A Lesson in Relativity

[thedeadlyhook]

A Very Happy Birthday to dessert_first and to romanyg!!

Here's an interesting exercise in perspective: while walking through the park today, Toys and I came across a feral cat sitting in some dead leaves. Strangely close to the footpath. We thought it might be hurt, and approached. But lo and behold, the cat wasn't hurt - it was, in fact, "playing with," as cats do, a very teeny-tiny mouse. What we'd thought was a victim was, in fact, a victimizer! (The mouse got away because we intimidated the cat enough to back off, so that's a story about the unintentional effects of blundering intervention, I guess.)

Which brings me to a string of interconnected thoughts.

Now, the penultimate episode of Who Wants to Be A Superhero? was perhaps the most emotional piece of TV I'd seen in a very long time - I cried, dammit, cried my eyes out practically that whole last half hour when they eliminated Major Victory. It was moving. But I was kind of disappointed in the final elimination. I was rooting for Fat Momma by the end because she's a much more original character. She looks different, her powers are different, she's got a different outlook. I'd read her comic book. Hell, I'd volunteer to write it! Feedback, though, nice as he seems and the comic-book-geek angle aside (which, I note, didn't work all that well for that Green Lantern manifestation that comics fans tend to refer to, not-so-affectionately, as "Crab-Face Kid"), is yet another white guy who's dying to play quarterback. And, y'know, I'm kinda bored already.

What's so different about Fat Momma, though, you might ask? Simple - she's a defender, a momma, like it says right there in her name. She's there to protect kids from bullies and to inspire them to have self-esteem. That was her power. She grows to enormous size, and that's a power you only can use for two things: rampaging, or to play blocking action against other huge menaces. Think sumo wrestlers. Or Godzilla, and it's worth noting that his career contains both.

I would've liked to have seen that done in a comic. The hero mom who takes down the bullies. Go, mom.

That, though, leads me to thinking about Buffy, so I'm gonna put that under a separate cut.



So part of this was inspired by a discussion I was having over at herself_nyc's journal with auroramama about Character Archetypes, which is another post, but it did start me thinking about the panel about Character Archetypes at writercon, where I'd put forth the notion to the audience that Buffy was brand-new archetype, not really something there was huge precedent for. To my surprise, the audience disagreed, and rolled out examples from Whedon interviews in which he'd claimed to have based the character on The X-Men's Kitty Pryde, and also Wonder Woman. At the time, I didn't really have a good response ready (yep, I should've prepared more), but after further thought, here's a reconstruction of where I'd been going with that thought.

Buffy is a Defender character. See above, e.g., Fat Momma. She's a goalie, the person guarding the gate. The gate to HELL, of course, the Hellmouth - she has a fixed location, a fixed populace who she is meant to protect.

This is unusual. It really is. If you read your Joseph Campbell carefully, the one thing people always seem to miss about the archetypcal "Hero's Journey" is the "journey" part - it's meant to be a representation of the coming-of-age stage of life. The boy leaves home, undergoes a ritual, and returns a man. LEAVES HOME. Exit the nest. Goes on a literal journey.

Buffy doesn't leave home. She IS home. Protecting the nest.

Wonder Woman, on the other hand, does leave home. Comes of age, leaves Paradise Island, goes to the outside world. So does Kitty Pryde. Gains her powers at adolescence, leaves home to become an X-Man. Both of these characters are on heroes' journeys in the classic sense. Buffy too, can NOW be seen to be on a hero's journey - the last shot of the series, after all, shows her facing an open road. So Buffy finally leaves home, starts her literal journey, and she even picked up a magical hero's weapon just before that. Now she fits the Campbellian model.

But before that? She was definitely something else. A hero, yes, but not the journeyman-quarterback-questing-hero type. She was the guardian at the gate, protector of our home fires. And that IS original, or at least a type without a lot of other examples*, because America is not culturally in the habit of making iconic heroes out of its moms. Or at least, only lionizing them after they've given their all and died. Sad to say. (Which actually leads me to wonder if the reaction to BtVS would've been different, in a Women's Studies sense, if the show had ended with "The Gift," and if so, what that says about us culturally?)

*Doctor Strange was the one comic-book hero I could think of that really fit the same bill as Buffy, as a gate-guarder; Batman, Spider-Man et al only seem to stay in a centralized location chiefly because they live there rather than a particular need for it, although you could make a certain case for Batman being Gotham's Fat Momma.

Comments

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

There's gonna be a second season? Now that I hadn't heard.

Suspicions about Feedback in my nasty, suspicious mind consist of his name, Feedback, as in Your Viewer Vote Counts!... and then there was his pretty much endless Stan-idolizing. I'm enough of an idealist to believe he's still a real person and not a ringer (although I do suspect those "hardened criminals" were actors), but... yeah. They really got a guy who was tailor-made for what they were trying to do. That was lucky.

