Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "Trope Talk: Strong Female Characters" video.

  1. What you described at first are not gender-related characters, but plot-related characters. More specifically they are characters for action/adventure fiction. More of those parts are traditionally played by males because males were the overwelming majority of the readers/viewers of such fictions and they relate to their gender. Males still are a vast majority of the readers/viewers but, since times changes, those roles are increasingly played by female characters. They are not exception and, apart for bad fiction (that happens whathever gender the characters belong to), they are not "taking a full developed male character and turning him into a girl". You are taking a girl for a given role. Those roles seems simplicistic for a girl? They are simplicistic for male characters too. Action/adventure fiction is not exactly renown for the realism and the complexity of the characters. Apart for roles that it's difficult to cover with a given gender for biological reason (IE a male as "the mom" or a female as "the big friendly guy", but, obviously, there are exceptions) the only role that writers really avoid to give to female characters is that of the laughing-stock. it's full of male characters that are hapless-clumsy-selfish-cowards, but to give that role to a female seems to be disrespectful. Rey is an OP Mary Sue because she's not challenged by the plot. Every time the plot slightly bothers her, she escapes thanks to a gratuitous power-up that has no sense in that universe. She does mind-control because she heard stories about the jedi? Really? At only 16 years from the fall of the republic Luke certanly heard much more stories, but it took him, a prodigy, trhee movies to do that. One has to wonder why the jedi in the Republic needed a school and years of training if hearing stories was enough. Wonderboy fighter-pilot Luke, at the end of the first movie, after having been trained by a master, only had a glimpse of vision of the force and, at the end of the second movie, after having been trained by another master, is throughly defeated by the villain. Rey beats the main villain in a lightsaber duel the first time she takes a sword in hand (or, better, that a lightsaber is attracted by her hand). The rage that welcomed Rey's performances is nothing compared to what would have happened had she been a male. The "ludicrously competent girl training the completely inexperienced schlub" is "the ace". A role that has tons of male examples (is one of those traditionally male roles that had recently seen more females interpreting it). The ace almost always gives room to the schlub at the end, for a reason or another, so that the new hero can save the day and yeah, if you give to the schlub at least a bit of training, it feels natural. None complained that Nikita could kick asses, since she was trained to do that. It has nothing to do with "girls support dudes in our culture". One of the the best recent examples is probably Sinbad in "Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic", and he's not a girl, nor is Dante Vale in Huntik.
    1