Strong Female Charecters and How not to screw them up

[Mazulla]

Thought this was good timing. Rofl.

[saintofm]

I was hopeing to be able to have this going longer, but sometimes you can only go so far when you are all on the same page.

But if you want this to go longer, a couple areas that popped into my head that I am trying to incorporate what is now going to be four videos.

To go along with the Dumbo and Sakura examples of actual cases of this falling through, lets look at Amber from Invincible. Just getting into the series, had other media stuff on my to do list, so mostly got into this by osmosis. That said:

Amber in the comics was a fairly flat, token love interest but she didn't need to be more than that as the focus was on Mark's discovering his powers, his learning curve as a new super hero, and discovering that his dad is a supervillain from an entire race of them.

When they adapted it to an Animated TV show, the creators wanted to flesh her out which is not a bad idea. Adding depth helped with several characters in various comics and their film or TV adaptations; just look at MJ in various Spiderman media. The problem is what should have been a good foil, or even a good confidont for Mark, and the apparent nice qualeties she has (serving meals for the homeless) could be expanded. Heck, this might have been a good opportunity for Mark to ask his parents ask how they made the Super/normal or Super/Secret identity part of their lives/love lives work.

Instead we get a shrieking harpy that comes off as a self centered jerk. Made worse when Mark Tells her he's Invincible she says she already knew. Considering this is a major moment for most depictions of Spiderman, Batman, Superman, or a ton of other heroes. juggling a normal life with saving the world, this should have been a grand moment. Instead she yells at him some more. Keep in mind, he had already saved her life a couple of times as his alter ego, and more importantly, nearly got killed in a rather brutal fashion. This upset fans so much they only way they could hate her more is if her last name was Heard. They also felt her apology after seeing him get wrecked, along side an entire city, by his father also hollow because of her previous actions.

This sucks because of 2 reasons: How well the show handles things, including the other female characters at this point, was increadibl well and Amber just sticks out all the more because of this. And to paraphrase one of those Tik Tock AI voice reads a reddit post vides that pop up in shorts and on facebook, this makes her more annoying than endearing. In real life, being genocidal is worse than annoying (for obvious reasons). But in fiction, being annoying is right up there with talking in a movie theater and leaning back with your airplain seats on your ticket to the lowest pit of hell.

Being a jerk is a great flaw to have with a character, but unless you have some other qualities to balance that out you are not getting someone as beloved as Oscar the Grouch or as fun as Shrek's Fairy Godmother.


The other is when the strong female character is pandered to a male audience. In this case its sex appeal first and foremost. Take a thing, make it sexy and ramp that sex appeal to 11. To repeat some arguments in the Boobplate thread I did in general topics, and the derailment I lurked on in the Arean of Controversy, too much can be too much. We get super hero comics where all the females look like top heavy runway models; something that various groups have poked fun of ranging from Calvin and Hobbs to Big Bang Theory, and has improved slowly in the last few years.

Or the usual depiction of female armor in games which looks more like kinky swimwear instead of actual armor. Made worse when compared to the male characters. Pick a random MMO, and chances are a male character will look like they have a sherman tank's level of protection. Give a female one that same exact set of armor and suddenly it doesn't look like it will protect them from a stiff breeze much less a battle ax or a barrage of arrows (although considering the inevitable chaffing that is bound to happen in places no one wants to have chaff, thee sweet embrace of death may be welcoming).


Sex, much like violence, needs to be handled with care. Too much or at the wrong intensity and it loses its impact. A little kink is perfectly fine. Alot of it gets dull after a while but then again we all crave the media equivalent to junk food every now and then. A flooded market, and now things get dull. And dull is the last thing you want with this kind of thing. When they sexy has no effect, you lost your biggest weapon.

Its like your favorite food: Every once in a while, the FOOD OF THE GODS! Every day and meh. To get that same feeling you either have to have the bottomless fries at Red Robin, or you start dividing places by quality to get that same fix. Using French Fries as an example: Mcdonalds and your Highschool's are probably bottom of the barrel. Wendy's has gone down in quality so it and In-N-Out are on the same level unless you get the Animal Fries off the secret Menu. Burger King is Better than that. I like the potato wedges and seasoned fries at the KFC-A&W combo places. A number of casual dinners like Apple Bees should be better than that for the most part. A good Fish and Chips places lives or dies based on the quality of its fried food. Oh how I miss Fudruckers. And you can keep doing this until you go all the way to Buckingham Palace. You get tired of the lower quality stuff, and desire to go to the 10% that isn't crap in Sturgeon's law.

