Recommendations From My Friends
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| Image description: I get by with a little help from my friends! Today I analyze potentially aspec characters in media I'm not super familiar with, recommended to me by some of my good friends. One of those character is Charlotte from Pride and Prejudice, so this picture of Charlotte (left) with her best friend Lizzie in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries seemed especially appropriate. |
On this blog, I often talk about how my aspec identity can
sometimes make me feel isolated. While that is true, there are also ways in
which my aspec identity has allowed me to connect with the people I love in
amazing ways. If there’s one thing I say again and again, it’s that I’m very
lucky to have a great support system, which includes great friends – some on
the ace spectrum themselves and some not. Over the years, they have not only
gone out of their way to make me feel accepted, but have made it their goal to
increase their own understanding of my identity and my needs. I am grateful
beyond words for my friends, their continued support, and the ways they make me
feel less alone.
This year, one of the ways my friends have often shown their
support is by supporting this blog. So many of my friends have shared links to
my blog posts, read them regularly even when the subject matter might not be
something they’re familiar with, and have helped me edit or brainstorm. As the blog has
continued over the months, they have also occasionally brought characters to my
attention that demonstrate arospec or aspec tendencies that they think might
make good subjects in the future. Each time such a character is mentioned, I
make a note of it, and was excited when I realized I had enough characters to
discuss in their own post.
I am only one person whose ability to analyze media is
naturally limited; therefore, it’s impossible to find every character who may demonstrate
aspec vibes or whose experiences have aspec parallels. And although one person
alone could never hope to complete such a task, the recommendations of my
friends allow me to cast my net a little wider, enabling me to discuss
characters from media I’m not super familiar with. So for this post, my friends
are going to be my guide. These characters are diverse and come from various types
of media – novels, television shows, anime – and with the help of my friends’ descriptions
of the media and the characters themselves, together we’ll take a quick look at
their diverse identities and portrayals too.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The first recommendation I want to talk about is from my
good friend Laura, who brought to my attention the character of Charlotte Lucas in Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice. I have not read any of Jane Austen’s
novels myself (which honestly shocks me), so I was very intrigued to hear about Elizabeth
Bennet’s best friend and the ways she differs from the main character when it
comes to ideas on romance and marriage. For a start, Charlotte has no true
desire to be married and even says to Elizabeth at one point, “I’m not romantic,
you know. I never was.” The only reason she eventually chooses to be married is
because, as a woman in the early 1800’s, remaining unmarried means she is a
burden on her parents. So to rectify this situation, she chooses a dimwitted
husband for the sake of a comfortable life. It is a deft and clever
manipulation of the system, one that I find impressive; less impressive is the
inevitable fact that she’s pregnant by the end of the novel, which admittedly
makes me pretty uncomfortable when analyzed from my own aspec lens.
In spite of this fact, however, I think the case is pretty
strong for Charlotte being an aromantic asexual character. Even if those terms
were not around back then and the society she lived in made such a thing very
nearly impossible for her, the fact that she is so pragmatic about the whole
thing feels incredibly telling. For more on this thought, I highly recommend
this opinion piece from the New Yorker about the mechanics of Charlotte’s
choice to marry Collins and how the entire thing was likely a reflection on
Austen’s feelings about the society she lived in. My personal favorite passage from
the piece is,
"Charlotte’s marriage, more than any
other episode in the novel, seems to me a coded expression of Austen’s own
dissent... there’s a thirst for rebellion." Analysis like this gets to the
core of something I have often wondered about and struggled with in my own
analysis on this blog – how much of my modern aspec lens can I bring to works
of the past? Can I look for aspec tendencies in old movies and TV shows, in
classic novels, in history? It’s a complex question without an easy answer and
one I look forward to exploring more on the blog in the future. But I believe
there is something valid about analyzing these pieces through a lens like mine,
even though my modern aspec sensibilities don’t completely line up with the
past nor could I possibly expect them to. I nevertheless think there is more to
be found that resonates with such a lens than first meets the eye and that is
worth exploring, discussing, and even using.
All of this got me thinking about how Charlotte is portrayed
in the 2012 web-series adaptation of Pride and Prejudice – The Lizzie
Bennet Diaries (yes, I know, it’s weird that I haven’t read the book but
saw this webseries, I’m an enigma). In this version, Charlotte (here known as
Charlotte Lu) is even more apart from a romance and sex, in that her entire
“relationship” with Mr. Collins (here known as Ricky Collins) is a business
partnership and nothing else. Although she is never shown to be aromantic
and/or asexual per se, it makes me really happy to see that she is portrayed in
a modern adaptation in a way that allows for the potential that she might be
aspec. It would have been very easy for the adaptation to find a way to push
Charlotte into an actual romantic relationship with Ricky, but the fact that it
doesn’t happen and that Charlotte is allowed to seemingly never really think
about sex or romance seems like a wonderful and faithful spin on Charlotte’s
original character. Austen, I think, would be pleased.
