burrunjor
Scooby
- Joined
- Nov 13, 2018
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Continuing the theme of comparing random characters from genre shows LOL.
The three in this post are
Glory
Alti
and
The Rani
Now there aren't really that many similarities between these characters like Ace, Faith and Kelly. However all three I think represent an important and sadly underrated take on female villains.
Generally speaking the sci fi and the fantasy genres have been more progressive when it comes to female characters than others like westerns, spy and espionage, crime thrillers etc. However ironically when it comes to female villains, then I think a lot of writers fall into the following traps.
1/ The female villain's main weapon is her sexuality. Now in all fairness that IS something that women can use more than men, simply because guys have a higher sex drive. Still obviously you want women to be able to threaten men in terms of intellect, strength etc. Indeed in the earliest stories sadly an emphasis was put on the female villain being seductive because the idea of a woman threatening a man in any other way was deemed laughable. Also seduction scenes if not done careful can be incredibly cringe. A combination of the actors feeling awkward and the writing just living out his or her wank fantasies (particularly the forbidden fruit ones as it's a bad girl) can make it very uncomfortable to watch, like that Harley Quinn animated movie where she ties Robin to the bed and shags him, whilst we get a shot of her having two butt cracks.
I always feel sorry for the actresses having to do those scenes LOL. The slightest bit of embarrassment is always visible. It reminds me of all the times Monica tries to seduce Chandler in Friends LMAO.
I hate to say but the awkwardness of Monica's "oooohhhh the steeel is sexy" reminds me a lot of Alex Kingston's acting as River LOL.
Also this limits what female villains can be, as obviously they always have to be sex bombs. Again nothing wrong with a sexy female villain, but we have to be able to have other types of female villains who are monstrous like Davros, or disfigured like the Joker or hell even just normal looking and not sexed up.
Finally these types of female villains, don't really make men look very good either LOL, the way that we're so shallow even if a woman is a psycho murderer the fact that she is hot trumps that.
2/ The female villain is often in love with the male hero and her whole motive is wanting to be with him, which will often lead to her trying to use her womanliness LOL to make him go mad, or she'll turn good. Catwoman, Missy, Maxima, Darla, Zelena, even Xena when she was evil all followed this template.
Again I'm not saying you can NEVER do this as when done right like Batman and Catwoman, it's an incredibly exciting, sexy dynamic. Still again when it becomes the default for most female villains, yeah it gets a bit limiting and can often make the female villain seem ineffective and lame compared to the male villains, like the Joker and Davros who are legitimate threats and have big wide goals beyond just being with the hero.
Also again it can be seen to reinforce gender stereotypes that all women care about is landing mr right.
3/ Finally female villains are often let off the hook compared to male villains. Regardless of how bad they are, the male hero will usually think they are just misguided. It's an extremely condescending attitude of "Awwww poor little women aren't capable of actually being responsible for their own actions, so let's not hold her to the same high standards as the men." Lot's of shows do this, like Angel who is so much easier on the beautiful women who want redemption like Faith and Darla than Lindsey LOL. Even when Lindsey is trying to seek redemption Angel rejects and kills him, whilst Darla he goes out of his way to save when she's being a total bitch.
4/ This is a more recent trend, but still they have to make the female villain empowering. Again not saying you can't have sympathetic villains, but sometimes the female villain will be presented as still just trying to survive in a maaaaaaaaan's world and has only become a tough bitch because she had too. They often toss in an abusive father or male figure as well.
5/ She'll be a man hating feminist bitch who wants to kill all men. Again sometimes this character can overlap with 4, other times such as in the Blake's 7 episode Power, it's just a male writer getting his frustration at the opposite sex out LOL. Regardless it's another sexist trope that doesn't see women as people like men, as whilst male villains can be like Davros and have glorious plans to take over the galaxy, female villains still have to be defined by being female villains, so their plans have to all be about being women. It reminds me of Alan Partridge when he has the female politician on and says to her "I don't know you want to talk about... women or something?"
