Leela Region: #1 Leela vs #16 The Grand Midwife

[on:]

In the first match-up of the Leela Region's second round, we have the eponymous Leela, hot off a relatively weak result for a 1-seed versus Billionaire Bot, against the Grand Midwife, who received just one less vote than Leela did in the first round. Who'll move on here? Discuss now and the poll will open tonight at midnight!


Once again, it'll be interesting to see how many of you despise Leela to actually vote for the Grand Midwife in protest of Leela, like the last round with Billionaire Bot...

[Reply #1 on:]

Death to the dissenters!

By which I mean I'm voting for Leela because she's one of the main trio and The Grand Midwife has been in, like, two episodes (although she is hilarious in both of them).

[Reply #2 on:]

Definitely Leela. The Grand Midwife is a great character, but would also get annoying quickly if she was be in more episodes I bet. Where-as Leela had some really great episodes on her own too, especially those dealing with her childhood and parents.

[Reply #3 on:]

Damn, do I love the Grand Midwife. I must say, if she was running against a secondary character (like Hermes or maybe even Amy), I would definitely consider voting for her.

But Leela is my favorite character, period, and even though I know she has her fair share of haters, I hope she lasts past round two of this competition. I get that she can be an unbearable bitch, but she's also one of the most complex (and yes, subsequently maddening) characters in the series, with this really interesting back story and a lot of qualities that I, for better or worse, relate to quite a bit.

[Reply #4 on:]

Leela's devolution into a bitch with no redeeming features means I'm voting for the midwife.

[Reply #5 on:]

Leela may only do one job but it transcends grand.

[Reply #6 on:]

Leela's devolution into a bitch with no redeeming features means I'm voting for the midwife.

I agree. I wasn't sure how to voice my opinions but what tnuk said is good enough.

[Reply #7 on:]

I'm voting for the Grand Midwife because over time, the writers have turned Leela into a wishy-washy, uncaring young lady who can't decide whether to be with Fry or just keep breaking his heart week after week. I realize some of her good attributes are still intact: she's still wonderfully sarcastic and a total buttkicker, and some of the best emotion has come out of Leela storylines...but the Fry thing is hard to not get annoyed with, its as frustrating and poorly tended to as Friends. No actually, I'd say its worse. I can't think of a non-cartoon show offhand where two characters will be in love one week, friends with no explanation the next, and back and forth depending on the story, the writer and how lazy/forgetful/apathetic the writing is. This kind of thing wouldn't bother me at all on a regular cartoon but Futurama is supposed to be REAL...ish! Ok, I think I'm done. I won't be going anywhere since I live on the internet, but you don't have to talk to me anymore!

[Reply #8 on:]

Leela may only do one job but it transcends grand.

But her "job" in the show (as opposed to her career) seems purely to be to make poor Fry miserable. She's basically only there to serve as the Bitch of the Week now. Every week.

[Reply #9 on:]

But her "job" in the show (as opposed to her career) seems purely to be to make poor Fry miserable. She's basically only there to serve as the Bitch of the Week now. Every week.

Well..her first "job" in the series was also not very well written.
In "SP3000":
"Oh  yeah, we need someone with martial arts knowledge right now...oh yeah, Leela happens to be an expert in that".
"Oh..btw...right now, we need a pilot. Oh yeah, Leela is also excellent in that field".
Later episodes:
"Oh, we need a captain who also knows about organizing...guess who happened to have that ability"
"Oh, we need a weapon expert, guess who..." etc, etc, etc....

Those ablities were not really plot driven and showed in advance, but rather "pulled out of the sleeve" when a situation demanded so. About the same way as Fry's initial "Delivery Boy Man" Comic version (Adding any superpower when it's needed...I really do hope they used that comic to ridicule their own flaws on the early Leela).

Yep, the initial Leela had very much design flaws, and this makes the character interesting for me: The writers managed to write themselves out of that and make that character "work".

I agree with TNUK about her present status being not so well used in some stories:
The Fry chasing Leela subplot reached it's end. Having those characters not together demands the necessity to have one character "Block" that storyline flow.
And Leela -as a protagonist- should not be really used to "stop" the story...

[Reply #10 on:]

In "SP3000":
"Oh  yeah, we need someone with martial arts knowledge right now...oh yeah, Leela happens to be an expert in that".

...is that a problem? It was the pilot, they're allowed to introduce seemingly random skills to their characters, and it's not like they forgot about Leela's martial arts skills after the first ep.

I voted for Leela because, bitch or not, she kicks ass and takes names.

I don't think there's anything wrong with having a protagonist impede a subplot, either.

[Reply #11 on:]

In "SP3000":
"Oh  yeah, we need someone with martial arts knowledge right now...oh yeah, Leela happens to be an expert in that".

...is that a problem? It was the pilot, they're allowed to introduce seemingly random skills to their characters, and it's not like they forgot about Leela's martial arts skills after the first ep.

Well, it's not really a problem, if done properly.
(Hm..a longer post will follow...I will just spoiler it out, so it won't bother the non-interested folks too much)

Show spoiler

With the initial Leela, they made a character that happend to be the strongest, smartest, bravest, best fighter, best pilot, natural leader, best organizer, etc...or, to cut a long story short: Just a character that is superior to everyone else in any field.
Also, that character shook every ability out of the sleeve when needed, without plot twists, surprises, etc... . (It's not about Leela stepping in as martial artist OR pilot OR weapon expert OR, etc.. . It's about Leela stepping in as martial artists AND pilot AND weapon expert AND, etc... Delivering an immediate solution right off the bat, instead of allowing the story to develop regarding the solution to that problem. At least for one of those problems...)

But the real interesting stories are based on characters reaching their limits and they way how they deal with it:

To give one example to make my point clear:

- In "Raging Bender", the initial, early episode Leela would have just knocked Master Fnog out in an ordinary fight. That's it. Okay..but is there any story, joke, whatever behind it? No.

- The "advanced Leela" they used in that fight was a far more fitting an entertaining character. During the fight, Master Fnog gained the upper hand, and -regarding the mere exchange of blocks/punches/kicks, it seemed Leela was loosing. And with that, the whole fight suddenly became interesting, for the "Knocks him out, and that's it" seemed not to work nor happen. By realizing Destructors copy of Fnogs attacks could be used, a new, surprising element was added. Also, the "cheater manages to betray himself" theme was added, and some humorous hint at the old martial artists saying "Youself are your strongest opponent". AND...should another necessity for a fight between Leela and Fnog arise, she still was not able to defeat him in a 1:1 Kung Fu (I assume Destructor would not be present in that match), wielding the promise that this new fight would require another, surprising, unexpecting plot.

And...imhO...the writers did need some time to get the character "work", to get from the first example behaviour to the second storywise.

[Reply #12 on:]

Only four voted for 'the other guy'!?  GASP!

[Reply #13 on:]

Leela wins 16-4. Continue discussion in the General thread.