"Your weakness was your power all along" is the coolest moment of eucatastrophe a story can have, if you do it well enough to really earn it It's SO much better than your weaknesses just disappearing
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I don't think the goofy way they played the drag scene at the ending of OG Mulan was the best thing But the fact that Mulan saves the Emperor because she knows how to act like a woman, and no one pays any attention to where women go or what they do
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It feels telling that so many of these warrior women characters produced by sexist patriarchal societies are so typically blatantly superior to most men at fighting. The implication to me seems to be that the original writers thought their Obstacle to Be Overcome was their gender
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Replying to @loudpenitent @arthur_affect and
Like, the whole ridiculous nerd -2 Strength meme has always been stupid; these stories framed the obstacle not in terms of "your gender prevents you from being a superior warrior" but in terms of "well you need to overcome/surpass/discard the social normative place of Woman."
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Replying to @loudpenitent @arthur_affect and
I mean... I could be misremembering my own research here, but in the oldest extant versions of the story the idea that she wasn't strong enough or that a woman oughtn't be soldiering isn't an issue other than for the technicality of joining a male army.
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Replying to @the_moviebob @loudpenitent and
i.e. the "first" Mulan is basically a tomboy who everyone at home acknowledges is an ass-kicker, when she opts to go in place of an elderly father the family agrees "yeah, that's actually pretty practical" and the 'reveal' is only to the other soldiers when they escort her...
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Replying to @the_moviebob @loudpenitent and
...home after it's all been won - and even then it's like "Oh! Hey, he was a she all along. Huh. My gender perceptions have been mildly upended!" Like it doesn't really become a secret-identity melodrama until MUCH later in the various retellings, from my reading at least.
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Replying to @the_moviebob @loudpenitent and
Sure, but it's not much of a story as a result, it's just a song about a cool thing that happened
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Replying to @arthur_affect @loudpenitent and
Oh, yeah - I agree. And the Qi/Jedi thing doesn't totally work. I think they went looking for a take where they get the secrecy story where she still also ends up being a Team Player (because that was the Chinese criticism of the animated one, supposedly) and landed on...
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Replying to @the_moviebob @arthur_affect and
...this new/extra angle with the other Evil Witch who's whole thing is "We have to be evil to be free from patriarchy!" so Mulan AND "her friends/army/country" can prove that's not the case. How that plays out is... absurdly silly, but
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Whatever "message" this had was extremely focus grouped and incoherent, yes
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Replying to @arthur_affect @the_moviebob and
So it's a more "clap" women "clap" imperialists message?
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