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beccatoriaI HAVE GAKKED A MEME FROM ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chaila43 AND emmiere.
IT R LONG AND A BIT RAMBLY.
Favorite lead female character: Right now? Olivia Dunham. However, I think props have to go to Sarah Connor for navigating that role for the whole of her series without fail because let's face it, Laura Roslin might have won this without 4.5 and it remains to be seen how Fringe 3.5 will shake out.
Favorite supporting female character: RIVER SONG. But, to steal fromchaila43 one should probably note that in my head she is the star.
A female character you hated but grew to love: Probably Sikozu in Farscape. I didn't actually hate her when she was onscreen but there was a lot of publicity about her in the run up to season four and I disliked it for a few reasons. Partly the kind of batshit shippery paranoia of them going on and on about how she has an "interesting relationship" with Crichton when I felt that the show had made commitments to telling a romance between him and Aeryn and I didn't want to see a cliche forced triangle situation with the fake melodrama of her leaving being used to throw arbitrary obstacles. I own that's partly a response that could be seen as "hating the other woman" that often fucks over female characters who are introduced as ship!obstacles, but there was also an element of really hating that trope. It's always the girl. Anyway, there was a whole OTHER reason I disliked it which was I'd only just got used to Jool, and for all I could see from trailers and promotional material, Sikozu was Jool Mark II - curly red-haired smart alec humanish alien who doesn't want to be there. Right down to the way she was dressed in orange, which as a tangent, couldn't they have dressed her in blue? That show was so colour-coded and after Zahn left, it was all in the dusty-red-orange-cream-grey-black end of the spectrum. Anyways, this is suuuuuper long now. Suffice to say she made me eyerolly then she showed up on screen and was DELIGHTFUL. And also interesting. And more interested in Scorpius than John. WELL PLAYED, FARSCAPE.
A female character you relate to: This is tough. I think I need to relate to any character I love on a theoretical sense at least - but I have to confess there aren't that many out there who are that much like me probably because, well, most of what I watch is scifantasy and I don't have superpowers and always have a sneaking suspicion that I wouldn't be brave enough to pull off most of this shit! Plus I often fall in love with stoic, understated, pragmatic women, whereas I think I'm...yes pragmatic, but my day to day style is a little more, well, dammit I like hugs and surreality and daftness. I think, though, I'm going to pick Laura Roslin because pre-4.5 she is my role model in all things except the frequency with which one should get breast exams, and because I would love to be like her and because I always, always understood her.
Favorite female character on a male-driven show: Ahahaaha, I don't watch enough TV clearly. No, really, I don't watch much TV let alone TV that focuses on boyz. In honour ofchaila43 and pellucid, though, I am going to pick CJ Cregg because I haven't watched much West Wing, but I've watched some and she's always my favourite, and because every youtube clip anyone has ever spammed at me (and there have been many) have made me wibble with happiness.
Favorite female-driven show: Again, it's difficult to know what counts as female driven among my viewing habits. For instance, BSG 4.0 is incredibly female-driven but in a way I think wasn't intentional, it just happened to be a point in the narrative where the women were ascendant in their agency, so I'm not sure it was an entirely female-driven show (AND LET US NEVER SPEAK OF 4.5 AGAIN). Similarly, I'd say Fringe as my love of the moment, but I don't think it's female-driven, inasmuch as it has a female lead. Olivia has boatloads of agency and certainly drives her own storylines, but the global plot is much wider and more complex and driven, in many ways, by Walter and Walternate and their histories, even though they play supporting roles in the present. So I think I'll choose The Sarah Connor Chronicles, for the way it not only quietly and understatedly supported Sarah as the driving force of the show, as well as being its protagonist, but also the way that every time they introduced a new aspect (namely Weaver and Jesse), it tended to be driven by women too.
A female character that needs more screen time: Sophie from Leverage! Astrid from Fringe! Nina from Fringe! RIVER SONG. Although that's just because she needs to be the star, when she's guest-starring the show loves her appropriately. ;)
Favorite female character in a comedy show: Because I suck and still haven't learned about Leslie Knope, I'm going to choose Virginia Chance from Raising Hope.
