Make Damsels-in-Distress Great Again!!! Why They Need to Make a Come-Back

Down with Girl-Bosses

There is something strange about recent ‘Anglo-Fiction’ as we tend to call it in French circles. There’s a lot of confusion about it, and there’s a lot of consternation and dare I say it; ‘pisstification’ as might

The Starfire Codes

call it (I had to throw that out there, I love that article of hers, check it out).

What lies at the centre of it? The notion of the Damsel as somehow ‘toxic’ a foolhardy notion if ever there was one. The one who has awoken this sense of frustration in me, was of course the clever and perceptive

Kathrine Elaine

with her new article; I love men article.

In it she rails against the ‘girl-boss’ mary-sue archetype that has come to dominate Hollywood and a great many other forms of American media, all of which exist in a post-feminism world-order of sorts wherein basic femininity is scorned and despised.

One cannot simply be feminine. One cannot indulge in feminine pursuits, hobbies or interests.

Chief of the archetypal characters/plots that feminists hate is the Damsel-In-Distress. Now, this is one that I’m always bewildered to find people hating, and keen to tear a new one though it has been almost 30 years outside of Zelda that it has actually been used in any form of fiction.

Kudos to the Japanese for trying to embrace it and use like one might a rubix cube’s side, they do this in order to try to push the plot forward in a story. And why even write a story? To glean some part of the truth of human nature. The Damsel is the personification of the male-female ritual of marriage.

Traditionally men were meant to go out and claim their brides, one need only look at the Greeks with their marriage ceremonies which included the taking of the bridge from the home of her family, to escort her to her new home.

In terms of myths and legends, one can reference one of the oldest Greek tales of all times, the Iliad. At its core, it is a ‘damsel story’ though in this case the ‘damsel’ Helen went willingly to Troy and likely was happier there than in Sparta. The Odyssey is esentially one of the more heroic Greeks, Odysseus trying to make it home to his beloved wife Penelope. In this way the Odyssey is a lot like Nintendo’s Mario in that the ‘Queen’ is always in another castle/island.

At the end he must rescue her, after twenty years of wandering to find his lands despoiled and his house taken advantage of by greedy and slimy men who had all the dignity and goodness of modern politicians.

There is also the tales of King Arthur, which are replete with a number of damsels that require the likes of Sirs, Gawain, Lancelot, Galahad, Kay, Gaheris and countless other Knights, or Merlin, or King Arthur to come to their rescue. There are also some tales involving Charlemagne’s Paladins hurrying to the rescue of an untold number of damsels.

In more recent times, there was the story of Ivanhoe, in which Wilfred or Ivanhoe, as he’s also called must rescue the lady Rebecca from a group of wayward Knights who seek to ‘misuse’ her (if we may be polite about the whole thing). There are of course other tales, such as the likes of Conan where Conan is always rescuing some damsel or other, most of them beautiful, many if not all of them prone to philosophical, theological and psychological discussions with the mighty Cimmerian.

In the Silmarillion Tolkien flipped the roles at one point of the Damsel to Beren, who needed rescue from the prison of Sauron, then he had Beren rescue Luthien from Feanor’s sons, then had the two work together to steal a Silmaril. Then Luthien went to rescue Beren from death. You have also the story of Turin’s cousin Tuor, who at one point rescues his wife who is a damsel from Maeglin the great traitor of Gondolin.

There are of course the likes of Thorin, Merry, Pippin, Theoden and also Frodo who serve in this role at various times.

In more recent fiction there are of course the stories of Dragonlance where the likes of Laurana who serves throughout the first trilogy as the main damsel in distress. There is also Zelda wherein the epynomous character serves in this capacity.

In the Legend of Zelda at multiple times Zelda is the most active participant in the story, such as in Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess. Arguably at times Link is the more passive one and yet not, as he endeavours through countless adventures and dungeons that he might prove himself worthy of her, and might come to her rescue. Ganon in the story of Zelda is representative of inner-sin and of the sin of the world, and therefore must be destroyed before Link may take Zelda onto his horse and ride off into the sunset with her.

In cinema, damsels’ needing to be rescued are too numerous to count. Princess Leia Organa started out as one, yet she’s one of the most gung-ho, passionate heroines of all times in Sci-Fi and she turns into one in Ep 6. At which time she undeniably needed her brother to rescue her again. There is also the likes of Cornflower from Redwall, who served in this capacity and is one of the funniest, most adorable, feminine characters around.

Lois Kent from Superman is another example of a positive Damsel; she’s feisty, yet she’s the love of Clark Kent’s life and matriarch of his family. You have also the baby Princess from the Willow movie, and also Sarah Connor from the first Terminator movie. Yet no one scorns the Princess or Sarah now do they?

So why scorn the Damsel? Why besmirch her honour?

It’s because she’s one of the purest aspects of femininity and make no mistake, that’s what’s on trial here. Femaleness.

