Post by Lady Ten on Sept 9, 2012 17:07:20 GMT -6
Ah, Yellowfang. The cranky old crumudgeon whom even diehard Warriors haters have found a place in their small hearts to love. She's a medicine cat, but she's not like those other medicine cats. She doesn't fawn over kits or nobody, she don't take no nonsense, and she'll kick your tail if she sees fit. At least, that's how we remember her, isn't it? Maybe that's an exaggeration, but surely her popularity is based on something.
Compared to other sweet-natured medicine cats, she's the fiesty one. Why, when we're first introduced to her in Into the Wild, it's because she attacks Firepaw in an ambush... and loses. She loses to an ex-kittypet who's still an apprentice in training. Fair enough, she was starving and not in good shape at the time; maybe she could have licked 'im at a different point in her life. As she says herself:
...which then raises the question of why she attacked another cat in a foreign territory in the first place. Yellowfang must not be very bright.
Canon characters think otherwise, though, as canon characters are wont to do.
Sounds like your intel is outdated, Bluestar. She randomly attacked and then backed down from Firepaw, not showing much bravery or wisdom.
Okay, but she is feisty, right? I mean, look at this.
There. Feisty. And hypocritical, seeing as just a scene ago she was accepting a pity offering of a rabbit from Firepaw.
Speaking of Firepaw, Yellowfang can't help but be impressed with him and his "spirit", proving she's not so stingy with praise as we'd like to think (Into the Wild, p. 104). Let's dwell on this for a moment. Yellowfang compliments Firepaw. Yellowfang compliments Firepaw. Yellowfang compliments Firepaw.
If we've been remembering her as the awesome no-nonsense granny with a tough attitude, we've been remembering her wrong. She's an old cat who throws around a lot of threats, but she's not very strong, not very bright (aside from memory of herbs), and it doesn't take much to impress her, not to mention one moment she's calling it "humilating" to be waited on and cared for, and the next, she's asking Firepaw to wash the base of her tail (Into the Wild, p. 103, 108). This is not an unrealistic characterization, and I don't consider it one of the Erins' mistakes. However, I do think the fandom has drawn inaccurate conclusions about Yellowfang as a character, based on several markers that place her near the Cool Old Lady schema1 2. She's old, she fights, and she's not concerned with being polite. This leads a lot of people to fit this in with similar information they've gathered about other characters who fit the same criteria, so they assume that she must be blunt, harsh, tough, discerning, and difficult to impress. In actuality, she's not.
Reader reliance on character archetypes is a tricky thing. Writers rarely give you all the details on a character, so they share the most significant ones and let readers fill in the rest. For example, where I come from, if I describe a young woman as a blonde cheerleader snapping her bubblegum as she talks to her quarterback boyfriend, others will assume from this limited information that she may be ditzy, petty, self-centered, or popular. None of that was in the description, but they're associated characteristics nonetheless, and from that point on everyone will view her through the lens of those expectations. It's not an inherently wrong system -- the use of scripts and schemas helps us integrate information and form associations that help us make sense of our world faster and clearer, as a necessary part of life -- but the system can go awry at times. I'm not just talking about stereotypes being harmful and encouraging predjudice here. Even in ethically-neutral situations (if you will), sometimes the writer's conception, presentation, and intended path for a character diverges from the assumptions made by readers/viewers in a way that's not just writing being "creative" or "not predictable," but actively goes against the grain of what others want to see. That is, our images of characters in our heads doesn't always reflect what they "are".
<personal story time>For the longest time, I didn't get it. I'd read fanfiction about Prince Zuko or hear tell from Rolo about fanfiction of the Phantom of the Opera, and I didn't understand how come so many people would write those characters so very, very, very out of character. What was the point of writing about that character when you clearly wanted to write about someone else? I understand leeway of interpretation, that we all see a character a little differently, but there are some things that are unquestionably inaccurate. I didn't get it because they would write these stories and then slap a canon character's name onto this other person and that wasn't that person at all.
And then, because of Sayid Jarrah, I got it. For anyone who hasn't watched Lost, let me tell you about Sayid. Sayid hits all my emotional buttons. First of all, Sayid is a handsome Iraqi Arab-speaker, and you could just stop the list there, but there's more. Sayid used to work for the Special Republican Guard as a radio engineer, a mechanical engineer, and a torturer.
He does not like to torture people. At one point during his pre-"the Island" life, he is forced to torture his old childhood friend, whom he proceeds to fall in love with and help to escape. He is tortured torturer.
But does he sit around wangsting about it? Nuh-uh, man. Sayid is cool.
Sayid is capable, knowledgeable, serious, and strong. Everybody in Lost is a dispicable human being, so the fact that he's an ex-torturer who sometimes still used his old techniques didn't make him stand out very much compared to all the dirtbags around him. He's one of the more likeable characters. One of my favorites, even. And when he started up a relationship with the whiny shallow blonde chick with 0% likeable personality to her name, I was annoyed, but I assumed he was just being a slut and that it was a one-time thing and that he was still the awesome person that I thought he was.
