How much, if any, of Appendix N passes the Bechdel Test?

[Gavinfoxx]

I just wanted to know if anyone has gone through Appendix N to check. I was making the point that these often quite old works of fiction can be tricky for young, modern audiences sometimes, and wanted to know which works passed.

[Alcore]

You have this in the generic section... appendix N of what system?

[Drakevarg]

I had just been assuming "Appendix N" was itself a system I simply had never heard of.

[Alcore]

I had just been assuming "Appendix N" was itself a system I simply had never heard of.

I assume 5e as it's the only one I know with an excessive appendix.

But you never know...

[Eldan]

Appendix N is a list of fantasy novels that Gary Gygax recommended to D&D players as sources on what a D&D game could be like, and what he used to develop the worlds, tone, monsters, classes etc. of the game. Pretty well known. You can even buy Appendix N as a book collection.

For convenience:

Anderson, Poul: THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS; THE HIGH CRUSADE; THE BROKEN SWORD

Bellairs, John: THE FACE IN THE FROST

Brackett, Leigh

Brown, Frederic

Burroughs, Edgar Rice: “Pellucidar” series; Mars series; Venus series

Carter, Lin: “World’s End” series

de Camp, L. Sprague: LEST DARKNESS FALL; THE FALLIBLE FIEND; et al

de Camp & Pratt: “Harold Shea” series; THE CARNELIAN CUBE

Derleth, August

Dunsany, Lord

Farmer, P. J.: “The World of the Tiers” series; et al

Fox, Gardner: “Kothar” series; “Kyrik” series; et al

Howard, R. E.: “Conan” series

Lanier, Sterling: HIERO’S JOURNEY

Leiber, Fritz: “Fafhrd & Gray Mouser” series; et al

Lovecraft, H. P.

Merritt, A.: CREEP, SHADOW, CREEP; MOON POOL; DWELLERS IN THE MIRAGE; et al

Moorcock, Michael: STORMBRINGER; STEALER OF SOULS; “Hawkmoon” series (esp. the first three books)

Norton, Andre

Offutt, Andrew J.: editor of SWORDS AGAINST DARKNESS III

Pratt, Fletcher: BLUE STAR; et al

Saberhagen, Fred: CHANGELING EARTH; et al

St. Clair, Margaret: THE SHADOW PEOPLE; SIGN OF THE LABRYS

Tolkien, J. R. R.: THE HOBBIT; “Ring trilogy”

Vance, Jack: THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD; THE DYING EARTH; et al

Weinbaum, Stanley

Wellman, Manley Wade

Williamson, Jack

Zelazny, Roger: JACK OF SHADOWS; “Amber” series; et al


Now, I actually haven't read too much of this...

Looking through it:
Burroughs: probably not? Doesn't feature too many women. Havn't read Pelucidar, I doubt Barsoom does.
Derleth: strongly doubt it.
Lord Dunsany: might be. There could well be a discussion about two female gods or somesuch somewhere. It's been a while.
Howard: going to go with no.
Lovecraft: no chance.
Tolkien: unlikely.
Roger Zelazny: fair number of female characters in Amber. They probably talk to each other at some point, but this one also has been a while.

[KorvinStarmast]

The Bechtel test is a curious requirement to raise by murder hoboes.

[Alcore]

Appendix N is a list of fantasy novels that Gary Gygax recommended to D&D players as sources on what a D&D game could be like, and what he used to develop the worlds, tone, monsters, classes etc. of the game. Pretty well known. You can even buy Appendix N as a book collection.

I have systems that give me a similar list. So, to me, the question needed asking.


Pretty sure The Hobbit fails. The Lord of the Rings might pass; I recall in The Two Towers that two named female characters were in the same rough area. It has been years and can't seem to find them again in old english. It was such a joy to read in highschool.

[Devils_Advocate]

The Bechtel test is a curious requirement to raise by murder hoboes.

Hm? Unless I'm mistaken, no one here said anything about anyone requiring anything.

