'Your mother would have wanted you to have this,'

[thepresidentrix]

the papa Viking tells his son, the scrawny kid Viking, presenting him with his very first horned Viking helmet. 'It was half of her breastplate

Comments

[tempestsarekind]

I recognize the importance of female characters who defy gender stereotypes by being great warriors or athletes, but I look forward to a day when not every strong girl character *has* to be the toughest and the ass-kickin'est and the best in order to be considered interesting. It should be okay for there to be dimensional girls and women of a milder stripe, too, just like there are tough male characters and milder-mannered male characters

I KNOOOOOW RIGHT? This is so, so irritating to me. I mean, many of my favorite female characters come out of Austen and Shakespeare, and I'm so TIRED of the logic that says that these women are nothing but "weak" characters oppressed by The Man, instead of interesting, complex women doing the best they can in sometimes wretched circumstances. How dare you not throw over the entire system and keep yourself from getting killed, Desdemona! Oh, I forgot, it's because you're so weak and boring. I can't believe you went mad, Ophelia. How weak and boring is that? (Oh, but Hamlet's madness, now: that's

[litlover12]

What she said.

[thepresidentrix]

I see a lot of it in White Collar fandom, as well. Fans often comment that Elizabeth is a strong female character because she's 'not just a housewife,' and she has a high-profile job of her own. Because it seems like she's too busy to have kids. Because she might even make more money than her husband! Woooo. All of the above are relevant facts about a character, but - what? If she decides to quit her job, she's not a strong woman anymore? If she has a baby? If she makes less money? These are the things that denote personal strength

[tempestsarekind]

Even Martha is a little bit this way - the way they go out of their way to show how little fear she feels on the moon, by contrast to everyone else who is howling and sobbing and falling apart, as if to say, 'this is why she *deserves* to be one the show and to be the Doctor's friend.'I know what you mean. On the one hand, if one doesn't have a particular capacity for bravery, or at least the ability to develop one in a hurry, one probably *won't* choose to go with the Doctor after one has seen what his life is like up-close. (In that sense, I think the show writes itself into a corner, a bit: I remember reading that some of the older companions got accidentally picked up by the Doctor and then couldn't get back home, or were fleeing something in their lives, which gives a much wider range of possibilities.) (And that's why I've always loved that Donna turns him down, the first time: she's capable and warmhearted and heroic--and she says no, because the Doctor terrifies her

[thepresidentrix]

But on the other hand, that episode goes out of its way to equate bravery with worth, and that's always bothered me--particularly Ten's dismissive "Not her, she'd only hold us up" to that woman who is crying, with every good reason.Yes, this. I think *this* is the thing that sets me off. It should be treated as a little weird that Martha isn't at all afraid of suffocating on the moon (though surely there are people like that, whose wonder at the experience would utterly trump the fear of death, and those are exactly the sort of people best-suited to the Doctor's way of life), but instead, Martha's okay and everyone else is *useless.* I do LOVE that episode overall, though. A bit of the clunkiness to be expected whenever your show enters a new dynamic, but so much good banter and chemistry - and Space Rhinos! My favorite scene is probably Ten's absolutely artful hysteria, when he's goading the fugitive alien woman to drink his blood. Creepy and hilarious

[tempestsarekind]

Ten's absolutely artful hysteria, when he's goading the fugitive alien woman to drink his bloodI love that bit, too! That's one of my favorite things about Ten, the way he can babble his way into and out of so many situations--the way he plays parts. (I wrote a long "why I love Ten" post that included that sort of thing, once upon a time. Because I do love him, even if I frequently seem to forget to mention it