In a timely note, DKellis posed and explored a fascinating question: Could Nanoha refuse to join the TSAB?

Join the TSAB! Travel to exotic, distant worlds, meet exciting, unusual people and *befriend* them.

My initial reaction was: Why the heck wouldn’t she join?

I agree with the first part of DKellis’ reasoning, that:

The TSAB provides substantial support and resources, as well as a convenient way for the protagonists to meet and work together as a team: because they are ordered to.

The TSAB gives Nanoha and her merry band the legal right and the logistical might to go out and blow stuff up for great justice. But I disagree with the latter part and call on his analogy between the TSAB and Star Trek’s Federation because it seems to me that, like the Federation, the heroes seem to have a lot of autonomy; they don’t seem overly worried about being outright insubordinate which is normally a military death penalty offence in times of civil emergency or war.

This wasn’t really an issue in the first season; then Nanoha and Yuuno were civilian associates. Or in A’s; Lindy would always cover for them. But the issue comes into its own in StrikerS where there’s some pretty lovely bureaucratic politicking between the group led by Chibi-Tanuki Hayate, Carim and Chrono (Church/Navy) vs Regius (Army), the subtlety of which I have not seen since the second season of Stand Alone Complex. Hayate’s relentless quest for the truth ruffles the feathers of some pretty big shots, uncovering conspiracy and corruption all the way to the top of the TSAB. Take that, Section 31!

It seemed to me that the cast wanted to Do The Right Thing and were willing to go against the higher-ups of the TSAB in order to save the values that the TSAB was supposed to stand for. The series was weighed down by huge expectations, cast bloat, problematic pacing, dodgy art and animation (in the TV broadcast), the howling of lolicons (LOLOLOL) and Not Enough Signum-neesan but, together with NxF, this aspect of the series really endeared itself to me.

To pose DKellis’ question more generally: Can magical girls refuse to be militarized?

The standard Weberian definition of the state is an polity that is able to claim the monopoly of the legitimate use of force. From this perspective, magical girls have to either keep their identities secret or to get some sort of credentials from the state’s organization for the deployment of the legitimate use of force, that is, the military. I suppose Nanoha could have remained a civilian associate (but still licensed by the Main Office nonetheless); it was a bit harder for Fate and Hayate because of how they were performing military service as penance for their criminal records.

Or this was just a brilliant excuse to dress up magical girls in exquisite combat costumes and sexy military uniforms. Just look at Signum-neesan in the No.5J and overcoat in one of my rotating banners. FWOAR.

No real conclusion but in another timely note, the Mar 2009 theme for the Touching War series of seminars is "Women: Armed and Dangerous?"

Full announcement:

TOUCHING WAR: MARCH EVENTS

The Touching War activities I am directing at Lancaster University with the Politics/IR department, under IAS and LU Film Society sponsorship, continue. March’s theme is Women: Armed and Dangerous? Join a new
generation of feminists in international relations to reconsider issues of war and masculinity and the war question for feminists. Events are open to all.

For the schedule through April 2009, see the Touching War website:

http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/events/touchingwar/

Professor Christine Sylvester, Politics/IR

I. ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION AND DEBATE: RECONSIDERING WAR AND MASCULINITY
Thursday 19 March, 4:00-6:00, IAS room 2/3. Wine reception following.
Sponsored by IAS

War has long been viewed by feminists as the ultimate masculine arena of international relations, one that involves women and children mostly as victims of violence, sometimes as combatants, rarely as perpetrators.
This roundtable introduces the theme of Women: Armed and Dangerous? by featuring a mostly new generation of leading international relations analysts interested in probing, challenging, enlarging, and reframing the war and masculinity equation in ways that bring in “women’s” agency and politics.

Participants:

Megan MacKenzie (Women in Public Policy, Harvard). Has interviewed women soldiers in Sierra Leone about their war and post-war experiences. Author of “Securitization and De-securitization: Female Soldiers and the
Construction of the Family,” Security Studies (2009), “De-Securitizing Sex: War Rape and the ‘Radicalization’ of Development in Sierra Leone,” Feminist Journal of International Politics (forthcoming), and co-author
of “Silent Identities: Children Born of War in Sierra Leone” in Charli Carpenter ed. Born of War: Protecting Children Born to Sexual Violence Survivors in Conflict Zones. (2007).

Cristina Masters (Politics, Manchester). Interested in feminism, masculinity and practices of (in)security in international politics, with special attention to the US military and the role of technology in war and security practices. Author of several articles related to this month’s theme, including Femina Sacra and the War on Terror,” Security Dialogue, 2009), and “Bodies of Technology II: Cyborg Soldiers and Militarised Masculinities,” in Rethinking The ‘Man Question’ in International Relations: Sex, Gender, and Violence in International Relations, eds. Jane Parpart and Marysia Zalewski (2008).

