#ttte rant

I do not believe Nia and Rebecca are well written female characters within the cgi series. Both of them remind me of the most stereotypical female characters one can develop in a short period, and at this point are just filler characters for a show. While I enjoy them as characters, they’re both just stereotypical. Rebecca is the happy go lucky careless female lead, and Nia is a Mary Sue, but at the same time the “we need to make the equality write off” characters. Most importantly, neither of them have insecurities that others have. My point here is that Nia and Rebecca are poorly written characters, they both lack depth, and erase some forms of representation, but this doesn’t make them bad characters.

In addition to these topics, I'll be inserting my opinions of Percy because he's my absolute favorite character in the show, and how his representation of being misunderstood and mishearing got turned into him being portrayed as an incompetent child.

Let's start with Nia. I have a lot to say about her. Nia lacks depth in the way of who she is. She’s super similar to Gordon, has poor communication with several characters, and doesn’t have a purpose besides being there. I say she and Gordon are very similar because they’re both proud, stubborn, and intelligent engines. While that might be all they have in common, their differences are very obvious. Gordon has insecurities that are plainly obvious, he hates being seen as less, he hates not being seen as good, and he hates being compared to his brother. Nia? Nothing. She is a poorly written equality character just so Mattel could make a mark in the world and proudly say “We have equality” while erasing a well beloved character, Edward. I would love to see Nia be more insecure about how she looks in a similar way to James would, or be worried about something as small as how her wheels look, but Mattel doesn’t give us that.

Rebecca’s turn now, I have a lot to say here as well. I will say this once, her character is a standard happy go lucky but careless character. She loves her job but messes up trying to make a great first impression by leaving stations early to get on time to places and in the end, it messes up the time table, confuses passengers, and even upsets the Flying Scotsman. The same thing happened with her like it did to Nia- Rebecca also lacks a sense of flaws. Her class was prone to wheel slippage, so why can't she be self-conscious about something as simple as that (Thank you Unlucky Tug, great insecurity to give a character!) be implemented into the storyline. She lacks depth by being a walking stereotype of a character.

And while you could make the argument that it's a kids show, a kids show still needs to have depth. In the end, a character not having flaws makes them lack representation. For example, James and being vain. His vanity comes from a place of fear, hurt, and self consciousness. In a way, he's worried if he doesn't look good enough, he’ll be scrapped. He's over confident, yes, but once he realizes he'll do something that risks ruining his paint, he gets sloppy and careless just to get the task over with. He wants to be comparable with Henry and Gordon. On the topic of those two, Gordon represents a need for schedule and repetition, which was EXACTLY what Gordon was built for. He's the prototype for the A1 Pacific, he was built for repeating runs, testing until he breaks. It's the big downfall of the relationship in the show between him and Scotsman because Scotsman teases him that he’ll be little because he’ll never run on the mainland. Much in the same way, Henry is stuck in there with his anxiety issues. Yes the CGI series (especially nitrogen) butchered Henry, and ill stand by that opinion, his cautiousness comes from not wanting to be stuck in a place where he was before. He doesn’t want to be seen as a failed engine anymore. Where are these flaws for Nia and Rebecca if not there? They’re dumbed down to cute female engines who are there just because they needed an excuse to be the main cast.

Another great example of a character not used to their full potential is Edward, who for a while was shown to be scared of being scrapped. Edward is a kind old man archetype. His whole thing was being kind, but cheeky, and having good advice for when someone needs it. In the series he encourages Thomas to tease Gordon, and many see him as wise when others see him as a silly old man (COUGH.. GORdoN… COUGH). When he was sidelined, he became visibly more and more upset in the model series, going from a happy old man to being sad and worried. His being flawed was thinking he’d be scrapped because he was old. And then Emliy joined and suddenly there was an older engine. I only bring this up because while Edward got sidelined, he never lost what his character was like what had happened to percy.  Having these flaws while being sidelined was his lost potential, and he eventually got around to being better, but he still has a well written personality, archetype, and has flaws and insecurities that Nia and Rebecca lack.

In the same way they’re both dumbed down, Percy was too. He's extremely childish, immature, and stupid. But he really isn’t. In both the books and the model era, he was in big issues. Percy is yes, immature from the start, but he is far from dumb. He has misunderstandings that get corrected, and taken as a  chance to learn, but it's because previously he had never ran before- do we remember that he didn’t even have a name? Percy gets so stereotyped down into a child that he cannot recover from it. His insults go missed, his personality gets stereotyped, and his flaws get smothered away. He is a flawless character by the end of the show (besides being a tad dumb) but if anything, it's exactly how Nia and Rebecca are.

While they are poorly written characters, they aren't bad characters. They have their own purposes they do, but they just feel like a lazy attempt at equality. Nia being just a Mary Sue and Rebecca being a happy go lucky careless just gives “stereotypical female” character to me just like Emily did when she was first introduced to the show. A bossy female? Sounds like a very narrow minded view of a character. They lack what's important- having flaws and insecurities that make a character what they should be.

And while it's just my opinion of them, they show what they were written for. Inclusion. That's all. I like these characters, I just wish there was more flavor to them.