[Mechalich]

A lot of the works referenced have singular protagonist only viewpoints, such works relate very poorly to the Bechdel test because the only 'conversations' that appear are those the protagonist either participates in or directly witnesses. For example, in the various Conan stories, Conan is in almost every scene and the reader basically sees only what Conan sees. Many of the works listed are very similar.
In works of this kind, passing the test is basically nothing more than a measure of the gender of the protagonist: if the protagonist is female, the test is more or less automatically passed, while if the protagonist is male, it's difficult to pass the test because it requires two women to have a conversation while the protagonist basically just stands there and listens.

Of course, it is also worth recognizing that Alison Bechdel first proposed her test in 1985, and Appendix N first appeared in 1979. Most of the works listed in the Appendix were published prior to 1970. This is a useful reminder that the fantasy that inspired D&D is old-school, almost all of it pre-dating the modern fantasy renaissance that D&D itself played a significant role in inspiring.

[Alcore]

Hm? Unless I'm mistaken, no one here said anything about anyone requiring anything.

I present to you the title of the thread;

"How much, if any, of Appendix N passes the Bechdel Test? "

That is our requirement. Which I also find odd and partially disturbing that a modern audience could not handle reading those that fail*. His opening post implies they might be heavily exclusive and insular lot.


*okay... he said "tricky" for young modern audiences... if they fail?

[icefractal]

It's just a question - how many of the books meet certain criteria? OP says nothing about banishing the ones that don't to the shadow realm, nor are they likely capable of such.

[Shining Wrath]

I'm going to guess almost none. Appendix N was Gygax's day, and there weren't many female authors working in the Sci-Fi / Fantasy space - Le Guin, McCaffrey? And Gygax somehow missed those two.

[Martin Greywolf]

Anderson, Poul: THE HIGH CRUSADE

IIRC doesn't pass the test, there is one somewhat relevant female character. It has been two decades since I read it, though.

Tolkien, J. R. R.: THE HOBBIT; “Ring trilogy”

Nothing by Tolkien passes the test - maybe some specific parts of Silmarilion if you're feeling *very* generous, I think Morwen and her daughter talked once in Narn i hin Hurin?

[Quertus]

Wow. The Bechdel Test is odd. A lot of my single author fiction short stories fail, even if the protagonist is female, simply because there’s no dialog. I guess it’s a poor test to apply to short stories…

And I agree that it’s odd to expect from 1st person perspective stories. Like, how many 1st person stories with female protagonists have said MC just sit there silently while two men discuss something (other than a girl)?

It feels like most of the stories should get a “N/A” score rather than a pass/fail, simply by being 1st person, or by lacking dialog.

EDIT: and that’s even ignoring non-binary characters (although, if the MC were “the luggage”, I guess “watching silently” might actually be more likely).

[Thrudd]

I assume asking for the Bechdel test is more generally asking for works of fiction more broadly including a female protagonist or important characters and avoiding misogynistic approaches, rather than the specifics of the actual test, meaning there must be two women talking to each other (as has been stated, a lot of short stories only have one character at all, and old sci-fi and fantasy can be light on the dialogue).

Most of the Appendix N stories, being 50 to 100 years old and older, should probably be approached more as a matter of historical interest. It's sort of silly to hold works of such age to standards you'd expect of authors today, based on values that were still being formulated when this appendix was published in the 1970's. Old works of literature in general can be tricky for young folks who have no understanding of the era in which they were written- but there can still be value in reading them. You read such things with an open mind, understanding that the authors lived in a world where values we today(sometimes rightly) find distasteful to repugnant were commonplace if not acceptable in the social context in which they were written. Reading the stories, even enjoying aspects of them, shouldn't be seen as an endorsement of the misogyny, racism, colonialism and religious mores of those times and authors (who sometimes were more or less of some of these things, even compared to their social context).

When recommending old pulp fantasy and sci-fi stories to young audiences, I would adjust expectations by telling them to bear in mind that these are stories of a different era. You wouldn't read medieval literature or the classics of antiquity expecting anything to pass a Bechdel test (not to compare 20th century pop fiction to classics in terms of cultural import, but the era's values can seem equally remote to children of the 21st century). If you want to read books from this list, you are reading to understand what sort of stories and adventures inspired early D&D. Look for the fun parts, the adventure, the style of prose- understanding there will usually be a male-centric POV, old assumptions of gender roles and behavior, and sometimes even more problematic themes. Reading them is a fun academic exercise; again, emphasize that the reading or recommending of the more problematic works is not an endorsement of the culture from which they arose or the attitudes of the authors.