Then, in the series finale (spoilers, btw) he was shown in the quasi-afterlife with his arm around Shannon the stupid blonde chick, and not Nadia, his Iraqi child friend, the brave, fiesty rebel and interesting human being. If the TV were a book, I would have thrown it at the wall.
Later, I wanted to draw a picture of Nadia beating the crap out of Shannon, and the only reason I didn't was because I'm better with words than with making pictures happen. Eventually, I came to see that the issue here was not whether or not the writers made the "right" choice, but that the way I saw Sayid was fundamentally different from how they had written him. Clearly, they meant for his stupid fling with Shannon to hold more weight than what'd I'd assumed, and I'd been turning a blind eye to it the whole time, in preference of my own version of the character. My version of the character is better, no doubt, but it's not canon.
Let's clear one thing up here. This is not headcanon, either. I was not adding in additional background details about a character's life. I was envisioning a different type of person, a distinctly different person, than the one who was presented in the show. I got carried away with the idea of who I wanted Sayid to be.
Somehow, whether through a disconnect in communication as the result of ingrained archetypes, or simple wishful thinking, it's easy to spot one thing you like about a person and reached flawed conclusions as a result. We, as a fandom, wanted a sassy grandma, and we were quick to think that's what we'd got.
It's the same thing as with Daisy in The Great Gatsby or Eric in The Little Mermaid. Ariel wasn't in love with Eric, as a person, so much as she was in love with the idea of Eric, the idea of a land-walking, human prince, much the same way I as a little girl was enamored with Ariel not because I liked anything about her personality but because I adored the idea of a mermaid princess. Each time I re-watched the movie, I cringed at her decision making and every actual display of her personality, but all the same I thought I liked her, probably because I wanted to be like her (or rather, I wanted to be a mermaid) even though the whole movie was about her not wanting to be a mermaid. </personal story time>
So, again, it's easy to get blindsided by these things. We grab onto a hope of what we want to see, and we project it onto someone even when that doesn't fit who they actually are. In summary, Yellowfang is not as awesome as we want to think she is. And it's a crying shame.
Post Script: If you still like Yellowfang or think she's awesome, that's one thing; she does get some points by having a noticeable personality compared to other characters. My commentary here revolves around the fact that she is not as awesome as nostalgia has led some of us to believe, not to deny that she has any merits whatsoever. This is just an article about mistaken impressions. To talk more about Yellowfang's actual personality, a discussion I would happily provide more quotes for, please make a new thread in the main section of Canon Characters.
Compared to other sweet-natured medicine cats, she's the fiesty one. Why, when we're first introduced to her in Into the Wild, it's because she attacks Firepaw in an ambush... and loses. She loses to an ex-kittypet who's still an apprentice in training. Fair enough, she was starving and not in good shape at the time; maybe she could have licked 'im at a different point in her life. As she says herself:
"If I weren't so hungry and tired, I'd have shredded you into mousedust." (Into the Wild, p. 84)
...which then raises the question of why she attacked another cat in a foreign territory in the first place. Yellowfang must not be very bright.
Canon characters think otherwise, though, as canon characters are wont to do.
"Keep your claws in, Darkstripe," Bluestar purred calmly. "All the Clans speak of Yellowfang's bravery and wisdom. It may help us to hear what she has to say." (Into the Wild, p. 91)
Sounds like your intel is outdated, Bluestar. She randomly attacked and then backed down from Firepaw, not showing much bravery or wisdom.
Okay, but she is feisty, right? I mean, look at this.
"I don't need anyone to care for me!" spat Yellowfang, "And I'll split open anyone who tries!" (Into the Wild, p. 100)
There. Feisty. And hypocritical, seeing as just a scene ago she was accepting a pity offering of a rabbit from Firepaw.
Speaking of Firepaw, Yellowfang can't help but be impressed with him and his "spirit", proving she's not so stingy with praise as we'd like to think (Into the Wild, p. 104). Let's dwell on this for a moment. Yellowfang compliments Firepaw. Yellowfang compliments Firepaw. Yellowfang compliments Firepaw.
If we've been remembering her as the awesome no-nonsense granny with a tough attitude, we've been remembering her wrong. She's an old cat who throws around a lot of threats, but she's not very strong, not very bright (aside from memory of herbs), and it doesn't take much to impress her, not to mention one moment she's calling it "humilating" to be waited on and cared for, and the next, she's asking Firepaw to wash the base of her tail (Into the Wild, p. 103, 108). This is not an unrealistic characterization, and I don't consider it one of the Erins' mistakes. However, I do think the fandom has drawn inaccurate conclusions about Yellowfang as a character, based on several markers that place her near the Cool Old Lady schema1 2. She's old, she fights, and she's not concerned with being polite. This leads a lot of people to fit this in with similar information they've gathered about other characters who fit the same criteria, so they assume that she must be blunt, harsh, tough, discerning, and difficult to impress. In actuality, she's not.
