Trope Talk: Strong Female Characters

The fact that people unironically use the cliché "Don't write strong female characters, write strong characters that happen to be female" as if it's somehow good writing advice just shows you how low the standard is currently

Strong female character doesn't mean more powerful punches and acting angry all the time.

One Thing i Hope for Future Cinema is, make a Great Strong Hijabi Woman. I mean beside being a Dude Muslim, i just want more Respect for our Culture, and Hijabs need more Good Representation.

Have you never read Jane Austen or George Eliot? Lots of complex female characters there!

I just didn't like Rey from star wars because of how easily she came by acquiring power without training, or feeling like she deserved it. Take the original Disney Mulan, they showed her weaknesses and showed her training and fighting and overcoming the odds through her ingenuity and determination making her abilities in combat make more sense and her triumphs such as defeating the villain in the end more satisfying. But with Rey I can give some slack for the force awakens because its the first film of this new trilogy, I'm sure that the will fix the problems in the next movie, but during the last jedi the only jedi training we see her receive is swinging Anakin's lightsaber around in random directions and then accidentally slices a rock in half, and then her victory over the guards in the throne room scene has less impact as it feels like she shouldn't be able to fight of these highly trained fighters with no training with such ease. It made her character development feel worse because their really was none, and that's why her character came off as a Mary Sue, her character fell flat and people couldn't relate to her struggles because she rarely ever had any.

Exceptions prove the rules

Came for trope talk
Subbed cuz of the comment section mocking

All the stuff I came up in high school was based off my friends

Only thing I don't agree is the ending because the male character in the stories you are talking about doesn't solve everything because he's male, but because he's the protagonist and the story is his', and it's his journey. If it was the years of training character it wouldn't have made much sense, nor is interesting to follow the point of view of a character who knows already everything, how to solve the situation etc. More than being a genered trope, I think it's a trope about being "the new one who is at first considered weak but then saves the day", I think it just happens that those "years of experience characters" are female because that's another trope of desperately wanting a strong female character, obviously, talking about what you just said,I still think those characters still have some defects and bad tropes, some even about gender, just like the last thing I said, but I just think it doesn't relate to the fact that the PROTAGONIST solves HIS STORY, you just can't have a story in which the protagonist's main conflict gets solved by another character. If you want to then you need more conflicts, the protagonist has to solve his own while the other character solves the... idk, universal war or something

Its great watching this after the Barbie movie

An interesting example of taking an archetype and evolving it into a distinct character is Steve from Stranger Things. He is clearly meant to be the 80's rich boyfriend, but by the end of the first season he is willing to sacrifice himself to protect others, and even goes on to become the caretaker/safekeeper of the young protagonists in later seasons. Him running out of the house from the Demigorgon seems the obvious exit of the archetype, but then BAM multifaceted character runs back in. Obviously it is a male character, but feel it is a strong example of starting with a character taken from other media and then evolving it into something that is distinctly the author's creation.

Luke doesn't use a mind trick until the 3rd film. Rey does it in the 1st film, despite never having seen it before and thinking the Jedi were a myth the day before.

She also fixes the Falcon whereas Luke gets talked down to about it. She is way more powered throughout.

I liked Rey in Force Awakens... But in the other movies, not so much.

Don't you bad mouth the Lego Movie! The validity or invalidity of your point is completely irrelevant, the Lego Movie is a master piece and I won't hear a word against it!
...

But, to address you point, I think what you're describing, at least in the movies you mentioned (the Matrix & the Lego Movie) it's not a matter of the women stepping aside for the men, it's a matter of the supporting characters standing aside for the main characters. In complete honesty, I really believe that if Emmet had been Emma & Lucy (a.k.a. Wyldstyle) had been Lucas, the latter still wouldn't be at the forefront of the battle because she-turned-he wouldn't be the main character. And, to be fair, Wyldstyle, and all the other master builders, did partake in the fight against the villain's army, they just didn't take as prominent a role because they weren't the main character(s). And, to be fair, I'm not saying you're wrong about there being a trend of women making way for men in fiction, I'm just saying these examples don't demonstrate that well. If you were citing examples where female protagonists were being sidelined in the big final fights with the main villains, those would be good examples, but I disagree that the Matrix & the Lego Movie demonstrate this well.

