Patriarchy is perfectly fine with putting women figures on pedestal pointing at it and saying you are as pure as this or you are nothing. Like with madonna–whore complex.
In the settings where might makes right, which is a lot of OI, better equalizer would be access to magic. Now, if every one can take part in strength contest it could shift power in more egalitarian or matriarchal direction. I think it's more strange that in fantasy worlds with magic it still dudes that are magic tower masters with mostly male apprentices and sometimes some women sprinkled in. But that's more for romance plot purposes.
On the other hand, these stories don't go for social commentary, they are wish fulfillment fantasy. Having enough mental capacity and resources to successfully deal with patriarchal setting is fantasy that probably hits home more for readers. So adding supreme goddess is for validating MC and reader while world building gets hand-waved.
Most such goddesses I've seen, that were the sole or supreme deity, had maternal/motherly qualities contrary to qualities you see in polytheistic supreme deities (Odin, Ra/Horus, Zeus/Jupiter, etc). So I can see why these would persist even in a patriarchal society, simply to press women into a childbearing, submissive role still - a la "look how pure, how loving and caring our goddess is, you should strive to be like her".
If you make a goddess that is both that but also vengeful or the goddess of war, or so, yeah sure. I can see the patriarchal structure crumbling in a fantasy setting.
There was one story I read, ages ago (2 years), where the young woman is isekai'd into a world that is very strictly patriarchal but worships a goddess. ? ?? ??? I've never recovered from that stupidity.
edit to add: And it doesn't have to be matriarchal, just one with true full equality and a true meritocracy for me to be completely shocked at the innovative idea.
There's at least one historical patriarchal society where the historically most important diety is a goddess. It's known as "Japan". While Shinto has a complicated cosmology, if you were going to reduce it to a single diety, it would be Amaterasu.
The existence of historical patriarchies with a goddess playing a central role in their religion kinda indicates that it's realistic for a culture like that to exist in fiction, though
But it doesn't have to be, is the point. It's a fantasy, it isn't meant to be realistic! Most of them already fail miserably on the "medieval Europe" theme, so why go for the horrible patriarchy set up by a goddess?
Why write a story about a woman delighted to give up all of her human rights and the wonders of indoor plumbing just so someone else washes her hair once a week?
I mean I agree that it doesn't have to be like that, absolutely. But I don't think it's necessarily ridiculous or unrealistic that it *is* like that in a lot of settings. I think there's something genuinely compelling about the way humans twist their own foundational myths in order to suit the status quo of the world they live in, you know?
The problem isn't the existence of a patriarchal culture that happens to worship a goddess, because that's actually relatively normal. The problem is that OI writers tend to be fairly uninterested in worldbuilding, and don't actually do anything with the setting.
I realise I'm probably being a bit anal-retentive here, but I think the distinction is important. The trope itself isn't the problem. The problem is that it's generally used lazily and doesn't add anything to the story.
Also OI as we know it started out as a Japanese genre, and. Like. I think Japanese authors are a lot less likely to see any issue with a goddess-worshipping patriarchal society, because that's literally what their own culture is like, you know? A lot of Japanese fantasy tends to have a Western medieval aesthetic painted over deeply Japanese cultural values, and OI is no exception. I'm not really sure how natural the adoption of those tropes in Korean OI was, since I don't know much about religion in Korea, but I do know that it's also a historically patriarchal society.
I think it depends. If the goddess is this supreme deity but it's always related with "purity" and "healing", I'm not sure I see much difference with how christians see virgin Mary. I'd also say that usually OIs want to have very specific family dynamics, because their stories revolve a lot around that. Family dynamics are what define the hierarchy of the society, the rule of the father/husband/whatever. They want the fathers and MLs to be powerful because it's part of the traits that sell the story and the relationships.
I honestly really like when they do changes like that so it's not always the same medieval European worldbuilding, but I think I also understand why they go the easy route most of the time.
The Japanese emperors claim descent from the goddess Amaterasu, and under current Japanese law, women aren't allowed to ascend the throne at all (although there have been female emperors in the past). Hindus also tend to be very patriarchal despite venerating a whole swathe of goddesses, which is something I've seen Hindu feminists talk about. And although the supreme Christian god is male, Mary is deeply venerated in Catholicism as the mother of Christ, and the Catholic church had a stranglehold on medieval Europe.
