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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025

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Maybe what you consider "basic storytelling rules" are actually male character archetype rules?

No, there is a female version of the hero's journey. It is not quite the same, notably the struggle tends to be more internal, but it exists.

Women have recurring mythic structures based on their own experiences too.

The recent feminist attempts to associate a queer style rejection of all structure and in particular of the causality structure of storytelling is not a woman thing, it is a feminist thing. And it's not even really that popular in its own circles.

The best depiction of the heroine's journey is, unironically, the schlocky Princess Diary movie, which plays it so straight that it is practically canonical. A awkward but virtuous heroine discovers her inner beauty and refinement and prevails over circumstances to end up with a good man. She overcomes her own insecurities and the judgements of others to become a princess in heart as well as in fact.

And this is an internal journey, for the most part: complementary to the masculine hero. If you watch media that women genuinely like to consume (like magical girl anime and Disney princess movies) the fighting and bluster is largely secondary to the dramatic arcs of feminine self-realization.

The perversion happens when you combine the superficial aspects of the masculine journey with the contemplating-one-navel nature of the feminine one. If you're a supercompetent girlboss you have no virtues to realize in the feminine sense or to learn in the masculine sense. Stagnancy. The only arc that is possible is 'the world doesn't recognize how awesome I am, and so it must suffer'. This narcissistic plot is utterly repugnant and is rejected by all but the most hidebound ideologues.