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.