I think that part of it has to do with the central conceit of the woobie: someone that we kinda want to H so we can see C happen! Female characters are often polarizing (see how I'm keeping my analysis shallow to avoid wank), and that the majority of them we either don't want to see hurt, or don't want to see comforted afterwords.
Seeing Simon badly injured, still calling Mal Sir & Captain even as he's trying to talk him through fixing his hurts, and then breaking down in his arms when it's all over... there are many powerful desires at work.
He's so starched, we want to muss him up a bit! He's so above it all, let's cut him down to size! He's so reserved, let's open him up!
But despite all of that, we LOVE him and we WANT him to be HAPPY! Like the Ghost of Xmas Present, sometimes you have to SLAP THEM IN THE FACE just to get their attention! Once the downhill slope of woobiefication has reached its nadir, we can build them back up and patch all of the ouchies that have been exposed by the trauma. And hey, no new ouchies generated, because the woobiefying action? Totally not their fault.
So, for a Woobie to Woob, you must like the character, but you must also have something you DON'T like about the character that you can destroy with the trauma-ness of it all. Zoe, I love. I feel absolutely no need to see her Woobiefied, because she damn well Would REFUSE to WOOBIE, gorramit! She is whole and entire, and fully capable of working out her own shit. Mal, while stoic and sarcastic, is still a freaking WoobieMonster and requires regular beatings to better himself. Jayne (or Xander, for a more popular example) I have very few positive feelings for. They could certainly USE the help and the cuddles, I just feel no urge to provide them, or even see them provided. Seeing a cold shivering Xander being handed a warm blanket on a dark doorstoop, I would snatch the blanket away and toss it into a mud puddle :> Is there a word for this Anti-Woobie?
Xena & Gabrielle both make wonderful Woobies, especially because if you Woobie one, the other morphs into a Woobie from the sheer empathetic horror of it. Kaylee, not so much, because I don't want to see anything bad happen to her, not even to the point that she would need a comforting cup of cocoa :(
I haven't read much Woobiefic in other fandoms, but the little I have seems to follow a certain pattern: Pair exists with unequal power/worth dynamic. (Top/bottom, for linguistic clarity within this example). bottom experiences something horrible, either because of outside circumstances OR because of inadverdent actions of the Top. Top feels very bad, cuddles bottom, explains how it wasn't the bottom's fault, the bottom is wunnerful and awesome and oh so worthy. Bottom grows back the missing vertebrae on spine and happy times are had by all.
Now go back to that scenario and assign a gender to the top and bottom. Switch it up. See how that changes? Some ideas are more comfortable than other, and prolly more common because of that.
One other thing may be the relative lack of these complex, yet sympathetic female characterizations in some of these fandoms, which is a whole nasty sinkhole of gender!fail that I plan on ignoring for Lent.
This could be a panel discussion, y'all. Who's taking this to a con?
sorry for the incoherence
Seeing Simon badly injured, still calling Mal Sir & Captain even as he's trying to talk him through fixing his hurts, and then breaking down in his arms when it's all over... there are many powerful desires at work.
He's so starched, we want to muss him up a bit!
He's so above it all, let's cut him down to size!
He's so reserved, let's open him up!
But despite all of that, we LOVE him and we WANT him to be HAPPY! Like the Ghost of Xmas Present, sometimes you have to SLAP THEM IN THE FACE just to get their attention! Once the downhill slope of woobiefication has reached its nadir, we can build them back up and patch all of the ouchies that have been exposed by the trauma. And hey, no new ouchies generated, because the woobiefying action? Totally not their fault.
So, for a Woobie to Woob, you must like the character, but you must also have something you DON'T like about the character that you can destroy with the trauma-ness of it all. Zoe, I love. I feel absolutely no need to see her Woobiefied, because she damn well Would REFUSE to WOOBIE, gorramit! She is whole and entire, and fully capable of working out her own shit. Mal, while stoic and sarcastic, is still a freaking WoobieMonster and requires regular beatings to better himself. Jayne (or Xander, for a more popular example) I have very few positive feelings for. They could certainly USE the help and the cuddles, I just feel no urge to provide them, or even see them provided. Seeing a cold shivering Xander being handed a warm blanket on a dark doorstoop, I would snatch the blanket away and toss it into a mud puddle :> Is there a word for this Anti-Woobie?
Xena & Gabrielle both make wonderful Woobies, especially because if you Woobie one, the other morphs into a Woobie from the sheer empathetic horror of it. Kaylee, not so much, because I don't want to see anything bad happen to her, not even to the point that she would need a comforting cup of cocoa :(
I haven't read much Woobiefic in other fandoms, but the little I have seems to follow a certain pattern: Pair exists with unequal power/worth dynamic. (Top/bottom, for linguistic clarity within this example). bottom experiences something horrible, either because of outside circumstances OR because of inadverdent actions of the Top. Top feels very bad, cuddles bottom, explains how it wasn't the bottom's fault, the bottom is wunnerful and awesome and oh so worthy. Bottom grows back the missing vertebrae on spine and happy times are had by all.
Now go back to that scenario and assign a gender to the top and bottom. Switch it up. See how that changes? Some ideas are more comfortable than other, and prolly more common because of that.
One other thing may be the relative lack of these complex, yet sympathetic female characterizations in some of these fandoms, which is a whole nasty sinkhole of gender!fail that I plan on ignoring for Lent.
This could be a panel discussion, y'all. Who's taking this to a con?