31 Days of Female Characters: Women Who Got Screwed Over By Canon
I thought I’d make the next five female character into a theme and talk about the women screwed by canon- even if I’m not doing the thematic 30 Days of Awesome Ladies that I’ve seen circulating. Mind you, these are women who were screwed by canon but who I still adore despite their late addition warts. Also, while I may have issues with the futures of some of the other women on my list (**cough CJ Cregg, Hermione Granger, Dagny Taggart and Lilah Morgan**) or stupid-ass creative decisions (**Dana Whitaker and Kaylee Frye**), these following women have more serious degeneration problems. I completely adore all of them and celebrating them is a big part of my posts. However, I can’t talk seriously about them without their writer-induced degeneration playing a big role.
This will be in two phases because I have a lot to say which goes from I have so much to say that I can't say it right now to I've got to read about agriculture and you're not with me and go to hell. That's a hint for a character on this list, btw!
6. Abbey Bartlet
There was nothing more that the audience and every “good guy” character wanted in S2-4 West Wing than for Jed Bartlet to run again and win. Abbey Bartlet, on the other hand, was furious that Jed would break his promise and run again and this wonderful complex character ranged through those seasons from being supportive to downright furious about him running again. I really think that almost any other show would demonize Abbey for not wanting our hero president to run again and by meta-extension, hoping that the show as we know it would end.
However, surprises of surprises, the show doesn’t merely paint Abbey as sympathetic. It actually paints Abbey in the absolute right on many issues. Jed really broke a literal promise. He really did treat her with contempt in on a bunch of occasions. She really did suffer most of the professional consequences of hers and Jed’s shared lie and the show paints her as sympathetic for complaining about that in Dead Irish Writers. She’s a freakin’ thoracic surgeon who is an adjunct professor at Harvard. In any other marriage, she’d be top dog but with a husband who is President of the United States, even those accomplishments were overshadowed. Abbey points all of this out- the show doesn’t make a fool out of her. However, there’s a reason why I think as wonderful as Jed is, Abbey really is his better half. She supports him through all of this like no one else.
This made it all the more disappointing when the post-Sorkin writers failed to write Abbey nearly as sympathetically even when her position lends itself to sympathy, from angsting about Zoey’s kidnapping to being protective of her husband’s health. Abbey has fights with Leo and Jed while Zoey is missing but then she goes to suffer in silence and off-screen in Manchester so all we see is Abbey is fighting without delving into her full feelings on something as horrifyingly primal as a being a mother whose youngest daughter was violently beaten and kidnapped and who has to live all of that in the public eye and circumscribed into protecting national security and the political integrity of the Office of the Presidency.
Then Stockard Channing does pull an incredible amount of weight demonstrating her feelings at Jed’s degenerating health in A Change is Going to Come and Impact Winter. However she and Jed have a grand total of two full length, non-fighting conversations about his health in S5-7. She should be an important player in this storyline but she’s not. Then when Abbey basically picks a fight with CJ in The Wake-Up Call, the fight between the two is basically left that way. Compare that to S2-3 where Abbey did deny CJ cider, but right around that fight Abbey did make a special point of visiting CJ and saying that she wished she was there when CJ was told about the MS, Abbey did take CJ’s suggestion to introduce Jed for The Announcement and not long after, they drink together. There’s none of that comradeship in S6-7. My favorite women just fight in The Wake Up Call and but for a few small moments, that’s the sum of their interactions in the last two seasons.
CJ Cregg: I spoke to Peggy about the vermeil - you might get a few questions.
Abbey Bartlet: I'm not embarrassed by the vermeil. It's not as if we spent new money on it.
CJ Cregg: Yes, but its history...
Abbey Bartlet: It's our history. Better or worse, it's our history. We're not going to lock it in the basement or brush it with a new coat of paint. It's our history.
CJ Cregg: Well, good answer.
Abbey Bartlet: Well, the truth'll do it almost every time
7. Jo March
My feelings about Jo are mostly love. Jo’s imagination and individuality are frequently celebrated. She’s unbelievably self-sacrificing and it only begins with cutting her hair off. She takes educating Amy seriously and does try to be an agreeable companion to Aunt March even though both Amy and Aunt March are trying people and Jo isn’t the most patient person. Despite her temper and childish behavior, she’s amazingly emotionally mature. How many women could have turned down everything Laurie was offering- wealth, a handsome husband, travel- because Jo could see them not getting along and the family and herself losing a friend because of it.
