Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer in detail. I agree with pretty much all of your points re the need for more female lead characters generally (key), not to mention the way that the flipside of dead/raped woman as motivator for some guy is obviously (and painfully) woman as possession or extension of some guy. Great call also on Tara and Jenny Calendar, who always get cited, and really are not part of the same trend...see also Wash, who's a good character who dies because when people put themselves in heinously dangerous situations, somebody has to die. And it just works better, dramatically, if it's somebody you like...
But then again, c'mon! Did you not like any given one of the other applicants? Remember, the pilot episode, where it looked like it was gonna be Kaylee? You want to be the one to make that call? ("Oh, let's kill Inara--NOBODY likes HER!")
Re "defrosting", meanwhile: The two primary cases of this which I can think of in comics are (Marvel vs. DC) Carol Danvers, aka Marvel Girl, and the aforementioned Barbara Gordon. Carol gets her powers sucked out by Rogue, is a disgruntled, angry, alcoholic human for a while, then gets them back (unsure on how) and goes back to being the female Captain America. Barbara, OTOH, is shot in the spine by the Joker and put in a wheelchair--she too is bitter for a while, then reinvents herself as Oracle. One "defrosting" is more quote-quote wish-fulfillment than the other...shit, Batman at least got out of his chair, eventually, after having HIS spine snapped. But on the whole, I rather appreciate Barbara's more, because it's a transformation which shows that actions have costs, that not-so-random cruelty and tragedy can be overcome, that both willpower and will-to-power is the coin of the Batrealm, for everybody. That those lessons took, in other words.;)
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Date: 2008-07-23 09:21 pm (UTC)But then again, c'mon! Did you not like any given one of the other applicants? Remember, the pilot episode, where it looked like it was gonna be Kaylee? You want to be the one to make that call? ("Oh, let's kill Inara--NOBODY likes HER!")
Re "defrosting", meanwhile: The two primary cases of this which I can think of in comics are (Marvel vs. DC) Carol Danvers, aka Marvel Girl, and the aforementioned Barbara Gordon. Carol gets her powers sucked out by Rogue, is a disgruntled, angry, alcoholic human for a while, then gets them back (unsure on how) and goes back to being the female Captain America. Barbara, OTOH, is shot in the spine by the Joker and put in a wheelchair--she too is bitter for a while, then reinvents herself as Oracle. One "defrosting" is more quote-quote wish-fulfillment than the other...shit, Batman at least got out of his chair, eventually, after having HIS spine snapped. But on the whole, I rather appreciate Barbara's more, because it's a transformation which shows that actions have costs, that not-so-random cruelty and tragedy can be overcome, that both willpower and will-to-power is the coin of the Batrealm, for everybody. That those lessons took, in other words.;)