Elina Penttinen (Tampere Peace Research Institute). Interested in experiences of war, security, and insecurity as dailiness in women’s lives, and feminist theory about the body and subjectivity. Author of
Globalization, Prostitution, and Sex-Trafficking: Corporeal Politics (2007), “Providing Security: White Western Feminists Protecting “Other” Women,” in Mark Haugaard and Howard Lentner, eds, Hegemony and Power:
Consensus and Coercion in Contemporary Politics (2006), and “Whose Voices Matter: Feminists Stretch the Boundaries of the International Relations Discipline,” in Subhash Durlabhji, ed., Power in focus: Perspectives from Multiple Disciplines (2004).

Laura Sjoberg (Political Science, Virginia Tech). With both a PhD and a JD, she is interested in gender justice in wars, violent women, and gender and international security. Authored Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq (2006) and co-authored Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women’s Violence in Global Politics (2007). General editor of the Gender and Political Violence book series from New York University Press, and
author of “The Gendered Realities of the Immunity Principle: Why Gender Analysis Needs Feminism,” International Studies Quarterly (2006) and “Gendered Torture? Feminist Insights into Abu Ghraib and Gender in the 21st Century,” International Feminist Journal of Politics (2007).

Professor Christine Sylvester (Politics/IR), Seen as raising the war question for feminism and pursuing it in “The Art of War/the War Question in Feminist IR, Millennium: Journal of International Studies (2005). Author of two theory books in the Cambridge series on International Relations, two books on the political economy of Zimbabwe, and lately Art/Museums: International Relations Where We Least Expect It (2009). Author of War, Feminism, and International Relations and editor of Major Works in Feminist International Relations (four volumes), both forthcoming with Routledge.

II. WORKSHOP: THE WAR QUESTION FOR FEMINISM
Friday, March 20, 9:30-5:30, IAS room 2/3. Sponsored by IAS

Many feminists have been disinclined to study the social institution of war, because to study war has seemed to mean accepting it or even endorsing it over feminist goals of peace and war protest. The neglect
of war studies even in feminist international relations is changing rapidly with the advent of a new generation of feminists researching war without necessarily supporting it. This workshop showcases their
thinking about the war question for feminism and enables us to see realms of politics, agency, emotion and physical violence that have been whispered about in the past, or sensationalized in the media, more often
than researched.

9:30-10:00 Christine Sylvester, “Introducing The War Question for Feminism: What Are The Issues?”

10:00-10:30 Elina Penttinen, “The Possibilities of Finding Joy Through Feminist Research on War”
What happens to us as feminist IR writers and researchers when we choose to focus on life, joy and empowerment in places usually seen through feminist lenses as victimizing for women, such as war? I will talk about what I call hopeless feminist problem-making in regard to the war question and look for solutions.

10:30 Break for coffee

10:45-11:15 Discussion led by Megan MacKenzie

11:15- 11:45 Laura Sjoberg “Women’s Sex Crimes in War”
Addresses questions of women’s participation in sexual violence in wartime, particularly their participation in and instigation of genocidal rape. It looks at theoretical and legal implications of women’s sexual violence as well as media and scholarly reactions to those acts.

11:45-12:15 Cristina Masters “Does Homo Sacer have a Sex? Women, the Feminine and War”
An attempt to provoke critical feminist inquiry into the figure of homo sacer in Giorgio Agamben’s philosophy, and reveal how the category may serve to obscure the modalities through which practices of war render
women as bare life in particular ways.

12:15-1:00 Discussion led by Christine Sylvester

1:00-2:15 Lunch

2:15-2:45 Corinna Peniston-Bird (History, Lancaster), Co-author of Contesting Home Defence: Men, Women and the Home Guard in the Second World War (2007), and co-editor of A Soldier and a Woman; Sexual
Integration in the Military (2000).

‘”I’ll be Part and Parcel of the Great British Army”: Women’s Constructions of Service in the ‘Good’ War.”
Takes as its starting place women’s retrospective personal testimony on serving in the British Armed Forces in the Second World War, a periodisation which permits examples to be drawn from the experiences of
female conscripts and volunteers, but as construed from a contemporary perspective.

2:45-3:15 Megan MacKenzie, “Women: Armed and Dangerous in Sierra Leone”
Insights and stories of over fifty female soldiers in Sierra Leone are the foundations of this presentation, which challenges fundamental assumptions about what women “do” during and after conflict.

3:15-3:45 Swati Parashar (Politics/IR Lancaster), Author of “Feminist International Relations and Women Militants: Case Studies from Sri Lanka and Kashmir,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs (2009) and
co-author with Christine Sylvester of “The Contemporary ‘Mahabharata’ and the Many ‘Draupadis’: Bringing Gender to Critical Terrorism Studies, in Critical Terrorism Studies: A New Research Agenda (2009), eds.
Richard Jackson, Marie Breen Smyth, and Jeroen Gunning. She edited Maritime Counter Terrorism: A Pan Asian Perspective(2007) and co-edited Terrorism in South East Asia-Implications for South Asia (2006).

