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Farscape newbies: this icon isn't showing Aeryn Sun, but Chiana. I don't have an Aeryn icon; she's one of those characters who always make me feel slightly guilty because they ought to be my favourite, and they're not. But I do like her a lot, and am happy to ramble on about her.
TV character wise, Aeryn Sun is in many ways a direct descendant of Susan Ivanova on Babylon 5 and Kira Nerys on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Not just for the general warrior woman archetype; Ivanova, Kira and Aeryn are all basically female Byronic heroes. They're the ones haunted by their part (and past guilt, in the case of two of them) while in the present presenting an every day cynicism, complete with sneer disguising inner vulnerability, being sexually attractive to many, when (except in Kira's case) in swoops a male wide eyed idealist who is openly emotional and cheerful in the way they are not. Of course, this is where the reversed gender Gothic novel pattern breaks down in all cases. Marcus Cole on B5, well, those are spoilers for another entry, and John Crichton while playing the wide eyed vulnerable duck out of water to Aeryn's tough warrior woman early in the show, he then proceeds to get broken in as many ways as the show can figure out to do (seriously, Farscape has to set some kind of record for male lead getting put through rape and torture tropes) and emerges, not surprisingly, a very screwed up if also very interesting being (most definitely not a wide-eyed naif anymore), while Aeryn gets more openly emotional by the season. By the time The Peacekeeper Wars, a two part film that thankfully got made after the show got cancelled abruptly, wraps up their story, they're in balance re: their degrees of past guilt, present toughness and vulnerability.
Aeryn is also, with the lamentable exception of season 4, a character with a rich set of relationships other than the one with John Crichton. Her being the product of a fascist society and adjusting to a different life while never losing part of what originally shaped her is very much part of her characterisation (insert here, as in many other things, "with the lamentable exception of season 4"). She starts out her story on the show being stuck on a ship with people who have every reason to resent her, to put it mildly, considering she used to be part of the force that imprisoned and maltreated them, and is now on Moya not because she wanted to leave but because they kicked her out. It's not an easy place to be in, but she starts to make it her place. Other than the one with Crichton, Aeryn Sun's main relationships on Moya are with Pilot (if you never watched the show: he's the one everyone is thinking of when saying "the Muppets will make you cry" to people who don't want to get into Farscape because two of the regular characters are created by Jim Henson's people - Pilot is the symbiotic being with multiple arms who steers the ship), with whom it turns out she shares a breathtakingly tragic backstory (that directly involves what Aeryn used to do in her fascist past), and with D'Argo, whom she bonds with on a warrior-to-warrior level that's delightful to watch and never has a breath of UST. Her most interesting relationships outside of Moya, the sentient, living ship she travels on, are with her former superior officer, Bialar Crais, and with a character who like Pilot is not human but no less a person because of that: Moya's child (yes, another sentient space ship - they're leviathans, deal) Talyn. Crais spends most of s1 as the main villain before we get to meet the guy who takes over that position for the next two seasons, which benefits no one as much as Crais, from a Doylist pov, because Villain!Crais is your avarage crazed bad guy, whereas after Scorpius shows up he becomes Morally Ambiguous!Crais who might or might not be on a path of redemption (you'll find out when you watch) and whose actions are often a wild card because you can't be certain of his loyalties.
( More detailed spoilery talk under the cut )
TV character wise, Aeryn Sun is in many ways a direct descendant of Susan Ivanova on Babylon 5 and Kira Nerys on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Not just for the general warrior woman archetype; Ivanova, Kira and Aeryn are all basically female Byronic heroes. They're the ones haunted by their part (and past guilt, in the case of two of them) while in the present presenting an every day cynicism, complete with sneer disguising inner vulnerability, being sexually attractive to many, when (except in Kira's case) in swoops a male wide eyed idealist who is openly emotional and cheerful in the way they are not. Of course, this is where the reversed gender Gothic novel pattern breaks down in all cases. Marcus Cole on B5, well, those are spoilers for another entry, and John Crichton while playing the wide eyed vulnerable duck out of water to Aeryn's tough warrior woman early in the show, he then proceeds to get broken in as many ways as the show can figure out to do (seriously, Farscape has to set some kind of record for male lead getting put through rape and torture tropes) and emerges, not surprisingly, a very screwed up if also very interesting being (most definitely not a wide-eyed naif anymore), while Aeryn gets more openly emotional by the season. By the time The Peacekeeper Wars, a two part film that thankfully got made after the show got cancelled abruptly, wraps up their story, they're in balance re: their degrees of past guilt, present toughness and vulnerability.
Aeryn is also, with the lamentable exception of season 4, a character with a rich set of relationships other than the one with John Crichton. Her being the product of a fascist society and adjusting to a different life while never losing part of what originally shaped her is very much part of her characterisation (insert here, as in many other things, "with the lamentable exception of season 4"). She starts out her story on the show being stuck on a ship with people who have every reason to resent her, to put it mildly, considering she used to be part of the force that imprisoned and maltreated them, and is now on Moya not because she wanted to leave but because they kicked her out. It's not an easy place to be in, but she starts to make it her place. Other than the one with Crichton, Aeryn Sun's main relationships on Moya are with Pilot (if you never watched the show: he's the one everyone is thinking of when saying "the Muppets will make you cry" to people who don't want to get into Farscape because two of the regular characters are created by Jim Henson's people - Pilot is the symbiotic being with multiple arms who steers the ship), with whom it turns out she shares a breathtakingly tragic backstory (that directly involves what Aeryn used to do in her fascist past), and with D'Argo, whom she bonds with on a warrior-to-warrior level that's delightful to watch and never has a breath of UST. Her most interesting relationships outside of Moya, the sentient, living ship she travels on, are with her former superior officer, Bialar Crais, and with a character who like Pilot is not human but no less a person because of that: Moya's child (yes, another sentient space ship - they're leviathans, deal) Talyn. Crais spends most of s1 as the main villain before we get to meet the guy who takes over that position for the next two seasons, which benefits no one as much as Crais, from a Doylist pov, because Villain!Crais is your avarage crazed bad guy, whereas after Scorpius shows up he becomes Morally Ambiguous!Crais who might or might not be on a path of redemption (you'll find out when you watch) and whose actions are often a wild card because you can't be certain of his loyalties.
( More detailed spoilery talk under the cut )
