Encyclopedia of Manga Tropes: Girl Power Corrupts

[snarp]

Hinamori suffers an episode of Crazy-Eyed Antics.
- Bleach Chapter 101, by Kubo Tite

This term describes a situation in which a female character possesses some sort of power comparable to or greater than that of male characters, and her possession of this power is shown to be toxic to her and to those around her.

The power in question might be psychic or magical powers, martial arts skill, political power, wealth, business acumen, skill at sports, cooking skill, board game skill - or any other sphere which a sufficiently motivated manga artist might attempt to transform into a competition. "Power" can also apply to simple self-confidence, particularly in conjunction with a lack of romantic interest in or rudeness to a male character intended to be sympathetic.

The toxicity of power commonly manifests itself as a lack of self-control or self-knowledge on the part of the female character. In its classical form, lack of self-control leads to Crazy-Eyed Antics. This is when a woman who had appeared emotionally stable earlier in the narrative - at a time when she either did not possess her power, was not exercising it, or was not exercising it to its fullest extent - opens her eyes wide and develops dark circles under them as an accompaniment to destructive behavior. When engaged in Crazy-Eyed Antics, a character is as much as or more of a danger to herself and her loved ones than she is to her enemies. Beloved childhood stuffed animals should be stored in a safe place during episodes of Crazy-Eyes.

Common triggers for Crazy-Eyed Antics include:

* defeat in battle

* the betrayal of a loved one (usually male)

* the death of a loved one (usually male, though all close relatives are acceptable)

* declarations of loyalty (nearly always for a male love interest) (Self-inflicted - Crazy Eyes are a well-known side effect of statements similar to "Any enemy of [x]'s... IS AN ENEMY OF MINE!!" Physicians recommend that individuals vulnerable to Crazy Eyes avoid forming sentences containing more than one exclamation point.)

While Crazy-Eyed Antics are by far most common to villainesses, they happen to male villains as well, though the timing is different. A male villain will tend to hold off his bout of Crazy Eyes for the moment at which he comes to understand that he's lost a fight, or that his cunning plan has been thwarted. This dehumanizes a character who might previously have had his sympathetic moments, rendering it more acceptable to the readers that the heroes to kill him. Alternately, in the grip of Crazy Eyes he may accidentally or deliberately destroy himself, thus freeing the heroes of all responsibility for his death.

Villainesses, on the other hand, may go Crazy-Eyed long before their defeat - from the moment at which they decide to begin fighting, or come up with a cunning plan. This has the dual narrative benefit of overcoming the higher acceptability bar for violence towards women, and demonstrating that the villainess would have been happier if she'd channelled her energies into baking or motherhood. (Unless the manga happens to be about competitive baking or motherhood. (Someone should make a competitive motherhood manga. It can be like this.))

Male-to-female transexual villainesses tend to follow the female pattern for Crazy-Eyed Antics, though if the hero discovers their biological gender mid-battle, Crazy Eyes may follow the revelation. (Crazy Eyes are less likely if the character reveals her biological gender herself.)

If a villainess goes through Crazy-Eyed Antics in the sort of manga in which the heroes' fists are coated with a chemical agent that reforms bad guys, she may come out of the fit Realizing The Error Of Her Ways, particularly if she is a small child. Otherwise, the breakdown is more likely to signal some self-destructive action that will destroy her.

A heroine is permitted one (1) incident of Crazy-Eyed Antics at times of extreme emotional stress. In general she will be punished less harshly for it than the villainess because, upon coming to her senses, she will have learned that she needs to "stop trying so hard" and let the men in her life "protect" her, because otherwise she will only make them worry - any efforts she might make on her own behalf being doomed to failure. However, most heroines comprehend this from the outset, thus avoiding their Crazy-Eyed Antics.

Instead, they may be forced to undergo the I Can't Protect Anyone Scene, in which they weep for the reason stated in the name, before being reassured that they're not actually supposed to be trying to do that. They may be instructed, as an alternative, to smile.

