Y: The Last Man (Finally writing about it!)
Okay, it's been a little while since I finished marathoning this, and I've been meaning to talk about it, and meaning to talk about it, and I keep getting distracted or ranting about something else instead. So now, seriously, it's time for me to write about it before I have to read the whole damn thing again to remember how I felt about things and when.
Okay, I'm going to say, first and foremost. I enjoyed Y: The Last Man. It has lots of good characters. It does well, generally speaking, with a premise that is pretty much just fraught with ways to go wrong. When I first heard about it, months before it was rec'd to me, I mostly just heard the bare bones of the premise. Male mammals die. One man and one monkey survive. Bullshit ensues. I rather suspected it would be some kind of wish fulfillment, or possibly it would be... I won't say political, because it is political, and I don't necessarily have a problem with political, so let's go with preachy. Or, that even if it managed to avoid that, it would still get caught up in all of the land mines and pitfalls and booby traps (ignore the pun--it's not intended) that can come with trying to characterize gender dynamics. So. It's not perfect, and it doesn't avoid all of the problem, no. But, overall, I really did like it.
There are a lot of good characters. I said that before. I'll say it again. 355 probably about tops my list. Dr. Mann also grew on me a great deal, to the point that despite living into the epilogue (where pretty much everyone who the main narrative misses is either killed or implied to be dead), I was still very sad to hear that she died before Yorick could see her a last time. Yorick, despite annoying the shit out of me occasionally, was actually not a bad character. I think he's a really realistic representation of a kind of guy I know a number of, and the annoyance comes at least in no small part from that. The supporting cast is strong, and has a wide variety of diverse women, with different strengths, different weaknesses, different personalities. They don't seem to blur together (which, sadly, is a problem I've found more than once when men try to write large female casts--they start running out of stock personalities). It's really good. Some of them are a bit flat, but no more so than a male character would be in the same role. They're not flat because they're women, for the most part (more on that later). They're flat because they're minor characters.
There's a number of very thoughtful details. A lot of statistics are kept in mind.
But I just wouldn't be me if I didn't devote most of my energy to identifying and talking about what bugged me, would I?
The first thing that pinged my sense of "something wrong here" was, without a doubt, the Amazons. I'm still rather torn about them. I would not, out and out, call them a bad idea, per se. I think within the context of many, many groups scrambling to find some explanation, some order, some place for themselves in what is--we should never forget--a post-apocalyptic world, I see where they fit. Hero, and her whys, her reasons, make sense to me. Their existence, as a gang, as we learn more about the world fits for me to a great degree. Between Alter's Israeli army and the Sons of Arizona and all the various individuals who believe that everything from an Arab terrorist attack to the Rapture is responsible for all of the men dying, they have a place. But as the first gang we meet, and with Victoria, it's really hard not to see them as a caricature of radical feminists. Radical feminist, and very academic feminist--before she's killed, she talks statistics at the ex-convicts, and while the scene (like many) includes good information for the reader, AND is interesting from the perspective of Victoria appropriating the female convicts experiences to use as statistics back at them, talking for them when they're right there, it still gives the impression of a very... well, straw feminist. It just doesn't sit well with me. I can see why she gained power, her followers make sense. She feels like the creation of... say, a male feminist trying to very quickly divorce himself from feminist stereotypes, particularly second wave feminist stereotypes, and it just feels a little quick and ham handed to me. "Yes, there's going to be some gender stuff in here! Don't worry, we're not like THOSE." And her position as the first real enemies they face emphasizes that.
However, that said, contrasting her with Dr. Mann's father is really interesting to me. Whereas she is the manhater who blames the fact she wasn't a success on sexism, who blames all the evils in the world and in her life on men, he is the man who more or less does the same for the purpose of not admitting that he's just a terrible person. No, I'm sorry. If you were a terrible husband, a terrible father, an arrogant person who sabotaged his own daughter and tried to play god, it's not because you were a man and that predisposed you to it. It's just because you were a terrible person. Context, of course, plays a huge part of this. The bitter feminist is a cultural trope that hurts real feminist; on the other hand, men who blame all their faults on being men don't have the same place in our consciousness. Boys will be boys is normally seen as a defense of bad behavior. Not as a reason to kill the last man on earth. (Or, one of three at that point, I suppose.)