Favorite female character in a drama show: Dude, why would I watch drama? Um... Seriously, I'm drawing a blank, this is embarrassing. I mean I can think of dramas and stuff but none I watch where I loooove a female character to the point I think she oughta be in a meme of awesome chicks. Shall we go with CJ Cregg again?
Favorite female character in a scifi/supernatural show: At the moment? Olivia Dunham. But honourable mention to Laura Roslin before she got screwed.
Favorite female character in a children’s show: River Song! Which, okay, technically a family show. Soooo, second prize goes to, probably, Asohka from Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
Favorite female character in a movie: PRINCESS LEIA. Okay by modern standards she's not all that awesome, but she will always rule part of my soul because she's PRINCESS LEIA.
Favorite female character in a book: I feel I oughta pick something intellectual and impressive sounding, but honestly? Probably Susan Sto Helit from the Death series of the Discworld novels.
Favorite older female character: Laura Roslin! Though idk, she's not really old-old, she's middle-aged old. So lets throw in Helen Mirren in that Awesome Movie where she got to Shoot Giant Guns too.
Favorite female character growth arc: Hmm, this is interesting. If not for the perennially annoying ending, I would love to have chosen Laura Roslin, as she really did undergo a remarkable yet remarkably consistent journey for three and a half years. But...I'm actually going to go for a thoroughly bizarre left-field choice and choose The Jedi Exile from Knights of the Old Republic 2. Both because I feel that the narrative and character arcs work better when you choose to play it as a girl (and yay for canonising her as one!), and because they're...interesting anyway. I enjoy the way the character arc is revealed in retrospect, but also that your own choices in explaining why you previously took the actions you took help nuance that journey in favour of the player. I certainly have never connected to a computer game character as fully as I did to her, though it probably didn't help that she was caught in a web of epic nihilistic philosophy.
Favorite mother character: Okay so we're getting repetitive at this point because an honest answer would probably be Sarah Connor, but there are two different characters I'd like to get a chance to at least mention, because otherwise my Favourites Ever just win everything by default. I'd like to mention Irina Derevko, because she's awesome and ambiguous, but I'd also like to mention Lily Charles from Pushing Daisies. Because she's also...awesome and ambiguous but in a completely different way.
Favorite warrior female character: Aeryn Sun. With an honourable mention to Kara Thrace.
Favorite non-warrior female character: My actual favourite is probably one of the people I've already mentioned a billion times who I don't think qualifies primarily as a warrior, so let's take a side-step for a moment and consider some other possibilities. I'm going to choose Vergere from Star Wars. Because she was absolutely devastating in every war she chose to wage, but her weapon was education and philosophy. Even when her weapon was pain, it was always, like sleight of hand, by someone else's design. Like Laura Roslin, I am disappointed with what they ultimately did to her character, but unlike Laura, it was after her death; retcons voiced by known liars that I do not doubt I am supposed to believe - that LucasFilm think they need to put her back into a safe, understandable box, because her views, her existence, broke Star Wars in the most awesome way possible. But I don't believe them and I see a lot of irony in the reconstruction of her character in the aftermath of her original run. Vergere would find it hilarious. It's the exact thing she warned about. There's something wonderful about making a fictional character who exists to tear down philosophical and moral preconceptions and then having to quickly overwrite her motivations because she succeeded.
Favorite non-human female character: Caprica Six. Plus bonus mention of Vergere if we're going for non-human AND non-human-looking.
Favorite female antagonist: For antagonist? Jesse Flores, hands down. For villain? Kreia from KOTOR II.
Favorite female character screwed over by canon: LAURA ROSLIN and if you didn't know that was going to be my answer WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?
Favorite female character you love but everyone else hates: Probably Tory Foster on BSG?
