I’m not a fan of Dungeons & Dragons. Some friends tried to get me to play it going on 40 years ago, and I just didn’t get it (the FASA Star Trek Starship Combat game, though? I was all about that). So I don’t know the lore, settings, characters, etc. But I *do* know that the majority of fans appear to be males. D&D seems to share a lot of the *feel* of Lord of the Rings, which is also popular more among males. And while the males may tend towards the nerdy, the appreciation is for traditional masculine roles… heroes, barbarians, warriors, wizards. Weaklings are not well appreciated in that sort of world view. Even the supposedly week Hobbits turned out to have endless wells of strength and courage and, when called for, badassery.

And thus my confoundment upon reading:

The Dungeons & Dragons Movie Intentionally Emasculates Its Leading Men

The male characters, once again, apparently take a back seat to the females, and are depicted as weak and ineffectual. D&D is a role playing game. The players adopt roles… roles that they *want* to play. Characters they’d probably like to *be.* How many D&D players – the presumed base for the movie – want to see themselves as incompetent, weak, lazy, cowardly, useless? So… who is this movie supposed to appeal to?

I was unlikely to see this movie before reading this. “Unlikely” has transitioned to “statistically insignificant chance.”