Now again I'm not saying that these tropes should NEVER be used (apart from number 5 which is just crap.) You can get some good stories out of it. Sand for instance is a prime example of 1, 2 and 3. It's really ridiculous and laughable that Tarrant has any sympathy for that bitch LOL, but it still works as a classic all around. (And it was written by a woman too, showing it's not just a guys fantasy all the time.) Similarly Xena's original arc that was the epitome of the first 3, was amazing and led to one of the greatest female characters of all time. Also I don't want to be a male feminist going mad every time a female villain is sexy or uses sexuality. Servalan for the most part was an exceptionally brilliant and powerful female villain and wouldn't have been the same if Jacqueline Pearce hadn't brought that aspect to it.
Missy meanwhile is the worst example of all 5 tropes, with her developing an anti men streak in the Missy chronicles which sees her try to liberate women in the 19th century through time travelling social media and torture and kill men who don't accept her gender change, in a story written by James Goss (who else?)
Still again obviously it's good to get female villains that buck the trend and are more than that and on tv I think these three women were really pioneers.
All three to start with whilst still glam, are NOT reliant on their sexuality. Glory is physically stronger than any of the previous or subsequent villains, Alti can make someone experience the worst pain from their past and future by grabbing their throat and later just by looking at them. The Rani is a scientific genius, more so than the Doctor and the Master, and has a planet under her thumb as well as numerous inventions. There are some sexual elements to Alti and Glory admittedly, but even then it's not in a seductive way. They are shown to often force themselves on guys they are torturing, like Glory mounting herself on Spike as she literally pulls his guts and intestines out with her finger, or Alti forcing a kiss on her scared lackey as she squeezes his stab wound for fun, or when she hacks Julius Cesar to bits whilst shagging him! These female villains sexualities are more like the Christopher Lee's Dracula. Threatening, disturbing and predatory.
All regularly kick the shit out of the male characters around them, or capture them, torture them, outsmart them etc and make them feel small and pathetic.
All also have grand ambitions. Alti wants to absorb the strongest dark magics that can allow her to become a goddess, and the only way she can accomplish that is not only through death and violence, but by devouring and torturing souls too! Glory wants to get back to her hell dimension to rule it, and is willing to sacrifice every other world to do that, whilst the Rani cares about her experiments and has no problem experimenting on lesser creatures like humans to get it.
All are also NOT let off because they are women haha. Alti gets killed as many times as Christopher Lee's Dracula. She's impaled on a tree, burned in a fire, when she comes back as a skeleton she has her legs and arms smashed off and then her head kicked off, then she's electrocuted until she melts into ash! Glory is smacked with a wrecking ball, soundly beaten with a hammer and reduced to a whimpering, begging little bitch who gets her face smashed in as she's begging, and the Rani first gets locked in a room with a Tyrannosaurus and then left in the company of creepy bat monsters.
Finally best of all, their genders don't define them. I mean don't get me wrong all are extremely feminine characters, but what I mean is they don't have to be empowering, represent women, and none of them are man hating feminist caricatures LOL. Alti, Glory and the Rani are equal opportunity torturers and sadists and put just as many women like Tara, Gabrielle, etc through the torture (and seem to be just as predatory towards them too.)
To me they are three of the best female villains in this respect, but which do you think is the absolute best?
Well I'm going to say Alti. You all probably aren't surprised at that haha.
I think Alti is the best for a number of reasons, not just my erotic masochistic fantasies LOL. First of all she has the best track record. She is in a lot of classics, with When Fates Collide being one of the best Xena episodes. The Rani sadly, of her two tv stories, her first is okay, whilst her second is dreadful. She is a good character in both, so I don't think the second being bad is her fault at all, but yeah sadly it's a poor episode nonetheless. Glory meanwhile does have lots of classics, but in most of her stories she actually doesn't have much screen time. For instance in her second, her plot is actually the b-plot where she just sends some demons after Buffy with the main villain really being Tara's misogynistic controlling father, whilst in the snake one, similarly she works behind the scenes. Hell one episode has her only comment on Buffy having a date! To be honest I'd say that only her first episode, Intervention, Tough Love and The Gift are the episodes where she is either the main threat, or at least proactive in the plot. The rest of the time she either has her minions, or its other villains like those stupid knights that have the most screen time. Alti meanwhile was ALWAYS the centre of attention. Even Julius Cesar got sidetracked for her. I also think her stories like In Between The Lines where a lot more creative and offbeat for Xena, again than a lot of Glory's and The Rani's were in their respective series.