Its also a good sign a game may not be all that great if that is its main focus, or at least the one that is out there. Exceptions exist, but there is a noticeable difference in review scores between DOA the fighting games, and DOA Beach Volleyball for instance. And there is a whole lot of shovel ware that lures you in with How sexy the girly characters are and then you find out its a boring mess. Lauge of Angels did this. I got a premium youtube account so I wouldn't get the same 20 adds for Hero Wars if I watched a long video (not even being facetious) and right now there looks like a Raid: Shadow Legion clone that is also using titillation in its ads that considering the censoring should technically break Youtube and Facebooks rules, but that only counts when we're not making money off of it, right.

let me repeat for the TL;DR crowd on this last couple of paragraphs: Its to the point we can use how much sexy fan service is used to tell us the quality we can expect!

Add the market is often flooded with this, and we quickly have a situation that is on par with what killed Disco and Hair Metal: A flooded market with little else makes people crave something, anything else!

Not saying a female character can't be an out of my league; I grew up with enough stuff to tell me the one pure truth of the universe: Lady + Bladed Weapon = Super Hot! But when you compare the male characters who can be anything and everything, it gets a little samee after a while.

[Alatariel]

Mar 26, 2024 23:58:26 GMT -6 Valhalla Erikson said:

What really annoys me about modern, out of touch, writers is they convince themselves that a strong female character means make them as unlikable as possible.

Okay I'm gonna challenge this a little because it makes us better writers:

What makes them unlikable? And by what standard are we using to gauge their likability? And would we use the same standard or scale or judgment about the same character if they were male?

Sometimes the answer is yes, they would be unlikable regardless of gender and are generally that way based on generalized traits that are terrible across the board (cruelty being a trait I cannot abide in any character). But sometimes we realize we are only labeling a woman that way because as a society we expect women to be pleasant and not make waves or to be agreeable. If they are assertive or blunt or angry or cold do we understand why or just label them as unlikable due to our own biases?

A good thought exercise!

[saintofm]

Apr 8, 2024 16:09:52 GMT -6 Alatariel said:

Mar 26, 2024 23:58:26 GMT -6 Valhalla Erikson said:

What really annoys me about modern, out of touch, writers is they convince themselves that a strong female character means make them as unlikable as possible.

Okay I'm gonna challenge this a little because it makes us better writers:

What makes them unlikable? And by what standard are we using to gauge their likability? And would we use the same standard or scale or judgment about the same character if they were male?

Sometimes the answer is yes, they would be unlikable regardless of gender and are generally that way based on generalized traits that are terrible across the board (cruelty being a trait I cannot abide in any character). But sometimes we realize we are only labeling a woman that way because as a society we expect women to be pleasant and not make waves or to be agreeable. If they are assertive or blunt or angry or cold do we understand why or just label them as unlikable due to our own biases?

A good thought exercise!

There needs to be something that makes us like the character, even if its just a cool factor. Being a jerk is a good flaw, but without something to balance it out, a character with some flaws to flesh them out becomes overly flawed; overly flawed can become annoying; and annoying character becomes fingernails on a chalk board. Its why we don't treat the Joker with the same level of contempt as the Unabomber despite how scarry their madness has taken both. Joker was fun when done right, and if fun we can forgive the most grievous of misdeeds done by them if it means getting to see them again. Real world, genocide and mass murder is worse than annoyance, but it seems a character that annoys you in a piece of fiction might as well have kicked a puppy while they were at it.

Gets even more annoying when the rest of a show or film does a decent enough job so far. Amber of Invincible wouldn't have stood out as a sore sport as much if Debby, DuplaKate, Atom Eve, and Monster Girl were not nearly as good as they are. Or most Tsudare characters in anime. For some reason this is kink for people, and while I understand firy temper is hot (bonus points if literally so), most are shallow harem archetypes that do not rise higher than that. 

[Valhalla Erikson]

Apr 9, 2024 23:30:12 GMT -6 saintofm said:

Apr 8, 2024 16:09:52 GMT -6 Alatariel said:

Okay I'm gonna challenge this a little because it makes us better writers:

What makes them unlikable? And by what standard are we using to gauge their likability? And would we use the same standard or scale or judgment about the same character if they were male?

Sometimes the answer is yes, they would be unlikable regardless of gender and are generally that way based on generalized traits that are terrible across the board (cruelty being a trait I cannot abide in any character). But sometimes we realize we are only labeling a woman that way because as a society we expect women to be pleasant and not make waves or to be agreeable. If they are assertive or blunt or angry or cold do we understand why or just label them as unlikable due to our own biases?

A good thought exercise!