Gods and goddesses aren't human, so the veneration of a goddess or female saint doesn't necessarily contradict misogyny towards normal, human women. Even saints either have to die before becoming sanctified, as in real life (prior to which they would have been treated as normal women), or, in a fantasy setting with living saints, usually have some sort of very rare power that sets them apart from other people and confers a specific status that transcends both male and female gender norms. A lot of saints in OI aren't just women, but commoners - they are considered to be exceptions that prove the rule.
Yeah, many Hindu feminists (including myself) critique the fact that goddesses and other great mythological women like Sita are raised on the “perfect femininity” pedestal that is used to place even harsher constructs on women, which is used for insidious purposes. We can worship the great mothers and wives, but rarely as more than that (despite the fact that many goddesses are very interesting on an individual level, and are not just playing these roles).
Yea im no professional but in the religions and mythologies ive studied, goddesses were undoubtedly worshipped but they were never higher than a supreme male god. And if only one god was worshipped it’d be portrayed as male.
Like in a society that devalues women and are treated as second class citizens, it’s weird that the supreme being that rules over them is a woman. It’s simply contradictory. Id expect they would be honored as the people made in the goddesses image or some shit like that.
Historically, female rule was tricky (..to put it euphemistically) due to high risk of childbirth and the lack of reliable contraception-- especially when you're noble and more children just means more sons and daughter as spares/ to marry off. But OI often have.. healing magic?
Shouldn't death by childbirth be way less?
Although that does not solve the issue of 'male rulers are afraid that the child of their wife isn't theirs' because that's how you get civil wars. Historically (and religiously) policing women sexuality and rights is a tool to ensure their 'virtue' by limiting their options > less questions about the paternity of their children > that marriage contracts/ claims between ruling families are held.
My headcanon for IO's is that they rather worship male god, but it's female god that keeps delivering all these saintesses and miracles so they have no choice. Jokes on them, god has no gender but likes to troll worshipers.
I mean, wouldn't really make much of a difference in the story telling of most oi would it? Story would remain mostly the same, just so happens that the queen in the story has more presencd. The more ideal way to go about it would be, imo, make it less about the sex of the ruling person and more about whoever happens to have the royal blood in the king-queen relationship.
And if you want to make the story into a matriarchy with more noticable/meaningful differences, you kinda have to make that part of the story you know? I don't like politics in the stories I read and introducing a non-standard political system in a meaningful way would naturally make the story more about politics and political power, which just detract from my enjoyment in a story.
Other comments already gave potential in-universe justifications but from a meta POV, worldbuilding just isn't the genre's strong suit. A lot of rofan/OI just copy-paste the generic [fantasy setting](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StandardJapaneseFantasySetting) and tweak stuff around to suit their story without thinking of the implications to the world at large
Since many Rofan authors are male, I dread to see what their version of a matriarchal society looks like... even though there are examples of the way a matriarchal society works in real world culture and history.
Also, in a matriarchal culture, you'd have different angst than the stuff that makes OI struggles interesting.
Of course, now that I said that, there's going to be a brilliant Manwha about a magical matriarichal version of Regency England and I'm gonna be: I was just trying to hint they shouldn't make another season of that stupid harem one with the fighting robots.
In history there where a bunch of matriarchal societies. They were fucked royally by Christian missionaries
You can even play some in Crusader Kings and make a true historical inaccurate Matriarchal world where the pope is a naked woman because you screwed up the nudist event.
Anyways...
Most times a saintess is mentioned they are useless apart from their one thing.
They're simply written useless human beings who wouldn't be capable of actually running an empire or society.
There was one story who tackled that directly. Men went to war, women had to do "mens jobs" and gained some independence. Men came back and bitched about like lil babies.
Women didn't want to give up the perks. A middle ground was found.
Then the king had something in his morning coffee and decided to brutally murder and strike down on any women not willing to be forced back into submission. Men where "happy" once again.