Female characters of the type to reject power because they know that they shouldn't be using it may be coerced or manipulated into doing so by bad guys. Often they escape this situation unscathed, but in "darker" manga even these characters may be punished by death. (It should be noted that the I Can't Protect Anyone Scene advice is singularly destructive to a female character in this situation, because she may have no allies to protect her.)

Rin mansplains Arisu's past life.
- Please Save My Earth Volume 2, by Hiwatari Saki

A heroine who possesses magical ability will often be afflicted by The Guy Who Says "You Truly Don't Know?," aka, "The Mansplainer." His function in the narrative is to know more about the heroine's power, and possibly more about her own life and history, than she does, and to explain it all to her.

Without him, it is implied or stated outright, she will not be able to use her magic, or will be a danger to herself if she does. The need to have a stranger explain her power to her drives home the point that the power she possesses is not really her own, and that it is not natural that she has it. The Mansplainer often serves as a love interest, particularly when he is arrogant and the heroine is a Tsundere. In addition to his successful shoujo manga career, the Mansplainer had appeared in 682 English-language paranormal romance novels as of the closing of the 2008 fiscal year.

A way in which to have a female character exercise power, in specific combat or magical power, without necessarily giving her power, is to make her an Ultimate Weapon In Search (Or Not) Of A Heart. While the Ultimate Weapon may have moments at which she is self-aware, she is capable of exercising her power only when in a mindless, dehumanized state.

One of the special benefits of the female Ultimate Weapon is that, because her body is not under her control, it is appropriate to draw her in passive or infantilized poses even when she is engaged in battle, and to permit her clothes to rip off. Also useful is the fact that the Ultimate Weapon generally has a male handler. This character type may be usefully combined with the The Wispy Clairvoyant Albino Agoraphobe.

Female characters whose power is either sexual in nature (they're hot and/or assertive and apparently unattainable) or simply conflated with their sexuality will often be afflicted with a Shameful Secret Love. The most common objects of the Shameful Love are a male hero whom she's previously mocked or abused in some way, or a male villain who loves another. If the female character suffering from the Shameful Love is a villain, it will be revealed publically in a humiliating way, possibly accompanied by rejection.

Assertive female heroes who humble themselves properly in the revelation of their Shameful Secret Love, however, may become the heroine if they give the Tsundere Oath before two witnesses, one of them a cleric, and agree to attempt to make the hero a bentou, fail in an amusing manner, and afflict him with cartoon violence when he doesn't like it. Because women do things like learn magic and join the military only to while away the time until they get a man, a woman who has confessed her Shameful Secret Love may be safely banished from further plot development, her storyline having been concluded.

Examples (not all from manga!)

- Corrupted Women:

