frayadjacent | 10 Greats day two: Aeryn Sun

Each day, write a post about one of your favorite women, trans*, and/or genderqueer characters. A tribute, a defense, an epic meta, a bullet-points list of why you love them, whatever you like! Or post a rec for a vid, fic, meta, or other fanwork that illustrates why you love them.

Last time: Sarah Manning

So, this is a bit of a risk because I still haven't finished season four and am mostly trying to avoid spoilers. That being said, at this point like 90% of why I watch Farscape -- as opposed to abandoning it and letting myself be spoiled so I can finally watch those vids I've been dying to see -- is Aeryn Sun.

Really, a huge part of what I love about her is in her season 1 arc. She starts off a loyal and ambitious Peacekeeper, one who will not just follow the rules but actively maintain the oppressive structures they serve. And in many ways she's happy. She resents, intensely, that she's forced out of it.

It's only her experiences on board Moia -- and over the course of a year -- that she learns better. She experiences a new kind of camaraderie. She sees how the Peacekeepers harm others, and she realises that she doesn't want to do that anymore. And she gives Crais one of my favorite speeches on any show ever:

Crais: I am still your commanding officer.

Aeryn: But I am no longer a Peacekeeper!

Crais: You are a Peacekeeper for life. On the oath you took-

Aeryn: Your oath means nothing to me! You made sure of that. You destroyed everything. I lost everything because of you!

Crais: Aeryn -Sun!

Aeryn: Do you know what I learned when I was away from you? Everything I lost isn't worth a damn. And I don't want to go back to your past.

Crais: I - ORDER - you -

Aeryn: You order me? (she takes his ident chip) You will never order me again.

Crais: I - will track you - down - and KILL you, Officer Sun! On that I give you my vow!

Aeryn: You know what I give you Crais? Your life. I will make you watch - your life. (and with that she powers up The Chair and sweeps the pots up and Crais screams and screams and screams as she leaves)

Sigh. Now that is a girl after my own heart.

Crais, as it happens, in many ways follows in Aeryns footsteps as a direct consequence of her actions at the end of S1.

I love Aeryn's relationships with the rest of their renegade crew, especially Pilot (god, "The Way We Weren't" hurt my heart), D'Argo, with whom she shares an understanding as a fellow warrior, and John. Though that last one is complicated for me because I don't really ship them. I like John fine enough -- actually, in his goofy moments he reminds me of my favorite cousin, who also sorta looks like him -- but I often feel like I don't really get what Aeryn sees in John, and at times it feels like she loves him just because he's the protagonist. Anyway, I digress.

I love how she struggles with her emotions. I love what a fighter she is. I totally love Aeryn Sun.

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From:

luzula

Someday when I magically have tons of time I will watch Farscape. OTOH, I am actually watching Xena, though verrrry sloooowly. My ex-blind-date-and-now-friend and I are watching it together, though we're only partway through S1. It's a bit too episodic for me so far, though I have been told that will change.

From:

frayadjacent

YOU ARE WATCHING XENA OMG IM SO EXCITED!!

Although, hum, the plot does get more serialized, as does the character development, and they stop having a new man lover each episode, but it never gets nearly as serialized as current drama television does.

This reminds me that I still want to write a Xena curriculum (ie, what episodes to watch and what episodes to skip) post.

From:

jadelennox

there's something I love about her development which I find fairly unusual in television. She's not the main character -- Crichton is. And usually that means that either she wouldn't get substantial character development, or all of her character development would be based around him.

While she does move closer to earth-woman normal, that's not really entirely because she is focusing her character development around him. It's because Peacekeepers stand out in that part of the universe as a particular (like the Nebari do), and it's not so much that she moves closer to earth woman and more that she moves further away from Peacekeeper. And she gets her own arc, and the show respects her own griefs and needs which are distinct from Crichton (or at least distinct from Chricton-as-viewpoint). And I love how much she struggles, and where she stops, and who she becomes and how she is still always in movement, and how I believe in her character development even if John were to disappear.

