damsel in transition

[kaigou]

[ ETA: to clarify a term I frequently use (but may be unfamiliar to some), "animanga" is a portmanteau of "anime" and "manga", meant as a shorthand for "the Japanese illustrated-story publishing/production industries, including manga (graphic novels), illustrated 'light' novels, four-panel comics, animated television shows, animated miniseries/OVA (Original Animation Videos), and animated theatrical releases". Because there's often a great deal of cross-pollination between the two types (printed vs. moving), I tend to use "animanga" to refer to the entire ball of wax in one easy word. ]

We all know (and likely loathe, at least given the posts I see go past from most of you) the damsel in distress: she does something stupid, gets captured/hurt, has to be saved by the hero, and usually ends up clinging to him. I've been browsing some of the manga that readers have classified (on reader-tagging database sites) as "strong female lead" or "strong female character", and I think we need an intermediary.

Something like, "female character damselfied by the author", or "damsel with fighter tendencies," for a less anti-author spin on it.

The so-called "strong female characters" usually go like this: she's relatively outspoken, strong-willed, and ostensibly very good at whatever she does (even if in some stories we never see her do anything, we're at least told she's good). She's independent, and a common expression or thought among the transistional damsel is that she wants to 'stand on her own two feet'. She'll often explicitly state that she intends to fight [the big bad], alongside the hero, as his team-mate or equal. She doesn't see the hero as her rescuer, but as her mentor or her role model (and sometimes as the person she aspires to equal).

Cases in point: Tokine in Kekkaishi, Sakura, Hinato, hell just about any of the female characters in Naruto, Rukia in Bleach, Lenalee in D.Gray-Man, Marie/Soma in Gundam 00, Hilde in Gundam Wing, Kallen in Code Geass. Yet to be determined if Yura (from Nurarihyon no Mago) will fall into this category, as the fight's not done, so there's still chance for her to fall in line.

These are all combatants, btw; I don't think this transitional category applies to civilians, like Winry (of Fullmetal Alchemist) -- as a non-fighter, her most likely means of expression (in a sense, "her way of fighting") is not going to be head-on battle-mode, so it doesn't seem right to measure her by the same standards.

For each of the cases in point (and plenty others but I'm midway through drawer-building and waiting for glue to dry, so keeping this short) -- the introductory pattern, as combatant, is usually as above. Somewhere mid-battle, however, the damselfied combatant is tripped up. One of three things will happen. Either she doesn't have enough spiritual oomph, eg Tokine, Lenalee, and just about every female character in Bleach. Or she doesn't have the will-power/dedication (or alternately, can't overcome her doubt in herself), eg Kallen, Marie/Soma, and Yura (in her earliest fight-scenes). Or the author simply sets her up against fighters who just happen to out-rank her -- Hilde, and nearly every female in Naruto.

Which ultimately amounts to: she still needs to be rescued, but with a twist: she gets mad at herself for ending up in a place that requires the hero rescue her. You can see the differentiation most clearly in Nurarihyon no Mago, actually: Kana is a true damsel in distress, captured, helpless, and waiting anxiously for someone to come save her, and it doesn't even occur to her that she might've, or could've, done anything on her own behalf. Yura, in contrast, is annoyed at needing to be rescued, and determined to do her best to prevent it from happening again.

So what we get is the apparent warrior-woman, trapped in the position of damsel-in-distress (injured, incapacitated, or just plain outranked and unable to contribute to the overall fight), but also consumed by frustration at her position. She invariably rails helplessly against her, well, helplessness, and we're supposed to see this as a fighting spirit, and ignore that basically she was set up to fail. Again and again these transitional damsels throw themselves against someone far stronger, but digging into that observation means realizing that even these so-called warrior-damsels are always set up as weaker in some way, from the get-go. The story's premise either presumes the female character to be weaker (ie Tokine) or undermines the female character enough to destroy her original potential (Sakura, Lenalee).

We're supposed to see the warrior-damsel's determination to fight "against the odds" as bravery... but I can't help but note that in nearly every bloomin' instance, the fight doesn't cause the warrior-damsel to power-up like it does for her fellow (male) character. It just beats her down, and puts her back into the box of needing to be rescued. The only real difference is that we got teased with the possibility that this time, it wouldn't be so, and we got a lot of words from the heroine about how she wants to fight and/or be acknowledged by the hero and/or be equal to the hero in strength -- but the bottom line is that the message in the actual text is that this will never happen. But that's okay! As long as she wishes it might, that makes her strong female, because at least she's not helplessly accepting her damsel position.

