Ukraine and Taiwan

The proudly Russian inhabitants of Ukraine celebrated the taking of their land by Russia. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin pretended to be a liberator… even as he plotted to conquer a free people.

The President of the Russian Federation made a secret and subtle pact with Xi Jinping: DICTATOR TO DICTATOR. Russia would support the conquest of the free people of Taiwan… if China would support the conquest of Ukraine. Both tyrants would pretend to be liberating their victims. The children of the conquered would be brainwashed to believe the lie is true. Their lands would languish for their own supposed good.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has done great good for his country… because Russia is a vessel for his own ego. He does love himself enough to care for his extended self.

TO BE CLEAR: Putin’s accusations against the West are not entirely unfounded. The fall of the Soviet Union was terrible for Russia, and the Russians asked for help. It was evil to forsake and betray these desperate people. It assured that a man like Putin would come to power.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is not in trouble because he is against the West. His sin is not that he plotted against a country that was recently a province of his country. It is that he was willing to sacrifice a free people to do it. There is no sin where there is no knowledge of sin… and he did not realize that the Ukrainians were indeed a free people. He had no such ignorance about Taiwan.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin imagined evil against FREEDOM itself, not accidently but deliberately, and with plenty of time to think about it. Volodymyr Oleksandrovich Zelensky is proving the better man and his people are proving themselves the better people. Ukraine and its president are the forces of good against the forces of evil.

"But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty." 1 Corinthians 1:27

https://shawnotooleblog.blogspot.com/2021/08/an-american-about-russia.html

Female Villains

Not all stories have baddies. The protagonists may be challenged by a mindless thing, such as an animal, a fire, a disease or a natural disaster. The greatest fiction does have villains, however. Even if the main threat is otherwise, there is evil to contend with.

The significance of villains is that they are people as the problem. They are deliberately a threat. To contend with them is a clash of wills. Even if sympathetic, the villain is the will to evil personified.

Men have always been the warriors. Women are seldom combatants. The heroes and villains of action-adventure contend with each other violently, thus, the heroes and villains are traditionally male characters.

The heroine and the villainous dominatrix are not new, but they have only recently become somewhat common. The female characters of action-adventure are traditionally the damsel in distress and the seductress. The usual exceptions were the hero’s mother or the villain’s eye-candy girlfriend.

Society is more comfortable with the idea of a female character being a hero than a villain. She may slay men and all is well, since her victims are baddies. If she is harmed, it is by baddies, thus, our ideals are not subverted.

Society is uncomfortable with the idea of female villains. The very idea acknowledges that women may personify the will to evil. The sex of our mothers is vilified… and that is scary to us, who were all children. We are more comfortable with the idea that the female villain is not actually a villain, but rather the victim of the actual villain, turned to evil by him.

What if a woman is actually murderous… and not because a man drove her to it? She is a villain because she wants to do evil things, for whatever reason. Not only is she willing to kill, she delights in doing so.

Not every villain, male or female, is reprobate. The character may have a truly sensible reason for his or her villainy, even if it involves killing people. Crafting such a figment of imagination takes more effort and skill to get right, however. It is much easier to make a villain evil for the sake of evil, to suit the story as the protagonist’s foil.

Limiting female villains to always being sympathetic marginalizes female characters in action-adventure entirely. Imaginary women must be allowed to thrive in the full spectrum of the genre. They must be allowed to be the best or worst people in their stories… or else being “female” shall mean “inferior” as a figment of imagination.

https://www.deviantart.com/yellowplasma

Sex and Bodies

DEAD WOMEN are thematically distinct in fiction from the idea of dead men. The women are assumed were helpless victims whereas men are assumed slain in battle.

Traditionally, when the woman who dies is an important character, she is the true love of the protagonist. She succumbs to a disease or is murdered by the villain. Her death or pending death sets the story in motion either way.

When the man who dies is an important character, it is as the villain paying for his villainy or the hero sacrificing himself to save the day. His end ends the story either way.

When the woman who dies is unimportant, it is typically as the easy victim of a murderous stranger. She may be shown cringing and screaming, even if the violence itself is not actually shown. Her death is eroticized, probably by having her killed while naked or half naked.

When the man who dies is unimportant, it is typically as one of many slaughtered in a confrontation. If not, he is the victim of some threat or accident. His death is to be instead of main characters, villains or heroes.

A man as the true love of the protagonist is only manly if he dies protecting her. He is considered a weakling otherwise, even if the killer can kill most people quite easily.

A woman dying as the villain paying for her villainy is no different than when the antagonist is male, except that sensibilities make her demise tragic for no other reason than she is female. If she is the heroine sacrificing herself to save the day, she is deemed especially heroic.

A man as the easy victim of a murderous stranger is dismissed as a weakling, especially if he is shown cringing and screaming. People are more apt to be amused than horrified, even if the man is supposedly an innocent victim.

A woman as one of many slaughtered in a confrontation is rather unexpected, especially if she is one of the combatants. A nameless woman as the victim of a threat or accident is mourned as a matter of principle, even if she is a baddie.

Why is the idea of women being dead different than men being dead? How are these imaginary corpses any different as figments of imagination? SEX! We understand that men wage war and women are often the spoils of war. With such in mind, we expect the expected combatants to perish. We expect the expected spoils to be taken alive. We expect our fiction to ring true accordingly.

https://www.deviantart.com/yellowplasma