Are you thinking about Gone Girl?Zykon TheLich said:Oh...what was that one recently, a film, Matt Parkinson did a review of it on the site. I haven't watched it but I seem to remember him saying the female "villain" was pretty good. Story involved [very vague spoilers I guess] some shit about her disappearing and getting her boyfriend framed for her murder...had some actress in it...uh....look, I don't really do films, but I'm trying to help.
Honestly, I don't empathize with her anger at all and have more sympathy for Jason in that scenario. Though, my interpretation is basically that Jason was prostituting himself to save his family since his choice was: marry the princess or go into exile (and starve to death). If I remember my Greek plays correctly, there's even a line where Jason says that he only needs to put his family aside until he becomes king. He isn't actually that concerned when his new wife and father-in-law die, with his first reaction being to run back to Medea and say "shit's hit the fan, grab the kids, we need to run!". It fits with better with my understanding of his character which is a man who wants to be a classical hero and will do right by the people closest to him. It's why he gave up a kingship that was rightfully his previous to this episode, and why he married Medea in the first place (long story short: it saved her from being killed by her family). I understand why Medea was upset since it looked like the one person she cared about, who she had basically devoted her life to, the only one she new in a foreign land, was stabbing her in the back. However understanding isn't the same as empathizing and I don't think she made the right decision (killing children is never justified). I think she should have had more faith and trust in Jason than that.Asita said:Oh, and going classical...Medea. You know the old "death is too good for them" bit? Medea decided that about Jason. Mind you, Jason gave her ample reason to hate his rotten guts, but her idea of revenge is to kill his new wife, his new father in law, and her own children and leaving Jason alive to suffer the pain of losing them before absconding with their corpses to deny him the closure of burying them. I challenge anyone not to empathize with her anger, but so too do I challenge the idea that she isn't a villainous protagonist.
Anyone with a chariot pulled by dragons is clearly not in a rational state of mind. Medea was batshit crazy.Austin Manning said:Honestly, I don't empathize with her anger at all and have more sympathy for Jason in that scenario. Though, my interpretation is basically that Jason was prostituting himself to save his family since his choice was: marry the princess or go into exile (and starve to death). If I remember my Greek plays correctly, there's even a line where Jason says that he only needs to put his family aside until he becomes king. He isn't actually that concerned when his new wife and father-in-law die, with his first reaction being to run back to Medea and say "shit's hit the fan, grab the kids, we need to run!". It fits with better with my understanding of his character which is a man who wants to be a classical hero and will do right by the people closest to him. It's why he gave up a kingship that was rightfully his previous to this episode, and why he married Medea in the first place (long story short: it saved her from being killed by her family). I understand why Medea was upset since it looked like the one person she cared about, who she had basically devoted her life to, the only one she new in a foreign land, was stabbing her in the back. However understanding isn't the same as empathizing and I don't think she made the right decision (killing children is never justified). I think she should have had more faith and trust in Jason than that.Asita said:Oh, and going classical...Medea. You know the old "death is too good for them" bit? Medea decided that about Jason. Mind you, Jason gave her ample reason to hate his rotten guts, but her idea of revenge is to kill his new wife, his new father in law, and her own children and leaving Jason alive to suffer the pain of losing them before absconding with their corpses to deny him the closure of burying them. I challenge anyone not to empathize with her anger, but so too do I challenge the idea that she isn't a villainous protagonist.
But then, from what I gather my interpretation is actually in the minority among Classics nerds, so eh.
There are many female "villains" in the classical era the point of the mythos however is that many characters are ambiguous and not evil by choice perse.Asita said:Well if you want psychopaths, there's always Black Lagoon. Off the top of my head, Kerrigan was a pretty major villain in StarCraft: Brood War, there's the Mother from Dragon Age: Awakening, Knight Commander Meredith in Dragon Age 2, Zorin Blitz of Hellsing: Ultimate fame, Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter (granted, both she and Zorin are a bit lower on the totem poll than the other choices), there are two that feature prominently in Knights of the Old Republic 2 (for spoiler reasons I shan't mention them here), Azula in Avatar: the Last Airbender, Demona in Gargoyles, and Scarlett Briar in Season 1 of Guild War 2's living world.
Oh, and going classical...Medea. You know the old "death is too good for them" bit? Medea decided that about Jason. Mind you, Jason gave her ample reason to hate his rotten guts, but her idea of revenge is to kill his new wife, his new father in law, and her own children and leaving Jason alive to suffer the pain of losing them before absconding with their corpses to deny him the closure of burying them. I challenge anyone not to empathize with her anger, but so too do I challenge the idea that she isn't a villainous protagonist.
IIRC, I believe the movie mentioned that Gozer could take the appearance of anything that it wished. So, technically, Gozer is not a female even though it chose to take the appearance of a human female to confront the Ghostbusters.Ten Foot Bunny said:So how about Gozer from Ghostbusters?
From what I can recall of Greek mythology, wasn't that every female whose role wasn't to get boinked by a god/monster/hero/whatever and sometimes even then. Apart from Hestia. I can't recall anything bad about her.Nergui said:In greek mythology, Hera was also quite nasty and vindictive.
Or take the same character from the better original version, played by Angela Lansbury, this time a fanatical communist.JohnZ117 said:Spoilers for this one, but Eleanor Shaw from "The Manchurian Candidate," as played by Meryl Streep. The pragmatic patriot with an idealistic streak, gone horribly wrong.