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kangeikoWow, this is a hard one. I can name a bunch of good (and not so good) fathers and father figures, but mothers seem strangely lacking on TV. Or perhaps not so strangely lacking - it's hard to get right, after all.
1. Gossip Girl, Lily van der Woodsen
Or, to be more accurate, Lily Bass. I didn't have a lot of patience for Lily to start off with, as she seemed to be very concerned with herself and her image. As the character developed, however, the parts where she is absolutely amazing come through. She really does care about her children, and that's all of her children. Not every woman would open her doors so readily to a problem child like Chuck Bass, or would be able to bring him into her family so easily. After the Chuck/Blair relationship (which I love because I am shallow like that), Lily's interactions with her children is the most interesting dynamic on the show for me. She gives up her chance at true love (several times) to put her children first. (Also, the way she outwits Jack Bass: awesome!)
2. Harry Potter, Narcissa Malfoy
It was a toss-up between Narcissa and Molly. I opted for Narcissa because she chooses to betray her Lord - who is by all accounts her only hope for victory - in order to protect her son... And thereby is instrumental in bringing about Voldemort's downfall. She plays for big stakes, and there is never any question that she does it for her family.
3. Buffy, Joyce Summers
Joyce doesn't have an easy time of it, raising a Slayer and a Key. I love how invested she is in them as people, as opposed to their functions, which is partly why Buffy retains such a strong sense of self (as opposed to a strong sense of purpose, I guess, which is what we see in Kendra). Put simply, Joyce's close links and love for her daughter are part of what makes Buffy different from the other Slayers we encounter. We see the impact of Joyce's loss in S6 and S7, where Buffy suddenly, abruptly grows up, and realises just how much she relied on the love and support of her mother.
4. ST:TNG, Lwaxana Troi
Another formidable woman! My impressions of Lwaxana are coloured by Peter David's Imzadi, especially her opposition to Riker. She gets it wrong a lot of the time, but she does that because she loves Deanna so fiercely and protectively. It must been terrifying to wave your only child off to the military (especially after having having suffered the loss of another child so early on), and to be helpless to protect them. For a woman as used to control as Lwaxana, of course she tries to figure out ways to make her daughter happy!
5. Fables, Snow White
Snow and Bigby make me melt helplessly. They make me so happy. And Snow's love for her cubs fairly radiates from her. She accepts near-exile to the Farm to raise them, and is separated from Bigby, and even covers up some murders one if them accidentally commits... She lives them fiercely and unconditionally, and of COURSE she would choose to wage a war that might result in millions of casualties and "throw a thousand worlds into chaos" - the Adversary threatened her world and, by extension, her children. Given the choice, for Snow White, there was no choice at all.
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Date: 2010-03-30 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-30 04:16 pm (UTC)Lwaxana I've always loved. (And wrote the fanfic to prove it!) Re: her motherhood, it's worth noticing that of all the "children of two worlds" in Trek, Deanna is the one who has no issues about being a hybrid and treasures both parts of her heritage. And who is absolutely comfortable with who she is.(Her relationship with her mother has its ups and downs, but they're normal ones, and don't impact on her sense of self.) And given that Ian died midway through her childhood, I think we can largely credit Lwaxana with this.
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Date: 2010-03-30 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-30 09:16 pm (UTC)Yes, that's what swung it for me. I liked how Narcissa is drawn as someone with her own motivation, rather than being this air-brained dolly on her husband's arm, and how her decisions carry just as much, if not even more, weight in her family.
I do hope she and Andromeda found some way to communicate again post-war.
Ooh, that would be some fun fic. *ponders* I didn't think much about Andromeda, actually, I stayed well away from the whole Marauders crowd and those associated with them, so Tonks and Andromeda ended up in that camp. But having them both survive in a post-Voldemort world would make for some interesting familial relations.
And Joyce, oh, Joyce was great. That scene where in Normal Again Buffy hallucinates her back, and their last conversation, just kills me.
Oh I'd forgotten about that, oh yes!
Lwaxana I've always loved. (And wrote the fanfic to prove it!)
Linky?
Re: her motherhood, it's worth noticing that of all the "children of two worlds" in Trek, Deanna is the one who has no issues about being a hybrid and treasures both parts of her heritage.
Very good point! And as much as I like Amanda Grayson, I always got the feeling that being forced to choose between her husband and her son, she would choose her husband. (It was AC Crispin's Sarek novel that made me rethink that, with a young Amanda leaving Sarek with a young Spock in tow. ) Whereas with Lwaxana, that was never an issue. Obviously it helps to not have that choice to make, but turning out a child so well-adjusted has to be a feather in any parent's cap!
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Date: 2010-03-31 08:52 am (UTC)Lwaxana: Shore Leave (http://archiveofourown.org/works/15288), in which Adama from BSG ends up in the Trek verse and meets her. This was written after the second season of BSG, i.e. in the days when I still was okay with Bill Adama. *g* But it's mainly about how Lwaxana is a force of nature anyway!
Re: Amanda Grayson: didn't she temporarily leave Sarek in Crispin's novel after he and Spock had their big academy fight? (In which case, sans Spock, since he was off to the academy anyway?) Be that as it may, if we go by on screen canon only, then Sarek and Spock didn't talk for eighteen years during which time Amanda seems to have remained married to him, and neither showed up at the not-wedding to T'Pring, so...
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Date: 2010-04-04 10:23 pm (UTC)That wasn't the one I was thinking off - or was it? Hmmm... I seem to think that it was vaguely related to Spock's KahsWan, and involved Amanda walking off with Spock to protect him... Or maybe I'm conflating that confrontation with the scene you describe - oh, I shall have to re-read it, clearly. But anyway, that was one of the very few times I actually saw her standing up to Sarek. The whole famous IDIC seemed to indicate that he'd be Vulcan and so would Spock, and Amanda would just have to be as un-human as possible to be tolerated... which didn't really work for me. I've been trying to match up that unlikely match in my head for a while, I confess.
Be that as it may, if we go by on screen canon only, then Sarek and Spock didn't talk for eighteen years during which time Amanda seems to have remained married to him, and neither showed up at the not-wedding to T'Pring, so...
Exactly. Although my personal canon, drawing on the books, has her continuing contact with Spock throughout his time at Academy. I think that while she may accept/stand by Sarek's decision (and I find that inexplicable and illogical, however they try to sell it), I don't think she'd cut her own ties to him.
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Date: 2010-04-08 01:51 pm (UTC)BTW, have you read my essay on the various hybrids in Star Trek, Children of Two Worlds (http://selenak.livejournal.com/486009.html)?