10305 Lion Knights' Castle 90th anniversary set

[Rjbricks]

On 6/19/2022 at 4:18 AM, SirBlake said:

Has anyone noticed how well the CMF king and queen would work with this? They keep calling the minifig in this set “the lady” of the castle. These two will probably end up being her parents on my shelf. 
 

Already part of my Lion’s Royal Family.

New ‘Queen’ may be demoted to a princess though…

[Triceron]

37 minutes ago, Something_Awesome said:

All fake/fictional works still have rules that are followed. Breaking of them makes it harder and harder to suspend disbelief. You can suspend disbelief of dragons and wizards, but not all the knights of the Lion Knights being all female. The "fundamental" (for lack of a better word) rules need to be kept intact or the work becomes a joke. Like, imagine Game of Thrones. Everyone can suspend their disbelief for dragons and magic. It makes sense in that universe. But fire making you cold would make zero sense even in a world as fantastical as the one that Game of Thrones takes place in. especially if no explanation was provided. Just imagine that whenever a character approached fire, they got cold. The people who watched the show or read the books would think this to be more ridiculous than dragons or sorcery.

I am OK with swapping out the heads. This is a non-issue for me. I am just giving an explanation as to why people are laughing at this set and accusing LEGO of being "woke."

I think it's still reasonable to believe a Queen could have an elite, all-female "Queensguard" protecting her.  They would be able to be with her wherever she goes, when she's changing armor, in her private chambers etc.

Considering historically there were literally no female Knights who were formally part of the militaristic order, we're already talking about the existence of any female knight already suspending disbelief, and most people are actually okay with the idea of female knights.  Even Joan of Arc was not a knight, but most people would associate her as having been one.  Historically there were female soldiers, and there were female nobles who had the title of 'Knight' in a non-militaristic role, but no actual female Knights in armor who rode into battle alongside men.  So it really depends on what you're choosing to suspend your disbelief on.  To me it's no different than your wizard and dragons comparison; does it matter whether it's one dragon or twenty?  It's all about whether you're willing to regard the unrealism as being reasonable.

And for me personally, I think there's plenty of possible reasons for why a Queen would have female Knights protecting her.  Maybe they're her fellow nobles that she went on adventures with.  Maybe she hand-picked her handmaidens to be martially trained as elite bodyguards.  Maybe the King is distrustful of her having male protectors having heard the tales of 'Lancelot and Gwynevere'.  All it takes is a little imagination to fill in the gaps to make something unrealistic more believable.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Triceron

[williejm]

17 minutes ago, MAB said:

Yet people have no issue in believing and enjoying stories about all-female Amazonian armies. It all depends on where you believe the setting of the castle is. If it is not medieval Europe but instead some female dominant fantasy land, then an all female army makes sense. If you are happy to suspend belief about dragons, then why not belief about other fantasy too? Maybe you have a hard time believing fire is cold because yo are used to orange/red flames meaning hot, but what if it is green fire or blue fire. Then it could be believable that it makes you cold in a fantasy world if characters acted like it is cold.

Of course the issue is would less people want to buy the set if it is set in a female dominant fantasy land (and I imagine less people would).

 

Yeah but c’mon, female warriors are fine if they are sexy babes designed for a straight male audience! Keep up. 

[TeriXeri]

Nexo Knight had the backstory of the Queen being a fighter, and the Princess wanted to be a Knight as well, fighting with the same mace style as the queen, both have been documented in the multiple books behind that theme and the figures as well, that theme also had multiple fantasy villains being female. The king was more passive and only fought because he got a battle-mech built for him.

So this certainly isn't the first time that a queen is depicted in battle in a LEGO minifig castle setting. 

I don't think using classic smileys would've been a solution either in this case considering other 2021/2022 Castle sets.

That said, I have 0 issue with the female guards in this set, and I also don't think there need to be official figure names or backstory for this type of set.

 

Edited June 22, 2022 by TeriXeri

[natesroom]

with the cost of heads they should have included 10 basic smiley heads as extras.

[BTappel]

15 hours ago, ForgedInLego said:

If you want to combine two castles without exposing the interiors and leaving a hole in the wall for the water wheel you could try this arrangement! (image cred to @Aanchir)

This is awesome!  I was planning on ordering 2 sets day 1, but not building them as I’m in it for the pieces.  This idea now has me thinking I may build them to see what the combined structure looks like!

