Thursday 14 September 2017

Heroines Galore : Fictional Characters are Realistically Inspiring

Fictional Characters are Realistically Inspiring - says the girl that reads a lot and weeping about dying fictional characters, pining over a cute fictional characters in a movie and getting irritated when somebody says "hey, it's fictional characters. So, get over it." Yeah.


so many books, so... hard to pick my favourite characters. 
Yup that's me. I'm that girl. 
HI AGAIN. 
Hahaha sorry for all caps but look, when was the last post? Right, July. I'm really sorry I've abandoned this little space again since yup, life after university is really overwhelming. I really hope you guys forgive me (again) hehe. 

Okay so, if you guys been following my Twitter, I was came up with long a** tweets about my personal favourite heroines and I've been changing my full name to Asteria again (read the tweet thread here ). So, readers, here it is.

First thing first, what is heroine?
According to English by Oxford Living Dictionary, heroine is a woman admired for her courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities; The chief female character in a book, play, or film, who is typically identified with good qualities, and with whom the reader is expected to sympathize; (in mythology and folklore) a woman of superhuman qualities and often semi-divine origin, in particular one whose deeds were the subject of ancient Greek myths. To be conclude, heroine is the protagonist from book, play, or film, a very motivational woman. 

Some of you are probably prefer looking up to your mother as your inspiration or so on, but some of you are also having fictional heroine as your inspiration. You do you, guys.

Since, this admired women come from any media, I'm going to break this essay into some parts. Today, we're going to talk about the fictional ones. Probably next time, I'm going to talk about the real women. 

Then, do we need a fictional heroine as our inspirations?
This question is of course, highly undoubtedly personal. Most of us can't find what's so inspiring about fictional heroines. To be honest, I'm kind of having a hard time to accept comic book heroines because they are usually portrayed to wear sexy clothes, or even expected to be seductive. Well, a little Aya story, I'm having love-hate relationship with Marvel. I used to huge Marvel stan. I even read Captain America, Iron Man, and collecting e-books of it. Later on, I felt like the lack of heroines make me kind of losing my interest towards Marvel. Long story short, I'm back again to Marvel stuff - now let's get back into the topic. 

Some of you are probably prefer looking up to your mother as your inspiration or so on, but some of you are also having fictional heroine as your inspiration. You do you, guys. 

Okay, I choose Scout Finch. Not like usual women writers that depict their female protagonist(s) as emotional, fragile, and nurturing.. Harper Lee depicts this girl is intelligent, VERY BADASS - when she beats up a guy in order to defense her father, honest, and confident in her own skin - she doesn't listen to anyone who asks her to wear skirts


Jumping into the actual aim of why I wrote this, okay, so, who are the fictional heroines that I looking up to? 
From childhood Disney's Mulan, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)'s Scout, the Breakfast at Tiffany' s Holly Golightly in the movie until Alaska Young (Looking for Alaska, 2005) and so on, one that I have a soft spot in mind is Srikandi.

Srikandi, in Javanese Wayang version was portrayed as the only woman that mastered in archery, even in charge to be responsible over the security of Madukara. She's also the only woman that joined the Bharatayuddha war. I found Srikandi from my mother's flashdisk name and asked her why she chose "Srikandi". I also find out some of her academic essays about women are also mentioning her a lot. Then, my mom told me that she's really admired Srikandi and voila, I'm also looking up to Srikandi too. 

From novels, I really look up into Scout, a character from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (1960). Scout, she's six year old. I'm mesmerized by how brave she is and how smart she is. As I quoted from my old Instagram picture back in April 2015Okay, I choose Scout Finch. Not like usual women writers that depict their female protagonist(s) as emotional, fragile, and nurturing.. Harper Lee depicts this girl is intelligent, VERY BADASS - when she beats up a guy in order to defense her father, honest, and confident in her own skin - she doesn't listen to anyone who asks her to wear skirts😁 

As a girl that really into pop literary works, from today's heroines in literary works.. I admit I couldn't find one. Today's heroines are always depicted as "broken but badass" women, and it's eventually leads to revenge. I mean, come on... Women aren't that "doing-this-for-revenge"! Most women even needs a hero, so that's what she's became, right? 

Okay, okay, back to the topic. Nowadays, I'm really more into Marvel's Silk, the friend (or should I say fellow web-slinger?) of SpiderMan. I'm not kind of buying the "woman version of Spider-Man" (and those effin dates come on, parker) and things, but oh god she's just so badass : she's getting through anxiety, and oh god. She's just too awesome. I just can't wait to (spoiler alert) to see what's going ahead of her in Watt's SpiderMan movies reboot woop woop .

The last thing is the answer that you've been waiting for - Asteria. You've probably been seeing this name in almost my social media handlers but here's the long explanation. Asteria is the female lead of Madeon's "Adventure" music video trilogy. Yeah.. it's music video. Really. Asteria, as what Madeon defines as "wants to see the world beyond the city" in "You're On" behind the scene video here. However, the depiction of Asteria that wanders through the city to find the "other world" is pretty relating to me - right now. There's something amazing that how Asteria, as a female lead, being curious, wanders, and creative. Although, the trilogy keeps me left with so many questions on the last video because I want to know Asteria more. Of course, the videos were about the journey of Asteria and Icarus to find the unamed other world. 

So, there you have it.
Before this weird post getting any further and getting bored, I'm leaving this weirdness here. 

So, who's your inspiring fictional characters?
Love, love,
-Aya ❤


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