Favorite Characters: Alak Tarr (Defiance)

 

A while back, I wrote about a couple posts about the Tarrs, one of my favorite parts of Defiance. I did a Relationship Spotlight on the whole Tarr family as well as a Favorite Characters post on Stahma. Now, I’m coming back around and highlighting son Alak too (a few Alak-related spoilers.)

 

There’s an interesting divide on Defiance between the older and younger generations. We have humans who remember Earth before Arkfall and Votans who fled their home planets on the Arks, with a good number on both sides having fought in the Pale Wars. But we also have the people who grew up knowing only the new world of humans and Votans sharing the planet, including Votans who’ve never seen the homes their parents came from. Within the Tarr family, and specifically through Alak, we get some of the show’s best examples of this disconnect.

 

Throughout the series, we see that Alak has feet in both the Castithan culture he was born into and the human culture that surrounds him. Even though his social circle is mainly Castithan like himself, he has no problem falling for Christie and pushes back repeatedly against his father’s dislike for his human fiancée. He serves as an occasional referee between his parents and Christie – he stands up for her when Datak disrespects her, but at the same time, he’s not shy about his opinions when he thinks Christie’s interest in Castithan culture verges on fetishization/exploitation. He chafes at his parents’ old-world adherence to family honor, but he won’t demure from flaunting his high-caste shanje liro status when he needs to.

 

(Side note, I love the little touches in Jesse Rath’s portrayal of Alak to show how he’s both thoroughly Castithan and thoroughly of Earth – after loving Rath’s performance as Brainy in Supergirl, I knew he knew his way around playing an alien, but this example from earlier in his career is also pretty great. Unlike Datak and Stahma, who have a very deliberate way of speaking English, Alak sounds 100% “ordinary guy” underneath his white skin/hair and monochrome Castithan threads. But at the same time, he’s one of the first major characters we see dancing in that trippy, undulating Castithan way, and there’s one particular scene where he cries out in shock and horror, and in that moment, he doesn’t sound the least bit human.)

 

On a personal level, Alak doesn’t mind benefitting from his family’s wealth but isn’t interested in taking part in where it comes from, Datak’s organized crime. He has his own interests, for one thing – he’s fanatically into the music, running the town radio station and manufacturing vinyls to sell. He’s also focused on his own future, wanting to make a different life for himself and Christie than the one his family has. Furthermore, he’s simply not hard or cunning enough for the family business. In season 2, when he’s forced to take the lead in Datak’s absence, it’s easy for Stahma to use Alak as a figurehead so she can run the gang behind the scenes (Castithan society is hardcore patriarchal.)

 

Honestly, for living in a frontier town in a post-apocalyptic society (and the son of a crime lord, no less,) Alak can come across as surprisingly soft. He doesn’t seem quite built for this world, what with the periodic invasions from hostile armies or the occasional hellbug attacks. But it would be wrong to call him weak. Simply getting engaged to Christie in the first place displays strength, in terms of both facing societal rejection of human/Votan marriages and risking his parents’ disapproval – though they go about it in different ways, both Datak and Stahma abuse Alak, and it takes courage for him to defy them or talk back to them despite knowing how they might respond. Between their abuse and their manipulation of him, they attempt to control Alak and hold him back, but he keeps pressing ahead, even if he does so fearfully.

 

When he finally starts getting out from under their influence in season 3, Alak begins to thrive as he gets positive encouragement from Nolan. He takes his life more decisively into his own hands, he throws himself into helping to protect the town from the latest crisis, and he starts to develop the will he needs to set crucial boundaries with his parents. As someone who was rooting for him from early on, it’s great to see.

Favorite Characters: Stahma Tarr (Defiance)

Pound for pound, easily the most intriguing character on Defiance. Never to be counted out, this is the one and only Stahma Tarr (some Stahma-related spoilers.)

It’s easy to take the initial impression that Datak is the big mover in the Tarr family. After all, he’s the patriarch and Castithan society is very male-dominated, and he’s a crime lord to boot. He’s the one swinging his “I started with nothing and look at me now!” status around, the one who makes the threats and breaks the hands. Stahma walks behind him, smiling and soft-spoken, ingratiating. It’s clear from the beginning that she’s not blind to the kind of work Datak does – she knows exactly how the family bread is buttered – but it’s tempting to think of her as the respectable front that gives him legitimacy, giving him quiet support in the background.

