Pet Peeves Series - #1 The Plucky Amateur

Everyone has certain pet peeves in life. Little insects of annoyance that burrow under your skin and just itch and itch and burn until you just can't take it anymore, trading in your annoyance for fury and finally exploding in a blaze of anger and frustration that can be likened to an atomic blast. Or you can just rant about it.

When it comes to storytelling everyone has certain pet peeves that keep burrowing away, mocking you with their beady little eyes. Sometimes it's a storyline that you've seen just too many times, sometimes it is a character that seems to serve no useful purpose other than to torture you with their presence, sometimes it's the least convincing deus ex machina ever but it just keeps getting reused anyway, whatever. As a result of my ever-increasing frustration of seeing the same crap used over and over again I've decided to being listing some of my peeves in an effort to vent my frustrations like so much noxious gas.

Pet Peeve #1 - The Plucky Amateur

Everyone has heard/read this bit of dialogue at some point:

Plucky Amateur: "I'm coming with you."

Hero/Heroine: "No, you're not."

Plucky Amateur: "[completely unconvincing argument]/This involves me, too!"

Hero/Heroine: *caves*

*sigh* This happens all too often in movies/tv/books/etc. You have some sort of danger that must be faced. There are anywhere between 2 to a whole group of characters in the scene including a Hero/Heroine and the Plucky Amateur. Likely, the Hero/Heroine has gained that role because they have some sort of experience with what they're doing, either gained throughout the course of the film or else beforehand. If you need a gun to take this baddie down, then they have a certain degree of firearms aptitude. If stealth is required then they have it in spades. That sort of thing. Basically, it is implied that the Hero/Heroine is someone who knows what they're doing.

On the flip side of this coin we have the Plucky Amateur who does NOT know what they're doing. They can't fire a gun, they can't sword fight, they don't know the proper ritual or spell, they can't protect themselves in any manner. If they had to go up against the baddie all by themselves then the universe within the story would be S.O.L. Worst of all, they're dragging around some huge sense of entitlement. They think that regardless of their severe lack of knowledge, experience, and expertise they should still be allowed to follow the Hero/Heroine into battle to "help" them defeat the danger that threatens them all.

More often than not in these situations, the Plucky Amateur is a child (sometimes made into a protege after they save the day) or else a female character (usually inserted as an example of "grrl power" or as an ill-conceived/forced love interest). They end up being a "help" after all because they've been written in for that reason. The "help" in question either comes from them magically gaining the proper skills they need through, I don't know, osmosis or something or else somehow managing to foul up in just the right way that it happens to save the day and "hey, how 'bout that?"

The problem with the Plucky Amateur scenario, though, is that it requires too much suspension of disbelief. You're asked by the storyteller to accept that this completely incapable character could just randomly save the day and, what's more, you're asked to believe that someone as experienced/knowledgeable as the Hero/Heroine would willingly allow a rank amateur to tag along in a hugely dangerous situation.

Recently, the CW show Supernatural has struggled with their own Plucky Amateur character. Joanna Beth "Jo" Harvelle is the daughter of Ellen who runs Harvelle's Roadhouse, a regular hangout for Hunters (those who fight the supernatural evils on the show) and their ilk where they can swap cases, information, or just lay low and get drunk. The Roadhouse acts as an information hub for the Hunters, sort of like their central intelligence office. For Sam and Dean Winchester, the show's protagonists, Ellen has become one of their main contacts to go to for new cases or information and, though she sometimes seems intimidated by what they're capable of, she's not afraid to throw her weight around as is the case in the episode "No Exit."

"No Exit" is Jo's first significant appearance in the series. In the two prior episodes in which she appears, Jo's character is shown to be:
a) plucky
b) Ellen's daughter
c) a bartender and
d) not very good with weapons
In her first appearance she holds Dean at gunpoint with a shotgun but, as he demonstrates for her, she's holding it in just the wrong spot because he's able to grab it away from her easily.