However, to the sequel-induced degeneration! I almost feel guilty to Louisa May Alcott because Jo was mainly screwed by growing up. It did stand to reason that Jo would get married and it was probably for the best in post Civil War America where unmarried women couldn't have sex and were scorned and impoverished. It makes sense that Jo became more of a mother figure and she was very good at it. You can call it character-development for her to become calmer and less rebellious. However my emotional and perhaps immature side is a little perturbed that what was essentially Jo’s Story in Little Women gets taken over by little interlopers in Little Men and Jo’s Boys even if I like some of the little interlopers. Not to mention, that I thought Jo’s anger in Little Women was entirely appropriate to people who undervalued her because of her gender and dismissed her family the minute that they become poorer. The Jo of Jo’s Boys and Little Men may be more fuzzy and calm but she’s also more accepting of injustice.
Laurie: I have loved you since the moment I clapped eyes on you. What could be more reasonable than to marry you?
Jo March: We'd kill each other.
Laurie: Nonsense!
Jo March: Neither of us can keep our temper-...
Laurie: I can, unless provoked.
Jo March: We're both stupidly stubborn, especially you. We'd only quarrel!
Laurie: I wouldn't!
Jo March: You can't even propose without quarreling.
However, my issues with Jo are minor compared with what’s to follow:
8. Willow Rosenberg
For four to five seasons, we see Willow grow from an easily intimidated, unloved doormat into a confident, brave leader. Just based on this arc no matter what followed, Willow is my second favorite female television character. Then, for the last two seasons we see Willow character-assassinated and essentially a slow-motion version of her dream-death in Restless. By Joss's own admission on the Hush commentary, the writers had a problem writing for a non-damsel in distress version of Willow.
Because Willow is a brilliant girl with ability for science and computers, she’s more than equipped to thrive in our non-magic world and enrich herself. However, Willow applies all of those gifts and becomes a powerhouse in the magic world for a mixture of noble and pragmatic reasons- to help fight evil, to protect her friends, to acquire some self-defense skills, to sate her desire for knowledge and yes, gain more confidence in herself as a person.
Yes, it was always a fault of Willow to appreciate herself based on externalities whether it was girlfriend, boyfriend, computer skills, magic skills, etc. However, it was also something of a strength. Superpowers and sexuality are the two main standards of credibility in the Buffyverse. Willow doesn’t wait to get stricken with slayer-powers, vamped or sell her soul for power and magical powers aren’t instilled in her as a young girl which is Tara’s main advantage. Instead, Willow acquires her own powers and learned a skill that turned into, by Season 5, arguably the most useful power in the group.
Willow is deliciously complex, warm and fuzzy to her friends despite their mediocrities and failings. However, she’s incredibly hard on herself and constantly expects greatness. This becomes a pattern. Willow fights tooth and nail for everything she gets over the first five seasons- I’d say that in the first five seasons, she’s the hardest worker in the whole ‘verse except for perhaps AtS Wesley. She’s the only high school Scooby to work very hard at school. On top of that, she teaches herself computer programming, autopsy skills, supernatural history and demon “zoology” and everything you need to be a good witch from spells to foreign languages. She’s able to force friendly acquaintanceships out of Percy, Rodney and even Cordelia for a time and Snyder to a certain extent by tutoring and helping them. She gives her romantic relationships everything she has from making Oz’s wolf nights as comfortable and safe as possible when she can to pledging at the ripe age of 20 before lesbians were allowed in any American state to say legal vows promising care “in sickness and health” to take care of permanently brain-sucked Tara.
However all of this is forgotten for a “Willow=Selfish and Weak!” plot-line over the last two seasons. That Selfish!Willow! I guess she’ll just hang out with her special, privileged Harvard sorority sisters and eat her special crumpets over at Oxford. Oh…wait....
Willow: It *is* you. Buffy, can't you remember at all?
Buffy: No! I, I don't understand any of this! Uh, uh, th... This is some other girl! I would never wear this, that low apparel, and I don't like this place, and I don't like you, and I just wanna go home!
Willow: You *are* home!....She couldn't've dressed up like Xena?!