Favorite female platonic relationship: Ugh, women so rarely get to be friends on SciFi shows, which is most of what I watch. Honestly? Even though it's a shitty show in most other ways? I...actually really, really like the friendship that exists between Steph and Katie on No Ordinary Family. It's adorable and I really believe that they care about each other. That said, my bar may be a little low. The other unexpected honourable mention probably goes to Asohka in Star Wars: the Clone Wars cartoon. Not because she has a specific BFF and okay, a lot of the time she's stuck with Obi Wan or Anakin, but she also gets paired up with a lot of random chicks including Padme, Barriss Offee, the Duchess of Mandalore, Aayla Secura, and...probably some others I'm forgetting. Anyway, the point is, she nearly always passes the Bechdel test with ALL of them and also they always LIKE each other. It's...surprising! Plus I have a guilty secret desire to see more of Padme and Asohka. She's always adorably mentorish at her, and honestly, she's a good parental balance to Anakin's influence.
Favorite female romantic relationship: LAURA/MAYA. IT WAS CANON. And, for fabuluous AU Crossovers, I POINT YOU TO MY ICON OF HOTNESS. SARAH/OLIVIA 4EVA.
Favorite mother/daughter and/or sister relationship: I still haaaaaate that Fringe dropped the Dunham Dames' awesome Nuclear Family. Olivia's relationships with her sister and niece were the sweetest. I also always loved George and Reggie in Dead Like Me and the way their shared history impacted on their current storylines, even though they couldn't see each other anymore, except for shit like secretly gifting hand-me-down frogs.
Favorite classical female character (from pre-20th century literature or mythology or the like): Dude, again with the reading? OY. I'd pick a woman from Welsh mythology but most of them die of grief, aren't real or are kind of evil. I always kinda liked Athena?
A female character you have extensive personal canon for: Kara Thrace: clearly the daughter of Daniel. [/predictable].
Favorite female writer (television, books, movies, etc.): Probably Ursula K LeGuin.
A female-centric fic rec: TWO AWESOME GIRLS: Chasing Whiskey With You bychaila43.
TADA. ONLY A DAY LATE.
chaila43 AND emmiere. IT R LONG AND A BIT RAMBLY.
Favorite lead female character: Right now? Olivia Dunham. However, I think props have to go to Sarah Connor for navigating that role for the whole of her series without fail because let's face it, Laura Roslin might have won this without 4.5 and it remains to be seen how Fringe 3.5 will shake out.
Favorite supporting female character: RIVER SONG. But, to steal from
chaila43 one should probably note that in my head she is the star. A female character you hated but grew to love: Probably Sikozu in Farscape. I didn't actually hate her when she was onscreen but there was a lot of publicity about her in the run up to season four and I disliked it for a few reasons. Partly the kind of batshit shippery paranoia of them going on and on about how she has an "interesting relationship" with Crichton when I felt that the show had made commitments to telling a romance between him and Aeryn and I didn't want to see a cliche forced triangle situation with the fake melodrama of her leaving being used to throw arbitrary obstacles. I own that's partly a response that could be seen as "hating the other woman" that often fucks over female characters who are introduced as ship!obstacles, but there was also an element of really hating that trope. It's always the girl. Anyway, there was a whole OTHER reason I disliked it which was I'd only just got used to Jool, and for all I could see from trailers and promotional material, Sikozu was Jool Mark II - curly red-haired smart alec humanish alien who doesn't want to be there. Right down to the way she was dressed in orange, which as a tangent, couldn't they have dressed her in blue? That show was so colour-coded and after Zahn left, it was all in the dusty-red-orange-cream-grey-black end of the spectrum. Anyways, this is suuuuuper long now. Suffice to say she made me eyerolly then she showed up on screen and was DELIGHTFUL. And also interesting. And more interested in Scorpius than John. WELL PLAYED, FARSCAPE.
A female character you relate to: This is tough. I think I need to relate to any character I love on a theoretical sense at least - but I have to confess there aren't that many out there who are that much like me probably because, well, most of what I watch is scifantasy and I don't have superpowers and always have a sneaking suspicion that I wouldn't be brave enough to pull off most of this shit! Plus I often fall in love with stoic, understated, pragmatic women, whereas I think I'm...yes pragmatic, but my day to day style is a little more, well, dammit I like hugs and surreality and daftness. I think, though, I'm going to pick Laura Roslin because pre-4.5 she is my role model in all things except the frequency with which one should get breast exams, and because I would love to be like her and because I always, always understood her.
