Christie Golden Can't Write Powerful Women

[Voltsmasher]

It's difficult to write powerful leaders who are female because they hardly exist in the real world. The ones who are always quoted to have been well designed in fiction, like Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor or Lara Croft, basically behaved like men with boobs.

Female traits are emotion, kindness, compassion, caring. Those are not traits that make leaders though. I honestly can't think of a way to make a fictional leader behave like what we expect a woman to behave like. I guess they can keep designing men in a hot female body, because that seems to get praised.

I do hate myself for being someone who brings this up. But isn't that simply due to societal boundaries that condition us for what is masculine and not? Really you sound like you are complaining that all the main characters exhibit the same traits rather than that a woman should specifically be a certain set of traits.

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Well, I mean it is scientific fact that women act out of emotion in the moment more so than rationally due to the differences in hormone levels in the brain, whereas men are generally more rational in the moment. Though there are obviously exceptions to that as well. It is all part of our evolutionary process.

I thought men were more impulsive? Doesn't that mean that they are irrational more frequently? Furthermore, do you think it would be more accurate to say that humans typically act impulsively and with emotion?

[Venziir]

Does that actually happen? It seems far to outrageous even for wow.

Knaak be Knaaking...

[Zubacz]

I do hate myself for being someone who brings this up. But isn't that simply due to societal boundaries that condition us for what is masculine and not? Really you sound like you are complaining that all the main characters exhibit the same traits rather than that a woman should specifically be a certain set of traits.

You call it "societal boundaries", but the differences between sexes are way more than societal. They are evolutionary; biological. Twisting women's most common traits into something uncommon is weird to see, as it should be.

[CardiB]

Yikes , billions of dollars, and you can't bang out a decent female lead? must suck to be a 1% company, on wait bfa about make bank, Poggers

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ok now put her into wow and watch how people bitch that shes cowardly and weak. shes a fun character but she isnt someone id like leading my faction, she survives through subterfuge and wit, not through any overtly powerful characteristics. she honestly wouldnt work in wows setting where every main character needs to be a super hero.

THAT'S A GOOD FEMALE CHARACTER!!!!!!!!!!! HELLO!!

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A powerful woman is a mother, a matriarch of a family - not a warrior.

She can't write powerful women because society has forgotten what they are.

Yikes i think i'm losing brain cells in this thread.... the sexism, i'm not surprised, basement dwelling cretins.

[Psychotrip]

Go apply for her job then if you think you can do better?

This is such a lazy, pathetic deflection of criticism.

"This chef spit in my food"

"Why don't you apply for his job if you think you can do better!"

Give me a fucking break. According to people like you, criticism cannot exist and people aren't allowed to judge the content they consume. We should all just be mindless little drones thanking the people who are kind enough to the produce products we pay for, and never question them at all.

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Well, I mean it is scientific fact that women act out of emotion in the moment more so than rationally due to the differences in hormone levels in the brain, whereas men are generally more rational in the moment. Though there are obviously exceptions to that as well. It is all part of our evolutionary process.

I'm gonna go ahead and bet that you've never taken a psychology or neuroscience course in your life.

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Truth be told, Golden doesn't have the creative authority, Blizzard has it. She has to work with the directions they give her. And Blizzard's narrative ever since they started slowly but surely replacing the old guard is in shambles.

They can't decide what to do with their cast of characters and instead only know that they want "strong female characters". That's why Jaina is not a villain even if she's couple of expansion past that point. That's why Sylvanas is doing decisions on a whim even though she is supposed to be a great strategist and tactican. That's why Tyrande is left doing nothing, because they don't really know what they want to do with her.

That said, Warcrimes was a trainwreck. The whole plot was such idiotism I still wonder who even thought this would be a good idea.

Now this is a good point. I have no idea how much of this is Golden's fault and how much is Blizzard's. I wish we had a better idea of how much creative power the writers have, and how closely they work with the game designers.

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Give examples of well written female characters then, lets see it. not that it fixes any issues blizz has but you might just be holding blizz up to a standard nobody meets.

I mean, while I hated Sylvanas as a person I thought she was a pretty good character up until recently. You can be villainous without coming off as emotionally incompetent.

Tyrande has always been pretty bad, but I blame that more on Blizzard's weird fetish for humiliating the night elves than an inability to write female characters.