Sheila Rosenberg: Oh, well, identification with mythical icons is perfectly typical of your age group. It's a-a classic adolescent response to the pressures of incipient adulthood.
Willow: Oh. Is that what it is?
Sheila Rosenberg: Of course, I wish you could have identified with something a little less icky, but developmentally speaking...
Willow: Mom, I'm not an age group. I'm me. Willow group.
This will be in two phases because I have a lot to say which goes from I have so much to say that I can't say it right now to I've got to read about agriculture and you're not with me and go to hell. That's a hint for a character on this list, btw!
6. Abbey Bartlet
There was nothing more that the audience and every “good guy” character wanted in S2-4 West Wing than for Jed Bartlet to run again and win. Abbey Bartlet, on the other hand, was furious that Jed would break his promise and run again and this wonderful complex character ranged through those seasons from being supportive to downright furious about him running again. I really think that almost any other show would demonize Abbey for not wanting our hero president to run again and by meta-extension, hoping that the show as we know it would end.
However, surprises of surprises, the show doesn’t merely paint Abbey as sympathetic. It actually paints Abbey in the absolute right on many issues. Jed really broke a literal promise. He really did treat her with contempt in on a bunch of occasions. She really did suffer most of the professional consequences of hers and Jed’s shared lie and the show paints her as sympathetic for complaining about that in Dead Irish Writers. She’s a freakin’ thoracic surgeon who is an adjunct professor at Harvard. In any other marriage, she’d be top dog but with a husband who is President of the United States, even those accomplishments were overshadowed. Abbey points all of this out- the show doesn’t make a fool out of her. However, there’s a reason why I think as wonderful as Jed is, Abbey really is his better half. She supports him through all of this like no one else.
This made it all the more disappointing when the post-Sorkin writers failed to write Abbey nearly as sympathetically even when her position lends itself to sympathy, from angsting about Zoey’s kidnapping to being protective of her husband’s health. Abbey has fights with Leo and Jed while Zoey is missing but then she goes to suffer in silence and off-screen in Manchester so all we see is Abbey is fighting without delving into her full feelings on something as horrifyingly primal as a being a mother whose youngest daughter was violently beaten and kidnapped and who has to live all of that in the public eye and circumscribed into protecting national security and the political integrity of the Office of the Presidency.
Then Stockard Channing does pull an incredible amount of weight demonstrating her feelings at Jed’s degenerating health in A Change is Going to Come and Impact Winter. However she and Jed have a grand total of two full length, non-fighting conversations about his health in S5-7. She should be an important player in this storyline but she’s not. Then when Abbey basically picks a fight with CJ in The Wake-Up Call, the fight between the two is basically left that way. Compare that to S2-3 where Abbey did deny CJ cider, but right around that fight Abbey did make a special point of visiting CJ and saying that she wished she was there when CJ was told about the MS, Abbey did take CJ’s suggestion to introduce Jed for The Announcement and not long after, they drink together. There’s none of that comradeship in S6-7. My favorite women just fight in The Wake Up Call and but for a few small moments, that’s the sum of their interactions in the last two seasons.
CJ Cregg: I spoke to Peggy about the vermeil - you might get a few questions.
Abbey Bartlet: I'm not embarrassed by the vermeil. It's not as if we spent new money on it.
CJ Cregg: Yes, but its history...
Abbey Bartlet: It's our history. Better or worse, it's our history. We're not going to lock it in the basement or brush it with a new coat of paint. It's our history.
CJ Cregg: Well, good answer.
Abbey Bartlet: Well, the truth'll do it almost every time
7. Jo March
My feelings about Jo are mostly love. Jo’s imagination and individuality are frequently celebrated. She’s unbelievably self-sacrificing and it only begins with cutting her hair off. She takes educating Amy seriously and does try to be an agreeable companion to Aunt March even though both Amy and Aunt March are trying people and Jo isn’t the most patient person. Despite her temper and childish behavior, she’s amazingly emotionally mature. How many women could have turned down everything Laurie was offering- wealth, a handsome husband, travel- because Jo could see them not getting along and the family and herself losing a friend because of it.
