[ SECRET POST #2791 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2791 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 058 secrets from Secret Submission Post #399.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

08. http://i.imgur.com/IIBvMJv.png

[(Anonymous)]

That's Sansa, isn't it? I don't think your description is very accurate.

[(Anonymous)]

How does that apply to her?

Also "strong female character" is a stupid term.

[sparklywalls]

I saw Sansa being used as a counter to the "must kick-ass and punch stuff" because she's often slated for not being kick-ass and making ("stupid") decisions that get her in trouble. Maybe I'm wrong though.

EDIT: Yeah upon rereading I'm wrong. Didn't occur to me people think Sansa just lets things bounce off her. Things definitely get to her IMO. She's just learned to hide her feelings in order to survive.

[(Anonymous)]

Because that's all she does. It's not her fault as a character that GRRM wrote her into a position that she can't do anything else from, but it doesn't make her strong.

[dreemyweird]

I'm amused when people unironically call a character that. It is a pretty dumb concept.

Incoming "Controversial" Opinion

[(Anonymous)]

This is the reason I've always believed that Padmé from Star Wars is a good female character (especially if you take into account the deleted scenes). She's not perfect, she's not always "strong," but she's really fleshed out.

Even her death scene makes a bit of sense if you've seen the deleted scenes.

No one agrees with me on that though. (And yes, I am prequel!anon.)

[fingalsanteater]

I don't think you understand Sansa at all.

[firstmoonie]

I hate "kick ass woman = well written, feminine woman = weak".

I'm sick to death of this.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

That's not what I said. Fandom thinks that's what writers think, and in fairness, a lot of them do. But fandom's answer is doing a 180 and saying "no, feminine woman = well written, kick ass woman = weak," and that's not any better.

[(Anonymous)]

Yep, "Real Women Never Wear Dresses" is the trope now, right?

Just came to mind because of the TVTropes secret.

[ariakas]

On the flipside, though, if a woman is too kickass and too masculine, people will just call her a "man with boobs" who "doesn't count" because she's not a "real female character". Not just random internet comments either - high-profile feminist commentators like Sarkeesian dismiss female characters outright if they don't have sufficiently feminine attributes to "count".

Yay!

[(Anonymous)]

Duckula secret!

Re: Yay!

[(Anonymous)]

SA - misfire,sorry.

[(Anonymous)]

"female character who stands there and lets everything bounce off an impenetrable will of iron"

I kind of ... like those characters? Male or female, really. I have a lot of love for the 'determinator' trope, and the phrase 'will of iron' always makes me automatically perk up and become interested. It's not always done well, of course, that's true of most things, but I like that character type.

It's not the only way to do a strong character, I agree. It is however a way to do it, if you get them right? You can have a strong character who fits this mould, so long as they're compelling enough to carry it.

There's no single way to make a good character. You can have single characters that are awesome in defiance of the story around them, and you can have truly contemptible characters that work brilliantly with their story, and a range of combinations in between. If the character is compelling enough to make the audience engage with them, then they've managed at least one measure of 'strength', whether that's the internal strength to be admirable or the narrative strength to be interesting.

Which may be part of your point, yes, that a character needs to be well-written, but a well-written character can also be an iron-willed survivor or an action heroine or anything else that happens to work. You don't have to pick just one.

SA

[(Anonymous)]

I hate html. Without the mess:

"female character who stands there and lets everything bounce off an impenetrable will of iron"

I kind of ... like those characters? Male or female, really. I have a lot of love for the 'determinator' trope, and the phrase 'will of iron' always makes me automatically perk up and become interested. It's not always done well, of course, that's true of most things, but I like that character type.

It's not the only way to do a strong character, I agree. It is however a way to do it, if you get them right? You can have a strong character who fits this mould, so long as they're compelling enough to carry it.

There's no single way to make a good character. You can have single characters that are awesome in defiance of the story around them, and you can have truly contemptible characters that work brilliantly with their story, and a range of combinations in between. If the character is compelling enough to make the audience engage with them, then they've managed at least one measure of 'strength', whether that's the internal strength to be admirable or the narrative strength to be interesting.

Which may be part of your point, yes, that a character needs to be well-written, but a well-written character can also be an iron-willed survivor or an action heroine or anything else that happens to work. You don't have to pick just one.

[dreemyweird]

I don't think either the OP or the author of the tumblr post in the screenshot deny this, though! Rather, they're annoyed by the fact that people seem to automatically assume a character is "strong" because it's written in a particular way.

(I do, however, agree with your view).

[dreemyweird]

Honestly, IDK if that's a legitimate trend, but I'm afraid that a lot of people shall always make the mistake of calling a certain kind of characters good regardless of whether they're actually well written.

[alwaysbeenasmiler]

What people don't realize is that Sansa evolves drastically. She starts off kind of weak and well frivolous but there is an amazing job of shaping her through all that she expiriences. It socially battle hardens her. She doesn't shoot and punch stuff but I can see that she is definitely going to become a serious daughter of Stark. (and it wouldn't be fun if she developed like Arya did, neither would it be totally believable)

[(Anonymous)]

It's not supposed to be either/or. If a piece of work comes down to only having one or the other, it categorically fails. We need both, in between, and beyond.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think fandom (or you) realizes that "strong female character" is just another rigid box stuffed with contradictions and impossible standards that hinders, rather than helps, the development of well-written female characters.

Related article

[(Anonymous)]

http://thedissolve.com/features/exposition/618-were-losing-all-our-strong-female-characters-to-tr/

Interesting secret... personally, if there are no relatable female character, only stupid ones or Mary Sue ones, I identify more easily with the male character. This is what I did when reading classic literature written centuries ago and it's very easy. What I hate are 'new' modern books like Twilight where I am supposed to identify with the Bella character simply because she's the heroine and is pretty (sorry, smells good or whatever?) Nope.

If you read the article reference above, I did not identify with Trinity when I saw The Matrix the first time. She seemed as empty as a princess in a fairy tale: beautiful, smart and tragic instead of blonde, patient and kind, but the same, really. The love interest: a desirable goal, but not an actual character in the story.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

I saw that article yesterday. I thought it had some good points but was setting the bar too high. A lot of the characters it talks about are well-written characters and the article even admits that, but since they're female and don't fit a special set of features that not enough female characters have, they still don't get to be strong.

Re: Related article

[(Anonymous)]

You know, I don't think Bella is a good character, I do not like the Twilight books, but I think you miss a couple of reasons why many girls related to her:

She felt like an outsider in her life, she felt put-upon by her parents, she didn't really know how to make friends, she read a lot, she wasn't athletic, she was kind of sardonic, she liked retro stuff, and she was into cute boys.

As far as why people could have idolized her? Cute boys were into her, she read classic literature and enjoyed it, she had a cool car, she was theoretically a responsible person, as she "took care" of her mother, she was self-sacrificing (again, theoretically), and probably some other things.

So, no, I don't think Bella was a great character or even good...or even mediocre...but I don't think that people should dismiss out of hand why it was that some young girls liked and identified with Bella.

[meishuu]

Know what? I'm with you OP, all the way. I'll take the punching and shooting one any day. And I LOVE Sansa, because she proves just how dangerous "femininity" can be when used to oppress women and rob them of their opportunities.