It just feels like Blizzard has only a few tricks up their sleeve when it comes to character development. Any "strong" female has to either be incompetent or be overwrought with her own emotions. There's nothing wrong with doing that every now and then, but it's just become laughably transparent at this point.

[Deleted]

Ironically, Sylvanas and Jaina both act like stereotype women. Staying angry about old shit, making erational emotional decisions.
I think she did perfect portraiting them as strong women. They even chewed out the males who didnt agree with them.

Im still waiting for the emotional breakdown: "LIFE IS REALLY HARD FOR A WOMEN YOUKNOW?!" and then they storm off and we dont see them untill the next patch.

[baskev]

It's a problem I see in a lot of literature unfortunately; where an author has trouble writing a powerful woman, they either write them like a man or like a petulant child. Thinking back on the three powerful women Christie Golden has had the honor of writing for, they all behave relatively the same and it's all pretty unbecoming. And now that she's working for Blizzard as a writer for the game and not just the novels, a lot of the characters have gone downhill.

#1: Tyrande Whisperwind
She was a main character in War Crimes, acting as the Alliance's prosecution against Garrosh Hellscream in his trial. She lost her temper easily, over-reacted to not getting her way, and did not at all come off as a thousands-of-years-old priestess. I'm surprised she didn't stomp her feet and slam doors, to be honest.

#2: Jaina
Jaina's had it rough for a long time, but she's always taken her duties with the Kirin Tor and Dalaran very seriously. Up until she didn't get her way in Legion and the other council members out-voted her. So she threw a fit and ran away. Can't get what I want? Then I don't want anything at all!

#3: Sylvanas
Arguably one of the most intelligent leaders (devious too!) She's also undead, and the undead have trouble feeling emotions, Sylvanas included if you read her bits in War Crimes. But suddenly she can be angered to the point of burning down her political advantage? It just seems too out-of-character for her.


Are there any other characters that have been turned into emotion-fueled children that lash out when they don't get their way? Or am I seeing patterns where there aren't any?

And you do not know how blizzard makes its story.
You do know that blizzard is famous for keeping the story direction in THEIR HANDS.
They say: hero/villian X,Y,Z need to do this and that. And this is the direction we want them to go in. Fill the gaps.
Its a paint by numbers where the main subject ( the fruit bowl) is set instone. all she has to do is color it in and give it a boring background.
SO all golden gets to do is fill the gaps.

[MHMabrito]

#3: Sylvanas
Arguably one of the most intelligent leaders (devious too!) She's also undead, and the undead have trouble feeling emotions, Sylvanas included if you read her bits in War Crimes. But suddenly she can be angered to the point of burning down her political advantage? It just seems too out-of-character for her.

Not sure where you're getting the anger. She knew burning the tree would ruin their spirits, not because she was in a pissy fit?

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But to be fair Jaina is more interesting now than she has ever been. IF there's one person I give Golden credit for changing (after reading Tides of War) it's Jaina. Maybe she isnt 'powerful' but she is a damaged women who is haunted by the ghosts of her past, she has hatred but is justified for that hatred. I think she is one of the better written characters in WoW.

Exactly, at this point, a neutral Jaina would be ridiculous

[Unholyground]

I'm gonna go ahead and bet that you've never taken a psychology or neuroscience course in your life.

I have listened to many a scientist on this as well as experts in the field, it is disingenuous to say there are no differences in our thought processes.

[Psychotrip]

I have listened to many a scientist on this as well as experts in the field, it is disingenuous to say there are no differences in our thought processes.

You’re moving the goalposts and twisting what you initially said to sound more palatable. Yes, there are physiological differences between men and women. The way you seem to interpret these differences is absolutely laughable.

[Unholyground]

You’re moving the goalposts and twisting what you initially said to sound more palatable. Yes, there are physiological differences between men and women. The way you seem to interpret these differences is absolutely laughable.

We actually think and make choices in a fundamentally different way too, approaching issues and problems from a different way. It is not being mean or anything it is just the way it is.

[Psychotrip]

We actually think and make choices in a fundamentally different way too, approaching issues and problems from a different way. It is not being mean or anything it is just the way it is.

I’m not saying it’s mean. I’m saying you don’t understand how research studies work, and are making broad, sweeping conclusions about how much they apply to real-world situations when other aspects are factored in.