Maiev: The Danger of Female Power

After my post on Tyrande I chatted over Twitter a little with Keezy Young, who writes for Pixelkin.org, and Emmett Scout, who writes for Next. Pixelkin.org recently named Tyrande as a female role-model for young people. I would certainly agree that Tyrande deserves that title. As I state in my post she is great example of leadership. She’s strong, she makes tough decisions, and she listens to others even if she disagrees with them. We briefly discussed why Maiev or Sylvanas might not make that list.

Unacceptable awesomeness

We agreed that the fact that one of Maiev’s main themes is vengeance edges her out of the running for role-model of the year. The discussion got me thinking though. Despite how well she is written for the most part, Maiev still falls into an archetypical trope of a dangerous female in power. If Tyrande shows the lines within which female power is acceptable, by contrast, Maiev is an example of female power gone outside the lines that the writers felt were acceptable.

"POWER MAKE WOMAN CRAAAAAZY!"

Maiev joins other female characters, from the classic Medea to Shakespeare’s Regan and Goneril to the modern Jean Grey, as a woman who is portrayed as so empowered she is driven mad. In other words, too much power for the implied weak female vessel. It’s a backhanded sexism that suggests female empowerment only to point to it as problematic if pushed too far. It is the same mentality that suggests that a woman may serve in congress but not as president (still hasn’t happened in the US), or can serve in the armed forces but not in combat (only officially fully allowed in 2013.)

Now, I do not think that Blizzard wrote Maiev with this in mind, and Maiev at least does not go absolutely crazy cuckoo bananas and end up the villain. Still, it’s disappointing to have this otherwise amazing, heroic, and honor bound female character thrown into question by the other protagonists for simply doing her job.

First, some quick review or background. Maiev is Illidan’s jailer. Remember Illidan and how Tyrande killed a few night elves to liberate him after 10,000 years? Maiev and her fellow Watchers were down there with him for 10,000 years. There’s no indication that they ever got vacations outside of the prison compound either. Maiev and her fellow jailers just stayed down there guarding Illidan for 10,000 years until Tyrande passed by, killed a few of them, and then liberated the prisoner. Tyrande suddenly doesn’t seem so great when you think about that.

Maiev, the prison’s warden, somehow evaded Tyrande’s forces. I can’t recall why if we’re ever told. Maybe it was during one of her rare chances to rest. Maybe Maiev stayed back tactically in the shadows, or maybe she was just too dumbstruck as Tyrande rolled in, killed a few people who had been dutifully on guard for the past few millennia, and then released the prisoner… that they had been dutifully guarding for the past few millennia.

Someone new - not Tyrande or Malfurion, his brother.

Apparently nobody saw fit to keep track of Illidan after he was released and metamorphosed into a demon-night-elf hybrid either. Whoops. This is where Maiev comes in. She is on the chase to track the mutated Illidan down and bring him back to prison. Despite the setbacks, Maiev takes her job very seriously. What’s more, she’s dressed for the job too. She wears full armor with a cape hemmed with knives. It’s almost as if being sexy wasn’t of concern to her at all!

Too cool to feel required to show you her bellybutton.

She is essentially awesomeness incarnate, and she’s not specially blessed or chosen either. You get the feeling that Maiev go to that point of awesomeness through hard work and practice.

Maiev chases Illidan all over the place. She is referred to as relentless and is presented as being kind of hound-like as she chases her quarry. There’s a sense during the campaign that she has taken the hunt dangerously too far – past the point that is healthy. Honestly, however, what else was she supposed to do? Her job, the entire past 10,000 years of her existence, has been focused on keeping this dangerous person imprisoned. If Illidan’s outside of the box, Maiev’s sole purpose is to get him back in.

Hey wait... yeah!

The writing is initially geared towards having the player sympathize with Maiev. Things start to feel a little odd when we see Maiev threaten Tyrande for having freed Illidan in the first place. 

So patronizing.

Despite Maiev making a perfectly valid complaints about Tyrande murdering her forces and freeing their prisoner, the argument is mediated my Malfurion. Malfurion is presented as a kind of male voice of reason and balance, and this is where things start to go poorly for Maiev’s narrative and Malfurion’s as well. Malfurion tries to keep Maiev and Tyrande from attacking each other’s throats. With the way he hand waves the issues away, however, Malfurion seems to take neither Maiev’s complaint against Tyrande nor Tyrande’s assertion that she is accountable to nobody but the moon goddess as very serious subjects. These are both important statements in the game’s world, but Malfurion seems to dismiss them as the ladies just being catty.