But that’s not who Stahma is. She’s much more active in the schemes and machinations around which the Tarrs’ lives revolves. She’s just subtler and softer about it. While Datak is the sledgehammer, she gently nudges things and people to get them where she needs them to be, including her husband. She makes the plans and feeds them the Datak, planting them in his mind so he takes them up of his own accord, not always aware of whatever secret additional agenda Stahma has running. In this way, Datak (and later Alak) serves, in a sense, as Stahma’s front. She has the ruthlessness and acumen to go after what she wants, but she’s smart enough to know that 1) Castithans won’t accept power from a woman and 2) staying behind the scenes also maintains her deniability to anyone who might come after them.

It’s interesting to see how Stahma interacts with Castithan gender norms. She often uses them as a cover, smiling and simpering because “how could anyone suspect a mere woman of” XYZ. But she rankles under them too, longing to be the one out front and in charge for once. Datak’s moods can make him unpredictable, and his ego means she treads dangerous ground if she tries to take too much for herself. When Datak is imprisoned in season 2, Alak proves much more pliable to control, but why? Why should she have to hide behind her son and keep the family business running in the shadows while he serves as the figurehead? Once she has that chance to make the decisions outright rather than manipulate them into place, she’s less content to keep up the appearance of having nothing to do with it.

Stahma’s not incapable in a fight, but she definitely doesn’t carry the “badass” image that characters like Irisa do. In a rough, dangerous world, she keeps herself and her own safe most often through cunning, finessing her way out of situations or getting those who are physically stronger to act at her behest, and when she does resort to violence herself, poison is her preferred method. When she really needs to, though, she can throw down hard – Stahma is nothing if not a survivor, and she’ll do anything in service of that goal. Family is deeply important to her, and she’ll go to great lengths – and sink to great depths – to keep them safe as well, but her devotion isn’t absolute, and she can be at her most dangerous when someone she loves pushes her to her breaking point.

Favorite Characters: Irisa (Defiance)

Genre stories are no stranger to badass women who are handy in a fight, both of the human (Zoë Washburne, Melinda May) and non-human varieties (Aeryn Sun, Wonder Woman.) Yes, we’ve definitely seen the blueprints for Irisa’s character before. But as I’ve said, it’s not so much about the archetypes themselves as it is what you do within them, and I really like how Defiance explores Irisa (a few Irisa-related spoilers.)

A young Irathient woman who was born on the terraformed Earth, Irisa has the unfortunate distinction of being singled out for great purpose. And this isn’t even the kind of “great power, great responsibility”/“Chosen One” stuff that burdens the lives of heroes ranging from Harry Potter to Buffy. This is the “her parents sold her to a cult as a child” kind of great purpose. When she was a kid, Irisa was hailed by a group of zealots as the prophesied Devouring Mother, an instrument of colossal destruction.

Fortunately for Irisa, the cult was interrupted mid-ceremony by Nolan, who killed the perpetrators and took Irisa in to raise her as his own. Her childhood is spent in relative anonymity, but it’s still marked by violence, with Nolan teaching Irisa the importance of doing what has to be done in order to survive in a harsh world. By the time we meet Irisa in the pilot, she’s a hard young woman who wields knives like they’re extensions of her hands. She’s a skilled scavenger, and she’s used to having no roots or connections other than Nolan.

Moving to Defiance challenges a lot of the notions Irisa was raised on. Her priorities start to stretch beyond her and Nolan’s survival. The two of them both get caught up in the concerns of the town, and even if Irisa is initially more eager to move on than Nolan is, she too quickly finds herself starting to care about Defiance, more than she’s using to caring about anything outside the two-person bubble of her and Nolan. She begins a tentative flirtation with Tommy, and probably more significantly for Irisa, develops friendships with the Irathient spirit riders who live outside town.

Even though we’re introduced to an Irisa who is incredibly capable and undoubtedly lethal, Defiance demonstrates the ways that she’s still growing up and coming into herself. Though she’s definitely strong-willed and will bicker with Nolan about field tactics, Irisa is generally used to falling in line behind him, half daughter and half deputy. As they settle in in Defiance, however, Irisa starts to reckon with who she is and what she wants. Whether that’s exploring her culture amid her own people, guardedly pursuing a shy romance, or confronting the apparent great purpose that still lays dormant inside of her, Irisa begins to make more of her own decisions. It’s a neat journey for the character to take, marked by a great deal of inner conflict and a lot of pain, but it’s fascinating to watch.