"Paladin for scale" ... yeah, Americans will use anything other than the metric system. :D

Nah, Rey and Luke are not the same. Luke fucked up constantly, but all of Rey's "fuckups" ended up furthering her goals.

Dear god i think disney needs to see this XD

It'd be interesting to see this video revisited now that the Disney Star Wars trilogy is done and EVERYONE agrees that Rey is an over-powered, badly written Mary Sue joke of a character.

Think rey was a victim of bias

is it really such a mystery why there is no diversity in female personality? personality is a behavioral bias to match a survival niche. having human eggs determines optimal survival strategies very narrowly. in other words they don’t have interesting personalities because they don’t need to and would only create attrition in marriage and child rearing.

There's nothing here that wasn't explored well over a thousand years ago. The reason why there is a rigid science to storytelling is that... There is a science to it. We've been telling stories for thousands of years, and different cultures tell them differently with different points of view and preference. But over time, the kind of stories that people gravitate towards, find inspiration and meaning in, can be drawn on a bell curve, and it all skews towards the most common denominator. Tropes weren't invented, archetypes aren't constructed, both of these are revealed, found in the emerging patterns in cultures, and a lot of them are nearly universal in their appeal. The reason why idealized characters tend to survive in the zeitgeist is because of these universal aspects, which also naturally limits the scope of these stories and these characters over time. There has never been a period in time where artists didn't experiments outside the guidelines, but unusual stories suffer tremendous difficulty. Universal stories and archetypes have thousands of years of cultural familiarity at their back, and can present a story with a lot of the groundwork already provided by the audience's own experience. Truly eccentric stories have to pave their own way to into the public consciousness from scratch, which is so hard as to be almost impossible. There is a reason most people tend to use stereotypes as the foundation and then use subversion to provide the distinction from the mould. Truly original works of art are so often hostile to mass appeal.

the best example of this is Touhou , for example :
Cirno is the classic funny girl but with a streak of pride and badassery
Remilia is your classic brat but plus charisma
Kaguya is your classic princess type that is a bit of a brat but with refined mannerisms
Mokou is the hardened badass but with a tragic backstory and a lot of pessimism
Junko is the mom , but she's greiving and filled with revenge
Saki is the Southern belle but a mafia boss
the point is that ZUN did a good job at defining the characteristics of these characters
so , yeah

Re: Rhea in Starwars. I think it was that the actor did not have the inner strength waiting to come out vibes. Her acting was great, but she just didn't have the chutzpa to carry it off. I was confused about it, because she managed to get believably get dirty enough, which is usually a hallmark of a good movie/character. Wasn't the muscle or lack, wasn't the stamina, wasn't the "taking a mans role", but she lacked the right charisma, some inner strength, she lacked the inner diamond to be polished, that just made her character fall flat.

The special one should be a diamond in the rough waiting to be guided and shaped, that HERO meant to be king or queen that just LOOKs like they can be the everyman/everywoman, not actually BE the everyman/everywoman reaching for a crown. She needed a bit of that something-more, that is becoming scarce in movies, especially in female roles. I do believe it would have been more believable to have a stronger personality/woman like Greta Garbo (sorry, only one that came to mind that I knew the actors given name) dressed down and playing the nuveau coming up, rather than the other way around.
Luke had that shine, that potential to grow into.

Just wasn't the right role for that particular actor.

Guys are harder to stuff in a box, because society works harder on the ladies, at least in the West.
If you doubt this, just watch THE ENTIRE guest list talk to the bride, and the groom at a wedding, and see how much they reinforce social norms and expectations. It will be extra noticeable if the bride is independent minded, and even more if she doesn't want kids, AND you will find those that would otherwise be blacksheep ALSO reinforcing, due to THEIR communal programming.

The guys are worked on too, but the ladies REALLY go after the bride.