Not strictly true, but you should know that whenever anyone assures you that they saw something "with their own eyes" before you even doubt them... they're probably lying.

The player is fully turned away from sympathizing with Maiev when she tells Malfurion a lie. Maiev states that she saw Tyrande torn apart by the Scourge when she actually just saw Tyrande get swept down a river towards Scourge forces after a bridge collapsed from under Tyrande. The player is meant to see the revelation of this lie through the eyes of Malfurion. 

Deceptive, but solid thinking.

There is definitely something very male-gaze-y about the results. Maiev explains that she lied because she knew that Malfurion would abandon the mission to apprehend Illidan to save Tyrande - which is probably true. Malfurion appears to only have obsessive eyes for Tyrande and her well being during this campaign. Malfurion still labels Maiev a “betrayer,” comparable to Illidan, for lying to him.

Jerk even calls her "woman."

Illidan has willfully murdered dozens at this point and was interrupted attempting to destroy the world only moments earlier. Nevertheless, the player is now expected to join Malfurion in equating Illidan’s crime with telling the lie that Tyrande is dead rather than most probably dead. Tyrande has also now become a damsel in distress or precious object of purity to be protected regardless of whether or not it endangers the whole world.

I even caught him mid-sneer

After Illidan and Malfurion join forces, Malfurion once again just lets his brother go – despite Tyrande earlier having stated that freeing him was a mistake and Maiev sentencing him to death. Malfurion apparently just gets to make these kinds of decisions suddenly. As Maiev does her job and chases Illidan off into Outland, Malfurion just shakes his head and says “She has become vengeance itself, bound forever to the hunt. I only pray that in her zeal, she doesn’t cause even more havoc than Illidan.”

Cool power but unsettling subtext 

Maiev is now presented as a crazed zealot. How is seeking to bring to justice a demonic-hybrid mass murdering criminal like Illidan “causing havoc?” Maiev apparently is just too powerful and aggressive to contain it all in her fragile female body. She is out of her place as determined by the male tyranny now embodied by Malfurion. Her ultimate ability, the spirit of vengeance, is literally a shadowy version of herself that is larger than her. It is a representation of power that cannot be contained within the female vessel.

I hated this ending when I played through the campaign years ago. I felt that I was being pushed to accept something I saw as ridiculous. Tyrande and Malfurion, whom I had come to like in the previous campaign, were suddenly aristocratic tyrants. Tyrande apparently styled herself after Henry VIII and believed herself only answerable to the divine. Malfurion now determines right and wrong for himself and changes decisions of justice based on his brother helping Malfurion save his girlfriend.

After such a great start, Maiev had been ejected as crazy and in hysterics.

"No sir, I promise you look totally cool with those feathers on your arms... not like a ridiculous buffoon at all."

When I later rolled a night elf warrior on World of Warcraft, I didn’t let this go either. I always role-played her as a Watcher who was highly skeptical of Tyrande and Malfurion. She was a good soldier, but pointed out the ruling couple's flaws constantly while extolling the virtues of Maiev Shadowsong. Unfortunately there’s no raid to depose those two in favor of Maiev, but maybe some glorious day they’ll let players take the steps to hold those two accountable.  

Finding Masculinity - Groundwork

“The thing about a hero, is even when it doesn't look like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, he's going to keep digging, he's going to keep trying to do right and make up for what's gone before, just because that's who he is.” (Emphasis mine)
― Joss Whedon

When it comes to characters in any media, but particularly in games and other nerd media, straight white guys definitely have it made when it comes to characters they can identify with.

"So you get clothes, and I get a skin tight bodysuit?"

A great deal has been written about the absence of women in primary roles. Women are so seldom portrayed as the primary heroes that it becomes a subject of note when they are. The same goes for any hero of color or a character who might not be read as straight. I agree that this is where the bulk of the conversation should be, but there is another side to this paradigm that is discussed less often.

The portrayal of straight white men as the default hero hurts everyone. Yes, it even hurts straight white men too. This isn’t to say that it doesn’t contribute to male privilege. I know that I’m lucky to have a plethora of positive heroic characters that I can easily identify with. Since this privilege is built on a foundation of sand and lacking true substance, however, there is a cost to having masculinity defined as it is in many games and other media.