However, to the sequel-induced degeneration! I almost feel guilty to Louisa May Alcott because Jo was mainly screwed by growing up. It did stand to reason that Jo would get married and it was probably for the best in post Civil War America where unmarried women couldn't have sex and were scorned and impoverished. It makes sense that Jo became more of a mother figure and she was very good at it. You can call it character-development for her to become calmer and less rebellious. However my emotional and perhaps immature side is a little perturbed that what was essentially Jo’s Story in Little Women gets taken over by little interlopers in Little Men and Jo’s Boys even if I like some of the little interlopers. Not to mention, that I thought Jo’s anger in Little Women was entirely appropriate to people who undervalued her because of her gender and dismissed her family the minute that they become poorer. The Jo of Jo’s Boys and Little Men may be more fuzzy and calm but she’s also more accepting of injustice.
Laurie: I have loved you since the moment I clapped eyes on you. What could be more reasonable than to marry you?
Jo March: We'd kill each other.
Laurie: Nonsense!
Jo March: Neither of us can keep our temper-...
Laurie: I can, unless provoked.
Jo March: We're both stupidly stubborn, especially you. We'd only quarrel!
Laurie: I wouldn't!
Jo March: You can't even propose without quarreling.
However, my issues with Jo are minor compared with what’s to follow:
8. Willow Rosenberg
For four to five seasons, we see Willow grow from an easily intimidated, unloved doormat into a confident, brave leader. Just based on this arc no matter what followed, Willow is my second favorite female television character. Then, for the last two seasons we see Willow character-assassinated and essentially a slow-motion version of her dream-death in Restless. By Joss's own admission on the Hush commentary, the writers had a problem writing for a non-damsel in distress version of Willow.
Because Willow is a brilliant girl with ability for science and computers, she’s more than equipped to thrive in our non-magic world and enrich herself. However, Willow applies all of those gifts and becomes a powerhouse in the magic world for a mixture of noble and pragmatic reasons- to help fight evil, to protect her friends, to acquire some self-defense skills, to sate her desire for knowledge and yes, gain more confidence in herself as a person.
Yes, it was always a fault of Willow to appreciate herself based on externalities whether it was girlfriend, boyfriend, computer skills, magic skills, etc. However, it was also something of a strength. Superpowers and sexuality are the two main standards of credibility in the Buffyverse. Willow doesn’t wait to get stricken with slayer-powers, vamped or sell her soul for power and magical powers aren’t instilled in her as a young girl which is Tara’s main advantage. Instead, Willow acquires her own powers and learned a skill that turned into, by Season 5, arguably the most useful power in the group.
Willow is deliciously complex, warm and fuzzy to her friends despite their mediocrities and failings. However, she’s incredibly hard on herself and constantly expects greatness. This becomes a pattern. Willow fights tooth and nail for everything she gets over the first five seasons- I’d say that in the first five seasons, she’s the hardest worker in the whole ‘verse except for perhaps AtS Wesley. She’s the only high school Scooby to work very hard at school. On top of that, she teaches herself computer programming, autopsy skills, supernatural history and demon “zoology” and everything you need to be a good witch from spells to foreign languages. She’s able to force friendly acquaintanceships out of Percy, Rodney and even Cordelia for a time and Snyder to a certain extent by tutoring and helping them. She gives her romantic relationships everything she has from making Oz’s wolf nights as comfortable and safe as possible when she can to pledging at the ripe age of 20 before lesbians were allowed in any American state to say legal vows promising care “in sickness and health” to take care of permanently brain-sucked Tara.
However all of this is forgotten for a “Willow=Selfish and Weak!” plot-line over the last two seasons. That Selfish!Willow! I guess she’ll just hang out with her special, privileged Harvard sorority sisters and eat her special crumpets over at Oxford. Oh…wait....
Willow: It *is* you. Buffy, can't you remember at all?
Buffy: No! I, I don't understand any of this! Uh, uh, th... This is some other girl! I would never wear this, that low apparel, and I don't like this place, and I don't like you, and I just wanna go home!
Willow: You *are* home!....She couldn't've dressed up like Xena?!
Sheila Rosenberg: Oh, well, identification with mythical icons is perfectly typical of your age group. It's a-a classic adolescent response to the pressures of incipient adulthood.
Willow: Oh. Is that what it is?
Sheila Rosenberg: Of course, I wish you could have identified with something a little less icky, but developmentally speaking...
Willow: Mom, I'm not an age group. I'm me. Willow group.