[Discussion] Flawed canon and "bad" characters

[anenko.livejournal.com]

Who are your favourite "guilty pleasure" female characters? The ones who aren't good examples of what can be done with female characters, but who you deeply love anyway?

Have you spent hours creating backstory for a female character whose sole purpose in canon is to provide eyecandy for fanboys? Do you feel wildly passionate about a woman from a badly written, sexist series? Is your OTC a woman who died in the first episode of a new series, before the opening credits even began to roll?

Comments

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

All the women in Lord of the Rings, but especially Arwen. Fangirls usually get the Eowyn love (many of us having imprinted on her at an early age) but look at you kind of funny when you try to make a case for Arwen as being worth notice.

Tolkien didn't do anything with Arwen other than make her a good-conduct prize for Aragorn. I figure someone thousands of years old, raised by powerful rulers and magic-users, had to be a more interesting character than a kewpie doll.

OTOH, it's heartening in a way that she's only a cipher -- at least I can read all kinds of cool attributes & backstory into her without having to push back against bad characterization. She's not badly drawn so much as a blank slate.