Man I just can't just let the thing about Lan Fan go tho so I'm gonna talk because i just love her too much
There are so so so many reasons why the labeling of Lan Fan’s decision to sacrifice her arm unfeminist because “she did it for Ling” makes me angry.
It’s just… demeaning the depth and complexity of her reasons her sacrifice because she’s a woman. Tearing down a female character for her choices on the basis she’s female. Saying her heroic moment is somehow unworthy because she’s a woman. And that infuriates me because Lan Fan deserves so much more than that. Why should her actions and choices be trivialized because she’s a female character?
First off, even if Lan Fan had sacrificed her arm solely because she loved Ling and wanted to protect him because of that, that wouldn’t have been unfeminist. People sacrificing stuff out of love, for people they love is a heroic thing. Having feelings of love towards a man (romantic or otherwise) and making a tough choice to protect him because of that is not unfeminist for a character to do. Ed sacrificed his arm for Al, but he is not scrutinized for this. Is Lan Fan’s decision somehow more trivial, more problematic because of her gender? Or is it the fact that it might be romantic love (though it is never, ever confirmed that Lan Fan feels that way about Ling- all we know is they are dear to each other) that makes it bad, because women aren’t allowed to have romantic feelings?
The point of the choice is that it is a choice Lan Fan made. It was not a choice anyone else made for her. It was her decision. Feminism is about women having rights and choices. Female characters making choices- good ones, bad ones- is all I want, in my view of feminism. It’s when the narrative robs a female character of her ability to make choices, denies her her agency, that it’s “unfeminist”. When women are victimized by the narrative and given no agency or voice in their victimization. If like, Ling had made the choice to sacrifice Lan Fan’s arm to save her against her wishes and the narrative presented THAT as a good thing, that would have been unfeminist. Because Lan Fan would have been denied choice and agency as a character. But Lan Fan making a choice for herself is not unfeminist. It never will be.
It would have been unfeminist if Lan Fan had no personality, interests, relationships identity or role outside her relationship with Ling. But she does. She has oodles of that. She has a clear personality, she has a relationship with her grandfather, she DEEPLY cares about her clan in general as well as her duty to her clan, she has a relationship with May that actually develops and changes by the end of the manga and several interactions related to those things.
But a lot of it is moot because Lan Fan did not sacrifice her arm because of her feelings for Ling. It may have factored into it slightly, but her explicitly stated reason is that she did it out of duty to her clan and a desire to protect her people. It’s not a matter of interpretation because she SAYS THIS. She spells it out.
“A people without their king will be lost! For the sake of our people, I must return you safely! …For the greater good, one must sacrifice some things…”
And then Ling says later “I thought I was prepared to sacrifice anything for this mission. But I wasn’t prepared at all. But Lan Fan was. She made the sacrifice I couldn’t make.”
yeah, that’s uh, spelled out in black and white. It’s explicitly spelled out that Lan Fan is more dedicated to their mission than Ling is. That Ling is actually inspired by her dedication to it.
Lan Fan sacrificed her arm because she is Ling’s bodyguard. Protecting Ling is her JOB. It’s her duty to put her life on the line to make sure he returns safely with the Philosipher’s stone because without him and it, her entire clan is screwed. Like, literally, if Ling were to die, there would be no heir to the throne in Lan Fan’s clan, and her clan would be no one able to vie for emporer and would face the threat of possible extermination under an emporer from another clan. So she has every reason to put everything on the line to protect this guy.
Basically when you’re criticizing Lan Fan’s decision to cut off her arm, you’re criticizing her for being dedicated to her career and the survival of her people. Feminism~!
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