Satori wrote:I think you need to look up Misogyny in the dictionary. Xandersue annoys me too, but Xander being "badass" and females watching does not misogyny make.
Yes it does. He robs them of there intelligence and even will to act, litterally gawking like aw-struck DBZ characters at how awesome or insane Xander is. Making a male stronger and in the process weakening a female is almost textbook mysoginy.
Literally, the first story has it in spades. Re-read the scene with the charmed ones and watch as they patiantly do nothing to allow Xander to be badass.
It's not that he gets to act and they do not. it's that the girls literally are forbidden to act due to brain-drainage.
Xander then beats himself up over obviously stupid shit in a extraordinarily vain attempt to gain sympathy from the reader.
Tenhawk also belittls several female charactes, such as Willow and usurping the roles originally ascribed to female characters.
It suddenly becomes Xander's "Duty" to do so, even though he has a "Choice" to do so and makes, it, literally making him better than those who do not have that choice. This idea is beat into the reader again, and again, and it belittles those who don't have that choice to no end. He raises Xander's status by tearing down Slayers and the Charmed Ones.
What really clinched it for me was the treatment of Grace "Pei Pei" Chen of Marshal Lawl. Let me describe it in it's simplest forms:
Grace: I've been trained in the martial arts for many years.
Demon: Grr
::Fight!::
Grace: What are these things?!
Crow (of "John Carpenters "Vampires"): ::Apear!:: Here's how it's done, Woman.
Grace:
raw's gun: Who are you and what's going on. I am scared and confused! Oh the Cliche!
Crow: I fight demons, lol, therefore, I must know more about martial arts than you, and be overall better at everything physical than you. DISARM!
Grace: I be pwned.
Fuck me with a spoon.
I think you're reading subtexts where none exist.
I'd label it unintentional subtext, as Tenhawk simply isn't good enough to have legitimate, intentional subtext in his writing.
The Rune weapon idea is wanky but kinda neat in it's own way...
Giving a character a fill-in-the-need mcguffin is always a terrible idea. A specific McGuffin is fine, but not a end-all-be-all.
and let's face it, a Female Rune spirit is just cooler, "sexy"-er, and more "badass" seeming than a male one.
Bleach's Zangetsu begs to differ. For all Bleach's quasi-DBZ problems, it manages to disprove that assertion.
And the Telescoping weapons is old hat as far os "ooh doesn't this weapon look cool" goes..
And it's almost always regarded as (unintentionally) phalic.
I mean, you can make the same phalic comment about a lightsaber, too...
I do. Swords are always penis-related. All media entertainment boils down to Sex and Death. The sooner one realizes that, the better.
Frankly, you're reading things into the story that just aren't there.
There's no Misogyny, just typical male wetdream materiel, which is about par for a fanfic.
Dude, most male wetdreams are mysoginistic in that women are oftne objectified. Need I recall the love spell foursome Xander got? Or the fact that a below-average, by-the-numbers porno fic was written to acompany it (girls eating eachother out as the only position explored is just fucking dumb).
Sure, despise Journey's for its excessive Mary-sue spam and it's marginalization of non-Xander characters, but don't analyze it lijke lit class materiel... That makes you look pathetic, rather than the fic.
I love being a screenwriting major, because I've actually had the joy of taking classes to authoritarianly tell you how full of shit you are.
Intended or not, there is always subtext to be analyzed. It speaks of the time a story was written, the thoughts of the author. The question is whether or not the claim can be supported. That's where the debate comes from. Some claims (like homophobia in Season 6-7 of Buffy) are obviously bullshit, and can be disproven with the text. Other things (like Buffy being a Horror series) can be supported on multiple levels.
