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Back in the 1970s, comic covers hailed her as “Fantasy’s #1 Fighting Female” and “the Fighting First Lady of Swords-and-Sorcery”. Decades later, she retains iconic status even among people who would have trouble identifying her by name. She is an archetype, embodying a specific type of fictional woman.

She is clad in chainmail armour – but it is armour adapted to fit the pattern of skimpy late twentieth-century swimwear. She is ostensibly an animalistic warrior, her life built upon the visceral pleasures of besting her foes in battle – yet she has time to don eye make-up and keep her legs free of hair. Her name, of course, is Red Sonja.