I suspect she has an superiority complex about feeling inferior rather than the other way round.
What, a sort of ultra-geekish pride, you mean?
Subversion isn't just about suprising the audience though (speaking as a complete sucker for every trick in the book). In BtVS it's more about commenting on previous stories, criticising the underlying assumptions by showing it doesn't have to be that way.
Yes, I think Joss tries to do both. But the problem as I see it is that if one half of teh equation fails to work (the surprise) it weakens the message of teh other half, because it looks like it was just a bungles surprise rather than something clever. I think Spike's soul-quest is probably the best example of that. if it had been played carefully as a subversion of Angel's story (and the whole idea of the soul, and Spike's relationship with the chip, and the idea of 'rapists' as the ultimate evil, and hundreds of other ideas) then it would have been a very powerful storyline. As it was, they bunged teh surprise and we can only lok for those other ideas in retrospect and rather badly because at the time we didn't get any shock from the subversion itself, just a rather tedious mess.
I don't know if there are equivalents to those women in non-Western mythologies
Can't help you, I'm afraid. I have pretty much zero knowledge of non-Western mythology.
I keep thinking that curiosity being a childish trait has something to do with it too.
Or is it simply that curiosity is branded as childish in order to stigmatise it?
Of course, one outcome of stories that caricature people is that they are more likely to behave that way. If women are being told that they are naturally curious and disobedient they are more likely to be so, so maybe it was a way for mothers to put a bit of spine in their daughters. After all, the power to cause misery is still power, and desirable as such.
no subject
What, a sort of ultra-geekish pride, you mean?
Yes, I think Joss tries to do both. But the problem as I see it is that if one half of teh equation fails to work (the surprise) it weakens the message of teh other half, because it looks like it was just a bungles surprise rather than something clever. I think Spike's soul-quest is probably the best example of that. if it had been played carefully as a subversion of Angel's story (and the whole idea of the soul, and Spike's relationship with the chip, and the idea of 'rapists' as the ultimate evil, and hundreds of other ideas) then it would have been a very powerful storyline. As it was, they bunged teh surprise and we can only lok for those other ideas in retrospect and rather badly because at the time we didn't get any shock from the subversion itself, just a rather tedious mess.
Can't help you, I'm afraid. I have pretty much zero knowledge of non-Western mythology.
Or is it simply that curiosity is branded as childish in order to stigmatise it?
Of course, one outcome of stories that caricature people is that they are more likely to behave that way. If women are being told that they are naturally curious and disobedient they are more likely to be so, so maybe it was a way for mothers to put a bit of spine in their daughters. After all, the power to cause misery is still power, and desirable as such.