From:

frayadjacent

These are excellent points! I very much agree, and I like the point you make that she gets significant development that doesn't revolve around John. I've seen some shows that give great character arcs to non-main characters, but usually those are more ensembly shows a la BtVS or TSCC, and, importantly, they're not a female love interest to the male primary protagonist.

Haha, I love your icon! Now I'm wondering if there are any cartoon!Farscape vids out there.

From:

thirdblindmouse

I love Aeryn Sun, and I love her journey (as far as I've seen; I think I'm behind you). Thinking about it now, the similarities between Farscape/Aeryn Sun and Xena extend beyond the stoic warrior woman that I initially identified when my best friend showed me this new show and character she'd fallen in love with. Aeryn's story and Xena both have large themes of reexamining and redefining how you're going to live your life, about internally and externally imposed points of no return and how you recognize them and where you go from there.

It pains me to hear you feel so meh about Aeryn/John, because it's one of the rocks of the show for me in a way that central het relationships never otherwise have been. I don't think she loves him just because she's the protagonist, but I agree that their relationship was not one born of comparing the alternatives. That's actually one of the things I love about it? It's not a typical romance by choice in an open romance market story. They were initially thrown together because of their apparent species. John instantly formed a strong attachment to Aeryn because she was the only other human-shaped figure in his desperately homesick and disoriented world, and Aeryn grew close to him because he was the only person in her exile who didn't look at her and see a Peacekeeper. In a normal life course, I don't think either of them would have chosen the other, but circumstance threw them together and something blossomed out of it that wasn't less real because of its constrained origins. As for what Aeryn sees and values in John, I thought the show made it clear that in her eyes he may not have been charming, he may not have been competent, but he saw and valued things in her that allowed her to change her life and grow in the ways you talk about in this post. One of the things that makes John and Aeryn different from many show-central het couples is that while he does have his own journey, their relationship is (at least at first, not sure about later) almost solely about her journey, not her journey as a reflection of his, not her journey as a complication for his, not her journey to being his girlfriend. He is there to give her hugs and make insightful comments, which is a role usually given to (usually female) love interests and sidekicks.

Oh, while we're talking about Aeryn Sun, can I squee about Aeryn Sun doing tech work? Aeryn had her place in the Peacekeepers, and she liked her place and enjoyed being good at it, but not all the ways it limited her horizon were matters of morality or perspective. She's so uncertain of herself when attempting tasks in areas she wasn't trained to even try her hand at, but she is so proud of herself when she succeeds, even though she was taught those kind of achievements were of lesser status.

From:

frayadjacent

John instantly formed a strong attachment to Aeryn because she was the only other human-shaped figure in his desperately homesick and disoriented world, and Aeryn grew close to him because he was the only person in her exile who didn't look at her and see a Peacekeeper...circumstance threw them together and something blossomed out of it that wasn't less real because of its constrained origins.

This is an excellent point, and very well put.

For me, this is all mixed up with a different frustration I had with the early seasons: all the characters were constantly talking about how John wasn't very smart and he didn't know anything and he always had terrible ideas. This would be great except the narrative kept undermining it by having John step up to leadership time and time again, and come up with plans that, even if they had to be changed midway through, ultimately succeeded. And so Aeryn falling for John even as she constantly (teasingly) berates him for his incompetence felt like part of that pattern. So even though I can intellectually recognize that John plays a big part in Aeryn moving away from being a Peacekeeper, emotionally it just doesn't grab me. And it's all very much wrapped up in my overall ambivalence toward John which perhaps should be a separate post!

Also I knew going in that they were going to do a long, drawn out "will they/won't they" thing with Aeryn/John, which automatically predisposed me against it. However I was recently spoiled (to a small extent!) on how their relationship is resolved and I think it might give me a different view when I rewatch.

Yes, I love Aeryn learning to do tech work, I can't believe I forgot about that! It was one of my favorite parts of the show actually. I love it for all the reasons you say, and additionally I love it *because* it's difficult and tedious and not just flashes of brilliance and everything working easily because genius tech person. That was so refreshing to watch.