Gender and Sexuality Representation in OOTS

[The Giant]

I would just like to point out that this is Eugene. He'd probably rather tear his spine out with his own hands than compliment Roy on anything. I recall, later on, that Roy is praised (by his mother? grandfather?) for his leadership skills, despite his own death. But I do admit that even if we count "twice" it still wasn't a very good argument on my part.

First, Hamishspence just pointed out that Haley called him stupid twice. And second, if your point is that the narrative unambiguously supports Roy's leadership and not Haley's, then it doesn't matter which character is doing the criticizing. The criticism is made, explicitly. Once you step outside the internal logic of the story to make comments about what I should have had characters do or say, you can't ignore the things I have characters do or say just because they're based on the internal logic of the story.

I completely agree and respect that, but I would just like to point out Shojo as a Chaotic, rules-breaking leader who showed extreme competence in leading an entire nation for years while still maintaining the same alignment as Haley.

Yes, but that's backstory. Consider his on-panel track record: He accomplished almost nothing toward his goal, and then was about to be thrown in prison by his own nephew before he was killed by his protégé. Then his city got conquered. Again, if your argument is about the narrative, what happened in the narrative was a dismal leadership failure directly related to his Chaotic tendencies.

While I understand what you're trying to say, I merely point out that perhaps it could have been possible to preserve the goals you're trying to achieve with the character while still portraying her as a strong leader. Of course, this would've somewhat lessened the impact of Belkar's speech to Roy, but it's possible to preserve most of it by having Haley state that it's not that she's bad at leadership, she just doesn't like it or want it (because she's an individualist, and doesn't like having that kind of responsibility), thereby retaining some of the punch of Belkar's "you are a valuable team member" speech to Roy.

Well, I would argue that Haley's previously-established characteristics would lead her to say she was bad at it, because she has a tendency toward self-criticism. Certainly, Thanh and Niu never expressed that she was a bad leader.

The problem is precisely that the dearth of female leaders leads us to looking closely at the main example we have. I know I wouldn't have analysed Haley's leadership skills so closely if we had had a wealth of other female leaders to talk about (which is precisely why I don't really debate Nale's leadership skills, because we have Tarquin, Roy, Hinjo, Shojo and others to compare, contrast and analyse in terms of male leadership).

Yeah, OK, that's fair. My only defense is that almost all of those decisions were made within the first ~200 strips, when I didn't think about stuff like this. Even Tarquin, since I picked him to be the Evil Parent over Elan's mom back in strip #50. I think the last completely-new leader character I created was...Kubota, maybe? And since I knew what his fate was going to be, I didn't want to get accused of only killing off the female characters.

Ultimately, I think I never thought about this aspect before because "leadership skills" are not a trait I particularly possess or value, so I don't feel a character suffers for not having them. I'm far more concerned with screen time and general importance to the story. Miko was far more important to the narrative than Shojo or Hinjo, for example; she's been dead for 300+ strips and Hinjo has only just edged her in number of appearances. And when she did appear, she was always the center of attention (while Hinjo sometimes just stands around and expostions). But by this criteria, she is less important than either of them.