(no subject)

[soc_puppet]

Made it to the fourth season/second arc of She-Ra! I feel like this arc can be subtitled "Scorpia Needs A Hug".

I also have thoughts on Double Trouble.

For those of you who missed it, Double Trouble was a female character in the original series, and was rebooted as nonbinary. They're a shapeshifter, and they're a villain. (Well, they're kinda mercenary? But they've been hired by the villains.)

When they were introduced, there was some backlash; ultimately, showrunner Noelle Stevenson pointed out that it was important to have representation of all sorts when it comes to nonbinary characters, and that includes villains. And I can see where she's coming from; I just have two little things I'm kinda uncomfortable about with this particular representation choice.

First, Double Trouble is, to the best of my knowledge, the only nonbinary character in the new She-Ra. As is frequently pointed out by writingwithcolor, having villainous representation can be mitigated by also having heroic representation of the same identity. I haven't really been following She-Ra fandom that closely, only paying attention when someone I follow reblogs a bit, but I feel like someone would have said something if another canon nonbinary or genderqueer character showed up.

Second, the type of representation that Double Trouble specifically provides is redundant. Nonbinary shape changers are not new, and nonbinary shape changing villains in particular are not new—see: Envy from FMA for a very well known example.

I'm not trying to knock anyone who likes them! If Double Trouble speaks to you, then more power to you! Honestly, they're a pretty fun character in general. I'm just personally a little tired of being served the same meal over and over again, with maybe different spices, when I say I'm looking for a specific flavor.

(BTW, if there's another canon nonbinary or genderqueer coming up, this is your cue to tell me about them. Or to just tell me they exist, I'll take anything.)


Okay, mini-rant over.

Comments

[izzet_bedtime_yet]

Scorpia always needs a hug. It's just who she is.

I have mixed feelings myself. On the negative side, 1) nonbinary shapeshifters are, as you say, nothing new and 2) there aren't any other nonbinary characters, unless you count Noelle Stevenson's "fan" character for a next-generation story. On the other side, 1) being a shapeshifter is like my top nonbinary wish-fulfilment fantasy 2) if you're going to have a shapeshifter, making them nonbinary by default makes a lot of sense 3) nonbinary characters played by nonbinary actors are rare and therefore exciting and 4) the fact that all the characters, regardless of what side they're on, use they/them pronouns for Double Trouble gives me a little thrill. And there's other stuff, but that would be a spoiler.

My favorite recent nonbinary character in a mainstream piece of entertainment is probably Kazi from The Dragon Prince, largely because it is always shapeshifters, magical creatures, and robots and I am tired of that, so it was a nice change of pace to have a character who's just coincidentally nonbinary instead of it having a reason. But that character is played by, as far as I can tell, a woman, so that's moderately less cool....

[soc_puppet]

Well yeah, but I feel like she extra needs a hug right now (early season four), with Catra going all "I will burn the world down around me just to get what I want, even if what I want goes up in flames with me."

Yeah, it's a complicated situation 😑 There's no easy answers here, and your positive-side points are nothing to sneeze at! Double Trouble is a really fun character overall, they're just... hmm. I love the ways they break from existing patterns, but the ways they enforce existing patterns are... not terribly comfortable for me. (Regarding the spoilery stuff, if Double Trouble ultimately ends up on the good side, I will be not even remotely surprised.)

The representation thing with regards to actors especially is difficult terrain, IMO. It's wonderful when nonbinary actors can play nonbinary characters, and trans actors as trans characters, et cetera, but I saw someone express the worry that this would ultimately shoehorn trans actors into only being able to play trans roles, which there aren't a lot of to start with. Then there's the huge pressure for anyone who isn't out as non-allocishet to out themselves to play queer roles, thus getting harassment coming and going. Finally there's the issue of people who discover that they're queer by playing queer roles (I'm specifically thinking of Kaitlyn Alexander, who played LaFontaine in the Carmilla webseries, leading to their discovery that they are nonbinary). Fortunately, the best solution I can come up with to this problem is "Have a whole bunch more queer characters" 😜

[izzet_bedtime_yet]

That may have been me, heh. I generally worry a lot about trans actors being pigeonholed into trans roles/the general idea that if the actor is trans that means the character is trans. On the other hand, a cis woman playing a nonbinary character ties into this broader stereotype of nonbinary people as just another sort of woman....

[soc_puppet]

Quite possibly!

Yeah, I've seen that, and it's gross. IIRC, NerdyKeppie has some products with "Nonbinary is not Woman Lite" on them, which sums it up nicely.

[gullwhacker]

DT is the big non-binary character for She-Ra, yeah. Admittedly we liked them when we saw them; they struck us as more neutral-aligned than Evil and got some great insights. The Q&A that Noelle did with their actor helped, admittedly.

There is a minor bit of trans rep coming up in Season 5, though. The original series had a trio of characters from another world, the 'Star Sisters'. They show up in this series as the Star Siblings; Jewelstar is confirmed-by-writers to be a trans man in this version.

On another minor-but-still-Dreamworks note, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts introduces us at one point to a trio of friends of the titular character. Troy is a boy, Dahlia is a girl, and Asher is non-binary. They're mostly in the background, but there's that.

Not a lot of genderqueer rep going on, but more than I remember from when I was younger. Hoping it continues to improve.

[soc_puppet]

They are very cool and likeable, it's only the larger trend they play into that worries me at all.

I got to "meet" them shortly after reading this! I've now only got four episodes left to go 👍

That's another one on my "to-watch" list, which is more than a little ridiculously long at this point 😅

[gullwhacker]

Yeah, that's fair. As fun as they are - and as prominent as they are - it would be nice to see more human non-binary characters. Most of the ones I can think of are all relatively minor.

It's slowly gaining momentum - Kipo has both nb and mlm rep - but it'd be nice if things were moving faster. Trends and all that.