When "No Exit" opens Ellen and Jo are arguing loudly (well, yelling) as the Winchesters walk into the roadhouse. Apparently, Jo wants to be a Hunter and Ellen is telling her to go back to school. The boys end up taking the case and leaving Ellen to try and wrangle her daughter. Yet, when they get to the haunted apartment building detailed in Jo's notes, she arrives and finesses her way into working the case with the boys. Sam seems to not care much either way but Dean points out that she's an amateur and shouldn't be getting mixed up in this stuff. However, when Ellen calls to see if Dean's seen Jo he caves, lying to Ellen, one of his few acquaintances, in the process. As the episode progresses, Jo fiddles with her daddy's hunting knife, revealing to the audience that Bill Harvelle was a Hunter and he died when she was a little girl. Later, while the three of them are investigating the building, she throws out some lines about how Grrls can Hunt, too! and that she just wants to do this to be "closer to [her] father." Dean has thankfully regained enough of his senses by this time to point out to her that "this isn't a Gender Studies thing" and that while he's sure a woman could Hunt just as well as a man he doesn't think an amateur should thrust themselves into this kind of danger, especially if they have a chance at a "normal" life. Thank you, Dean!

See, the elder Winchester has a point. Dean and Sam have been trained for almost their entire lives to be Hunters. They've been packing heat since elementary school and following their father around the country since Sam was a baby chasing down supernatural beings and killing them before they kill more people like their mother. Though it may not always seem so because we see the show from their P.O.V., the Winchesters are really good at what they do. The fact that they've managed to stay alive and out of jail this long is evidence of that. And the thing is, even though they're among the best in the "business", they get into nasty scrapes and all sorts of "just barely got out alive" scenarios. Jo is a student and a bartender. Her Hunting knowledge is secondhand from the Roadhouse patrons, Ellen, and the eccentric genius that crashes on their pool table. Yes, she said that she has a knife collection (likely inherited from her father) and can probably handle one fairly well with a target. But she doesn't even know where to hold a shotgun on someone. She's never had any hands-on experience. She doesn't have any training or actually know what she's doing but she wants to go in solo to show the boys what she can do. Compare this to John Winchester, the boys' father, who didn't know much about the supernatural when he started Hunting but was a Vietnam vet ex-Marine with several medals to his credit.

Arguments aside, Jo ends up going off on her own and gets captured (which was obviously going to happen since the spirit was established as attacking young blondes like her) and the boys have to save her. However, first they have to use her as bait so they can trap the spirit, something that Jo's not really cool with now that she knows how scary this job is but she brought it on herself. Ellen, who Dean has admitted Jo's whereabouts to, shows up and the four of them have to drive back to the Roadhouse in dead silence.

Jump forward to the episode three weeks ago, "Born Under a Bad Sign", in which Sam is possessed. Midway through the episode, Demon!Sam heads up to the Roadhouse alone where Jo is closing up the bar by herself. Despite the fact that at the moment they aren't speaking and despite Demon!Sam's highly suspicious behavior, Jo lets him stay for a drink. Even after she notices the unusual mark on his arm and he gives the Lamest Excuse Ever she still lets him stay. Even worse, she makes the profoundly stupid decision to turn her back on the rather large, very suspicious, and extremely dangerous Hunter, thus opening herself up to attack. Jo is, once again, bait - this time the demon's bait for Dean as she is the closest Winchester contact at the moment - and manages to sit through both his mockery with her and his argument with Dean before she realizes that he is, in fact, possessed (she only realizes this after Dean douses him with holy water). Later on, after Demon!Sam has gone to threaten the next closest Winchester contact, Dean goes to chase after him and Jo says "I'm going, too." *headdesk* Luckily, Dean's senses are once again at the fore and he tells her that no, she's not. What makes this version of the scenario different from "No Exit", though, is that Dean succeeds in getting her to stay behind. A Hero character tells the Plucky Amateur that they're not coming with and it actually takes. And thank goodness for that because if it weren't for the demon's next mark, the even-more-knowledgeable-than-the-boys Bobby, Dean might not have exorcised Sam. If Jo had tagged along it would've been highly likely that either the demon would've just killed her or else she would've been much worse for wear and possibly in the way.

