"I am a savage. And I will have a savage's revenge." (Red Sonja)

Let's travel back in time, to a long-gone era.

The year was 1985.  I was 13 years old.  And, one hazy July weekend, I was preparing myself to break some societal rules.

Of course, in my life, rule-breaking has never been a problem.  We redheads can be like that.

Now, I've talked before about being a contrarian - and about being a redhead.  And how both have led to situations that have lent themselves toward me becoming kind of a social rebel.  

I've talked about how, as a kid, I needed to be a rebel in order to survive.  But, sometimes, breaking the rules and being a rebel isn't just about survival.

Sometimes, it's also kind of fun to scoff at the rules and authorities of society.

Sometimes, it means sneaking into a movie theater in 1985 with your best male friends; they also happen to be your only male friends, because you're a transgirl who doesn't make male friends quite as easily as the male friends do with each other.  You might even have a brutal crush on one of them, which makes the decision to break the rules and sneak into the movies with him an even easier choice than it might otherwise be.

And if the one you have a crush on happens to be the ringleader?  Even better.

And if he want to sneak into a horror movie?  Well, that's just- ... wow.

T

That horror movie was Day of the Dead.  And we knew it would take some doing if we wanted to experience "the darkest day of horror the world has ever known."

Here, it should be noted for any younger readers of my blog that movie theaters back in 1985 weren't commonly quite like ones we have today.  These theaters were much smaller and more intimate, with people working there who actually paid attention to things like movie ratings and tearing tickets.  So sneaking into a theater wasn't simply a matter of standing around and not being noticed.  And, because of this, the plan felt a lot more dangerous for us than it was in, you know, reality.  We plotted and co-ordinated and mapped out and cased double-checked and triple-checked and quadruple-checked.

We analyzed the components we would need to get the job done.  We knew that we would need a great deal of familiarity with the layout of the theater.  We knew that we would need to know who was working, and where they'd be.   And, most critically, we knew we had to have someone on "the inside" while the others waited on "the outside," and that this someone had to be someone was willing to accept the principle risk of getting caught.  Whoever was going in and taking that risk had to have steely nerves.  They had to be cunning and smart.  Above all, they had to be willing to get their hands a little dirty; or, more accurately - since this was a movie theater - a little sticky.

So, of course, I volunteered.

The plan was, to our thinking, simple and ingenious - and, certainly, hadn't been tried by other kids our age who were certainly nowhere near as intelligent nor sophisticated as we clearly were.  Because we had come up with the why-hadn't-anyone-ever-just-tried-this concept of one of us buying a ticket to a Rated-PG movie and then propping open the exit door from the inside to allow the other member of our cotiere to quietly gain access to a Rated-R film.

That film was Back to the Future.

And, yes, the irony of those ratings isn't lost on me now that I was picking the "family-friendly" option of Back to the Future - as American censors of the time apparently had less of a problem with a woman having a crush on her own son than with non-existent zombies, when - today - quite the opposite would probably be the case.  Still, that was our plan ... to rebel against the conventions of theater etiquette - and, coincidentally, capitalism.

"One ticket for the 5:30 Back to the Future, please," I said, voice quavering as I paid the admission price.  My vision was blurry from how nervous I was.  My heart was pounding, hard.

You will, however, note that - despite my terror-stricken participation in this conspiracy - I was polite. We may have been rebels, but we were still certain that we were the good guys in all this.

Of course, Back to the Future was playing to a packed house - so nobody noticed the timid transgirl having a panic attack in the moments preceding my plan.

I sat in my seat, barely able to pay the slightest bit of attention to Back to the Future once it started.  The plan had me waiting a bit until all the films at the cinema were running in their respective theaters. I tried to distract myself with the movie I was attending, but I couldn't.  There was something about a guitar, and then a skateboard, and then a time machine involving some car with spaceship doors.

But all I could focus on was the lighted red carpet aisle and its descent down to the outside-leading exit. And I was going to use the exit for an entrance.  Quiet, you.  

Then, right around the time when Old Man Peabody was shooting at the DeLorean, I made my move and got up from my seat.  Trepidatiously, I made a complete spectacle of myself trudging nervously down that red aisle, casting furtive glances over my shoulder.  Reaching the exit, I pushed past the red velvet curtain and opened the door.

