Im Really Disappointed In What They Did With Halos Character

I’m really disappointed in what they did with Halo’s character

I’m a Muslim girl with brown skin who wears hijab, so you can imagine how excited I was to see Halo in the s3 trailer. She was the first hijabi Muslim character I had ever seen take on a main role in a show I watch. It was like a dream come true. 

I was so excited to learn about her story and her family and how she becomes a hero, wondering what elements of being a hijabi Muslim they would incorporate. I was a little put off by the fact that she lost her memory, which prevented us from learning more about who she was and where she came from but it was fine. I dismissed the fact that a little more care could have gone into the design of her superhero costume to be more modest. I even forced myself to get over the fact that she was brutally murdered every other episode.

I was willing to give everything a free pass just because I was so elated to finally see someone like me being a hero.

And then I find out that actually, she’s not like me. 

What I thought was going to be a hijabi Muslim hero ended up being a sentient robot thing that is inhabiting the dead body of a hijabi Muslim girl. Gabrielle, the hijabi Muslim refugee, did not get to become a hero. She died, but hey lucky her, her body gets to be a hero, haha so awesome, right?

I thought her character was going to be a step forward in combatting the villainization of Muslims in the media by showing that Muslims can be superheroes too, inspiring and giving validation to all of us who have only seen ourselves represented as, at best stereotypes, or at worst, straight-up villains. But that’s not what we got. 

Halo is not the hero for the Muslim community like Jaime is for the Hispanic community, Oracle is for the disabled community, or even Victor who also has a parentbox connected to him is for the black community. The motherbox could have possessed anyone’s dead body. There is no significance to her being Muslim or brown or hijabi. She had no agency in becoming a hero.

And what sucks even more is I know I shouldn’t complain. At least she still wears hijab, right? I should be happy that I got any representation at all. I mean even if she isn’t herself, it’s more representation than I’ve ever gotten before. Beggars can’t be choosers, right?

I know I shouldn’t complain and yet here I am. Because I’m pissed. I’m not saying I would have rather had her not wear hijab or have been a Muslim refugee before she died. I still do appreciate those things, but it still hurts. And don’t get me wrong I still love Halo as a character (though I will admit I feel less connected to her now).

It hurts because I was expecting to see a Muslim girl like me becoming a hero, and that’s not what I got.

tbh I’m still in the denial stage of greif and think that there has to be more to Halo than just the motherbox’s soul being in her but I don’t want to get my hopes up.

Romani Tropes 101: A Comprehensive Guide to Writing a Romani Character

Although I strongly discourage non-Roma from writing Romani characters that involve any sort cultural or linguistic association, I am in no way opposed to authors writing characters that happen to be Roma.. as long as said authors don’t rely on tropes and stereotypes.

We will start with some obvious and common ones:

Magic | Mysticism This one is pretty obvious. Romani people have long been stereotyped as having some sort of magical or mystical abilities. In reality, though, we are just ordinary people. What’s important to remember, however, is that this stereotype has played a pretty big role in the oppression we’ve faced, which stems from a fear-mongering campaign led largely by the Catholic Church.

How does this impact writing Romani characters: if you are considering a Romani character that has some sort of magical ability you need to ask yourself some questions before continuing writing. 1. Is magic or mysticism necessary to the plot? 2. Is your Romani character the only one with magical abilities? 3. Is magic or mysticism used to augment the “Gypsy-ness” of your character? 4. Are you treating magical or mystical abilities as cultural or ethnic phenomenon?

If you answered yes to anything other than the first question, you need to stop and reevaluate your character. If your writing involves anything listed in numbers 2-4 then you are relying on stereotypes and perhaps you should not include a Romani character at all.

Fortune-Telling | Palmistry | Tarot Cards Yes, many Roma do these things, but they are also common in many other cultures. This is a really common stereotype. If you’re not Roma then I would avoid any having your Romani character perform any sort of fortune-telling. We’re not going to go through any evaluation questions for this topic because it pretty obviously relies heavily racist stereotypes.

Maybe you want to touch on those stereotypes in your writing, though. That’s a good idea! So, using the topic of fortune-telling is okay when you’re doing it in a way to combat stereotypes.

For example, your Romani character could be asked to do some form of fortune-telling and respond with some history or an explanation as to why it’s a stereotype. There are ways to actually combat stereotypes about Roma by using the stereotype itself. Just be super careful to not demean or accidentally reinforce the stereotype.

Belly-dancing This is a big misconception about Romani people! We don’t belly-dance in the traditional sense. We have a type of dance that uses similar hip motions, and some Roma in the Balkans and Turkey do perform belly-dance. However, belly-dancing comes from MENA [Middle Eastern / North African] cultures and is not actually Romani. It also plays into the hyper-sexualization of Romani women, but we will touch on that next.

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Let’s talk about autistic Keith and Pidge

Because I am trash and it took me all of three episodes to be 1000% convinced that they’re both autistic. And now I’ve watched this show straight through three times (plus bits and pieces like eight full episodes of a fourth run for Research!) and I want to ramble about it.

Under the cut: a look at canonical evidence for autistic Keith and autistic Pidge, plus a few of my own headcanons.

Minor spoilers, mostly for the first four episodes.

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