Or maybe it just makes her kinda stupid, for entering battles with fighters who out-rank and out-flank her. Or maybe what makes her stupid is signing up for a story with an author who give plenty of lip service among the fan service, but has no intention of actually following through.

ETA: there's another way some authors will handle the "what do I do with the extra chick in the party" question, which is to justify the sabotage as meaningful sacrifice. (The women in Naruto, and Lenalee, get set up for this repeatedly.) The method is this: by some means, the warrior-damsel does take on (and frequently then proceeds to kick serious ass of) a pretty scary big bad -- but in the course of doing so, is either: pushed past her limits and burnt out (Sakura, Tokine), if she's not injured to the point of comatose (thus rendering her not just injured but pretty much a NPC for the rest of the fight, cf Lenalee).

The storyteller's rationalization, as I see it, is thus: every fight must have both a physical climax and an emotional one. The physical, of course, is obvious; the emotional may differ each time. The latter will show up as "what are you fighting for?" or "is this really important enough reason to fight?" or even "do you really have it in you to kill someone?"

A favorite trope of Japanese animanga is the "I fight to protect those precious to me" (well, actually, this is probably a pretty common fight-justification in stories the world over, now that I think about it). If your character is going into a fight and you want emotional conflict along with physical, the lowest-hanging fruit is definitely the "why would you fight this hard?" The character, naturally, will doubt himself suddenly, but hey, look, there! His female teammate fought and gave it her all -- whether now she's injured and rooting for him, or injured and needing his protection (since the author has now rendered her not just badly hurt but also suddenly stupid in terms of any remaining self-defense skills), or just plain out cold. In short, her sacrifice inspires him while at the same time providing an object lesson in "the reason why he fights so hard" -- to protect girls his friends from going through such pain.

Which I think can have its place in stories, and is certainly a valid point in any action-based bildungsroman, but it gets tiresome when you realize that the sacrifice-and-example is pretty much always played by the action-girl, and frequently it's the only role the action-girl can even play. For all the homoerotic subtext some fans want to see, it's actually not very common to see a male character throw himself head-first against overwhelming odds for the sake of an injured or comatose male team-mate or friend. (The various Gundam series and Naruto are major exceptions, though, which might be why they also subtextually hit a lot of buttons, too, because they capitalize on tropes that are more often male-female in other stories.)

As a footnote to all of the above, one thing I've noticed increasing is the number of mangaka who seem to try and balance "lesser physical power" with "greater ruthlessness". Tokine in Kekkaishi is an absolutely stellar example of this, with absolutely no mercy while her male counterpart is really a softie. Sakura shows major signs of ruthlessness, too, but she's not without some modicum of compassion.

The animanga I recall from the 90s and early aughts, the girl's more likely to be a blowhard about having no sympathy for the enemy, but at the last minute! she can't bring herself to fire! and the hero thus must step in. The updated version is that the girl has no qualms about going for the jugular... if only the author hadn't set up the premise or circumstances to make sure she wouldn't actually have enough muscle/power behind her punch. It's like, well, now she's given the opportunity and guts to shoot -- except the author took all her ammunition away.

All these are just more reasons on the list of why I love Balsa and Gen. Oliva Armstrong so much.

Comments

[kaigou]

The problem with calling it "faux" is that it makes it sound like the girl isn't action-ey -- and she is, at least far more than her original version of damsel-in-distress. On top of that, "faux" implies that there's a "real" action girl out there, and frankly... I can count on one hand the number of true "action girls" in anime/manga. (And this is ignoring that, uhm, four-fifths of them are characters in Fullmetal Alchemist, which is probably saying something right there.) For that matter, I can count one hand for the number in American pop culture, for that matter. A fair number of the one-hand for US entertainment would be heroines who aren't even on the air anymore, which doesn't help.

Thus, given that there aren't really a huge number (hah, it's like a freaking pittance) of "true" action girls -- who can hold their own against the hero, if they're not the hero themselves -- I do think it's kinder to consider these characters transitional. In some of the author-notes or interviews I've read, I get the impression that the author intended to have a strong female character -- to do something 'different' from the usual boys-action story, to attract a female audience and/or expand audience appeal, or just to mix it up a little -- and they seem to do okay until they get to the point where the fight really gets intense.

Sometimes it seems as though the author just isn't entirely sure 'what to do' with the female character. You can almost see it laid out in the text: the author's internal preference is that girls-don't-fight (or that's what the author's own lifetime of stories are telling the author), and the character's needs are doing a sub-textual battle with the author's own biases. I get that feeling from Naruto, sometimes, that Kishimoto dances towards -- and then away from -- the notion of women fighting just as powerfully as men. Like he wants to try it, but doesn't really have a template of how it'd work. (Which, yeah, as a writer, I have issues with that "not having a template" concept, but giving the man the benefit of the doubt, considering the rest of the pop culture wherein Naruto is published.)