Avatar: The Last Airbender: Character: Azula - Unusual Power: martial arts/magic, political power - Corruption: Crazy-Eyed Antics upon finally achieving her dream of ruling the Fire Nation (Edit: This turned into a huge all-spoiling post of its own.)
Black Butler: Lady Red - is a self-confident unmarried woman who supports herself - Crazy-Eyed Antics due to death of family, infertility, the existence of women who get abortions
Bleach: Hinamori - martial arts/magic - Crazy-Eyed Antics following Aizen's betrayal
Bleach: Uzuru - martial arts/magic - has an Ultimate Weapon mode
El Hazard: Ifurita - martial arts/magic - Ultimate Weapon
Flame of Recca: Fuuko - martial arts/magic - Crazy-Eyed Antics due to unwise use of magical artifact
Flame of Recca: Ganko - magic - rejects power but is forced to fight by bad guys
Flame of Recca: Neon - martial arts/magic - loses her magic in fight with hero
Fruits Basket: Akito - head of the family - Crazy-Eyed Antics due to perception of betrayal/abandonment
Fruits Basket: Ren - matriarch - Crazy-Eyed Antics due to jealousy of her daughter
Mythical Detective Loki: Freya - goddess - spends most of her time trapped in the body of an innocent little girl; ends up in trouble whenever she tries to exercise her power; Shameful Secret Love for arch-nemesis Loki
Phoenix Wright: Mia Fey - lawyer, spirit medium - is murdered when she confronts a criminal alone
Phoenix Wright: Maya and Pearl Fey - spirit mediums - both go through incidents wherein they think an angry spirit took over their bodies and killed someone; Maya is repeatedly threatened by female relatives jealous of her power
Phoenix Wright: Misty Fey - matriarch, spirit medium - is murdered by a female relative jealous of her power, because that is what women do to each other
Phoenix Wright: Morgan Fey - matriarch, spirit medium - conspires to frame family member for murder to preserve her power
Phoenix Wright: Franziska von Karma - lawyer, person who has a whip - becomes distraught after losing a case; Shameful Secret Love (Edgeworth); never practices again after confessing her love to him (Edit: I'm told I misremembered the former, and apparently the latter is disproven in a later game.)
Phoenix Wright: Dee Vasquez - television producer - following accidental death of her boyfriend, turns evil, blackmails people, accidentally kills someone, and gets caught
Phoenix Wright: Celeste Inpax - actor's manager - commits suicide following betrayal by managee fiance
Phoenix Wright: Adrian Andrews - actor's manager - Shameful Secret Love for Celeste Inpax; secretly co-dependent and seriously depressed; is much happier when she takes a job that intimidates other people less

(This list contains no Tsundere heroines because my hands will fall off if I try to document that.)

- Mansplainers:

Battle Angel Alita: Dr. Ido, Desty Nova - Mansplains To: Alita
Bleach: Hacchi, Aizen - Orihime
CardCaptor Sakura: Kero, Syaoran - Sakura
Divine Melody: zi Qiu - Cai Sheng
Please Save My Earth: Jinpachi, Rin - Arisu
Vampire Knight: pretty much every guy in the series - Yuuki

- Honorary Mansplainers:

Kyou Kara Maoh: Konrad - Yuuri
Loveless: Soubi - Ritsuka
Mushishi: Ginko - the whole world

More examples requested! (Also, is there a TV Tropes entry with a similar premise to this?)

Edit: Please note that there are major spoilers for the end of Avatar: The Last Airbender at the bottom of the Dreamwidth comments!

Comments

[pseudo_tsuga]

This post is depressing and eye-opening. (How did I not notice that about Phoenix Wright?)

[snarp]

The insanity of Phoenix Wright didn't really hit me until I'd finished typing it up and saw how much space it took up. I mean, that's nearly half my list.

[gb]

I knew I subscribed to you for a reason!

The first person I thought when I read this was of Cavanaugh, a villain from a rather cheesy manga called Et Cetera that I enjoy anyway. It's been a while since I've read it but I remember Cavanaugh being an elegant, powerful and scheming villain when she first appears, but when she loses an eye (which of course means she's no longer beautiful) she switches to eating raw meat and being ridiculously violent. I remember one of the mangaka's assistants drawing fanart of her in the omake, and how sad they seemed to be when she went Crazy-Eyed. :\

Now that I think about it, Figure Four Mansplains the heck out of Alita, doesn't he? Or is it just me?

[snarp]

I remember reading some of Et Cetera and liking it, actually! Now I want to go find it again... Thought that sounds like a really hardcore example of the Crazy Eyes.

I wouldn't put Figure as a Mansplainer (of this kind, anyway) just because he Does Not Know Her True Power, and by that point, she pretty much does. But if he'd shown up earlier on, he'd totally have given it a try.

[katarik]

I am subscribing to you based on this entry *alone*, it is that awesome.

(Also the Subconscious Mind At Work, but. THIS ENTRY.)

[snarp]

I think my subconscious mind is more popular than the rest of me. Maybe I should just make this blog a dream journal and leave it at that.

