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I Want To Sink My Teeth Into A Nice, Distracting, Meta Discussion. Who's With Me?
Here are the answers from this meta meme.
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ilikebigtoes - Patti
why does she have to be so fucking annoying and dumb? I understand needing two pistols so symmetry can be satisfied, but surely there is some other character type they could have gone with besides hyper, violent, and mentally deficient. Liz is so much cooler. And sexier. When she's getting molested by wrappings it's actually legitimately sexy.
Patti, on the other hand, is this deranged, maniacal child and frankly, we already have Black*Star we don't need another.
So, sure, she's currently leveling up but if we were going to have a weapon transitioning to a meister, I'd rather see it be Liz (remember how awesome she looked aiming for Noah in that maid outfit?)
autumn_whispers - Jennsen/Rahl
Okay, this is wrong on so many levels. They're related, for starters, and he's evil, to continue, and their main interaction was him lying to her when she had lost her memories.
But Jennsen is also the one person with whom we've seen the softer side of Rahl (the stuff about his father felt emotionally true, for example), and when she gives him a kiss on the cheek to thank him for getting her a cat, there was this stunned pause that showed how unfamiliar Rahl is with affection.
So in my head Rahl pretends to be a nice guy for Jennsen and Jennsen continually throws him for a loop with her genuine affection.
The interesting thing about Rahl is while the show has a no-female-redshirt policy (which sucks), Rahl actually treats the women under him (the Mord Sith) with more respect than the majority of the men.
Cara is clearly used to being treated with respect and equality, and Rahl's treatment of Denna dovetails (I presume) with how she expects to be treated by her sisters.
To return to Rahl/Jennsen, there is also the fact that she's pristinely ungifted, which makes her dangerous to Rahl, both because she had screw up his plots and because he can't use his magic on her.
tobu_ishi - Doctor Horrible. (The character, not the overall musical.)
I am not convinced Billy would have been a good good guy. You want him to be one - if fact, that diss on Johnny Snow ("besides, there's kids in that park, so.") is a huge neon sign that he's a decent guy at heart.
But I don't know if he would be anymore competent as a hero as he was a villain (good plans, problems with the execution). And I think that is what Billy really, really wants - respect, recognition, attention.
Also, the people who say that Billy is rather stalker-y... have a point.
He is also the classic tragic hero who is damned by what he can't have. Bonus points for the epic-ness.
Hagi!nekohooch
Hagi is one of the rare tall, dark, and brooding characters who work for me. I don't know why... maybe because Saya seems like she'd like someone who is tall, dark, and brooding?
Also, besides the epically Byronic dramatic-hair cello playing on top of buildings, he knows how to sword fight.
Plus, he's got that tragic doesn't-affect-his-prettiness demon hand and history with Saya's.... prior self? Is that the term? Anyway it's clear that they're going to be OTP, what with his brooding and Saya's big eyes and the whole feeding-Say-with-his-lifeblood thing.
Actually, both Saya and Hagi are so stoic that it's hard for me to get emotionally invested.
helicopini - Okay, your topic is:
Amanda Marcotte's recent hypothesis that Twilight is popular with older women (who ought to know better) because it functions as a fantasy where a supernatural sex god (two in fact) obsess over a character who is meant to be a cipher for the reader's self. The core appeal of Twilight therefore is just motivating extremely desirable men to be obsessively in love with you to the point where they will do ANYTHING. It's a fantasy of being ultra-desirable even if you are just a mousy teen yourself. Therefore Edward's abusive behavior is beside the point, because it's just id fantasy anyway.
Agree/disagree?
Yes but.
First of all, thank you for getting me to go off and find out about Amanda Marcotte and read her blog.