Favorite female character on a male-driven show: Ahahaaha, I don't watch enough TV clearly. No, really, I don't watch much TV let alone TV that focuses on boyz. In honour of
chaila43 and pellucid, though, I am going to pick CJ Cregg because I haven't watched much West Wing, but I've watched some and she's always my favourite, and because every youtube clip anyone has ever spammed at me (and there have been many) have made me wibble with happiness. Favorite female-driven show: Again, it's difficult to know what counts as female driven among my viewing habits. For instance, BSG 4.0 is incredibly female-driven but in a way I think wasn't intentional, it just happened to be a point in the narrative where the women were ascendant in their agency, so I'm not sure it was an entirely female-driven show (AND LET US NEVER SPEAK OF 4.5 AGAIN). Similarly, I'd say Fringe as my love of the moment, but I don't think it's female-driven, inasmuch as it has a female lead. Olivia has boatloads of agency and certainly drives her own storylines, but the global plot is much wider and more complex and driven, in many ways, by Walter and Walternate and their histories, even though they play supporting roles in the present. So I think I'll choose The Sarah Connor Chronicles, for the way it not only quietly and understatedly supported Sarah as the driving force of the show, as well as being its protagonist, but also the way that every time they introduced a new aspect (namely Weaver and Jesse), it tended to be driven by women too.
A female character that needs more screen time: Sophie from Leverage! Astrid from Fringe! Nina from Fringe! RIVER SONG. Although that's just because she needs to be the star, when she's guest-starring the show loves her appropriately. ;)
Favorite female character in a comedy show: Because I suck and still haven't learned about Leslie Knope, I'm going to choose Virginia Chance from Raising Hope.
Favorite female character in a drama show: Dude, why would I watch drama? Um... Seriously, I'm drawing a blank, this is embarrassing. I mean I can think of dramas and stuff but none I watch where I loooove a female character to the point I think she oughta be in a meme of awesome chicks. Shall we go with CJ Cregg again?
Favorite female character in a scifi/supernatural show: At the moment? Olivia Dunham. But honourable mention to Laura Roslin before she got screwed.
Favorite female character in a children’s show: River Song! Which, okay, technically a family show. Soooo, second prize goes to, probably, Asohka from Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
Favorite female character in a movie: PRINCESS LEIA. Okay by modern standards she's not all that awesome, but she will always rule part of my soul because she's PRINCESS LEIA.
Favorite female character in a book: I feel I oughta pick something intellectual and impressive sounding, but honestly? Probably Susan Sto Helit from the Death series of the Discworld novels.
Favorite older female character: Laura Roslin! Though idk, she's not really old-old, she's middle-aged old. So lets throw in Helen Mirren in that Awesome Movie where she got to Shoot Giant Guns too.
Favorite female character growth arc: Hmm, this is interesting. If not for the perennially annoying ending, I would love to have chosen Laura Roslin, as she really did undergo a remarkable yet remarkably consistent journey for three and a half years. But...I'm actually going to go for a thoroughly bizarre left-field choice and choose The Jedi Exile from Knights of the Old Republic 2. Both because I feel that the narrative and character arcs work better when you choose to play it as a girl (and yay for canonising her as one!), and because they're...interesting anyway. I enjoy the way the character arc is revealed in retrospect, but also that your own choices in explaining why you previously took the actions you took help nuance that journey in favour of the player. I certainly have never connected to a computer game character as fully as I did to her, though it probably didn't help that she was caught in a web of epic nihilistic philosophy.
Favorite mother character: Okay so we're getting repetitive at this point because an honest answer would probably be Sarah Connor, but there are two different characters I'd like to get a chance to at least mention, because otherwise my Favourites Ever just win everything by default. I'd like to mention Irina Derevko, because she's awesome and ambiguous, but I'd also like to mention Lily Charles from Pushing Daisies. Because she's also...awesome and ambiguous but in a completely different way.
Favorite warrior female character: Aeryn Sun. With an honourable mention to Kara Thrace.