If you are aware of brainwashing techniques, they will be on full display at a wedding by people that just want "the best/happiness" for the couple/looking out for them. From the blue, to the borrowed, to the traditional dress, to the EVERY SINGLE PERSON asking when they are going to have kids. My best friends wedding, it was extremely noticeable that she was actually parroting the words that were the opposite of what she was saying even on the morning of the wedding! It was amazing, and surreal example of communal brainwashing for the sake of the COMMUNITY/FAMILY at the expense of the happiness of bride and groom.

Notice the REPEAT phrases, actions, taps, pats, hugs (anchoring), during and AFTER every repeat. If you ever look up NLP, it will be pretty obvious too.
Every culture and family does it different, so their might be some "no-pressure" weddings, but I haven't seen one.


The reinforcement is to preservice the power in the hands of those already having it, so that change, and the new-guy can't negatively affect THEIR already established power dynamic. The power differential between men and women in society also shapes the lack of alternatives for female tropes, held up mainly by the ladies. The alpha roles for male and females as stated by scholars is male alphas do, go, bring back. A female alpha manages and controls relationships. Anything that is different in the feminine threatens their power, usually created by saying NO and resisting/avoiding risk, vs the males power created mainly by saying Yes and taking risks.

Not saying its right or even accurate, but it is what is being peddled to the masses, and the masses are buying it. At the box office and the bookstore.

I think the main issue is that hollywood is largely sexist and patriarchal and therefore as a whole tend to struggle to write women with meaningful character development. They seem to think women either aren't capable of seizing victory unless its handed to them, or that female audience members wont be able to consider a character ultimately successful unless its spelled out to them in crayon.

The whole situation reminds me of that situation where Blizzard literally made a chart giving points out to characters with traits from minority groups because they apparently weren't capable of coming up with unique characters themselves. Like "look guys we're cool too, this character is gay and has always been gay. Now that weve convinced you of that, we can tell you that if you buy our game, you're helping to fight the good fight!" It all shows how deeply out of touch they all are.

A perfect example of a well done strong female character for me is Jasnah Kholin from the Stormlight Archives. Shallan is also quite interesting and I like her a lot too. It’s just that Jasnah is amazing.

Did we not watch the same force awakens? Where did ray show curiosity, drive or basic thought? She only ever reacted to events or was told to go somewhere by someone else whilst getting chased by someone else. Where was this experimentation with force powers? She needed to do x so she could suddenly do x. A stump would have shown more personality.

Hollywood doesn't want to write good stories though! They want to write the story that will make them the most money!

bla, bla, bla, bla...
The problem with the Strong Female Character trope is that these ignorant and talentless new wave of woke directors and producers don't understand that OVERCOMING WEAKNESSES, EFFORT, SELF-SACRIFICE and CARING FOR OTHERS(family, friends, love or people who depend on you) are what makes heros heroic and an inspiration for the people.
The "Strong Female Character" trope means nearly always a self-centered woman, who excels at everything all the time but doesn't get recognition because "society" or just "men" opresses them, these characters never care for anyone else but themselves and completely disregard the advices of her elders/mentors because she knows best, their goal is pure egocentrism and selfish self-realization, and i'm sorry but many people can't empathize with someone that would be so unlikable in the day-to-day life.
There's a milion of examples in recent movies or series of how these "Strong Female Characters" are nothing but a pain for the whole story, and a ton of good and strong female characters in books that don't buy this recent trend of woke BS that is failing all the time and damaging stories that were so good and inspiring for the children before. The best example of this can be Mulan or Wendy... i don't even know how someone can fail so hard to understand the message and the good traits portrayed in a children's story, and yet they did.

My biggest problem is when writers make a strong/smart female character by making all the surrounding male characters weak/dumb. Nerfing everyone else doesn't make your heroine suddenly special.

I think peoples problem with rey is that she just suddenly becomes good at everything for no reason

wait a minute.........ma quello è il duomo di Firenze!