[Lyichir]

15 hours ago, ForgedInLego said:

If you want to combine two castles without exposing the interiors and leaving a hole in the wall for the water wheel you could try this arrangement! (image cred to @Aanchir)

This idea is one that my sister and I both arrived at independently, but we realized it would need slight modification as the hinges on the bridge and beside the water wheel would collide with one another when placed back to back like this. Still, that's not too much of a burden, especially since if you planned on combining two sets like this, you'd most likely be doing at least a few modifications to reduce redundancy anyway (like refurnishing the rooms or removing one of the water wheels). Compared to that, replacing the hinge bricks/plates with standard plates/bricks would be a simple adjustment.

[jodawill]

1 hour ago, natesroom said:

with the cost of heads they should have included 10 basic smiley heads as extras.

When I ordered the Black Falcons from PAB, I bought classic smiley heads for all of them. I had wondered if they'd clash with the detailed garments, but they actually look great. I'm going to replace most, if not all of the heads in this set with the classic smiley faces. The biggest question I'm facing now is whether it will be worth the investment to buy the old bullet helmets at $2 each or if the conical ones are good enough.

[Doddsino]

When it comes to Majesto, I just figured I'd stick him in the prison cell awaiting execution for heresy.

[Khargeust]

Just now, Doddsino said:

When it comes to Majesto, I just figured I'd stick him in the prison cell awaiting execution for heresy.

[R0Sch]

21 hours ago, Triceron said:

Good to see that confirmed by someone who actually got to see the set!

I don't want to discredit what Andres saw or remembers he saw, but could he really tell the difference from where he sat if he didn't hold the shields up close in his hand? Cause I certainly couldn't. Maybe if a spotlight was shining right on them and I would see the sticker being more glossy and a print more satin and border-less, but this was clearly not the case in this rushed interview recording. So until we see the first review online, I will still be skeptical. Besides, Mike is not the main designer, otherwise he would have made sure to include printed decorations only.

[MAB]

1 hour ago, williejm said:

Yeah but c’mon, female warriors are fine if they are sexy babes designed for a straight male audience! Keep up. 

Maybe if they have minidoll figures under the armour.

1 hour ago, Lyichir said:

This idea is one that my sister and I both arrived at independently, but we realized it would need slight modification as the hinges on the bridge and beside the water wheel would collide with one another when placed back to back like this. Still, that's not too much of a burden, especially since if you planned on combining two sets like this, you'd most likely be doing at least a few modifications to reduce redundancy anyway (like refurnishing the rooms or removing one of the water wheels). Compared to that, replacing the hinge bricks/plates with standard plates/bricks would be a simple adjustment.

The two large outer rivers looks a bit odd in this configuration. Putting those together and reducing the symmetry (one waterwheel, one ramp, etc) might make it look more realistic while keeping the size.

23 minutes ago, jodawill said:

When I ordered the Black Falcons from PAB, I bought classic smiley heads for all of them. I had wondered if they'd clash with the detailed garments, but they actually look great. I'm going to replace most, if not all of the heads in this set with the classic smiley faces. 

It's funny isn't it, you remove yellow skin modern heads in favour of the old smileys whereas I remove them in favour of fleshies. Both leaving a stash of yellow heads.

[SirBlake]

GOOD GRIEF! I am so worn out on this gender identity BS. There's a time and a place for this kind of discussion, but for my part, I wish it were never in the context of Lego, and certainly not multiple pages of threads here.

It would seem that TLG's goal of avoiding this bear trap has backfired, because it's almost all anybody can talk about. If it had been a mostly male army and a warrior queen, nobody would have said anything about it in either direction. I personally don't care one way or the other. Lego is made to be changed, customized and adapted to fit our own vision. Make every character female on your own shelf, I don't care. I do care about the thread about the greatest, most exciting set in a generation (for me anyways, and likely most of you) being RUINED by this pointless debate. 

It's extremely frustrating to have to wade through everyone's nuanced opinion of a "controversial" issue that has no business taking over what should be the greatest Lego conversation ever.

Can we please, PLEASE just drop it already?

[Dr.Cogg]

27 minutes ago, Doddsino said:

When it comes to Majesto, I just figured I'd stick him in the prison cell awaiting execution for heresy.

or you could have him be crazy old grandpa, who thinks he's a wizard.

[Roebuck]

24 minutes ago, R0Sch said:

I don't want to discredit what Andres saw or remembers he saw, but could he really tell the difference from where he sat if he didn't hold the shields up close in his hand? Cause I certainly couldn't. Maybe if a spotlight was shining right on them and I would see the sticker being more glossy and a print more satin and border-less, but this was clearly not the case in this rushed interview recording. So until we see the first review online, I will still be skeptical. Besides, Mike is not the main designer, otherwise he would have made sure to include printed decorations only.

