#she rejects the feminine roles given to her but she also doesnt quite want the masculine ones

[rosefires20]

My brainrot today is thinking about just how incredible for a character Eowyn is.

Genuinely. The series might not have many female characters but the ones we do get go so fucking hard.

To me, Eowyn is literally the definition of defining being a woman for oneself. She rejects the roles she is given despite acknlowdging the importance and its mostly because she knows part of the reason is that she is a woman.

The reason why she is obsessed with Aragorn isn't because she loves him but because she wants what he has. She wants the freedom and courage and bravery that Aragorn has at every turn. She literally has multiple conversations during the Two Towers about how what she fears most is a cage. All this girl wants is the freedom to be and not be forced into a role. The best thing is that she literally gets that.

The segment of Return of the King about Eowyn and Faramir is literally about her piecing together what she truly wants. She doesn't want Aragorn. She wants freedom and the ability to choose. Faramir does nothing but encourage that in her. Their love story is literally one of the healthiest love stories I've seen in a long time because at the heart of it, their love is a place to return home to for both parties. Both go off to lead and help their people for a considerable amount of time before returning to each other but that does not diminish their bond. Even Faramir, I believe, falls in love with her bravery and dedication to her loved ones. The reason she went to Pelenor Fields and Gondor with the troops of Rohan was because she had things she wanted to fight for. She wanted to fight for herself, her people, and her loved ones. She is the one who protects Theoden after he is killed so that his body gets the treatment it deserves. She encourages Merry and helps him go to the battle because she sees her struggle in Merry. They feel helpless standing around when there are things to be doing.

Let's also not forget the fact that she was around Grima Wormtounge just as much as the King was. She was exposed to the same poison and awful words that eroded the king. It's even implied that her care for him is part of the reason why Theoden was savable when Gandalf showed up. She had the same power and bravery as everyone else even if she didn't see it in herself.

Then at the end of the day, SHE decides where she wants to go and what path she wants to walk. She walked the path of a warrior. The path of a princess/ruler. The path of a caretaker. But in the end she decides which elements truly mean something to her outside of gender definitions. That is what makes her character so incredible to me. In this she literally kills one of the biggest enemies in that battle with such a badass line.

[trickstarbrave]

i get to make posts abt whatever i want and i like the long form ability tumblr has so im gonna make a post here abt it instead of a 29 tweets long thread abt it on twitter.com’s hellsite even if its a bigger thing there for ppl to yell at me: 

“how can you be NB and a woman? why even bother being aligned? why be more than one category? how do you know this isn’t a common experience with womanhood and it’s just misogyny?” 

there is no one experience of womanhood. this is true. i don’t know if this is a truly common or uncommon experience. i dont know how every woman feels. maybe a great deal binary women feel the same way, and maybe how i feel is entirely different from how women feel. but gender is not just an internal thing but an external thing. it’s, for me, both. no, wearing a dress or feminine clothes doesnt make you a woman and wearing masculine clothes make you a man, but how we live our lives and process our own thoughts is informed by the society and culture around us. all i can do is use that lens i have been given to interpret how i feel.

i dont think i am a binary woman. i use he/him and don’t like she/her or many feminine parts of language used to describe me, which isn’t something i see many binary women do. sure i can use pronouns i dont even like, much like how i can change my name to something i dont like, but im more so in the business of doing things that hurt no one for my own comfort and going from there. still though, not all of my behaviors are not unlike how i think womanhood is. i experience society primarily as someone interpreted as a woman. im okay to a degree with it too. i am subjected to misogyny and sexism. i am a primary target of those. i feel i have a vested interest in women’s rights not just because someone may mistake me for a woman but bc for all intense purposes i kind of am one. i love women and my attraction to women is based on that. i am attracted to other nb ppl with a relation to womanhood. 

for me it means i am partially out of the box. standing with one foot in and one foot out of it into something that isn’t manhood. for a while i assumed if i dont feel 100% like a woman the alternative was manhood. or gender fluidity. or that there is only a handful of experiences you’re allowed with being nonbinary like being entirely third gendered or agender. i relate to womanhood, and sometimes i dont at all. i feel it doesn’t quite fit, a label that applies only half the time and the other half manhood doesn’t apply to me at all either. for women’s issues and women’s spaces there are times i will be heavily involved and present bc they are issues that concern me and have resources i want and need. 

