Of Swords and Parasols

 
There was an entire episode devoted to ramen and making ramen.  It made me so very, very hungry.  I must have real  ramen and okonomiyaki before I die.  It's a goal.

Meanwhile, I give up on Rei.  He may care about Aya, but at this point, he's the world's worst boyfriend, and really no good for her.  Honestly, I never look for alternashipping, but I've exhausted all alternate possibilities for her.  All the decent guys in the show are taken, too old for her, or way too young for her.  And half of them are taken, too.  At this point, I'm thinking she should just switch teams.  There are a couple nice girls on the show who are still single.  Seriously.  Rei has driven me to lengths I almost never go.

lesbiassparrow and I have expressed our displeasure, both in our LJs and in IMs, over our, ah, "displeasure" over certain aspects in Stargate: Atlantis, primarily over the severely messed up gender politics.  Let's face it, at least in season 1, most episodes can be boiled down to these 3 formulas:

1.  Sheppard stupidly acts without thinking and makes a bargain/performs an action he has no authority to make, ignores Teyla's being the only one with common sense, problems are caused, he dumps his screw up on Weir and the show acts like it's her fault, because heaven forbid the stupid heroic men ever be responsible for any of the problems they cause.  They meant well, after all.  She's just the female, non-military boss.

2.  McKay does something stupid that causes problems, ignores Teyla's being the only one with common sense, problems are caused, he dumps his screw up on Weir and the show acts like it's her fault, because heaven forbid the stupid heroic men ever be responsible for any of the problems they cause.  They meant well, after all.  She's just the female, non-military boss.

3.  Sheppard and/or McKay royally pisses someone(like, an entire race...) off, cause problems, ignore Teyla's being the only one with common sense, problems are caused, he dumps his screw up on Weir and the show acts like it's her fault, because heaven forbid the stupid heroic men ever be responsible for any of the problems they cause.  They meant well, after all.  She's just the female, non-military boss.

WE HAVE COME UP WITH A SOLUTION!!!!!!!

In our perfect version of SGA, Sheppard and McKay's stupidity gets them sucked into a black hole.  Without their stupidity around to screw everything up, Weir, Teyla, Ronan and Ford are able to wipe out the Wraith within two weeks.  Somewhere in there, Daniel hopped over to the Pegasus Galaxy and found a way to cure Ford.  Weir and Teyla take over the Pegasus Galaxy with Ford and Ronan as their chief flunkies.  Eventually, Ford and Ronan manage to find two nice girls in the Pegasus Galaxy who somehow manged to escape having their brains devoured by the manly stupidity of McKay and Sheppard before the black hole tragically took them away for all eternity.

Sadly, Weir and Teyla were turned off of men for eternity.  It is unclear whether or not they switched teams or just decided that celibacy was the way to go, but they did open a string of orphanages.  All children born between the time the Atlantis team arrived in the Pegasus Galaxy and one year after what eventually became known as the Salvation Via Black Hole Incident were kept away from all weaponry and machinery until thoroughly tested, just in case.

Also, 30 years later, Sam and Jack's son and Daniel and Vala's daughter (or the reverse) fled to the Pegasus Galaxy to escape demands for grandbabies.  Because you know they're so getting married.

Guys...I'm probably watching either Season 2 of SGA after Super Gals!  Unless I watch one of the few doramas I have waiting instead.

 I FOUND IT! I FOUND IT!

*points to icon*

I should have saved this icon the first time I saw it, but I hadn't seen any SGA yet, so didn't know if I'd love Teyla.  But now I have found it.

Now to find the one of Sam looking and Daniel and Cameron that says "and then she realized...they were all the same"(or something very close to that.) 

ETA:  Yeah, I noticed the typo the first time I saw it.  I just don't care.