The criticism of the patriarchy does not have to be limited to its impact on women. The diminished role of women and the constant exaltation of a certain kind of man portrayed in games and nerd media hurts men too. Patriarchal dominance harms society as a whole. Feminism is not about fighting for half the population. It’s fighting for all of it.

Despite the wide variety of characters men can identify with, there are a few tropes that the nerd genres in particular strongly push to define masculinity. These tropes become problematic when they start to strictly define maleness in very specific ways that are neither realistic nor healthy if brought into real life practice. In this post I’m going to cover the stereotype, explain some of the costs of this construction of male identity. This post is my groundwork for going into how some media like Pacific Rim and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. have presented some interesting angles on the stereotype.

Strong, Self-reliant, and In Command  – Masculinity Defined

"It's a glorious day to be a super man."

When a male-oriented game loads that first cinematic or we see the opening scene of our manly hero in a movie, we can instantly make some baseline assumptions about the man we are watching. After dozens of movies, stories, and years of a reverberating culture informing our expectations we can assume that this hero is almost definitely strong, self-reliant, in command (especially of his feelings.) These are what our culture has accepted as the formula not only for a hero but also a man. Deviation from this template can happen in a heroic story, but it is narratively significant if it does.

"About 98 lbs, sir. Why?"

For example, Captain America starts off his story as a physically weak man and part of his narrative is gaining respect and command – as well as super strength. His initial absence of strength is such a deviation from the template that it becomes the focus of the first act of the movie. Even prior to being blessed by a strength granting serum, it’s emphasized in Captain America: The First Avenger that Steve Rogers always had a personal strength of character. This strength of character is presented as a kind of proxy to stand in for Cap’s lack of physical strength until it’s serum time.

Can you even imagine Han asking Chewbacca or anyone else for help?

 It’s rare to see our male hero ever ask for help, rather than give orders. Asking for help conveys weakness or vulnerability for the male identity. Needing to work alone to protect others is all over comic book heroes. It’s where the whole costume thing comes from after all. Batman, Spider-man, and Superman all make a point of working alone. It’s the source of heartache for our heroes but enduring the solitude is just another attribute that defines masculinity in this construction. There might be side-kicks or team ups, but it’s rare for any of these types of characters to really be in need of someone else.

When Wolverine flips out it's "heroic." When a woman does it, it's "hysterics."

Our male hero is always the general – never the lieutenant. If he is the lieutenant, his general often doesn’t really “get it” so the hero is the moral superior officer anyway.  He is always in control. Even when his emotions get the better of him, a male hero is typically channeling that into something awesome. Wolverine might lose his cool, but it’s always getting lost in the direction some kind of important objective anyway. We rarely see our masculine hero break down in weakness for very long.

"My whole life has been building up to this point when I greet you as you exit your pod, sir.
It was a pleasure to watch you sleep."

Often the male hero of a movie or video game is so in command of everything that goes on around him that he becomes almost like a black hole sucking all the attention and motivation for other characters into himself. In video games, where the player is usually taking the role of the hero, this phenomenon can get especially silly. In Halo, for example, you get the feeling sometimes that NPCs are just waiting for Master Chief to arrive and give them a purpose in life – so much of narrative’s universe is centered on the male hero.

Sure, there are exceptions to the rule, but almost every male hero follows this general template. These aren’t really bad traits for heroes to have . We want to have a hero that is strong. It’s good to have self-reliance and no have to lean on others all the time, and being in command is just part of the wish-fulfillment escapism that goes hand-in-hand with these kinds of stories. These traits are so engrained into our heroes that the template has become too rigid. We are limiting what we think of as a hero.

The Costs of "Masculinity" 

These truly are heroic traits, but because heroes are so predominantly male we often understand them as specifically masculine traits. We expect men, and even young boys, to be strong, self-reliant, and in command even when the situation does not demand heroics. Men come to expect this of themselves in everyday life, despite the fact these traits are usually either unattainable or unsustainable.

Nobody in real life can be heroic in these ways all of the time. To me, real life heroes and the best fictional heroes share in common that they are ordinary people driven to accomplish extraordinary things under circumstances that demand something exceptional. I believe that we all have that strong, self-reliant, in-control hero within us that can come out when the time comes, but it is impossible to draw on that inner power at all times. It’s definitely not healthy to try.

No Bruce! Don't!