The way that Jo, our Plucky Amateur, has been established as a character means that she can never be a strong female character - she blew her chance. Jo should just stick to being a student and she should know that being a student doesn't make her weak as a woman. She's basing her own self-worth on a memory of her father and the Hunters that frequent her family's bar. In the process, she's also rejecting her mother. She says she wants to Hunt to prove her worth to the bar patrons and to be closer to her dead father. In so doing, she's rejecting her alive mother and rejecting the possibility that her expertise in life lies elsewhere. I don't feel like less of a woman or less of a person because I don't work in computers like several of my male acquaintances. I have my own area of expertise in which to excel that has nothing to do with them. Likewise, Jo shouldn't feel like this is her only route in life. Sam and Dean are Hunters because they've trained their whole lives as Hunters. That's what they do. And neither of them can just walk away because, as has been established, several of the supernatural baddies out there have their number and the Hunting would just (and has) come to them. If anything, it demeans Jo as a woman to have her flit about the "menfolk" trying to be something she's not simply because she believes it's the only way to assert herself in this patriarchal world as an equal citizen. Ellen commands attention in a room because she's a strong character. Jo cannot escape your attention because she's an irritating twit and you can't ignore her.

I'm grateful to the show's creators that although they have a Plucky Amateur they're trying to resist the urge to utilize her as a deus ex machina. But it is, nevertheless, a dangerous line they're walking and so we must wait and see what they decide to do with her in the future.

Then there's Ava.

Unlike Jo, Ava Wilson is a favorite of most SPN fans although to date she has only appeared in one episode. A "normal" civilian in every other aspect, it turns out that she has 'death visions' just like Sam and at the beginning of "Hunted" she has a vision of Sam's death. Using the information in her vision, Ava tracks down Sam and tries to convince him not to go anywhere near the place in her vision. She doesn't have any grand designs of becoming a Hero, she just sees the opportunity to prevent someone from dying and tries to do what she thinks is right. Though Sam has her distract a therapist/psychologist during one scene while he gets information he never brings her into a situation he knows is dangerous and she does not try to insist. It is only at the end of the episode when Sam is about to go to the location in her 'death vision' that she tries to go along simply because she has that knowledge of what will happen and wants to do her best to prevent it. Sam convinces her that he will be fine, that he will heed her warnings, and that she should just go back home for her own safety since she doesn't really know what she's getting into and he wants her to stay safe just as much as she wants him to be.

Sadly, when the boys' return to check on Ava she's not there. Instead, they find her fiance dead in a pool of blood along with her engagement ring and some sulfur on the windowsill. This is an ambiguous ending because while it implies a supernatural cause of death it is uncertain whether this was the work of a demon or if it was Ava herself, either possessed or turned evil.

Ava was a spirited female character just like Jo. She was also an amateur, just like Jo (even more so in that she had never known about the whole Hunting thing until she followed her vision). Ava tends to have more fans than Jo because she acts more like a real person and has realistic reactions to situations that people can relate to. Ava succeeds where Jo does not as a character because in "Hunted" she didn't try to be someone she's not. She wanted to help out in any way she could, wanted to prevent the people in her dreams from dying, but she also wanted to marry her fiance and live her life in peace. She wants to be a decent person and she wants to be the best Ava she can be as opposed to the best Sam Winchester she can be. She got swept up in the supernatural stuff against her will but she did the best with it she could and she let the professionals take care of the rest. Jo needs to learn to be the best Jo she can be and stop trying to be Bill Harvelle or one of the guys at her family's bar.

Granted, this is just a bare minimum comparison of the characters. I could go into more details of "Why Ava Rocks" (a.k.a. "Civilians on SPN Can Be Awesome, Too") or "Why Jo is Lame" (a.k.a. "an Immature Amateur Several Years Younger Than Dean Does Not a Love Interest Make") but that would be getting off task. What I'm really getting at here is that well-written characters trump cheap constructs and that if you're going to insist on having a Plucky Amateur then they had better have a damn good reason for being in that baddie showdown because they cannot instantaneously learn how to defeat the baddie by sheer force of spunky attitude.