Part of my semi-sarcastic pointing out of there not being a left handed iconic (seriously, we're 10% of the population!) is that being 'diverse' always runs into limits. Paizo expends the effort (in art orders, writing etc.) to make 'diverse' iconics of colour gender and sexuality. Paizo also puts a limit on how many resources they wish to put into making their iconics and their products truly diverse. Thus no left handed iconic because the expense of layout and ordering art is too much for them to justify making 10% of the population feel included.**
There aren't any right-handed Iconics either. They flip them as necessary. Which means they favor whatever hand you, the player prefer.
Still, if you want to look at the art for the Iconics as originally posted, Oloch is holding his sword in his left hand.
Zadim, Hakon and Lirianne, meanwhile, are dual-wielding, so there's no indication of handedness. Lirianne's left hand is actually raised up higher, as if she's going to shot with that hand first, so there's a good chance she's left-handed.
Damiel is holding whatever potion he's about to use, whether to drink or to throw, in his left hand.
Seltyiel is wielding his sword in his left hand. As is Kyra.
Enora and Lem aren't doing anything with either hand, so again, no indication of handedness.
So either Paizo gives you the leeway to go with either hand, or they do actually have some left-handed Iconics.
Also, wasn't Aroden recently depicted as left-handed, or am I misremembering?
Matthew, do you find any of that satisfactory, or are you asking for Iconics to be specifically called out as left-handed in the text?
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It's ok to be confused. I live in that a lot.
My point posting here was to address the subject, not the character. Basically Paizo does engage in viewpoint discrimination, and it's not a bad thing in and of itself. On reflection, I find it kind of sad that the character is being defined as 'the trans iconic' rather than 'the shaman iconic' I mean Seelah isn't 'the black iconic' she's 'the paladin iconic'* Valeros is 'the fighter iconic'.
Likewise, if the iconic swashbuckler was defined as 'the left handed one' I'd still want her to be 'the swashbuckler iconic' and not 'the left handed iconic'. Just like Kyra is still 'the cleric iconic' and not 'the gay iconic' to most. I see it as a paradox, the stated goal of the LBGTALPHABETSOUP group is 'tolerance' but then when one is included as 'just another character' like the shaman, the conversation (for good and bad) focuses on what makes her different.
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Characters can be more than one thing. Lots of people love that our iconic paladin is a black woman. Members of many, many minorities don't ever get to see themselves as heroes, and part of the point of iconics is that the player base gets to see people like themselves as heroes in every product. They aren't there just to represent the classes; they're also there to represent the players.
Shadra is still the shaman iconic. She's also a female iconic. She's also a dwarf iconic. People were also clamoring for another dwarf iconic, and cheering that she was a dwarf, but you don't seem at all offended that she's the "other dwarf iconic". Most of the excitement and buzz over Shardra's trans status came from actual transgender people rather than anything Paizo has done--that's the aspect of Shardra that has a lot of people excited because it is something we don't see often, not because Paizo is trying to make the character more about being trans than about relating to the spirit world (hell, half the complaints for that Meet the Iconic were people insisting she couldn't possibly be trans because the backstory was too vague and never mentioned her genitalia). Obviously her gender is important to some people even if it doesn't feel important to you. But that aspect being important doesn't take anything away from the rest of her identity.
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My point posting here was to address the subject, not the character. Basically Paizo does engage in viewpoint discrimination, and it's not a bad thing in and of itself. On reflection, I find it kind of sad that the character is being defined as 'the trans iconic' rather than 'the shaman iconic' I mean Seelah isn't 'the black iconic' she's 'the paladin iconic'* Valeros is 'the fighter iconic'.
Hank Aaron was becoming a professional ball player nearly 60 years before Seelah the iconic paladin was drawn up, yet it is still considered a newsworthy event that provokes emotional responses both positive and negative when a contemporary professional athlete publicly identifies as anything other than heterosexual. We're a long way off from the day when humanity will utter a collective, "meh," about gender orientation subjects even in something as banal as a fictional character in a game.
