I’m
always in favor of a nice realization of the Geek Girl archetype in genre stories,
like Willow on Buffy, Hermione in Harry Potter, or Simmons on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Tosh is a somewhat different version of this
character, since she’s pretty decidedly a Geek Woman, but she has a lot of the
same qualities I enjoy in this type while bringing some of her own traits to
the table.
Though
she (retroactively) appears first in a series 1 episode of new Who, we get to know Tosh much better on Torchwood, where she serves as the team’s
tech expert. Whenever a problem calls
for computers or complex equations, she’s there, and studying alien gizmos is
one of her favorite pastimes. She’s most
in her element when she’s doing fancy tech wizardry with the Torchwood
software, but she also makes for a pretty adept field agent.
There
are several typical Geek Girl personalities – Tosh skips quirky/bubbly and
know-it-all, coming to rest far closer to wallflower. This is probably her most frustrating
quality, a shy, long-suffering tendency to stay in the background. Not that it’s entirely a bad thing; she keeps
on keeping on, getting the job done without needing recognition for it. However, she can be too much of a doormat at
times, and her unrequited crush on Owen isn’t big on dignity. On a team with a lot of big personalities,
Tosh can get lost in the shuffle.
Which
is a shame, because she’s often awesome, and I don’t think she usually realizes
that. While her trademark action tends
to be vigorous typing, her computer skills reveal cleverness and creativity in
equal parts. She’s a master of mocking
up false web trails, she hacks like a ninja, and she can coax almost any piece
of technology into assisting her with inventive solutions (for just one
example, I like when she makes a program to trace the route of a particular
face backwards to the start of her journey via Cardiff’s CCTV system.) When she works through a problem, she adjusts
and course-corrects so seamlessly she doesn’t even notice how ingenious she is.
In the
field, she’s generally level-headed and capable. She can keep her head in most crises, she’s
not shy about using her gun, and she puts her quick wits to good use in the
direst situations. She’s usually the one
to talk others down when they freak out, to bring them back to the immediate
issue and get them focused again. If she
has a major weakness, it ties into her shyness and loneliness. She’s so used to being passed over and
ignored that she can be easily led by someone who makes a show of appreciating
her. These plots can be tough to watch,
both because it’s no fun to see a smart woman be manipulated like that and
because it makes it clear that she has a pretty low opinion of herself. However, they always highlight how little
acknowledgement she receives from the rest of the team, and these storylines
often resolve with the others realizing they shouldn’t take her so much for
granted.
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