Porrim stands out amongst the other trolls from Beforus in that she is mature and has a good head on her shoulders. While the others tend to be immature (not necessarily in the ‘childish’ sense, but in the literal ‘not having matured as an adult yet sense’) in various ways (Cronus being a selfish asshole, Latula overcompensating for her insecurities, and Kankri…well, I will get to him later), she appears to be older than the others mentally despite being the same age as them all. This is all undoubtedly due to the fact that she was designed to be and is essentially a mother figure, as all incarnations of the Virgo trolls are in one way or another.
Porrim shows her maturity and intelligence by being able to see, deconstruct, and explain complex issues to others. This is most often seen her in attempts to enlighten her friends on gender inequality on both Beforus and Alternia. The two that this comes up often with are Kankri and Latula: with the former, Porrim’s attempts fail due to Kankri not believing the gender inequality exists in troll society and the latter for—while supporting Porrim’s idea—does not entirely get the nuances of the concepts. She also very succinctly explained the rolls of Doc Scratch, Lord English, the Handmaid, and The Condesce to Meenah, which is in and of itself a complex for most to explain. She also shows a tactical side to herself as she immediately suggests Meenah find any God Tiers to help build the army the princess spontaneously decided to assemble and then build the rest around them; while being a pretty blatant suggestion (try to get the immortal people with super powers first) Meenah had not thought of it first.
Porrim further shows her intelligence and perception and ability to understand nuanced concepts (blah blah blah, aka ‘maturity’) by seeing past both Kankri’s and Latula’s perceptions of her feminism: she comments that the fact Kankri only dismisses societal topics that she brings up is likely indicative that he rejects them solely because he is rebelling against her (with her having a pseudo-mother/son relationship and the fact he arbitrarily rebels against her regarding anything she does for him, this appears to be an accurate theory); regarding Latula, Porrim points out that she knows for a fact that the girl is smart despite Latula feigning cluelessness whenever Porrim explains the nuances of her beliefs, and how Latula’s behavior is more of an attempt to overcompensate for her insecurities than as an actual method of supporting feminism due to some inherent flaws in the logic behind her behavior regarding it.
Another aspect of Porrim that strikes one as uncharacteristically mature of the trolls is the way she cares for the other trolls: her relationship with Kankri, in particular, resembles that of a tough-love mother with a rebellious teenage son—in the middle of an argument, she does not hesitate to rub some food off of Kankri’s face and chastise him for being messy; with Latula, she is able to make the other girl feel at ease so that she does not feel the need to be so over-the-top with her ‘can do badass cool girl’ gimmick and is able to be herself, and Porrim is able to make her feel better about her concerns pretty quickly. Another example that was, sadly, not shown on-screen was Porrim not only comforting Kanaya (who had spent up to then two years feeling like a complete and utter failure) and giving the girl renewed hope in a short time.
The above are also examples of Porrim’s general charming and charismatic nature. Kankri aside, all the others (even Meenah) enjoy speaking with Porrim and enjoy her presence. She was also able to obviously calm Kanaya down to have a conversation with her—Kanaya was ‘in shambles’ at the very thought of speaking with Porrim, but afterwards was comfortable with doing so and described her as nice and cool. People naturally feel comfortable speaking with her, even the characters that were heavily suggested to having a romantic/sexual relationship with her: particularly Latula, who still obviously holds Porrim in high regard and as a close friend despite having had and broken off an intimate relationship at some point. And let us be frank, how many teenage relationships of that type end up with those involved still being close friends?
Alright, it is impossible to speak of Porrim without getting into feminism. It was put off to this point in the section because it is possible to overlook the other facets of her personality and to twist her role as a feminist into something it is not, such as making it the entirety of her personality or giving her qualities offensive to feminism. As stated by Wikipedia, a feminist is “an advocate or supporter of the rights and equality of women”. Period. And that is what Porrim is: she believes men and women are equal, their rights should be equal, and their roles in society should be equal. She sees flaws in Beforus society that put females in a less-than-equal position: for example, her own caste (the jadebloods) are either entirely or almost entirely female and are restricted solely to being kept in caves for the entirety of their lives to raise baby trolls; on the flip side, the two ruling castes below the highest caste (which contains ONLY the empress and the princess, period) are drastically male-dominated and are the ones that hold most of the power in enforcing rules, laws, societal norms, and the like. While Beforus is by definition a matriarchy (there is an Empress, so…duh), it is apparent from Porrim’s explanation and not at all unbelievable that the far larger-in-number penultimate and antepenultimate male-dominated ruling classes would have a larger influence in society. As those in power try to keep their power, it is not unexpected that they would keep the other classes—including the female-dominated castes, such as Porrim’s—under their control and their roles static. She does not go into details regarding the other female-dominated castes (presumably the castes of the female Alternia/Beforus trolls) or the roles of any other castes so it is difficult to determine other possible flaws in Alternian and Beforan society regarding gender inequality.
