutting for all of that. 😀
Watch out! It…he has a bag!!
Trevor has gone Trick or Treating a bit early this year, even though I’m thinking that the bag is holding his trick…
Remember Rule One, Malyss!!
Reptiles shouldn’t have breasts — it’s one of the things that really drove me up the wall about the redesigned Silurians in Doctor Who — but you can have lactating egg-laying creatures (the monotremes on our own world like the Platypus) so if we’re talking about aliens with reptiloid features and breasts, you can make a case for convergent development.
Still, it’s something I’d avoid unless there’s a compelling reason to add the feature — after all, even most mammals don’t have visible breasts unless they’re lactating. Humans are highly unusual in that regard.
Meant to post this as a reply to fnordius’s post. Feel free to delete this one and just leave the version in the appropriate conversation.
I totally agree about the Silurians, and wanted to mention them myself! In fact, the only case where this was subverted was in a novel – The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Manks – where it wasn’t until the middle where one of the Culture humans mentioned that he was staring at the protagonist because she didn’t have breasts, as she was a "non-mammalian species" and that coitus was not going to be as pleasurable as she imagined.
I would argue that in those worlds where classical female traits are left off (breasts, eyelashes, and so on) the race becomes more believable, if harder to identify as female.
You have some library books overdue….
Oh. Dear Lord. Trevor is about to go Full Mental Librarian on her …. asp.
Just going to copy/paste a comment I’ve left on a youtube video about reptiles and breasts to address the complaint a number of people have had.
Honest and biologically sound answer:
Quadraped bigendered species (i.e. reptiles, mammals, etc) pursue potential mates with specific anatomical features that indicate prime genetic material for reproductive purposes. Those features: Buttocks. A sexy ass is "big, round, and firm." A big, round, firm ass is the rump of a healthy, athletic, well fed potential mate. And any dog, cat, horse, lizard, ape, whatever, gets a good long look at that ass when it gets displayed… because that’s the part they’re going to be looking at during the reproductive act.
But humans are bipeds who interact via face-to-face positioning, both sexually and nonsexually. Every time a human being meets another human being, they spend the majority of their time facing each other while interacting. And if one of those humans is an amorous male and the other is an amorous female, then the female needs a sexual characteristic that’s very close to their faces… but which looks like an ass. Big. Round. And firm.
Mammary glands have nothing to do with breasts. You can get as much milk out of an A cup as you can a DD cup. Breasts are sexual characteristics – they’re like the feathers of a male peacock. They’re ornamental, they’re there to attract potential mates. That’s IT.
TLDR: breasts literally exist for the sole purpose of being sexy, and ANY bipedal species that engages in regular face-to-face social interactions is going to have them, regardless of the presence or lack of fluid producing glands.
A very valid point, thank you Archone.
But out of curiosity, which species of lizard has beautiful buttocks? Snakes, lizards, crocodiles… they all look pretty sleek and practically designed to me. Males and females seem to differ mainly in size or colour and maybe little spines or horns or whatnot. I guess your argument allows for shapely breasts to be similar to the little spines and things, just pretty decorative shapes for the opposite sex to be attracted to? If that’s the case… I reluctantly concede. BUT….
I still think that designing your reptilian humanoid as a human being with green paint and a forked tongue is the laziest, least imaginitive thing you can do.
Im’a cast some meh on your comment. Humans have only quite recently made face-to-face mating the primary method, evolutionarily speaking. And, even then, we only favor it culturally due to fairly recent religious indoctrination.
Even in the sense of civilization, as recently as Chinese, Greek & Egyptian art within the last 5000 years we have substantial records to document that face-to-face may not have been entirely common, it may have even been considered kinky and exotic, depending upon the culture. Delving back into early Bronze Age or Late Stone Age or earlier … it’s not a big stretch to imagine that face-to-face may just be a modern fad that’s only been around for about 10,000 years or so. Meaning, it hasn’t been around long enough to impact evolution of our species. The evolutionary angle you’re promoting would very strongly favor humans having genetic triggers set in stone for several millions of years prior to the advent of agriculture.
Keep in mind that where we sit in today’s modern Western culture is the end-product of a 2000 year program of morality shaming to impose political control and prop up various social power structures. Or, if you want to go deep-Abramatic on the topic, maybe about 6000 years or so.
tl;dr — grab a copy of the Kama Sutra and put it on your reading list for the weekend.