Furthermore Alti was I think different territory for Xena. She was more of a horror movie villain than a warlord, character from mythology etc like Xena's rogues. She brought a whole new mystical edge into the show and allowed it to explore other mythologies like reincarnation.
Also Alti I think was by far the most entertaining. Claire Stansfield is gloriously over the top. We're talking the burned Master from the Deadly Assassin levels of over the top LOL and also being a big 6 foot 4 amazon in real life, she really looked like she could kick your ass. (It's no wonder she was only able to play the damsel, wimpy, leading lady to Dolph Lundgren haha. Even then he's only an inch or two bigger than her.) Clare Kramer and Kate O'Mara were great don't get me wrong, but I don't know I just don't think they dominated the screen quite as well as she did. Again case in point, Alti took centre stage when paired with another villain in her last story, Glory was sidetracked by villains of the week and the Rani had to share her debut with the Master. (Funnily enough Alti played a mad serial killer in another movie who stalks Eric Roberts who is terrified of her she's such a crazy bitch. I love that Alti is too crazy for the Master.)
Finally Alti definitely screwed with Xena more. You got to give all three ladies their credit. They ALL killed the main hero! The Rani shot the 6th Doctor, Glory kicked off the chain of events that led to Buffy's death, and Alti crucified Xena in that alternate timeline. However generally speaking Alti messed with Xena more in terms of putting her on a path to darkness, corrupting her, cursing her child so it would never know the love of either parents, which led to his early death, and she also beat the crap out of her far more than Glory even did to Buffy. We never saw Buffy on the floor as cut up, legs broken and smacked around the way Xena was with Alti. You only have too look at how they killed their respective heroes. Buffy died in a big swirly thing whilst giving a poignant speech to sad music, the Doctor banged his head, Xena was shot with arrows and dragged through the streets by horses, had her legs broke and was then crucified all whilst Alti laughed at her.
Still you may have other preferences?
The three in this post are
Glory
Alti
and
The Rani
Now there aren't really that many similarities between these characters like Ace, Faith and Kelly. However all three I think represent an important and sadly underrated take on female villains.
Generally speaking the sci fi and the fantasy genres have been more progressive when it comes to female characters than others like westerns, spy and espionage, crime thrillers etc. However ironically when it comes to female villains, then I think a lot of writers fall into the following traps.
1/ The female villain's main weapon is her sexuality. Now in all fairness that IS something that women can use more than men, simply because guys have a higher sex drive. Still obviously you want women to be able to threaten men in terms of intellect, strength etc. Indeed in the earliest stories sadly an emphasis was put on the female villain being seductive because the idea of a woman threatening a man in any other way was deemed laughable. Also seduction scenes if not done careful can be incredibly cringe. A combination of the actors feeling awkward and the writing just living out his or her wank fantasies (particularly the forbidden fruit ones as it's a bad girl) can make it very uncomfortable to watch, like that Harley Quinn animated movie where she ties Robin to the bed and shags him, whilst we get a shot of her having two butt cracks.
I always feel sorry for the actresses having to do those scenes LOL. The slightest bit of embarrassment is always visible. It reminds me of all the times Monica tries to seduce Chandler in Friends LMAO.
I hate to say but the awkwardness of Monica's "oooohhhh the steeel is sexy" reminds me a lot of Alex Kingston's acting as River LOL.
Also this limits what female villains can be, as obviously they always have to be sex bombs. Again nothing wrong with a sexy female villain, but we have to be able to have other types of female villains who are monstrous like Davros, or disfigured like the Joker or hell even just normal looking and not sexed up.
Finally these types of female villains, don't really make men look very good either LOL, the way that we're so shallow even if a woman is a psycho murderer the fact that she is hot trumps that.
2/ The female villain is often in love with the male hero and her whole motive is wanting to be with him, which will often lead to her trying to use her womanliness LOL to make him go mad, or she'll turn good. Catwoman, Missy, Maxima, Darla, Zelena, even Xena when she was evil all followed this template.
