Why I Like Kahlan
Warning: Is SRS. I'm 'bouts to get all meta on your fandom. This is freaking long. LONG. Like you don't know how long this is, but it's longer than you think. Also, please don't read half and then flame me.
Interesting and dynamic female characters are a rare commodity on television. In the mid-90's there was a brief and glorious moment when the dynamics of television changed and strong female characters were actually allowed on TV. Neither the girlfriend of the hero or the Token Female (The A-Team had one. Can anyone name her? I rest my case.), or the eye-candy sidekick (hello Dr. Who!) these were characters that really challenged the traditions of Hollywood. I am, of course, talking about Xena, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dana Scully of The X-Files. These were rich and complex characters with tremendous virtue and terrible flaws. Xena had her rage, Buffy her irresponsibility (and the authoritarianism and elitism which surplanted that irresponsibility), and Dana was so complex I'mnot even going to try and get into. Easily one of the best characters (and definitely the best dyad) ever to appear on TV.
You know what makes Xena an awesome character? It's not that she can do a video game double jump, or spin on a pole and kick a dozen guys in the face, it's that when she thinks Gabrielle has killed Eve she sinks her chakram in the back of the loveof herlife'shead and THEN realizes that wasn't what she really wanted to do. That's a dynamic character. Just up and running away from all of her responsibilitys and pretending she's a waitress gives Buffy a depth and dynamic that she couldn't have if she never questioned or resented the call of duty.
They spawned a lot of copycats, but for the most part I found these characters deathly dull. And sadly, they have become the norm. The first truly terrible clone was Dark Angel, which was just painful to watch (and then, somehow, got incredibly good just in time for the last three episodes. WTF?). This show single-handily made me hate the phrase "girl power." The real problem with Dark Angel was the Ace nature of it's lead, Max Guevera. Even that name sucks. Seriously, Guevera? Beat me over the head with a hammer, why don't you. Max's flaws were Mary Sue flaws: a tragic background, lack of respect from men (I'll get back to this), and a tendency to go into heat. These are not real character flaws, and consquently Max was boring character. Highly predictable. A characterlike Max doesn't end up in a predictament of her own creation, her flaws never cause her to make tragic mistakes. Like conservatism, she's never wrong, only betrayed by others.
Sydney Bristow of Alias suffered this same character defect: flawlessness. It's not that she never suffered, it's that her suffering was never her fault. Veronica Mars has slightly more depth, but the writers still managed to turn her into two-dimensional icon of thoughtless girl power every chance they get. Consider the episode "One Angry Veronica," which takes the brilliant and complex "Twelve Angry Men" and turns it into a anvilicious nightmare of political correctness. Seriously, watch the film then the episode, and it's tragic how transparent and shallow the episode is.
Currently, as I scan what's available, I find I mostly have to turn to policeprocedurals for interesting female characters. Temperance Brennan on Bones is a fine example of a complex and interesting female character who defies expectations and stereotypes (well, female stereotypes at least). Olivia Dunham on Fringe seems to have some potential, and maybe some day the writers will get bored with Walter and actually develop her more fully than giving her a niece to play with. But being generally morose and sullen is not character depth.
But amongst the recent spate of fantasy shows, there's little interesting to point at. In fact, of the three fantasy shows I've watched most recently, I would say the female characters are the worst element of two out of three. Those shows are Merlin and Robin Hood. I hope I am not alone in my undying hatred of Merlin's Guenivier. Combing the worst elements of the Ethnic Scrappy and the Mary Sue, this character is so flawless that she was the first to forgive King Ulther for murdering her father. Seriously! She's like fucking Jesus she's so righteous and right-minded. And she's so Mary Sueish that it's only when Ulther murders her father that the other main characters seriously consider murdering the tyrannical bastard. Morganna, poor tormented Morganna, isn't much better. Really she's just more self-righteous, but of course she's also a badass swordfighter. Which, like most of this show, makes no freaking sense at all.
Over on Robin Hood you have the latest incarnation of Maid Marion. I don't like her. Seriously, she makes me long for Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and when a show makes you long for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, you've got problems. I'm only four episodes into Robin Hood, so take this with a grain of salt, but so far Marion seems to exist to show up Robin -- she was fighting the sheriff before he was! and apparently is better at it! -- and treat him like crap. But I like Robin, his earnestness and war-fatigue are interesting character traits, so having every scene between him and Marion make the point that Marion is superior in every way is only making me extremely dislike the character. I don't want Robin to end up with this castrating ice queen. She's awful.