There is a cost to letting these traits define men. Everyone will always experience moments when we are weak – physically, morally, or emotionally. We will always be surrounded by others who are stronger than us in one way or another. A wise person accepts vulnerability and seeks out the help of others. This is not weakness so much as it is being human. On a team at work, on a sports field, at school, or in a game, usually a team that can rely and lean on each other can accomplish more than a group of lone-wolf super stars. The heroic masculine identity construction pushes men to do more with less – usually needlessly.

In the workplace men will try to hide or obscure a lack of knowledge or ability until they find themselves in a situation where they can only be fired. This hurts the employer who promoted the man to a position of incompetence and it hurts the man who could have been just as successful as a lieutenant if he had not believed his identity as a man depended on him being a general.

This masculine identity construction takes its toll on mental health too. Men suffer from depression at the same rate as women, but they are less likely to seek help for it at factor of 2 to 1. This is strongly correlated with heroic concepts of masculinity. The heroic male suffers quietly. He believes he should endure pain on his own because he is expected to be strong. In the real world, however, untreated depression steadily gets worse. Our real-life stoic and heroic men become incapable to help those around them, and many turn to the unheroic coping mechanisms including substance abuse and suicide.

On the one hand, dealing with problematic portrayals of a heroic male identity is undoubtedly preferable to dealing with the subservient support role or completely absent role women have forced upon them constantly. At the end of the day, a man is left struggling to fit into an unrealistic, yet positive, construction of masculine identity, while the female heroic identity still struggles to even be visible. Nevertheless, the problematic nature of masculine identity is another damaging element of the gender identity construction in our games and nerd media.

Working towards cooperative identity and monster slaying robots.

We are making progress as a society, but we still have a long way to go. As cracks and fissures appear in patriarchal formulaic story-telling, however, we are seeing a few interesting challenges to both the stereotypical female and male roles shine through. I started this post after noticing some interesting takes on the masculine identity trope in Pacific Rim and an episode of Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Next post or two I’ll be exploring those twists in more detail. 

Warcraft’s Racism and Sexism Problem – Part 2 (Women of Warcraft 3 - Intro and Tyrande)

I would like to give a shout out to noted author and velociraptor expert Emmett Scout for conversing with me on this topic on Twitter and helping shape some of these thoughts. Emmett is an editor for The Next, a blog that gets deep and brainy with games and all sorts of nerd media.

Before proceeding onto reviewing the manifold sexist and racist missteps of World of Warcraft, I thought it was worth noting four female characters that Blizzard introduced in Warcraft 3 that were written particularly well. Lest people get the impression that I believe Blizzard did nothing right in terms of feminist or racial sensitivity, I should also point out what they did well, right?

Tyrande Whisperwind, Maiev Shadowsong, Sylvanas Windrunner, and Jaina Proudmoore were all introduced as key figures in the Warcraft 3 series. They were all strong female characters that accomplished their goals through the point of an arrow, the keen edge of a glaive, or good leadership and diplomacy. These characters had their own stories outside the context of any man’s story. They were fully realized and heroic – each in a unique and interesting way.  

Despite how well these characters were written, however, Blizzard artists did not always present them visually in a way that followed their empowered characterization. All of them, save Maiev, have occasionally demonstrated a reckless disregard for their midriff’s safety, for example.  Depending on the artist, they are often abundantly endowed in the chest to the point of gravity defying absurdity.

Sylvanas evolves in World of Warcraft from "Suitable but Night Elf" to "There's the Dark Ranger!" to "I'm only cold on my head, shoulders, and legs. My torso strangely feels just fine."

Apparently this is the only the context in which many players and artists understand female power. “Sure, they can murder you, move like the wind, spray knives in every direction, and control the elements, but will they still be arousing and able to nurse many babies?” seems to be the pressing question in some people minds.

Nevertheless, despite the occasional mismatched art, I have to give credit where credit is deserved. Here they are in detail one by one, starting with…

Tyrande Whisperwind:

We are first introduced to Tyrande at the start of the last chapter of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. She leads an army of night elf fighters, all of whom are women. The night elf men are asleep at this point, because apparently druidism (which only men practice at this point) is really exhausting. Tyrande overlooks her beloved Ashenvale Forest and sees it threatened by newcomers – orcs and humans.

"Just checking out my dominion from a cliff like a boss, Shandris."

We saw the night elf women previously in Warcraft 3 during the orcish campaign when they began skirmishing with the orcs harvesting lumber. The orcs in response have murdered the night elf demi-god Cenarius. Diplomatic relations are not great among the different mortal species at this point.

