Tropes

[holdouttrout]

Okay, you know the trope about the war-hardened soldier who just wants to grow peas/smuggle/drink and get old and definitely doesn't want to go save the world, right? Think Han Solo, or even the Wizard in the new, not-great Oz movie. Or Madmartigan.

That's the trope. Where are the women? I can think of one example (kinda) in a Patricia C. Wrede book (Caught in Crystal, where the main character is sought out because she went on a pretty interesting trip when she was young that seems to have some ramifications in the present.). I'm actually pretty sure there are more, but I'm drawing a blank.

I also looked on TV Tropes, but I don't think I have the right name for the trope--and I'm definitely NOT talking about the Lovable Rogue or The Lancer, although those could be combined with this one.

Halp.

Comments

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

Retired Badass! That's definitely one of the tropes I'm looking for, here*. Yesss... and yes, it seems female examples are not a dime a dozen. Le sigh.

*Han Solo and the Wizard are not good examples of this, but that's okay.

[sholio]

I can think of two possible examples, but both are from anime: Izumi in Fullmetal Alchemist and Genkai in Yuu Yuu Hakusho. Both are older women and martial arts badasses who are called out of retirement to train the main character. Izumi in particular sounds like what you're looking for: she was a heavy-duty badass who quit, got married, and is living a quiet life with her husband in a small town until the characters show up needing her help with world-saving.

I think pepper_field is probably right that it's got at least something to do with "women don't get old", combined with the need for female badassery to be so background-accepted that it doesn't have to be a plot point. In other words, a woman at the top of her field is something that has to be dealt with -- we have to see her rise, explain how she got there, and have her be at the middle of the action. Whereas this trope is more like ... assuming a background level of general female badassery and competence so that it's not unusual to see women at different points along the badass-to-retirement/failure curve.

And maybe there's also something, too, about how this trope tends to go along with an air of slovenly disreputability and moral grayness, and women don't often get to be that kind of character.

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, that last one might explain a LOT of it.

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

That last one probably explains quite a bit of it, yes.

I think I started thinking about it more because I thought about how the argument is "You're uniquely qualified to do something here and now, and that means you should" for this trope... and how that still sounded a bit weird when applied to a woman. And it really shouldn't!