Tag: valkyrie

brendanthesalty:

Reasons I love Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok

Played by Tessa Thompson. Immediate awesome points

Finally the major supporting female character is a woman of color in a Marvel movie

Wears practical clothing/armor and doesn’t fight like a damn acrobat coughBlackWidowcough

Zero hints of any forced romance subplot with Thor

Treated with absolute respect by Thor, who doesn’t feel entitled to her attention or affection in any way

In fact Thor openly hero worships her. That’s right, the male hero has looked up to a female warrior and an all-female warrior team since childhood and doesn’t in any way feel threatened or emasculated by it

For once a female character gets to be the snarky, persistently drunk lovable asshole wash-up with a Tragic Backstory™ who needs to be persuaded by the male hero to do the right thing and fight for what’s right

Bottom line is that Valkyrie in this movie is basically a female sidekick in a male led superhero flick done right. She isn’t alternatively sexualized and loathed by the male hero, she isn’t treated as a prize the male hero is entitled to by the end of the film, her fight scenes aren’t relentlessly filtered through dismembering male gaze ass shots and she isn’t the moral “conscience” of the team there to tame all of the male egos around her like their fucking mom. Other Marvel/superhero directors take note.

youcompletedmyscarymission:

you know what i love about valkyrie? she’s a woman and the narrative doesn’t hold a knife against her neck for it

that scene of her falling down drunk in her first appearance? amazing! that’s there for us to know she has a drinking problem, but don’t underestimate her because she will still get the job done. it’s not there to make us oogle her, it’s there to show us she is a person.

the weight of her survivor’s guilt and the ptsd and the questioning of her identity because everything that made her a valkyrie, a protector of the throne, a fearsome warrior in the ranks of other legendary women, was taken from her by the people she should never have had to fight

thor asks for her aid because she is a warrior and her reputation precedes her. he doesn’t needle her to join by invoking her gender, but rather her pride.

the things we associate more frequently with male characters like heavy drinking or physical strength are embodied in valkyrie, but it’s not there to make her ‘manly’ or Not Like Other Girls. in fact, it’s to remind us that these are things that can be true of women. women can be traumatized and turn to alcohol. they can isolate themselves and run away from their problems and want to punch their demons in the face. men don’t have a monopoly on compelling backstories!

valkyrie got everything that make men shine in the marvel franchise and it didn’t come at the expense of her gender or her race