#Oh and with my usual brain worms I would love if like despite Dorothy being deadpan being in the robot causes her to emote a bit

[no1ryomafan]

The subject of how female characters are portrayed in mecha rotates constantly in my head after I watch a mecha with at least one noteworthy female and I do want to at some point do a in depth discussion post about this-but at a way later time because there’s a lot of noteworthy shows I have not seen still to really properly comment and critique this part of the genre-but despite this I wanted to talk about Dorothy from Big O rq:

I’ve been thinking about how Dorothy is one of the better supporting females in the genre despite seeing at least one person point she’s a bit of a damsel in distress. I think what helps Dorothy is she’s not always kidnapped, she has a good amount of episodes where she’s the central focus and not helpless, but for every time she’s kidnapped it seems to wrap around with her saving Roger. The biggest examples I can think of this the third Beck episode where Roger is the one who’s kidnapped and Dorothy manages to outsmart Beck despite him originally kidnapping and controlling her twice-making it super satisfying she finally got back at him-and the finale, where somehow Dorothy, without her memories managed to come back online to recuse Roger and aids him in the finale fight. Dorothy’s entire character arc is about her doing her own thing, BEING her own person, so it makes sense why she’s a bit of a subdivision of the regular damsel in distress. She still gets kidnapped but she’s not helpless and usually returns the favor to Roger, making every time Roger *does* have to recuse her seem out of genuine care and not “this girl I like is in danger and helpless!” (especially because Roger didn’t fully realize her feelings for her until the very end)

That said, even if I think Dorothy is a well done take of a otherwise really bad trope that plagues female characters since she does very much have agency, one thing on reflection that does irk me a bit that would’ve made her character a tad more satisfying is if Dorothy *actually* got to properly pilot Big O:

Every time we’ve seen her in the robots it’s only either been she was unconscious/defenseless-I. E. ep 4 and ep 9-or at the aid of Roger. While the latter is more common, and like I said in the finale she is still very important in helping in the finale fight as she uses herself to power up Big O, multiple times before we have seen her capable of being able to pilot it. Big O may like Roger the most, it is his robot, but it also recognizes Dorothy cares about him just as much as it does, so I think it would’ve been cool even if it was for one episode if she got to pilot it instead, whether it be because Roger got injured or kidnapped.

Or maybe I’m just nitpicking a little and really like the idea of “robot operating a robot” since Dorothy is still one of the best supporting females in the genre, but just because they’re supporting doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be allowed to fully pilot the robot at least once. : p