Sorceress Adel

[Shaun_D]

Sorceress Adel is indeed a woman. If you scan Adel in battle you will see the following information below

Esthar's ruler before Laguna and company confined her. Released by Ultimecia, and regaining strength.

also

sorceress - definition of sorceress

n.
A woman who practices sorcery.

Also in the flashback with Laguna on disc 3 it quotes

Adel was careless. She may be a sorceress but after all, she was human.

 

[Whoareyou]

I guess she could have a REALLY wide and muscly chest and Rinoa just happens to be covering her breasts which are located right in the centre of her chest and are small.

We had a discussion about this in the SB the other day and a badly written piece on Wikipedia didn't help, but I'm pretty sure the whole lot of them are women, and they've all "descended" from one another as all sorceress' passtheir powers on to another woman, whether by design, choice or whatever, this is just what happens...

Maybe having

Spoiler

Laguna freeze you in a prison in outer space turns women into men?

who knows?

 

[Dionysos]

And those two are probably actuallly really jealous of Adel for being so mighty.
Adel is a warrior princess.
Just like her brother Xena.
She doesn`t have time for girly things like estrogen or breasts. She doesn`t need those things either. If she`s interested in someone, she will simply Junction herself to them. No flirting or courting necessary.

I disagree. Xena certainly had a bit of breast.
Though I think you are right in that Adel is the Xena (in her darker days) of the sorceresses; having a stronger physical role than the others, and wanting to get her hands dirty. Though with Adel the design of her appearance is very different.


I believe that Adel is a woman, even though she looks more monster-like in comparison to the other sorceresses that we see.

She has a much more masculine physique than I myself have. In fact she does have muscles that would even rival those of most men. However she is still meant to be a female. She's just very masculine, perhaps to emphasise how strong she is among sorceresses.

I've read that she's not meant to be topless either. She has black covering her nipple area that is meant to be part of her dress / armour. However, due to her arm tattoos being black it just looks like she has a tattoed chest. The chest is shinier than the tattoos. Though it might be the case that she has anyway. We might just be looking at another "Eiko isn't wearing any underpants" interpretation due to the graphics of the game.


All that said.. It is possible to have a male sorceress in this game. They just flawed the translation I think. The Great Hyne, said to be the first sorceress to exist, is presented as a male. Adel however, is refered to as a she throughout the game, so even though it is possible for a male sorceress in FF8's universe it is likely that Adel is female (unless the translation was errored, which I don't think it was the case for this).

i think it is similar to egyptian history, there u have Hatshepsut a queen who ordered that every statue of her is made as a man, so that she will be known as a ruler not as a women

I find this comparison with Hatshepsut very interesting, and perhaps they were trying to present something similar. Though in Adel's case she actually physically looks masculine, and she is not merely depicting herself in art and sculpture in a particular and conventional way.

Also, since sorceresses are female she wouldn't be following the right path in depicting herself as a man in order to legitimise her rule... Unless however we see that she is trying to seperate herself from other sorceresses to present herself as special. Perhaps she deliberately trained her body to get huge muscles, and to make herself appear masculine in an attempt to present herself as the new Great Hyne. Presenting herself as similar to the first sorceress, and also the supposed creator of mankind, would surely be profitable to her position, and may have had a role in her rise to power.

Or... That may be looking too much into it. The designers may have just felt like making her masculine on the day.