[katarik]

Well, your subconscious mind is filled with easily-slashable series!

(Seriously, that would be a gold mine. But my favorite part is Deffle v. Deathle -- o, to be able to erase the Raito v. Light wars that I watched from the sidelines!)

[torachan]

Found your recent Bleach post on my network and decided to peruse your journal and found this, which is totally awesome. So. Subscribing to you. :)

[royalarchivist]

Came here via friend Inkstone's recommendation and following you now based on this entry. Good stuff. ^_^

[kylara]

Someone suggested your Women vs. Bleach entry on Fanlore, so I've been perusing your journal.

This entry is epic.

[lacrimawanders.livejournal.com]

A Maiden at Dojoji, the kabuki play. And all derivatives. It's a very traditional Japanese thing, crazy women. Usually in traditional lit, they're because of love denied.

[lacrimawanders.livejournal.com]

Oh, Inu Yasha. Like every female character in it.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, Roberta from Black Lagoon, perhaps, with Diego and Garcia Lovelace as both the fridged/threatened male loved ones and the Mansplainer characters, at various points? (Although in both her case and Crazula, I think the trope's slightly mitigated because both universes feature plenty of other high-powered female characters who don't end up depowered and crazed...)

[snarp]

Should I read Inu Yasha, for the purpose of furthing my pop-culture education and such? Or would I end up throwing it at something?

[snarp]

I know NOTHING about this manga, but your use of 1) the phrase "plenty of other high-powered female characters" and 2) the name "Crazula" require that I remedy the situation immediately.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Ah ha, "Crazula" was just the A:TLA fandom nickname for Azula in her Crazy-Eyed phase at the end of the series, sorry! But ZOMG, yes, Black Lagoon is BEYOND AWESOME and it kills me that it has so little fandom. I suspect a lot of potential viewers do no more than glance at it and write it off as looking like shamelessly exploitative seinen fanservice full of big-breasted chicks and guns and explosions...and yes, it does have all of those things in spades. BUT those same women are smarter and more powerful and more flat-out dangerous than the male characters, and they get to have interactions with each other that you normally only get to see between guys in this sort of genre -- Revy and Shenhua, or Revy and Eda, for instance, have the sort of "bad friends" mutual insult-fest relationship, with some degree of respect and/or affection under all the surface hostility, that male characters get to have all the time in action-heavy series. And they're constantly subverting the usual gendered narrative tropes you'd expect to see here -- Rock, the mild-mannered Japanese salaryman who's the audience's entry character into this brutal nihilistic world, at no point shows any sign of suddenly blossoming into a physical badass even remotely capable of keeping up with the girls, let alone stealing their thunder; he fits into the team because he's got a marvelously twisty strategic brain, but where physical danger or combat's involved, the girls have repeatedly had to save his ass -- and any time he's tried to give in to White Knight tendencies, well, this is not the sort of universe where trying to be a hero works out very well.

And adding to the fun, not only are the women the real badasses here -- the men all KNOW it, and the ones who aren't antagonists admire and respect them for it. (There's an especially delightful scene where two-fisted gunslinger Revy and walking-arsenal-disguised-as-megane-moe-meido Roberta are about to have a grudgematch duel to settle their differences, but then the Lagoon crew's frequent employer Balalaika, former Soviet military officer and current head of the local arm of the Russian mafia, shows up and orders them not to use weapons, because she doesn't want her valuable skilled contractors to end up dead. So they give up all their guns (and grenades, and etc...) and go at each other bare-knuckled, while the guys stand back at a safe distance to watch, commenting approvingly that the most dangerous women in Roanapur are all in one place.)



And those are only four of the more major Dangerous Ladies. There's also the ninja maid's young apprentice, and two pistol-packing nuns (one of whom has CIA connections), and the chainsaw-wielding loligoth, and the schoolgirl who heads up a yakuza family...YOU WANT TO MARATHON THIS SERIES, YESTERDAY.

