TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

What challenges might a middle-aged female vigilante encounter?

Go To

Spottedleaf Fit check for my napalm era! (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free
Fit check for my napalm era!
#1: May 3rd 2019 at 4:15:17 AM

So in one of my A Us for Arrow, Oliver's mother, Moira Queen, is the Green Arrow, not him. I'll avoid spoiling any major details of the series for those of you who are unfamiliar, but I'll still give you the basic gist: in canon, Oliver is an extremely strong guy who fires arrows at criminals (he started off outright killing them, but tries to avoid that in later seasons) and tries to save his city from being destroyed on multiple occasions. There's a LOT of acrobatic prowess involved, as well as intimidation.

My question is: what unique challenges might a wealthy, middle-aged woman with two children face if she were to do the same? Would she be able to build the same strength in her body, or anywhere near it? Could she be just as intimidating?

Edited by Spottedleaf on May 3rd 2019 at 6:37:53 AM

>^owo^<
DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#2: May 3rd 2019 at 6:13:49 PM

Well, mostly her family responsibilities. A mother of two, even two adults, does not survive for herself alone. If she decides to keep her vigilante identity a secret, then she will have to juggle her responsibilites for her family with her after hours activities without them finding out what she is really doing. Going to be hard to conceal her injuries.

As for the physical side of it, on average women tend to have less upper body strength than men, which would affect the power of the bow they can effectively weild. However, it is possible for any particular woman to ignore those limitations. Just have her be above average in body mass.

Intimidation is in the eye of the weilder, not their profile. If she looks like she means it, she will intimidate.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
Miss_Desperado https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YD2i1FzUYA from somewhere getting rained on by Puget Sound Since: Sep, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#3: Jun 17th 2019 at 7:42:41 PM

Ooh, hey, guess what — my mom blogs about how she took up karate in middle age. I bet you'll get a lot of "I didn't think about that" moments out of reading it: http://abeginnersjourney.azurewebsites.net/

And just for funsies, here's someone interviewing her: https://www.wayofninja.com/karate-mom-joelle-interview/#.XQhN_P57ncs

Caveat: the two biggest, most obvious differences between Mom and your character: it's karate, not vigilantism; and we're broke, not rich.

Edited by Miss_Desperado on Jun 17th 2019 at 7:44:09 AM

If not for this anchor I'd be dancing between the stars. At least I can try to write better vampire stories than Twilight.
Darkflamewolf Since: Apr, 2013
#4: Jun 24th 2019 at 7:33:31 AM

Yeah, I wrote a fanfic based around this exact concept: middle-aged mother of two goes out vigilanting and she's in a rich civilian job. We hop into the story just as her 10+ years of trying to juggle all these responsibilities starts to fail. Because in the end, it ultimately will if she wants to keep all these multiple bubbles in her life from intersecting forever, it just isn't possible in 99.9% of the cases, something is going to give. So I felt it best to start the story just as everything is about to fall apart, because that is when the character arc gets interesting for me and hopefully the readers! [lol]

Edited by Darkflamewolf on Jun 24th 2019 at 10:34:23 AM

Add Post

Total posts: 4
Top