The real problem here is that these characters aren't real people with superpowers (which describes Buffy, Xena and Scully, if you'll grant Science! and A Badge! as powers (also Big Fucking Flashlights. Can't forget the BFF)), they're Super Women. Throwbacks to the sort of cookie-cutter characters that litter old comic books and serials, the Super Men -- exemplified by Doc Savage, Superman (A BIT ON THE NOSE THERE BUB), Tarzan, Buck Rodgers and Flash Gordon. Except those characters are BORING. That'swhy they don't make male characters like that anymore. It's trite and obvious pandering to little boy fantasies. And it leads to bad writing.
Worse, these sort of characters are actually acutely sexist. Rather than writing interesting women characters, the writers have served up characters that are walking representations of women. Character as polemic, the didactic person. See, told you this was SRS BZNS. I used the word didactic. You know that means I'm serious. These characters, rather than being interesting people, become broad statements about the potential of women, and thus become in a rather tragic way a new set of stereotypes about women for the culture to reinforce.
Bad writing. Hmm. The Merlin episode "The Moment of Truth" presents a perfect example of what these cardboard characters do to an otherwise good show. In "The Moment of Truth," Arthur must overcome the suspicion of a village and convince them to fight for themselves. It's a big moment for Arthur, where his ability to lead is finally tested in fire. It should have been Arthur big moment, and he deserved one after spending so much of the show being Mandatory Jerk Ass or Victim Of This Week's Plot. But what happens?
Well, because Morganna is not a real character but a bundle of Girl Power stereotypes, she organizes all of the women to fight, and stands up to Arthur's chauvinism and backs him down. But what really happened there is that the writers wrote Morganna as 21st century post-feminism character, and wrote Arthur as an unreconstructed male of the early 20th century. He turns into Archie Bunker, for no reason other than to make Morganna look good. And that my friends is shitty and inconsistent writing. It's cool with me to have medieval characters with modern sensibilities, but it needs to be consistent. Having male characters suddenly regress to outdated attitudes just so the female characters can point out how wrong they are is hackneyed and cliched, and as a man I'm frankly getting a bit bored with it.
Which brings us to Kahlan. As I watched the first two episodes of LOTS, I worried that Kahlan was another Morganna, Guenivier, or Maid Marion. Her haughty dismissal of Richard early on was a bad indicator that she was going to be another character who exists only to pound it into the audience's skull that our grandfathers had dumb ideas about women. Which would mean the show would have to be exceptionally good to overcome this.
But wow, after a few episodes, it started to become increasingly clear that Kahlan was not made in the mold. The first clue is her amazing ability to be completely and totally wrong all the time. Should we kill a helpless baby on the off-chance it might growup evil? Correct answer: NO! Kahlan's answer: Who are we to question tradition?
Uh, we're free moral agents Kahlan. Duh.
In episode after episode moral dilemmas are raised, and likeclockwork you can count on Kahlan to cleave to the most asinine, hidebound and traditionalist views. To refuse to question tradition, to fear looking outside the box, and to seek the route of least creativity. Far from being the super woman, her prodigious gifts are balanced out by real, serious dynamic generating character flaws. She is the conservative zealot, willing to casually commit seriously questionable acts (like murder a baby!) or sacrifice a town if it's tradition or the mission.
As an example, these flaws make the B Story in "Denna" far more compelling. When Kahlan is confronted by Lara's crime, there is a serious question of where Kahlan will come down. Lara's act forces a conflict between Kahlan's anything-for-the-mission pragmaticism and her tradition-based morality. More interestingly, her own flaws force her to see the conflict that way, as tradition vs pragmaticism. She never considers killing Lara to free the villagers, even though this is almost certainly the right thing to do. When she decides to forgive Lara for her crimes and to use the confessed villagers as fodder we see that Kahlan isn't Mrs.Polly-Anna Perfect who will always Do The Right Thing. We see the very real consequences of her zealotry and ends-justifies-means thinking.
This point is underscored when Lara is killed and all but one of the remaining villagers flee in terror, emphasizing that Kahlan had allowed herself to go along with a fundamentally evil plan, forcing the villagers into a fight they would not have volunteered for. It is further underscored when the episode resolves itself and those villagers were of no help at all! If Kahlan had done the right thing in the first place, and killed Lara to free the enslaved villagers, she would have still been able to free Richard.
That's why I like Kahlan. She has depth and flaws, and is a real character with complex and contradictory motivations that allow for great stories, rather than existing simply to make a positive statement about Girl Power.
(I just realized I left out almost the entirety of sci-fi TV. Allow me to take a moment to give mad props to Stargate SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis for having many interesting female characters, from Sam Carter* to Vala, and a passing nod to the various incarnations of Star Trek. But I hate those shows, for other reasons, so I tend to forget them.)
*I'd be rimiss if I didn't take a moment to crap all over Amanda Tapping's new project Sanctuarary, which I am currently petioning CBC to change the title of to The Sanctimonious Half-Assed Buffy Rip-Off Hour Of Crap Television, which manages to introduce a clone of Dark Angel. It's like a walking lesson in copy degradation. Seriously: Do Not Want.