My friends were waiting, and quietly entered the theater.  We stood behind the curtain, listening to the audio for what felt like a moment that would keep the attention of the audience.  

It felt excruciating, waiting.  But then Marty McFly got hit by a car, and we saw our chance and took it. We quickly raced up the aisle and out into the nearby restroom, into the stalls.  We were wheezing at first, trying to catch our breaths, giggling conspiratorially about what our miniature rebellion had thusfar achieved.

Just call me Princess Leia.  But, that's another article.

What matters for this article is what happened after we exited the bathroom, peeking around every corner of the twisty maze of hallways that made up the space between the interconnecting auditoriums of the theater.

We were unopposed.  We were on the verge of victory.  And then, just like that, our progress toward seeing Day of the Dead was halted before that movie had even started playing.

Our rebellion against the tyrannical rules of the MPAA was stopped by the worst possible circumstance.

Other kids had already tried it.  Constantly.  And they'd been succeeding ... for a while.

But by the time the night showings were happening - the theater had conceived of a countermeasure in the form of placing numerous ushers all over the entrance to the theater showing Day of the Dead.  I cursed them for their conscientious foiling of our adolescent plans.  Burn forever in Hell, ushers, I remember thinking.  It was a deserved response, right?

So, just like that, our rebellion had come to an end ... or, so it had seemed.

My crush - the Ringleader - cursed under his breath:  "Crap."  He shook his head as if shaking the disappointment out of his shoulder-length hair.  And then, "Wanna go see Red Sonja instead?"

You see, nothing ever bothered that Ringleader.  It was one of the reasons I adored him.  The worst situations could roll his way, and he could shake them off and move on and remain unperturbed.  He had a transcendental kind of confidence - which is a rare and awesome thing for anyone to have.

And so it was that we went to see Red Sonja.

And it was horrible.  And I mean it ... was ... horrible.

I remember thinking at the time that the universe must have been having a tremendous amount of fun at our expense, that this entire movie had been crafted just to torment us for our efforts at sneaking into a theater - that we were somehow being cosmically punished for our transgressions.

But that didn't change the fact that I had a lot of fun.

You see, that night burned itself into my mind as a magical night, no matter how bad the movie was.

But it wasn't the movie that made those memories.  It was everything that surrounded that night.  I still have a crystal clarity of the joy I felt at that act of rebellion, even though it failed.  I vividly remember loving the feeling of my heart pounding in my chest, even as it was terrifying to me at the time.  I recall the panic of racing into the bathroom with my partners in rebellion.

I remember holding as still as I possibly could, practically holding my breath, waiting for that mad moment when we dashed from the exit to the hallway.  I even felt a tremendous exaltation when I pushed the exit door open and let my friends into the theater with me.  And that night is when it really hit me:  I liked breaking the rules, sometimes.  I liked going against the grain, sometimes. I liked being bad, sometimes.  I liked situations that were a little bit out of control, sometimes.  I liked being a little bit bad. I liked being a little bit rebellious.  I liked being a little bit wild.

And I also really liked being around other people who weren't afraid to break the rules if it suited them.

I knew that, in order for society to function, we had to all be Gallant ... most of the time.

At the same time, though, as a kid, I always had a thing for Goofus.  He went his own way, and never cared about the proprieties of the social order.  And that was awesome to me.

But I realized, too, that night, that rebellion and being bad for its own sake - while sometimes really awesomely fun - is also kind of hollow ... and meaningless ... and pointless.  It's like a really bad movie: you might have a great time, but at the end of the day you haven't improved yourself or the world in which you live, and that can bring great sorrow that often overwhelms however good you felt when you were in the moment.  And, with a good memory like mine, there's a feeling that's not so much built out of guilt or regret, but out of disappointment at a totally wasted opportunity to make more out of something than what you made.  And the things you do in life can have repercussions, echoes that can outlast the ephemeral hours of the moment itself.  The things we do don't just go away.  Sometimes, they're unfortunately immortalized.

So this apparent paradox sent me into a bit of a moral quandary as time went by in my life.

How do I fulfill my need to be rebellious against authoritarians, while at the same time making use of the outpouring of energy that accompanies it so that those moments have meaning for me afterward? How can I be who and what I see myself as being while still also being what I consider to be a good person?