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| Image description: The scene in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries in which Ricky "proposes" to Charlotte, actually asking her if she would like to go into business with him. In this version, Collins is actually just an enormous dork and his relationship with Charlotte is never romantic at all. |
The next recommendations come from Lilly, one of my best friends in the whole wide world and my usual beta reader/sounding board. I cannot possibly emphasize enough how much I owe Lilly for her help with this blog behind the scenes – literally, the most recent two posts would not have been possible without her reading them several times for clarity, giving me suggestions on how to improve the material for people not familiar with the fandoms, helping me get unstuck when I had so much information that my points started to get muddled, etc. And that’s just two posts, that doesn’t even count the many other times she has done the same for other posts in previous weeks.
Another way she has helped me time and again when reading my
posts is by thinking critically about topics with me in ways that often inspire
new topic ideas, some of which I will be covering in 2021. And of course, as
the subject matter of this post probably makes obvious, she has pinpointed some
characters that give her aspec and arospec vibes as well. We’ve had interesting
conversations about these characters in which she tells me what she’s noticed
in the media in question and in the fandoms, and how that relates back to my
continued analysis. Let’s start with her two recommendations from the anime and
manga series Fairy Tail – Natsu and Mirajane.
Natsu Dragneel is one of the main characters of the series, which
centers on a group of magic-users who fight evil together in the guild known as
– you guessed it – “Fairy Tail”. Both the anime and the manga focus on the
friendship and found-family bonds the guild members form, despite their very
different circumstances and backgrounds. Our discussions, however, all focused
more on the anime than the manga, as the anime is the one that seems more
faithful to character arcs rather than moments that rely heavily on fan-service;
so while some of this info may apply to both, it will likely be more accurately
reflected in the anime, especially in regards to Natsu and his potentially
aspec tendencies.
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| Image description: Natsu from Fairy Tail - as portrayed in the anime - fire-wielder and potentially aspec character |
Natsu, a fire-wielder with a mysterious past, seems like the perfect candidate for showing the importance of friendship, camaraderie, and the family you make yourself. Indeed, the Fairy Tail guild is basically the only family he has ever known and so much of his story is about his loyalty to his friends – his found family – even when his past is explored and unearthed. A story such as that is an excellent set-up for exploring a character who may have aspec tendencies, and indeed, throughout the series there are moments where Natsu seems to be asexual, grey-asexual, demiromantic, or even entirely aromantic. While there are some hints of romance for him and one of the other lead characters, the end of the anime seems to leave it somewhat open-ended as to whether or not this romance actually happens.
However, Natsu is nevertheless a frequent subject of fandom ship wars, and some fans even tend to invalidate the idea of Natsu being on the asexual or aromantic spectrums. Many times, they cite moments from the manga as proof that he can’t
possibly be aspec, despite the fact that these moments often fly in the face of
other instances where Natsu seems very unphased by moments of sexuality. There
are plenty of times, especially in the anime, in which Natsu doesn’t react, or
even reacts with confusion, to these overly sexual situations. While it can be a bit problematic to automatically portray non-sexual or non-romantic characters
as clueless, it can nevertheless be a good shorthand to communicate these
characters are not sexual beings. Unfortunately, some sources (which I have not been able to fully substantiate) claim that the creator of the series once
said he likes his characters to be “normal” and “healthy,” specifically meaning they experience romance and “lust.”
During our discussion, Lilly brought up an interesting point,
one that I would very much like to explore in more detail in the future – the
fact that such attitudes also invalidate allosexual people too. There are
plenty of allosexual people who cannot or choose not to have sex for various valid
reasons, related to health, personal circumstances, etc. Thus, classifying “normal”
people as sexual and implying they are the only types of characters worth
portraying in media is not only an extremely offensive attitude from an aspec
point of view, but it should be one that people of all genders and sexualities find
objectionable.
Continuing with Fairy Tail, we come to the character
of Mirajane Strauss. Mirajane is a supporting character, but a very important
one, often “holding down the fort” while her friends go adventuring. Her
efforts are invaluable to keeping the guild together, and her cheerful disposition
and endearing tendencies make her a fan favorite. She is also a character who
seems like she could be aromantic asexual. Notably, she does not end up in a
relationship and throughout the series she seems to show a general disinterest
in them. She often makes it clear she loves her friends and the team, but it is
never in a romantic way; rather, most of the time she very clearly embodies the
themes of the power of friendship and the bond everyone in the guild shares. The
affection she shows for her friends nicely goes against the usual trope that people
who aren’t in romantic relationships must be unemotional.
