the media butchered sita. in one side we have her stereotypical portrayal but then in modern retellings i get pissed everytime i read her character even though i mean i love the warrior princess idea (she is a kshatriya afterall) but they turn her into a mary sue. she is strong cuz she kicks men's asses and deny's anything feminine (and they do that by making ram dumb useless and submissive. almost in amish's works he made all the men dumb. i don't mind about strong female characters there were several in valmiki. but the way he did it is lazy.)
the real strength in her is her smarts her confidence (yogic powers) they don't understand her and her relationship with ram well.
there is so much more than what people think . like playfulness witty chats. cute intimate moments and more. (if i made a retelling i would make her a warrior princess but who embraces for who she. kind and loving to people she trusts and ruthless to who hurts herself and her beloveds . has self respect and will not stand any nonsense whether to her or her loved ones. pretty much like valmiki)
valmiki easily made her my favourite character.
also i want to style her sooooooo baaaaaaaaad.
I think people just don't see how she actually was in canon Valmiki Ramayan and just read other versions like Ramcharitmanas or the more modern popular ones where she's portrayed as submissive and quiet.
But like she was literally probably the most opinionated and hot tempered character. She shows typical signs of Chanchala Lakshmi and people just....ignored that...
I like Amish's works yeah they are a fun read, bit some of the stuff he wrote is just too nonsensical and normy tropes.
Sita's real strength was her stubbornness and rebellious nature. Like you cannot tell me the woman who deliberately accompanied her husband to the forest for 14 years, even after everyone including her husband telling her not too, was the ultimate soft spoken submissive wife 😭😭🙏🙏
Which brings to another time where she lost her temper at Lakshman in just a few moments because he refused to go look for Ram. Like yeah bro totally believing you she was docile and soft spoken...
It's a larger issue I think yk, many of the female characters from myths and folklores (mostly characters like Sita, Persephone and more) are converted into these “baddie women” who took control of themselves and were tomboyish etc etc.
At the end of the day that too is misogynistic, because it enforces the believes that femininity and softness is a weakness and you can only be strong if you have a sword in hand.
Also like they'd literally skip over the part where we actually had female warrior representation. Like hello??? Kaikeyi was literally the charioteer for Dashrath?? Y'all forgot that??
Btw I suggest you look up this extremely HORRENDOUS book named Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel, which butchered her and every other characters in the book so badly. It gave me the same level of trauma that Hamza got while watching 26/11 live (im being sarcastic but yes the book is that bad)
I just hate every portrayal of her yk, modern media or traditional media like Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan... Nothing truly captures how Sita actually was in VR. Where she had an actual cool unique personality and wasn't just another desi bahu in ghunghat..
If I had to portray her in a retelling, I'd keep her fighting skills as a secondary characteristics and not be her entire personality. While keeping her og stubborn but kind personality intact (trust me bro we all can do so much better than any writer or direct we just need proper funding and resources)
Her style was really cool frrrrr forest fashion mixed with normal royalty clothes manshshsh ahahahha
Which brings me to another media portrayal of her wbich annoys me. Like dude she had all her clothes and jewellery with her in the vanvas mofos read the book it's literally written how Dashrath didn't let her go without her belongings. How the hell do y'all think she dropped her “jEwElLeRiEs” while getting kidnapped 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
Overall we will probably have to go Thanos mode and do “fine I'll do it myself” and create something that will have accurate portrayal without making a mess of the epic..
P.S. sorry for answering so late lmao I forgot to check my asks and got busy for a while 😭😭😭💔💔