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selenakTrying to distract myself from awful news, another meme prompt replied to. The question being about characters rather than heroines, I devote this entry to the shadier spectrum of female characters beloved by me. None from a still open canon, to make things easier on myself. In no particular order:
Amanda from Highlander: The Series and Highlander: The Raven. Amanda is probably the most light side person in this entry, and she's a professional cat burglar who beheads people on a recurrent basis. Seriously though, I just love her, from the time she showed up on HL onwards. Later I wondered whether someone in the scriptwriting team was inspired by Selina Kyle (and the Catwoman/Batman relationship), though on a Watsonian level Amanda would of course argue Catwoman was clearly inspired by her. *g* Amanda is witty, shamelessly manipulative, so not above letting her confederates take the fall for her (if she thinks they can deal with that and/or deserve it) but also loyal if they're really in need, brave when she has to be but generally a friend of trying the get away option first, and she's very fond of sex without the show ever presenting this as a negative trait or handing out bad karma for it. Also, she likes other women. Not every other woman (who does, any more than all men like other men?), but even when she was a recurring guest star, a supporting character, on HL, the show gave her important relationships with other women, not simply Our Hero (her mentor was Rebecca, we also see her taking on female students, and she and Duncan's mortal girlfriend Anne hit it off splendidly. Amanda's not just fun and games, though. The short lived spin-off she starred in was a mixed affair and came in for a lot of criticism, but it did have some gems, like the episode in which Amanda basically has the Moist von Lipwig in "Going Postal" experience, i.e. she gets presented with the awful consequences one particular con and theft she run, just for kicks, had, and there's no way she can make this okay again or dismiss it as not so bad. Lastly: the scene from the s3 HL finale where Amanda and Duncan dance tango on the Eiffel Tower sums up their entire relationship, is still wonderful to watch on the nth repetition, and Elizabeth Gracen was a total trooper to shoot it because it was freezing cold up there (yes, they really had the actors on the Eiffel Tower, albeit not as dangerously placed as it looks on screen), and she wore only a mini.
Livia Drusilla from I, Claudius: a role of a lifetime performance by Sian Philipps, and one of the best villains ever, from either genre. Livia is smart, ruthless, cruel, and yet the show also gives her the odd moment of vulnerability which prevents her from coming across as an automaton of ambition She also gets several of the best lines in both Graves' novel and the tv version. (My favourite remains this exchange with Tiberius: T: Has it ever occured to you, mother, that it might be you they hate, not me? L: Nothing ever occurs to you that didn't occur to me first. That is the affliction under which I live.) Perhaps the most amazing feat the tv version pulls off with Livia is this: we've seen her ruin the lives of characters both likeable and not, when she didn't kill them altogether. She's been the main villain for the first third of the show. And yet, when she's finally weak and dying, the audience doesn't rejoice, and not just because new main villain Caligula is standing in the wings (or rather, lying in the bed) waiting to take over; and when Claudius, whose best friend she's killed and whose life she's made miserable a lot of the time, promises her he'll make her a goddess as she asks him to (because gods don't have to suffer the consequences of their evil deeds in the afterlife), one doesn't feel he's an idiot for being manipulated by her, but is grateful she will get her wish. Because Livia is just that impressive.