Another interesting aspec parallel is that, despite this
affection, Mirajane nevertheless feels lonely and isolated at times, due to the
fact that her magical powers are so different from the rest of the members of
the guild and can actually be quite terrifying. The fact that she can be a
kind, cheerful person who also must literally battle inner demons is a
wonderful mix, and the acceptance the guild members show her in return is a wonderful
example of how characters with aspec parallels can be treated well, not fixed or forced to change who they are.
Naturally, however, Mirajane is still portrayed in romantic ways
when it comes to fan works. In many cases, she is even paired with characters
she barely interacts with in the show, a disappointing but not entirely
shocking trend we often see with many characters who otherwise seem aspec, and
something I discuss in my post about shipping. Even within the anime and manga
themselves, she is often pushed into moments of random sexualization. In the
real world, there is nothing wrong with an aspec person choosing to dress in a
manner that might be commonly construed as “sexy,” of course, or doing anything
else that might be considered sexual in nature. In a fictional setting,
however, when a female character is randomly pushed into moments of unnecessary
sexualization, it carries a different tone, especially when that character has
aspec tendencies.
Overall, there are both good and bad elements about the way
Natsu and Mirajane are portrayed, both within the series and within the fandom,
but they both serve as interesting and complex examples that subvert a lot of
the tropes often seen with non-sexual and non-romantic characters.
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| Image description: Mirajane from Fairy Tail - as portrayed in the anime - a girl who literally battles her inner demons and who is potentially pretty good AroAce representation |
Meanwhile, Lilly also gave me another recommendation, this
time from a television series – Michael from NBC’s poignant comedy The Good
Place. The series follows the story of four characters spending their
afterlife in “The Good Place,” a more secular version of Heaven. Michael is the
architect of The Good Place and he is charged with influencing the lives of the
four protagonists as they navigate big questions in their afterlife, such as
the true meaning of morality, how people think about death, and what it means
to be human.
Michael seems to demonstrate AroAce tendencies at various
points throughout the series, and while this oftentimes does mean he fails to
understand sex or romance, it seems to be done in ways that avoid many of the
tropes I’ve come to discuss on this blog. For instance, with both humans and
non-humans alike, it is common that non-sexual characters who don’t understand
sex are infantilized. That is not the case with Michael, despite the often-humorous
ways in which these moments are played.
Additionally, although Michael is a non-human character who
longs to become human, this is not portrayed the way I have analyzed with past non-human characters, chiefly in that romance and sex are never a part of it.
In fact, when Michael longs to be human, the primary things he longs for are the
boring, mundane, or even annoying things most people take for granted in their
day to day lives. It would have been very easy for the show’s writers to make
sex and romance a part of that, but the fact that they opt to show Michael
delighting in these little things is a fresh and welcome change. Not only that, but
it also helps Michael avoid the “Frigid” trope and gives him a sense of
childlike wonder without treating him like a child. Furthermore, making Michael
admire the unpredictable aspects of mortality and humanity rather than things
like sex or romance nicely avoids the usual patterns of amatonormativity in
media that make it seem like being human means sexuality above all.
The Good Place in general does a good job of portraying
character arcs that are more about self-actualization and determining what these
individuals truly want, rather than relationships. Even for characters who are
in romantic relationships, the story arcs are actually more about the themes of
finding yourself, making a positive impact on the world and the people around
you, and, in general, how these characters grow as people. In fact, I find it
interesting that relationships seem to be by and large not shown as the
absolute ticket to happiness throughout the show, and at times are even shown
to have the exact opposite effect, even though many of the characters are not
necessarily aspec. This is something we see all too rarely in media these days,
and something I would like to see more of for asexual and allosexual characters
alike.
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| Image description: Michael (portrayed by Ted Danson), the "otherworldly" architect of The Good Place in the show of the same name, and a character who demonstrates AroAce tendencies |
Everything I’ve discussed in this post is only just scratching the surface of who these characters are and what they have to offer. All of these examples serve as incredible proof of the diversity of non-sexual and non-romantic characters and the places they can be found. Exercises like these make me wonder how many examples there truly are, throughout different mediums, genres, and even centuries. No matter the source, there are plenty of opportunities to see the experiences of aspec and arospec people reflected in a variety of ways, giving valuable lessons and chances for analysis. While some of these examples may be clearer or better handled than others, all of them give us the ability to see through the eyes of non-sexual or non-romantic people of all kinds in order to perhaps better understand these identities in the real world.
In the search for representation, it is important to leave no stone unturned and I am so grateful my friends were able to aid me in that search. In fact, I am constantly grateful to you guys and the ways you lift me up. I cannot describe how much it means to me when you send me links because they seem relevant to my work, or when you ask me about characters I headcanon as aspec because you want to increase visibility in your stories and fanfiction. I only wish all aspec and arospec people had supportive friends like you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
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