Second... I am rather torn about the incident with 711. On the one hand, it revealed interesting things about Yorick's character. It did call him on his ass-stupid behavior, and put it in a light you rarely see that sort of headstrong heroism put in. (People who wanted Hinata's "suicidal" behavior examined in Naruto after she jumped in to protect Naruto examined might find it satisfying.) It played into Yorick's relationship with 355 and his eventual going to her at the end. 711 is herself a rather interesting character, from what little we see of her. On the other hand... it is a bit random feeling, and the sexual, non-con aspects kind of make me uncomfortable. Now, I'm pretty sure it's SUPPOSED to. But I've yet to decide how I feel about exactly how it was handled. Perhaps on a reread, I'll clarify it to myself.
Third, okay, the characterization of the Japanese criminal organization as becoming essentially a bunch of fangirls serving a white, washed up pop star sits pretty badly with me. I mean, really, was that necessary? Could you have not even have made it a Japanese pop star? Did we have to mix the Japanese consumerist, fangirl trope with Big In Japan?
While we're on it, shouldn't "You" like "y-o-u" actually be romanized "Yuu?"
And Toyota... was I think arguably one of the least well characterized villains. She's hot, and I wanted more from her, but in the end, she felt like the writer just wanted a ninja in there--apocalypse, check, pirates, sorta-check, monkeys, check, ninja, check, now if only we could have zombies... So when the time came to give her motivation, it was sort of left out. Now, I can say that for her, I don't think this is necessarily a sexism thing, and I'm not really sure it's racist either, exactly. It ends up in a sort of weird place where she's a character type I think we're kind of used to seeing played by men, and particularly white men, so it becomes a bit hard to parse when we're looking at it from an Asian woman. At least, that's sort of how it ended up feeling for me. I am willing to hear other thoughts, certainly.
The explanation for all the men dying itself was pretty underwhelming for me, I guess, but I wasn't really expecting much from it either. I mean, reasons for more apocalypses are tenuous at best, too. And when you're looking for an apocalypse that simultaneously takes out every male mammal on the planet? I just didn't really expect much from it. I shrugged it off, and moved on. But I'll mention it here, because it's a rather weak point in the plot.
Moving right along... there's Beth's fall from her pedestal and 355 being recognized as the real love...
Okay, so I'm torn on this. I really like 355, I really like her relationship with Yorick. I'm not entirely sure I like them romantically, but I definitely like them as friends, and I'm more willing to buy that he's more in love with her than he is with Beth, particularly at this point. I can believe it to a degree. At the same time, it seems to play up a sort of entitlement to female characters to be love interests. Not necessarily on Yorick's part, precisely (though there's some of that too), but more importantly from the writer's. I suppose you can say that, realistically, the last adult man on the planet would have a lot of options open to him, and considering the premise, I won't say this was really ought of control, but you still feel it from time to time.
What I actually pinged me more about 355 herself at that ping was how by that point, her hair was very long and feminine, and she coincidentally all dressed up nice when Yorick went to her. Even in his vision of her, from a time when her hair was much shorter, her hair was long. It gives you this feeling that they felt the need to femme her up, as though she wasn't hot before. (Really, she's always hot. But that's beside the point.)
And not to forget Beth... I understand having them not get their happily ever after. But... well. Like I said, I'm torn over it. I don't hate it. But I'm torn over it.
And then that leads to 355's death.
