AvAâs female character writing, & Purple (Animator vs Animation / Animation vs Minecraft | A Deep Dive
Slightly inspired by @cindersnows, @i-like-grapeduo & @rocketcoâs posts.
I think itâs time we talked about AvA & AvM (animator vs animation / animation vs minecraft) / Alan beckerâs series & how he handles female characters- or atleast the severe lack of them. I feel like itâs been brushed under the rug for so long that now due to the newest episode, it just canât be ignored anymore.
For the color gang (TSC, yellow, red, blue & green), TCO, TDL & Victim, their genders have never been directly stated onscreen besides very short quick blink & youâll miss moments where the pronouns him/his/they get mentioned. However, Alan calls all of them guys & he/they pronouns, but says that he accepts fans changing whatever they want for their headcanons. However, iâll be discussing mostly the CANON STORY, not the whole âaccepting headcanonâ argument.
As we all know, all these characters have their own distinct personalities, flaws, likes / dislikes, mini arcs, talents / skills & even their own fighting styles. All of which have been mostly consistent across 12 episodes (AvA), 40 episodes (AvM), 5 episodes (AvE) & 3 more episodes (Influencer Arc) that are still ongoing for the past decade, with Alan now being able to hire &/or get a team through other means to help animate & storyboard scenes.
When asked (I believe to be-) almost 8 years ago (& he still confirmed he still stands on this opinion) why he hasnât added any female characters, at first he responded that he didnât want to include the idea of romance (if he was referring to the fandom here, then this makes 0 sense since the most popular ships are TDC x Red & Yellow X Blue which the fandom tends to view as gay ships), & then responded again saying that he âdoesnât know how to write womenâ so he avoids doing so. Now we have a grand total of⊠2 female characters. Pink / Magenta (purpleâs mom) & Mitsi (Victimâs spouse).
Pink / Magenta / Orchid (Purpleâs mom)âs character:
For context, letâs look into the first female character- purpleâs mom aka pink (whoâs clearly female because sheâs pink of course!) & purpleâs dad was confirmed to be the navy stickfigure. We know she was kind & compassionate to Purple, specifically during the times when Navy went too far during training sessions with him. However, Navy seemed to weak them both as weak & thus left them. Pink died at some point due to a unknown illness (Pinkâs body at one point thins out slightly, & Alan responded when asked that âshe got sick. lol sorry I didnât come up with anymore ideas than thatâ), leaving Purple alone where he tries to gain Navyâs approval (wherever he is), & then his father figureâs (King Orangeâs) approval. During this time, Purple gets 1 lengthy arc & 2 - 3 short ones which made him one of the top best-written characters in the series.
We get a scene of King Orange making amends (for almost killing him) & adopting Purple where cherry blossoms fall with Purple then taking these same blossoms to Pinkâs grave. But besides that, nothing is done with Pinkâs character. Her personality of being compassionate never conflicts with his motivations to make Navy proud (to the point where heâs willing to betray his only friends to do so), we never see Purple really grieving over Pinkâs death during his arc (especially since itâs heavily implied that he was a orphan for a long time before meeting King Orange) prior to the reveal, & her introduction where she defends him while arguing with Navy over his harsh training (& this is the only scene of her) seems extremely forced right at the end.
Mitsti (Victimâs spouse)âs character:
Oh boy where do I even begin? Sheâs first introduced when she meets Victim & calms him down from a panic attack & shows very similar traits to Pink- being kind, compassionate, but also really smart & a little funny. She pretty much helps Victim through his PTSD & starts up the company with him (with the implication that she started it solely to share just HIS talents), but never shows any flaws of her own. Her traits just boil down to her dedicating her life to help people without actually exploring why she does so.
Alan couldâve easily gave her any flaws too. Since the bio her creator (lore-wise) gave her is just âdance animation test, lmk what u guys thinkâ, maybe she internally sees herself as needing to stick to what she was made to do (âjust be a perfect & kind dancer, nothing more, thatâs what my creator expected me to beâ kind of thoughts) which causes some sort of self doubt about her own skills (not solely leaning towards her desire to help others) with the company she & Victim founded, & she learns to build herself back up (mostly) on her own. At least give us ANY form of growth for her. But instead, she just dies & once again becomes a plot device for Victim & his motivations to get revenge.