That said, there are three female authors on Gygax's list, if folks want to read the works of some of the first women to write in the fantasy/sci-fi genre who also inspired D&D. "Andre" Alice Norton, Margaret St.Clair, and Leigh Brackett. I think those who were "missed" by Gygax probably were missed either because he simply hadn't read their work, or because the stories from them he read weren't particularly "D&D" as he conceived it at the time. Or perhaps he just ran out of space on the page, and chose to include the ones he liked the most, and a few just didn't make the cut.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Wow. The Bechdel Test is odd. A lot of my single author fiction short stories fail, even if the protagonist is female, simply because there’s no dialog. I guess it’s a poor test to apply to short stories…

And I agree that it’s odd to expect from 1st person perspective stories. Like, how many 1st person stories with female protagonists have said MC just sit there silently while two men discuss something (other than a girl)?

It feels like most of the stories should get a “N/A” score rather than a pass/fail, simply by being 1st person, or by lacking dialog.

EDIT: and that’s even ignoring non-binary characters (although, if the MC were “the luggage”, I guess “watching silently” might actually be more likely).

It's by no means a be-all, end-all thing. A work can be sexist as hell and still "pass" the test, and another can be maximally feminist and still "fail" (for example, a story with little-to-no dialogue, like you mentioned). The Bechdel Test is more of an illustration of how low the bar can be than anything else-- does the story have more than token female characters, and do they have roles beyond "love interest?"

[KorvinStarmast]

The Bechdel Test is

A waste of time, and not worthy of serious consideration.

[Devils_Advocate]

Suggesting that the Bechdel Test shouldn't be applied to some subcategory of fiction — short stories, first person, no dialog, whatever — implies that it's generally useful but gives misleading results in specific domains. What is it generally useful for?

The Bechdel Test is, first and foremost, a comic strip character's criteria for watching a movie. Because that's seriously the origin. I think that one would be hard-pressed to argue that how frequently movies fail these requirements* illustrates precisely nothing, but we're not talking about something designed to measure anything well. It's literally a joke, or more accurately part of a joke. It's not even really serious social commentary and much more so humorous social commentary.

So, why do so many people seem to talk about the Bechdel Test fairly seriously, then? Probably largely because it's arguably a weak indicator of something for which we lack better measures. Even better, several different things! In some cases, there may be better measures, but they're not as widely known. Basically, a lot gets made out of this particular metric because of its meme status.

I can understand frustration from people who feel like that interferes with meaningful discourse, but discourse is kind of inevitably shaped by available vocabulary for good or for ill. The solution, of course, is to popularize better metrics for the stuff that the Bechdel Test is often purported (explicitly or implicitly) to indicate.

*In the original context, they are requirements. But they aren't inherently. The phrase "the Bechdel Test" refers to the distinction made. There are lots of different opinions about what, if anything, should be done based on this distinction, but none of the possible responses are part of "the test" in the general sense. Clear?


In this case, how good is the Bechdel Test as a predictor of whether a modern audience will have difficulty with an older work? Probably not very. But is there a better predictor that's equally clear and equally well-known? No? Well, there you go, then.

[Mechalich]

It's by no means a be-all, end-all thing. A work can be sexist as hell and still "pass" the test, and another can be maximally feminist and still "fail" (for example, a story with little-to-no dialogue, like you mentioned). The Bechdel Test is more of an illustration of how low the bar can be than anything else-- does the story have more than token female characters, and do they have roles beyond "love interest?"

Yeah, also I think the 'not about a man' part of the test is particularly telling with regard to its relevance. It's primarily meant to criticize works where female characters exist but the totality of their purpose is constrained to 'boys,' rather than stories where it happens that two female characters aren't available to have a conversation at all.

[Anonymouswizard]

does the story have more than token female characters, and do they have roles beyond "love interest?"

I'd say it's a bit stricter than that, a story where a man's two daughters talk about him also fails. It's more accurate to say that their stories do not entirely revolve around men.

And yes, it is intentionally a very low bar, because the point of the test is to show how few pieces of media pass it (whereas a significantly larger proportion pass the Reverse Bechdel Test). How many Star Wars films did it take for one to pass the test? I think Attack of the Clones does, I'm not sure if The Phantom Menace does, and I can't remember if the original trilogy has any women talk to each other at all.