Reader reliance on character archetypes is a tricky thing. Writers rarely give you all the details on a character, so they share the most significant ones and let readers fill in the rest. For example, where I come from, if I describe a young woman as a blonde cheerleader snapping her bubblegum as she talks to her quarterback boyfriend, others will assume from this limited information that she may be ditzy, petty, self-centered, or popular. None of that was in the description, but they're associated characteristics nonetheless, and from that point on everyone will view her through the lens of those expectations. It's not an inherently wrong system -- the use of scripts and schemas helps us integrate information and form associations that help us make sense of our world faster and clearer, as a necessary part of life -- but the system can go awry at times. I'm not just talking about stereotypes being harmful and encouraging predjudice here. Even in ethically-neutral situations (if you will), sometimes the writer's conception, presentation, and intended path for a character diverges from the assumptions made by readers/viewers in a way that's not just writing being "creative" or "not predictable," but actively goes against the grain of what others want to see. That is, our images of characters in our heads doesn't always reflect what they "are".
<personal story time>For the longest time, I didn't get it. I'd read fanfiction about Prince Zuko or hear tell from Rolo about fanfiction of the Phantom of the Opera, and I didn't understand how come so many people would write those characters so very, very, very out of character. What was the point of writing about that character when you clearly wanted to write about someone else? I understand leeway of interpretation, that we all see a character a little differently, but there are some things that are unquestionably inaccurate. I didn't get it because they would write these stories and then slap a canon character's name onto this other person and that wasn't that person at all.
And then, because of Sayid Jarrah, I got it. For anyone who hasn't watched Lost, let me tell you about Sayid. Sayid hits all my emotional buttons. First of all, Sayid is a handsome Iraqi Arab-speaker, and you could just stop the list there, but there's more. Sayid used to work for the Special Republican Guard as a radio engineer, a mechanical engineer, and a torturer.
Sawyer: You know what I think, Ali? I think you've never actually tortured anybody in your life.
Sayid: Unfortunately for us both, you're wrong.
Sayid: Unfortunately for us both, you're wrong.
He does not like to torture people. At one point during his pre-"the Island" life, he is forced to torture his old childhood friend, whom he proceeds to fall in love with and help to escape. He is tortured torturer.
But does he sit around wangsting about it? Nuh-uh, man. Sayid is cool.
Charlie: They'll find us. They have satellites in space that can take pictures of your license plate.
Sayid: If only we were all wearing license plates.
Sayid: If only we were all wearing license plates.
Sayid is capable, knowledgeable, serious, and strong. Everybody in Lost is a dispicable human being, so the fact that he's an ex-torturer who sometimes still used his old techniques didn't make him stand out very much compared to all the dirtbags around him. He's one of the more likeable characters. One of my favorites, even. And when he started up a relationship with the whiny shallow blonde chick with 0% likeable personality to her name, I was annoyed, but I assumed he was just being a slut and that it was a one-time thing and that he was still the awesome person that I thought he was.
Then, in the series finale (spoilers, btw) he was shown in the quasi-afterlife with his arm around Shannon the stupid blonde chick, and not Nadia, his Iraqi child friend, the brave, fiesty rebel and interesting human being. If the TV were a book, I would have thrown it at the wall.
Later, I wanted to draw a picture of Nadia beating the crap out of Shannon, and the only reason I didn't was because I'm better with words than with making pictures happen. Eventually, I came to see that the issue here was not whether or not the writers made the "right" choice, but that the way I saw Sayid was fundamentally different from how they had written him. Clearly, they meant for his stupid fling with Shannon to hold more weight than what'd I'd assumed, and I'd been turning a blind eye to it the whole time, in preference of my own version of the character. My version of the character is better, no doubt, but it's not canon.
Let's clear one thing up here. This is not headcanon, either. I was not adding in additional background details about a character's life. I was envisioning a different type of person, a distinctly different person, than the one who was presented in the show. I got carried away with the idea of who I wanted Sayid to be.
Somehow, whether through a disconnect in communication as the result of ingrained archetypes, or simple wishful thinking, it's easy to spot one thing you like about a person and reached flawed conclusions as a result. We, as a fandom, wanted a sassy grandma, and we were quick to think that's what we'd got.
It's the same thing as with Daisy in The Great Gatsby or Eric in The Little Mermaid. Ariel wasn't in love with Eric, as a person, so much as she was in love with the idea of Eric, the idea of a land-walking, human prince, much the same way I as a little girl was enamored with Ariel not because I liked anything about her personality but because I adored the idea of a mermaid princess. Each time I re-watched the movie, I cringed at her decision making and every actual display of her personality, but all the same I thought I liked her, probably because I wanted to be like her (or rather, I wanted to be a mermaid) even though the whole movie was about her not wanting to be a mermaid. </personal story time>
So, again, it's easy to get blindsided by these things. We grab onto a hope of what we want to see, and we project it onto someone even when that doesn't fit who they actually are. In summary, Yellowfang is not as awesome as we want to think she is. And it's a crying shame.
Post Script: If you still like Yellowfang or think she's awesome, that's one thing; she does get some points by having a noticeable personality compared to other characters. My commentary here revolves around the fact that she is not as awesome as nostalgia has led some of us to believe, not to deny that she has any merits whatsoever. This is just an article about mistaken impressions. To talk more about Yellowfang's actual personality, a discussion I would happily provide more quotes for, please make a new thread in the main section of Canon Characters.