binary society, however, says you’re not allowed to have these varied experiences. you either feel like a woman and use she/her pronouns and look and act a certain way, or you feel like a man, use he/him pronouns, and look and act a different way. that if you don’t your existence is incoherent and irrelevant. it does not account for what each of these parts mean and serve (how pronouns can be very different from presentation or how people can be unable or unwilling to present a certain way), it just says “this is a list of things women do and this is a list of things men do”, and i say “well i do a lot of things on the woman’s list but don’t fill in the checklist entirely”. im on the fringe of womanhood, but orbit it enough that it’s still applicable as a category. 

not everyone will feel like me and reject being a woman and a man entirely, but i reject the idea that there is two distinct boxes that can only be solved by adding a third or fourth box. being nonbinary for me is existing in some level outside of strict boundaries or roles to any degree, and that means you dont have to reject womanhood or manhood to do so. you dont have to reject femininity or masculinity to do so. that some of us will be close enough to the box it might seem like it’s unnecessary to count us as outside it in any way but i say it does matter if we say it does. maybe most people exist outside of these boundaries to varying degrees and it doesn’t impact them, but it impacts me. being nonbinary means you may not be easily understood by other people. just like how bisexuals do not need to have an equal amount of partners who are men and women to be “real”, their bisexuality is important. if a bi woman dates 30 women and 1 man genuinely then she is still bi, not “basically a lesbian”. if a bi man dates 30 women and 1 man, he is not “basically straight”. i am not “basically a woman who should change my pronouns and language”, im woman aligned nb.

nb ppl can also be gay, or lesbian, or bi, or any other complicated sexuality bc they are unaligned and like women or men specifically, or only like nb ppl like them and we dont rly have good words for that ppl recognize. a binary gender system is like binary code, which means youre either a 0 or 1. theres no room for numbers between that, nor numbers outside it. all you can do is break the binary system that no longer servers a good purpose. and that also means we have to think in different ways about sexuality as we know, which was informed by a binary. 

nonbinary isn’t a clear cut thing. it isn’t as easy to understand as manhood and womanhood. our society wasn’t built to explain and understand it so i don’t fault people who dont. but trying to simplify nb identities into something easier to understand for you is wrong. being a woman or man isn’t smth as simplistic as people like to act like it is either. for now this is how i feel and communicate it. im a nb lesbian. i use he/him. pronouns dont determine my gender as unaligned nb ppl can use any pronouns like they as well, and manhood is more complex than simply using 1 set of pronouns. if you think im a man you look silly. if you think i share everything in common with women you look silly. it isnt entirely intuitive or straightforward but i am making due with what i have in a way that doesnt hurt others and isn’t based on bigotry. i dont reject womanhood because of bigotry, i know it exists and i fight against it. i love women and feel im close enough that women can love me too. i feel alienated partially because im a lesbian even, and other lesbians go through this to varying degrees too. 

[unproduciblesmackdown]

I've not read much Narnia but I DO know that Susan's wasted potential is just goddamned tragic

yeah like all she gets to do in the books really is be the Stand-In Mom to suggest counteradventurous things so that the others don’t have to consider those ideas themselves and can tell susan that no, the only sensible course of action is whatever weird goal aslan is throwing at these children

in the movies at least her naysaying / “putting the brakes on everything” trait is ascribed to her being Logical rather than being a surrogate mother, and she gets to actually be in the action and stab people in the dick in prince caspian which is an underrated movie, but it’s still like. The Girl Character Gets In The Way Of The Adventuring and her “arc” being to get the sexy boyf she deserves in the prince casp film is like, better than no real arc but also just Required Heterosexuality when a) really their “courtship” is exchanging lingering glances between caspian’s constant sexual tension with peter and b) she deserves a sexy badass gf actually, and c) what would be REALLY compelling if you’re gonna do “star-crossed lovers from literal different worlds” is like, wtf went down in that like 10 yr period thats always glossed over in which the pevensies become grownass monarchs? everyone was single when they just disappeared back to being 11 yr old english schoolchildren? and how fucked up is that fact that they got thrown back to having the complete opposite role in a different world and at a different biological age. tf

