KnowYourOnion said:
Abandon4093 said:
Solusumbra said:
Abandon4093 said:
He has like two female character models.
Attractive and inexplicably strong with over the top cheesy kung fu effects. Or ditsy and useless.
The only difference between Buffy and River is that River is meant to be GRIMDARKSPACEEXPERIMENT.
I dont know what you're talking about. You've obviously never paid any attention to Kaylee, Zoe, or Inara, because those three don't fit into any of the categories you describe. They have loads of character depth, even if we didn't get to see much of it due to the series cancellation. Buffy produced several strong and complex female characters, and Dollhouse had its own deal going which made its characters far more than stereotypes.
Please know what you are talking about before you make a statement like that.
Hyperbole, learn it, practice it, come back to me.
The point I was making, my pedantic little friend, was that he uses a lot of the same character types. You can look at pretty much any of his shows and pick out characters that fit the same, supposedly unique, niche. And that doesn't just apply to women.
Your comment wasn't the epitome of hyperbole if I may make so bold, so why don't you stop patronising people "my little friend".
Also who said his characters were unique?! Those "models" you're referring to are called character archetypes, They fit into well established moulds but in fairly unique ways. Give me another example of a highly educated prostitute like Inara in any other sci-fi series?
I just wanted add that what Abandon4093 said was craziness not Hyperbole. First River wasn't the main character of FireFly basedon screen time she was a major supporting character and she may have become a major character if the series has continued, but she had little or nothing to do with what made the show good.
The lead female character was either Zoe or Kaylee, I'm not sure which but with the Firefly at least we have 4 female characters who showed up either in ever episode or almost every episode
Kaylee - A tom boy who is very mechanically gifted but regrets not being more "girly". She often plays one of the guys, but she also often shows herself to be driven by her selfimage as female.
Anora - who at first as a companion at first seems like a weak female character, but as we learn more about what she actually does, she appears to be more of a sexually empowered individual who wants and is very capible of standing up for herself and controlling situation dispite not being a fighter.
Zoe - a soldier who lost. Extremely loyal to the one person she thinks never faltered even when she did. She respects powerful, firm and serious people like Mal, but when she got married she married a silly comical man who could make her laugh. Her over milterization puts her in constant conflict with who husband who she clearly loves. An entire episode was dedicated to her conflict between respect and loyality to mal vs her love to her husband and how it differs.
River - a severily pysically damaged girl who has difficutly dealing with day to day life as a result of experimentation done to her. She was once a very bright girl, but now has trouble communicating even on a basic level. She loves her brother but distrusts everyone else including Mal who is probably the most trustworthy character in the show. Throughout most of the TV series she in no way showed herself to be Overpowered the only hint of it was when she shot 3 people with her eyes closed. Again, the story never really circles around her. If anything she is the foil to her brother who otherwise would be the ideal citizen of the aliance.
Which of these are the overpowered female who could just waltz though the world making conflict meaningless? Which is the ditz? which one shows unexplainable strength?
Also while I am sure there their could be debate on the topic, i think the story actually mostly revolved aroud Mal, most of them started and/or ended with a line from him and most had him as the central driving force of the plot.
Now, if you talk about Buffy, you might have a slightly stronger ground to stand on as there were quit a few female characters who were much much stronger than anyone normal. A good deal of them badguys. In fact the willow story arch pretty much explored the idea of power corrupting. However, for every female character who was overpowered, there were female characters who were not and even one ditzy character who grew up and matured and became less of a ditz and learned to be independent and strong without any mistical powers.
So saying that Joss Whedon only knows how to write two types of female is not Hyperbole it is just wrong That being said you can say that he has a facination of the idea of very weak seeming characters being extremely powerful (even super human powerful) at the core. He has used that theme a lot
Dr Horrible's Sing along blog:
Only one female character of note who had not supperpowers and only remarkable because she was chearful and upbeat and wanted really to change the world even though she had nothing special about her that would make her able to do so more than anyone else. She is a counter point to captain hammer who has all the power to changed the world for the better but doesn't because he only cares about himself. She is the love interest of Dr. Horrible because she is everything he thinks he likes about the world and serve as an idea person to him.
I never really watched Doll's house but as I understand it as well as circling around a woman who has had her life stolen from her by a shaddy organization which uses mindcontrol to basically fetishize their woman and is basically a pimping service has dozens and dozens of female characters who are not Dolls.