Interesting and dynamic female characters are a rare commodity on television. In the mid-90's there was a brief and glorious moment when the dynamics of television changed and strong female characters were actually allowed on TV. Neither the girlfriend of the hero or the Token Female (The A-Team had one. Can anyone name her? I rest my case.), or the eye-candy sidekick (hello Dr. Who!) these were characters that really challenged the traditions of Hollywood. I am, of course, talking about Xena, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dana Scully of The X-Files. These were rich and complex characters with tremendous virtue and terrible flaws. Xena had her rage, Buffy her irresponsibility (and the authoritarianism and elitism which surplanted that irresponsibility), and Dana was so complex I'mnot even going to try and get into. Easily one of the best characters (and definitely the best dyad) ever to appear on TV.
You know what makes Xena an awesome character? It's not that she can do a video game double jump, or spin on a pole and kick a dozen guys in the face, it's that when she thinks Gabrielle has killed Eve she sinks her chakram in the back of the loveof herlife'shead and THEN realizes that wasn't what she really wanted to do. That's a dynamic character. Just up and running away from all of her responsibilitys and pretending she's a waitress gives Buffy a depth and dynamic that she couldn't have if she never questioned or resented the call of duty.
They spawned a lot of copycats, but for the most part I found these characters deathly dull. And sadly, they have become the norm. The first truly terrible clone was Dark Angel, which was just painful to watch (and then, somehow, got incredibly good just in time for the last three episodes. WTF?). This show single-handily made me hate the phrase "girl power." The real problem with Dark Angel was the Ace nature of it's lead, Max Guevera. Even that name sucks. Seriously, Guevera? Beat me over the head with a hammer, why don't you. Max's flaws were Mary Sue flaws: a tragic background, lack of respect from men (I'll get back to this), and a tendency to go into heat. These are not real character flaws, and consquently Max was boring character. Highly predictable. A characterlike Max doesn't end up in a predictament of her own creation, her flaws never cause her to make tragic mistakes. Like conservatism, she's never wrong, only betrayed by others.
Sydney Bristow of Alias suffered this same character defect: flawlessness. It's not that she never suffered, it's that her suffering was never her fault. Veronica Mars has slightly more depth, but the writers still managed to turn her into two-dimensional icon of thoughtless girl power every chance they get. Consider the episode "One Angry Veronica," which takes the brilliant and complex "Twelve Angry Men" and turns it into a anvilicious nightmare of political correctness. Seriously, watch the film then the episode, and it's tragic how transparent and shallow the episode is.
Currently, as I scan what's available, I find I mostly have to turn to policeprocedurals for interesting female characters. Temperance Brennan on Bones is a fine example of a complex and interesting female character who defies expectations and stereotypes (well, female stereotypes at least). Olivia Dunham on Fringe seems to have some potential, and maybe some day the writers will get bored with Walter and actually develop her more fully than giving her a niece to play with. But being generally morose and sullen is not character depth.
But amongst the recent spate of fantasy shows, there's little interesting to point at. In fact, of the three fantasy shows I've watched most recently, I would say the female characters are the worst element of two out of three. Those shows are Merlin and Robin Hood. I hope I am not alone in my undying hatred of Merlin's Guenivier. Combing the worst elements of the Ethnic Scrappy and the Mary Sue, this character is so flawless that she was the first to forgive King Ulther for murdering her father. Seriously! She's like fucking Jesus she's so righteous and right-minded. And she's so Mary Sueish that it's only when Ulther murders her father that the other main characters seriously consider murdering the tyrannical bastard. Morganna, poor tormented Morganna, isn't much better. Really she's just more self-righteous, but of course she's also a badass swordfighter. Which, like most of this show, makes no freaking sense at all.
Over on Robin Hood you have the latest incarnation of Maid Marion. I don't like her. Seriously, she makes me long for Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and when a show makes you long for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, you've got problems. I'm only four episodes into Robin Hood, so take this with a grain of salt, but so far Marion seems to exist to show up Robin -- she was fighting the sheriff before he was! and apparently is better at it! -- and treat him like crap. But I like Robin, his earnestness and war-fatigue are interesting character traits, so having every scene between him and Marion make the point that Marion is superior in every way is only making me extremely dislike the character. I don't want Robin to end up with this castrating ice queen. She's awful.
The real problem here is that these characters aren't real people with superpowers (which describes Buffy, Xena and Scully, if you'll grant Science! and A Badge! as powers (also Big Fucking Flashlights. Can't forget the BFF)), they're Super Women. Throwbacks to the sort of cookie-cutter characters that litter old comic books and serials, the Super Men -- exemplified by Doc Savage, Superman (A BIT ON THE NOSE THERE BUB), Tarzan, Buck Rodgers and Flash Gordon. Except those characters are BORING. That'swhy they don't make male characters like that anymore. It's trite and obvious pandering to little boy fantasies. And it leads to bad writing.
