You're very coherent! Grieving over the loss of (male) characters is sometimes just an exercise in waiting for retcon, which I'm a little bit grateful for and a little bit sad about. Just - we get to keep the characters, and they get to keep their power, and the dead women who have very little agency at all, but who motivate them. is right on the mark, and then added to that we get the fact that the grief over male characters having died is often much more clearly expressed and present and visible (compare Tim's on-screen reaction to Kon's death vs his reaction to Steph's, for instance--even if his reaction when she came back was great and their retcon was well done there).
Yeah, absolutely. It's so--if there's a way to avoid the comparisons between the dead ex-girlfriend/wife/partner and the new love (lord save me from the comparisons--maybe you have to write it from the perspective of B, doing the comforting, rather than A, being comforted), it might work, but it would be incredibly hard to get right. And very good point about the missing warning--it sometimes feels like the author honestly hasn't thought about it. Which, ugh.
(I'm glad to hear it! I agonized over them a lot. A lot a lot.)
Sadly, you're also right about this: we talk up a storm about genuinely important issues, and then simply return to status quo, as if we had done our penance or something, and I'm not sure what to do about it except to make sure the conversation keeps happening. And to look at what I myself do in stories, and I think it definitely matters what you do. I feel much better when I'm being honest than when I'm trying to forget the problem, if that makes sense. Because writing something that at least attempts fairness? It feels pretty cool.
Oh man, honey. ♥ Thank YOU for responding in a thoughtful way.
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You're very coherent! Grieving over the loss of (male) characters is sometimes just an exercise in waiting for retcon, which I'm a little bit grateful for and a little bit sad about. Just - we get to keep the characters, and they get to keep their power, and the dead women who have very little agency at all, but who motivate them. is right on the mark, and then added to that we get the fact that the grief over male characters having died is often much more clearly expressed and present and visible (compare Tim's on-screen reaction to Kon's death vs his reaction to Steph's, for instance--even if his reaction when she came back was great and their retcon was well done there).
Yeah, absolutely. It's so--if there's a way to avoid the comparisons between the dead ex-girlfriend/wife/partner and the new love (lord save me from the comparisons--maybe you have to write it from the perspective of B, doing the comforting, rather than A, being comforted), it might work, but it would be incredibly hard to get right. And very good point about the missing warning--it sometimes feels like the author honestly hasn't thought about it. Which, ugh.
(I'm glad to hear it! I agonized over them a lot. A lot a lot.)
Sadly, you're also right about this: we talk up a storm about genuinely important issues, and then simply return to status quo, as if we had done our penance or something, and I'm not sure what to do about it except to make sure the conversation keeps happening. And to look at what I myself do in stories, and I think it definitely matters what you do. I feel much better when I'm being honest than when I'm trying to forget the problem, if that makes sense. Because writing something that at least attempts fairness? It feels pretty cool.
Oh man, honey. ♥ Thank YOU for responding in a thoughtful way.