I think that Yana changed and improved the way she writes all her female characters over the years. Starting from Lizzy, that since her aunt's death appeared way more mature. I'm a huge Lizzy fan but I still cringe at how irritating she was made to be in the first volume.
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Yes, I strongly agree with you. At the beginning, all female characters who actually had something to do were designed as antagonists whose motivations stem from fEmaLe Em0tIOnssss (Madam Red, Lizzie, Grell). Right now in Kuroshitsuji, female characters fulfill all kinds of roles, and it is great to see.
I am not sure whether âthose choicesâ were intentional, or just the result of Yanaâs BL-industry habits kicking in, but âthose choicesâ were certainly poor ones.
Many if not most BL artists (especially a decade ago) try to refrain from inserting too many female characters, for female characters are considered obstacles to âwholesome love between menâ. Unsurprisingly, most BL mangas have few to even no female characters whatsoever. In this fashion, when female characters are present in the BL genre however, they are often indeed portrayed exactly as 'an obstacleâ, because a female character that is âtoo lovableâ would become a potential love-rival for the âshippable boysâ (McLelland, 2000). In most published BL manga where mangaka seem to hate writing ACTUAL chemistry for the intended couple, you canât afford to have ANY other candidate, right?
Also noteworthy is that female characters in the BL genre are often cartoonishly hyper-feminine. Traditionally âfemaleâ characteristics like âdeadly curiosityâ , âhysteriaâ and âobsession with outward appearance/cutenessâ are amplified and portrayed as sins, probably to remind the audience why male-male is the only legitimate ship.
Obviously Kuroshitsuji is not a BL (as explained here), but Yana was still a BL artist. And judging from Kuroshitsujiâs youngest days, I would say old habits die hard.
At the beginning Lizzie was not just insufferably annoying and selfish, even her role in the manga seemed to be designed for the sole purpose of being the main charactersâ foil. As I wrote earlier in this post, â[Yana used] âthe annoying girlâ to juxtapose against âthe controlled boyâ to emphasise the male virtue. A trope as old as it is stale⌠*Cough Indiana Jones 2 COUGH*â
More explicitly, during the ball of the Viscount, Lizzie really served no other purpose but âhindering plot device!!!â The audience is supposed to cheer for O!Ciel and Sebastianâs investigation, and as there was no emotional connection with Lizzie whatsoever yet, I bet the vast majority would only want to see Lizzie gone or even curse her very existence.
Right now Lizzie has gone back to being an antagonist of the series. Her actions in the current developments are much realer âobstaclesâ to our main characters than her throwing a tantrum, or âshowing too much female curiosity for a mere dress, which would lead to the failure of a manâs careerâ. Her actions right now influence literal life-or-death to O!Ciel, and the one thing Sebastian cares about, his contract.
And yet, despite the fact that her actions right now come with much greater stakes, I have the feeling the fandom does not hate her for it (if at all) the way we did about the ring incident or the ball incident.
In contrast to the earliest chapters, Lizzie is not a hysterical gal brainlessly prancing around while obliviously ruining things for O!Ciel. Right now, although her choices might not be educated (we donât know how much she does or doesnât know), they are at least understandable. Now we understand her, and can probably even sympathise with why she ended up making her current decision. There is weight behind her âdecisionâ, because the dilemma she was faced with is indeed very cruel.
Yana growwwsssss ( ´ â˝ ` )ďžđ and I love her for it.