It seems almost like Alan purely associates female characters with just being romance partners & being a stereotypical perfect woman. Combining this with the additional fact that Alan didnât even think of a name for her (or even just naming her light gray) & just put Victimâs name backwards (Mitciv) in order to figure out the name Mitsi, & the fact that she was very coincidentally the first character to ever have permanent accessories really paints a picture that barely any effort was put into her character.
The writing choices behind the newest episode (AvM Ep39 - The Aether) with the valkyrie sword, & arguments against the title claim:
For the final nail of the coffin, I think the newest episode of AvM really proves the lack of care for the writing of female characters. Prior to this episode, purpleâs gender was also never specified (however, a large chunk of the fandom viewed Purple as feminine or genderfluid due to the possibility of good representation⊠& because of a bit of the fandom shipping green x purple with some interpreting both green & purple as feminine) but in this newest episode, Purple while in the aether dimension picks up the valkyrie sword & becomes the âvalkyrie queenâ. People were commenting about how good it is to get representation, & in response Alan made a pinned comment âPurple is a boy btwâ which was then changed to âbtw Valkyrie Queen is just a titleâ.
This seems to imply that if, say, a 100% established male character like Victim or King Orange where to pick up the valkyrie sword, it will put their boss name as âVictim / King Orange the Valkyrie Queenâ regardless of gender due to the possible coding of the sword. However, even this explanation seems like a stretch this the aether mod itself doesnât do this when a player or mob picks up the weapon, & even if it did the stickfigures have been shown to only partially abide by game rules & code, not being entirely restricted to it.
You can argue itâs âhis story, his rulesâ like glazers in the fandom are saying, but then why is the creator so adamant that Purple mustnât be feminine in canon? If it was due to fear of the fandomâs headcanons causing drama, then why couldnât he just say âPurpleâs a girl in canon but you can all still make headcanons to change their gender in your fan contentâ? If he truly intended Purple to fully confirmed male from the start, why constantly switch opinions, & why even add the Valkyrie queen boss meterâs text at all when in all other scenarios where a stickfigure picks up a bossâs weapon, no meter ever shows up?
He couldâve even just add the title valkyrie- & then the word âqueenâ just be the code glitching due to Minecraft not recognizing the stickfigures as actual traditional game files (since this is a canon lore detail) or even just have it be explained via Minecraft currently becoming corrupted by something as established in the previous episode.
âPurple being feminine in canon wouldâve ruined their backstory & character which couldâve been why itâs likely not canonâ:
Furthermore, thereâs the debate that Purple ever becoming canonically female would âruinâ her character since Navy was clearly training them & âdads / father figures / mentors donât train their daughters to fightâ. But this isnât true since female characters do infact get trained in media, we have female stickfigure characters since 2013 (not apart of Alanâs series & made by entirely different creators) who are able to fight, & we arenât even given a canon explanation as to why Navy decided to train Purple. It couldâve been due to events of the newgrounds attack, but itâs unknown if this happened before Navyâs training or after. If we assumed it happened after, then any parent wouldâve want to train their kids to defend themselves regardless of gender.
If anything, making Purple feminine wouldâve made her development even more better since she wouldâve been likely viewed as âalways weakâ even more by her own father to then becoming one of the top fighters in the series (besides the ones with their own coded destructive abilities like TCO or TDL)
I think itâs about time people respectfully speak up & discuss topics like this. Just because the series has been really long going & has amazing animation doesnât mean that itâs immune to itâs glaring & concerning flaws combined with the authorâs statements over the years. He has a whole team of animators & even the kickstarter raised 1M dollars for the AvA game. If writing a female character is this difficult for him even 8 - 10 years later, then he could very easily hire a co-writer to help him.