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Many things bother me about Heores lately. This is just one of them, but it's the only one I feel compelled to write about, at least for now. This isn’t as well developed as I would like, but I’m too tired to make it more coherent.
I’ve been in a funk the last couple of days, so it’s taken me a while to articulate exactly why I hate Yaeko’s character so much, but I think I finally have it. And the reason isn’t only because she messed with the Hiro /Ando ship (though that might be enough). In Season 1, Hiro fell for Charlie, a development that I didn’t mind at all. But Charlie, unlike Yaeko, was likable for several reasons. The most important of these: she’s an actual character.
Through the course of only two episodes, Charlie managed to have more character development than Yaeko has had in five. Though this limited time didn’t allow the writers to reveal much information about Charlie, there are certain details that establish her as a distinguishable character. Through her conversations with Hiro and Ando and her interactions with her friends, we gain a good idea as to her personality and some of her interests. We grow to care about her (and are therefore saddened by her death), not just because the story demands it, but because of the subtleties and the nuance the writers have given her. She’s a perfect example of a well worked secondary character. She has only a limited role to play in the story: to give Hiro a more somber perspective of the reality of his mission and the limits of his powers. But because of the way she’s portrayed, the audience doesn’t think of her as merely a plot device, but as an actual person.
Yaeko, on the other hand, is nothing but plot device. There has been no attempts by the writers to give her any depth at all. Like other people have mentioned, she’s a stereotype of the spunky heroine who does nothing other than rush into danger and fall in love. In the rather long list of examples of bad writing that Season 2 has accumulated so far, she’s one of the top ones. She’s a secondary character that exists to fulfill only one particular purpose in the story. But unlike with Charlie, there’s no attempt to make her anything more than that. Her reason for existing couldn’t be clearer if you tattooed “lust object” on her forehead. She officially joins the ranks of the plethora of utterly forgettable female characters that are thrown into the mix to provide the obligatory het romance, which has no justification other than a perceived need TV writers seem to have to show a man and a woman snogging. This same move can be seen with Claire/West and Peter/Caitlin. I really like het pairings when they’re well worked and believable, but unfortunately, these are far from that.
The latest episode made it quite clear that Yaeko is there so that Hiro and Kensei, the two male characters of the storyline, come into conflict with each other. That’s it. I marvel that the team that showed such a good grasp at characterization can’t manage to make her look better than a Mary Sue. Now don’t get me wrong. I love to watch the male characters interact; I wouldn’t be a slasher otherwise. But I am so tired of seeing female characters used as little more than decoration instead of being developed into well rounded characters with a real stake in the story.
I’ve been in a funk the last couple of days, so it’s taken me a while to articulate exactly why I hate Yaeko’s character so much, but I think I finally have it. And the reason isn’t only because she messed with the Hiro /Ando ship (though that might be enough). In Season 1, Hiro fell for Charlie, a development that I didn’t mind at all. But Charlie, unlike Yaeko, was likable for several reasons. The most important of these: she’s an actual character.
Through the course of only two episodes, Charlie managed to have more character development than Yaeko has had in five. Though this limited time didn’t allow the writers to reveal much information about Charlie, there are certain details that establish her as a distinguishable character. Through her conversations with Hiro and Ando and her interactions with her friends, we gain a good idea as to her personality and some of her interests. We grow to care about her (and are therefore saddened by her death), not just because the story demands it, but because of the subtleties and the nuance the writers have given her. She’s a perfect example of a well worked secondary character. She has only a limited role to play in the story: to give Hiro a more somber perspective of the reality of his mission and the limits of his powers. But because of the way she’s portrayed, the audience doesn’t think of her as merely a plot device, but as an actual person.
Yaeko, on the other hand, is nothing but plot device. There has been no attempts by the writers to give her any depth at all. Like other people have mentioned, she’s a stereotype of the spunky heroine who does nothing other than rush into danger and fall in love. In the rather long list of examples of bad writing that Season 2 has accumulated so far, she’s one of the top ones. She’s a secondary character that exists to fulfill only one particular purpose in the story. But unlike with Charlie, there’s no attempt to make her anything more than that. Her reason for existing couldn’t be clearer if you tattooed “lust object” on her forehead. She officially joins the ranks of the plethora of utterly forgettable female characters that are thrown into the mix to provide the obligatory het romance, which has no justification other than a perceived need TV writers seem to have to show a man and a woman snogging. This same move can be seen with Claire/West and Peter/Caitlin. I really like het pairings when they’re well worked and believable, but unfortunately, these are far from that.
The latest episode made it quite clear that Yaeko is there so that Hiro and Kensei, the two male characters of the storyline, come into conflict with each other. That’s it. I marvel that the team that showed such a good grasp at characterization can’t manage to make her look better than a Mary Sue. Now don’t get me wrong. I love to watch the male characters interact; I wouldn’t be a slasher otherwise. But I am so tired of seeing female characters used as little more than decoration instead of being developed into well rounded characters with a real stake in the story.
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Also, I'd like to add that Yaeko? Is a fucking Mary Sue. First of all, the only "princesses" in Japan are the direct descendants of the imperial family. Which I HIGHLY doubt a swordsmith's daughter would be (since swordsmiths would land in either the artisan or merchant class, and to be a princess, the swordsmith would have had to not be a swordsmith, but the emperor or his brother).
Not only that, but women of her era fought with nagatana (sp), NOT with katana or murasame. Her ability to wield a katana/murasame makes her a Sue as a result, since women of her time were actually trained with nagatana (and were experts at using them) and not in fighting with a longer sword.
Never mind her ability to understand the nonstandard Japanese Kensei is using and overlook his being a gaijin, AND her ability to somehow understand and accept Hiro's modern Japanese.
I could go on forever, but this makes anyone who knows ANYTHING about Japanese history want to headdesk. Someone fired their betas.
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I am so jealous of your knowledge of Japanese history. My college only has one class on Asia and I haven't had time yet to learn much on my own. I'd probably be screaming about that do if I could spot the anachronisms. I have that problem with the Pirates movies, which I love, but seriously, the writers don't seem to know the first thing about the time period. They did their research on the internet, for god's sake.
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WORD.
Even TV Guide "we never met a love interest we hated" has called out some of the more glaring stuff, and honestly, seeing the less-glaring-to-anyone-but-me stuff is worse. Heroes is even worse than PotC in that regard since, really, you could find out a lot of Japanese history information on the internet (due to the internet population being, in general, much more interested in Japan than in the 17th century Caribbean). Even fucking WIKIPEDIA would have helped them avoid some of the worse errors.
Maybe it's just me, but I have a distinct feeling that Masi Oka's input into the character isn't there this season. . .
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