“Militant Women in South Asia: Case Studies from Sri Lanka and Kashmir”
Women as perpetrators, planners and patrons of violent militant activities in the conflicts in Sri Lanka and Kashmir.

3:45-4:00 Break

4:15-4:30 Discussion led by Laura Sjoberg

4:30-5:30 Theorizing the War Question for Feminism -Sylvester, Sjoberg,
MacKenzie, Penttinen, Masters

For information on these and future Touching War events, contact
Professor Christine Sylvester: c.sylvester@lancaster.ac.uk

The Nanoha franchise would be sooo ripe for some discourse analysis. Likewise for Strike Witches. And Simoun.

©2012 hontou ni sou omou?. All Rights Reserved.

Fate’s many faces of consternation.

I was quite shocked at how easily Fate got trapped. Though it wasn’t as bad as Vita getting stabbed through the chest from behind or Teana being injured, out-numbered and cornered, it was still pretty bad and unexpected. Mainly because she’s FEITO, you wouldn’t expect her to be so beat down.

And then there’s not much about Fate in Ep 23 and it’s only in Ep 24 when she has her mind battle with the Doctor and revisits her trauma of not being loved by Precia. I’m not sure how much of Freudian psychology is applicable to women but the Doctor was able to use Fate’s mom fixation to break her down mentally, even managing to depict her love and compassion for Erio and Caro as a twisted reaction that still ultimately perpetuates Precia’s behaviour towards her but now through Fate herself.

Damn, that was one hell of a guilt trip. Then again, it might have been worse if the Doctor told her that Nanoha only loved her for her hot loli body, is no longer interested and is going to marry Yuuno. orz

Fortunately for Fate and her fans, her kids use the Free Will Defence to get her out of funk. Much delight too as she changes into her New Skimpy Sonic Form with twin Riot Zamber blades.

I LOL’ed and then cheered when Fate delivered the smackdown on the evildoers. There was almost a thong flash after she batted the Doctor with the flat of Bardiche Zamber. 0_0

FULL THROTTLE. I’ve been amazed at how much Teana has grown as a character. She was an annoying brat and I cheered when Signum gave her the Fist but now I’m in admiration of how, despite being the Forward with the least powerful and/or special magic, she took down three Numbers on her own. I guess being the most intelligent of the four newbies also helped tremendously. The Mai Nakahara voicing helped too.

I was almost waiting for the captured Number to see through Teana’s spiel about how she knows a combat cyborg who can laugh and love and accuse Teana of having feelings for Subaru and then Tiia going all tsundere. LOL

Very nice to see Shamal and Zafira get the better of Otto. Would have been even better if we had a StrikerS Nano!-esque scene with Shamal then forcing Otto into various kinds of cosplay while Zafira looks on, thinking that it’s better the Number than him having to undergo the Pet Dog Treatment again.

I may disagree with your inter-dimensional crimes, but I will defend to the death your right to mis-attribute this quote to Voltaire.

Of course, Nanoha shows how She The Ultimate Weapon is. Also nice to know that Arf has been getting babysitting experience by looking after Chrono and Amy’s twins. Definitely part of FEITO’s plans to ensure that they can still enjoy hot dates after Vivio joins the matrimonial home.

Putting her foot down.

Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the exit, it could be a train coming towards you. Or a Blaster Three Divine Buster.

I was cheering when Nanoha’s Wide Area Search found Quattro, the Number Four realizing that she’s in deep shit and then going down to a Divine Buster with a scream of “IYAAAA~~~” She was easily the most unlikeable of the combat cyborgs, mainly because of how smug she was and derisive towards even her fellow Numbers. Such a marvellous scene, I rewatched it quite a few times. Though not nearly as many times as the Lucky Star cheer-dance.

Being the sort of person who saves his strawberry until the end of his shortcake, it’s time to sing the praises of Signum-neesan who finally gets more screentime. Her coily attack getting owned by Zest/Agito was a bit of surprise because she’s also an S rank, though unison with Rein does have the benefit of not flashing her panties (what colour after unison?) as she plummets to the ground.

Agito’s also had the hots for Signum ever since she saw Levantein go into demonic fiery sword mode. Neat foreshadowing of the Signum x Agito unison in the final episode.

Lots of inevitable jokes about Signum letting her hair down but I don’t care, Signum-neesan is AWESOME. It was a good fight; rather neat ending for Zest because he was dying anyway and Signum’s the most worthy warrior he’s met thusfar and so the most suitable person to end his life. Did I mention that Signum is awesome?

I enjoyed the final episode too. But am waiting for a better raw before I post on it.

©2012 hontou ni sou omou?. All Rights Reserved.