Imagine how many worker units and demi-gods would still be alive, if anyone in Warcraft just tried *talking* to each other before starting a fight?

Tyrande, however, recognizes the greater oncoming threat of the undead and their demon overlords. These Burning Legion guys are old news to the night elves... 10,000 years old old news. Tyrande is brave, but she is also prudent. Unlike a stereotypical video game hero character might, Tyrande does not dive face first into conflict. Tyrande exhibits real leadership and seeks out support. This is clearly out of wisdom rather than weakness.

Tyrande and her army awaken the male druids. This includes Malfurion, Tyrande’s lover.

Malfurion and Tyrande exhibit a pretty healthy and believable relationship for characters in a video game. They are both independent types, but they are genuinely caring towards each other even if they do not agree 100% of the time.

For example, they have a disagreement about freeing Malfurion’s brother, Illidan. This is a disagreement with possibly cosmic implications.

Illidan sought out demonic power for himself is the problem… Malfurion thinks freeing Illidan invites more trouble than help. Tyrande thinks that Illidan is precisely the kind of trouble the demons need to halt their advance. Malfurion considers this reckless and even tries to “forbid” Tyrande from freeing Illdian.

Tyrande effectively tells Malfurion to get lost, and does what she thinks is best. After Tyrande has freed Illidan, however, she and Malfurion are still affectionate with each other - even if they are cross. Furthermore, despite their flowery language, neither Tyrande nor Malfurion really strike me as being creepily enthralled by each other. Tyrande’s story is not eclipsed by her love interest’s. Instead, Tyrande’s story is her own, and sometimes is shared with Malfurion’s. It's a pretty good example of how two people in a relationship should interact.

Whether Blizzard did this consciously or not, the power couple’s relationship offers some lessons often lost to real life guys (especially nerds) when contrasted with the relationship Tyrande has with Illidan. Illidan is obsessed with Tyrande, and claims to fight only because she wishes it. Tyrande’s cold polite rebuttal to Illdian is a beautiful crushing of Illidan’s all too familiar “But I really really like you and am willing to do all this stuff” case for romance.

"I worship you like a goddess. That means you HAVE to love me back, right?"

Sorry Illidan. No amount of infatuation or labor can obligate Tyrande to love you. Thanks, but no means no… now go fight a demonic army.

That's the essence of Tyrande in Warcraft 3. She's tough and focused on her job. She is a hero who fights for the forest and her fellow night elves. The Blizzard team wrote her as an exemplary leader and warrior by any measures regardless of gender. She knows when to use diplomacy and when to be forceful. Despite her art being sometimes oriented through the male gaze, her writing, for the most part, is well done. She comes out of Warcraft 3 as a true hero that people want to be like rather than simply be with.

Tyrande's only big fault in Warcraft 3 was her casual beating of Illidan's jailers. I was never quite clear how Maiev evaded Tyrande's notice, but Illidan's prison warden does not give up on her job that easily...

Next installment: Maiev Shadowsong.

Ready and equipped for the job.

The Unconscionable Carving of Beverly Katz

A little over a week ago an episode of Hannibal aired that really threw the series off its rails for me. I still enjoy the show and its antics, but the show has done little so far to undo the harm it has done in Episodes 4 and 5 of the 2nd Season.

I am writing specifically about the entirely needless and narratively clumsy elimination of Beverly Katz, the show’s only Asian principle character, and one of a diminishing number of women in the show.

  

In fact, if you look at the female principles we have seen so far in the show, all but Alana Bloom have been murdered or are slated to be murdered (if they follow the novels Freddie will be killed.) To be fair, a great many people have gotten murdered throughout the show, and maybe Freddie will get to live in the TV series. Ms. Lara Jean Chorostecki, after all, has done brilliant job making the character both sleezy and powerful at the same time. The male Freddies that have gone before her were kind of oafish characters, while Ms. Chorostecki’s characterization is alarmingly adept, albeit still a lower tier tabloid journalist.

Nevertheless, we’ve had two recurring principle characters die for what seems to be the exact same purpose: Man Pain.

The trope is sometimes called “Fridging.” A female character dies, usually in a horrific manner (but stuffed into a refrigerator is what the trope is named for), in order to provide motivation, Man Pain, for the male protagonist to soldier on and take revenge or win the day. It’s an old trope in a lot of movies, comics, TV shows… any media really.