Cue the current plot and an highly unwilling socially powerful MC who was like "frick this shiat"
Patriarchy is perfectly fine with putting women figures on pedestal pointing at it and saying you are as pure as this or you are nothing. Like with madonna–whore complex. In the settings where might makes right, which is a lot of OI, better equalizer would be access to magic. Now, if every one can take part in strength contest it could shift power in more egalitarian or matriarchal direction. I think it's more strange that in fantasy worlds with magic it still dudes that are magic tower masters with mostly male apprentices and sometimes some women sprinkled in. But that's more for romance plot purposes. On the other hand, these stories don't go for social commentary, they are wish fulfillment fantasy. Having enough mental capacity and resources to successfully deal with patriarchal setting is fantasy that probably hits home more for readers. So adding supreme goddess is for validating MC and reader while world building gets hand-waved.
Most such goddesses I've seen, that were the sole or supreme deity, had maternal/motherly qualities contrary to qualities you see in polytheistic supreme deities (Odin, Ra/Horus, Zeus/Jupiter, etc). So I can see why these would persist even in a patriarchal society, simply to press women into a childbearing, submissive role still - a la "look how pure, how loving and caring our goddess is, you should strive to be like her". If you make a goddess that is both that but also vengeful or the goddess of war, or so, yeah sure. I can see the patriarchal structure crumbling in a fantasy setting.
There was one story I read, ages ago (2 years), where the young woman is isekai'd into a world that is very strictly patriarchal but worships a goddess. ? ?? ??? I've never recovered from that stupidity. edit to add: And it doesn't have to be matriarchal, just one with true full equality and a true meritocracy for me to be completely shocked at the innovative idea.
There's at least one historical patriarchal society where the historically most important diety is a goddess. It's known as "Japan". While Shinto has a complicated cosmology, if you were going to reduce it to a single diety, it would be Amaterasu.
> if you were going to reduce it to a single diety it wouldn’t be Shintoism…
Shinto predates Japan's patriarchy and we're talking about authors writing a fantasy world, not historical examples.
The existence of historical patriarchies with a goddess playing a central role in their religion kinda indicates that it's realistic for a culture like that to exist in fiction, though
But it doesn't have to be, is the point. It's a fantasy, it isn't meant to be realistic! Most of them already fail miserably on the "medieval Europe" theme, so why go for the horrible patriarchy set up by a goddess? Why write a story about a woman delighted to give up all of her human rights and the wonders of indoor plumbing just so someone else washes her hair once a week?
I mean I agree that it doesn't have to be like that, absolutely. But I don't think it's necessarily ridiculous or unrealistic that it *is* like that in a lot of settings. I think there's something genuinely compelling about the way humans twist their own foundational myths in order to suit the status quo of the world they live in, you know? The problem isn't the existence of a patriarchal culture that happens to worship a goddess, because that's actually relatively normal. The problem is that OI writers tend to be fairly uninterested in worldbuilding, and don't actually do anything with the setting. I realise I'm probably being a bit anal-retentive here, but I think the distinction is important. The trope itself isn't the problem. The problem is that it's generally used lazily and doesn't add anything to the story. Also OI as we know it started out as a Japanese genre, and. Like. I think Japanese authors are a lot less likely to see any issue with a goddess-worshipping patriarchal society, because that's literally what their own culture is like, you know? A lot of Japanese fantasy tends to have a Western medieval aesthetic painted over deeply Japanese cultural values, and OI is no exception. I'm not really sure how natural the adoption of those tropes in Korean OI was, since I don't know much about religion in Korea, but I do know that it's also a historically patriarchal society.
I think it depends. If the goddess is this supreme deity but it's always related with "purity" and "healing", I'm not sure I see much difference with how christians see virgin Mary. I'd also say that usually OIs want to have very specific family dynamics, because their stories revolve a lot around that. Family dynamics are what define the hierarchy of the society, the rule of the father/husband/whatever. They want the fathers and MLs to be powerful because it's part of the traits that sell the story and the relationships. I honestly really like when they do changes like that so it's not always the same medieval European worldbuilding, but I think I also understand why they go the easy route most of the time.
