the tragedy of Shauna Shipman
I know that with the release of Yellowjackets s3, Shauna Shipman became the most commonly discussed character. And the most polarizing character as well. Some people support women's wrongs, some people despise her, and some are just confused. Personally, I am the part of the third group.
I don't hate Shauna Shipman, because season 3 was so out of place, that I can't even see her as the same person. While it is understandable that she changed due to being literally stranded in wilderness and stuck in a cult, I feel like who she became in s3 was a complete antithesis of who she was (is). Furthermore, I believe that her transformation, instead of reflecting the impact of the death of her son, was a bad attempt of simplifying the complex structure of Yellowjackets. And if making Shauna 'the bad guy' or 'crazy' for the sake of cohesiveness with the adult timeline (yadayadayada) I think that the approach the writer have chosen is definitely a wrong one.
In season 1, Shauna is admittedly the main character - both in the adult and the teen timeline. Although her more dark nature is shown (with her treatment of Jackie obviously, but also with the murder of the rabbit) I would argue that Shauna was the kindest and the most empathetic character on the team.
She was the only person that actually cared about Javi (at least in season one.) She comforted Javi during the aftermath of the crash, while other girls pretty much ignored him. She offered him a way of dealing with his emotions later on. She saved him during the Doomcoming, by telling him to run. I think this shows that Shauna was a deeply caring and empathetic person. This also was present in her relationships with other characters.
Of course we can't talk about Shauna without mentioning the frozen elephant in the room, namely Jackie. I think it's not needed to say that sleeping with your bestfriend's boyfriend, and kicking her out for being mad about it is an awful behavior. Nevertheless I think it's unfair to use her treatment of Jackie as an explanation for her villain arc in s3. When the girls started to turn against Jackie, her instinct was to protect her. This shows her ability to read the emotions of other people.
That's why I can't understand her character in season 3. "Well she lost her baby, of course she changed." Well, look at season 2! I think that was a good representation of how the wilderness affected her. In another post I'll write about why the writers thought that making Shauna the main villain was a good idea, and why it wasn't.
And if I were to make Shauna the villain I would do it like this: as I've established, Shauna is a nurturer, fitting into a mother archetype. She places the comfort and wellbeing of her friends on the first place. Therefore, I think that her 'villain arc' would be more cohesive with her character if her core characteristics remained, but the means of achieving this would change. Instead of subtle care, Shauna would turn to control (think helicopter mother, but wilderness version). This also makes sense, since her actual child did die. If she decided to kill Ben, it would make sense if it was to protect the team, not because she was cruel. Staying in the wilderness would be understandable from Shauna's point of view, not because she can be her true crazy self, but because she believes it is the safest to do so (think the debate of leaving the cabin in S1).
