Hero’s Journey – Bitch Flicks

‘Dragonslayer’: A Disappointing Attempt to Update the Princess and the Dragon

‘Dragonslayer’ attempts to modernize the tale by diminishing the hero and splitting the princess into two women who are both brave at first glance, but it ultimately reinforces traditional roles. … Valerian’s fall from village leader (in disguise as a man) to hero helper, and finally damsel in distress that can only be rescued by the losing of her virginity (itself a patriarchal construct, often “used to control women’s sexuality”), is a particularly depressing character arc.

This guest post is written by Tim Covell. | Spoilers ahead.

Dragonslayer (1981) is a dark ages fantasy, written by Hollywood veterans Matthew Robbins and Hal Barwood, and directed by Robbins. Marketed in some areas as a Disney film, it is unusually mature for Disney, and was a co-production with Paramount, in the days before Disney formed Touchstone to handle more mature films. Dragonslayer draws on the long history of dragons in western folk literature, eventually linked with Christians in the legend of St. George and the Dragon.

In the purest form of this story, identified as ATU-300 in a folktale classification system, the hero rescues the princess from the dragon, kills the dragon, and marries the princess. These are traditional gender roles with a vengeance. Dragonslayer attempts to modernize the tale by diminishing the hero and splitting the princess into two women who are both brave at first glance, but it ultimately reinforces traditional roles.

Twice a year, the King of Urland conducts a lottery, selecting a virgin girl to sacrifice to a fire-breathing dragon. In exchange, the dragon leaves the kingdom alone. A group of villagers, unhappy with this arrangement, find and hire an older sorcerer (Ralph Richardson) to kill the dragon. The king’s men, following the villagers and determined to maintain the status quo, demand a test before they will allow someone to come and “stir things up.” The test results in the death of the sorcerer. His young apprentice, Galen (Peter MacNicol, making his film debut) takes on the role of dragon slayer/hero, and joins the dubious villagers.

Galen soon learns that the boy leading the villagers, Valerian, is in fact a young woman (Caitlin Clarke). The revealing swimming-hole scene, with brief and non-exploitative shots of male and female nudity, is sometimes cut from television showings. Valerian justifies her deception by noting that the lottery is rigged, and only chooses girls from poor families. This injection of class conflict and official corruption is an attempt to make the story more character driven, but it remains largely faithful to the mythic form.

On arrival in Urland, Galen enters the dragon’s lair, a cave accessed by a damp vertical cleft. We later learn that the dragon is a mother, and deeper in the cave is a lake. A teenage boy exploring a dark and dangerous cave is clear symbolism for male coming-of-age, and suggests the dragon represents female sexuality (and in a negative light). The association of the dragon with virgin girls supports this interpretation. However, the film refuses to let viewers ponder this symbolism too much. Some characters suggest the dragon is the negative aspect of magic in the world, while others argue that it is a manifestation of Christian evil, and still others claim that it is simply a flesh and blood monster. The dragon is individualized by its name and its age-related moodiness. While its death appears to be brought about through magic, cross-cut editing shows the villagers being baptized during the final battle, and there are fleshy and bloody remains. It is entertaining for the nature of the dragon to be in dispute, but the lack of resolution weakens the story.

Galen uses a magic spell to create a landslide, sealing the dragon in its lair. With the threat apparently removed, Valerian comes out as a woman. Her father remarks that “she was twice the man of anyone else in the village, and now she’s twice the woman.” As a man, she led villagers on a long and challenging journey to find a hire a sorcerer, and demanded his assistance after initially being turned away. As a woman, she emerges quietly and shyly from her home in a delicate dress. Galen grabs her arm, drags her into the shocked crowd, and calls for music, legitimizing her existence.

Galen is arrested and imprisoned, while the king waits to see if the dragon is truly dead. The princess comes to see him, and defend her kingdom’s approach to the dragon. She is surprised by Galen’s claim that she is excluded from the lottery. He escapes in the chaos of the dragon’s rampage.