My favorite main character in anything ever is Audrey from Bendy and the Dark Revival,
because she's a chosen one character who isn't a Mary Sue in the slightest, her specialness mostly just paints a target on her back for all the Ink creatures to target her by, and she gets by through genuine effort. She's very capable of defending herself when it matters but she's not an unstoppable force, she's not like most male horror game protagonists who walk through everything violently without having a single thought or feeling (including the protagonist of the previous Bendy game), she's terrified all the time and can't win every fight, and she doesn't just magic her way out of any problem with her handy dandy "I'm main character" card.
Audrey is plenty physically capable and she's magically special but in a practical sense her true strength is her basic kindness, and ability to make some allies that help her out when she can't fix everything herself, she usually tries to talk it out with enemies but isn't allergic to self defense and knows the old Steven Universe trick wont work on everyone, or even on most people
And she has actual realistic flaws, Audrey is a rookie in a situation she doesn't understand and can't only rely on herself, she's scared and confused and doesn't know what she's doing, and sometimes she clings to anyone nearby for guidance even if they're the devil himself, which gets her into trouble a couple of times.
And I won't spoil the game but towards the end of it Audrey is in a real tough situation and she's been beaten and broken down and she's trapped in something inescapable and she nearly gives up, but a friend gives her a speech about remembering who she is and choosing her own path and it doesn't fix it immediately, it goes rather poorly, but it allows Audrey to have some confidence in herself (And maybe some anger at the situation) which just barely allows her get back up and fix the plot. Not even in like a magic way of starting to float and sailor moon transforming before oneshoting the villain, she just alters the situation slightly in her favor and gets back up on her feet to win one last fight.
Like I said Audrey isn't strong through her power level or even her chosenonehood her true strength is in her kindness towards others, and she becomes completely unstoppable when she learns to be kind to herself for a change

Katara and Toph the first females comes to mind

Rey one did not age well just because she's curious doesn't mean she should have beaten kylo Ren with sword training

Go to a public park. Bring a notebook and a pen. Find a person who just happens to catch your attention, and decide on their name. Say, Susanna Dern. (Suzy to her girlfriends.) Then come up with three "facts" about them. Susanna plays Bingo every Thursday, she has a pet iguana, and she doesn't get along with her brother. Over there is Mike Rowell. He has a collection of potted herbs on his apartment balcony. He likes sci-fi, but he tries to avoid being seen as nerdy. The stress of his factory job is making him have a drinking problem. If you do this enough, you'll have characters that feel like they could be your neighbors, because they really could be.

You want your characters to be strong? Put them in situations. Just watch what Susanna does when she comes home from Bingo and finds Iggy is missing. Just watch as stranded aliens tell Mike that they need a new machinery expert.

That's how you write characters.

In the last trope talk, all I was thinking was: like I am your father, like I am your father.
In this vid we get: like Rey…

Wow so many fight scenes!

What if instead of writing a female character that accomodates to the cultural standards of females, or a character that's strong because breaks the standards of gender without any work required, someone writes a character that doesn't follow the cultural standards of it's world and struggles to fit in society because of It (i.e. she isn't pretty, has very unfeminine clothing, has a rebel spirit and/or behaves like a man) but her will and determination lead her to follow her own path, in order to achieve her goal without betraying her ideals or original cultural values

Another thing; while the people you mentioned in the last few seconds of the video exist (tall, burly girls, girls who don't apply makeup), they are not the norm, at least not to any of my experience. I've rarely seen any woman not apply makeup or make far more of an effort about their appearance than men when leaving for any activity. Even if it's just going out to shop. And, well, tall burly girls are exceptions to the norm just as you mentioned there could be "exceptions to the norm" regarding woman characters.

In essence, film is fundamentally stereotypical. Not necessarily for the reason you claim, however; as film has to conform to the logic of the audience, breaking stereotypes is actually seen as exactly this, breaking the general stereotypical heuristics people operate on. So if you make a character which does not conform to stereotypes, you're automatically garnering attention on it.

I think it is necessary to actually ask then if the stereotype is wrong. Is it wrong to assume that women, in general, care more for their appearance? I'd definitely give a resounding no. Do women in general have less imposing physique than men? Well, depends on what you deem as imposing physique, but strength (which I would say is a major factor) is easily codified by way of muscly form, and men are in general physically stronger than women, as well as taller. Additionally, I'd also very much say that women are in general more emotional than men, as in they are more quickly getting emotional as well as more quickly willing to show those emotions.

