Warrior Princess Exchange!

[frayadjacent]

chaila and I recently did a Warrior Princess Exchange: she gave me some Wonder Woman comics to read and I suggested some Xena episodes for her to watch! My Xena suggestions were "One Against an Army" -- an obvious choice, IMO, for the the competence porn and the Xena and Gab being awesome and having an amazing relationship -- and "When Fates Collide". The second one seemed a little counter-intuitive but I still think it was a good choice for chaila, and for showcasing how awesome the characters can be. Also I re-watched the episode for Research and OMG so much fanservice. It was delightful

Chaila gave me The Hiketeia, which I devoured pretty quickly (well, after I figured out how to get Simple Comic to work right). It was a great story with some awesome Wonder Woman action and two great women characters.

I was surprised a little by how Diana claimed she didn't care what Danielle had done, to the point of kinda cutting off the conversation. It was an interesting ethical dilemma where I didn't really agree with anyone. I mean, I am fine with what Danielle did, but only because of the reason why she did it, which Diana claimed to not care about. (Though it seemed like she did care about it, since she was contemplating how she'd have felt if it were her sisters.) But honoring the Hiketeia was the major motivator for her, which I obviously don't identify with but it was pretty interesting nonetheless.

It definitely made me want to read more, and I imagine that if/when I do read more WW, I'll go back to the story and read it with a new level of emotional/intellectual engagement with the characters and stories.

I also thought the art was quite pretty, though I do predictably dislike the way women are drawn. It's not as bad as many comics but the contorted-torso-butt-and-boob poses were definitely there. But I liked how it conveyed the action.

The only thing I really wished was different was that it had spent more time on Diana and Danielle's relationship. I wish I had gotten to see them spending time together, to see how Danielle got good at her job instead of just having Diana tell me. But I wouldn't have wanted that at the expense of anything else, so I'd have wanted the book to be longer. :)

Comments

[sanguinity]

5x05 "Them Bones, Them Bones," preparing Gabrielle to travel to the spirit world to fight Alti (who was dead at the time). *reviews episode* Yep, that scene is every bit as bad as I remembered it being.

Huh, they say it's the "Northern" tribe, but it's all tipis and arrows and fringed buckskin (as it is in the rest of the season, cf 5x16 Lifeblood and 5x17 Kindred Spirit), which is not what I remember the styling from 4x01 and 4x02 Sin Trade to be like?

*quickly reviews 4x01 and 4x02 Sin Trade* Yeah, I guess there was fringed buckskin then, too? But the stylistic details were a bit different: the buckskin was buried under lots and lots of animal pelts and shells and things. And wigwams instead of tipis? *shrug* I dunno. But in S4 I did not feel hit over the head with "pseudo Native Americans," while in S5 I did.

But concerning the variety of tribal stylings, when you get into S6 and all the Amazon tribes are banding together under a single queen, the camera pans around the queen's council and there's the suggestion that there is more cultural diversity within the Amazon nation than just the "Greek" and "Northern" tribes.

[frayadjacent]

Ah, thanks for pointing these details out to me. And yes, I do dimly remember the diversity in the council in S6.

I wonder how much thought the design people put into those differences between the Sin Trade episodes and Them Bones? I mean, I imagine the set designers at least thought about them, but then again maybe the writers described the scenery and the set designers just went with that. It might not even have been the same people.

But it does definitely sound like there were deliberate attempts to code different tribes as different real-life indigenous groups, which is all sorts of messed up. Thanks for pointing that out.

[sanguinity]

And then once they've done that coding, they run some of the classic icky indigenous tropes. I really hate that Gabrielle is an Amazon queen: I've had more than my fill of What These People Need is a Honky.

And yeah, I know that nearly everyone on-screen is white, but that's still so clearly the trope playing out... Ugh.