By attacking Damsels, the female Lover who wishes to set tests, challenges and see the mettle of her male lover, post-modernists seek to destroy in the minds and hearts of people as love is important (arguably one of the most important journeys people can undertake in real life) and the myth of the Lovers’ is all-important. If we lose our connection to this Cycle and lose our connection to love itself we lose connection to our own basic humanity, our ability to connect with other human beings.

But there’s more than just the Damsel at stake here, let us now turn to the other side of this important coin.

Always it is the duty of the male lead, the Prince Charming to combat danger, to slay the ‘Dragon’ to rescue the lady fair. The reason for this cycle, is an important one; a man must slay the embodiment of ‘Sin’ that is to say ‘Lust’, ‘Greed’, ‘Pride’, and so on, before he can lay claim to the embodiment of the ‘Divine Feminine’ that he might take on the wisdom represented by her into himself and thus become a more complete being. Or simply put in another manner; he might ascend to the next stage of life that of an adult/husband/father.

If this sounds like something Joseph Campbell propounded it is because it is. And it is integral that Prince Charming do all of this. He cannot be Charming without this important journey, without doing this much for the Lady, he wishes to woo. The man must chase, and must also strive and endure for her, just as she must like Queen Penelope remain chaste, faithful and also endure for him.

The lady must endure suffering, just as the man must endure pain. They do these things for one another, because it is their lot. It is not for the lady to endure male pains and sufferings for a lady, just as it is not possible for a man to endure the pain and sorrows of a woman on her behalf. They must strive in equal dignity together that they might reach a higher state of grace.

Arguably some of this ‘Prince Charming bashing’ as I called it the other night, stems from Shrek II. A great film certainly, and while it always presented Shrek as the ‘Prince Charming’ archetype, people derived (deliberately) the wrong lesson from that movie and began the process of deconstruction and subversion.

The thing is that at its core the Hero rescuing the Damsel can be termed the ‘Lover Archetypes’ Cycle’. It is the Cycle wherein the hero saves the lady in order to win her hand, and prove himself worthy of her, and it is for her to decide whether she will take him on. In turn she is to endure isolation, sorrow and humiliation for him that she might prove herself worthy of him.

Him not rescuing her marks him as a coward, and puts him in the role of giving into his vices and sins. Her siding with the dragon as in the movie ‘Damsel’ which I’ve heard about, involves the female lead absorbing into herself the sinfulness, the wickedness of the dragon i.e. the Devil (often called the ‘dragon’), and becoming a villainess and monster in her own right. So that that movie’s ‘Damsel’ story should have been the lead up to a story akin to Jack the Giant Slayer which was a proper version of that story done right (seriously check out the 2008 remake (I think it’s from that year), it was a fantastic tale about sons and daughters wishing to prove themselves worthy to their fathers, falling in love, each one having to survive and also about friendship.

The Lovers’ Cycle is one of the most important to humanity, as it is all about procreation, about the balance of the sexes and about the importance of coming together in peace and in love.

It is quite literally about love. If you wish to see it deconstructed, wish to see it disrupted and subverted, it is a demonstration of a lack of faith in that ideal, a desire to scorn the very concept of love.

Now this is not to say that this is what proponents of deconstruction of this Cycle consciously seek to do. As there are those who have drunk so deeply from the cup of deconstruction that they’ve become extensions of subversion, and so unconsciously reverse and write and create tales counter to this Cycle.

One could perhaps question also which is preferable for female characters; to be Red Sonja; to combat and tease and otherwise never move ahead, trapped in an endless series of quests with no rewards and no progression in life, or Zenobia, who wins Conan and claims him and arguably becomes mother to a great dynasty, and even organizes for the records that recount his myriad deeds and stories which is more important?

What is the difference? One has a legacy and also is the most important part of Conan’s legacy in a way, as it is she who chronicles his tale, while the other is trapped.

One might even venture to say that the ‘girl boss’ is a Damsel. The ultimate Damsel, for she cannot lay claim to a Prince, cannot break the shackles that have bound her to constant battle and will never know fulfillment or joy.

I wrote about Red Sonja, in this article, of how she has a bit of an attitude problem but also is trapped by the nature of her own quest and character.

In the case of Red Sonja, she longs for release from her curse, longs for a man to claim her and cure her of her strength, constant itch and her need to have children. She longs for these things yet cannot have them, until she gives herself fully to a man. Yet won’t.

Thus, she is not the Mistress of her Destiny but the slave of her Destiny, as all ‘masculine female leads’ are. In turn Zenobia freed Conan from imprisonment, gave him the quest of rescuing her and then awaited him behind a ‘Ring of Doom’ until he would ride to her, claim her and then she would enjoy the bounties of Queenship, become mother to a number of children (including his son) and also get the same ending as Bilbo Baggins in a way by becoming a chronicler/matron of the arts.

Hers is the perfect ending.

And yet she was the Damsel. Damsel is a role, not a destiny. I can think of no greater or worse punishment for someone than to be condemned to repeating the same thing over and over again without ever succeeding. In a word; there is no worst fate than to become a ‘girl boss’ so to speak.