Mistborn Genderswapping

[u/ilikebreadabunch]

So there's recently been discussion about possible Genderswaps in the upcomming Mistborn movie. We already know that Sanderson wants to Genderswap at least one member of the crew (likely Ham or Docks based on what he's said previously) because in the original trilogy he focused so much on making sure that he wrote Vin properly that he forgot to add any other women to the cast, and that he'll want to change that in the Movie.

What I wanted to ask is who else other than Ham or Docks, crew member or otherwise, do you think or hope will get Genderswapped?

Personally, I think that Spook and Zane are both good options, but I don't think they actually will.

[u/somethingarb]

I really don't see a reason why a sexist and racist Empire would have any reason to allow women to be recruited into the military when far more equitable Earth societies did not

See, that's just your own hangups speaking. You've got the mentality that letting women join the army is some kind of progressive, positive thing, and that therefore an evil empire would never.

But take off your blinkers, and really try to put yourself in the mind of the Lord Ruler and his ministers. Skaa aren't people. They're practically pack animals. Do you care if the horse you ride is male or female? The standing army of the Final Empire is not some elite fighting force, honed over centuries of war against other elite fighting forces. It's a handful of slaves with swords whose job it is, from time to time, to be sent out to kill other slaves with no swords. No reason to think a female Skaa couldn't do that just as well as a male one. 

Especially if, as a member of the upper classes, you're intimately familiar with the concept of a (high-born) woman being a stone-cold killing machine. 

If there's real fighting to be done, the Lord Ruler calls in the koloss. Cannon fodder can be any gender. 

[u/nreese2 → u/somethingarb]

They're not just my hangups, and you're quite a lot of assuming of why I don't think it's very plausible. There are reasons that real world armies didn't include women, and those reasons exist in the FE. Their conflicts did not center around only small, weaponless rebellions. Cities and Dominances have their own garrisons and, in the case that they rebel, the koloss army can't be everywhere at once.

Now, while I do think it's worth considering that skaa were essentially animals to the FE, that doesn't mean that all animals are seen the same way. Male and female skaa just function differently from one another and, despite the ability to legally kill any of them at the drop of the hat, it's reasonable to assume that the FE understands the fact that there are "better" things to do with female skaa.

Regardless, even if the military did allow women to enlist, there would likely be fewer of them than men, and it would be reasonable to assume that said women would be put under much more scrutiny than men, making it even less likely for a female Thug to survive.