speaking of tf, narnia is kinda fucked and shit doesnt make sense there and the rules are just arbitrary and weird and everything’s made up but the points DO matter. what i’m saying is the whole world and the missions given to random children DO deserve to have some analytical logical character to say, hey, what in the fucking hell

but of course, annoyingly, a major theme in the books thanks to lewis is that Christian Faith is the only REAL logical path,

(quick aside to say that his infamous god/bad/mad or whatever argument for why you MUST logically accept jesus as your savior is soooooooo fuckin flawed like its premises are SO FLIMSY and SO IMMEDIATELY OBVIOUSLY FALSE and he’s just slapping it in lww like shut the fuck up goddd)

and but also faith is an undeniable Gut Feeling, and the only way to reject this logic / inherent instinctive feeling is to consciously lie to yourself and others. hence the book about evil lying atheists stealing babies and locking them in plato’s cave and it’s like. fucking christ, lewis

so anyways the Logical Character who questions jesus is always gonna be treated as being silly and exasperating in lewis’s version of how one should react to an allegorical christian world. despite the fact that it doesn’t quite translate properly to be nonchristian irl and to be questioning aspects of the physical reality of the magical world around you

which is why it makes NO fucking sense when it’s just slipping in like, “oh susan just doesn’t think narnia is real anymore” in the last battle? like, yeah lewis wanted to put in his own “i was christian when i was younger but then i stopped being christian until later in my adult life and now i won’t stop apologizing*” trait in the books, but throwing it on susan doesnt make any damn sense because it’s not the same as deciding something that literally happened to you didnt really happen?? she lived in narnia for like a fuckin decade!!!!! of course ppl are gonna interpret this Susan Rejection as being ascribed to that “she’s too Feminine for righteous christendom” implication. b/c susan rejecting the existence of narnia MAKES NO SENSE thanks lewis!!

but very little abt narnia makes proper sense or isn’t contradictory and like…if your whole thing is backing up your faith w Logic Based Arguments, maybe “self-contradictory” and “built on your own personal assumptions” isn’t the best result.

(one example: lucy is of course the Closest To Jesus b/c christian faith is totally bound up in the uncorrupted innocence of young children, yet in prince caspian when aslan is playing the “elusive god” role, lucy is the only one who actually sees aslan? like, that’s not exactly the best metaphor for faith, is it? shouldnt she be the one who DOESN’T need to actually see aslan. you couldn’t have come up with a different way to convey what faith is like. god i’m just)

Death Of The Author the pevensies are gay, fuckin commit to making it more of a world that makes sense rather than lewis’s vehicle for allegory, aka Gut Instinct That Jesus Is God is NOT a good guiding principle and maybe let susan’s take on the bullshit around her actually matter……let her have a gf…….give us the proper impact of the pevs being in narnia for their formative years into adulthood and then being unceremoniously dropped back into a different life…….give us more about susan and peter being the first to have to accept living w the knowledge of another world they can’t be part of…..susan being the only Not Dead Pevensie at the end there like jfc aslan………kinda fucked up you have to be faithful enough to Die……

anyways yeah tldr susan got a better interpretation in the films by a mile but she still deserves better, narnia’s fuckery deserves to be scrutinized and questioned and susan is trying to survive here so maybe that’s a Good Approach actually

[wanlingnic]

You said its much more interesting to have a character try to fit into their role and fail then a princess character who automatically rebels. Can you tell me more about it and what makes it interesting? I really like your insight when it comes to stories and fairytales.

Ah! Thank you! Well, I really dislike the ‘Rebellious Princess’ narrative for three reasons, and I’ll just go into them below before talking about more interesting approaches

It’s Classist. 

This is the most obvious issue. Your hero is a rebel princess, born into a life of status and privilege. She is the 1%.

You remember this comic making its rounds on social media? 

Your rebel Princess is Richard.