Darla from Angel: The Series. From Buffy the Vampire Slayer first, of course (she's literally the first person we see in the pilot), but it wasn't until AtS that Darla got fleshed out as a character, and she became my favourite vampire of them all. Still is, for that matter. The rest of you can keep Spike, Dru or Angel. Well, not really, I'm fond of them, too. But Darla is special to me. Chronologically (in her life, not in the show) speaking, she starts out as a prostitute successful enough to be "a woman of property" in the new colony of Virginia, and is unapologetic about her life even when dying of syphilis. No wonder the Master (no, the other one) is impressed and gives her immortality instead. Make no mistake, Darla is evil, even among vampires (she and Angelus both get a kick out of destroying people, as opposed to just eating them). She's also tribal rather than a loner (as indicated by the fact that when she loses Angel to the soul business, she keeps hanging out with Spike and Dru, despite matriarchal irritation with them both, and then returns to the Master), and when human again trying to return to her former state rather than deal with the unwanted human baggage; not exactly a candidate for redemption. And yet she's also capable of accepting death because of her feelings for one of her offspring, which we see twice: in Trial, when human Darla after Angel has in vain tried to save her is ready to die (Dru has other ideas), and in Lullaby as a vampire when she realises before anyone else does that it'll have to be either her unborn son's life, or her own. Other than James in the s3 opener Hearthrob, Darla is the only vampire we see who not just wants to die but does kill herself without botching it up (unlike people who shall remain Angel and Spike). Death is her art: resurrection, too, of course. Sylvia Plath would have loved her.
Milady de Winter from The Three Musketeers: the novel, that is. Though I'm fond of most Miladies in the various movies and tv shows; in fact, you can judge an adaption by how well they do their Milady. (An eternal boo, hiss on the Disney abomination for having her agree to her own execution for love of Athos about 20 minutes in. Even Rebecca de Mornay can't save this one.) Milady, like the three preceding women, is really good at manipulating people; her masterpiece in this regard is how she organizes Buckingham's assassination from inside a cell by using her jailer as the assassin. She's not always good at reading people; she does have her blind spots, to wit, Kitty. You'd think someone who started out powerless would be aware that a servant you keep treating badly is a prime weapon in the hands of your enemies, but no. (I find this credible. Milady hates her past and has no sympathy for anyone she perceives as weak; of course she'd treat Kitty as a tool rather than a person.)
Milady's backstory has one of Dumas' bewildering plot holes in it (just how a very much in love Athos could have been married to her for months and still not caught a glimpse of her naked shoulder remains beyond me), and most modern adaptions seem to be aware how the way Athos reacts to the discovery that his wife has been branded as a criminal (he hangs her) comes across these days, so they either change the circumstances or his reaction. But the basic set up of the villainess having a past with one of the heroes is kept, and no wonder: it makes for a great tangle of emotions. Some adaptions also change the way she dies, or even let her survive. Fine by me. Her victims, including poor Constance, killed for nothing but spite, would disagree, but the world of The Three Musketeers is less interesting once Milady is no longer in it.
Skyler White from Breaking Bad: probably more hated than any of the others, though not for the crimes she actually commits. (And she does commit them.) Nah, Skyler originally earned fannish ire for being "emasculating". Also for smoking while pregnant. (Seriously, I'm still bewildered how often that came up, as opposed to, say, Skyler laundering drug money or ruining a gas station owner's livelihood because he'd been rude to her.) She's definitely overbearing and something of a control freak long before she does anything criminal, and inclined to hold a grudge (ask Marie re: tiara) once she develops it. But she's also smart, and not just book smart; Skyler pointing out the logic flaws in Saul's intended money laundering plan being just one case in point, and any scene involving her and the IRS being others. And she's capable of an emotional honesty when looking at herself, the worst of herself, which Walt rarely, if ever, manages: their big argument scene in the s5 episode Fifty-One being a case in point. Lastly, Skyler at what had to be one of the worst moments in her life, after Marie made her tell her son the truth, avoids the temptation of doing a Walt and excusing herself to their son by saying "I did it for you" when he, enraged, asks her why she went along with and aided and abetted Walt if what she just told him was true. She doesn't place that burden on him. Not least, at a guess, because she knows what it is like to carry it. (When Walt, in the finale, finally says "I did it for me", you can see Skyler breathing freely for the first time in years.) In conclusion, on a show where most of the characters were men, Skyler was just as complex as any of them, and for that, she became my favourite.
