CFR: Introduction: HOLY TOLEDO BLADES CRANKY HAS OUTDONE HERSELF! THIS ESSAY IS EPIC!
Cranky Curmudgeon Icon, created by CFR using Firefly AI
The Great Arcs – Three Women Characters
We've had heroes for a long time. In movies and television heroes of the female sex were few and far between for a very long time. Typically, women are the sidekicks, or the prize for the hero, or even the bad guy. One of my favorite features of the hero's tale is stringing together a series of related stories that chart the development of a regular person into something grand. This kind of treatment is rarely seen with women characters. Beginning in the 1990s, this began to change. We had Xena: Warrior Princess and later Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but the characters that most intrigue me are the co-stars. Everyone expects the titular character to be strong and resourceful and whatever she needs to get things done. Their character growth tends to be more modest than some of the co-stars.
There are a few requirements for me to become a huge fan of one of these women. They must start lowly. It should come as a surprise where their arc takes them. They have a cool mentor or mentors and we get to see them learning how to be a hero, not just have that as a given from the start, like Buffy or Xena. They should have good, and strong ethics that may waver but never break. Cool weaponry and foes are a plus, at least for me.
Gabrielle from Xena: Warrior Princes
Willow is a great example of this in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, growing from bookish nerd to a powerful witch. But one that has been woefully underrepresented, and one of my favorites, is Gabrielle in Xena: Warrior Princess. The show itself is an anomaly, one that I don't believe has been successfully duplicated in the decades since it ended. It was often pure camp, with cheesy costuming and story plots, jokes and wild stunts. If you can watch fiction that does actually serious stuff without seeming to be serious, check this out.
At the jump, Gabrielle, soft and sweet and blond – a light to Xena's darkness – insists on following the famously evil warrior princess. I'm not sure what was going through the show creators' minds with that character, but she literally couldn't even hold a sword at first, and Xena wouldn't let her try out of an effort to keep her "pure". The two go through a lot of s…stuff. They die a few times, have evil children who nearly destroy everything, fall into hate and then love again. It's a roller coaster.
The show as a whole carved a messy path for the plot. It was supposed to be about Xena's redemption from evil, but watch Gabrielle. Through everything she grows and grows and grows. She falls in with the Amazons and learns how to handle a bo staff and becomes Xena's trusted ally. Reneé O'Connor, who plays Gabrielle, had a surprisingly toned body and the producers ran with it, giving her a lot of time in the many fight scenes. When Lucy Lawless, the actress who plays Xena, broke her hip in a stunt, the show upped their game and began making her into a total badass package.
Where the series really shined was the humor, and their embrace of something nearly unheard of in television: lesbian subtext. Some of the best episodes of the series combined the two things. In the second season, having noticed a hard core audience, they produced the hilarious A Day in the Life that had call backs to earlier characters, not so subtle sapphic jokes and a famous hot tub scene. In the third season is Been There Done That using the Groundhog Day format. It's super funny, and not even a little subtle about the women being in a romantic relationship. That's the season with the episode Bitter Suite, which had everyone operatically singing their way through a fraught story. We discovered Reneé O'Connor can't sing, and Kevin Smith who played Ares the God of War was not only a hunk, but hilarious and a good singer.
Through everything, the character Gabrielle remained the beacon of light to Xena's darkness, and at the end of the series it's heavily hinted that she would take the mantle of warrior princess because she had become an unstoppable force herself. She's confident in her abilities and has become a full-fledged hero. It's a wonderful character arc, and I wonder why it doesn't get much attention.
Arya Stark from Game of Thrones
Whenever Game of Thrones daintily stuck a toe into the waters of humor they did all right, but mostly the show is gruesome, dramatic, and misogynistic (though not as much as the source material). Like many people, my favorite small character at the beginning is Arya Stark. She's literally small, even for a child, and has lived a privileged life in a castle. She might think she's tough, but events quickly show her that she is so not tough. When her family is engaged in a civil war she must go into hiding and spends years travelling the country trying to survive, trying to get home, trying to get revenge.
