#this turned into a rant and depressed whine (hopefully it wasn’t apparent that it came from depression; i don’t want to bring anyone else

[leadendeath]

after i get a computer, apart from medical things the other thing i wanna save up for is… big maybe… a fursuit head base. i have tried more than once to sculpt a bovine, and i just cannot get my head around it (pun definitely intended)

i can’t draw cows well, and it seems to make sense that i cannot make them in 3D either.

(leadendeath lore moment: not being able to draw my own fursona is one of my reasons why i feel my drawing art skills are not up to my own standards anymore. why i’ve grown to see drawing as a chore. i’m getting no happy brain chemicals from the only thing i’ve ever been good at.

i have a progressing mental/neurological problem sure, i can’t help that, but i CAN help how bad i perceive my own art to be- i can remedy it by drawing more! getting better through practice, right?

…Well.

it’s been two+ years since i first made my sona and i really haven’t got much better at drawing him. i HAVE considered a different species, but i love minotaurs, and the aloneness and large but stoic nature of them is so… me inside. not on the outside, i’m really short lmao.

this is like an existential crisis i’m going through but like… an artistential crisis. great word i just invented.)

[pokeasleepingsmaug]

A Quick Look at (some of) the Women of “Vikings”

So I’ve been thinking about “strong female characters” a lot since the new Vikings episode on Wednesday, and I finally decided to dive in and take a look at some of the female characters in the show. This is by no means a comprehensive look though, it’s really just me muddling through some thoughts.

So Vikings has always been known for strong female characters, particularly Lagertha. In the early seasons, there’s no doubt that’s what she is. She’s a famous shieldmaiden, she has a happy marriage and a happy family. Her and Ragnar lead simple lives but they’re happy. Early Lagertha is the proof that a woman can have it all--a successful career and a happy family. She’s goals. The Lagertha that we all fell in love with in those early seasons is gone. She believes she needs to do more extreme things than a man in order to hold on to her power. She’s become what Ragnar warned Bjorn about: power attracts the worst and corrupts the best. And here we have a strong woman, corrupted. She’s become the reverse of all that she once stood for. Is she still a strong female character? Sure. Is she the awesome and badass woman she once was? No.

Lagertha’s power has always come from the fact that she sort of acts like a man, though. She’s taken on a warrior’s role, which is usually a man’s role. She became an earl and then a king, again, generally roles reserved for males. That doesn’t make her inherently less of a woman because her power comes from breaking gender stereotypes, though, because she’s still a wife and a mother. If anything, she’s proof that we don’t need to follow prescribed gender roles, at least in the early seasons. But what’s cool about shows that take place in the Viking Age is that we get women who are strong both for operating within their gender roles, and outside of them. This brings us to Aslaug.

Aslaug stays within her gender roles. She is not a warrior. She’s a wife and a mother and a volva, which is a role specifically reserved for women. Magic was considered a woman’s craft in Viking Age Scandinavia, so it was really cool to see a powerful woman embracing a role specific to her gender and still being powerful. She wasn’t as powerful as Lagertha, of course, but she was still pretty influential. And perhaps her greatest achievement, as far as the show is concerned, is her four sons. We know this is true, because when the show tries to discredit Aslaug as a character and as a woman, they make her choose Harbard over her sons. They make it so her sons don’t want to avenge her murder. And murder it is, because what else can you call Lagertha shooting her in the back after she’s promised her safe passage? We see two women who were previously friendly and accepting being turned against each other, because in the end, what good is a woman on Vikings if her every move isn’t motivated by a man?

Then we have the women that the sons of Ragnar fall for, so we’ll go in order here. Thorunn and Torvi were probably the strongest women that the sons of Ragnar fell for. Thorunn had motivation. She had goals and dreams and desires, and as soon as she gets the opportunity, she follows them. Yes, she still chooses to be with Bjorn. When she fails in accomplishing her dreams, she falls into a deep depression, and that’s ok. She keeps some type of strength about her. I have always believed that Thorunn deserved better than what she got. There was so much room for a badass redemption arc here, and instead we get her leaving. But, maybe in its own way, this is a statement of Thorunn’s strength? When her marriage is no longer fulfilling to her, when her partner is unable or unwilling to understand her, she leaves.

Torvi is sort of an interesting character, too. I disliked her at first. She was so passive, so different from the females we’ve seen in this show before. But then she sort of came into her own. She made her own decisions. The only thing I dislike about Torvi right now is that she stays with Bjorn. He shows very little regard or respect for her. In my opinion, Bjorn is still deeply hurt from Thorunn’s leaving. He never dealt with it properly and that makes him unable to be a good partner to Torvi. What other reason is there that he hasn’t married her? She’s the mother of his children and they’ve been together for years. Early in their relationship, Torvi even tells Bjorn that she only feels connected to him when they’re having sex. He doesn’t confide in her or communicate effectively with her. He’s unable to, but she still stays with him, and years later, that still seems to be the status quo.

And then there’s Margrethe, who’s sort of like Thorunn except she wants to have sex instead of fight and that’s totally fine. She’s another woman who’s embraced her role as a woman operating within normal gender roles. Her relationship with the brothers is inherently unbalanced, and unlike Thorunn and Bjorn, Margrethe and the brothers never have a discussion about the inherent difference in power in the relationship. She asserts some degree of independence on her wedding night, and that was the first moment I actually sort of liked her. I’m pretty fond of her this season, too, questioning Lagertha like that. We’re seeing a bit of cleverness in her, a woman who thinks, and I love that. She isn’t Torvi blindly following Lagertha. She’s thinking and analyzing things for herself, and I’m excited to hopefully see that clever part of her character developed in the coming episodes.

And Astrid, I want to see her developed more, too. She existed before simply to revolve around Lagertha. I’m curious about if she has a plan for how to deal with Harald, or if she’s going to remain loyal to Lagertha. I want to see a strong, clever woman who makes her own choices and doesn’t revolve around the person she’s sleeping with. I hated the portrayal of her relationship with Lagertha. Why does Hirst think it’s ok for Lagertha to begin a relationship with a woman because she can no longer trust men? And then spend the entirety of that relationship whining about Ragnar in front of her lover? It’s a shitty, unhealthy relationship, and frankly I’m glad Astrid is away from it. I think there’s some amazing potential in this storyline and I’m keeping all my fingers crossed that she doesn’t end up just caving in to Harald’s demands, the way she always did to Lagertha.

Now let’s take a quick look at Freydis. Apparently people not on Tumblr loved this scene? I thought it was terrible. A Ragnarsson falling for a pretty little blond slave? How original. We’ve only seen this twice before and the second time was way worse than the first, how can this possibly go wrong? She sounds opportunistic and manipulative, so in that way at least she seems different from the other two? I don’t know, we haven’t seen a ton of her yet so I’m going to reserve some of my more harsh judgements until we see more of her. I’m just going to end it on the note that this scene left me cringing.

TL;DR: The writing for female characters on Vikings is getting weaker and less compelling over time. If you want strong female characters, watch The Last Kingdom and marvel at Brida, Hild, and Aethelflaed. Thanks for reading, rant over.