The king declares a special lottery to restore order, but Princess Elspeth rigs it so that she is selected. She publicly defies her outraged father, and tells the kingdom that her sacrifice is necessary to certify the lottery. The king steps into his traditional role, and asks Galen to save his daughter.

Valerian’s father is a blacksmith, and supplies Galen with a spear. On his way to rescue the princess and battle the dragon, Galen meets Valerian. She presents him with a concave shield made from dragon scales, to protect him from the fire. The presentation of the symbolically female magical protective object, often a sheath, is a traditional female folktale role. To give credit where credit is due, many tales of sword and sorcery ignore the role and symbol, excluding women completely. King Arthur’s sword Excalibur is widely known, but its unnamed sheath, which protects the wearer from injury, is rarely mentioned.

Valerian demonstrated bravery in obtaining scales for the shield. But in conversation with Galen, she becomes an insecure girlfriend, assuming Galen plans to rescue the princess out of love inspired from her bravery in sacrificing herself. Valerian also laments her virginal status, which leaves her vulnerable in future lotteries. A kiss, a cut, and a passage of time suggest that “problem” is resolved.

Removing yourself from the lottery by losing your virginity as quickly as possible is an obvious solution, noted by critics from Roger Ebert to Mad Magazine. In Wayland Drew’s novelization, he added backstory, and among other things clarified that lack of virginity does not remove you from the lottery. Valerian’s mother is one of many missing mothers in the film, but in Drew’s version she was sacrificed to the dragon. While the sacrificial victims are female, the dragon has also killed men who provoked it, including the king’s brother and an ambitious priest.

One of the king’s soldiers is at the lair, to ensure the sacrifice of the princess proceeds without interruption. Galen kills him, but is unable to prevent Princess Elspeth from walking to the cave. She is promptly killed and partly eaten by baby dragons. The princess is brave and independent, but it remains hard to celebrate her defiance of her father and the hero, and her dedication to her kingdom, when this results in her death. It is too reminiscent of the movie cliché of killing or otherwise punishing the rebellious/independent woman. Nor did the princess need to die to establish the evil nature of the dragon; the structuralist death of innocents has already been shown. However, Princess Elspeth’s death does draw attention to the impotence of the hero.

Galen kills the baby dragons, yet he is unable to defeat their mother (more impotence). Galen and Valerian resolve to run away together (he still gets the girl). Then Galen realizes the sorcerer prepared himself to be reincarnated, at the lair, to battle the dragon. When the two return to the lair, Galen warns Valerian of the scary environment, and she defiantly claims that she is not afraid. “After all, I was a man once, remember?” The words are no sooner said than she is frightened by the sight of the dismembered and bloody princess, and retreats in fear.

The sorcerer uses magic to destroy himself and the dragon together, with Galen and Valerian providing minor assistance. The villagers arrive to thank God for their deliverance, the king arrives to claim victory for defeating the dragon, and Galen and Valerian ride off into the sunset on a magically procured horse.

Dragonslayer is visually impressive. Many scenes were shot in Scotland and Wales, and the design and fully practical realization of the dragon (including 16 puppets) holds up well in this CGI era. Author George R.R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones) claims Dragonslayer has “the best dragon ever put on film.” Unfortunately, the attempts to add moral complexity and character motives to myth, without addressing the underlying assumptions about gender roles, only succeed in making the story uncertain. Valerian’s fall from village leader (in disguise as a man) to hero helper, and finally damsel in distress that can only be rescued by the losing of her virginity (itself a patriarchal construct, often “used to control women’s sexuality“), is a particularly depressing character arc. The arc of the hero is not much better: his path to maturity is killing one bad guy and having sex with a woman.

The film did poorly at the box office and in hindsight, perhaps the film makers should have been braver with their characters. For example, Valerian could have stayed brave, and been the hero instead. That approach worked for Robert Munsch, who published The Paper Bag Princess in 1980. A related option would have been to extend a backstory plotline Drew introduced in the novelization, where Valerian, in her disguise as a young man, had a close relationship with another girl. As it stands, Dragonslayer merely hints at the possibilities for updating myths, before retreating to traditional sexist approaches.

Tim Covell has degrees in English Literature, Film Studies, and Canadian Studies. He studies film censorship and classification systems, which are largely about managing representations of sexuality. More at www.covell.ca.

“You Have No Power Over Me”: Female Agency and Empowerment in ‘Labyrinth’

So what distinguishes ‘Labyrinth’ from the Hero’s Journey tropes it so closely follows? Its protagonist. Sarah is the hero of the story. She doesn’t need to be saved because she’s the rescuer, and she carries the plot forward with her resourcefulness, tenacity, and self-actualization. …She navigates a tricky tightrope between fantasy and reality, dreams and goals, past and future, and discovers the kind of woman she wants to be.

This guest post written by Kelcie Mattson appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s. | Spoilers ahead.

Adolescence is tough, no matter who you are. Your emotions, perspectives, and body are changing, and the prospect of entering the complex, confusing world of adulthood can seem frightening. It’s especially hard for teenage girls. Life is capable of hideous cruelty: society has pre-set expectations it demands women meet, and there will always be those who attempt to control and oppress female agency. But there’s also freedom — the freedom to choose your own path, to explore, to express, and to discover who you are and the power within you.

Those are the major themes behind Jim Henson’s 1986 film Labyrinth. Although it wasn’t popular at the time of its theatrical release, over the past thirty years it’s become a deeply loved cult favorite for its coming-of-age themes, vivacious imagination, and David Bowie’s amazingly outrageous clothes. (Oh, dear David.) But beneath the puffy ball gowns and sparkly technicolor makeup lies a palpably feminist treatise.

On the surface Sarah Williams (Jennifer Connelly)’s story is about her maturation into an adult, but bound inherently to that is the development, and realization, of her personal agency. When we first meet her she’s a clever, imaginative girl who prefers the company of books, stuffed animals, and made-up fantasy lands over the mundane demands of suburban life. To this end Sarah is also an embodiment of the stereotypical characteristics unfairly assigned to teenage girls — immature, petulant, and selfish. She throws a temper tantrum when tasked with babysitting her younger brother Toby so her parents can, gasp, enjoy an evening out by themselves. Why should she be forced to look after a crying baby when she’d much rather dress up in a flowing white gown and play pretend? Sarah’s defense mechanism against her growing responsibilities is to cast herself into a skewed fantasy where she’s an innocent victim terrorized by evil parents.

It’s immature, yes, but so very relatable. Sarah feels isolated, confused, and jealous of her brother, and fueling the core of those frustrations is the desperate desire to do what she wants. “Life isn’t fair,” she cries when things don’t go her way, as I’ll bet most of us have. She’s a normal adolescent girl yearning for the independence to make her own choices. And that first choice happens to be asking the trickster Goblin King from her play to take Toby away.

Enter David Bowie’s Jareth in a shower of glitter, who offers Sarah a decision of his own design. If she solves the mysteries of his labyrinth within a thirteen-hour window, he’ll return Toby to her. If not, Jareth keeps custody of the baby in his goblin kingdom. It’s Sarah’s choice whether or not to rescue her helpless brother.

This is where Labyrinth dovetails nicely into several synonymous identities. It’s a fairy tale homage with modern-day values; it matches beat-for-beat the plot structure of the typical Hero’s Journey; and it’s a tale of internal strength that’s unabashedly, specifically feminine in nature.

As a fairy tale, admittedly it’s nothing too new. It follows in the footsteps of its predecessors (The Brothers Grimm, The Neverending Story, Where the Wild Things Are, The Wizard of Oz) by imparting life lessons through symbolism — the magical alternate reality is a safe place where our conflicted protagonist can decipher the fundamental difficulties of growing up. As a Hero’s Journey it’s nothing revolutionary, either: the “character embarks on a quest, encounters personal trials to stimulate his/her growth, hits their lowest point before rising up stronger” template has become such a commonplace backbone for popular media you can find it almost anywhere you look. Even Sarah reconciling herself to the obligations of adulthood is a commonly explored arc, from 1977’s Star Wars to 2014’s Boyhood.

So what distinguishes Labyrinth from the Hero’s Journey tropes it so closely follows? Its protagonist. Sarah is the hero of the story. She doesn’t need to be saved because she’s the rescuer, and she carries the plot forward with her resourcefulness, tenacity, and self-actualization.

At first glance it’s easy to write her off as a passive character seemingly helpless to Jareth’s erratic whims and elaborate traps. But although Sarah reacts to the obstacles Jareth throws into her path, she actively resists his narrative, twisting the conflicts around to suit her needs until Jareth becomes the one reacting to her. When he tries to disempower her by casting her in the role of a lost princess needing his protection from a horde of masked strangers, Sarah rejects his fantasy by literally breaking it with her fists. She’s not tempted by the pretty trinkets he offers nor quelled into submission by his magnetism; she’s steadfastly resolute in her goal. Of course she gains quirky Muppet allies along the way, but as she tells her newfound friends, “I have to face him alone. It’s the way it’s done.” And, and — she doesn’t win through brute physical strength, but through an emotional, mental acknowledgment of her own power.

Before the labyrinth, the idea of personal power was all fantasy. A book to read, lines to recite. Sarah has to endure practical life experiences, albeit in a fantastical setting, to recognize the full extent of her capability and then apply that knowledge in order to survive in a treacherous, unpredictable world. A man’s world.

“You have no power over me,” she declares to Jareth’s face; thematically, to outside forces at large. Once she claims ownership of herself, she triumphs in her dual goals: rescuing Toby, and finding happiness. A girl declaring what she wants without shame brings down an empire.

When you look closely, even the movie itself emerges from the decision Sarah makes to sacrifice her brother. She regrets her wish immediately, but that doesn’t change the fact she serves as the action’s primary catalyst. That’s rare, in the 1980s and today. Sarah alone directs her destiny by challenging the labyrinth’s infinite parade of decisions, even as she accepts that not all choices are simple, clean, or fair, and all of them have consequences that can’t be neatly resolved.

In that sense Sarah’s Hero’s Journey isn’t treated any differently by the script than if she were a boy — except for the fact her gender identity informs the film’s proceedings. The execution isn’t perfect: her emotional outbursts are treated as juvenile things to leave behind, and her faults (jealously, selfishness) are ones that tend to be assigned only to girls. But Labyrinth’s dramatic tension is centered entirely in a young woman’s mind as she navigates a tricky tightrope between fantasy and reality, dreams and goals, past and future, and discovers the kind of woman she wants to be. Compassionate, quick-witted, and iron-willed, willing to trust others and open to evolution of thought, while also prone to pre-judgment, naivety, and her fear of the unknown — all of which she overcomes. This makes Sarah not a weak token effort at inclusivity but a character who boasts a full, varied emotional life. She’s not there to service a guy’s development, to just be his victim or his love interest.

Which brings us to that pesky Goblin King. My adoration of Bowie aside, my interest in Jareth is in what he represents to Sarah — a deliberately disturbing mix of childishness and sexuality. Arrogant and assured, he first infantilizes Sarah by offering her gifts to win her submission. When charm fails, he tries intimidation, using his age, power, and authority to order her “back to her room” to “play with her toys.” When Sarah’s ingenuity continues to surpass his expectations, he flat-out presents himself as a distraction. Their dynamic becomes (perhaps always was) a choreographed seduction instead of the normal villain-hero relationship. Jareth’s threats read more like flirtations, especially in tandem with Bowie’s preening, charismatic performance and those, err… very tight pants. That blend makes him both a domineering father figure trying to restrict her autonomy and a potential lover.

Sex is mysterious, dark, and completely adult. Playing with lipstick in the bedroom mirror might be the first step of Sarah’s path toward romance (“I’d like it if you had a date,” her stepmother laments, “you should have dates at your age” — somehow I doubt she meant David Bowie), but Jareth personifies the seductive allure of the unknown, that elusive discovery of more. This is a movie with farting rocks and puppet dance parties, though, so the undertones remain subtle. But intentionally or not, Jareth’s both the embodiment of the patriarchy and the loss of Sarah’s innocence — a man dictating to a woman what he deems is the best thing for her, while also introducing an initiation into the sexual world as reward for her coming to heel. Those threats are very real, very relevant ones.

In a normal fairy tale, Sarah’s happy ending would be to marry him. Jareth fits the love interest archetype: rich, powerful, and regal, with control issues to boot. As tempting as his proposal can be from a certain perspective (I do swoon a bit), it’s a tangible power imbalance and unsettling in a way that borders on emotional abuse — of which Sarah is instinctively, if not implicitly, aware. She may have matured in her understanding of how the world works, but her white clothes signify she sees herself as the innocent in a sea of cruel lasciviousness. So despite the reciprocation and recognition of her desire, she knows she isn’t ready for that major step. That could be interpreted as a reinforcement of the damaging notion that a “good” woman must be chaste. But although Sarah rejects Jareth’s advances (and, impressively, his piercing male gaze; the camera never objectifies her), he still functions as the spark to her burgeoning sexual awakening. She’s curious and aware, but it has to happen on her terms at the right time.

For all his, “Fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave,” declarations (cool story, bro, but she’s sixteen), in the end Jareth’s just a privileged, lonely, petty man. He doesn’t get the happy ending he wants. Sad Goblin King is sad.

Of the things Sarah discovers along her labyrinth adventure, above all she learns the power of choice. She chooses between bravely confronting the uncomfortable uncertainties of real life or surrendering her free will to a fantasy. She chooses who she wants to be — a healthy balance somewhere between no longer a child but not yet a grown woman. One of my favorite things about Labyrinth’s message is Sarah doesn’t entirely dismiss her material possessions, but rather finds space for creativity and wonder alongside everything else. She can face her nebulous future with clarity, solid in her convictions and rooted in the understanding of her personhood.

Labyrinth teaches us that women have power. We can say what we want no matter the overwhelming pressures otherwise. We can shape a path for our lives and choose what’s right for us at the right time. We alone determine our self-worth; our stories matter.

We just have to remember the words.

Kelcie Mattson is a multimedia editor by morning, aspiring critic by afternoon, and tea aficionado 24/7. She’s been a fangirl since birth, thanks to reruns of Star Trek and Buffy. In her spare time she does the blogging thing on feminism, genre films, minority representation, comics, and all things cinephile-y at her website. You can follow her on Twitter at @kelciemattson, where she’s usually overanalyzing HGTV’s camerawork and sharing too many cat pictures.

Young Women and Heroism in ‘The Host’

This guest post by Sade Nickels appears as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.

Whether or not The Host is “feminist” or not has been covered by Dr. Natalie Wilson in a particularly interesting piece, as Stephanie Meyers identifies as a feminist. I’m not too into the idea of calling the movie an anti-feminist piece, but its portrayal of young women and their relationships to men is deeply problematic. As Dr. Wilson has questioned and criticized this movie well, I don’t have too much to add except some thoughts about young women and heroism. I do feel obligated to say that this movie is duller than toast and the onslaught of negative reviews it received was well-deserved.

So, this movie is about an Alien race called Souls that invade all the bodies of humans and turn the planet into a peaceful place. One Alien named Wanda gets put into the body of a young girl named Melanie. Melanie does not have control over her body but her presence is still there and she manipulates Wanda into running away from the Soul community to find her little brother and her boyfriend. They find them living with a bunch of other humans who are hiding from the Souls and just trying to get by. Wanda and Melanie work to protect this community from the Souls, but mostly their purpose and justification for their acts of heroism are largely done for the men they love or have fallen or are falling in love with. Very typical and trite, but there are some elements at play that tend to deviate from a traditional hero’s journey.

Is Wanda a girl/teenage female protagonist? Technically she is not “young” as she is 1,000 years old and seemingly immortal, but she is new to Earth so that makes her young in some sense. Also, why would the Souls even have genders that mirror that of humans or have genders at all? The Souls look like beams of light and they probably aren’t even a carbon based species and yet somehow Wanda is a female? So. Frustrating. Nonetheless she is controlling a person’s body who identifies as a teenage girl and is thus somewhat restricted to her occupied body’s feelings, emotions, and categorizations. It is hard to understand why Wanda is a “female” as the audience is given very little information as to what Souls are, where they came from, what their motivations are, or how this parasitic species procreates. Maybe it is covered in the book? Maybe Stephanie Meyer never really thought about it (unlike some authors I know). Either way it a missed opportunity for talking about gender vs. sex or doing anything somewhat subversive.

The dynamic between the two female protagonists in this movie who have to work together and collaborate to be successful for their shared end goals (which is boy saving) is what is most interesting to me when thinking about their roles as heroes and the typical myth of the hero. Melanie is almost a mercenary type. Determined, very occupied with the preservation of her humanity, resistant, manipulative, brave and adept at lying and stealing. Wanda is naive and lost but operates under a strict moral compass of nonviolence and pacifism. The two react to most situations very differently but they learn skills and behaviors from one another. It is the collaboration of these two very different teenage girl characters that allow them to be successful in protecting and aiding the human community.

As mentioned before, Wanda is a pacifist; her actions as a “hero” are conducted nonviolently. In fact her nonviolent action inspires her new community to start acting in the same way. This is a sort of nice refresher to all the kick-ass action heros that have been featured on the big screen. Nonetheless, her character is extremely self-sacrificing and puts herself last in almost every situation. Would have been nice to see a hero who strikes a good balance between operating under a strong moral compass without that being overshadowed by their seemingly low self-worth.

Sade Nickels is a toddler teacher in Seattle who enjoys getting tattoos, reading children’s books and thinking about radicalism.

A Modern Antihero’s Journey: The Goddess and Temptress in ‘Breaking Bad’

Breaking Bad promotional still.

Written by Leigh Kolb

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

Joseph Campbell immortalized the concept of the monomyth–or hero’s journey–in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which is required reading for students of literature and film. Campbell mapped out the archetypical hero, who has traversed centuries of myths, stories, films and now, television shows.

With the rise of the antihero in film and television, Campbell’s roadmap of the hero’s journey is still accurate. It’s just more crooked.

Walter White is the perfect antihero, and his journey (from “Mr. Chips into Scarface,” as creator Vince Gilligan has said)–from his departure and initiation to his return–is in lock step with the story arc of heroes throughout history, albeit it with a lack of heroic qualities. Gilligan has artfully shaken and baked archetypes, symbolism, religious imagery and time-worn human motivation into one of the greatest–and most literary–television series ever.

Modern storytelling borrows from ancient narratives.

As Breaking Bad begins the final leg of its run, two pivotal women in Walt’s life are at the forefront of his life’s path. His wife, Skyler, acts as Campbell’s “goddess” figure, and Lydia has re-emerged as the “temptress.” As modern adaptations of Campbell’s archetypes, each is attempting to keep or draw Walt into a life that fits her needs, for better or worse.

At the end of the first part of Season 5, Skyler takes Walt into a storage locker where she has stashed their piles upon piles of money. She shows him that they have more than they need, and helps convince him to remove himself from the business. His megalomaniac greed was taking over, and Skyler seemed to be able to pull him back in. While Walt began his meth career ostensibly to support his family during his cancer treatments, by the time he was at the top, he was referencing his bitter anger at missing out on a fortune with Gray Matter Technologies and wanting to top what he could have been, had he not settled for the life he did.

Walt’s “meeting with the goddess,” as Skyler shows him that he has all he needs.

Skyler has served as Walt’s moral compass throughout the series. Even when she was scheming and plotting, her plans (the car wash, especially) were often the most efficient and certainly didn’t have the body count that Walt’s career trajectory has had.

As a moral compass and goddess figure, Skyler doesn’t fit into the mold of what many would consider an archetypical “good” maternal force. It’s clear that she’s been an incredibly important force in Walt’s journey, and continues to be. Walt’s “meeting with the goddess”–when Skyler orchestrates the car wash, or when she takes him to the stockpile of money–changes him and shifts his course. This goddess figure is a twenty-first century force of maternal goodness–complicated, imperfect and often unlikeable. In “The True Anti-Hero of ‘Breaking Bad’ Isn’t Walter White,” Laura Bennett argues that

“…Skyler—brash, self-righteous, unsure of what it means to do the right thing—is a messier case. And even at her least likeable, she is key to what makes this show overall so compelling: its moral prickliness, the way its view of good and evil can seem at once so twisted and so stark.”

Therein lies the brilliance of Breaking Bad–our complicated relationships with and emotions about the characters reflect modern crises in what is good and what is evil. The world is far more gray than most are comfortable admitting. This is obviously reflected in Walt’s character, but the female characters have the same complexity.

At this point on Walt’s journey, he appears to be back in a partnership with his wife. Walt enthusiastically shares ideas about expanding the carwash, and Skyler says she’ll “think about it.” She’s in the freshly shampooed driver’s seat.

Walt makes suggestions. Skyler says she’ll think about it.

Meanwhile, Walt’s former business partner, Lydia, is one of the only ones left from his previous operation. She has stayed in the meth game, and is starting to lose without Walt’s pristine product. Lydia goes to the carwash and orders a wash from Skyler. Lydia confronts Walt inside, and begs him to come back. “You’re putting me in a box here,” she says, and promises him that there’s a great deal of money in it for them both.

Lydia is a shrewd businesswoman.

Lydia–Campbell’s temptress–is trying to pull him back in. Some viewers may see his new, emasculated position at the carwash with his wife as decision-maker as a step down, and want him to return to his prior “glory.” This temptation to go back to his old life could seduce Walt, and could seduce the viewer, who is addicted to watching Walt spiral into power and out of control. Certainly there are those who are cheering for him to be beckoned by the siren song.

Skyler confronts Walt and points out that people don’t bring rental cars to the carwash (she notices everything–Walt probably would have been caught long ago without her eyes). He tells her who Lydia was and what she wanted, and Skyler immediately confronts Lydia. “Get out of here now,” she tells her. “Go.”

Skyler confronts Lydia.

This is a twenty-first century goddess/temptress archetype. They are complicated and have their own motivations. They confront one another, and aren’t simply helpers or antagonists to the man on the journey. These compelling female characters, who play into a modern, “twisted” journey, are as noteworthy as the antihero who is taking the jagged, illegal path.

The goddess isn’t perfect. The temptress isn’t evil.

Moving female characters away from tired tropes is an excellent step (albeit uncomfortable, if you’re used to delineating female characters as one-dimensional stereotypes).

As the final few episodes of Breaking Bad commence, Walt reminds Hank, and us, that “If you don’t know who I am, maybe your best course would be to tread lightly.” With Hank discovering who he is, and his cancer having returned, Walt is in a box, too. It remains to be seen what he does to get out of it, although we’re not given any indication that he chooses the path of so-called righteousness. That’s for Jesse, who remains the Christ figure as he throws money to those in need as Saul jokes about his sainthood.

Humans have been telling and re-telling stories throughout their existence. The stories have changed very little, considering the depth and breadth of human experience. However, the moral ambiguity of the antihero and the strong and complex female characters that are present in Breaking Bad may still fit Campbell’s monomyth, but they push and warp the time-worn boxes of good vs. evil.

The female powers in fiction are often complex, course-changing and overlooked. Skyler and Lydia are frequently hated, ignored or seen as bit players–simply background dancers to Walt, the main event. However, they are still poised, just as they were in the first part of Season 5, to have a strong influence on the outcome of the story. As we as viewers hang in the balance, waiting for the untying of all of the knots that have been tightened in the last five seasons, the female characters are orchestrating and plotting, not just sitting by as passive bystanders. And that, of course, is just how it should be.

By the time Walt reaches his 52nd birthday, Skyler isn’t making his breakfast.

See also: ‘Yo Bitch’: The Complicated Feminism of Breaking Bad

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Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.