Favorite non-warrior female character: My actual favourite is probably one of the people I've already mentioned a billion times who I don't think qualifies primarily as a warrior, so let's take a side-step for a moment and consider some other possibilities. I'm going to choose Vergere from Star Wars. Because she was absolutely devastating in every war she chose to wage, but her weapon was education and philosophy. Even when her weapon was pain, it was always, like sleight of hand, by someone else's design. Like Laura Roslin, I am disappointed with what they ultimately did to her character, but unlike Laura, it was after her death; retcons voiced by known liars that I do not doubt I am supposed to believe - that LucasFilm think they need to put her back into a safe, understandable box, because her views, her existence, broke Star Wars in the most awesome way possible. But I don't believe them and I see a lot of irony in the reconstruction of her character in the aftermath of her original run. Vergere would find it hilarious. It's the exact thing she warned about. There's something wonderful about making a fictional character who exists to tear down philosophical and moral preconceptions and then having to quickly overwrite her motivations because she succeeded.
Favorite non-human female character: Caprica Six. Plus bonus mention of Vergere if we're going for non-human AND non-human-looking.
Favorite female antagonist: For antagonist? Jesse Flores, hands down. For villain? Kreia from KOTOR II.
Favorite female character screwed over by canon: LAURA ROSLIN and if you didn't know that was going to be my answer WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?
Favorite female character you love but everyone else hates: Probably Tory Foster on BSG?
Favorite female platonic relationship: Ugh, women so rarely get to be friends on SciFi shows, which is most of what I watch. Honestly? Even though it's a shitty show in most other ways? I...actually really, really like the friendship that exists between Steph and Katie on No Ordinary Family. It's adorable and I really believe that they care about each other. That said, my bar may be a little low. The other unexpected honourable mention probably goes to Asohka in Star Wars: the Clone Wars cartoon. Not because she has a specific BFF and okay, a lot of the time she's stuck with Obi Wan or Anakin, but she also gets paired up with a lot of random chicks including Padme, Barriss Offee, the Duchess of Mandalore, Aayla Secura, and...probably some others I'm forgetting. Anyway, the point is, she nearly always passes the Bechdel test with ALL of them and also they always LIKE each other. It's...surprising! Plus I have a guilty secret desire to see more of Padme and Asohka. She's always adorably mentorish at her, and honestly, she's a good parental balance to Anakin's influence.
Favorite female romantic relationship: LAURA/MAYA. IT WAS CANON. And, for fabuluous AU Crossovers, I POINT YOU TO MY ICON OF HOTNESS. SARAH/OLIVIA 4EVA.
Favorite mother/daughter and/or sister relationship: I still haaaaaate that Fringe dropped the Dunham Dames' awesome Nuclear Family. Olivia's relationships with her sister and niece were the sweetest. I also always loved George and Reggie in Dead Like Me and the way their shared history impacted on their current storylines, even though they couldn't see each other anymore, except for shit like secretly gifting hand-me-down frogs.
Favorite classical female character (from pre-20th century literature or mythology or the like): Dude, again with the reading? OY. I'd pick a woman from Welsh mythology but most of them die of grief, aren't real or are kind of evil. I always kinda liked Athena?
A female character you have extensive personal canon for: Kara Thrace: clearly the daughter of Daniel. [/predictable].
Favorite female writer (television, books, movies, etc.): Probably Ursula K LeGuin.
A female-centric fic rec: TWO AWESOME GIRLS: Chasing Whiskey With You by
chaila43. TADA. ONLY A DAY LATE.
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 01:01 am (UTC)And I couldn't decide whether Jesse was an antagonist or not! *loves*
Your Star Wars is showing. :)
YOU SHOULD WATCH A DRAMA SOMETIME. And thanks for the rec!
no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 06:31 pm (UTC)MY STAR WARS IS ALWAYS SHOWING SOMETIMES YOU'RE JUST NOT LOOKING HARD ENOUGH! PLUS I THINK MAYBE STAR WARS OUGHT COUNT AS A DRAMA.
...okay not even I believe that one.
Dramas are stressful! It's so much harder watching bad shit happen to people when it's NOT HAPPENING IN SPACE.