Again I'm not saying you can NEVER do this as when done right like Batman and Catwoman, it's an incredibly exciting, sexy dynamic. Still again when it becomes the default for most female villains, yeah it gets a bit limiting and can often make the female villain seem ineffective and lame compared to the male villains, like the Joker and Davros who are legitimate threats and have big wide goals beyond just being with the hero.
Also again it can be seen to reinforce gender stereotypes that all women care about is landing mr right.
3/ Finally female villains are often let off the hook compared to male villains. Regardless of how bad they are, the male hero will usually think they are just misguided. It's an extremely condescending attitude of "Awwww poor little women aren't capable of actually being responsible for their own actions, so let's not hold her to the same high standards as the men." Lot's of shows do this, like Angel who is so much easier on the beautiful women who want redemption like Faith and Darla than Lindsey LOL. Even when Lindsey is trying to seek redemption Angel rejects and kills him, whilst Darla he goes out of his way to save when she's being a total bitch.
4/ This is a more recent trend, but still they have to make the female villain empowering. Again not saying you can't have sympathetic villains, but sometimes the female villain will be presented as still just trying to survive in a maaaaaaaaan's world and has only become a tough bitch because she had too. They often toss in an abusive father or male figure as well.
5/ She'll be a man hating feminist bitch who wants to kill all men. Again sometimes this character can overlap with 4, other times such as in the Blake's 7 episode Power, it's just a male writer getting his frustration at the opposite sex out LOL. Regardless it's another sexist trope that doesn't see women as people like men, as whilst male villains can be like Davros and have glorious plans to take over the galaxy, female villains still have to be defined by being female villains, so their plans have to all be about being women. It reminds me of Alan Partridge when he has the female politician on and says to her "I don't know you want to talk about... women or something?"
Now again I'm not saying that these tropes should NEVER be used (apart from number 5 which is just crap.) You can get some good stories out of it. Sand for instance is a prime example of 1, 2 and 3. It's really ridiculous and laughable that Tarrant has any sympathy for that bitch LOL, but it still works as a classic all around. (And it was written by a woman too, showing it's not just a guys fantasy all the time.) Similarly Xena's original arc that was the epitome of the first 3, was amazing and led to one of the greatest female characters of all time. Also I don't want to be a male feminist going mad every time a female villain is sexy or uses sexuality. Servalan for the most part was an exceptionally brilliant and powerful female villain and wouldn't have been the same if Jacqueline Pearce hadn't brought that aspect to it.
Missy meanwhile is the worst example of all 5 tropes, with her developing an anti men streak in the Missy chronicles which sees her try to liberate women in the 19th century through time travelling social media and torture and kill men who don't accept her gender change, in a story written by James Goss (who else?)
Still again obviously it's good to get female villains that buck the trend and are more than that and on tv I think these three women were really pioneers.
All three to start with whilst still glam, are NOT reliant on their sexuality. Glory is physically stronger than any of the previous or subsequent villains, Alti can make someone experience the worst pain from their past and future by grabbing their throat and later just by looking at them. The Rani is a scientific genius, more so than the Doctor and the Master, and has a planet under her thumb as well as numerous inventions. There are some sexual elements to Alti and Glory admittedly, but even then it's not in a seductive way. They are shown to often force themselves on guys they are torturing, like Glory mounting herself on Spike as she literally pulls his guts and intestines out with her finger, or Alti forcing a kiss on her scared lackey as she squeezes his stab wound for fun, or when she hacks Julius Cesar to bits whilst shagging him! These female villains sexualities are more like the Christopher Lee's Dracula. Threatening, disturbing and predatory.
All regularly kick the shit out of the male characters around them, or capture them, torture them, outsmart them etc and make them feel small and pathetic.
All also have grand ambitions. Alti wants to absorb the strongest dark magics that can allow her to become a goddess, and the only way she can accomplish that is not only through death and violence, but by devouring and torturing souls too! Glory wants to get back to her hell dimension to rule it, and is willing to sacrifice every other world to do that, whilst the Rani cares about her experiments and has no problem experimenting on lesser creatures like humans to get it.
