Character Study: Téa Gardner
Approximate Age: (by the Japanese anime) Fifteen to seventeen
Character Archetype: The Sensible Love Interest (XD), The Childhood Friend, the Diplomat
Probable Element and Alignment: Air/Wind, Neutral Good
Most Obvious Vocal Quirks: She usually speaks in a way that rises above all the other voices in a room, without actually shouting. (Btw, I don't want to hear any wisecracks about that description, people, because that's also how I talk... when I actually talk at all.)
Oh, Téa. Why does such a large chunk of the fandom hate you? Is it because of the friendship dialogue getting so dialed up in the dub? Then why don't they hate Yugi? He was worse. Is it because they're just not paying attention? One hopes not, when they spend so much energy on you. Or is it just because you're an incredibly sexy woman, and they rather perversely see you as a threat?
Téa is not that girl that picked on you in high school. She may dress like that girl, she may have a figure rather like that girl's, she may even have cut her hair to exactly the same length. But she does not act like that girl. She hangs out mainly with that punk delinquent Joey and that screwy little nerd Yugi, who happens to be the school punching bag. She's the girl I wish I knew when the girl that picked on ME in high school was at her worst, because Téa's the girl that steps in, stands up for you, and makes you feel like you're worth more than shoe gum.
Téa is golden. I'm not saying she's a flawless person. But she's definitely not the person I keep hearing she is. The person that Téa bashers say they hate is a "bitch," a "slut," a "whore." That person supposedly is trying to "seduce" Atem, or Yugi, depending on who you ask. That person is "weak," she's a "shrew," she's "nasty." That person is not the character I know and love.
Téa could seriously use some better press, is all I'm saying.
First of all, I have to ask if any Téa bashers who call Téa a slut actually know what a "slut" IS. Do you? I'll explain, for our younger peeps. A "slut" is a person who is very sexually active, and not very sexually discerning. A slut, by the end of the series, would have at least tried to sleep with most of the male members of the cast, which would have given Téa plenty of opportunity to be one, with so many men around. (Yet we can't PROVE she slept with ANYONE.) A slut would not have latched on to one man, declared that she had "fallen in love" with him, and then followed him, supportive and uncomplaining, into some of the most dangerous situations she'd ever been in in her life.
And a whore would have been actively hitting the male characters up for money in exchange for sexual favors.
As Yugi would say, Téa's "not that kind of girl!!" She'd rather get a job at Burger World.
Then there's the accusations of weakness and cowardice. And here I have to ask, "What the hell do you want, Supergirl?" Because then she would have been criticized as a Mary Sue, for one thing. Téa hits people with globes, bites creepy gym teachers twice her size in the arm, kicks mummies' heads off, and will stand up and scream to Yugi to run away after a guy with a gun tells her to be quiet. Examples appear in every single different sub-continuity. Téa kicks ass. She ain't Supergirl, but she doesn't let that stop her. If a situation needs a crowbar, she'll use the crowbar, whether it means for prying or cracking heads.
Is Téa trying to "seduce" anyone? Ehhh, I'm not sure, and even if I was, I wouldn't be sure that's such a bad thing. What difference is there between seduction and expressing love, when you're trying to get a man to love you back? More importantly, she goes from trying to get Atem to stay with her, spend time with her, to giving him the key that sends him out of her reach forever. Téa, like most of the core cast, is dynamic and grows up as the story progresses.
She begins, in the manga, as an over-righteous "good girl" who plays big sister to Yugi, is intoxicated by the mystery and dangerous allure of Atem, and as the sort of girl who believes true love means happily ever after. Her main character flaws are, quite simply, that she's a little too quick to correct, and that she's got something of a Pandora complex (Pandora the Greek chick, not Pandora/Arkana.) You can see the Pandora complex several places besides her crush on a guy she doesn't know, by the way: directly after being told "Opening this jar will either get your soul eaten or all of Japan will be destroyed," what does she want? To open the jar, of course. She had no interest in the thing until she knew it was dangerous. (She's also a bit reckless early on, just in general.)
She has absolutely no sexual interest in Yugi at all at this point, even when she finds out he's possessed by the being she's "in love with." He's her "little brother," a little brother who needs her protection. She simply isn't attracted to him. Atem, on the other hand, saves her life several times, becomes her protector and defender of her honor. She thinks of him as her superhero, or her knight in shining armor (there was a picture in her soul room at one point before she realized who he was in which Atem was represented as a faceless man with a suspiciously Superman-like costume. XD)
And here she is, with a "little brother" and a knight in shining armor, and they happen to be two different people cohabiting one body. Talk about frustrating. However, she's genuinely happy for Yugi when he starts to stand up for himself ("He's not a scared little boy anymore!" *happy tears*), and decides eventually that it doesn't matter, that Yugi and the other Yugi are close enough to the same person, and she's close enough to him, that it's okay for now.
This is where she is when Battle City starts, and she discovers that her knight in shining armor is actually an amnesiac pharaoh, not just a shadow that crosses her friend's face. And suddenly everything is thrown into confusion again. Does she love the pharaoh, or does she love what he brings out in Yugi? And what will she do when Yugi-- Atem?!-- has to face his destiny?
Because she doesn't know what else to do, Téa chooses to support both of them. After all, whether she loves them this way or that way, they are her friends, and one thing Téa knows is that friendship means supporting someone, no matter how hard it is.
And I think that's when something new about the relationship between love and friendship enters Téa's head and begins to solidify: Sometimes when you are in love with someone, you think about what's best for that person, not what's best for you. She slowly begins to transition from girl to adult once this enters her mind.
