“This show is a controversial, intellectual intelligent show with three kick-ass females, none of none of whom are white, out three leads are not white and none of them really revolving around a man.”
- Cas Anvar about SyFy’s series “The Expanse.” (x)
What … is this show? MUST INVESTIGATE.
Yes! You must! This show is great.
I’ve been reading the books and they are ok, but not nearly the best of current scifi series in terms of content, plot, or representation. The main character is the most bland, annoying white dude you could come up with. (To be fair, I’ve only seen half of the first season of the TV show and read the first 2 and a half books.)
The first character pictured here, Julie Mao, isn’t actually a main character. I’m not sure if she gets more than one line in the whole first book? The second character pictured, Naomi, is awesome, but is the “girlfriend” character in the books, much to my great disappointment. (Maybe they do something more interesting with her in the TV series?) The last character pictured, Avasarala, is pretty badass, but they make her very unlikeable from what I’ve seen of the TV series, she’s not that evil in the books.
My favorite “space opera” on TV right now is another syfy show, Killjoys. The lead is a black woman, and there are two queer POC supporting characters. The best place to find actual representation and intelligent plot in scifi is in books though imo.
Wow, it’s always amazing to see people completely different reactions to the same thing …
I’ve read all five books released so far and seen the first season of the television series and love them both. Julie Mao is a major character in the sense that we learn a lot about her and her existence sets in train many significant things … Naomi is SO much more than just a girlfriend so it’s a shame if that’s all people are taking away from the books… and Avasarala is hilarious, textured and wonderful …
That’s an unfortunate assessment of Holden which I hope would be resolved by reading a little more … and there’s no mention given of the amazing characters of Amos, Alex, Bobbie and (Peaches to come later), Prax … and more ..
A real shame if people are turned off the books/series by the above dismissal of the series. Please dig deeper and read/watch. It is definitely one of the best series out there in terms of representation not only from a race perspective but also from a sexuality perspective (Pan is an unexceptionable norm). People are just people and their race/sexuality is not their defining characteristic, although I do mention that Planetism seems to have replaced racism.
See, I disagree with a lot of this. Avasarala and Bobbie are awesome, I’ll agree with you there. But I don’t think my opinions on this series are based on not “digging deep” enough or anything like that.
Holden is incredibly aggravating, in my personal opinion. We have to read through pages of him thinking about how he’d never even considered Naomi as a sexual/romantic partner because of her “belter” looks which is just nauseating to me. Also, the descriptions of the way he thinks of her are incredibly exoticising, both of her as a woman of color and of her as a belter. Furthermore, he’s rash in a way which I think is dangerous and self-absorbed. A friend of mine described this type of main character as “sprawling male fantasy,” which I think is apt. I’d much rather read a book where Naomi is in charge and Holden isn’t even a character.
There’s a lesbian couple in book three which is cool, but there’s a lot of other scifi books out there doing more interesting things with gender and sexuality (2312 and Ancillary Justice, to name a couple of my favorites).
Of course you’re entitled to your views (with which I clearly don’t agree), although I have also considered/debated the issue of whether exoticising is taking place in the series.
You are not my target audience as you’ve already decided you don’t like the series.
All I am trying to do is encourage more people to make up their own minds - read the books/watch the series for themselves and not be discouraged by negative reviews. If after all that they don’t like it, I’m fine with that. i just think it’s a shame if people don’t read/watch simply because one person didn’t like it. It’s a normal part of fandoms, especially small fandoms to try to encourage more and more people to try it. Not everyone will like it, but some/most will.
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