Now, does this mean any one random woman will exhibit all of these traits over any one random man? No. Does it surprise that a medium which is built on characterizing roles (which it needs to do in a short period of time) depends on this stereotyping? I don't think so - especially, as I said, when considering that any break from these stereotypes is immediately a feature of the medium. The rambunctious, physical young girl causing chaos is a common and still un-stereotypical way to portray girls in children's books.

Asking film to separate from the stereotypisation it inherently requires to connect to the audience is in my opinion like the people arguing that in fantasy shows, logic doesn't matter because there's dragons. Yet if suddenly a Porsche floated out of the planet's core to carry the portagonist into the seventeenth dimension where everything is just random flashes of light and colors, they wouldn't stick to that argument I think. So basically it comes down to consistency and yes, the audience you make your movie for. I realize the topic is not getting rid of this stereotypisation, but it is somewhat implied - because I also think that oftentimes, 'leadership' qualities are stereotypically assigned to men - likely due to several factors, like their decisiveness but also the physical strength which is potentially seen as simple power. In fact it is probably the most fundamental form of power we understand, therefore it's not a surprise to me that women less often are written as the leads when this fundamental power is often understood as something masculine.

You might make a joke of it, but calling Rey comparable to Luke with regards to 'powerlevel' makes absolutely no sense per the rules established in the two films. Yes, Luke was somewhat too good at piloting, but that's about the only skill he shows in Ep 4 beyond vaguely heightened intuition from the force he uses only in the very last few important moments of the story. Rey, however, has no excuse to be able to pilot at all, considering she's supposed to be an impoverished scrap-collector. That somehow also gives her the ability to be an excellent mechanic, which there is no explanation for in the movie. And lastly, just because you know myths or stories of something does not mean you can actually recreate those feats. I couldn't lift 300 kg just because I know bodybuilders who potentially can - even if I had the potential to become somebody who can lift that weight. That "trying something out" only works if you assume the force does not require training like any and all skills humans possess, which is directly contradicted by all established rules of the universe. Rey contradicting these rules in a way which gives her powers she, canonically, should not have at that point, while giving her basically no character flaw, clearly makes her a Mary Sue.

Not entirely sure if I got that right. I don't happen to know a gunslinging female badass or female wizard in real live, so how am i supposed to write them in a story?

I honestly just write characters with a mix of characters I enjoy and my own experiences and reactions to those situations aswell as other people’s life stories.

Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor. Men I know love to watch them and have no trouble accepting them as strong female leads. They don't need to put down men to be on top of the game.

This isn’t recommended for every character but I remembered this when Red was talking about writing characters from life. Have like one or two characters be based off of you. It feels real. Give them your flaws. Your strengths. Anything. Tons of great authors have done this. My favorite is Billy Pilgrim from Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Billy is based off of Kurt. The storyline is based off of Kurt’s life, kinda sorta maybe. And some scholars theorized that Kurt made Billy as a way to process his PTSD. He served in ww2, he was a POW, he was held in an actual slaughterhouse number 5 during the bombing of Dresden,

one great female character is ursula from "one hundred days of solitude" by gabriel garcia marquez

In recent times, Faye from God of War is a great female character. She perfectly managed to retain her feminity while still proving that she's as strong as Kratos is, characterwise. She wasn't some femme fatale that challenged her role in raising Atreus when Kratos was hesitant or didn't constantly try to confront Kratos' shortcomings. She embraced them and supported him, just like any healthy relationship. And most importantly, they didn't dumb down the other characters when she's involved. She's applauded across the lands for her valour and compassion but nowhere was 'despite her being a woman' was uttered.
Freya is an equally great female character but Faye proved that feminity doesn't necessarily mean weakness. That being a traditional loving wife and mother isn't an insult

Camina Drummer from the expanse, Vi from Arcane, Jinx from Arcane, Ellen Ripley from Alien, Clarise Starling from silence of the lambs, Sarah Conor from terminator 2 (not the one before or after). There are many many great female characters done right. Hollywood is just so lazy nowadays that we get robots like Captain Marvel.