Okay, I'm going to say now... I'm not sure I think she was refrigerated, as I understand the women in refrigerators trope. She can't really have been said to be killed to motivate Yorick, as such. Other female characters fall into that trope-- Sonia, PJ, Kilina...--whereas to an extent it just felt like 355 had to die so Yorick couldn't get his happy ending. It's edgier that way, and we all know that makes it more interesting. It does up the angst, so I guess you could still call it refrigerating. Whatever it is, it can still be called a woman dying for the sake of a man's story. Now. Things being what they are, almost everyone who dies for the sake of the story after the initial apocalypse is going to be female. And I'm keeping that in mind. I'm also not sure it doesn't add something to Alter's story... but whether or not it was necessary is pretty sketchy, and in the end, it still really feels like just taking out the happy ending. Can't have that, now can we?
Now, all that said, I still really did like the story. I understand that we're telling the story of the last man, so while it gets frustrating at points to feel like... one man left on the whole fucking planet, and he still manages to dominate the narrative, but it is somewhat mitigated by what we see of other characters in the background and in side stories. And. You know. It is an important story, based on this premise. And there's some nods to it, attempts to own it I think, and to handwave it away a bit. But. Well. Okay, in the end, what I said about my first point kind of applies to the whole thing. It feels like it's very like a lot of real feminist men: quick to separate themselves from rad fems, still tripping up on the privilege, and not always able to tell when they're letting the male perspective dominate unfairly again. But like a lot of those men, it does feel like its heart is in the right place. And while that doesn't necessarily call for "Thank you for not being a rapist!" cookies, it does sort of deserve honorable mention, I think? A for effort, but B- for execution? Something like that?
The epilogue did kill me. I came incredibly close to crying when Ampersand died, and that is something for me, because I can honestly say that since I was 15, I have only cried over fiction once. For a monkey. For fuck's sake. And Yorick observing to his clone that none of the monkey clones were right--too well behaved. In general, what we see in the epilogue was very fitting. It was a well constructed chapter, and it wrapped things up well. Despite the state of the world we see, it doesn't really feel like "Women are better at running the world than men!" so much as "Women were able to pick up the pieces, and now we're more or less back on track." It's nice to think that we could.
Now, for one last complaint to upset the balance of my shit sandwich formula, what the hell was up with the rats?!
Okay, I'm going to say, first and foremost. I enjoyed Y: The Last Man. It has lots of good characters. It does well, generally speaking, with a premise that is pretty much just fraught with ways to go wrong. When I first heard about it, months before it was rec'd to me, I mostly just heard the bare bones of the premise. Male mammals die. One man and one monkey survive. Bullshit ensues. I rather suspected it would be some kind of wish fulfillment, or possibly it would be... I won't say political, because it is political, and I don't necessarily have a problem with political, so let's go with preachy. Or, that even if it managed to avoid that, it would still get caught up in all of the land mines and pitfalls and booby traps (ignore the pun--it's not intended) that can come with trying to characterize gender dynamics. So. It's not perfect, and it doesn't avoid all of the problem, no. But, overall, I really did like it.
There are a lot of good characters. I said that before. I'll say it again. 355 probably about tops my list. Dr. Mann also grew on me a great deal, to the point that despite living into the epilogue (where pretty much everyone who the main narrative misses is either killed or implied to be dead), I was still very sad to hear that she died before Yorick could see her a last time. Yorick, despite annoying the shit out of me occasionally, was actually not a bad character. I think he's a really realistic representation of a kind of guy I know a number of, and the annoyance comes at least in no small part from that. The supporting cast is strong, and has a wide variety of diverse women, with different strengths, different weaknesses, different personalities. They don't seem to blur together (which, sadly, is a problem I've found more than once when men try to write large female casts--they start running out of stock personalities). It's really good. Some of them are a bit flat, but no more so than a male character would be in the same role. They're not flat because they're women, for the most part (more on that later). They're flat because they're minor characters.
There's a number of very thoughtful details. A lot of statistics are kept in mind.
But I just wouldn't be me if I didn't devote most of my energy to identifying and talking about what bugged me, would I?