In the first episode of the series her brother gives her a tiny sword, which she promptly names Needle. Being given a chance to learn how to use the sword is the real beginning of her intense character arc. She escapes the pampered life she's known and must learn to live roughly and survive in a harsh environment. Over time she becomes the student of a famous and fierce fighter, The Hound, though neither of them would admit to that kind of relationship. Upping the stakes, Arya travels to a distant land and learns even harsher lessons from the Faceless Man, eventually going through many hardships to become possibly the world's deadliest assassin.
I think it's fascinating that the actress who plays Arya, Maisie Williams, never grew out of the tiny stature she began the series with. Of the three characters I'm talking about here, hers has the biggest physical hurdle simply because she's not only female but very small. By the end of the series, Arya is a bona fide heroic badass, who can fight anyone face to face or quietly assassinate them with the skills she learned abroad. She understands her power and uses it heroically.
Carol Peletier from The Walking Dead
Xena: Warrior Princess and Game of Thrones are two shows that could hardly be more dissimilar, yet both have a supporting female character with a great series of events creating an arc of growth from weakness to terrible strength. My third favorite female character of that sort is Carol from The Walking Dead. Most people know I enjoy zombie fiction, and of course I watched this one because they had the best zombies ever. Unfortunately, the show is a paeon to stupidity and I couldn't force myself to finish watching after a few seasons. Except, I did keep tabs on Carol.
She is introduced in the pilot as a super meek, abused punching bag of a wife. One look from another character was enough to cow her. The first season was short, but by the end she was beginning to adjust to the apocalyptic landscape she was thrown into. Over the years (and years and years), she never receives formal training and doesn't actually have a mentor. She's the only one of the three who evolves fairly well on her own. Like all the other characters, she learns to use weapons to kill the dead, from guns to knives. This may be my favorite of the three because the woman who portrays Carol came to the show from her job as a talent agent. More growth than meets the eye.
More than that, she fights to retain a civilized nature in the face of countless uncivilized actions. She kills many, many zombies and somehow manages to not put the Karens and Soccer moms in an early grave out of frustration. I would be tempted. From meek wienie she grows into not only a fierce fighter but
Someone willing to do things the other characters won't. Like teaching children how to defend themselves from the dead, for which she earns a scolding. (Stupid, right?) In a later episode, she kills a child. She loves children, but this one is too dangerous to live and Carol has grown into a person who can do the hard things.
I had tuned out the series by this point, but the first episode of season five saw Carol slathering zombie guts over herself and rescuing the ENTIRE GANG from a dire situation. By this point even though I had given up on the series, I made sure to watch this episode just to see her being an amazing, strategic fighter. I continued to read spoiler reviews of the show, just to follow her arc and ran across the most amazing sequence in season six. She's trying to stop killing. The dead, the evil living, it doesn't matter, she's burned out and wants to "reform". During her escape into a hopefully more peaceful life she runs across the standard Men Must Abuse gang. They're taunting her, promising her a bad time, and the whole while she's pleading with them stop. Just…turn around, go away and leave me alone. They laugh. Ha! She's just a skirt, they're gonna have a good time with her.
Here's the thing. The audience knows she's pleading with them to leave because she doesn't want to kill them, even if they are douche canoes. This whole sequence is a lesson in growing a great character who may or may not become a better person but does become stronger, more able to not only survive but affect the world positively in a way unimaginable when we first encounter them. It's the kind of thing you don't see from a Rambo or a John Wick who begin from a place of strength and experience. I love seeing the woman co-starring character, a throwaway nobody and supposedly not important, being improved and made into a something special.
The ingredients require show creators who are flexible enough to see a potential and carry it forward in a meaningful way, actresses who can step up and represent, and a changing society as a whole that more and more often not only accept these Homeric heroines but celebrate them. It's difficult for me, sometimes, to understand why these three characters aren't more famous because they're beautifully created from every angle and are great role models. This essay may bring you to try something new, and that would be great. If you do, be sure to pay attention to these awesome "lesser" characters who should be more famous than they already are because their stories are richer than the blingy stars of the show.
Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
LINKS:
CFR: In Addition
Wow. Just Wow. Cranky has outdone herself. I love all of these characters. I watched all of the seasons and LOVED their growth! Ok, I didn't watch Carol because I LOATHED The Walking Dead from episode one. However, what I adore about Carol is that she is not young. She has grey hair and some wrinkles and we older women need our heroes too.
Thank you, Cranky. I owe you a beer. Or food. Or both. Hugs.
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