 I've been thinking about something I said in my post yesterday on Shana Abe's The Truelove Bride.  Since I doubt most here will bother with reading under the cut of a post about a romance novel unless given a powerful incentive to, here's the part I'm referring to:

I love heroines who are struggling their hardest in the only way they know how against a world that just wants them to lie down and take it and be trampled on and let the men be in charge.  It's part of my love for Ever After, Kingdom of Heaven, Gladiator(note that in all of these, everyone would have been better off if they'd all just shut up and let her be in charge) A Song of Ice and Fire(wait...how much bloodshed would have been avoided if the men had shut up and listened to Cat, again?) and, frankly, dozens of heroines most people dismiss out of hand that I don't feel like listing off one by one(though not all, of course, are ones where everyone should have shut up and let her be in charge.)  It's part of why I've loved every sageuk I've seen so very much.  And actually, I've been lucky enough to encounter a fair number of them lately.  But in the process, I've noticed something:  these women never really get to choose their own lives or get the freedom or control over their lives that they crave.  Usually, they end up having to accept the lesser of two evils, the better of two bad choices.  If they do get what they want, it's at enormous cost, typically a greater cost than what they've gained.  At best, they're like Danielle, who gains love and the freedom she wants, but is never really understood or completely appreciated.  Henry loves her enough to make her happy, but he'll never really GET her.

I think what made me notice it was Sonea in Trudi Canavan's Black Magician Trilogy.  Sonea is a strong heroine, and a capable one, but within the first fifty pages Sonea was put in the position of being pitted against the world in terms of having anything to say about her own life.  From that point on, she's always in a position of having to make the choice between two decisions, and neither option is anything she wants.  Her life becomes "this path you don't want, or this one."  Even in the end, when she's earned the right to live her own life, her society takes what freedom she still has from her, and tried to say it gave her freedom.  This doesn't stop the series from being a good series, or undermine everything Sonea went through, but it just drives home how few rights and choices she has when, after all that, she still has no control over her own life.

I'm trying to think of characters like this who, in the end, actually do get what they want without losing as much or more in the process, and I'm mostly just coming up with Mulan.  And lets face it, if Mulan weren't a Disney movie, her ending probably wouldn't be nearly as happy.  I'm sure there are others that I'm not thinking of, but most of the ones that come to mind have that aspect changed almost from the start by meeting the hero, as opposed to that struggle being a part of their journey.  Sarasa in Basara is a possibility, but her journey started with the slaughter of her father, brother, and most of her village, and her experiences and losses throughout the series would crush your average hero.  Rin and Hyakurin in Blade of the Immortal may have things work out for them in the end, but, again, the gravity of what set them on their paths(not to mention everything that's already happened to them throughout the series) also puts them in the "great sacrifice" category.  And go through about 30 more characters of various genres and it's more of the same.

A lot of these characters seem to boil down to four character-represented categories-Catelyn Stark(A Song of Ice and Fire) Lucilla(Gladiator) Sibylla(Kingdom of Heaven) and Danielle(Ever After)

There are probably better representatives for what I'm trying to say(or maybe not) but I figure these have the highest name recognition.


I have no real conclusions to this beyond some I've stated in the past, and no idea if any of this really makes sense to anyone but me, but maybe it will.  I feel I should have something to say about male heroes in these situations, but all I can come up with is "they die and become martyrs or they whomp the bad guy, achieve all their goals, get the girl and become famous heroes."  Which I realize is a generalization, but it seems most of them end up on the Mulan end of things.  (Not that I remotely begrudge Mulan her happy ending...)

I think I've realized something that probably contributes to some of my annoyance with the Aya/Rei trainwreck:  the first season had a big emphasis on the friendship between Ran, Aya and Miyu, with the romantic concerns taking a backseat.  While that theme  is still there in the second season, it isn't as prominent.  While I don't mind Ran/Katsukichi's becoming front burner for time to time-not only because it's kind of necessary, what with Ran being the main character and all, but also because it didn't get as much attention in the first season, and there were several things there that needed to be ironed out-making Aya/Rei the main problems only emphasized how many issues there were there, and only made them worse.


Anyway, overall a great series, especially if you're looking for strong heroines and a focus on friendship between female characters.  The second season, while good, isn't quite as good as the first, though, and the main pairing, despite starting good, is so FUBAR by the end that all I can do is hope Aya meets some nice boy in college and moves on.