fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #386 ]

[ SECRET POST #386 ]

⌈ Secret Post #386 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 18 pages, 442 secrets from Secret Submission Post #056.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 ] broken links, [ 1 ] not!secrets, [ 1 2 ] not!fandom, [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ] too big, [ 1 ] personal attack, [ 1 2 3 ] repeats of the same damn secret.
Next Secret Post: Tomorrow, Sunday, January 27th, 2008.
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Uh I hate to say this but...how does "devoted to her village and those she cares about but also feels the need to get out there and do more, fighty, a little impulsive, protective" = "no personality"?

Of course she doesn't have the personality of the main characters; she's only been in three episodes. But I can't help but feel that the reason people say she "has no personality" is because they hold female characters to a higher standard. :/ If a guy was a little impulsive, protective, and proud to dress up in weird clothes for the sake of his traditions, no one would accuse him of having no personality. But as a girl, her character traits are seen as representing a stereotype rather than representing her.

None of this is to say you have to like her! But it's just not true that she has no personality. :/

I think you're a little fast to pull out the "It's because she's a girl!" reasoning.

I don't think she has much of a personality. For that matter, neither does Mai, Ty Lee, or Haru. This isn't to say that they have bad personalities but rather, they have not had enough development by themselves for me to appraise them. HOWEVER, the moment they enter some sort of ship, I get twitchy. They are, in many ways, blank slates. How the hell do you ship someone with a blank slate?

But yeah. At least for me, it's not her lack of penis but her lack of development with respect to everyone else that makes me think that she has very little personality.

When I see people complaining that male characters who've only been in a few episodes have no personality, then I'll rethink it. But--not just in this case but in others--I see people much quicker to slap "stereotype!" on female characters than male ones.

I think in the case of you and me, we simply have different standards for what classes a character as having "personality." I think that Mai, Ty Lee, and Suki all have plenty of personality (and in Suki's case I listed off traits in my original comment). They just haven't been explored in the same depth as the main characters. Depth =/= personality. I also don't think characters need to be explored in depth to serve as romantic interests in a series whose main focus is not romance. That's personal preference, though.

I see where you're coming from. However, I think that you cheapen the romantic interests when you involve shallow characters. And I guess in that way, I dislike these characters for weakening what might otherwise be a strong plot device. And these weaker relationships, I feel, dilute the story and drag it down a little bit. As you said, though, this is personal preference in storytelling.

But I guess my point is that while there may be people out there who shit on characters because they're female, there are also those of us out there who may not like them so much for other reasons (i.e. definitional differences in what constitutes "personality"). I feel that these reasons are fairly legitimate and stem from a variety of personal preferences, as you said. So, please don't lump all of us with the idiots that you called out. =D

You know I would maybe agree to this, but I don't see Zuko's or Sokka's romantic plotlines to be all that vital to the story so I don't feel that they need to have to be paired with just as prominent characters as themselves, so I don't think Zuko's relationship with Mai or Sokka's with Suki weakened the plotline if any thing their interactions have just further enlightened on the character they may not have been the most plotty but they did have a specific purpose in the story and still seem to.

Now if Aang were to be paired with a character on that level, I would agree it wouldn't weaken it, but Aang has Katara and she is a member of the main cast.

The thing about female characters is that there tends to be trend. It isn't just one person, but it tends to be the case throughout commentary of the issue, so it isn't something that can be seen through just one persons experience, so you don't think of it in that way. That's great, but it doesn't mean that the trend of holding female characters to a different standard doesn't exist and that is what I think

annwyd is getting at.

And I think Sokka's relationship with Suki was a huge development for Sokka. And that hardly weakens the plotline or means Suki's just a big nothing.

Hi!

I don't hang around fandom much, and that is largely because I can't stand the way female characters are treated. When I see complete character bashing, which is almost always against a female love interest, I see red. Just... no.

When I was younger I was in the Gundam Wing fandom, which is infamous for the epic Relena bashing fics (there were a genre into themselves). I was all for it, but after I got out of the fandom I realized that I was freaking out over things about Relena ("OMG, she's CRAZY! She reads other people's MAIL! And the PINK!) that would not have fazed me if she were male. Now I find the Relena brand of batshit hilarious, and now that I don't feel the need to rant against any imperfection a female character might exhibit, I am a much happier fan.

One of the reasons Avatar is one of my favorite series is that I pretty much adore all of the characters to death. I wish there were girls like Toph, Ty Lee, Azula, Mai, and Katara when I was growing up. Some of them are villains, but all of them, to me, are awesome. But in the case of Suki... I dunno. She never clicked for me. While she definitely has a personality, it is more low-key compared to the other characters in Avatar. I definitely don't dislike her, but the show does slow down for me when she arrives. I wouldn't say that this is the character's fault, though, as inevitably it is the writers who are responsible. And who's to say they didn't intend to create a more stoic, serious character to prevent a potential "crack overload"?

TL;DR: I agree with you that Suki has personality, but I disagree with you that secret 45 is an example of double-standards in the fandom, as Suki's personality is fairly low-key compared to the other, male and female, characters in the show. Also, there was something about Gundam Wing, I dunno.

I don't think it applies necessarily in the case of Suki, although it still bothers me when male characters with the same sort of thing as her get loved on, but it isn't a thing you can judge on an individual basis.

And as crazy as the Gundam Wing fandom was, I find Mai getting the treatment in discussions that Relena used to get. (I mean I'm a Relena fan, and I can't tell you how much shit I got for that way back when). So that whole trend hasn't completely died yet, although hasn't got to the complete bashing fic stage. yet.

Right. When a character like Suki is considered boring and disliked for it, a girl who is low-key (I actually find her similar to Yue in that way, though of course they differ strongly in other areas) and is surrounded by the high-energy cast of Avatar... I don't think the go-to reason for that is likely to be sexism. Now, if the secret said "I don't like Suki because she is such a bitch who was mean to Sokka and everyone wants us to worship her and she can't even fight well and she is such a Mary Sue," then I'd be more suspicious.

I'm sorry to hear that about Mai! She had me since "Just take the bear". Well actually she had me much earlier, but that's the most defining moment I can think of. I'm sort of surprised too, as while I can see why people might dislike her, normally it's the more obviously feminine characters, like Katara, who get the brunt of fannish wrath.

I think with Mai, it is primarily the shipping thing. She is with Zuko thus a lot of people don't like that so they just get down on her in the worst sort of ways. Sort of making me want to leave the fandom. Had enough of it in GW, I don't have the tolerance for it in Avatar.

I never understood the "bash the girlfriend" thing. They're teenagers, and Mai and Zuko, for crying out loud. If you don't want them together, just break them up in your fic. You don't even have to make them OOC!

I was surprised when Mai's crush on Zuko was reciprocated, but I find them fun together. I love "I need to get this to my cranky girlfriend!"

THANK YOU.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #386 ]

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