Now, to get back to Twilight. While I think the Twilight's anti-rejection porn angel is one reason why it's so popular, I don't think it's possible to sweep under the rug just how bad Edward is as a romantic hero. While I have my problems with LKH, she had the exact same love triangle going on in her books. Why is that Meyer is so insanely popular while LKH is a more traditional best-selling novelist? Is it just that LKH has sex (and sex and sex and sex) and that Twilight doesn't? (tangent: I actually like Marcotte's thoughts on this, even/especially because of what that says about sexually active women in our culture.)
One thing that I will hear over and over by fans of Twilight, especially older fans, is 'it's just like being in love for the first time.'
Really? Really? Edward and Bella's relationship is what throws all your 'this is first love' levers?
Frankly, I believe that Twilight is so popular because it ties into hugely influential cultural beliefs about being a young woman and what makes young women desirable and sex (you can want it, but if you don't wait until you're married, you're a slut, and Twilight's fantasy take on this is that the author-cipher in question isn't the one who has to maintain her own virginity until marriage; Edward is doing that for her).
Twilight is also huge enough that I don't think there is one answer - I agreed with BOTH articles you mentioned, AS WELL AShelen_keeble 's points about Bella's domestic control and agency.
kai_lis - Rue
Rue is awesome.
Her being evil is what got me thinking that there was something in Princess Tutu that was worth getting past the animators being unable to draw fingers. I love Rue's friendship with Ahiru and her belief she will never be loved. I love her elegance and her tolerance for emotional pain.
She is an odd choice to play opposite Ahiru. Ahiru is bubbly and clumsy and hopeful and the fact that Rue is placed opposite Ahiru with no personal animosity involved and without being punished for not being like the heroine is a nice move on the animators part.
Rue is the classic, doomed princess; metatextually, it's not a surprise she ended up with the Prince.
hungrytiger11 - Mary Russell
Ruined me for Sir Arthur Canon Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. The Mary Russell stories just seem so much more interesting than Doyle’s mysteries. Holmes comes across as more human and more falliable and Mary herself provides a much more relatable pov character than either Watson or Holmes in the original novels. First, Watson’s sole purpose was narrating Holmes adventures and he didn’t seem like much of a character himself, and Holmes is presented as so brilliant that he’s hard to relate to. And then the masculine buddy cop dynamic has never grabbed me. Whereas Mary is a young English lady during the Great War (a trope that I have yet to get sick of) while also being a girl detective ( a trope that is even harder for me to get tired of).
obsessive0514 - The Southern Raiders
Zutara's big romantic episode.
You can have "The Headband" - in my mind, there is something epically romantic about the people who have your back in a fight and let you have the revenge you want.
I think Zuko was the perfect person to understand what Katara needed here; not just revenge, but the chance to making the 'wrong' choice. Now, I can get SO behind a well-deserved revenge in fiction but speaking within the narrative, I think that Zuko knows what it's like to make the wrong choice and have to deal with the consequences and also that sometimes in just don't LEARN simply from someone telling you what you should do. Plus, the rage in his voice when he was telling that Fire Nation officer to look in Katara's eyes.... he would have stood by while she killed the man who murdered her mother. If someone killed my mother, part of me would I'd want to date someone who would do the same for me.
neko_no_kaze - reasons why Katara is awesome
1.) because she's badass.
2.) because she doesn't let her gender stop her from learning what she wants to learn.
3.) because she never saw an injustice she could pass without trying to change it.
4.) because she holds a grudge.
5.) because she is the mother of the group for logical, non-possessing-a-uterus reasons
6.) because after burning her once, Zuko had to earn her friendship
7.) because she has the best fight scenes
8.) because she can go toe to toe with freaking AZULA.
9.) because she has a tragic past that affects her but doesn't control her
10.) because she can't tell a joke to save her life
11.) because she steal from pirates...
12.) ... and doesn't regret it at all.
meitah - Cultural stereotypes in Naruto
Honestly, I think Sakura and Hinata are the shining examples of this. Hinata is the traditional, subservient girl who is brought forth as an example of a Good Wife and Sakura is the tsundere/strong woman who's weak enough not to be a threat.