The anime and manga are both pretty equally good, so you can really pick whichever format you prefer to start from with no fear of adaptation decay. There've only been two seasons of anime so far, though, so it hasn't covered all of the plot arcs of the manga yet.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

P.S. note also the exhaustively enthusiastic TV Tropes entry!

[snarp]

I may have just downloaded like the whole run of the series.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Binge now, thank me later!

Although if you can't marathon the whole thing all in one sitting due to pesky little things like "life" and "sleep", this pretty much neatly condenses the heart of both seasons into less than three minutes:

[eisen]

... I keep wanting to comment with suggestions for series that either fall into this trap or don't (I see someone has already mentioned BLACK LAGOON, so I will refrain from doing so again except to enthusiastically second its rec), but every time I try I get to Vampire Knight: pretty much every guy in the series - Yuuki and I burst out laughing again because it's so fucking true I have to laugh or I might attempt to suplex my laptop from rage.

[kaigou]

Following inkstone's link and then your post on Bleach (which bored me a long time ago, but I read with a sort of schadenfreude -- and then onto this post. Nail, hammer, bang, with one point I might argue, with support from your observation that

A male villain will tend to hold off his bout of Crazy Eyes for the moment at which he comes to understand that he's lost a fight, or that his cunning plan has been thwarted. ... Alternately, in the grip of Crazy Eyes he may accidentally or deliberately destroy himself, thus freeing the heroes of all responsibility for his death.

I'd say that's what makes Azula's Crazy Eyes a distinctively masculine pattern, rather than the usual crazy-girl version. There's no hint at all that prior to the final battle that she's been holding back on her powers or in any way uncertain of her ability; she's pretty damn smooth and capable and extremely skilled all the way through the series. The writers didn't go the crazy path, which meant that (for a kid's show), they then had to figure out a way to take her down without also forcing a boy to kill his sister (that would be pushing the limit for what a kids' series could really handle, I think, especially when rated TV-7), and without the (mostly pacifist if very skilled) female heroine killing Azula, either -- so her defeat had to come from within, really.

I rewatched the series a week ago, actually, especially the last season. First time around I was all, "oh, not the crazy woman thing again," but the second time around I realized: if they'd done the Crazy eyes, as you call it, this would've started long before those last few episodes. Like, from the very beginning.

Instead, it was a combination of betrayal by her closest (only) friends signaling that if they could betray her, anyone could. That sets her on the path to distrusting everyone, and it's only once she renders herself alone (effectively destroying her backup) that she's vulnerable, and even then a good share of her defeat she delivers herself -- which underlines a major moral of the entire story, that one's victory is within, but also one's defeat (mirrored by the way Aang removes Ozai's power -- lack of internal power creates defeat).

So I'd say that really, Azula might be closer to a good template for what it'd look like if an author chose to do the Crazy Eyes but along male lines, instead of the cliched female-goes-crazy lines. Still not entirely perfect (and a bit of a cop-out if we're talking adult-aged entertainment), but for kids -- who aren't always willing/able to handle the hero/ine making hard choices like killing the bad guy -- the choice to have the villain do the crazy is a nicely-packaged (and moralistic) way to defeat the bad guy mostly by letting the bad guys defeat themselves.

(I'm not sure Mushishi really counts as mansplaining, though, since as a shamanistic figure Ginko's kind of in a different category -- not entirely Magical ____, but pretty close. Okay, actually, maybe really close, except he doesn't die at the end. But shamanistic/magical figures are expected to do some explaining, though just as frequently they're awfully mysterious about it, and Ginko does have his moments, but he's nowhere near as cryptic as Kusuri-uri in Mo No No Ke, another shamanistic travelling peddler guy.)