In short, I wondered:  How can I have my cake and fight evil, too?

At the same time, I found my mind going back again and again over the years to that stunningly awful movie, Red Sonja.  And, more specifically, it got me thinking about Red Sonja as a character, wondering what exactly had made the movie so bad ... beyond issues of acting, effects, editing.  I thought about it from a writer's perspective from time to time, as I worked on honing my own craft and abilities - wondering why that film was such a spectacular example of a situation where absolutely nothing on the page - assuming what ended up in the film had been on any page - seemed to work.

I knew that the character had existed outside of that movie, and that she was kind of a spin-off character from the Conan property, of which I had only a passing familiarity.

So - as a mental exercise - I decided to seek out the source material that had led to such excrescence.

And let's just say I wasn't a fan of what I found.

Red Sonja, you see, was - according to Roy Thomas, Doug Moench, and Howard Chaykin, at least - a woman whose ferocious thirst for justice and skill with a warrior's blade came about as a part of her life not by her own needs but as a reaction to being raped, and by supernatural intervention.

The result is that we get a character whose origin is fundamentally one of being the object of the machinations of others.  She is GIVEN a motivation to fight.  She is GIVEN amazing warrior-skill.  She is GIVEN a vow of chastity.  Like gaining powers and abilities as the result of clearing a stage in a video game, Sonja's history and abilities are not so much earned but acquired.

And the more I saw of Red Sonja, the more confused and frustrated I got - because where she should be awesome, there were so many conflicting elements of her character and presentation that repulsed me even as some other elements seemed like they should be so cool.

She was the character that just wouldn't go away, no matter what I did.  She was a puzzle I couldn't solve - and I hated that I liked her in the abstract even as she frustrated me in the specific.

But she kept showing up in my life.

I remember adoring her when I saw her portrayed by an actor battling an animatronic dragon at Universal Studios, even as I thought back with disgust to the elements of rape in her origin.  

In fact, she seemed the equal of Conan in the theatrical show in terms of sword-skills and tenacity.  Presented as a figure bereft of her skeezy origin, there was no reason she shouldn't be amazingly cool.  The problem was, at least to me, that Sonja was awesome and savage but was never awesomely savage nor savagely awesome.  There was always a critical element missing.  

And that damned origin story of rape and magic hung over her, constantly sexualizing her and tearing away her achievements every time she showed up anywhere ... and in the way many artists would (and still sometimes do) portray her.

And, no matter how amazing she was supposed to be, so many people also wrote her as somehow comically inept.

She was written, often, as furious and indignant - to the point where her abilities and skills became secondary.

In the Marvel books, she often showed up as a Hulk equivalent ... too angry to think with intelligence, to savage to respect the abilities of anyone around her.  

In the first run of Dynamite comics that followed decades later, she was too often a hyper-sexualized character who was perfectly in-keeping with those dismal days of art that was too-often meant solely to titillate a male audience.

And so it was that my philosophical issue with what had happened that hot night in July sort of blended with the puzzle of why Red Sonja as a character and Red Sonja as a film just didn't seem to work, no matter who wrote her.  It also didn't help in matters of keeping these two that my memories of that night were a sea of red: red uniforms on the ushers, the red carpet of the aisle, Red Sonja herself.  As a result of this, Red Sonja actually became a mysterious symbol of frustration and confusion in my life, a symbol that didn't quite work the way it was presented ... but which, if you looked sideways at it, seemed like it should.  And it bothered me for years and years, both as a philosophical issue and a literary thought-experiment.  

And that's where author Gail Simone comes into this picture.

You see, Gail Simone is - in addition to being an amazing writer - someone who has a keen observational skill about what makes a character work and what makes a character not work.

And, for me, she solved two puzzles that have boggled my mind since I was 13.

And it all comes down to agency.

You see, Gail made me realize the problem wasn't with Sonja's origin as suffering a tragic loss.  That element is universal to so many amazing characters.

It's that when you throw in the victimization of rape, the supernatural elements, the magical vow of chastity ... you take away Sonja's agency, and you can't get it back no matter how convoluted a method you try.

So, sometimes, you have to be a little savage as a writer - cutting away what doesn't work from a character, and reinterpreting what does ... so that a costume that might have been designed for male titillation takes on a whole different meaning.

