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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2n9MwSP:
semisweetshadow:
More thoughts:
I think the reason Jyn in the book is better is because she absolutely knows she’s an asshole, something which zero of her stans will admit. She 100% knows she is being petty and purposefully trying to hurt Cassian during their fight after Galen’s death. She fantasizes about blowing up the whole Rebel base for revenge but also is just overall emotionally empty and bitter that the rebellion didn’t leave her out of things. She goes to destroy the death star for selfish reasons even if it is a noble cause. Like, for all everyone talks about how the movie is about “not good people doing something good/imperfect characters” and point straight at Cassian for shooting that guy, really they should consider Jyn that way too.
Yes, this!
But we’re not used to having women as protagonists be allowed to be complex, so either they’re Perfect Angels, or they’re Irredeemable Awful, and you see a ton of the expected Jyn hate in many circles (poor @spacelatinxs has been getting hate for rebloggling Cassian content that has Jyn in it, but like, that was canon, those were canon interactions, why would you exclude a lot of Cassian’s great moments because Jyn was in them?) and then a lot of uncritical Jyn hearteyes stuff elsewhere.
But the whole point was that she was morally ambiguous. She had adopted terrible coping mechanisms to survive, she’s a petulant brat to Cassian, who doesn’t deserve that– but she’s defending her father that she’s so fucked up over, and in the end she’s the hero and saves the damn mission. Yeah, they should absolutely have given her at least a beat to apologize to Cassian instead of him just falling all over her, sure; yeah, they could have set up a tiny bit more of a moment where everyone else decides to follow her so it’s not just weirdly spontaneous, sure– but some of that’s just the limits of film as a medium, you don’t really get her inner monologue or any hint of self-awareness from her, how fucking rich it is that out of all the people who’ve dedicated their lives to this cause she gets to be the Catalyst For Salvation after all.
No, she was a good character. It’s not how I’d’ve written the story, but I do feel like it was great to have a complicated, morally-ambiguous woman get to Save The Day. There are all sorts of other problems, but her characterization was really interesting.
semisweetshadow:
More thoughts:
I think the reason Jyn in the book is better is because she absolutely knows she’s an asshole, something which zero of her stans will admit. She 100% knows she is being petty and purposefully trying to hurt Cassian during their fight after Galen’s death. She fantasizes about blowing up the whole Rebel base for revenge but also is just overall emotionally empty and bitter that the rebellion didn’t leave her out of things. She goes to destroy the death star for selfish reasons even if it is a noble cause. Like, for all everyone talks about how the movie is about “not good people doing something good/imperfect characters” and point straight at Cassian for shooting that guy, really they should consider Jyn that way too.
Yes, this!
But we’re not used to having women as protagonists be allowed to be complex, so either they’re Perfect Angels, or they’re Irredeemable Awful, and you see a ton of the expected Jyn hate in many circles (poor @spacelatinxs has been getting hate for rebloggling Cassian content that has Jyn in it, but like, that was canon, those were canon interactions, why would you exclude a lot of Cassian’s great moments because Jyn was in them?) and then a lot of uncritical Jyn hearteyes stuff elsewhere.
But the whole point was that she was morally ambiguous. She had adopted terrible coping mechanisms to survive, she’s a petulant brat to Cassian, who doesn’t deserve that– but she’s defending her father that she’s so fucked up over, and in the end she’s the hero and saves the damn mission. Yeah, they should absolutely have given her at least a beat to apologize to Cassian instead of him just falling all over her, sure; yeah, they could have set up a tiny bit more of a moment where everyone else decides to follow her so it’s not just weirdly spontaneous, sure– but some of that’s just the limits of film as a medium, you don’t really get her inner monologue or any hint of self-awareness from her, how fucking rich it is that out of all the people who’ve dedicated their lives to this cause she gets to be the Catalyst For Salvation after all.
No, she was a good character. It’s not how I’d’ve written the story, but I do feel like it was great to have a complicated, morally-ambiguous woman get to Save The Day. There are all sorts of other problems, but her characterization was really interesting.
