Character Highlight: Jenny Flint (Doctor Who)

Here comes the second, and only human, member of the Paternoster gang.  Like wife Vastra and comrade Strax, Jenny was introduced in series 6’s “A Good Man Goes to War” and has since made periodic appearances on the show alongside the other Paternosters.

Of the three, Jenny is probably the one with the thinnest characterization.  Part of this is down to the simple fact that she is human.  Not only are Vastra and Strax other species, but they’re also non-contemporary for the era during which they’ve put down roots, Victorian London.  Vastra, a Silurian, woke from her prehistoric hibernation in the 19^th century, and Strax, a Sontaran, left his own time period to join Vastra and Jenny after the Battle of Demons Run.  Given that the other two are so obviously out of place while Jenny is of the expected species, time, and place for her locale, it makes sense that she doesn’t stand out quite as much.  After all, Jenny is never going to be confused by the concept of two genders or discuss her firsthand knowledge about dinosaurs from the good old days.

But that doesn’t mean she’s merely what she appears at first glance, a Victorian chambermaid.  There’s of course her friendship with the Doctor to consider, her casual rapport with alien species, and her marriage to her lizard-woman employer.  Even though Vastra and Strax are actually from cultures that use sophisticated technology, Jenny holds her own well enough and frequently carries handy gadgets to help them on their missions.  As I said with Vastra, I’m of two minds about this.  I like to see how characters are shaped by their environments, so it would make sense to see some unfamiliarity with technology on Jenny’s part (even if she has picked up quite a lot, being a fairly sharp cookie,) but at the same time, I wouldn’t want Jenny to be painted as the dumb Victorian Cockney who’s scared of anything with flashing lights and needs everything explained to her.  It would be nice to put her maybe just a few notches down the spectrum from Vastra and Strax – show someone who’s learning, not someone who’s already an expert.

She has a number of skills that come in handy on the team.  She’s an accomplished fighter, taking out baddies just as readily with hand-to-hand combat as she does with a sword.  She can also pick locks and, thanks to her humanness, is the only Paternoster who can reliably go undercover during a case.  She’s smart and brave, and her aforementioned marriage to Vastra shows her to be pretty strong-willed to go so thoroughly against the grain in such a repressed, well-regulated era.

It’s still weird to me that she continues to serve as Vastra’s maid after their marriage, and that Vastra sometimes treats her more like a servant with benefits than a wife.  Jenny’s tough and outspoken, and she’s made snarky comments about the unbalanced power dynamic between them, but she doesn’t really seem interested in doing anything about it.  Why?  Is she okay with it?  Despite her nonheteronormative orientation, does she still subscribe to Victorian ideas about how wives should behave and applies those ideas only to herself and not Vastra?  I find it bizarre that she just kind of takes it, because 1) it doesn’t seem to fit her personality, and 2) even if it did, I’d hope the show would at least acknowledge it as something messed-up, something Jenny will eventually grow dissatisfied with and approach Vastra about.