(that story can never be recced enough!)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 04:21 am (UTC)Great meme and I agree with a lot of your choices! Thanks for posting this.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 05:24 am (UTC)George and Reggie! The Dunhams! I unsurprisingly love a lot of these choices, and I'm fascinated by the Sikozu bits, just because it was such a different experience for me watching after the show had finished running.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 07:06 pm (UTC)The Sikozu thing, yeah, I can see if you weren't around during the SUPER LONG s3 - s4 hiatus you'd have a very different reaction because like, as soon as she shows up she's awesome. But there was a heavy attempt to push her between seasons and to like...play up the faux-rift between John and Aeryn for teh draaaaahmaz so it all ended up looking not very much like it actually was in the end? But I don't know, I was hanging out on forums back in the day rather than LJ and those tend to have a different atmosphere.
OH FARSCAPE. <3 I really need more icons of you!
no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 07:07 pm (UTC)I was suuuuuper into Farscape especially at that point in time so I used to read all the publicity material and spoilers I could get my hands on. Not so much cast and writer interviews, but definitely all the teasers and trailers, etc.
But yes. Honestly the whole of Farscape sounds too ridiculous to be real unless you actually watch it. XD
no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 08:34 pm (UTC)Who is Vergere? I've never heard of her before.
I still haaaaaate that Fringe dropped the Dunham Dames' awesome Nuclear Family. Olivia's relationships with her sister and niece were the sweetest.
Agreed! I loved that element so much!
no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 11:45 pm (UTC)Who is Vergere?
Dude, this question is a novel unto itself. ;) But...not knowing how much you know about Star Wars or how much you care about spoilers, I will do my best to answer. As you may or may not know, Star Wars has an extensive Expanded Universe in novel, comic, game and other-stuff format. Unlike a lot of tie-in fiction it is all, at least in theory, canon, and is supposed to fit together without contradiction. (Of course sometimes it doesn't and we get hilarious shit like Boba Fett falling into the Sarlacc at least twice and possibly three times...)
One of the biggest novel series they did was set about 25 years after the movies and features Luke, Han, Leia and Han and Leia's three kids in the middle of a giant galactic invasion of creepy extra-galactic aliens who think technology is a sin and only use biological technology (which is just as advanced just...alive) and um, worship pain and other cliches. It's honestly a bit better than I'm making it sound.
Anyways, in the middle of this series there is a book called TRAITOR where Jacen Solo is assumed dead but is actually in enemy captivity. Into this situation walks Vergere - a morally ambiguous, potentially traitorous ex-Jedi - who proceeds to spend the entire novel teaching Jacen who he is, or rather, teaching him how to decide what the answer to that question is. It's one of the most extraordinary and believable characters arcs I've read, as Jacen goes from a boy paralysed by fear of consequences into inaction to a man completely at peace with the notion that the only thing he can truly control are his actions. Vergere manages to muddy every single black/white aspect of the dark side/light side equation, by deconstructing simplistic duality, yet it never loses sight of the notion of heroism. It never descends into nihilistic moral relativism where we all end up being asked to actions as "morally ambiguous" when in truth they are "morally reprehensible" but done in a trenchcoat and involving angst.
Basically Vergere is a pint-sized philosophical headfuck that looks kind of like a chicken.
The novel totally split Star Wars EU fandom between those who loved it more than bread and those who hated its ambiguity. Or rather its surface ambiguity - the notion that because she acknowledged the existence of moral relativism she must be part of some slippery slops conspiracy rather than acknowledging that she pointed out the dangers of it as often as the benefits. But now I'm ranting.
Basically she was...half-heartedly retconned into "secretly a Sith all along!" some years later, which is a real shame, but also, we know from multiple authorial sources, not something that was ever originally intended. It was just a disappointing (and utterly nonsensical) backtrack.
Fortunately, the only people in-universe who ever claim Vergere as a Sith are other Sith, primarily in an attempt to convince Jacen to join them. And in my opinion the conversations and motivations are ambiguous enough all of the few instances where she's been officially "retconned" are murky enough that if it weren't for Lucasfilm inference, I wouldn't even be sure I was supposed to believe them.
Anyway, that's who she is. Bet you wish you hadn't asked now!
Final note: DUNHAMS. WE WANTS THEM BACK PRECIOUS.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 07:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-13 10:33 am (UTC)Heh. Me too! Classical mythology FTW!