The other days
Amanda from Highlander: The Series and Highlander: The Raven. Amanda is probably the most light side person in this entry, and she's a professional cat burglar who beheads people on a recurrent basis. Seriously though, I just love her, from the time she showed up on HL onwards. Later I wondered whether someone in the scriptwriting team was inspired by Selina Kyle (and the Catwoman/Batman relationship), though on a Watsonian level Amanda would of course argue Catwoman was clearly inspired by her. *g* Amanda is witty, shamelessly manipulative, so not above letting her confederates take the fall for her (if she thinks they can deal with that and/or deserve it) but also loyal if they're really in need, brave when she has to be but generally a friend of trying the get away option first, and she's very fond of sex without the show ever presenting this as a negative trait or handing out bad karma for it. Also, she likes other women. Not every other woman (who does, any more than all men like other men?), but even when she was a recurring guest star, a supporting character, on HL, the show gave her important relationships with other women, not simply Our Hero (her mentor was Rebecca, we also see her taking on female students, and she and Duncan's mortal girlfriend Anne hit it off splendidly. Amanda's not just fun and games, though. The short lived spin-off she starred in was a mixed affair and came in for a lot of criticism, but it did have some gems, like the episode in which Amanda basically has the Moist von Lipwig in "Going Postal" experience, i.e. she gets presented with the awful consequences one particular con and theft she run, just for kicks, had, and there's no way she can make this okay again or dismiss it as not so bad. Lastly: the scene from the s3 HL finale where Amanda and Duncan dance tango on the Eiffel Tower sums up their entire relationship, is still wonderful to watch on the nth repetition, and Elizabeth Gracen was a total trooper to shoot it because it was freezing cold up there (yes, they really had the actors on the Eiffel Tower, albeit not as dangerously placed as it looks on screen), and she wore only a mini.
Livia Drusilla from I, Claudius: a role of a lifetime performance by Sian Philipps, and one of the best villains ever, from either genre. Livia is smart, ruthless, cruel, and yet the show also gives her the odd moment of vulnerability which prevents her from coming across as an automaton of ambition She also gets several of the best lines in both Graves' novel and the tv version. (My favourite remains this exchange with Tiberius: T: Has it ever occured to you, mother, that it might be you they hate, not me? L: Nothing ever occurs to you that didn't occur to me first. That is the affliction under which I live.) Perhaps the most amazing feat the tv version pulls off with Livia is this: we've seen her ruin the lives of characters both likeable and not, when she didn't kill them altogether. She's been the main villain for the first third of the show. And yet, when she's finally weak and dying, the audience doesn't rejoice, and not just because new main villain Caligula is standing in the wings (or rather, lying in the bed) waiting to take over; and when Claudius, whose best friend she's killed and whose life she's made miserable a lot of the time, promises her he'll make her a goddess as she asks him to (because gods don't have to suffer the consequences of their evil deeds in the afterlife), one doesn't feel he's an idiot for being manipulated by her, but is grateful she will get her wish. Because Livia is just that impressive.
Darla from Angel: The Series. From Buffy the Vampire Slayer first, of course (she's literally the first person we see in the pilot), but it wasn't until AtS that Darla got fleshed out as a character, and she became my favourite vampire of them all. Still is, for that matter. The rest of you can keep Spike, Dru or Angel. Well, not really, I'm fond of them, too. But Darla is special to me. Chronologically (in her life, not in the show) speaking, she starts out as a prostitute successful enough to be "a woman of property" in the new colony of Virginia, and is unapologetic about her life even when dying of syphilis. No wonder the Master (no, the other one) is impressed and gives her immortality instead. Make no mistake, Darla is evil, even among vampires (she and Angelus both get a kick out of destroying people, as opposed to just eating them). She's also tribal rather than a loner (as indicated by the fact that when she loses Angel to the soul business, she keeps hanging out with Spike and Dru, despite matriarchal irritation with them both, and then returns to the Master), and when human again trying to return to her former state rather than deal with the unwanted human baggage; not exactly a candidate for redemption. And yet she's also capable of accepting death because of her feelings for one of her offspring, which we see twice: in Trial, when human Darla after Angel has in vain tried to save her is ready to die (Dru has other ideas), and in Lullaby as a vampire when she realises before anyone else does that it'll have to be either her unborn son's life, or her own. Other than James in the s3 opener Hearthrob, Darla is the only vampire we see who not just wants to die but does kill herself without botching it up (unlike people who shall remain Angel and Spike). Death is her art: resurrection, too, of course. Sylvia Plath would have loved her.
