Women Characters as Spies
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Re: Women Characters as Spies
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Not to mention, the women who weren't spies, aside from the murder and kidnap victims, weren't either of these things, but were sort of elevated at times, like Jacko's sister, Sarah, being much better at tracking than he was.
I also think it's a side effect of having the point of view be so close to the men, so it doesn't give much development to characters they don't interact with on a frequent basis.
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Dude, I totally agree. It was like the women were objectified even as they were being (supposedly) “empowered”. Almost as if they were dehumanized and deconstructed and washed-out to be the bare minimum of a plot-driven character. There wasn’t any pathos. Like you said, it felt like they were easily disposable, just complimentary to the male characters. Almost like they were accessories rather than people.Ever_Reading wrote: ↑03 Feb 2019, 14:15 I am glad you brought this up. I didn't like how women were generally portrayed in the book. In my opinion, most of the female spies were easily disposable. Out of all of them, Yasmina was the most well-developed. I couldn't tell the rest apart from one another. It felt like they were simply included to benefit and help Jamie, Jacko and the other lead male characters.
While they came across as smart, it was clear their looks and bodies did most of the work for them. They were effective in their roles but I wish more work could have been done to make their personalities shine through.
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Bad character development totally kills a story, honestly. The plot can be great, but if the characters suck, the story will suck, too. Good characters can carry a lame plot, but even a dope plot can’t support poorly written characters.
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They are all too much alike, so there's basically no difference between them. Thus, they become weirdly uninteresting.
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You raise an excellent point here, though I do have to wonder. Is it that it was done because of a lack of interest in developing extended points of view for them, or is it because the author chose not to focus on things that did not directly contribute to the overall character arcs for Jack and Jamie?Philip LoPresti wrote: ↑16 Apr 2019, 18:24 I think the problem with women in the book isn't that they're incapable, it's that they're all basically the same kind of capable. They're almost completely interchangeable- they're all smart, flirty, courageous...
They are all too much alike, so there's basically no difference between them. Thus, they become weirdly uninteresting.
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I don't think any of the women are poorly characterized per se, but they definitely are all alike.
I think it undercuts how strong the female characters are, or should be.
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