During the Waking the Dragons arc, Téa finds herself dealing with Atem alone for the first time. Not only that, but he's in a bad way. Suddenly, she's seeing him at his absolute lowest. And she finds she still loves him. She learns what hurting for your man's pain feels like. That superhero-worship kind of dies, falls by the wayside in the face of the fact that Atem, for all his godlike power, is human. In the anime at least, her love for Yugi softens back into the background of her heart for a while. As far as she's concerned, she's figured it out. Personally I suspect she's got it less figured out than she thinks she does, but that's life. XD
And then comes the Memory arc, and Atem facing his destiny. Téa knows the purpose of this is finding his name. She probably has a feeling of what's coming after that, that he's going to essentially die. But instead of sabotaging what she knows will take him away from her, she buys him a gift: A cartouche, to carve his name on. So he'll never forget it again, so he can keep it with him.
That's a long way away from the girl who'd hop into a potentially bomb-ridden carousel to make him be with her, and a long way away from the girl who longed for something dangerous to happen so that she could hear that voice again. This is the woman who, knowing that goodbye is soon, chooses to do something meaningful for him, and to help him face his destiny in any way she can. It's pretty beautiful, and I'm sorry all you bashers are missing it.
By the way, that over-righteous streak sticks around. Kaiba gets the brunt of it (which is hilarious), although she does let up a little after Duelist Kingdom's "What do you have at the end of the DAY?!" speech (shortly after giving it, you know, she finds out she was totally off-base in yelling at him. XD) although she also yells at Joey during Battle City for not "just saying Mai was in your dream." She's a little too eager to explain other people's motivations (Joey stops her from telling Kaiba about Serenity, and you can bet if she'd been anywhere near Alister during Doma Kaiba would have had to tackle her to get her to shut up about how Gozaburo treated his own sons...)
Téa is always the person in the back ready to tell the villain why his behavior isn't kosher. It settles down a bit into simple vocal righteousness, but she continues to feel strongly about everything, and she continues to be very willing to say so. She's a lady that speaks her mind, and most of the time, it works out for her, so she's not going to stop doing it any time soon. (And in most cases, it's not really that much of a FLAW, just a TRAIT.)
Outside of her love for Atem, which shifts from selfish to selfless, Téa is generally just a very kind sort of person, although quite a bit less self-crucifying than Yugi. Her first inclination at meeting someone new is to make them feel welcome in her life. (Except women who throw themselves on Yugi and go on about being awesomer duelists than him. XD) Even when she has a bad first impression with someone, she doesn't necessarily give up on that person; she's willing to be friends with Rebecca and comforts her when she needs comfort, she does similar for Mai, and she becomes an "irritated mother" figure in Kaiba's general direction, calling him "Kaiba-kun" in the Japanese (for those of you unfamiliar, that's a friendly/familiar-to-a-male suffix, and more importantly, she's one of the only characters who bothers calling him "kun," including his own brother, who uses the highly respectful "sama") and trying very hard to rein him into the rest of the group, not caring that he'll bristle and wanting very much to help him when he needs it. I think she's too abrasive to be quite the right person to drag him into the group, but it helps that Mokuba likes her.
(In my humble opinion, Mokuba probably likes her because she DOES speak her mind, and also possibly because he's just about that age, ha ha. That doesn't mean I think he has a crush on her. O_o)
Besides telling Kaiba off, she also treats herself as the "mama" within the group in general. She gives Joey relationship advice. She provides comfort where she sees it needed. She tries to provide a reasonable and cool voice when things get heated. (She doesn't always succeed.) (Okay, she doesn't USUALLY succeed, but this is Yu-Gi-Oh!, AKA Testosterone Land for Nerds.) Téa probably would make a good (although somewhat authoritarian) mother. XD
I have one final thing to say, and that's that if you're going to hate a character, hate them for traits they actually have, and don't let it affect how you write them. (Maybe it sounds hard to YOU, but if I can do it, you can. I ain't THAT amazing.) Your story will be more enjoyable to more people for the effort, whether you're working with Téa or anyone else.
Final Distillation:
Téa changes from loving selfishly to selflessly.
She's unafraid to use whatever force a situation needs.
She feels strongly about right and wrong and is unafraid to speak her mind.
She is kind, and willing to extend her kindness to people she doesn't necessarily like.
When she says "Friends help each other," she MEANS it.
Which means she'll end up mothering most of her friends some way or another.
She's mostly reasonable, most of the time.
But she will totally kick your ass if she thinks it needs to be kicked.
She's got a touch of Pandora complex, although she can rein it in if necessary.
She's not afraid to hang out with the unpopular guys.
As always, comments can be made here, at the DA journal, or through the G-mail.
Disclaimer: In case you my readers have not yet noticed, I often tackle the character studies beginning with the way that a large portion of the fandom reacts to a character. I am not accusing any one fan in particular of anything regarding any character, especially not Téa. But it is an inarguable fact that, especially in the early days of English speaking fandom, and even now, there were a lot of fans who absolutely demonized this particular character, in the general way that I have described and for those general reasons. It is that nebulous creature that I address, not any one person, even though I admit to having encountered more than a few people who did, word for word, say such things, and even a smaller number of people who admitted to the reasons.
So I'd appreciate not getting a dozen defensive comments about how you never said anything like that, whether you liked her or not. I understand. Please approach the essay as what it is, which is not a criticism of any one real person, but an evaluation of one fictional person and, to a lesser extent, of the fandom that she finds herself in.
(To be quite frank, I'm actually horribly fond of Téa bashers. They're like a milling horde of annoying kid siblings, and this essay wouldn't have had much direction without them. I wrote a large section of it by going into a basher forum and poking the hive until they all started buzzing at me. XD)