While I like both of these characters greatly, I think that they are formed out of (what I would consider) negative stereotypes of Japanese women, at least when unleavened by the humanity other mangaka's will give their tsunderes or the spine of steel they give their Yamato Nadeshikos.
Also, he just doesn't love them the way he loves anything with a penis. If he did, Sakura would not get cock!blocked and would get more fight scenes, and after Hinata confessed her love to Naruto and got stabbed... something would have happened. SOMETHING.
xlovelylightx - Reasons why Naomi Misora from Death Note is awesome, and why the show would have been so much better if she lived.
The author killed her off because if she had been around he knew there would have been no way he could have gotten to thirteen wall-of-text volumes of Light wanking about how much smarter he is than everyone else.
Trufax.
He's quoted as saying... approximately what I just said.
Additionally, once Naomi is gone, what female characters do you have? Obsessed, stalker, psycho Misa (who I kind of liked, but still) and Light's catatonic sister.
Now, I am not one to say all female characters should be paragons of feminism, but there is something MAJORLY wrong with your manga when the only female characters are shrieking or nonresponsive. Oh, I forgot for a moment - we have traitor as another option.
sureasdawn - TV vs. Books vs. Manga vs. Film which are you trending to favor more and which has better female characters.
BOOKS.
Okay, time for specifics:
When I went to college, I basically went from watching at least a movie a week to watching one every three months or so, simply for time reasons.
Again, for time reasons, my free time was taken up with television shows (which give me more bang for my buck, character-attachment-wise) and the internet.
Recently, I have started craving books again, and stepping away from the computer to read.
As for which has better female characters, it is hands-down books. In ANY GENRE you can find multiple books with women in the lead role. For a period in my youth, I would not read a book if the main character was not female or if there was not a strong secondary female character. I was able to do this. And I never felt like there was a genre that I was missing out on because it had not ladiez. (Think about the last action flick you saw with a women in the lead role.)
Urban fantasy, for all it's problems, is at is core a genre by women for women about women being badass (yes, there are exceptions, I'm speaking in general terms).
ilikebigtoes - Pattiwhy does she have to be so fucking annoying and dumb? I understand needing two pistols so symmetry can be satisfied, but surely there is some other character type they could have gone with besides hyper, violent, and mentally deficient. Liz is so much cooler. And sexier. When she's getting molested by wrappings it's actually legitimately sexy.
Patti, on the other hand, is this deranged, maniacal child and frankly, we already have Black*Star we don't need another.
So, sure, she's currently leveling up but if we were going to have a weapon transitioning to a meister, I'd rather see it be Liz (remember how awesome she looked aiming for Noah in that maid outfit?)
autumn_whispers - Jennsen/RahlOkay, this is wrong on so many levels. They're related, for starters, and he's evil, to continue, and their main interaction was him lying to her when she had lost her memories.
But Jennsen is also the one person with whom we've seen the softer side of Rahl (the stuff about his father felt emotionally true, for example), and when she gives him a kiss on the cheek to thank him for getting her a cat, there was this stunned pause that showed how unfamiliar Rahl is with affection.
So in my head Rahl pretends to be a nice guy for Jennsen and Jennsen continually throws him for a loop with her genuine affection.
The interesting thing about Rahl is while the show has a no-female-redshirt policy (which sucks), Rahl actually treats the women under him (the Mord Sith) with more respect than the majority of the men.
Cara is clearly used to being treated with respect and equality, and Rahl's treatment of Denna dovetails (I presume) with how she expects to be treated by her sisters.
To return to Rahl/Jennsen, there is also the fact that she's pristinely ungifted, which makes her dangerous to Rahl, both because she had screw up his plots and because he can't use his magic on her.
tobu_ishi - Doctor Horrible. (The character, not the overall musical.)I am not convinced Billy would have been a good good guy. You want him to be one - if fact, that diss on Johnny Snow ("besides, there's kids in that park, so.") is a huge neon sign that he's a decent guy at heart.
