Please to be squeeing about girl chars in this post
I want to take a moment to praise female characters.
I wanted to plan this post better and give great analyses of several characters, but I don't think I'll ever get around to that, so I'll just wing it and whatever. Basically, I want to declare to the world my love for two characters who have been on my mind lately: they both appeared first in literature, not so very long ago, and have even more recently been interpreted in TV shows and movie/s.
First: Arya Stark (and btw, this is - to me - the best use of this over-used fanvid song I've seen)
I haven't read all the books yet, so if you want to squee about Arya, please be kind and leave out spoilers. But. ZOMG I adore Arya. I wish I'd come across a character like her when I was little because she was what I wanted to get in a movie or book and never really got. (Leading to years of rejecting all things deemed "girly" and internalized misogyny leading to recognizing and getting over that leading to things like this post.) My little self identifies with her so strongly. She's that noble but fierce and tortured orphan-boy trope I was obsessed with as a kid but she's a SHE. And she hates that the the world wants her to fit into the peg-holes marked GIRL as much as I did (but with more cause than I ever had, seeing as she lives in a medieval world of terror).
Second: Lisbeth Salander
Kickass bisexual cyberpunk with a traumatic past -- sounds perhaps like a Mary Sue, right? ...But why did we all develop such aversions to so-called "Mary Sue"s anyway? We see those same traits in a male character as just accepted tropes in seen almost EVERY popular book/show/movie, especially in our favorite male characters. They can work just as well on a female protagonist -- it just needs to be well-written/acted/directed etc. Weirdly, sadly, most of us saw few attempts at compelling, interesting, dynamic human female characters in the mainstream -- instead we got mainstream token (flat) female characters) and and botched attempts at good characters written badly by fourteen-year-olds on fanfiction.net. We wrongly identified the problem as a list of TRAITS shared by their main characters. Instead of applauding the attempts at putting strong females at the center of their stories, amateur and trite though they may be. (metafandom had a lot of talk about this a while ago and it's stuck with me.)
Anyway. Lisbeth? I just think she's plain fucking cool. She's got everything going for her, as a character, that's usually made me fall in love when it comes to dudes (see: my past obsessions - Rorschach, the phantom of the opera, Magneto, Loki, Anakin... and idk a million other people). I can't really remember seeing a woman like this as one of the main characters before. And I think she's great. Because it doesn't feel contrived, to me -- no more than any of the dues I just listed anyway. She feels as real as any of them. As compelling. Watching the movie, I was intrigued by her, impressed by her, sad for her, triumphant for her, and worried for her. That's what you want in a character.
(I don't think I'm demonstrating my point well, but oh well.)
Other girl characters who have won my heart:
1. Eowyn (The Lord of the Rings)
2. Daria (Daria)
3. Anne Boleyn (The Tudors)
4. Daenerys Targaryen (Game of Thrones)
5. Hermione Granger (Harry Potter)
6. Peggy Olsen (Mad Men)
7. Paikea (Whale Rider)
8. Kym (Rachel Getting Married)
9. Joan (Mad Men)
10. OMG I SHOULD HAVE SAID HER FIRST: Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables)
Tell me all the girls and women you love!
I wanted to plan this post better and give great analyses of several characters, but I don't think I'll ever get around to that, so I'll just wing it and whatever. Basically, I want to declare to the world my love for two characters who have been on my mind lately: they both appeared first in literature, not so very long ago, and have even more recently been interpreted in TV shows and movie/s.
First: Arya Stark (and btw, this is - to me - the best use of this over-used fanvid song I've seen)
Click to viewI haven't read all the books yet, so if you want to squee about Arya, please be kind and leave out spoilers. But. ZOMG I adore Arya. I wish I'd come across a character like her when I was little because she was what I wanted to get in a movie or book and never really got. (Leading to years of rejecting all things deemed "girly" and internalized misogyny leading to recognizing and getting over that leading to things like this post.) My little self identifies with her so strongly. She's that noble but fierce and tortured orphan-boy trope I was obsessed with as a kid but she's a SHE. And she hates that the the world wants her to fit into the peg-holes marked GIRL as much as I did (but with more cause than I ever had, seeing as she lives in a medieval world of terror).
Second: Lisbeth Salander
Kickass bisexual cyberpunk with a traumatic past -- sounds perhaps like a Mary Sue, right? ...But why did we all develop such aversions to so-called "Mary Sue"s anyway? We see those same traits in a male character as just accepted tropes in seen almost EVERY popular book/show/movie, especially in our favorite male characters. They can work just as well on a female protagonist -- it just needs to be well-written/acted/directed etc. Weirdly, sadly, most of us saw few attempts at compelling, interesting, dynamic human female characters in the mainstream -- instead we got mainstream token (flat) female characters) and and botched attempts at good characters written badly by fourteen-year-olds on fanfiction.net. We wrongly identified the problem as a list of TRAITS shared by their main characters. Instead of applauding the attempts at putting strong females at the center of their stories, amateur and trite though they may be. (metafandom had a lot of talk about this a while ago and it's stuck with me.)
Anyway. Lisbeth? I just think she's plain fucking cool. She's got everything going for her, as a character, that's usually made me fall in love when it comes to dudes (see: my past obsessions - Rorschach, the phantom of the opera, Magneto, Loki, Anakin... and idk a million other people). I can't really remember seeing a woman like this as one of the main characters before. And I think she's great. Because it doesn't feel contrived, to me -- no more than any of the dues I just listed anyway. She feels as real as any of them. As compelling. Watching the movie, I was intrigued by her, impressed by her, sad for her, triumphant for her, and worried for her. That's what you want in a character.
(I don't think I'm demonstrating my point well, but oh well.)
Other girl characters who have won my heart:
1. Eowyn (The Lord of the Rings)
2. Daria (Daria)
3. Anne Boleyn (The Tudors)
4. Daenerys Targaryen (Game of Thrones)
5. Hermione Granger (Harry Potter)
6. Peggy Olsen (Mad Men)
7. Paikea (Whale Rider)
8. Kym (Rachel Getting Married)
9. Joan (Mad Men)
10. OMG I SHOULD HAVE SAID HER FIRST: Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables)
Tell me all the girls and women you love!