[Lush]

Lush, you seem to be making this as difficult as possible, but maybe it's just for the sake of encouraging more posts. If that is your intention, then you have succeeded.

Quoi?

People should step back from their regular points of view only when addressing a particular thing within the fairy tale that is itself fantasy.

Hmmm. I'd disagree. Once again, I'd cite Toril Moi in this. Reality has just as many interpretations as fantasy. Two different people might have very different takes on the same event, whether in literature or otherwise. And this event does not have to be outside the realm of possibility in my opinion.

Stuff like humans have two eyes, two ears, two legs, two arms, one mouth, one nose, they bleed when you cut them, the males are larger, the females bear children, etc....

This doesn't really explain to me the nuances of male-female dynamics, whether in fairy tale, or in real life. After all, the fact the single "females bear children" postulate has as many interpretations as there are opinions. This postulate cannot, and should not, in my opinion, determine the female role in fairy tale, especially since so many fairy tale conventions are gender-neutral. To me, a lot of them do not directly deal with the biological functions of men and women, but rather with more abstract notions, rites of passage, for example, or chemical marriages (yin and yang and so on). Besides that, the very idea of a woman giving birth has different implications. An ancient Indian myth recalls a monk witnessing a woman who gives birth to a child, nurses it tenderly, then grows horrible in apperance, and devours it. Obviously this legend's view of birth is more nuanced.

Balrogs don't exist. Males and females do. That is a big difference. I can't explain it any simpler than that.

But males and females do not exist in a vacuum, right?