Worse, these sort of characters are actually acutely sexist. Rather than writing interesting women characters, the writers have served up characters that are walking representations of women. Character as polemic, the didactic person. See, told you this was SRS BZNS. I used the word didactic. You know that means I'm serious. These characters, rather than being interesting people, become broad statements about the potential of women, and thus become in a rather tragic way a new set of stereotypes about women for the culture to reinforce.
Bad writing. Hmm. The Merlin episode "The Moment of Truth" presents a perfect example of what these cardboard characters do to an otherwise good show. In "The Moment of Truth," Arthur must overcome the suspicion of a village and convince them to fight for themselves. It's a big moment for Arthur, where his ability to lead is finally tested in fire. It should have been Arthur big moment, and he deserved one after spending so much of the show being Mandatory Jerk Ass or Victim Of This Week's Plot. But what happens?
Well, because Morganna is not a real character but a bundle of Girl Power stereotypes, she organizes all of the women to fight, and stands up to Arthur's chauvinism and backs him down. But what really happened there is that the writers wrote Morganna as 21st century post-feminism character, and wrote Arthur as an unreconstructed male of the early 20th century. He turns into Archie Bunker, for no reason other than to make Morganna look good. And that my friends is shitty and inconsistent writing. It's cool with me to have medieval characters with modern sensibilities, but it needs to be consistent. Having male characters suddenly regress to outdated attitudes just so the female characters can point out how wrong they are is hackneyed and cliched, and as a man I'm frankly getting a bit bored with it.
Which brings us to Kahlan. As I watched the first two episodes of LOTS, I worried that Kahlan was another Morganna, Guenivier, or Maid Marion. Her haughty dismissal of Richard early on was a bad indicator that she was going to be another character who exists only to pound it into the audience's skull that our grandfathers had dumb ideas about women. Which would mean the show would have to be exceptionally good to overcome this.
But wow, after a few episodes, it started to become increasingly clear that Kahlan was not made in the mold. The first clue is her amazing ability to be completely and totally wrong all the time. Should we kill a helpless baby on the off-chance it might growup evil? Correct answer: NO! Kahlan's answer: Who are we to question tradition?
Uh, we're free moral agents Kahlan. Duh.
In episode after episode moral dilemmas are raised, and likeclockwork you can count on Kahlan to cleave to the most asinine, hidebound and traditionalist views. To refuse to question tradition, to fear looking outside the box, and to seek the route of least creativity. Far from being the super woman, her prodigious gifts are balanced out by real, serious dynamic generating character flaws. She is the conservative zealot, willing to casually commit seriously questionable acts (like murder a baby!) or sacrifice a town if it's tradition or the mission.
As an example, these flaws make the B Story in "Denna" far more compelling. When Kahlan is confronted by Lara's crime, there is a serious question of where Kahlan will come down. Lara's act forces a conflict between Kahlan's anything-for-the-mission pragmaticism and her tradition-based morality. More interestingly, her own flaws force her to see the conflict that way, as tradition vs pragmaticism. She never considers killing Lara to free the villagers, even though this is almost certainly the right thing to do. When she decides to forgive Lara for her crimes and to use the confessed villagers as fodder we see that Kahlan isn't Mrs.Polly-Anna Perfect who will always Do The Right Thing. We see the very real consequences of her zealotry and ends-justifies-means thinking.
This point is underscored when Lara is killed and all but one of the remaining villagers flee in terror, emphasizing that Kahlan had allowed herself to go along with a fundamentally evil plan, forcing the villagers into a fight they would not have volunteered for. It is further underscored when the episode resolves itself and those villagers were of no help at all! If Kahlan had done the right thing in the first place, and killed Lara to free the enslaved villagers, she would have still been able to free Richard.
That's why I like Kahlan. She has depth and flaws, and is a real character with complex and contradictory motivations that allow for great stories, rather than existing simply to make a positive statement about Girl Power.
(I just realized I left out almost the entirety of sci-fi TV. Allow me to take a moment to give mad props to Stargate SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis for having many interesting female characters, from Sam Carter* to Vala, and a passing nod to the various incarnations of Star Trek. But I hate those shows, for other reasons, so I tend to forget them.)
*I'd be rimiss if I didn't take a moment to crap all over Amanda Tapping's new project Sanctuarary, which I am currently petioning CBC to change the title of to The Sanctimonious Half-Assed Buffy Rip-Off Hour Of Crap Television, which manages to introduce a clone of Dark Angel. It's like a walking lesson in copy degradation. Seriously: Do Not Want.