Not sure if you've watched this, but if you ever need a break from the Crazy Eyes, sit down with Seirei no Moribito. My favorite non-crazy-moment (that would've been crazy in anyone else's hands, really) is when Balsa yells in the heat of battle, "I am a tiger! Stay away from me or I will kill you and eat you!" Ehehehe. The world needs more Balsas, I say.

[kaigou]

err, I didn't mean your post bored me, but that Bleach bored me. bad phrasing there... sorry!

[snarp]

I think coffeeandink articulates my issues with Azula's character arc better than I could. Basically, I think it's a problem that the moment she attains the status she's wanted, she falls apart; whereas when he gets what he wants, he just gets more confident. In a sense they do end up in the same place, but I think it matters how they got there.

(Ginko's inclusion on the list may be due more to my distaste for his VA than to any rational reasons.)

[kaigou]

I totally grant you the "fall apart as soon as she gets what she wants" -- which as an adult viewer, I found irritating. With my writer's cap on, though, it seemed to me more a product of just running out of time -- everything is so squished in the last few episodes. If she goes crazy before Ozai leaves, then he'd be a fool to leave her in charge, but if she goes crazy too close to when the good guys arrive, then it would totally come out of left field.

In some ways, I think part of the difficulty with Azula is that the writers were so excited about having a female villain who is actually pretty freaking scary that they didn't really think through either the progression of bringing her down ("and then, uhm, Zuko will, uhm, DO something! right!") or realize just how compressed that come-down would end up being -- such that instead of seeming to be eaten up by paranoia, instead there's only like two episodes to go from capable and scary to complete nutcase.

But then, Avatar is one of those in which for all my other complaints, I'll still take it over just about anything else out there, because even with its flaws, it's one of the few that gets so much more right than say, oh, Bleach. *whistles nonchalantly*

[snarp]

Yuuki invites it by looking confused all the time! The vampire guys are all going, "Ahhh... I want... to... mansplain something to her!"

[starlady]

Urahara totally mansplains to Orihime, now that I think about it--but he doesn't Mansplain enough, which has tragic consequences for…Ichigo. Presumably also he mansplains to Tatsuki and the others who've gained spiritual powers, which may be confirmed if the Fake Karakura arc ever freaking ends.

I'm sure I can think of more if I sat here long enough instead of finding dinner. Great post, again.

[snarp]

It has taken me like twenty-four hours and several pages to reply to you, because I am long-winded, so I have made it a post!

[chomiji]

It says a lot about this series that smilla just managed to enthuse so eloquently and at such length - and barely managed to mention my favorite female character (Eda, one of the nuns - I don't have a good icon for her yet ... this is Revy, the ax-crazy two-fisted gunwoman).

I also really like Dutch, head of the Lagoon Traders (the older African-American guy), and Benny, the blond nerd (who's a Jewish hacker from Florida - something I certainly never expected to see in a manga at all, let alone so plausibly).

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I barely mentioned my darling Shenhua, either! ;) Or the way Balalaika so thoroughly subverts the trope that only male characters can have dramatically visible scars, or how Rock and Revy are constantly reversing the trope where hard-bitten male characters are trying to shield more innocent female characters from even witnessing traumatic experiences, or *flails incoherently*

(You haven't been keeping up with the scanlations, have you? The "ROBERTA IS THE FREAKING TERMINATOR" arc is finally over, and the new round that's starting up has some very cute geek-romance with Benny and Jane...also, it's introducing yet ANOTHER interesting female character, a Chinese hacker recently hired by Jane.)

[runawayskellum]

I am in a bit of a rush, having just stumbled upon this post via a link on my flist (I'm not even sure who any more - it' s been one of those days).

It seems to be that Azula's going-crazy doesn't quite happen because she 'gets what she wants'. Not exactly. It felt more like, on top of the fact that Ty Lee and Mai betrayed her, her father betrayed her too: by crowning himself ~Phoenix King~ turns the position of Fire Lord into something like Prime Minister at best and a puppet ruler at worst. Someone who's just spent the past year running her own missions all over the world and taking down governments without breaking a sweat is going to know that. It was a set-up from the start.