That is true at least if he did not get a closer look at the set before/after the filming. However it only makes sense that all the parts are printed budgetwise:

1. the set has not many parts for the price so could not have used a lot of the budget there
2. it has a lot of minifigs, but many of them are similar so the number probably cost a bit not the printing
3. Only a few animals and they come in other sets this year so not a lot was taken for the budget for them eigther
4. reviving parts that where not in production may have cost a fair bit, but not sure how much of the parts that is needed for the castle that was not in production (except the barding)
5. I assume it is no new parts made for the set except the cape and flags, but do not need a mould for that so probably do not cost a lot
6. parts in new colours, could see them spending a bit of the budget on that (but not so into parts so do not now for sure, will have to wait for the New Elementry review)
7. printed parts, at least 2 horse barding and a lot of shields so I assume they spent a fair bit of the budget on those since prints are not cheap (just look at all the stickers there are in some sets)

[Triceron]

As long as the main Yellow and Blue Lion shields are prints, that's all I really care about.

Overall, I doubt they would make them stickers.  How many sticker-based shields have there really been in history?  I didn't even know it was a thing until I came to this thread really.  I think one person mentioned one set that had sticker shields, and that's all I've been aware of.  I've seen shield collectors on Reddit, and there's a ton of printed shields out there which only leads me to expect the new shields to be prints in this one.  I don't really know why they would default to Stickers at all, other than having used them in the promo pics.

[Something_Awesome]

2 hours ago, Triceron said:

I think it's still reasonable to believe a Queen could have an elite, all-female "Queensguard" protecting her.  They would be able to be with her wherever she goes, when she's changing armor, in her private chambers etc.

Considering historically there were literally no female Knights who were formally part of the militaristic order, we're already talking about the existence of any female knight already suspending disbelief, and most people are actually okay with the idea of female knights.  Even Joan of Arc was not a knight, but most people would associate her as having been one.  Historically there were female soldiers, and there were female nobles who had the title of 'Knight' in a non-militaristic role, but no actual female Knights in armor who rode into battle alongside men.  So it really depends on what you're choosing to suspend your disbelief on.  To me it's no different than your wizard and dragons comparison; does it matter whether it's one dragon or twenty?  It's all about whether you're willing to regard the unrealism as being reasonable.

And for me personally, I think there's plenty of possible reasons for why a Queen would have female Knights protecting her.  Maybe they're her fellow nobles that she went on adventures with.  Maybe she hand-picked her handmaidens to be martially trained as elite bodyguards.  Maybe the King is distrustful of her having male protectors having heard the tales of 'Lancelot and Gwynevere'.  All it takes is a little imagination to fill in the gaps to make something unrealistic more believable.

No. It's  not believable. For a female to be a knight above all males she would need to be truly exceptional. Think Joan of Arc. Such exceptions are obviously uncommon. The more exceptional things are, the more rare they are. Yes, we can say the Queen is exceptional. But all the other nights also female? Do you follow Tennis? Understand that Serena Williams is maybe the best female Tennis player ever. And Tennis is considered a sport where the chasm between mean and women isn't as large. She herself said she would get smashed in a match against even the 20th ranked male player.

At some point society needs to do away with this fetish of equalizing male and female physical ability. It's not even just strength, but size and speed also matters in the context of a Knight as well. That all the knights of a faction is female is utterly ridiculous. I am only arguing this from a philosophical perspective. I actually do not mind that the knights we made female. I actually laugh at it as if LEGO is creating a meme or a parody of male/female.

EDIT: As far as training goes, not everyone can be trained to do everything. People have a propensity to things. You can train to be better. Training will NEVER make you as good as Wayne Gretzky. Training will NEVER make you as good as Michael Jordan. Sorry.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Something_Awesome

[Triceron]

Just now, Something_Awesome said:

No. It's  not believable. For a female to be a knight above all males she would need to be truly exceptional. Think Joan of Arc. Such exceptions are obviously uncommon. The more exceptional things are, the more rare they are. Yes, we can say the Queen is exceptional. But all the other nights also female? Do you follow Tennis? Understand that Serena Williams is maybe the best female Tennis player ever. And Tennis is considered a sport where the chasm between mean and women isn't as large. She herself said she would get smashed in a match against even the 20th ranked male player.

At some point society needs to do away with this fetish of equalizing male and female physical ability. It's not even just strength, but size and speed also matters in the context of a Knight as well. That all the knights of a faction is female is utterly ridiculous. I am only arguing this from a philosophical perspective. I actually do not mind that the knights we made female. I actually laugh at it as if LEGO is creating a meme or a parody of male/female.

Joan of Arc was never a knight, so again the example is pointless.

