[ SECRET POST #2470 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2470 ⌋

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

01.


__________________________________________________



02.
[Homestuck, Teen Wolf, Supernatural and Sherlock]


__________________________________________________



03.
[Supernatural]


__________________________________________________



04.
[Watashi ga motenai no wa dou kangaetemo omaera ga warui]


__________________________________________________



05.
[Agents of SHIELD]


__________________________________________________



06.
[Sleepy Hollow]


__________________________________________________



07.
[Fullmetal Alchemist]


__________________________________________________



08.
[World of Warcraft]


__________________________________________________



09.
[Pacific Rim]


__________________________________________________



10.
[Richard III in "The White Queen"]


















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 044 secrets from Secret Submission Post #353.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

It's not a commentary on Mako being weak so much as on the writing/the perspective of those behind the movie. The fact that they chose to have her pass out instead of having an active role in that final battle shows IMO how important they considered her to be. She and Raleigh could have easily detonated the bomb together and then gotten ejected separately through some other malfunction. Her passing out served NO narrative purpose other than being a plot device for Raleigh to be the one oxygen-deprived so we could have the final scene of her weeping over his presumably dead body. Which was necessary because...?

"Had his oxygen run out first and she'd done the same thing, I would have been equally happy with that ending, and I get the impression that she WOULD have done the same thing."

Then why didn't that happen? It's pointless to say that a hypothetical scenario WOULD have happened if it didn't actually play out onscreen. What the audience saw was yet again another female character stripped of her agency and another Heroic Male Character having to save her. How is that different from 95% of all female characters in action films?

[(Anonymous)]

Personally? It probably didn't happen (now whether this is bad writing or not is another story altogether) because I honestly got the impression from the whole set up of the film was that it was about Raleigh learning to stop putting other people at risk to do things, which was why he saved Mako and risked only his own life to detonate the bomb.

I see it less of her being stripped of agency than this story was more about Raleigh's growth than it was about hers.

Again, whether this was how they meant it or not, and whether it was a good or bad decision (like I said, I would have been happy to see it go in the other direction too), you spend more of the film 'with' Raleigh than you do Mako. To me, regardless of whether it was intended to be or not, this film seemed to indicate that it was more about him than it was about her.

Would I loved for it to have been about them equally (or even flipped with Mako being there from the beginning and it being more about her growth and overcoming HER fears and emotions), absolutely.

Unfortunately you (and other commenters) are correct, people still default to a male protagonist because they see men and women as inherently different, when really, barring squishy bits, we're probably more similar than dissimilar.

Until they wake up and smell the coffee though, I don't think there's anything REALLY wrong with being happy that we do get strong female characters, even if they're not in the lead role.

And... that got really tl;dr and probably rambly and non-sensical, sorry. D:

[(Anonymous)]

"Until they wake up and smell the coffee though, I don't think there's anything REALLY wrong with being happy that we do get strong female characters, even if they're not in the lead role."

In this we agree, I too have no problem pointing out well-written, complex, respectfully treated female characters even when they are not the protagonists (it's what I do in every work of fiction I consume). We just disagree on whether Mako is such a character. (However, I blame this on the people behind this film rather than on Mako herself.)

[(Anonymous)]

"I see it less of her being stripped of agency than this story was more about Raleigh's growth than it was about hers."

And therein lies the problem.

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed, it IS a problem. And the movie could have just as easily been flipflopped with the majority of the film being about her growth and not Raleigh's.

I won't deny that I enjoyed the movie though, mostly because hey, stuff blew up and creatures got killed and Mako and Raleigh and pretty much the entire cast was hot (nerdy-Owen-from-Torchwood, woo! though I'm drawing a blank on his actor's name now for some reason...).

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly.