Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, many have turned their attention towards Taiwan and China. It has been no secret that since 1949, China have sought to reunify the island with the mainland and that Taiwan has sought to resist. However, I argue that for Taiwan this decade will be vitally important and that if it can survive the next ten years then it will probably outlast mainland China.
Regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I argue that demographics play a greater role than what has been initially stated. When you have a largely aging society like Russia has, the nation’s political elites know and understand that there is a limited timeframe in which they can act. The reason for this is because, they understand the current size of potential army recruits remains at the largest it is going to be for the foreseeable future.
As too it has been argued that Russia sought to invade Ukraine now because of this reduction in young people and the need to secure the nation’s geographic security gaps that are presently open. Consequently, I argue that China is no different with these problems and the need to secure its own political goals regarding Taiwan.
Subsequently, since 1949 China has been defiant about its position on Taiwan and its strategic messaging to the rest of the world about it. Alongside this, China will have needed to take Taiwan by the latest 2027.
This is because of similar demographic reasons that an aging China has started to face, mirroring the structural conditions that plague Russia’s desire to act while it still can.
If we take the fact that China is the fastest aging society in history, and that it needs to achieve all its goals by the year 2049, we are left with two very interesting intersecting factors at play.
If we work backwards from the year 2049, the targeted symbolic year of a hegemonic Chinese nation we can start to be presented with a better image and a potential reunification timeline that could unfold. That gives us a twenty-seven-year gap from present, in which they will need to achieve this.
Typically, it takes twenty years for a generation to occur, as noted by Strauss and Howe. This period will be important because it will be the benchmark for which unification normalisation will start to begin. What this will allow is the full political annexation of Taiwan over to mainland China. This is because a full generation of normalisation needs to happen, to make sure all political issues can be worked out and solved when being cored happens.
We can observe similar processes occurring in both Hong Kong and Macau, but as shown China does not have fifty years to fully transfer sovereignty to the mainland. Therefore, a mere generation will be the minimum for which China can hope to achieve this change.
We do not have much historically to compare too when regarding modern Island nation invasions but if nations like Ukraine and Afghanistan are to be models for Post-Cold War invasions and occupations, then it is deeply unlikely that an invasion’s success would be achieved in the space of a month.
However, working on the core assumption that China can peacefully walk straight into the island and the straight the process of sovereignty transfer right away. This would leave us with the year 2029 to start this process immediately in theory.
Secondly, if a drawn-out conflict would occur to fully control the island, this would take arguably two-five years depending on the resistance put up by Taiwanese soldiers and citizens alike. If we take a conservative estimate and say it will take two years of conflict to fully pacify the nation (something unprecedented in modern history). This would leave us with the year 2027, just five years from now, for which invasion can occur to reach China’s own deadline of 2049.
I argue that Taiwan will have plenty of time to both prepare and acknowledge a basic timeline of how China will seek to act. This becomes especially relevant due to the geographic conditions of the island and its 180km distance between itself and the mainland. It will be almost impossible to sneak up on the nation or launch a full amphibious assault. In addition, any Chinese military build-up will be noticed and will give the Taiwan several months to directly prepare for an invasion.
This is not withstanding neighbouring nations, that will be brought into interfering in any potential conflict, especially with the QUAD nations being heavily reliant on Taiwanese business.
Yet, we have ignored one core thing that still matters and that is China’s demographic position. The nation similarly to Russia is approaching a massive demographic bust moment, in part due to its over thirty years of negative fertility rates. Subsequently, the chances of China invading Taiwan remain unlikely at 20%, in the long term when regarding the next five years. As such, this has been best documented by both Hoie and Darley, both have demonstrated the difficulty on China’s part towards achieving this aim.
However, if they do China will not be able to hold the nation, just like how both the Soviet Union and the West could not hold Afghanistan. The outcome of this will be catastrophic for the Chinese nation state, on not just a political level but on a civilisational one too.
Taiwan will continue and will eventually survive, against Chinese aggressions. This is in part because of the decreasing likelihood of China of securing its desired timeframe due its fast-approaching demographic bomb.
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Breakfast with Thierry Baudet (Part I)
In mid-July, The Mallard was fortunate to have breakfast with Thierry Baudet, leader of the Dutch ‘Forum for Democracy’ (FVD) party in the Netherlands. We discussed his views on manufactured consent, immigration, CBDC, and climate change; and his new book ‘The Covid Conspiracy’.
The Mallard (TM): The Mallard knows your youth movement, JFVD. Their performance is very impressive. How did FVD start?
Thierry Baudet (TB): FVD began as a Eurosceptic think tank. In 2016, we organised a national referendum in the Netherlands opposing the association agreement with Ukraine. We won this referendum with more than 60% of the vote. The government, however, decided to ignore the outcome and sign the agreement anyway. That is when I decided to run for parliament.
I was elected in 2017.
It was clear from the beginning that we had substantial support amongst the young. Once we founded our youth movement, we had a thousand paying members within three hours.
We realised that people do not necessarily want to come together just for political discussion, they also want social and economic contact. That is why we organise sports events, social events, trips to the countryside, and so on.
We have an app now so people can sell products, offer services, send in job applications. We even have a Tinder function for dating so that FVDers can reproduce.
Fundamentally, we go about things with an energy which is truly different from that of any of our competitors. I denounce them in my book as ‘conservatards’ – the conservative establishment across the Western world which has become part of the deep state.
TM: The Blob?
TB: Yes. Or the Swamp. These people are afraid of speaking about any of the real issues. For example, they say ‘Sure there is climate change, we need to do something about our emissions, but let’s build nuclear power stations and not wind turbines’. Or, ‘Yes, illegal immigration is bad, but we need legal immigration,’ and ‘Yes, Covid is a big problem but let’s not do a 9pm curfew, instead an 11pm curfew.’ They accept the underlying assumptions and therefore never come up with truly different ideas.
They are unwilling to step out of the parameters set by the enemy. They are fighting a battle on the enemy’s ground, so they lose. But the price of not fighting on the enemy’s ground is to be labelled. That is how taboos work. So when you say ‘I want to leave the European Union, I do not think our sovereignty should be diminished by a supranational body,’ then you are labelled a nationalist. If you were to say, ‘It does not matter if immigrants come in legally or illegally, the problem is immigration as such. It is the transformation of our society from a cultural, ethnic, and historical point of view – that is the real issue,’ then you are denounced as a racist.
So, all of these taboos, these labels, function to protect the fundamental assumptions. If you live by them you also belittle yourself. You undermine your self-confidence; you undermine the energy with which you can bring your message across because you are not actually saying what you believe.
So, because we do not do that, unlike all the other so-called right-wing parties, we have a very special energy which you have noticed. People are happy with us, they are free.
TM: At most conservative events, there are very few women. When we attended your summer JFVD conference, it was pretty much half and half. Why?
TB: Because women understand that it is pointless to talk to people who are not willing to fight the real fight. They love men who take risks, who take pride in going their own way, taking their own route, believing in their own ideals. These are very important masculine values.
I do not see any sensible woman being attracted to the sort of effeminate bureaucrat the other parties produce. I do not see conservatards getting laid.
TM: Why do you think young men are attracted to your movement?
TB: Because men have a very hard time when they are young. Their chances of becoming financially well-off are slim. Their life is extremely difficult because of all these policies imposed on them. You are not allowed to be a meat-eater in all aspects of life. It is vital for men, especially young men, to have an aspirational goal – to be fighting for something.
TM: You want to be the hero of your own story. That is very difficult in a society which regards boys as defective girls.
TB: Boys are not allowed to play in the woods anymore, they are not allowed to be boys. It is only normal that a counter movement is rising.
TM: Talking of counter movements, what are your thoughts on the BBB (Boer Burger Beweging, the Farmers’ Citizen Movement)?
TB: Oh, it is a typical party cartel trick. BBB is a party consisting of former Liberal Party members and Christian Democrats. They operate entirely within the accepted ideological framework. That is also they are celebrated so much in the press. Nothing will change with them in government.
TM: If that’s the case, will the situation ever change in the Netherlands or Europe?
TB: The system is very strong and very difficult to break through via the democratic process – because it is not really democratic. We in the West are living in a heavily controlled oligarchy where certain groups are allowed to win elections. If a dark horse comes through, like Donald Trump, the entire system turns against him. It makes it effectively impossible to change things through the political process.
Things can change only if peoples’ trust in the system as such – and by that, I mean, the permanent political class and its media – crumbles. That is what happened when the Communist system failed in Europe. That is one scenario. The other scenario is that things will carry on as they are but that we will build a parallel society. We will be able to live in our own way, as the Amish do in America. We will be minorities in our own countries but we will survive.
TM: Is this linked to your App? What is it that your app does?
(*At this point Thierry got out his phone and showed me his app*)
TB: Here is a map which shows every FVD supporting company. We add new businesses every week. There is a commerce section where people can buy and sell goods. It has a coupon function so that you can get discounts at FVD-supporter-owned shops. It is very comprehensive. We are trying to expand this internationally so that people can organise parallel networks to help add value to themselves and thousands of others.
You see, I’m fighting on two tracks. First, the national platform to reach out to people and to wake them up to the consequences of current policies and governments. Second, I am faced with the globalist establishment from which there is no escape. We cannot avoid the fight because it is what we are here to do. We are part of a civilisation. If you run away from it, the fight becomes internal – you begin to eat yourself up.
TM: Just in the Netherlands?
TB: Across the whole world. During Covid as now on Ukraine. I find it absolutely stunning that every mainstream outlet supports NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine. There is a genuine economic and ideological cartel of the deep state which is follows decisions of the military industrial complexes.
TM: What really depressed me during Covid was that so many seemingly normal and rational people fully and wholly supported the lockdowns. People demanded that they be locked into their own homes.
TB: The conclusions that we should draw are about more than merely societal or economic costs. This is why I wrote my book. I was the only elected politician in the world to have opposed all Covid measures radically. It is why I am not allowed on television anymore. All the institutions set up which in theory create checks and balances do not function anymore. The media and every mainstream party went along with it. It was not a national decision; everything had already been decided at the international level and was merely implemented at national level through fake discussions. That is how the world really works.
This is Part I of The Mallard’s interview with Thierry Baudet. To read Part II, click here.
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Diversity: A Pyrrhic Victory
The Russo-Ukraine war has underscored the arduous, industrialised drudgery which characterises modern warfare; the mechanised obliteration made possible by modern technology has minimised opportunities for combatants to attain individual recognition and perform feats of life-affirming glory.
In continuation of this grim rediscovery, a revitalised war between Israel and Palestine has revealed the metaphysics to which modern warfare owes its preference for annihilation over capitulation: the depoliticization of combatants, a dehumanising process in which Palestinians become “human animals” and Israelis become “filthy pigs”.
Those who say “Israel’s security is our security” are wrong, but they’re less wrong than those who believe Britain is unaffected by the recent attacks in the south of the country. Over the course of decades, Britain’s policy of mass immigration has produced a series of immigrant enclaves in towns and cities up and down the country, many of which dislike each other far more than the native white British population for a variety of historic reasons; a fact which has been made apparent to everyone after several members poured into London, to celebrate and to mourn the outbreak of war.
However, as one can clearly see in the videos, with Turkish and Palestinian flags fluttering side-by-side, it’s not merely Britain’s Jewish and Palestinian diasporas being at each other’s throats, it’s a matter of every ethnic diaspora and commune piling into coalition with one another, further diminishing social trust and charging historic grievances.
Across all of England, from Oldham to Stoke, from Birmingham to Burnley, from Peckham to Kensington, from Rotherham to Dover, Britain’s post-war policy of mass immigration has gradually turned the Land of Hope and Glory into a giant drop-zone for an inter-ethnic Battle Royale.
Far from a cohesive unit, it is near impossible to walk through the middle of London without encountering a protest dedicated to the interests of another nation. When the government sought to curb illegal migration, Britain’s Albanian diaspora descended upon London in boisterous assembly, decrying the government’s rhetoric as racist and a xenophobic sleight against the disproportionately Albanian ‘asylum-seekers’ crossing the English Channel.
Then again, why shouldn’t they turn out to show support for their Albanian brothers and sisters? Aren’t public protest and freedom of speech cornerstones of our liberal democracy? Surely, the same can be said about the pro-Palestine demonstrations? Weren’t their ‘fiery but mostly peaceful’ demonstrations indicative of their successful integration into Modern British society, underpinned by the civic values of diversity and inclusion, liberty and tolerance? Let’s face it: diversity hasn’t failed. Diversity has triumphed and everyone hates it.
Before projecting the Israeli flag onto 10 Downing Street and the House of Commons, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who is of Indian descent, condemned the attack in the strongest possible terms:
“As the barbarity of today’s atrocities becomes clearer, we stand unequivocally with Israel. This attack by Hamas is cowardly and depraved. We have expressed our full solidarity to Benjamin Netanyahu and will work with international partners in the next 24 hours to co-ordinate support.”
Many have humorously remarked on the staunch, some might say excessive, support for Israel amongst Indians and those of Indian descent, but such solidarity is entirely rational. Given their historic enmity with Pakistan, it’s unsurprising that Indians would support the group with a grievance against a comparable ethnoreligious enemy. In blunt terms, the Indian support for Israel isn’t derived from a fondness for Jews, but from a general dislike of Muslims.
The tendency of our politicians to talk about hatred and division in the same breath overlooks the fact ‘hatred’ is just as capable of uniting people as it is of dividing them. Of course, Sunak is not your typical member of Britain’s Indian diaspora but given the riots in Leicester during the autumn of last year, it’s safe to say that if such grievance can be imported in-tact from the Indian subcontinent to the English midlands, it definitely extends from the English midlands to the nations of the Levant.
Meanwhile, north of Hadrian’s Wall, Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf, who is of Pakistani descent, issued a more lukewarm response to the widely publicised atrocities:
“My wife Nadia and I spent this morning on the phone to her family in Gaza. Many others in Scotland will be deeply worried about their families in Israel and Palestine. My thoughts and prayers are very much with those worried about loved ones caught up in this awful situation.”
Whilst many found the latter’s statement wavering and distasteful, it’s important to see things from the perspective of Yousaf. After all, he has family in Gaza and the chances this doesn’t affect his view on such matters is highly unlikely.
For readers who don’t recall, Yousaf made national news attacking then-SNP leadership contender Kate Forbes for her Christian view on gay marriage, suggesting her stance made her unfit to be First Minister. A matter of days later, it was revealed Yousaf had dodged a crucial Holyrood vote to liberalise marriage laws due to pressure from his fellow members of the local Muslim population.
Evidently, he is trying to balance his ethnoreligious and familial interests and emotions with his official responsibilities, as leader of the SNP and First Minister of Scotland. Indeed, this is impossible for most and far from easy for him – especially given his scornful opinions of the people he governs – yet it’s clear, given his unique position, he is forced to show more consideration than most people; people who lack the responsibilities of public office.
On her way to the Israeli embassy to pay her respects, Bella Wallersteiner, a liberal-conservative commentator of Jewish descent, encountered a large celebration of the attack on Israel. In response to the public display of support for Hamas and Palestine, she posted:
“I’ve left as didn’t feel safe. I tried speaking to a few protestors and making the point that it was totally inappropriate to hold a demonstration of this kind after a heinous terrorist attack. As you can imagine, I didn’t get very far. I’d advise people avoid the area.”
As someone who has routinely championed immigration and cosmopolitanism, Wallersteiner only now felt threatened by the implications of diversity and mass immigration because it negatively implicated her ethnic group. It goes without saying that homogenous societies are hard enough to maintain, even when its inhabitants adhere to pro-social values. As such, you can’t advocate the creation of a multi-ethnic, multicultural society until it affects you; such an ethnocentric outlook is unlikely to produce good results, for oneself or for other people.
Of course, Wallersteiner is not the only one guilty of ethno-narcissism. Diane Abbott’s letter to The Observer, which ignited accusations of anti-semitism, anti-ziganism, and anti-Irishness, which led to her suspension from the Labour Party, drew a qualitative distinction between racism and prejudice. According to Abbott, whilst Jews, Roma, and the Irish have been victims of prejudice, experience of racism is particular to black people. In summary: “You’re an Other, and therefore you’re a victim, but at least you’re a White Other, unlike me – a BLACK woman.”
Essentially, anti-semitism is bad, but anti-blackness is worse. The aforementioned minority groups aren’t immune to discrimination, but they are immune to exceptionally egregious forms of discrimination due to their ‘whiteness’ or relative proximity thereto; a notion which critics called a “hierarchy of racism“.
One might say this dispute has served as proxy for vying wings of the Labour Party, which is partially true. However, it’s evident that ethnic grievance plays a far more important role. Corbynites did take to Twitter/X (where else?) to complain about Abbott’s suspension, but their gripe had next-to-nothing to do with Blairite manoeuvring.
Instead, they targeted the implicit anti-blackness of Abbott’s critics and the publicity they received, suggesting they were the ones perpetuating a “hierarchy of racism”, privileging concerns about anti-Semitism over anti-Blackness, seemingly ignoring Abbott’s comments regarding the Roma and the Irish, thereby undermining their outrage and revealing their own ethnically motivated hypocrisy.
Every faction involved lays claim to real ‘anti-racism’. Compared to other social ills, they agree racism is evil, yet each group believes some evils are eviller than others. They agree on a general qualitative assessment but disagree on a distinct qualitative assessment; they agree on whites as the common enemy, but not who benefits the most from the racist superstructure of Western society, other than whites themselves.
Even when considered non-white, Jews are perceived as ‘white(r)’ than their comrades. As such, non-Jews band together to push concerns about anti-semitism to the periphery of ‘anti-racism’. Just as minority activists align themselves against whites due to their general non-whiteness, increasingly collectivised ‘Black and Brown’ members align themselves against Jews due to their distinct non-whiteness to push their interests up the priorities list of the ‘anti-racist’ movement.
Indeed, the anti-white intersectional logic of the anti-racist coalition which ejected the white working class from the political left, laying the groundwork for the Conservative electoral landslide in 2019, a victory which is being undone because the Tories severely underdelivered on their promise to lower immigration, is problematising a faction which helped this process along.
Arguably parallel to peripheralization of ‘cisgender’ women within anti-sexism in pursuit of ‘trans rights’, both Jews and ‘cisgender’ women are prone to flock to right-leaning media, who herald them as martyrs cancelled by the Social Justice Mob and so on. Just as ‘TRAs’ and ‘TERFs’ appeal to the external enemy of the sexist heterosexual man, accusing each other of jeopardising the safety of women – as if the nature of womanhood wasn’t the source of conflict to begin with – vying ethnic factions of the anti-racist coalition accuse each other of playing into the hands of white supremacy by advancing their respective interests.
The UK government does this all the time. Due to the hegemonic obsession with diversity amongst the political and media class, a propensity which has given rise to legal commitments to support and promote Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion, as per the Equality Act (2010), the state-backed intersectional diversity which it encourages necessarily inflames tensions between minority groups and the white British majority.
In an attempt to hold warring minority groups together, hoping to offset the explosive potential of re-opening historic grievances, and to integrate a growing migrant and migrant-descended population, one which emerged from a policy which the British people have consistently opposed whenever given the chance, every facet of media has become infected with anti-white sentiment. From Access UK’s state-funded hotep workshops to fabricating history about the British Isles, from inserting slavery and racism into every facet of media to covering up racially-motivated grooming gangs to protect ‘social cohesion’.
However, whilst minority groups view the anti-racist coalition as a means of affirming their uniquely serious grievance – discrimination against their particular group – it becomes apparent that their opposition to whites merely aligns ethnic grievances; it does not assess their validity or resolve them. As such, the potentiality for conflict remains, overflowing into violence and aggression every time there is an international crisis or domestic dispute.
The direct consequence of this is the antithetical to what every self-appointed champion of small government and liberal values theoretically wants, which is more power being given to the state to interfere in people’s day-to-day life through censorship and distort public opinion through social engineering.
Sadiq Khan’s recent announcement to increase ‘anti-hate’ patrols is just one such example. In any other circumstance, conservatives and libertarians would dismiss such measures as pedantic, overbearing, and ideologically driven, yet nobody seems concerned that the attack in southern Israel is being used to empower an apparatus which spends every other day arresting people for ‘hate speech’.
The protection of people and property is the initial function of the police, so I severely doubt that specific ‘anti-hate’ measures will be limited to arresting people who smash up shopfronts and graffiti public property, especially since the police cannot be relied upon to fulfil its most basic functions, as revealed by their indifference to serious crimes and the public’s rapidly declining trust.
Moreover, what are new arrivals to this country supposed to integrate to? Democracy? What is democracy without a demos? Civil liberties? Which are routinely trampled by the managerial state? Capitalism? Do you seriously expect society to be held together by consumerism? People will eventually ask for something more than material security and economic growth, both of which we are failing to procure anyway; what holds society together then?
Integration is a necessarily particular process, it assumes a particular group and set of customs to which people can be integrated over time. You can’t ‘integrate’ people to a global matrix of sustenance. You can’t ‘integrate’ people to a group which you allow to be displaced through migration. You can’t ‘integrate’ people to a value system which is designed to accommodate everyone, lest you plan on hollowing out every religion on the Earth, forcing people to treat their symbols as quirky cultural tokens and their prophets as secularised self-help gurus.
How perversely ironic is it that the liberal-left obsession with diversity has emerged from the inability to comprehend that people genuinely are different to one another? If anything, it is the native population which has been told to ‘integrate’, to tolerate and adhere, to ways and customs of the new arrivals, not the other way around.
The Labour Party, almost definitely the next party of government, issued a document titled: “Report of the Commission on the UK’s Future”. According to the report, the commission “originally used in the first democracies in Ancient Greece – that are critical for the success of any nation, with Britain being no exception” – demos (shared identity), telos (shared ambitions), and ethos (shared values).
Curiously, the report left out another very important concept to the Ancient Greeks: ethnos (shared character; ethnicity). According to the ancients, a society which lacks a sufficient degree of homogeneity inevitably leads to a lack of social trust, a lack of social trust will inevitably lead to factions, and factions will inevitably lead to the outbreak of disorder and even civil war. As such, in an attempt to ensure its survival, the state must micromanage society down to the last snivelling minutia to tie everything together; a far-flung difference from the unarmed, gentle-natured, and almost passive policemen of George Orwell’s England Your England.
As Singapore shows, a diverse society is only manageable if you have a stable demographic supermajority and reliable public institutions, especially when it comes to dealing with the bare necessities of public order, such as preventing violence and theft. The UK has neither of these. As per the most recent census, the white British majority is declining and crime is basically decriminalised.
As such, if things continue at their current rate and on their current course, we’re going to need more than ‘anti-hate’ patrols, Tebbit’s Cricket Test, and Hotep Histories to integrate an increasingly diverse populous; dear reader, we’re going to need the Katechon. Indeed, diversity is not the fancy of freedom lovers, but of tyrants, as Aristotle elucidates in Politics:
“It is a habit of tyrants never to like anyone who has a spirit of dignity and independence. The tyrant claims a monopoly of such qualities for himself; he feels that anybody who asserts a rival dignity, or acts with independence, is threatening his own superiority and the despotic power of his tyranny; he hates him accordingly as a subverter of his own authority. It is also a habit of tyrants to prefer the company of aliens to that of citizens at table and in society; citizens, they feel, are enemies, but aliens will offer no opposition.” (1313B29)
I started this article with a reference to the wars in Ukraine and Israel, yet these two are not the only major conflicts which 2023 has endured. The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, initiated after the latter launched a large-scale military invasion against the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, violating the 2020 ceasefire agreement between the nations and leading to the expulsion of over 100,000 Armenians.
Whilst Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, most of its territory was governed by ethnic Armenians. Without this natural fraternity, this sense of demos, the Republic of Artsakh could simply not exist, nor would the Azerbaijani government need to re-constitute the state through Asiatic authoritarianism. Even for us moderns, it is clear that diversity is not the basis of peaceful and stable self-government. The more we stray from this fact, we will deny ourselves to attain that which we have always wanted: the ability to discriminate and enjoy people as individuals and exceptions, rather than monoliths to which we are forced to remain diffident, for the sake of ourselves and others.
Therefore, to conclude, I shall leave you with this passage from Aristotle’s Politics, in which the great philosopher outlines the natural conclusion of a society which does not take its responsibility towards the diversity of its constituents with any prudence or honesty:
“Heterogeneity of stocks may lead to faction – at any rate until they have had time to assimilate. A city cannot be constituted from any chance collection of people, or in any chance period of time. Most of the cities which have admitted settlers, either at the time of their foundation or later, have been troubled by faction. For example, the Achaeans joined with settlers from Troezen in founding Sybaris, but expelled them when their own numbers increased; and this involved their city in a curse. At Thurii the Sybarites quarreled with the other settlers who had joined them in its colonization; they demanded special privileges, on the ground that they were the owners of the territory, and were driven out of the colony. At Byzantium the later settlers were detected in a conspiracy against the original colonists, and were expelled by force; and a similar expulsion befell the exiles from Chios who were admitted to Antissa by the original colonists. At Zancle, on the other hand, the original colonists were themselves expelled by the Samians whom they admitted. At Apollonia, on the Black Sea, factional conflict was caused by the introduction of new settlers; at Syracuse the conferring of civic rights on aliens and mercenaries, at the end of the period of the tyrants, led to sedition and civil war; and at Amphipolis the original citizens, after admitting Chalcidian colonists, were nearly all expelled by the colonists they had admitted.” (1303A13)
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Modern Feminists and the Anti-Bildungsroman
Over the recent decade, we have seen a certain type of storyline rise to popularity among critics. The plot usually follows a female character with some type of special power or circumstance who, by virtue of said power, is beset by some type of related conflict; sounds normal enough—this is the beginning of virtually every story.
However, in this case, the conflicts that develop around said heroines’ uniqueness do not always follow their growing or learning how to ethically or effectively use their power. Instead, it’s the opposite: their stories or the cultural interpretation thereof often involve the discovery, decision, or insistence that they do not have to grow or learn, but that it is society or the surrounding world that must adapt to and accept them. From Elsa, to Carol Danvers, to Rey (it cannot be stressed enough) Palpatine, some of the most lauded heroines in current media have followed this type of storyline—which, due to the the ways the characters interact with their settings and conflicts, involves several tropes of a common story type, the bildungsroman.
However, the plot structure and underlying tone of the aspects emphasized as worthwhile by critics classify them as an attempt to form a new genre: a kind of anti-bildungsroman that, in line with the beliefs of the modern feminism that usually advocates said storyline type, actively seeks to subvert the assumptions of the individual’s (here, the individual woman’s) relationship with the broader social structure. The execution of this storyline ironically does the female characters—and stories with female leads generally—several disservices that run counter to the stated goals of those behind the stories.
The Bildungsroman: what it is and what it isn’t.
Just for a refresher, a bildungsroman—German for “education novel”—is a story that intertwines the character’s ethical, psychological, and spiritual growth with the resolution of the conflict. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is as much about Alice’s learning not to behave like all the examples of toxic femininity she encounters through the story as it is actually getting out of the rabbit hole. Harry Potter learns as much about how to be a responsible young adult as how to actually cast spells (with the when and why invariably outweighing the what). The bulk of Aang’s story in Avatar: The Last Airbender involves not his learning how to use his powers as the Avatar, but his learning not to be a childish idiot who sticks his foot in his mouth at every turn. And who can forget Uncle Ben’s injunction to Peter Parker (established by Spider-Man: No Way Home as a theme that transcends the multiverse) about power and responsibility? It’s become nearly as iconic a scene as a still novice Luke Skywalker running through Dagobah with Yoda on his back, with nary a trickle of Force to be discerned by the anticipating audience.
In each of these, the external conflict is resolved and made more complex and dramatic by the character’s resolving some type of inner conflict—usually involving the growth from maturity to immaturity, selfishness to sacrifice, idleness to responsibility, &c.
Now, not every story is or needs to be a bildungsroman. We don’t always need heroes that change or grow—sometimes we need the opposite! It’s no coincidence that Conan the Barbarian and Superman, both unique because of their unchangeability, came out of the flux of the 1930s, when the average Joe, Jane, Jimmy, or Jill might rather enjoy a character who stands in opposition to the instabilities and shiftings around them.
There are many other examples of changeless characters coming out of changing times. The Lord of the Rings—specifically, Aragorn—came out of Tolkien’s effort to preserve English virtues and history through the trauma of values that were the Great War and Modernism (though, granted, Aragorn did a lot of growing up before Frodo receives the Ring). Later in the twentieth century, James Bond stood like a modern Conan (the parallels between their stories and characters are many, despite the obvious differences) amidst the unease of the Cold War. Nor does it always need to be so dire as these: in the ‘90s, Forrest Gump’s charm often inhered in how his simplemindedness showed how the problems around him might really have simple answers (at least within the bounds of his film), and the Dude of mistakened Lebowski fame would not be His Dudeness if he grew through his misadventures.
I list these to head off any claims of my placing standards on the female characters discussed below that I won’t apply to male characters. This is also why, other than this sentence, I won’t use the oft-bandied phrase “Mary Sue;” besides simplifying the argument into mere stereotypes, the phrase, or its male counterpart Gary Stu, implies that strong or unchanging characters are always bad or always lack depth. They may very well be, but my interest is not to simply descry it but to find out why. I come at the topic and characters below with one goal: to encourage complex characters and stories that do what we need art to do—to concretize the values we need to experience at a given time in ways that are timeless. Sometimes that can best be achieved by characters that grow, sometimes not; usually we need iterations of both simultaneously—often in the same story.
But the stories I’m focusing on do assume the complexity of a bildungsroman framework; in each case, the female character is placed in a situation where she is expected by society (and, often, the audience) to grow and she either flatly refuses to do so, or she grows in ways counter to her respective canon. In fact, the characters often self-consciously push against and subvert the canonical expectations for growth in various ways.
Elsa: Letting Go of Past Story Structures
The phenomenon that was Frozen was hailed by many as a deconstruction of the archetypal Disney princess story. Its setup follows many tropes of said genre: a girl of unique birth locked away by parents to prevent a misuse of her powers. However, from there the movie breaks the tradition of stories as late as Rapunzel (2010), which, itself, broke several tropes while adhering to familiar formats. Parents? The uredeemed source of her abuse. Prince charming? Actually the villain. The protagonist’s powers? To be used without compunction after letting go (of expectations? Of the need for self-control? The unnamed antecedent of her song’s Dionysian “it” is as multifarious as the audience might wish).
It would be wrong to say Elsa experiences no growth or argue her character lacks compelling internal conflicts. After going to live alone on her mountaintop (notably embodying several characteristics of the traditional ice queen villain), she does come down and remit her isolation upon learning that by embracing her powers she has caused an eternal winter in Arendelle. Furthermore, not all of the movie’s deconstructions are negative. While the ending of stories in a marriage signifies the restored balance and completion of comedy—and is much more than merely reducing the female to an ornament of the male and his restored power structure, as the format’s feminist critics allege—Frozen’s replacing the familiar eros-driven love story with one of phileo between sisters should be welcomed as an expansion of the virtues and values we enjoy being explored. However, from there we are faced by the irony that the same voices who push the “sisters > prince charming” dynamic often insist on seeing eros in any story featuring two male friends—an unfortunate sexist double standard…
My focus here on Frozen and the others is as much on the cultural response to the stories as the stories, themselves. The danger to Anna posed by her love-at-first-sight relationship with Prince Hans was not rectified by placing it against the authentic relationship with Kristoff; rather, the reversal of the form was turned retroactively onto all other Disney stories about love at first sight, which had the tone less of adding complexity that had never been established than of burning down the now malicious parts of what had. Finally, it was not a song about Elsa’s learning how to judiciously use her powers that every parent of kids of a certain age (or, let’s face it, young adults, too) had to listen to on repeat for the rest of 2013 and most of 2014. It was a song advocating the audience (especially girls) vicariously “Let it go!” along with Elsa. It was a kicking song, and I don’t begrudge any young girl for making her parents want to break a speaker because of it, but it did, thematically, set the ideological perspective and tone for latter heroines that would come after.
Rey Palpatine: A Victim of her Advocates
The next female character who declines to grow in ways prescribed by her lore is Rey Palpatine. Establishing Rey’s arc or lack thereof is difficult due to her appearing in three films with different directors with conflicting goals for her movies. The lack of unified vision, added to the retconning the trilogy exacted on the established Lucas canon and universe, makes it difficult to treat Rey’s plot either as a uniform whole or as a consistent intentional decision to buck expectations.
Nonetheless, against the backdrop of Luke’s growth under Yoda Rey’s development falls short. While Luke’s progression is drawn over two, if not all three, of the original movies, Rey is able to, for example, beat Kylo Ren the first time she touches a lightsaber. This could be possibly excused if, like Anakin, she were shown to have a high concentration of midichlorians and, thus, a more preternatural adeptness with the Force; however, such a reveal, set up by Abrams in The Force Awakens, was rejected by Rian Johnson in favor of making her a nobody in The Last Jedi (a more vicious crime against Star Wars lore than simply creating a new heroine backstory—or, really, refusing to—might necessarily entail). Abrams, then, had to pick up the pieces in The Rise of Skywalker to make what he could of Johnson’s arson. Central as it is, Rey’s disjointed arc is by no means the only problem with the new Star Wars trilogy.
Enough has been written and recorded about the canonical breaks between the original and the prequel trilogies and Rey’s that I don’t need to belabor the differences. Furthermore, many of Rey’s lacks can be explained, and possibly excused, by acknowledging the directorial conflicts of the trilogy. However, this does not excuse how Rey’s character was marketed: she was, we were often reminded, a female heroine, and that to reject her and all the incongruous elements of her story, even for the sake of preserving the larger Star Wars universe in good faith, was nothing less than sexist bigotry resulting from an irrational fear of strong women (which, strangely enough, had not reared its head in response to any of the other strong, complex females in the Star Wars universe).
The insistence among Rey’s defenders that she is a prime example of both a strong female character and a victim of unfair bigotry unfortunately sets the bar quite low for what is considered a good character—besides disregarding a devoted fanbase who were already invested in finding in the star of the revival trilogy as much depth as they could. Again, my focus is less on whether Rey consistently grows (if she does, it is disjointed due to director disagreements and rushed in a “tell rather than show” kind of way—a sin for character development of any genre). At issue here is the implied insistence that she should not have to grow—that standards of growth from a previous canon are at best an unfair standard and at worst a reactionary response from a threatened tradition of supposedly (but, as fans know, not really) male lore and predominantly male audience against a new heroine. That Rey’s greatness, thus, relied on the spectre of sexist pushback for its vitality and clout did not strike anyone as an issue to be worried about.
Carol Danvers: The Unrestrained Will
My final example of a heroine who rejects the complexity of growth prescribed by her own canon—and the one that does so most openly—is the adult version of Elsa, Marvel’s Carol Danvers. Begun in production as Elsa was gracing theaters, Captain Marvel (2019) added the element of the character’s rethinking her entire culture—of decolonizing her mind, as it were—to the formula, providing her further justification to eschew the self-control and prescribed growth of the traditional superhero story.
Danvers’s story begins with her training opposite Jude Law’s Yon-Rogg, who is preparing her to be a Kree warrior. It is against his mentoring admonitions to control her impulses and to use her head over her heart—and to become “the best version of yourself”—that the rest of her story takes place. Through the movie, she pieces together her disjointed memories to discover the Kree she is fighting for against the Skrull are actually the baddies, and that she is a human whose powers come from Kree technology she destroyed but which Yon-Rogg and the civilization’s Supreme Intelligence AI are trying to still utilize in her.
For the present I’ll ignore the fact that the movie reduces the 1970s “Kree-Skrull War” match between two bloodthirsty races in into a one-sided genocide of the Skrull by the Kree that resembles less the source material and more the modern revisionist simplifications of history into binaries between rapacious, patriarchal colonists and innocent, victimized indigenous. At issue here is that the heroine discovers, in a reverse-brainwashing sequence, that she has actually been misled (gaslit, brainwashed, Stockholm syndromed, all the common terms) by the Kree, and that her assumptions and even her own mind are complicit with the evils of the Kree. She must, thus, decolonize her worldview as she works out whence she got her powers—which, upon learning she gained them through an attempt to save the Skrull, could be used without any moral qualms about their being created by the antagonists.
Within the bounds of the movie, it’s a compelling conflict, and one which does necessitate Danvers’s rethinking and rejecting Yon-Rogg’s inducements to use her powers in what the Kree would say were the right ways (but which are, in reality, against her practical and ethical interests). However, it is not, technically a character arc: rather, it is an anti-arc. Released from the usual inducement to meet power with self-control, or to clearly delineate between her power and her self (with the former always needing to predominate), Danvers simply uses her powers.
This results in some great cinematics that, I’ll admit, meet the desire for a decent action movie with a satisfyingly insolent protagonist. However, Danvers nonetheless loses a major potential character arc.
Even in the final moment with Yon-Rogg, where, in rejecting his last-ditch effort to manipulate her into fighting as herself without her powers (i.e. on terms in which he knows he can beat her), she simply blows him away, thus showing that he’s right: that she cannot control her impulses.
She claims she has nothing to prove to him, but what about to herself? This is, after all, one of the classic canonical superhero conflicts—where the line between self and power falls, which can provoke further questions of what can ultimately be relied upon, or how to maintain one’s self despite the changes brought by power. What about conflicts regarding the dependability of her newfound way of seeing the world, a major question in a movie where the inability to trust reality (brainwashing Kree, shapeshifting Skrull, etc) is a common motif? No, once she gets woke to the Kree, Danvers never questions her new episteme. Why allow internal conflicts to burden her character with unnecessary complexity—especially when we can resolve all the movie’s external conflicts with unlimited girlboss power, smashing the patriarchy—err, the Kree—with their own tools, instead?
This lack of reflection on her powers is a major part of what makes Danvers’s character flatter than either Elsa’s or Rey’s. Both of them at least experience doubt regarding their powers and their relationship to them and their relative place in the world. However, as if stuck in Elsa’s famous song, Danvers’ climactic embracing of her powers keeps her in a third-act moment of what could have been a five-act growth arc.
There is also the unadmitted Superman paradox.
The Superman paradox arose when writers realized an all-powerful being could have no serious conflicts—and, therefore, no compelling story. His creators had to steadily introduce kryptonite to keep him interesting. Presumably her creators knew of this but didn’t think it would apply.
It can certainly be argued that incorporating both an awakening embrace of power and an overcoming of weakness to that power would be expecting too much—and trying to include two major conflicts in one movie. However, completely eschewing any real weakness (Danvers’ conflict involves her adopting and subsequently rejecting weaknesses she does not intrinsically have, which are accidental and, thus, ultimately unserious as conflicts) still sets a low bar of complexity when most superhero movies include some sort of chink in the hero’s armor for future exploration. Danvers’s embracing of her powers is so wholly untainted that, as cathartic for some as the final sequence may be (complete with her acquiring the ultimate symbol of freedom, flight), the seeds for future growth or reflection—the marks of a hero’s staying power—are, sadly, lacking.
[1] Feminist Heroines: A Rejection of Complex Females
None of this is to deny that Elsa’s, Rey’s, or Danvers’s movies are entertaining and have devoted, good-faith fanbases. As with the unchanging heroes I mention above, people can and should enjoy what they like and feel they need. However, this leads to my qualms with the idea of a character type that shouldn’t have to grow in expected or sympathetic ways. Among other things, I fear the contention that traditional complexity and character growth are arbitrary impositions meant to reject characters because of their femaleness will result in less complexity in female characters, as well as create, in a self-fulfilling prophecy, an antipathy or apathy among audiences towards new female characters—not because they are female, but because they are simple.
However, so long as a certain brand of feminist critics assume that all efforts to mold a female character according to a broader ethical framework are, really, a patriarchal attempt to keep women down, we will continue to get simplistic stories and morals thereof like these. This should not surprise us. The same critics who hold to this implicitly Marxist reading of traditional story structures interpret Pride and Prejudice as an anti-woman novel because it suggests some of Elizabeth Bennet’s problems can only be fixed by personal reflection and reformation—i.e. because the novel is in part a bildungsroman—despite her embodying most of the same traits of their stated favorite heroines (even those discussed above!). If that is how such critics interpret a thoroughly complex character arc, we should not hold out hope for better from them or from studios working to satisfy them as an audience.
So, what should we do? For one, we should flatly deny the accusations that disliking an individual character equates antagonism or bigotry against an entire category; besides employing an irrefutable denial of moral legitimacy, it tries to shoehorn a Marxist reading that sees individuals as merely instances of their group or class. In trying to save characters from simplicity, we should also fight the simplification of critique.
When stories or characters come out that do, indeed, participate in complexity in some way, we should promote them. This may mean being open to new reworkings of stories (on that note, I had originally included The Legend of Korra above, but on further reflection and research of perspectives, I decided the Avatar Korra does grow in ways consistent with the precedents of the Avatar universe that I had not considered before). While above I critiqued the characters for breaking from their canons, it can be equally damaging for story to never stretch what has already been. The best stories will, in my view, resurrect familiar elements of their canons while showing that new arcs are still possible therein. So, we should vote with our pounds, dollars, and online engagements to show at least the less ideology-driven studios that complexity of story matters to audiences more than character identity politics.
A converse of this is to reject stories built around transgressive or socially deconstructive elements, and to educate ourselves on why such things do not and should not be privileged as equally valid views or stories (being anti-stories) in the marketplace of ideas—especially when those who promote them would not and are not extending the same toleration to the rest of us.
Finally, as we at The Mallard have advocated and tried to put into practice, we should create the things we want to see. If nothing else, this will help us understand how to interpret the other art we consume. Complexity is difficult, and accomplishing it subtly and succinctly is even moreso. It might discredit me as a writer to put it in print, but I had to cut 250+ pages of my novel Sacred Shadows and Latent Light, most of which was backstory and characterization. Necessary for fleshing out my characters for myself, but not inherently necessary for developing the book’s conflict. The experience paradoxically made me more sympathetic but also less yielding when it comes to character depth. I hope I’ve shown both above in my treatment of characters who have, in theory (certainly in budget), better writers than I behind them.
[One aspect of Captain Marvel that is only peripherally related to Danvers’s relationship with her powers, but which nonetheless aligns with the eschewing of usual self-control progression, is her treatment of the minor male characters in the film. Danvers has the perfect excuse to treat new people with suspicion, and, perhaps excepting Stan Lee on the bus, she enjoys it—from ____ to committing theft grand auto. Of course, the trope of an apparent alien not conforming to local property laws goes as far back as Thor (and, of course, farther), but the undertone here is that the theft is justified in response to the man admittedly creepily asking Danvers for a smile. She later shows that her default to rudeness is not a casualty of her untrusting circumstances: she responds to someone as unthreatening as Tom Holland’s Peter Parker in Avengers: Endgame in as insolent a manner as she does to the characters in her movie—an indecency for which I have not been able to forgive her.]