But I don't know if he would be anymore competent as a hero as he was a villain (good plans, problems with the execution). And I think that is what Billy really, really wants - respect, recognition, attention.
Also, the people who say that Billy is rather stalker-y... have a point.
He is also the classic tragic hero who is damned by what he can't have. Bonus points for the epic-ness.
Hagi!
nekohooch Hagi is one of the rare tall, dark, and brooding characters who work for me. I don't know why... maybe because Saya seems like she'd like someone who is tall, dark, and brooding?
Also, besides the epically Byronic dramatic-hair cello playing on top of buildings, he knows how to sword fight.
Plus, he's got that tragic doesn't-affect-his-prettiness demon hand and history with Saya's.... prior self? Is that the term? Anyway it's clear that they're going to be OTP, what with his brooding and Saya's big eyes and the whole feeding-Say-with-his-lifeblood thing.
Actually, both Saya and Hagi are so stoic that it's hard for me to get emotionally invested.
helicopini - Okay, your topic is:Amanda Marcotte's recent hypothesis that Twilight is popular with older women (who ought to know better) because it functions as a fantasy where a supernatural sex god (two in fact) obsess over a character who is meant to be a cipher for the reader's self. The core appeal of Twilight therefore is just motivating extremely desirable men to be obsessively in love with you to the point where they will do ANYTHING. It's a fantasy of being ultra-desirable even if you are just a mousy teen yourself. Therefore Edward's abusive behavior is beside the point, because it's just id fantasy anyway.
Agree/disagree?
Yes but.
First of all, thank you for getting me to go off and find out about Amanda Marcotte and read her blog.
Now, to get back to Twilight. While I think the Twilight's anti-rejection porn angel is one reason why it's so popular, I don't think it's possible to sweep under the rug just how bad Edward is as a romantic hero. While I have my problems with LKH, she had the exact same love triangle going on in her books. Why is that Meyer is so insanely popular while LKH is a more traditional best-selling novelist? Is it just that LKH has sex (and sex and sex and sex) and that Twilight doesn't? (tangent: I actually like Marcotte's thoughts on this, even/especially because of what that says about sexually active women in our culture.)
One thing that I will hear over and over by fans of Twilight, especially older fans, is 'it's just like being in love for the first time.'
Really? Really? Edward and Bella's relationship is what throws all your 'this is first love' levers?
Frankly, I believe that Twilight is so popular because it ties into hugely influential cultural beliefs about being a young woman and what makes young women desirable and sex (you can want it, but if you don't wait until you're married, you're a slut, and Twilight's fantasy take on this is that the author-cipher in question isn't the one who has to maintain her own virginity until marriage; Edward is doing that for her).
Twilight is also huge enough that I don't think there is one answer - I agreed with BOTH articles you mentioned, AS WELL AS
helen_keeble 's points about Bella's domestic control and agency.kai_lis - RueRue is awesome.
Her being evil is what got me thinking that there was something in Princess Tutu that was worth getting past the animators being unable to draw fingers. I love Rue's friendship with Ahiru and her belief she will never be loved. I love her elegance and her tolerance for emotional pain.
She is an odd choice to play opposite Ahiru. Ahiru is bubbly and clumsy and hopeful and the fact that Rue is placed opposite Ahiru with no personal animosity involved and without being punished for not being like the heroine is a nice move on the animators part.
Rue is the classic, doomed princess; metatextually, it's not a surprise she ended up with the Prince.
hungrytiger11 - Mary RussellRuined me for Sir Arthur Canon Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. The Mary Russell stories just seem so much more interesting than Doyle’s mysteries. Holmes comes across as more human and more falliable and Mary herself provides a much more relatable pov character than either Watson or Holmes in the original novels. First, Watson’s sole purpose was narrating Holmes adventures and he didn’t seem like much of a character himself, and Holmes is presented as so brilliant that he’s hard to relate to. And then the masculine buddy cop dynamic has never grabbed me. Whereas Mary is a young English lady during the Great War (a trope that I have yet to get sick of) while also being a girl detective ( a trope that is even harder for me to get tired of).
obsessive0514 - The Southern RaidersZutara's big romantic episode.