The first thing that pinged my sense of "something wrong here" was, without a doubt, the Amazons. I'm still rather torn about them. I would not, out and out, call them a bad idea, per se. I think within the context of many, many groups scrambling to find some explanation, some order, some place for themselves in what is--we should never forget--a post-apocalyptic world, I see where they fit. Hero, and her whys, her reasons, make sense to me. Their existence, as a gang, as we learn more about the world fits for me to a great degree. Between Alter's Israeli army and the Sons of Arizona and all the various individuals who believe that everything from an Arab terrorist attack to the Rapture is responsible for all of the men dying, they have a place. But as the first gang we meet, and with Victoria, it's really hard not to see them as a caricature of radical feminists. Radical feminist, and very academic feminist--before she's killed, she talks statistics at the ex-convicts, and while the scene (like many) includes good information for the reader, AND is interesting from the perspective of Victoria appropriating the female convicts experiences to use as statistics back at them, talking for them when they're right there, it still gives the impression of a very... well, straw feminist. It just doesn't sit well with me. I can see why she gained power, her followers make sense. She feels like the creation of... say, a male feminist trying to very quickly divorce himself from feminist stereotypes, particularly second wave feminist stereotypes, and it just feels a little quick and ham handed to me. "Yes, there's going to be some gender stuff in here! Don't worry, we're not like THOSE." And her position as the first real enemies they face emphasizes that.
However, that said, contrasting her with Dr. Mann's father is really interesting to me. Whereas she is the manhater who blames the fact she wasn't a success on sexism, who blames all the evils in the world and in her life on men, he is the man who more or less does the same for the purpose of not admitting that he's just a terrible person. No, I'm sorry. If you were a terrible husband, a terrible father, an arrogant person who sabotaged his own daughter and tried to play god, it's not because you were a man and that predisposed you to it. It's just because you were a terrible person. Context, of course, plays a huge part of this. The bitter feminist is a cultural trope that hurts real feminist; on the other hand, men who blame all their faults on being men don't have the same place in our consciousness. Boys will be boys is normally seen as a defense of bad behavior. Not as a reason to kill the last man on earth. (Or, one of three at that point, I suppose.)
Second... I am rather torn about the incident with 711. On the one hand, it revealed interesting things about Yorick's character. It did call him on his ass-stupid behavior, and put it in a light you rarely see that sort of headstrong heroism put in. (People who wanted Hinata's "suicidal" behavior examined in Naruto after she jumped in to protect Naruto examined might find it satisfying.) It played into Yorick's relationship with 355 and his eventual going to her at the end. 711 is herself a rather interesting character, from what little we see of her. On the other hand... it is a bit random feeling, and the sexual, non-con aspects kind of make me uncomfortable. Now, I'm pretty sure it's SUPPOSED to. But I've yet to decide how I feel about exactly how it was handled. Perhaps on a reread, I'll clarify it to myself.
Third, okay, the characterization of the Japanese criminal organization as becoming essentially a bunch of fangirls serving a white, washed up pop star sits pretty badly with me. I mean, really, was that necessary? Could you have not even have made it a Japanese pop star? Did we have to mix the Japanese consumerist, fangirl trope with Big In Japan?
While we're on it, shouldn't "You" like "y-o-u" actually be romanized "Yuu?"
And Toyota... was I think arguably one of the least well characterized villains. She's hot, and I wanted more from her, but in the end, she felt like the writer just wanted a ninja in there--apocalypse, check, pirates, sorta-check, monkeys, check, ninja, check, now if only we could have zombies... So when the time came to give her motivation, it was sort of left out. Now, I can say that for her, I don't think this is necessarily a sexism thing, and I'm not really sure it's racist either, exactly. It ends up in a sort of weird place where she's a character type I think we're kind of used to seeing played by men, and particularly white men, so it becomes a bit hard to parse when we're looking at it from an Asian woman. At least, that's sort of how it ended up feeling for me. I am willing to hear other thoughts, certainly.
