(no subject)

[skygiants]

Thing One: I have surprisingly little time for tv-watching these days (and especially for the dedicated hunting and gathering that is tv-watching without an actual tv) but I am, at last, finally caught up on Torchwood. I have many thoughts but

Did they seriously just make a character on the show permanently incapable of having sex? On Torchwood?!? My goodness, show, I think perhaps you've grown!

The 'permanent', of course, is doubtful, due to the other issues that are going on, namely the fact that Owen's body reeeeally is not going to last very long in the Torchwood lifestyle. There are three interesting ways they could deal with this. 1.) Start replacing body parts with metal infrastructure, calling up disturbing Cyberpeople comparisons and major Ianto issues. 2.) Start creating a metal exostructure, calling up disturbing Dalek comparisons, though that does not have as many issues for the Team. 3.) Somehow get him a spare body to switch into when the old one's had it too rough, in case the actor wants to take off for greener pastures, which could say some interesting things about the Doctor on Torchwood's parent show. I think the first is most likely, but then again, this is still Torchwood, so there is just as much of a chance that they'll go on keeping Owen miraculously unharmed except for his Dramatically Destroyed fingers. We'll see.

Thing Two: okay, guys, so my mother is currently midway through the Dark Tower series. Over the weekend, she called me up while she was waiting to get on her plane to England, and, among other more pressing topics of conversation, she said, "We really have to talk about the Dark Tower series next time I see you. I have a question for you." "Oh?" I said. "Yes," she said. "You have to tell me - WHY does Susannah have no legs? Does it move the plot along? Does it move the character along? - no pun intended.* Because right now I just kind of have the feeling that Stephen King has a bunch of character traits in a jar that he pulls out at random when he's creating characters, and Susannah just happened to pull 'no legs'." "Well, I can't answer right now," I said, "because my friend is standing right next to me giving me funny looks and also I haven't read DT in years, but I will ask the experts and tell you what they say." "Please do," said my mom, and ran to catch her plane.

So! Panel of experts! This is your chance to weigh in. Why does Susannah have no legs?

* She was lying.

Comments

[agonistes]

...I feel like I'm about to write the punchline to a joke, but here goes.

I blame the (pretty accurate) criticism leveled at Stephen King about his lack of believable, non-offensive, non-sucky women characters in his early work. To me it's always read like Steve-O took that criticism to heart (which by all accounts he did)... and responded to it, at least in DT, by turning it on its ear.

Because you wouldn't expect somebody who is a) legless, b) black, and c) a woman, to be able to be a gunslinger. Or, on a more meta level, to be able to really buy into the underlying cultural mythologies that drive DT (the protagonists of Westerns are 90-plus% able-bodied white men). Susannah is constantly handicapped in all areas of life... and yet she participates. She buys into the whole Tower deal. And she's the one who ultimately sees that it's a stacked deck, and is able to walk away from the whole shebang.

Her leglessness -- at least to me -- is a (pretty deftly used, in my opinion) factor to explain that violence begets more violence, and to walk away from it. She's disabled, she's black, she's a woman. About the only way Steve-O could have added another culturally sensitive factor would have been to have her grow up as anything other than Christian.

So, uh, in conclusion... my opinion as to why she has no legs has to do with narrative function and critical commentary. Her function is to provide an outside perspective on the uses and value of the cultural mythologies that Steve-O uses (mythologies that depend on being white, male, and able-bodied), and because she's got that outside perspective, she's able to criticize those mythologies by walking away from the story.

[skygiants]

Dude, thank you! This is a really well-thought-out answer to the question, although I am going to have to hold off on delivering all of it until she's finished the series. :D

The first part - about the evolution of Stephen King's female characters - is actually a discussion I've had with my mom before; she read a lot of King years back, so when I started reading his other stuff she was the one hovering around me wanting to know what I thought. I mentioned Susannah there, and I think it's part of the reason she's started reading the series now.

[campkilkare]

Sweeney took my answers. :(

[agonistes]

[18:33] SweeneyAgonistes: also, if "Why is Susannah legless?" was a joke...
[18:33] SweeneyAgonistes: what would be the punchline?
[18:33] camacammal: Charlie the Unicorn is the creation of Beryl Evans Y/N?
[18:33] SweeneyAgonistes: and am I a horrible person for trying to figure it out?
[18:33] SweeneyAgonistes: Y.
[18:33] camacammal: you are not a horrible person
[18:33] camacammal: but i am not sure what the answer is
[18:33] camacammal: because she was stapled to the dead baby is probably not it
[18:33] SweeneyAgonistes: ...
[18:33] SweeneyAgonistes: well, it would have been it had Mordred eaten her legs off
[18:34] SweeneyAgonistes: but he didn't.
[18:34] camacammal: because they were gone.
[18:34] camacammal: yeah.

[skygiants]

. . . so close, and yet so far. *dying*

[jezrana.livejournal.com]

Short (ha ha) answer: Because a legless woman who can still kick your ass is pretty badass.

Longer answer: A lot of Susannah's character arc is about overcoming adversity: as a black woman from the 60s, as someone with split personalities who has to reconcile them, as someone from our world who gets thrust into a strange and dangerous world and has to survive in it, and as a legless woman who has to get around in circumstances that aren't always ideal for a legless woman to get around in. You could argue that when she's got all the rest to deal with, no legs is overkill, but I think it also contributes to her hardness and capability and sheer "I am NOT going to let this handicap get the better of me"-ness. If she hadn't learned how to deal with having no legs, maybe she would have been more poorly equipped to deal with everything else that came her way.

[skygiants]

Thanks, Jez! This is an awesome point - although that then begs the question of whether, if it's overkill, that means that a woman who hadn't been forced into that level of hardness to begin with could have been a gunslinger in the DTverse. But that is also probably overthinking it. *grins*

[campkilkare]

Talking to Sweeney, I thought of another one; in terms of the book where it first appears, Susannah's leglessness is kind of a logistical necessity.

Detta is the major antagonist of big chunks of DT2, and if she had legs she would just kick them in the crotch and run away.

[skygiants]

. . . SO TRUE. Thank you! (I feel this is the kind of logic that my mom will really appreciate. *giggling*)