Every time the Princess laments that she’s trapped by her own wealth and status, she ignores the fact that her problems are minute and petty in the grander narrative. Princesses are inherently privileged, and it’s ignorant to ignore their own wealth in favour of chasing some bohemian ‘freedom’. 

We get it, kiddo. You hate needlework and you don’t want to be Queen. But your kingdom is in the middle ages, people eat dirt and no one is happy. The Princess might yearn for some vague concept of ‘something more’, but that’s myopic and selfish when her people yearn for electricity and proper sanitation. 

I have extreme difficulty enjoying Star vs the Forces of Evil.

2. It pits the hero against other women to make her rebellion look good. 

So you have your Princess who rejects the institution of traditional femininity. All well and good. But in order for her to be rebellious, there must be an institution in the first place for her to reject.

Enter The Institution. Call her St Olga’s Reform School for Wayward Princesses, call her Prudence, or Marina Del Rey. No matter what she looks or acts like, you know you’ve seen her before. She’s prudish, traditionally feminine, tough as nails, and probably sews her own ballgowns on her weekends off. 

She is a perfectly good woman in any other sense, but since she’s everything your princess doesn’t want to be, conflict has to arise from the princess fighting her and her ideals. 

And of course, the princess will win, because traditional femininity is evil. 

Oh, Prudence, you deserved so much more than the Disney Sequel you got.

In a feminist world there’s nothing wrong with fighting old ideas of what women should act like - but in a postmodern feminist world, one must be aware that some women willingly are quite happy to be traditionally feminine, and some don’t have the luxury of choice to pick whatever kind of femininity they embody.

Pitting the ‘feminist’ rebel princess against traditionally feminine women is a microaggression in itself: we have never needed to sell men an empowerment narrative by pitting men against each other, so why start here? Also note that Disney is extremely fond of this, especially in marketing Frozen and its reboot movies by saying it’s better than ‘classic princess’ movies because ‘classic princesses’ needed men:

“That’s a bit different from the animation, I think, it’s not about Cinderella just being rescued by a man.”  

3. It’s a White-Feminist narrative. 

Oh GOD is it a White-Feminist narrative!

I said before that some woman don’t have the luxury to be rebel princesses, and some willingly want to be traditionally femme. This is especially so in POC cultures. 

In Chinese culture, the concept of filial piety is a very important one: to be dutiful and respectful to your parents, and placing your family’s honour and their values above your own. 

Mulan does not have the luxury of ‘rebellion’. Rebellion would dishonour her family, rebellion would shame her parents. Mulan’s entire character arc exists to teach her to balance her parent’s needs with her own, and it ends with her bestowing her war prizes to her father - at the height of her own glory she doesn’t forget where she came from - and it’s the greatest show of honour she could possibly give.

To turn Mulan into a rebel princess would be to undermine everything her culture and the folklore surrounding her represents. A lot of these themes are repeated in Moana - how much of yourself do you give up to make your parents happy? What is the true meaning of tradition? When you exist for other people can you still know who you are? 

Moana is great. Watch it. 

Making White Feminist statements like ‘my princesses isn’t like a classic princess! she feminist and doesnt need to listen to anyone!’ does a massive disservice to other cultures who have to balance force of will with filial piety. 

So, about those Interesting Narratives…

Pans Labyrinth (2006) is thematically about ‘rebellion’ - it’s set in the Spanish Civil War and half of its narrative is about fighting a military dictatorship. It’s other half is about Ofelia (a fairy changeling), who is given instructions so that she can return to the magical world. Ofelia proceeds to mess all of them up: she eats from a magical table when she’s told to take no food, she refuses to kill an infant to open a gate to her homeworld. While excited to be a princess, Ofelia struggles to cope with the morally dubious or downright strange demands she’s presented with. Her rebellion isn’t a girl with a weapon in her hand: it’s a girl who legitimately wants to be a princess but isn’t cruel enough to do what it takes to get there.  

I wanted to give others - and they are plenty - but this post has gone on long enough. ;w; Do come back to me if you want to know more, anon! I’m overjoyed to be able to talk about this!