I think that Yana changed and improved the way she writes all her female characters over the years. Starting from Lizzy, that since her aunt's death appeared way more mature. I'm a huge Lizzy fan but I still cringe at how irritating she was made to be in the first volume.
【Related post: Lost in Translation IV: Meyrin】
Yes, I strongly agree with you. At the beginning, all female characters who actually had something to do were designed as antagonists whose motivations stem from fEmaLe Em0tIOnssss (Madam Red, Lizzie, Grell). Right now in Kuroshitsuji, female characters fulfill all kinds of roles, and it is great to see.
I am not sure whether “those choices” were intentional, or just the result of Yana’s BL-industry habits kicking in, but “those choices” were certainly poor ones.
Many if not most BL artists (especially a decade ago) try to refrain from inserting too many female characters, for female characters are considered obstacles to ‘wholesome love between men’. Unsurprisingly, most BL mangas have few to even no female characters whatsoever. In this fashion, when female characters are present in the BL genre however, they are often indeed portrayed exactly as 'an obstacle’, because a female character that is ‘too lovable’ would become a potential love-rival for the ‘shippable boys’ (McLelland, 2000). In most published BL manga where mangaka seem to hate writing ACTUAL chemistry for the intended couple, you can’t afford to have ANY other candidate, right?
Also noteworthy is that female characters in the BL genre are often cartoonishly hyper-feminine. Traditionally “female” characteristics like ‘deadly curiosity’ , ‘hysteria’ and ‘obsession with outward appearance/cuteness’ are amplified and portrayed as sins, probably to remind the audience why male-male is the only legitimate ship.
Obviously Kuroshitsuji is not a BL (as explained here), but Yana was still a BL artist. And judging from Kuroshitsuji’s youngest days, I would say old habits die hard.
At the beginning Lizzie was not just insufferably annoying and selfish, even her role in the manga seemed to be designed for the sole purpose of being the main characters’ foil. As I wrote earlier in this post, “[Yana used] ‘the annoying girl’ to juxtapose against ‘the controlled boy’ to emphasise the male virtue. A trope as old as it is stale… *Cough Indiana Jones 2 COUGH*”
More explicitly, during the ball of the Viscount, Lizzie really served no other purpose but ‘hindering plot device!!!’ The audience is supposed to cheer for O!Ciel and Sebastian’s investigation, and as there was no emotional connection with Lizzie whatsoever yet, I bet the vast majority would only want to see Lizzie gone or even curse her very existence.
Right now Lizzie has gone back to being an antagonist of the series. Her actions in the current developments are much realer ‘obstacles’ to our main characters than her throwing a tantrum, or “showing too much female curiosity for a mere dress, which would lead to the failure of a man’s career”. Her actions right now influence literal life-or-death to O!Ciel, and the one thing Sebastian cares about, his contract.
And yet, despite the fact that her actions right now come with much greater stakes, I have the feeling the fandom does not hate her for it (if at all) the way we did about the ring incident or the ball incident.
In contrast to the earliest chapters, Lizzie is not a hysterical gal brainlessly prancing around while obliviously ruining things for O!Ciel. Right now, although her choices might not be educated (we don’t know how much she does or doesn’t know), they are at least understandable. Now we understand her, and can probably even sympathise with why she ended up making her current decision. There is weight behind her “decision”, because the dilemma she was faced with is indeed very cruel.
Yana growwwsssss ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ💗 and I love her for it.