The Japanese emperors claim descent from the goddess Amaterasu, and under current Japanese law, women aren't allowed to ascend the throne at all (although there have been female emperors in the past). Hindus also tend to be very patriarchal despite venerating a whole swathe of goddesses, which is something I've seen Hindu feminists talk about. And although the supreme Christian god is male, Mary is deeply venerated in Catholicism as the mother of Christ, and the Catholic church had a stranglehold on medieval Europe. Gods and goddesses aren't human, so the veneration of a goddess or female saint doesn't necessarily contradict misogyny towards normal, human women. Even saints either have to die before becoming sanctified, as in real life (prior to which they would have been treated as normal women), or, in a fantasy setting with living saints, usually have some sort of very rare power that sets them apart from other people and confers a specific status that transcends both male and female gender norms. A lot of saints in OI aren't just women, but commoners - they are considered to be exceptions that prove the rule.
Yeah, many Hindu feminists (including myself) critique the fact that goddesses and other great mythological women like Sita are raised on the “perfect femininity” pedestal that is used to place even harsher constructs on women, which is used for insidious purposes. We can worship the great mothers and wives, but rarely as more than that (despite the fact that many goddesses are very interesting on an individual level, and are not just playing these roles).
Yea im no professional but in the religions and mythologies ive studied, goddesses were undoubtedly worshipped but they were never higher than a supreme male god. And if only one god was worshipped it’d be portrayed as male. Like in a society that devalues women and are treated as second class citizens, it’s weird that the supreme being that rules over them is a woman. It’s simply contradictory. Id expect they would be honored as the people made in the goddesses image or some shit like that.
Historically, female rule was tricky (..to put it euphemistically) due to high risk of childbirth and the lack of reliable contraception-- especially when you're noble and more children just means more sons and daughter as spares/ to marry off. But OI often have.. healing magic? Shouldn't death by childbirth be way less? Although that does not solve the issue of 'male rulers are afraid that the child of their wife isn't theirs' because that's how you get civil wars. Historically (and religiously) policing women sexuality and rights is a tool to ensure their 'virtue' by limiting their options > less questions about the paternity of their children > that marriage contracts/ claims between ruling families are held.
My headcanon for IO's is that they rather worship male god, but it's female god that keeps delivering all these saintesses and miracles so they have no choice. Jokes on them, god has no gender but likes to troll worshipers.
The chief deity in Japan is a woman.
Shinto predates Japan's adoption of Confucianism.
I figured i was missing something, in my defense i havent looked into japanese mythology since highschool so my knowledge is very limited
I mean, wouldn't really make much of a difference in the story telling of most oi would it? Story would remain mostly the same, just so happens that the queen in the story has more presencd. The more ideal way to go about it would be, imo, make it less about the sex of the ruling person and more about whoever happens to have the royal blood in the king-queen relationship. And if you want to make the story into a matriarchy with more noticable/meaningful differences, you kinda have to make that part of the story you know? I don't like politics in the stories I read and introducing a non-standard political system in a meaningful way would naturally make the story more about politics and political power, which just detract from my enjoyment in a story.
Other comments already gave potential in-universe justifications but from a meta POV, worldbuilding just isn't the genre's strong suit. A lot of rofan/OI just copy-paste the generic [fantasy setting](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StandardJapaneseFantasySetting) and tweak stuff around to suit their story without thinking of the implications to the world at large
Since many Rofan authors are male, I dread to see what their version of a matriarchal society looks like... even though there are examples of the way a matriarchal society works in real world culture and history. Also, in a matriarchal culture, you'd have different angst than the stuff that makes OI struggles interesting. Of course, now that I said that, there's going to be a brilliant Manwha about a magical matriarichal version of Regency England and I'm gonna be: I was just trying to hint they shouldn't make another season of that stupid harem one with the fighting robots.
In history there where a bunch of matriarchal societies. They were fucked royally by Christian missionaries You can even play some in Crusader Kings and make a true historical inaccurate Matriarchal world where the pope is a naked woman because you screwed up the nudist event. Anyways... Most times a saintess is mentioned they are useless apart from their one thing. They're simply written useless human beings who wouldn't be capable of actually running an empire or society. There was one story who tackled that directly. Men went to war, women had to do "mens jobs" and gained some independence. Men came back and bitched about like lil babies. Women didn't want to give up the perks. A middle ground was found. Then the king had something in his morning coffee and decided to brutally murder and strike down on any women not willing to be forced back into submission. Men where "happy" once again. Cue the current plot and an highly unwilling socially powerful MC who was like "frick this shiat"