Talk:Women attacking their lovers

What's the context for this entry? I mean, "check out these powerful women attacking their lovers" -- is that supposed to sound glib and/or spiteful, or what? Should we be rooting for them, or bemoaning the bitch goddess cliché? If that's a relevent distinction, it would make sense to precise it on the page.

There's a world of difference in the narrative function and agency involved for the women who are attacking their lovers in the examples from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and X-Men 3 as listed.

And they're smegging huge spoilers, too, for their respective series.

--Ide Cyan 07:04, 9 December 2006 (PST)

Does it sound glib and/or spiteful to you? Feel free to recaption it.

As for my intent, it's just observation. I was just watching Alias & it suddenly occurred to me that this particular plot had happened several times. I thought it was interesting that this particular plot device had recurred in all these strong-woman tv shows. So it's simply an observation, that invites others' speculation, additional observations, etc.

Like you could add a section that lists possible intended audience responses, or possible related cliche's & themes, since that's what you started thinking about. You could also write about the ways the plot device is used very differently in the different shows. You or me or someone else could list other shows with powerful female protagonists (PFPs) that didn't ever do this - counterexamples, or other shows with PFPs that did have this theme. One could look at the writers for those particular shows & speculate on gender issues relating to authorship, if any are apparent.

Feel free to also talk about how this plot device has been used in so many different ways that it is not a meaningful observation! Although, I might argue with that eventually ...

--LQ 08:37, 9 December 2006 (PST)

"So it's simply an observation, that invites others' speculation, additional observations, etc." Like a blog entry, then?

The caption's glib because it's so offhand, thoughtless, but recaptioning it wouldn't be enough, since the grouping is also underdevelopped. --Ide Cyan 02:07, 10 December 2006 (PST)

Indeed, it's the kind of thing some people would put in their blogs. Yes, it's an under-developed grouping, because there are only four examples, although as I think about it, more come to mind. ... Do I take it that you think lists and what-not should have meet some criteria before someone randomly posts them? ... "Ball-breaking" comes to mind more than "bitch goddess." Hmm. --LQ 04:34, 10 December 2006 (PST)

spoilers

the S2 Buffy episode in question took place, what, eight years ago? i guess i'm just not that worried about spoilers, because anything you read on this wiki or, hell, the internet, can "spoil" things. i mean, the revelation that veronica mars (hey, there's another one... not a physical attack, though) is a PI at the beginning of the show was done in a particular way for a particular reason, to set up the noir feel; if one encounters that information elsewhere, it affects one's reception of the show. i can't really distinguish between this page and, for instance, pages that list women vampires or vampire slayers or whatever. every bit of knowledge affects the virginal reception of the show. but, just because the whole concept of spoilers and spoiler warnings makes no sense to me, doesn't mean that other people don't have strong feelings and advanced theoretical ideas about it. so people (like you) should feel free to put in spoiler warnings that are responsive to their own arbitrary/subjective feelings on the matter (like you did). maybe you should edit the template to put in lots of white blank space. it would annoy me, the non-spoiler-caring reader, but anti-spoiler people seem to feel more strongly than don't-mind-spoilers people. so i'm happy to cater to the strong (if mystifying) feelings of the spoiler-haters. (i did try to give it a fairly descriptive title so people would know what they were clicking to.) --LQ 10:09, 9 December 2006 (PST)

"Spoiler space" is kind of moot when the reader has no clue what text the upcoming spoiler will concern. In the context of an entry on a particular series, for instance, a spoiler warning is useful because the identity of the text about to be spoiled it known, and the reader can consider her own knowledge of the text before proceeding.

If you drop a bunch of spoilers from different shows and a from recently-released movie, I know I for one would appreciate a little spoiler warning. The Metafandom community on LJ, which covers several topics and several fandoms, usually places series-specific spoilers behind a cut, with the name of the fandom in the warning. That's one way to handle it.

I agree that it would be impractical to keep putting spoiler warnings over older material that you'd expect a) your audience to know, or b) at least to have lost the shock of novelty; but if you're going to put spoilery! new! spoilers! or lots of unexpected spoilers, I should hope you'd try to make the reason worthwhile. And this list felt really poorly-thought-out.

I do not like your description of ignorance of spoilers as a "virginal reception", either, BTW.

--Ide Cyan 02:07, 10 December 2006 (PST)

It's great for you to add spoiler warnings wherever you think they're needed, Ide. Spoiler warnings are just not one of the things that are on my radar as a general matter. --LQ 04:34, 10 December 2006 (PST)