The explanation for all the men dying itself was pretty underwhelming for me, I guess, but I wasn't really expecting much from it either. I mean, reasons for more apocalypses are tenuous at best, too. And when you're looking for an apocalypse that simultaneously takes out every male mammal on the planet? I just didn't really expect much from it. I shrugged it off, and moved on. But I'll mention it here, because it's a rather weak point in the plot.
Moving right along... there's Beth's fall from her pedestal and 355 being recognized as the real love...
Okay, so I'm torn on this. I really like 355, I really like her relationship with Yorick. I'm not entirely sure I like them romantically, but I definitely like them as friends, and I'm more willing to buy that he's more in love with her than he is with Beth, particularly at this point. I can believe it to a degree. At the same time, it seems to play up a sort of entitlement to female characters to be love interests. Not necessarily on Yorick's part, precisely (though there's some of that too), but more importantly from the writer's. I suppose you can say that, realistically, the last adult man on the planet would have a lot of options open to him, and considering the premise, I won't say this was really ought of control, but you still feel it from time to time.
What I actually pinged me more about 355 herself at that ping was how by that point, her hair was very long and feminine, and she coincidentally all dressed up nice when Yorick went to her. Even in his vision of her, from a time when her hair was much shorter, her hair was long. It gives you this feeling that they felt the need to femme her up, as though she wasn't hot before. (Really, she's always hot. But that's beside the point.)
And not to forget Beth... I understand having them not get their happily ever after. But... well. Like I said, I'm torn over it. I don't hate it. But I'm torn over it.
And then that leads to 355's death.
Okay, I'm going to say now... I'm not sure I think she was refrigerated, as I understand the women in refrigerators trope. She can't really have been said to be killed to motivate Yorick, as such. Other female characters fall into that trope-- Sonia, PJ, Kilina...--whereas to an extent it just felt like 355 had to die so Yorick couldn't get his happy ending. It's edgier that way, and we all know that makes it more interesting. It does up the angst, so I guess you could still call it refrigerating. Whatever it is, it can still be called a woman dying for the sake of a man's story. Now. Things being what they are, almost everyone who dies for the sake of the story after the initial apocalypse is going to be female. And I'm keeping that in mind. I'm also not sure it doesn't add something to Alter's story... but whether or not it was necessary is pretty sketchy, and in the end, it still really feels like just taking out the happy ending. Can't have that, now can we?
Now, all that said, I still really did like the story. I understand that we're telling the story of the last man, so while it gets frustrating at points to feel like... one man left on the whole fucking planet, and he still manages to dominate the narrative, but it is somewhat mitigated by what we see of other characters in the background and in side stories. And. You know. It is an important story, based on this premise. And there's some nods to it, attempts to own it I think, and to handwave it away a bit. But. Well. Okay, in the end, what I said about my first point kind of applies to the whole thing. It feels like it's very like a lot of real feminist men: quick to separate themselves from rad fems, still tripping up on the privilege, and not always able to tell when they're letting the male perspective dominate unfairly again. But like a lot of those men, it does feel like its heart is in the right place. And while that doesn't necessarily call for "Thank you for not being a rapist!" cookies, it does sort of deserve honorable mention, I think? A for effort, but B- for execution? Something like that?
The epilogue did kill me. I came incredibly close to crying when Ampersand died, and that is something for me, because I can honestly say that since I was 15, I have only cried over fiction once. For a monkey. For fuck's sake. And Yorick observing to his clone that none of the monkey clones were right--too well behaved. In general, what we see in the epilogue was very fitting. It was a well constructed chapter, and it wrapped things up well. Despite the state of the world we see, it doesn't really feel like "Women are better at running the world than men!" so much as "Women were able to pick up the pieces, and now we're more or less back on track." It's nice to think that we could.
Now, for one last complaint to upset the balance of my shit sandwich formula, what the hell was up with the rats?!