Gail gave Sonja the one thing so many failed writers couldn't give her.

Gail gave Sonja agency, so that her sexualization and the titillation meant something that Sonja controlled - as opposed to her being controlled by some outside forces, like a worthy man or an ancient goddess of revenge.

Gail taught me that source material isn't to be worshipped or accepted, but that it's good and healthy to take great leaps if it means getting rid of monstrous elements in a piece.

Gail has taught me that a writer should write for the good of this story - not so obvious as it sounds to many writers, especially in the continuity-and-canon venue of comic-book heroes, where changes are seen so often as anathema.

But here's the key.  The changes Gail made?  They were good changes, and they were better than what came before.  

And that's why Red Sonja is, now - finally, after so much time - both awesomely savage and savagely awesome.

And I think this is because Gail's work always carries with it elements of real-life heroism and real-life activism.  These elements aren't presented broadly on the page, because Gail is too skilled a writer to do that.  

But they're there.  

And they give Sonja a direction for her rage, a conduit for her power and a target for her savagery.

Yes - Sonja, as written by Gail, is consistently seen by other characters in these stories as a "primitive" savage, but - in point of fact and presented as such in the same tales - is more human and humane than many of her opponents.

And, lest you think that this revised Sonja is too far steeped in the tropey paradox of savagery and nobility combined into one character, know that Gail's Sonja is - aside from being a good person - also wonderfully ignoble.

And, likewise, Gail's Sonja is decidedly unafraid to remind the readers of this fact.

And this is where Gail also, finally, helped me put to rest the debate that had plagued me for so long ... since that night in July in 1985.

If you know you enjoy a life where you indulge your capacity to be a little wild, to be a little savage ... and you know you're a good person ... how do you keep from simply indulging base needs, base desires ... and how do you avoid that feeling of emptiness that comes when the wine jug has nothing left for you?

I had learned the answer from life's experiences, but I could never figure out a way to articulate it properly until Gail's Sonja made it so painfully obvious:  you direct that savagery toward a careful purpose.  You direct it toward doing the right thing.  And you safely vent those feelings on those who most deserve righteous fury.

And you enjoy it where and how you can. 

You live life, and you cherish the joys of being alive.

And, even as you commit to deeper philosophical truths, you keep your thoughts open to at least some of the things that matter on day-to-day existence.  

It means recognizing the fundamental truths of what's important in life, and how far they extend.

It is about having a warrior's control, and the freedom to experience the joy of achievement in life's battles.

And it means never being afraid to feel true outrage at the injustices of the world.

It means picking one's battles ...

... but knowing when they truly matter ...

... and knowing the stakes that one must be willing to give up in order to win the important ones - and how hard one must fight.

And it means recognizing that our lives aren't perfect in their continuity ... that we are sometimes different from who we were in the past, and that our stories don't necessarily make sense in a coherent narrative.

We re-invent ourselves, and are re-invented by people who can have impact on our lives.

And we find that we are OK with that, because we might end up better - more capable, more ferocious in our commitments, more savage in our handling of our refusal to accept our flaws as impossible-to-change ... of the impossibility of improvement.

We find that our savagery of nature frees our confidence to soar.

And with that freedom comes an equal sort of calm to our savagery ...

... because we know that we don't always have to use it.  But we're ready to do so if the need arises.

And, most of all, we recognize ourselves as warriors who can use the full strength of our power.  We are familiar with it because it's a part of us that we don't lock away or fear.  We don't try to deny our nature as beings of emotion and ferocity and, yes, savagery - in the name of good causes, in the name of protecting the world.  And it's a fight that we face every day.

In this way, we know as confident women that we don't have to be afraid of our own success.  We know we can enjoy our lives without taking shame in who and what we are.  And we know that, while there are many battles in our lives to come, they will be met with our confidence and strength - and, yes, our savagery.  In fighting for the ideals in which we believe, we warrior women are not simply willing to die to keep ourselves and others safe.  We are also willing to live for it, too.  And a woman who is willing to live for what she believes in can be the most dangerously savage kind of all when it comes to protecting herself, and the other people she has sworn to protect in her life.  It is my wish that women will read this and feel empowered by it.  If that idea scares you, ask yourself why.

If the idea of strong women scares you, it definitely should.