Woman of the Month: Balsa

Balsa from Moribito: The Guardian of the Spirit

This was an easy one! Almost three minutes into watching this standalone anime, it was blatantly obvious that Balsa was going to be my final Woman of the Month for 2024. The sad truth is that female characters like her are so rare: mature and stoic and kind, yet also efficient and highly-trained and lethal when need be – and all in such a way that she doesn’t get Mary Sue accusations lobbed at her.

Balsa is a bodyguard-for-hire approaching her thirtieth birthday, proficient in wielding a spear in defense of herself and her clients. Though we don’t learn her backstory until far into the series’ run, she’s on a self-appointed mission to save the lives of eight people, as atonement for the eight lives that were taken to protect her when she was just a child.

She gets her chance to save the eighth and final life when happenstance puts her in the right time and place to save young Prince Chagum from a carriage accident that sees him fall off a bridge and into the river below. But it’s not that simple – on being summoned to the palace in secret later that night, the prince’s mother reveals the accident was a planned assassination attempt, ordered by the boy’s own father.

Now Balsa doesn’t have to just protect Chagum, but to find out why exactly his father wants him dead. Though she’s not a naturally maternal person, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the two of them will bond across the course of their journey together, and that Chagum will grow into a wiser, nobler ruler due to the influence Balsa has upon him.

The most notable aspect of the story is that although there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Lone Wolf and Cub tales, the lone wolf in the equation is hardly ever a woman. And neither are there any silly depictions of Balsa being unnaturally standoffish or unpleasant to the boy in her charge – she may not have much familiarity with children, but all the expected clichés (she’s bad at cooking, she’s a strict disciplinarian who gradually lightens up) are avoided.

In fact, there are plenty of subversions regarding gender roles strewn throughout the story, such as Balsa’s old friend and quasi-love interest Tanda, a healer who spends most of his time collecting herbs and sharing his gifts with those in need. Though there is something of longstanding attraction between them, the show’s conclusion doesn’t depict them settling down into marital bliss. Instead, Balsa heads off on another mission while Tanda tells their friends he’s content to wait for her return.

That’s not even getting into Balsa’s reluctance to use lethal force when she’s fighting her enemies, or the circumstances of her vow to save eight lives, or the fact that she’s technically past her prime and just as often has to use her wits as much as her strength in battle...

In short, just an incredibly rich and wonderful character to close off the year.

Reading/Watching Log #108

This month ended up being foreign-language month, which in many ways came as a balm. Sometimes it’s important to remember that America, despite how it sees itself, is not in fact the centre of the world. There are other democracies, other struggles, other lives. In fact, it comes as a coincidence that a short story I read this month contained the line: “Americans, you never think anything interesting could possibly be happening anywhere else in the world, do you?”

And it’s true – not the part about Americans necessarily thinking that, but that interesting things are happening all over the world.

Lo and behold, it’s now December!

Legend of the Seeker: Tears

And so we come to it, the season finale of Legend of the Seeker, which ended up being its Grand Finale as well. For those that have been following along with my reviews since the beginning, you’ll recall me saying that I didn’t watch this season back when it first aired on television, simply because I didn’t want it to finish. I wanted these episodes in reserve!

And yet all things must come to an end, and finally I’ve reached the conclusion of this one: fourteen years after its original air-date and four years since I started my rewatch of season one.

With all my grumbling about how shows are always getting cancelled, it’s timely reminder that this is hardly a new phenomenon. Legend of the Seeker was unceremoniously cut down in its prime, when the writers clearly had plenty more steam in their engines, and there were plenty of narrative seeds sown throughout these episodes that were clearly meant to have payoff in a third season.

Though in saying that, we get forty-four episodes in total. These days cancellation at the end of a second season would probably leave you with only sixteen episodes, if you were lucky.

Let’s get to it then: the very last episode of Legend of the Seeker. I am bereft!

Legend of the Seeker: Unbroken

Back to it. I am determined to have this season (and the show in its entirety) finished before the New Year. And here we are at the penultimate episode, with the Boxes of Orden and Jennsen appearing in the “previously on” segment. Ooh. And hey, this episode is directed by Michael Hurst!

If the finale of season one dealt with time travel, in which Richard was thrown forward through time and into a Bad Future, then the second season finale side-steps into alternative timelines, in which a spell is cast that changes a single element of the past, which subsequently has a butterfly effect on the present day.