Archone does have one very solid point, however. Whatever the cause, Human breasts are almost purely decorative. Even in our closest relatives they aren’t so prominent all the time, like when not nursing babies.
"Mammary glands have nothing to do with breasts. "
Not quite — in mammals breasts/udders often swell when the female is lactating. Permanently swollen breasts are a "dig me, I’m fertile!" feature. Cosmetic? Yes… but cosmetics do serve a purpose.
Anyway, you can have mammary glands without breasts, or even without nipples (monotremes don’t have ’em), but there’s no point to evolving breasts without mammary glands — at least not in Terran biology.
So why do all the snake women have such amazing hips?
Its not just yours this seems to be a common trend.
This is by no means a complaint or meant to discourage the continued proliferation of said sexy snake woman hips, in fact I dare say we need more, this is a question of curiosity as they seem to out class other races in the abundance of said amazing hips.
It feeds into my argument against reptile women having breasts, too. Snake women have great hips and boobs not to appeal to snake men, but to appeal to the appropriately oriented very human readers.
I generally try to avoid this -but it’s hard. And in this case, she’s not just a snake-woman… she’s a special corruption of Human/snake creature created by Ranna.
Admittedly, however, by my own logic, mermaids, sirens and harpies should also not have breasts or swelled hips. So I’m probably not the best judge.
Well. Thing is, whatever the reason, human females did develop round breasts to attract their males. The question should not be why other species have shapely breasts too, but rather why shouldn’t they have? Orcs, elves, dwarves and all those humanoid beings could have taken in this case the same track through evolution as humans did, and for the very same reason. In the end, it really doesn’t matter what the reason is. Especially, if we consider the fact, that these races can produce half-blood offsprings with each other, it even makes sense – increased pool of possible fathers. And that could be the case for ANY other race as well, that can reproduce with humans/elves/orcs/etc.
Indeed, the races that are (possibly) not capable of such things make a different case. But as Fnordius said, most of these beings are carnivores, so it could really be a way to lure their pray. If we take into account all races that have such breasts, not only humans, it can be a very effective strategy. Must admit though, I have no idea whether harpies could have children with orcs for example, but they definitely can mate with each other -look back at some earlier strips with Glon.
As such, above arguments could be used on reptilians as well. Why not evolve in a similar fashion, for either or the other purpose? Or for both? Its a fantasy world after all.
Aliens are a totally different thing though, as they generally not evolved on the same planet as humans, so there is really no reason to take the same evolutionary track, or to be able to have kids with them at all.
TL,DR: In my opinion it makes sense to have similar traits with similar species, especially if reproduction is possible between them. If the lizardmen can make kids with humans, they can run around with boobs, if not, than its stupid.
You know, I think you just stumbled onto an in-world answer: by imitating Human females, a reptilian creature would be more able to lure male humans. A case of adaptation to get closer to their prey. Those with exaggerated human female attributes were more successful, and thus more able to pass on the trait to their offspring.
That makes sense.
"I am here to accept your surrender. Or you could get cut to pieces like the rest of them. Your choice."
Is Lady Malyss a Yuan-ti?
Had to look them up. I remember seeing them in the monster books, but never really paid much heed. So the answer is no, she’s not a Yuan-ti. Their history doesn’t fit into YAFGC history at all, and she’s part of a more consistent race (Remember the snake-lady who popped out of the desert and attacked Prince Kassim?) That being said, these people were made in a similar sort of way, with Ranna playing around with mashing creatures together. And she’s very fond of snakes.
Well, at least in Faerün, Yuan-ti are pretty much just that; they have a lot of grades in the sanke-to-human ratio; does that look very much like human are, mostly female and infiltrators (meaning, the purpose of their looks is mostly to blend in and lure victims); standard Yuan-ti are snakes with human torsos, but snake heads. It is never stated their sex, so it is safe to assume there are male and female, just with no eviden difference. And then, Abominations that are amalgams of snakes of human with no other purpose that be scary, awful and please the Yuan-ti Gods.
*those that look
*evident differences
*amalgam of snakes and humans
Never write fast and skip the proof reading when writing a foreign language.
Is that a Gnome hooked hammer, or a moon spade, or… ?
Looks like another "The Fog" reference. The scene where the babysitter is tricked into opening the door by repeated knocking…and yes, in the movie, it was a series of triple knocks (BANG….BANG…BANG)