It doesn't have much use as a metric beyond that, it makes a point about how we create media instead of the value of any particular piece.

Randall Monroe's What If doesn't pass the test. It's kind of ludicrous to apply the test to a popular science book, but that's because the intended scope is meant to be small. It's supposed to be applied to a medium which tends towards multiple viewpoint stories generally consumed within a single sitting.

[False God]

I'd say it's a bit stricter than that, a story where a man's two daughters talk about him also fails. It's more accurate to say that their stories do not entirely revolve around men.

Only in the context that The Father character is the only thing they talk about.

A story can have two named women have a conversation about their father, and have another about their jobs, and another about their favorite flavor of soy sauce. The fiction passes the test because the entirety of their conversations are not about their father.

A story with two named women who talk about their father, and about their father's job, and about their father's favorite foods fails because the entirety of their existence revolves around the father character.
-Which isn't to say this is bad writing. Arguably a great deal the The Handmaid's Tale would fail for obvious reasons. Women find it difficult to have conversations about anything that doesn't involve men, even if those conversations are about subverting the men, or overthrowing the men, or disobeying the men and so on, because the story presents a world that revolves around men. These women still have their own agency, but their agency is specifically highlighted in contrast to the power and agency of the men, which means it fails the Bechdel Test on its face.

But, again, as illustrated by Devils_Advocate, the Bechdel Test is flawed in part by its own simplicity. The popularity of the Test is, as Devils_Advocate rightly suggests, something of a meme, it's short, it's easy to remember and its easy to apply, producing simple, easily digested binary answers.

But the fact that it's flawed doesn't make it useless, it only makes it situationally applicable in being able to shine a light on the most obvious offenders.

If we check out the website https://bechdeltest.com/ which lists movies that pass of fail, the list is quite humorous. The Bob's Burger's Movie passes, as does Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero; but Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore fails, as does Minions: The Rise of Gru and Morbius. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle passes, while Jumanji: The Next Level fails.

In short, putting only slightly more than no effort at all is all that's needed to pass. Which is what makes the Test useful in its simplicity, the ease of applying the Test showcases the ease of passing it. You can literally have Woman A, Jessica a shopper in a grocery store, and Woman B, Rachel, the cashier, have a 2 second conversation about the discount on pickles and the movie passes, meanwhile every other conversation Jessica and Rachael have can be about men. Whether these other conversations give the two women agency depends on the relevance to the story being told.

But again, the Bechdel Test is only demonstrating that the bar is that low.

[Devils_Advocate]

I'd say that the OP makes suggestions more than assumptions. Suggestions being like assertions but unaccompanied by any troublesome burden of proof.

Bear in mind that correlation is not causation. If works that fail the Bechdel Test generally present greater difficulty because they tend to be harder to read, that's still correlation, and the test still works as a predictor in a statistical sense. It may well be that simply looking at the age of books is a better predictor, in which case it makes more sense to focus on that.

[Alcore]

Strange...


My sources say the test is merely two named females talking/interacting with each other regardless of topic. Some of the recent posters seem to be of the impression the females cannot even be thinking/discussing males at all to pass. (truly that doesn't raise the bar too much higher)


What does the Bechdel Test mean to you?

Besides which you have to define a "young modern audience". That's a mighty monolithic block that seems to be coming with a lot of assumptions.

Depending on the answer I might need an apology


So much needs to be defined before we can all even discuss the same thing. Maddening! I should be mad at the confusion but it is just too funny

[warty goblin]

That said, there are three female authors on Gygax's list, if folks want to read the works of some of the first women to write in the fantasy/sci-fi genre who also inspired D&D. "Andre" Alice Norton, Margaret St.Clair, and Leigh Brackett. I think those who were "missed" by Gygax probably were missed either because he simply hadn't read their work, or because the stories from them he read weren't particularly "D&D" as he conceived it at the time. Or perhaps he just ran out of space on the page, and chose to include the ones he liked the most, and a few just didn't make the cut.

Four actually, C. L. Moore is Catherine Lucile Moore. She wrote the Jirel of Jiory stories, whose protagonist is the first female lead in sword and sorcery.