Milady de Winter from The Three Musketeers: the novel, that is. Though I'm fond of most Miladies in the various movies and tv shows; in fact, you can judge an adaption by how well they do their Milady. (An eternal boo, hiss on the Disney abomination for having her agree to her own execution for love of Athos about 20 minutes in. Even Rebecca de Mornay can't save this one.) Milady, like the three preceding women, is really good at manipulating people; her masterpiece in this regard is how she organizes Buckingham's assassination from inside a cell by using her jailer as the assassin. She's not always good at reading people; she does have her blind spots, to wit, Kitty. You'd think someone who started out powerless would be aware that a servant you keep treating badly is a prime weapon in the hands of your enemies, but no. (I find this credible. Milady hates her past and has no sympathy for anyone she perceives as weak; of course she'd treat Kitty as a tool rather than a person.)
Milady's backstory has one of Dumas' bewildering plot holes in it (just how a very much in love Athos could have been married to her for months and still not caught a glimpse of her naked shoulder remains beyond me), and most modern adaptions seem to be aware how the way Athos reacts to the discovery that his wife has been branded as a criminal (he hangs her) comes across these days, so they either change the circumstances or his reaction. But the basic set up of the villainess having a past with one of the heroes is kept, and no wonder: it makes for a great tangle of emotions. Some adaptions also change the way she dies, or even let her survive. Fine by me. Her victims, including poor Constance, killed for nothing but spite, would disagree, but the world of The Three Musketeers is less interesting once Milady is no longer in it.
Skyler White from Breaking Bad: probably more hated than any of the others, though not for the crimes she actually commits. (And she does commit them.) Nah, Skyler originally earned fannish ire for being "emasculating". Also for smoking while pregnant. (Seriously, I'm still bewildered how often that came up, as opposed to, say, Skyler laundering drug money or ruining a gas station owner's livelihood because he'd been rude to her.) She's definitely overbearing and something of a control freak long before she does anything criminal, and inclined to hold a grudge (ask Marie re: tiara) once she develops it. But she's also smart, and not just book smart; Skyler pointing out the logic flaws in Saul's intended money laundering plan being just one case in point, and any scene involving her and the IRS being others. And she's capable of an emotional honesty when looking at herself, the worst of herself, which Walt rarely, if ever, manages: their big argument scene in the s5 episode Fifty-One being a case in point. Lastly, Skyler at what had to be one of the worst moments in her life, after Marie made her tell her son the truth, avoids the temptation of doing a Walt and excusing herself to their son by saying "I did it for you" when he, enraged, asks her why she went along with and aided and abetted Walt if what she just told him was true. She doesn't place that burden on him. Not least, at a guess, because she knows what it is like to carry it. (When Walt, in the finale, finally says "I did it for me", you can see Skyler breathing freely for the first time in years.) In conclusion, on a show where most of the characters were men, Skyler was just as complex as any of them, and for that, she became my favourite.
The other days
no subject
Date: 2016-01-14 06:06 pm (UTC)Milady is actually one of the most sympathetic characters in The Musketeers book version, I find. Rereading can be difficult because of how the point of view treats her. I don't mind if she still loves Athos, but she really has to be her own person doing her own thing in adaptations. I'm sad she's (apparently) not going to be in the upcoming BBC series that much, since she's one of the bright lights of that show, especially last series.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-14 06:25 pm (UTC)In retrospect, it's sort of depressing to realise that most current day shows wouldn't let a (female) character like Amanda do her own thing, like in The Colonel, wouldn't give her screen time for relationships that weren't about Duncan, all of which Amanda got in a 90s show as a supporting character who only occasionally showed up as a guest star.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-14 06:31 pm (UTC)