A few Remarks on Cloth (or their absence)

As I guess this is probably one of the first thoughts most of you’ll have while reading the comic – why is she naked completely right away – I decided to provide a couple of thoughts on cloth and nudity in T&D.

First of all: it’s not meant to be sexistic!
Later on, you’ll find., that male clothing conventions are … relaxed, as well. 😉

Tanai clothing habits

Tanai clothing habits

But why?
I wrote a bit about it in the FAQ section. I’ll do it a bit more extensively now.

It’s a pair of questions actually, instead of a single one:

  • Why is Cin’Thele naked right from the beginning?
  • Why do Salharin wear no cloth at all., or very frivoulous ones?

Answering question two also partially answers question one, so let’s start here:
Salharin are a different kind of people, when compared to men. There are visible differences, like their pointed ears (a classic), but the mental differences are of much more importance.
Salharin don’t have the same type of social and group instincts as men: in short, they don’t tend to form large colonies involving tight social structures, hierarchy, authority and obedience. Their individual behaviour is much less influenced by the desire to comply to social “rules”, than it is with human individuals.
They are loners by nature. Shame as an emotion caused by failure of compliance to expectations of one’s social environment, is alien to them. Instead, as they usually meet for the purpose of sharing pleasure in various flavours only, cloth, except from mere practical purposes like protection, solely fulfills a decorative role within their culture.

Nogh Clothing #2

Nogh fashion

Salharin, as I envision them, are an approximation of “perfect” individuals. They live forever, if not killed, in their world they never catch any disease, they don’t age, they feel few physical restraints, and are hardly troubled by discomforts like these in our world as well.

A “perfect” personality however would probably not perceive itself as split into two discrete entities – “mind” and “body”, one “superior” to the other, but feel as one, whole entity without intrinsic contradiction, existing in harmony with itself.
Such a being would certainly not see any reason to hide it’s physical appearance from view.

Nogh Clothing #1

Male Nogh fashion

So, finally coming back to question one … as far as it’s not answered already:
Cin’Thele just lost everything she had, including her memories, but also every single piece of matter she might have had with her, before she somehow got into that forest. As she is Salharin, she, probably unlike a female human, just doesn’t care much about the absence of cloth.
There just are lots of other questions to worry about at the moment.

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