There needs to be something that makes us like the character, even if its just a cool factor. Being a jerk is a good flaw, but without something to balance it out, a character with some flaws to flesh them out becomes overly flawed; overly flawed can become annoying; and annoying character becomes fingernails on a chalk board. Its why we don't treat the Joker with the same level of contempt as the Unabomber despite how scarry their madness has taken both. Joker was fun when done right, and if fun we can forgive the most grievous of misdeeds done by them if it means getting to see them again. Real world, genocide and mass murder is worse than annoyance, but it seems a character that annoys you in a piece of fiction might as well have kicked a puppy while they were at it.

Gets even more annoying when the rest of a show or film does a decent enough job so far. Amber of Invincible wouldn't have stood out as a sore sport as much if Debby, DuplaKate, Atom Eve, and Monster Girl were not nearly as good as they are. Or most Tsudare characters in anime. For some reason this is kink for people, and while I understand firy temper is hot (bonus points if literally so), most are shallow harem archetypes that do not rise higher than that. 

I find myself more sympathetic towards the Joaquine Phoenix version of The Joker. Ledger's Joker was an avatar of everything wrong with Gotham that Batman had to overcome while Hamil's version of The Joker maked you just want to see him die the way Joffrey did while Phoenix's Joker felt more human. He was the only version of The Joker I wanted to root for because I wanted Arthur to fight for his sanity and his humanity. When he became The Joker it just made the character a tragic figure.

Princess Leia, IMO, is one of the few Tsundare archtypes that are better written. She was more than just a token love interest as she set the stage for the heroes of the original trilogy to get together and defeat The Empire.

[saintofm]

Apr 10, 2024 10:12:10 GMT -6 Valhalla Erikson said:

Apr 9, 2024 23:30:12 GMT -6 saintofm said:

There needs to be something that makes us like the character, even if its just a cool factor. Being a jerk is a good flaw, but without something to balance it out, a character with some flaws to flesh them out becomes overly flawed; overly flawed can become annoying; and annoying character becomes fingernails on a chalk board. Its why we don't treat the Joker with the same level of contempt as the Unabomber despite how scarry their madness has taken both. Joker was fun when done right, and if fun we can forgive the most grievous of misdeeds done by them if it means getting to see them again. Real world, genocide and mass murder is worse than annoyance, but it seems a character that annoys you in a piece of fiction might as well have kicked a puppy while they were at it.

Gets even more annoying when the rest of a show or film does a decent enough job so far. Amber of Invincible wouldn't have stood out as a sore sport as much if Debby, DuplaKate, Atom Eve, and Monster Girl were not nearly as good as they are. Or most Tsudare characters in anime. For some reason this is kink for people, and while I understand firy temper is hot (bonus points if literally so), most are shallow harem archetypes that do not rise higher than that. 

I find myself more sympathetic towards the Joaquine Phoenix version of The Joker. Ledger's Joker was an avatar of everything wrong with Gotham that Batman had to overcome while Hamil's version of The Joker maked you just want to see him die the way Joffrey did while Phoenix's Joker felt more human. He was the only version of The Joker I wanted to root for because I wanted Arthur to fight for his sanity and his humanity. When he became The Joker it just made the character a tragic figure.

Princess Leia, IMO, is one of the few Tsundare archtypes that are better written. She was more than just a token love interest as she set the stage for the heroes of the original trilogy to get together and defeat The Empire.

On the recent Pheonix portrayal of the Clown Prince of Crime, I think that was the point. However, we are still talking about a guy inspiring the same level of riots of a Philadelpha Eagles Fan finding out their team won (yes, they tore up Philly for their team WINNING the Super Bowl). Again, it was a fun romp, which as someone viewing this makes me like him a hundred times more than a sports fanatic any day, and Batman in general needs the Joker to be the Barometer at how far they are willing to go with the story (Light Hearted needs to go closer to Ceasar Romero, darker closer to Heath Ledger, and equal parts scary and of course FUN needs to be in the middle with Jack Nickleson and Mark Hamil).

But I do agree with Leia. She changes to suit the need of the situation. Talking as a diplomat with Darken, being snarking when she thought Luke was a Storm Trooper, and takes charge as a commander when it comes to a strait up fight. Empire Strikes back, it felt they and become an old married couple to the point others in the rebel base were ignoring them when they got into an argument.


I think both need to be handled correctly or its gong to irk someone, especially when a market is flooded. In the Anime archetype example, sometimes it needs to be well done to stand out from amongst the other inevitable Statue Material. 

[Valhalla Erikson]

Slight tangent but I am so tired of these modern writers tend to write female characters as these one note angry bitch type. Most of the time there is no reason behind that trait she is just angry 24/7. It's like whoever wrote female characters like that has never interacted with a woman at all because not every woman has that kind of personality.