[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

The best part about Nanoha has always been that Nanoha's role was pretty much blind to her sex. It would take barely any major adjustments to the writing to put a boy in Nanoha's place.

The part may have been written as a girl, but it wasn't written AROUND a girl. Nanoha's femaleness is never really a big plot point. She was written as a person first and a girl second, which is what makes her interesting as a character, ESPECIALLY in the magical-girl genre, where the main character's femaleness is usually emphasized and paraded around like a trophy. While Nanoha doesn't get all that much meaningful character development (largely due to the lack of any official resolution of Nanoha and Fate's implied relationship), she's a person who happens to be a girl.

She wasn't written around her ovaries.

I strongly agree, which is why I consider Nanoha a strong female character.

You know how they sometimes call President Obama the "Post-Racial President"? Well, to draw an analogy, Nanoha is something of a "Post-Gender Heroine".

She's a heroic main protagonist that happens to be a girl. She's completely comfortable in her own skin and she's not ashamed of being a girl (her pretty feminine attire makes this quite clear), but nor do I feel like her femaleness is paraded around as something trying too hard ("I am woman, hear me roar!") or as something that's just meant for male viewers to gawk at.

Originally Posted by Keroko

Did I say scrap the pairing? What I said is that the series is being held back by the constant need to show the pairing', which is easily solve by... you know... just not showing the characters? The pairing still exists, since nothing has changed in that regard, and the story can grow with the new cast.

Or heck, even ignoring the new cast, maybe it could give some more focus on Hayate for a change? You know, the supposed third member of the "three aces" that constantly gets shafted?

I think Hayate faced some fan-backlash from being pushed a wee bit too hard in Nanoha A's and StrikerS. Having her jump ranks over Nanoha and Fate in spite of how Nanoha and Fate were working for TSAB long before Hayate did rubbed some people the wrong way (I myself found this... questionable, at least). This is especially true since Hayate was already given plenty of limelight in how Nanoha A's really was Hayate's story (I agree with you there).

Don't get me wrong, I like Hayate, but if she's getting shafted now it's because she was "over-pushed" (to use pro wrestling terminology) before.

At this point I'll just point out that prior to Vivio, Nanoha never had an internal conflict. Or any character growth. At all. Yet that didn't stop her from being the titular character or a main character for two seasons.

I at least partially disagree with you here. On "internal conflict", I recall Nanoha briefly feeling conflicted over continuing to pursue Jewel Seeds due to how that would inevitably throw her into direct conflict with Fate. I do think that Nanoha at least considered "giving up", but admittedly she overcame this doubt quickly enough that I can understand somebody saying that Nanoha lacked "internal conflict" in the first two Nanoha anime shows.

But to argue that she didn't grow as a character is pure poppycock. Sorry, but it is.

Nanoha was certainly never weak, but both Fate (original season) and Vita (Nanoha A's) pushed Nanoha to her limits, and beyond, forcing her to get stronger. They forced Nanoha to get more adept at combat; to be more willing and able to use her powers in creative, corrective, and at times violent ways.

I also think that Nanoha learned from both Fate and Vita that basically good people can get caught up in questionable causes due to sympathetic and unfortunate circumstances beyond their control. While Nanoha never lost her core idealism, she did gain a greater appreciation for the world and some of its greyer shades.

I think that Fate initially perplexed Nanoha, and it was through working out that perplexity in her own mind that Nanoha grew as a person.

So I disagree with you that Nanoha S1 was "not about Nanoha". I think it was just as much about Nanoha as it was about Fate.