I'm also about 90% sure those fail the Bechdel test, mostly because they're hardly interested in dialog; the first story has I think three speaking roles, and Jirel isn't what you'd call a people person. More like an animate ball of incandescent fury.

[Thrudd]

Oh, for sure there are a lot more factors than just lack of female representation that may make the early-mid 20th century fantasy/sci-fi difficult to enjoy for modern audiences. I'd say the Bechdel test doesn't even scratch the surface and probably isn't a good measure at all of what may make some of those authors and stories unappealing.

[Drakevarg]

It's... interesting, how many people get defensive around the concept of the Bechdel Test. Saying it's 'flawed,' or 'pointless' because it can't solve sexism over the course of three datapoints. It's barely a more in-depth study of a work than DoesTheDogDie, but nobody complains about that failing to solve animal abuse. The Bechdel Test is simply an observation, and says more about fiction as a whole than it does about any specific work that passes or fails.

You could apply similar simple tests (about any subject) to a broad selection of media and make similar interesting points through pattern analysis, and they'd be equally uninformative on a case-by-case basis regarding the quality of the work, it just takes note of patterns when broad swaths of media fail to clear a bar sitting on the floor. Like, how many works of fiction casually kill off no-name characters? Could probably make some observations about media in general from the patterns that crop up, but it doesn't mean much in regards to individual works.

[Liquor Box]

Strange...


My sources say the test is merely two named females talking/interacting with each other regardless of topic. Some of the recent posters seem to be of the impression the females cannot even be thinking/discussing males at all to pass. (truly that doesn't raise the bar too much higher)


What does the Bechdel Test mean to you?

Depending on the answer I might need an apology


So much needs to be defined before we can all even discuss the same thing. Maddening! I should be mad at the confusion but it is just too funny

The test, as written by Bechdel herself:
1. It has to have at least two women in it;
2. who talk to each other about;
3. something besides man.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test

So the base test doesn't require that they are named, but does require when they talk to each other it not be about a man.

I'd say it's a bit stricter than that, a story where a man's two daughters talk about him also fails. It's more accurate to say that their stories do not entirely revolve around men.

That's not true, it doesn't fail because they talk about a man at some point, so long as they talk about something other than a man at a different point.

[Cluedrew]

Suggesting that the Bechdel Test shouldn't be applied to some subcategory of fiction — short stories, first person, no dialog, whatever — implies that it's generally useful but gives misleading results in specific domains. What is it generally useful for?

I think it is a statistical test meant to be applied to wide swaths of media. Maybe there are confounding factors but it is a reasonable first pass. (I think a good second pass is to apply the Reverse Bechdel Test; check if there are two male characters who have a conversation about something other than a female character.*) If you want to discuss an individual work, just talk about that work in direct terms.

That and it is just meant to get people to look at fiction from a certain angle for a moment. I don't think it is about proving anything, rather getting people to ask questions.

* I'm not sure how this generalizes for non-binary people.

[Quertus]

. (I think a good second pass is to apply the Reverse Bechdel Test; check if there are two male characters who have a conversation about something other than a female character.*)

* I'm not sure how this generalizes for non-binary people.

So, it sounds like a… uh… word… “logic square”, where you’d measure…

……….. A …… Not A
B
Not B

Where A is “passes Bechdel Test“ and B is “passes Reverse Bechdel Test“.

Very little of my writing, for example, falls into “A and not B” or “B and not A” - most of it falls into “A and B” or “not A and not B”. That is with “non-binary” not counting to qualify for A or B (which I think is fair) - so a short story of a conversation between two AI is “not A and not B”.

Anyway, I think that, if there were any interesting statistics to look at here, they would be… what the “Appendix N” logic square numbers look like, compared and contrasted with what their contemporaries that Gygax excluded from that list look like.

And, sure, compared to what a “Playground reading list” (of hopefully similar size) would look like. If we’re building such a beast, I’ll nominate… Tolkien (still the classic).

[KineticDiplomat]

Do a bunch of works from the 1970s and earlier pass a modern implicit ideological sounding board about inclusiveness built around "the old works were bad for not being as inclusive as we think they should, look how hard they fail?"

Kind of a self answering question, isn't it?