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Thirty Days of TV: Day Fifteen
Feb. 23rd, 2013 04:35 pmDay 15 - Favorite female character
This is far more difficult to answer than the previous question, not because of fewer candidates, but because of more! Also, I am a bit more fickle with my female loves, in that I’ve always have had more than one favourite. And sometimes my affection lessens a bit over the years. For example, Laura Roslin of Battlestar Galactica was certainly one of my all time favourites for a few years – there are a lot of female warriors and tomboys around, but Roslin was a rare example of that other archetype, a queen, with moral ambiguity and political shrewdness and ruthlessness, and all this being middle aged. Unfortunately, the last half season basically consisted of missing scenes as far as her personal arc was concerned and also I’d come to extremely dislike her love interest (and she evidently did not), and thus while I still liked her (and wrote my last BSG story about her), she was no longer a favourite.
One favourite which remained through ups and downs and many years past:
Amanda of Highlander (and its spin-off): a case where my affection only deepened with the years. Amanda was my favourite cat burglar before I ever “met” Selina Kyle; she has a great sense of humor, her pragmatism can tip over to the wrong side of cutting your losses, but otoh, when it does sink in she did something wrong she faces up to it and tries her best to remedy the situation. If you’re her friend, you’re her friend for life (which, considering she’s immortal, is really saying something). And her relationship with the show’s hero is still one of the most unusual m/f ones I’ve encountered in genre tv, because it’s never played as star-crossed romance or hate sex or whatever else you’d expect given he disapproves of her usual sources of income; they’re lovers when neither of them is with anyone else and friends throughout the centuries they’ve known each other, and it’s amazingly angst free. (Special situations like season finales involving a possible outing of all Immortals excempted.) The scene where she dares him to dance on the banisters (or is the right English word railing?) on top of the Eiffel Tower with her and he actually does it still captures the spirit of Amanda (and her relationship with Duncan) in a few amazing minutes.
And a most recent favourite:
Gwen (Guinevere) of Merlin: her canon didn’t always do right by her, but in terms of her overall series journey and where it lead her to, how we leave her, it did. It’s no coincidence that my first Merlin story was about her, as well as the most recent one I wrote (and I’m still planning on another one, though God knows when I’ll find the time for the necessary rewatchs to write it). Gwen’s development from servant to Queen, her quiet strength, her intelligence and observance, her affection for her friends and loved ones were lovely to watch. Again (as with Laura Roslin who memorably uses a gun only once, starts the show being told she has cancer and would not last in a hands to hands combat scene), I appreciated that while we see Gwen with a sword in her hands perhaps only three or so times in the five seasons of the show, and then only in dire emergency situations, she was a strong character anyway. (Because in the last decade or so this idea that the only way a female character can be strong is if she also is a superior martial artist seems to have taken hold both in fandom(s) and in production bureaus.) When I’d have to list “most impressive Gwen scenes” they would entail her talking to other characters. Because how she connects and confronts, if necessary: that’s one main reason why Gwen is my current favourite.
( The rest of the days )
This is far more difficult to answer than the previous question, not because of fewer candidates, but because of more! Also, I am a bit more fickle with my female loves, in that I’ve always have had more than one favourite. And sometimes my affection lessens a bit over the years. For example, Laura Roslin of Battlestar Galactica was certainly one of my all time favourites for a few years – there are a lot of female warriors and tomboys around, but Roslin was a rare example of that other archetype, a queen, with moral ambiguity and political shrewdness and ruthlessness, and all this being middle aged. Unfortunately, the last half season basically consisted of missing scenes as far as her personal arc was concerned and also I’d come to extremely dislike her love interest (and she evidently did not), and thus while I still liked her (and wrote my last BSG story about her), she was no longer a favourite.
One favourite which remained through ups and downs and many years past:
Amanda of Highlander (and its spin-off): a case where my affection only deepened with the years. Amanda was my favourite cat burglar before I ever “met” Selina Kyle; she has a great sense of humor, her pragmatism can tip over to the wrong side of cutting your losses, but otoh, when it does sink in she did something wrong she faces up to it and tries her best to remedy the situation. If you’re her friend, you’re her friend for life (which, considering she’s immortal, is really saying something). And her relationship with the show’s hero is still one of the most unusual m/f ones I’ve encountered in genre tv, because it’s never played as star-crossed romance or hate sex or whatever else you’d expect given he disapproves of her usual sources of income; they’re lovers when neither of them is with anyone else and friends throughout the centuries they’ve known each other, and it’s amazingly angst free. (Special situations like season finales involving a possible outing of all Immortals excempted.) The scene where she dares him to dance on the banisters (or is the right English word railing?) on top of the Eiffel Tower with her and he actually does it still captures the spirit of Amanda (and her relationship with Duncan) in a few amazing minutes.
And a most recent favourite:
Gwen (Guinevere) of Merlin: her canon didn’t always do right by her, but in terms of her overall series journey and where it lead her to, how we leave her, it did. It’s no coincidence that my first Merlin story was about her, as well as the most recent one I wrote (and I’m still planning on another one, though God knows when I’ll find the time for the necessary rewatchs to write it). Gwen’s development from servant to Queen, her quiet strength, her intelligence and observance, her affection for her friends and loved ones were lovely to watch. Again (as with Laura Roslin who memorably uses a gun only once, starts the show being told she has cancer and would not last in a hands to hands combat scene), I appreciated that while we see Gwen with a sword in her hands perhaps only three or so times in the five seasons of the show, and then only in dire emergency situations, she was a strong character anyway. (Because in the last decade or so this idea that the only way a female character can be strong is if she also is a superior martial artist seems to have taken hold both in fandom(s) and in production bureaus.) When I’d have to list “most impressive Gwen scenes” they would entail her talking to other characters. Because how she connects and confronts, if necessary: that’s one main reason why Gwen is my current favourite.
( The rest of the days )