ANYWAY SORRY I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT AZULA. /o\ This is a fascinating post, though (er... directed to both Snarp and Kaigou) and I'll definitely check out the further one on A:TLA once I have the time :)

[kaigou]

That's not a post! That's just a reply! ... says the person who can go on for like pages with a really juicy topic...

Ehehe. Just wanted to let you know, not ignoring you, just formulating a response and trying to find the time to write it out.

[belderiver]

This is a really interesting post! And mostly right on the money.

EXCEPT~!

Franziska is misplaced on this list and the circumstances you describe in spoiler text are just plain not true. I'm also not entirely sure I see Maya and Pearl's connection?

[snarp]

Maya and Pearl's connection is that it's made very clear in these storylines that their powers are not entirely under their control, and that when out of control they can kill.

In what way is Franziska misplaced? To the best of my recollection, she never prosecutes in-game in the third game, and she doesn't show up at all in Apollo Justice. Does she come back in the Edgeworth game?

[belderiver]

For Maya and Pearl: Aha!
I'm not sure that their unique circumstances slot in so well because that "weakness" is the nature of the power rather than any implied personal deficiency. I think the twins would probably be a better example all-told... and you-know-who definitely has the crazy eyes for it.

Um, I don't know how to do spoiler text, so I'm just going to put a lot of space here and say DON'T SCROLL DOWN OR ELSE FRANZISKA PSUEDO-SPOILERS




















Kso, at the end of the game she wasn't confessing love or her secret crush on edgeworth... Edgeworth is her little brother so that was more the nature of their relationship (debateable by shippers, naturally) but if you consider her upbringing... I think she did have some rivalry going on with him and he might have been her father's golden child or something like that. All fanon speculation, of course, but anyway, she did what she did to establish herself as better than Edgeworth and discovered that wasn't all that important anyway. When she left at the end of the game I don't think she quit prosecuting, she just went back to Germany to continue her profession there.

She does come back in the Edgeworth game, again as a prosecutor. By then she's redefined what it means to have a "perfect case" - she joined Interpol so she could investigate cases and then prosecute them, start to finish, so she never really "gives up" on anything.

[snarp]

I shall believe you if you say that she didn't confess her love for Edgeworth - though it leaves me with the uncomfortable worry that I might have thought she did because I subconsciously ship them. No! That cannot be! I ship Edgeworth with no one! Possibly with the color fuchsia. But no one else!

I can't decide whether that makes me want to play the Edgeworth game or not...

[belderiver]

No! That cannot be! I ship Edgeworth with no one!

B-but what about poor Gumshoe?

I can't decide whether that makes me want to play the Edgeworth game or not...

I haven't actually picked it up yet, but I definitely plan to just for Franzy's sake.

[snarp]

Gumshoe deserves better.

[belderiver]

Haha, can't argue with that.

[sqbr]

This is a fantastic post, and all so horribly true.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

She confessed to not outright loathing Edgeworth (which is a lot for Franziska, to be fair) and that's really as far as it gets. If you took that as an expression of love you are definitely a shipper. Not that there is anything wrong with shipping! But canonically that's not how it went down.

(frozen)

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I must step in to protect my dear lawyery games' honor. You've gotten nearly everyone completely wrong.

(Spoilers for the AA series to follow, I also don't know how to do the spoiler text so I'm also going to leave a big old gap.)