The poor Blob! At least there was that X-Men Evolution animated show, in which you get to see him as a troubled teenager who has a reason to be so angry. Kids picked on him! Plus, he had anger management issues. Overall, a kinder picture of him than we usually get.

[paratti.livejournal.com]

Generation M did a very sympathetic portrayal of post-Decimation Blob.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Ah, I haven't read that one. Nice to hear, though. I always thought he got kind of a raw deal.

[paratti.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting series, as is the X Factor book that's closely linked.

[rahirah]

Bouncing Boy of the Legion of Superheroes. (At least, the old version of the Legion; God knows what they've done to the character since I stopped reading...)

[rahirah]

Oh, and over at Marvel, one of the Mighty Thor's three Asgardian best buds (I've forgotten his name) was pretty hefty, IIRC. And Wonder Woman's orignal sidekick Etta Candy was plump by 1940s standards, though I don't think she had any superpowers. I think there have been a number of fat sidekicks/best friends/etc.

Hmm. Nexus went through a "fat Elvis" period, but it was a symptom of him being Deeply Troubled.

[toysdream.livejournal.com]

This is eerie. Hookles and I were just brainstorming on this, and we thought of Bouncing Boy and Etta Candy as well, although I have no idea how we missed Volstagg. (Two more for you: Ma Hunkle and Amanda Waller.) As for your citation of Fat Elvis Nexus, this is conclusive evidence that you and The Hook are time-sharing the same brain. :-)

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Also Irma "Irmageddon" Wornow in Top Ten, who really parallels the show's character very well - hefty, a mother of two, and very protective of her comrades.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

You know, I think we just had the same conversation over here, trying to think of every heavyset character in comics. : )

There was also Mr Monster, who gained weight after he (unbeknownst to him) married a vampire, and she fattened him up with home cookin'.

Of those, I think only Volstagg and the Blob, though, fit the Defensive Linebacker powers model. I think Bouncing Boy would count as an offensive lineman.

[stultiloquentia.livejournal.com]

Buffy doesn't leave home. She IS home. Protecting the nest.

Have you read this bit (http://www.teaattheford.net/conversation.php?id=1821#29031) of Georgia on my Mind by macha3? Macha's really into this idea -- she touches it in descant descending, too, beautifully -- Buffy as hostess and protector of Home. In the post-series part I've linked, instead of leaving home to start a Hero's Journey, she takes home with her -- literally and metaphorically. And she keeps on scooping up her murderers and outcasts and bringing them home, along the way. It's really a neat read.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks for the links! I hadn't read that one before.

I have to admit that Macha's work may be a bit too sophisticated for me as rule; it's beautiful, but I can't track what's being said in it the same way I can for BtVS episodes or fic that seems more inspired by the show's tone and voice - it's like I'm reading another language, or a very poetic English translation. But the ship image really stuck out to me in this snippet, a ship as moveable home. I was kind of thinking about that too, in writing this piece about Buffy being a Defender character, in that stories set aboard ships (seafaring or spaceships) have the option of presenting the ship as home and the crew as family, so the ship's captain is almost a family head by default. So a lot of captain's stories are daddy-protector instead of what I was thinking here with Buffy, the mommy-protector.

[cirrisian.livejournal.com]

You know, no matter how the outcome turned out, I would have won in the end. It's like Winnie said to me, " As much as I think Fat Momma is an incredibly interesting and original character, she will lose to Feedback based on sheer marketing strategy."

We all knew what the outcome was going to be when Major Victory was released (a well deserved and justified release, albeit a tear jerker), but to be honest, I'm happy with the decision. I guess I just feel like Fat Momma's character was a reverse Major Victory: a superhero who started out as a 'parody' or tied to comedy, but grew into her own, solidifying the character as time went on.

Also, Feedback = Jason Thompson. So he got my vote :p

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

So I wasn't the only one thinking he looked like Jason! : )

You've got a good point on the way Fat Momma did grow more likeable and "real" as the show went on - I was very skeptical about her motives with the whole Lemuria scene in the kitchen, but damned if she wasn't being genuine after all! Then when she got so worried about Feedback she was willing to quit - that won me over.

I'm pretty happy for Feedback, still, but I think I will always yearn for the Fat Momma movie that could've been.

[st_salieri.livejournal.com]

I LOVE that idea -- Buffy as defender of the home. Ooh, very nice.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It just really stuck out to me, once I started thinking about her actual role in Sunnydale, as Defender of the community. She doesn't look for adventure, she patrols to keep the peace. Which does make me think all over again about how much her role is completely redefined by destroying Sunnydale. It's a huge transition for her - she's never not had a fixed location before.