Anyways, a mod already stated that this topic is not savvy, so I'll refrain from digging any deeper than we already have.  I said what I needed to say, and I'll just leave it there for anyone who looks back on the comments to take as they will.

[natesroom]

7 minutes ago, Roebuck said:

That is true at least if he did not get a closer look at the set before/after the filming. However it only makes sense that all the parts are printed budgetwise:

1. printed parts, at least 2 horse barding and a lot of shields so I assume they spent a fair bit of the budget on those since prints are not cheap (just look at all the stickers there are in some sets)

Having spent time in the industry of printing (offset, digital, film, direct to plate, lithography, lenticular, sterolitho) there is almost no cost when printing a different image on a part you already have being printed. They already print shields. Loading different film or plates to print a new design on that part should not raise the price at all other then initial cost. What really drives cost up is when you print on something that you haven't printed before and it needs a new type of tooling or holder to access. There is also the cost of what a shield manufacture cost is. If a blank shield is .08 cents manufacture cost and every printed shield adds $2 to the raw cost, then printing a decal sheet for about .35 cents makes more fiscal sense. however since they are already printhing at least 8 shields, printing one more with a different should not add raw cost unless it will literally be the only time that will ever be used. This makes sense for more narrow IP such as marvel and HP. thats why i am impressed with the printed Sanctum Glass Dome... wouldnt be surprised to see it used again, but they have been printing on domes forever so its just a new print.

[Something_Awesome]

4 minutes ago, Triceron said:

Joan of Arc was never a knight, so again the example is pointless.

Anyways, a mod already stated that this topic is not savvy, so I'll refrain from digging any deeper than we already have.  I said what I needed to say, and I'll just leave it there for anyone who looks back on the comments to take as they will.

Does not need to be a knight. She was a hero. She was Exceptional. An exception. There are plenty of works depicting her as a big time butt kicker, and nobody has an issue with it. If she had an army of 3,000 and they were all women, people would roll their eyes.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Something_Awesome

[R0Sch]

Would everyone just please stop this nonsense of a debate about LEGO minifigure genders vs. historic accuracy? Cause next up someone will complain about the skeleton not having a definitive gender at all and ruining the 50:50 gender split of this set or even worse, argue that it's a female  because of it's wider pelvis and narrow waist.
Let's just focus on more important things like stickers, price point and lack of display space lol.

[BTappel]

Plot twist.  The knights who appear female are actually men trying to look like women so the other knights they are fighting don’t think they need to fight that hard which gives the cross dressing knights the upper hand.

[Sir Dano]

40 minutes ago, Roebuck said:

(just look at all the stickers there are in some sets)

According to Mark Stafford, the reason is actually because it's easier to store a single sticker sheet than a bunch of printed parts.

[R0Sch]

Plot twist. That silver Beskar spear is the same one Mando used and that baker with a perm got kicked out of City for selling gluten free croissants instead of doughnuts and fast food junk.

[RichardGoring]

I thought it had gone away. Can we please leave the 'gender' topic alone now?

Are you all castle fans? Would you love there to be more castle sets? Wouldn't it be great if they did a whole theme of castle sets? Yes? Well, do to that requires people to buy the sets. Most of you will buy it, great. That's 20 sets sold. But for the other million sets that they need to sell, they're going to need to have a broad appeal.
- That means girls being interested in it, and feel that they can be part of it with roleplay and representation, so it needs female figs doing the 'cool' stuff.
- That means parents buying it for their children, and they're going to want both boys and girls to have things that probably reflect modern life and sensitivities, which likely means things attempting to be fair, balanced, and show representation.
- As noted above, if it's so important to be accurate, it would surely need a pretty awful small, along with other things like rat-infestations, cholera outbreaks, abject poverty, and torture, to go along with all the other historical accurate things like gender-based roles. But that will probably put off most parents too.

And you know what, if you care really strongly about this - and it's completely fine if you do - then it's really, really, really, really easy to fix - LEGO® Pick a Brick | Official LEGO® Shop US

Plus, the complaining won't achieve anything. LEGO are going to continue to have gender balance and representation across their product range. That's part of what LEGO is. There are other companies that don't state that as a key part of their approach. If you want absolute historical accuracy, then it is your prerogative as a consumer to choose something else. You are completely free to do so, and I hope that you have a fabulous time with it. Genuinely.

Please, can we focus on other things about the set that this forum is normally so good on? Clever techniques that you like. Nice parts usage. The stories that can be told with the set. Modifications to the set. Combining multiple sets. Speculation about what might be next. Wish lists for future sets. And, of course, fair critique, given the parameters and intentions that LEGO set for themselves as a company.

Gosh, I really dislike ranting on the internet, but that was somewhat cathartic. Everything is awesome.