Murron in Braveheart?  Good example. That’s William’s wife, by the way… you don’t recall her name, but you recall William being pushed by her death though, right? Exactly.

I recently went to Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle, and there panelist Cora Walker mentioned Beverly Katz as an example of “Fridging.” It didn’t even hit me until then: In Beverly’s case it was quite literally *fridging.* She is killed, fridged, and put on horrific display to motivate Will Graham and Jack Crawford.

It should be pointed out that in these Fridging Scenarios the woman’s death usually had nothing to do with her personal narrative, but everything to do with the man’s. Murron in Braveheart, going back to our archetypal example, has no narrative outside her connection to William Wallance. Her death is inconsequential to her arc, but crucial to his.

Beverly’s death is even worse in some ways because she was a well-developed character on the show and she had an arc to work with. It’s always offensive when the woman or person of color has no development and serves exclusively to die in service of telling the white male protagonist’s story. There’s something especially offensive about building up a character that *could* have her own arc, but then has that thrown aside in service of getting the audience attention back to “real protagonists.”

A lot of viewers really identified with Beverly Katz. She was smart, scientific, proficient with firearms, comfortable with incredibly creepy murder scenes, strong instinct, and willing to take chances. She was an interesting, well-rounded, and realistic character. Do you know how difficult it is to find non-ninja Asian women on TV? It’s really tough. You know how easy it is to find women, Asian and otherwise, who are just normal people capable of doing extraordinary things in the real world? Very easy. Why can’t art just reflect reality?  

That’s, after all, the essence of beloved relatable characters. In a TV show or movie or game, we usually  want to see someone like us or the people we know, who, through some narratively justified events, is in a place to do something amazing. Beverly Katz was accomplishing exactly that. She was a well written character that made the world of Hannibal feel more real because we don’t only see men accomplishing amazing things every day. With her gone, the audience is only stuck with an increasingly simple Alana Bloom as the only female principle character in the show. Alana is literally used as a sex object in Episode 6.

There was no narratively justifiable reason for Katz to die. Abigail Hobbs had already died earlier in the show to provide exactly the Man Pain that they are now trying to give Will Graham through Katz. At least when Abigail died it was believable and felt like it fit in with Abigail's own arc as a character. She played a dangerous game Hannibal. She brokered some deals with the devil and ended up over her head. (Faustible!) Moreover, she had a relationship with Will Graham that was not wholly appropriate. Will was warned about his paternal feelings towards Abigail and that made her death even more dreadful. Will had a tragic flaw of caring for a person whom he should have kept some professional distance from and it was exploited to demonstrate a point – this is how good drama is to be written.

Beverly Katz, however, made uncharacteristically stupid decisions that lead up to her death. Why would she ruin all the evidence against Hannibal by searching his house without a warrant? Why would she leave no trace of what she was following up on or consulting her colleagues? If she were willing to share what she suspected with Jack Crawford, why not leave him a note or write a report to alert him of what she felt needed investigating? Why did this previously quite capable FBI agent suddenly become like a drugged do-do slowly wandering into her doom?

"No, wait! This is all wrong! My character would never be this dumb... there's a man behind this, I know it!"

Oh that’s right… it happened just so we are doubly sure that this show is all about him. Doesn’t matter where her narrative was going, or what her character growth was heading. Let’s break narrative and all we know about this character just to keep the male protagonist reaching for the stars.

What really saddening is how this contrasts to the film that made the Hanniverse a household name. Silence of the Lambs on the surface is a story about the capture and escape of two different very creepy serial killers, but, more deeply, the movie is mostly about Clarice moving her way through a man's world and coming out a victorious woman. 

In comparison, the trajectory the Hannibal TV series is taking seems to bear the subtext of the feminine being literally killed and eaten for daring to wander into the male domain. The murdered characters we've spent much of any time with so far are Beverly, Abigail, Georgia Madchen, Marissa Schurr, Dr. Sutcliffe and Franklyn Froidveaux. With the exception of Dr. Sutcliffe and Franklyn, all of these characters were female, and Franklyn's character was such that one might as well lump him in as being a characterization of the feminine.

Most disappointing. I hope that this was just a hiccup in the show and that we can steer more towards competent female character in the series rather than very worn out and old tropes, but I'm not holding my breath. Maybe though? Who knows with Hannibal! An earless Abigail may be fighting her way to freedom right now.