You can have "The Headband" - in my mind, there is something epically romantic about the people who have your back in a fight and let you have the revenge you want.
I think Zuko was the perfect person to understand what Katara needed here; not just revenge, but the chance to making the 'wrong' choice. Now, I can get SO behind a well-deserved revenge in fiction but speaking within the narrative, I think that Zuko knows what it's like to make the wrong choice and have to deal with the consequences and also that sometimes in just don't LEARN simply from someone telling you what you should do. Plus, the rage in his voice when he was telling that Fire Nation officer to look in Katara's eyes.... he would have stood by while she killed the man who murdered her mother. If someone killed my mother, part of me would I'd want to date someone who would do the same for me.
neko_no_kaze - reasons why Katara is awesome1.) because she's badass.
2.) because she doesn't let her gender stop her from learning what she wants to learn.
3.) because she never saw an injustice she could pass without trying to change it.
4.) because she holds a grudge.
5.) because she is the mother of the group for logical, non-possessing-a-uterus reasons
6.) because after burning her once, Zuko had to earn her friendship
7.) because she has the best fight scenes
8.) because she can go toe to toe with freaking AZULA.
9.) because she has a tragic past that affects her but doesn't control her
10.) because she can't tell a joke to save her life
11.) because she steal from pirates...
12.) ... and doesn't regret it at all.
meitah - Cultural stereotypes in NarutoHonestly, I think Sakura and Hinata are the shining examples of this. Hinata is the traditional, subservient girl who is brought forth as an example of a Good Wife and Sakura is the tsundere/strong woman who's weak enough not to be a threat.
While I like both of these characters greatly, I think that they are formed out of (what I would consider) negative stereotypes of Japanese women, at least when unleavened by the humanity other mangaka's will give their tsunderes or the spine of steel they give their Yamato Nadeshikos.
Also, he just doesn't love them the way he loves anything with a penis. If he did, Sakura would not get cock!blocked and would get more fight scenes, and after Hinata confessed her love to Naruto and got stabbed... something would have happened. SOMETHING.
xlovelylightx - Reasons why Naomi Misora from Death Note is awesome, and why the show would have been so much better if she lived.The author killed her off because if she had been around he knew there would have been no way he could have gotten to thirteen wall-of-text volumes of Light wanking about how much smarter he is than everyone else.
Trufax.
He's quoted as saying... approximately what I just said.
Additionally, once Naomi is gone, what female characters do you have? Obsessed, stalker, psycho Misa (who I kind of liked, but still) and Light's catatonic sister.
Now, I am not one to say all female characters should be paragons of feminism, but there is something MAJORLY wrong with your manga when the only female characters are shrieking or nonresponsive. Oh, I forgot for a moment - we have traitor as another option.
sureasdawn - TV vs. Books vs. Manga vs. Film which are you trending to favor more and which has better female characters.BOOKS.
Okay, time for specifics:
When I went to college, I basically went from watching at least a movie a week to watching one every three months or so, simply for time reasons.
Again, for time reasons, my free time was taken up with television shows (which give me more bang for my buck, character-attachment-wise) and the internet.
Recently, I have started craving books again, and stepping away from the computer to read.
As for which has better female characters, it is hands-down books. In ANY GENRE you can find multiple books with women in the lead role. For a period in my youth, I would not read a book if the main character was not female or if there was not a strong secondary female character. I was able to do this. And I never felt like there was a genre that I was missing out on because it had not ladiez. (Think about the last action flick you saw with a women in the lead role.)
Urban fantasy, for all it's problems, is at is core a genre by women for women about women being badass (yes, there are exceptions, I'm speaking in general terms).