Other times, I get the sense the author isn't sure how to balance the author's own preference/wish/story that focuses on the male character with the heroine's supporting role. That is, if "the girl" gets too much to do, what's left for the hero? If there were anything that ran closest to being "faux" action girl, it'd be that, where the author is intentionally knocking the girl down because otherwise, she just might come out better than the hero. Bleach has got to be one of the top-most perpetrators of that bullshit, to speak frankly, and it's why I stopped reading that manga. That author clearly sets up the girls to fail, repeatedly, because it's the only way he can think to make sure the boys always look better in comparison. Again as a writer, it makes me feel like his male characters must actually really suck, if all it'd take is a little more attention to a supporting character to undermine the leads.

[kellicat]

On top of that, "faux" implies that there's a "real" action girl out there, and frankly... I can count on one hand the number of true "action girls" in anime/manga. (And this is ignoring that, uhm, four-fifths of them are characters in Fullmetal Alchemist, which is probably saying something right there.)

Have you ever tried reading Claymore by Norihiro Yagi? It's not perfect, but one thing it doesn't suffer from is a lack of true action girls. In fact, the female characters often work together to defeat the yoma, and if someone needs saving, it's another female warrior who does the saving.

[kaigou]

Yes, I have read it (got bored after awhile when the updates weren't coming fast enough, and then got distracted by something else... you know how it goes) -- can't believe I forgot it, though Claymore's characters aren't really transition damsels; like FMA's heroines, they're fully ass-kicking heroines in their own right.

I was going to say your reminder means I can actually count the number of true action-girls on two hands, except that most of the fingers are going to be used by only two series. That rather takes the rug out from under the glee, y'know, when so much of the goodness is only really in two particular stories. It's still not enough to offset all the mediocrity of so many other series, damn it.

[lady_ganesh]

I have to agree with you with Kishimoto-- he has a few women he sets up as transitional figures and then...just can't seem to get the follow-through right, and I think he tends to frame situations, like them, and not realize/think through/who the heck knows what the the longer-term implications are. Which makes it no less frustrating, especially when it happens over and over and over again.

(Here from metafandom!)

[kaigou]

Hmm, maybe I should've replied about the genre conventions down here, rather than up above!

I think he tends to frame situations, like them, and not realize/think through/who the heck knows what the the longer-term implications are...

A sure-fire sign to me, at least, that an author relies on genre conventions much more than the mangaka (or even most readers) may be aware. Getting to a certain point and then realizing you haven't a clue what to do with a character or plot-ramification is a sign, I think, of an author's over-reliance on genre conventions to lead the way, but without the guts to eventually put down those conventions and let the story go where it wants. The author ends up yanking the story back to match convention, instead of forcing convention to bend to the story.

[lady_ganesh]

Yep!

And of course you have to wonder how much he's influenced by his editor/publishers, too.

[kaigou]

My understanding is that Japanese mangaka are significantly influenced/led by editors, while Korean manhwa... ka? don't work with editors like that, and in fact are more like American author-artists, in that they create something, submit it, and it's accepted (or not), and they work with relative independence otherwise. Apparently a Japanese editor really is going to be doing as much hand-holding as you see editor-characters doing in Junjou Romantica, with as much hand-holding (but more input into the story) than you see in Fruits Basket. Editors will suggest storylines, major edits, request characters be added or cut... nearly an uncredited co-author, by American (and, apparently, Korean) standards.

So I'd guess that even if it's an author who'd like to crack some genre conventions and do something different, depending on the venue of publication, the editors doing the co-authoring, and so on, the actual creator could still end up pretty hamstrung as to how far s/he can go. (On the other hand, a progressive editor who says, "could you please NOT have the girl break down in tears and need to be rescued again?" might also have a much greater influence on Japanese mangaka than an editor in Korean or American comics industry.)

[lady_ganesh]

There's not that much control in the American industry either, if you're working for the Big Powers. But AFAIK there's not much for indie comics in Japan outside the doujinshi industry.

[kaigou]

But AFAIK there's not much for indie comics in Japan outside the doujinshi industry.

This wasn't clear to me: not much [control over] indie comics (as in, editors who tell you what to write per the venue -- magazine or anthology) or not much [market for] -- as in, if you're going to be writing manga in Japan, then unless you're writing doujin, you probably won't be able to be an independent mangaka, but will have to toe the corporate line?

[lady_ganesh]

The latter, though I'm hardly an authority-- this is my memory rather than any current research.