Franziska von Karma's particularly gotten some libel here. She gets distraught because she lost a case because comes from a family where imperfection and failure were capital crimes, and after her loss bounces back immediately to keep prosecuting against Phoenix Wright. I'm not sure where you're getting the 'confession of love' thing, possibly from the scene at the train station, but that is definitely not the end to her career. She goes back to prosecuting in Europe afterwards, which is what she was doing before she came over to Japanifornia to start whipping poor Mr. Wright. In the third game she comes back to cover for Miles to protect his identity as a prosecutor but still prosecutes to the best of her very aggressive ability and doesn't let any budding emotional connection hold her back. By Investigations she's running with the Interpol crowd, still in top prosecuting form and still her classy arrogant self even though she's not in the courtroom at that particular moment. If one takes into account Miles' time spent studying foreign court techniques she's probably done more prosecuting than he has. Franziska has her issues and most of them are her father's fault, but she's anything but a wilting violet in need of protection.

Pearl never thought an evil spirit took over her body. One very nearly did but Pearl had no idea what was going on and her attempts to channel that spirit completely failed. You could make the case that she was manipulated by others but that doesn't make her evil. That just makes her nine.

Maya's gotten in a bad habit of needing to be rescued but most of it is tied to Kurain and Morgan's attempts to kill/disrepute her. The actual channeling is often what saves her, either through summoning Mia for advise, using Mia as a go-between with Pearl to transmit messages, or hiding from an evil spirit in the last place that spirit would look. In addition Morgan was jealous of her position, not her power. Pearl clearly is the more powerful of the two but Maya is the last daughter of the Fey main family and holds the position purely by virtue of birth.

Yes, Mia died when she confronted a stronger criminal alone. But being Phoenix's spirit advisor is her entire bag and I think case 3-5 easily makes the point that being dead has only made her more badass than she already was. I also think she clearly invalidates the point that she needed a man to protect her, since Godot's chauvinist opinion on the subject is so brutally proven wrong during the course of the case.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that Dee Vasquez 'turned evil'. She's a mafiosa. It's been a while since I played the first game but I'm pretty sure she was evil before she started blackmailing Jack.

And finally, Misty Fey wasn't murdered by someone jealous of her power. Technically she was murdered to protect Maya from the evil spirit inside her. More generally, she was killed because of Morgan's attempts to kill Maya and make sure the Master position went to her daughter Pearl. Nobody besides Godot, Bikini, and Iris even knew that Misty was at Hazakura to begin with (which brings up a few plot holes in itself but let's not go there.)

So basically I'm wondering if we played the same games. If you do go play Investigations (which I highly recommend, it's one of the best in the series) you'll find a lot of Franziska von Karma but not a lot about the woman you've mentioned here.

(frozen)

[snarp]

You know what? I started to do a point-by-point response to this, but then I realized it would take three or four hours and involve citations. I'm particularly reluctant to do so given that - I mean, assuming there were no bathroom breaks involved - you spent about half an hour on a two-and-a-half-page comment, which I can't believe you even had time to re-read before you hit "post."

I agree that I misremembered the scene with Franziska. (I have, in fact, said as much to other people in the past - but then, you responded to the conversation in question, so you clearly know that.) As for the rest of your comment, I've read it three times now, and it all appears to be either 1) irrelevant nitpicks which do not actually address the substance of my statements, which you have nonetheless stretched out into full paragraphs, or 2) your personal opinions. (To the best of my knowledge, Karl Popper never did come up with a way to make those falsifiable - let me know if there's been some sort of advance in the technology.) You also misstate what I said once, apparently under the impression that I cannot scroll up to look at my own post.

I find it difficult to respect that. I am not averse to arguments regarding the defense of video games' honor, because I frequently engage in them! It is sort of a hobby, actually! But I'm not going to do it with someone who's going to be all lazy about it.

(frozen)

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

So...you're not actually going to rebut any of my points (besides the one regarding Franziska, which is a misinterpretation of canon so huge it throws everything else you might say about the canon into doubt because I'm not sure how you can miss her very obvious prosecuting in game three), you're just going to call me lazy and say I was nitpicking. I'm not sure I can respect such a lazy way of dodging the argument.

(frozen)

[snarp]

The reason I'm not continuing this conversation is that you're way too personally invested in the video game. I don't get in that kind of argument; it's not productive. I'm locking this thread and banning you.