Woman of the Month: Catherine Standish

Catherine Standish from Slow Horses

There are plenty of great female characters featured in Slow Horses, so why am I going with Catherine Standish? I love watching long-suffering Louisa, ice-cold Diana Taverner, and scrappy, furious Shirley, but Catherine Standish is a great example of a character trope I love: Hidden Depths. Or to put it another way: more than meets the eye.

Think Mrs. Gummidge in David Copperfield, who ceases her complaining and rallies the family in the wake of Emily’s disappearance, or Hopper in Stranger things, who comes out of his depressed, drunken stupor to demonstrate he’s a lot more competent than he looks, or Mary Hamilton in Batwoman, a vapid influencer who is secretly running a free medical clinic.

There’s something about concealed duality in characters, whether they’re deliberately putting up a front or are simply better people than they realize, that always inspires.

Catherine Standish fits the bill, initially tottering about Slough House in dangerously high heels, on her daily routine of distributing menial paperwork to the team. She always looks on the brink of taking a fall, which is a clever character note for a recovering alcoholic, with a meek and quiet demeanour. She has a passable appearance – not unkempt, but hardly well-groomed either – and emanates the air of a cleaning lady or old fuddy-duddy.

And in many ways, she remains that way throughout the series. It’s not like she ever morphs into a glamourous secret agent at any point.

Exiled to Slough House due to her alcohol abuse, she is nevertheless a lot sharper and more efficient than anyone gives her credit for, and is surprisingly good at handling people in her quiet, determined, measured tones. Every season will give her a sequence that demonstrates her capabilities, whether it’s pulling a concealed gun on Head of Security, endangering her sobriety while partaking in a chess game to gather intelligence, silently conveying information about her kidnappers to the team via the hostage video, or gently helping an ex-colleague suffering from dementia.

Heck, putting up with Jackson Lamb is a superhero ability in itself, and she’s the epitome of a woman who can get away with a lot because she’s so underestimated.

Four seasons in, and the show has yet to really explore her relationship with Charles Partner, her former boss who was killed by Lamb on the orders of David Cartwright (protagonist River’s grandfather). I can honestly say I don’t know how she’ll react when the truth comes out, but there’s a chance her former colleagues could be in serious danger. As they say, Beware the Nice Ones.

Reading/Watching Log #107

This post is as late as it is because I’ve been recovering from an operation to remove a cyst from my left ovary. Fun! The operation itself went smoothly, but then I managed to catch a bug on top of it all, which naturally played havoc on a body whose immune system wasn’t at its peak (though it wasn’t Covid, thankfully). As such, my recovery took much longer than I would have liked.

Having made werewolves the theme of last October, I naturally went with vampires this time around – though I couldn’t delve too deeply into the genre as I was a little nervous that I’d fill my mind with disturbing imagery and then suffer nightmares while I was under anaesthesia.

I also read a couple of books that coincidentally ended up having a deep thematic connection with other media I consumed this month: Sarah Clegg’s Woman’s Lore explored the myth of the lamia and the seductress across human history, and lo and behold, she ended up linking it to the female characters of Dracula!

What’s more, at the beginning of November I watched The Sorcerer and the White Snake, and was astonished to realize it was essentially the story of Lamia, albeit a version set in China. Did modern-day filmmakers adapt it from the Greek legend? Nope, apparently it’s a Chinese myth that’s been around for thousands of years, though its similarities to Lamia’s story, right down to the Lycius and Apollonius equivalents, are uncanny.

I don’t necessarily believe in the monomyth, but it’s fascinating when certain patterns and connections emerge throughout our ancient storytelling.

As for the other thing... I’m giving myself permission not to think about it for a while. Books are full of admonishments about how one person can make a difference and that the smallest person can change the course of history – but it’s a load of bullshit. There’s actually not a damn thing I can do about what’s going on in another country on the other side of the world, so I’m treating myself to a media blackout until things start making sense. However long that might take.

(Though we gotta admit, maybe "somehow, Palpatine returned" wasn't such a stupid line after all.)

Happy Halloween!

 This month’s reading/watching log is going to be super late. Over half the entries aren’t filled in yet, and I got through a lot this month due to some health issues that took a while to recuperate from.

To compensate, here’s a Halloween post based around that seminal cult classic of the season, the one all nineties kids grew up with: Hocus Pocus.

Specifically, three things you may not have known about it. (And if you did, be polite and don't say anything).