For every waif-ish early Willow/Fred/River he's also given us complex and intriguing women like Zoe and Buffy and Faith and Cordelia and later Willow.

I'd interject that early Willow had agency, determination, and was a excellent example of how being smart and bookish and marching to the beat of your own drummer could be a good thing. Yeah, she wasn't aggressive or kicking ass on a regular basis, but I think she was a very good 3-dimensional character right from the start.

Fair point about Willow, who was not cut from the same damaged/genius/waif fabric as Fred and River.

Well, she was and she wasn't. But it's okay to have a character that isn't completely tough if she knows who she is and stuff like that,imo.

But it's okay to have a character that isn't completely tough if she knows who she is and stuff like that,imo.

See also, Kaylee.

she's a mechanic...that's kind of badass, imo.

When we first met Fred, she had survived 5 years in a hell dimension without her head being exploded. Despite how she died, I think she had a fair amount of kickassedness and agency until then.

I think of Joss as being a self-identified feminist, who is conscious of the issues and history of sexism and yet has some grotesque blind spots that he keeps going back to.

So a human being in other words.

I dunno. I have issues around the whole issue of debating whether someone is or is not a feminist. I feel much more comfortable saying that my take on feminism and his take do not always match up. Then again, I say the same thing about a colleague of mine who works in the women's studies department.

I am Burrell.

Makes sense to me too,but I took too long to get there.

When we first met Fred, she had survived 5 years in a hell dimension without her head being exploded. Despite how she died, I think she had a fair amount of kickassedness and agency until then.

Yeah. That's why her death irked me so much, because it was an agency free zone for a character who shouldn't have gone that way.

And then there's Dr. Horrible.

Sigh.