But I didn't mind, in a more general sense Penny getting killed, because (1) she bugged the SHIT out of me, and (2) she wasn't a character; she was a one-dimensional object to be attained. She was a frickking PLOT DEVICE. So kill her off, whatever.

Yeah but... that was the problem. She existed only to cause Green Lantern Dr. Horrible the Super Catalyst Man Pain. J Wee Wee went all Ron Marz. Which, oh Joss Whedon, NO.

I know it should bother me more, but it really doesn't. Possibly that's because I was annoyed beyond belief by the character.

But also, in a less-than-45-minute story, titled "Dr Horrible's whatever," nobody's going to be as fully developed as Dr. H. Captain Hammer was one-dimensional. Moist Dude was one-dimensional (though I loved his date with Bait and Switch). Everything and everyone in the story was just a foil for Dr. Horrible. Everything got short shrift at the expense of being Dr. Horrible's supervillain origin story.

I wasn't even surprised when Penny got killed. Every "twist" ending like that makes me think of Lindsey in whatever episode it was where Dru re-vamped Darla, saying, "How did you THINK it was going to end?" Well, duh. It's Joss.

No, no one else is going to be as developed, but I cannot stand the WIR trope, and feel that if J Wee Wee wants us to think he's Enlightened Feminist Man, maybe he should avoid it. Or do something interesting with it, rather than just doing it by the four color textbooks.

If this were the only time he'd pulled that, I'd feel differently, but the soul-sucking lack of agency has happened in his other shows, and doesn't give me much hope for Dollhouse, to be frank.

but the soul-sucking lack of agency has happened in his other shows

I'm more bothered by the fact that he can't come up with anything new, after 3 shows and an Internet thingie.

Does the comic book count? Because he killed a Slayer in battle who had been developed past just being identifiable as One Of The Innumerable Slayers. She was also Xander's love interest, but her death didn't act as a plot device for him to have mainpain or turn into scary veiny Xander or anything like that.

(I realize one secondary character in a comic is not the same as a track record of killing off characters who were fully developed, simply to push the plot forward.)

Is it that his track record for refridgerated wimmin outnumbers the ones stored at room temperature*? Or that there are any wimmen at all with core temperatures of roughly 40 degrees farenheit in his resume to begin with?

This is just me talking, but sometimes the woman has to be a dumb, naive, useless tool in fiction, because sometimes they are in RL. If they were all awesome examples of what a woman Can Be all the time, then it would just be dull. Or is that sometimes the awesome ones are also stuffed in the frigidaire?

*or at least have reached a threshold of intolerance?

• crawls back under refridgerated rock*

This is just me talking, but sometimes the woman has to be a dumb, naive, useless tool in fiction, because sometimes they are in RL. If they were all awesome examples of what a woman Can Be all the time, then it would just be dull. Or is that sometimes the awesome ones are also stuffed in the frigidaire?

In real life, women are seldom 2-D.

You also very rarely see the reverse, where a cardboard boyfriend is stuck in the fridge to provide the motivation for stuff (crazy mad props to JJ-A for doing that with Alias, though).

But the point is not that all women need to be an example of what's awesome about women all the time. It's not. The female character who is a naive and innocent projection of the male's desires, with no internal life or self-awareness, or agency, who exists only to die, not with a bang, but with a whimper, is a narrative cheat from the two-bit hack school of writing that I find offensive, especially when it's not done well (I've seen it done well, and find that skill can dull the irritation for me until I sit back and think about it). (I found it more offensive when Fred got reduced to that, and her illness and death were Not About Her, but hey, bygones.)

So, anyhow, it feels like Joss's (narrative, as opposed to personal, to separate them here) feminism is a pony with half a trick in its stable, and he's been coasting on the cred from that for over a decade, while continuing to not see the problematic aspects of some of the narrative devices he adores. Given that Dollhouse starts out with OMGWTFBBQ level potential problematic aspects just in the concept, I don't have a high level of trust in his ability to do it without pissing me off.

Does the comic book count? Because he killed a Slayer in battle who had been developed past just being identifiable as One Of The Innumerable Slayers. She was also Xander's love interest, but her death didn't act as a plot device for him to have mainpain or turn into scary veiny Xander or anything like that.

He doesn't ALWAYS do things in ways that are annoying. But that doesn't give him a pass for when he does, you know?

Hell, I'm still cranky over the whole S7 "He's different! He's changed! He has a SOUL NOW!" telling sans showing that was so freaking Mother May I Sleep With Danger Lifetime Movie of the Week I wanted to beat my head against the wall.

ah, gotcha now. Higher standards for Joss specifically because he set those standards himself.

If they were all awesome examples of what a woman Can Be all the time, then it would just be dull.

For me, the problem is that I'm not sure any of them are. The first time I watched Buffy my reaction was basically, "So the lead is a gorgeous teenager who's rather shallow and not particularly smart and she wants to be a cheerleader but her darned superpowers are getting in the way. ...Am I supposed to be rooting for the vampires here?" I've never understand how she's a role model when she views her own power as a horrible burden.

And then there's Willow/Fred/River stuff. To me it seems like he's much more interested in showing women as martyrs, and I don't find that particularly inspirational.

To me it seems like he's much more interested in showing women as martyrs, and I don't find that particularly inspirational.

Which is why my favorite female character was Cordelia, especially in the first two seasons of Angel. She was in many ways, incredibly self-aware (I have layers!) Even when she was gifted with the visions from Doyle, her essential Cordyness wasn't altered-- in a way, she was a better Buffy than Buffy was. She accepted her fate in a much more graceful fashion, but still found a way to be totally Cordy about it.

Which made when they turned her into Saint Cordy so unbelievably annoying.

Wrong thread, I know, but it's default Whedon. I think he came closest to getting it right with Zoe.

I think he came closest to getting it right with Zoe.

Unsurprisingly married to the Whedon-stand-in.

I don't know...does River only look bad in a continuum from Willow-River-Fred?

If you just took River's arc, she winds up going from no-agency genius victim to muy-agency Powergirl.