User talk:Hatamata

In order to get the full picture of what Clarisse looks like, you have to piece together all of the little details throughout the books and make a logical conclusion based on those details, since Percy never gives her a super-thorough description.

For example, in The Lightning Thief, Clarisse is described as "big", a "size XXXL" in t-shirts, but Percy never ever implies that this is from Clarisse being fat or wearing oversized clothes to make herself look bigger than she really is. In fact, his later descriptions of Clarisse "look[ing] like she was born to wear Greek battle armor", and being "even buffer [than the last time Percy saw her]" all but state that she's not only muscular, but exceptionally so.

The key details that imply that she has a man's bone and muscles structure is the fact that she is specifically stated to be a size XXXL without being fat, is described as "big" and "buff" (and not just for a girl), and is compared to a rugby player is size, muscularity, and strength. Female rugby players are either chunky or sleek/athletic, but they are not unbiasedly "buff" or "beefy" unless you only compare them to other women. Women also do not have the skeletal thickness, proportions, or the muscle fiber structure to be muscular and size XXXL without being relatively fat (which Clarisse is not) or reaching the point of diminishing returns regarding muscle size and strength.

Male rugby players, and strength athletes in general, can potentially be a legitimately beefy, muscular size XXXL without being relatively fat and experience less diminishing returns regarding muscle size and strength/speed, provided they have adequate hormonal balances during puberty and have the genetic potential for it.

Derek Poundstone, a 6'1" 315 lb strongman and police officer who is a legitimate size XXXL is an excellent example of this. He blows even the most heavily steroid-fueled and shirted female strength athletes out of the water, and he's not even among the elite. Or, if you want a more general view, consider that female Olympic and college track-and-field athletes, even ones on steroids, are annually decimated by teenage boys/very-young-adult men, aka men who have not reached their full athletic potential. Or that only 1 out of 1000 women has the potential to match a moderately athletic man of dead-average strength, while still having less stamina and bone/joint resilience. There are plenty of sports and military studies on this.

Furthermore, Clarisse is (or was) the leader of the highly-aggressive, strength-obsessed war god's cabin and fights in a highly-physical infantrylike group comprised primarily of young men.* Considering everything else that demigods can do in this series, a war god's daughter having a larger, stronger, more resilient body to better withstand and dish out the damages of war is actually pretty realistic.

Hinezumi (talk &bull; contribs) 16:30, May 18, 2016 (UTC)