All are also NOT let off because they are women haha. Alti gets killed as many times as Christopher Lee's Dracula. She's impaled on a tree, burned in a fire, when she comes back as a skeleton she has her legs and arms smashed off and then her head kicked off, then she's electrocuted until she melts into ash! Glory is smacked with a wrecking ball, soundly beaten with a hammer and reduced to a whimpering, begging little bitch who gets her face smashed in as she's begging, and the Rani first gets locked in a room with a Tyrannosaurus and then left in the company of creepy bat monsters.
Finally best of all, their genders don't define them. I mean don't get me wrong all are extremely feminine characters, but what I mean is they don't have to be empowering, represent women, and none of them are man hating feminist caricatures LOL. Alti, Glory and the Rani are equal opportunity torturers and sadists and put just as many women like Tara, Gabrielle, etc through the torture (and seem to be just as predatory towards them too.)
To me they are three of the best female villains in this respect, but which do you think is the absolute best?
Well I'm going to say Alti. You all probably aren't surprised at that haha.
I think Alti is the best for a number of reasons, not just my erotic masochistic fantasies LOL. First of all she has the best track record. She is in a lot of classics, with When Fates Collide being one of the best Xena episodes. The Rani sadly, of her two tv stories, her first is okay, whilst her second is dreadful. She is a good character in both, so I don't think the second being bad is her fault at all, but yeah sadly it's a poor episode nonetheless. Glory meanwhile does have lots of classics, but in most of her stories she actually doesn't have much screen time. For instance in her second, her plot is actually the b-plot where she just sends some demons after Buffy with the main villain really being Tara's misogynistic controlling father, whilst in the snake one, similarly she works behind the scenes. Hell one episode has her only comment on Buffy having a date! To be honest I'd say that only her first episode, Intervention, Tough Love and The Gift are the episodes where she is either the main threat, or at least proactive in the plot. The rest of the time she either has her minions, or its other villains like those stupid knights that have the most screen time. Alti meanwhile was ALWAYS the centre of attention. Even Julius Cesar got sidetracked for her. I also think her stories like In Between The Lines where a lot more creative and offbeat for Xena, again than a lot of Glory's and The Rani's were in their respective series.
Furthermore Alti was I think different territory for Xena. She was more of a horror movie villain than a warlord, character from mythology etc like Xena's rogues. She brought a whole new mystical edge into the show and allowed it to explore other mythologies like reincarnation.
Also Alti I think was by far the most entertaining. Claire Stansfield is gloriously over the top. We're talking the burned Master from the Deadly Assassin levels of over the top LOL and also being a big 6 foot 4 amazon in real life, she really looked like she could kick your ass. (It's no wonder she was only able to play the damsel, wimpy, leading lady to Dolph Lundgren haha. Even then he's only an inch or two bigger than her.) Clare Kramer and Kate O'Mara were great don't get me wrong, but I don't know I just don't think they dominated the screen quite as well as she did. Again case in point, Alti took centre stage when paired with another villain in her last story, Glory was sidetracked by villains of the week and the Rani had to share her debut with the Master. (Funnily enough Alti played a mad serial killer in another movie who stalks Eric Roberts who is terrified of her she's such a crazy bitch. I love that Alti is too crazy for the Master.)
Finally Alti definitely screwed with Xena more. You got to give all three ladies their credit. They ALL killed the main hero! The Rani shot the 6th Doctor, Glory kicked off the chain of events that led to Buffy's death, and Alti crucified Xena in that alternate timeline. However generally speaking Alti messed with Xena more in terms of putting her on a path to darkness, corrupting her, cursing her child so it would never know the love of either parents, which led to his early death, and she also beat the crap out of her far more than Glory even did to Buffy. We never saw Buffy on the floor as cut up, legs broken and smacked around the way Xena was with Alti. You only have too look at how they killed their respective heroes. Buffy died in a big swirly thing whilst giving a poignant speech to sad music, the Doctor banged his head, Xena was shot with arrows and dragged through the streets by horses, had her legs broke and was then crucified all whilst Alti laughed at her.
Still you may have other preferences?
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