Porrim initially rebelled against her enforced role, but eventually came to accept the task—under her own free will of choice, not because she was forced to, which is key. It can be assumed that this rebelliousness was similar to Latula’s overcompensation but Porrim eventually matured and realized, as she told Latula, that attempting to show women are equal via over-the-top feats—and perhaps attempting to show some superiority rather than equality—she was actually lending credence to the argument she was attempting to disprove: to show women were as good as men she attempted to spurn things stereotypically female (her role of raising the newborns in particular) and go over-the-top, which she realized suggested that there WAS some innate flaw in being female that she had to overcome to prove herself equal—which is the point she makes to Latula, who goes on and on about being just as capable as or even better than guys at various things and perceiving the idea of creating equality as a ‘us versus them’ situation, which Porrim understands is not the case.
So, while this following part should be unnecessary, I feel it is needed due to the many misconceptions and blatant misunderstandings of the concept of feminism and feminists. Porrim does not hate men and does not believe they should be removed from society. Porrim does not feel women are superior: she does not believe either gender is superior to the other, hence equal. Porrim does not twist every conversation towards her beliefs (like someone else who I will get to). She does not believe things society associates with feminine are bad—she herself wears a dress and ended up taking pride in her singular ability to raise trolls—she believes it should be a choice. Porrim does not perceive sex as a negative thing (good god I’ll get to that as well). Again, the previous section should not be a necessary clarification of her, her beliefs, or anything else, but there are enough misconceptions that these were, in the end, probably necessary.
Another topic important to Porrim and very necessary to mention is that Porrim is a very sexual person. She is comfortable with it, straight-up enjoys it, she makes innuendo, she flirts with others, and is content with having had numerous relationships that did not last despite that not being seen as a positive seen by others.
Naturally, Porrim does have flaws, even though she is not a walking personification of teenage flaws like most of the other Beforan trolls. She enjoy gossiping with others and talking about others behind their backs, which is arguably not a very nice thing to do and a bit contradictory to her otherwise considerate and compassionate nature. While she admits that she has few secrets and likely does not put much effort into keeping her secrets secret that does not justify the behavior. She also criticizes other’s fashion which can be bad, but at the same time this only occurred with Kankri and his quite literally wearing pants that reached to his armpits.
Some argue that her lack of long-term relationships is a flaw, but due both her and those involved with her (Aranea and Latula) being ok with it and their friendships being perfectly fine, it’s difficult to consider it a flaw beyond the reasoning that standard society considers it one.
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Porrim stands out amongst the other trolls from Beforus in that she is mature and has a good head on her shoulders. While the others tend to be immature (not necessarily in the ‘childish’ sense, but in the literal ‘not having matured as an adult yet sense’) in various ways (Cronus being a selfish asshole, Latula overcompensating for her insecurities, and Kankri…well, I will get to him later), she appears to be older than the others mentally despite being the same age as them all. This is all undoubtedly due to the fact that she was designed to be and is essentially a mother figure, as all incarnations of the Virgo trolls are in one way or another.
Porrim shows her maturity and intelligence by being able to see, deconstruct, and explain complex issues to others. This is most often seen her in attempts to enlighten her friends on gender inequality on both Beforus and Alternia. The two that this comes up often with are Kankri and Latula: with the former, Porrim’s attempts fail due to Kankri not believing the gender inequality exists in troll society and the latter for—while supporting Porrim’s idea—does not entirely get the nuances of the concepts. She also very succinctly explained the rolls of Doc Scratch, Lord English, the Handmaid, and The Condesce to Meenah, which is in and of itself a complex for most to explain. She also shows a tactical side to herself as she immediately suggests Meenah find any God Tiers to help build the army the princess spontaneously decided to assemble and then build the rest around them; while being a pretty blatant suggestion (try to get the immortal people with super powers first) Meenah had not thought of it first.
Porrim further shows her intelligence and perception and ability to understand nuanced concepts (blah blah blah, aka ‘maturity’) by seeing past both Kankri’s and Latula’s perceptions of her feminism: she comments that the fact Kankri only dismisses societal topics that she brings up is likely indicative that he rejects them solely because he is rebelling against her (with her having a pseudo-mother/son relationship and the fact he arbitrarily rebels against her regarding anything she does for him, this appears to be an accurate theory); regarding Latula, Porrim points out that she knows for a fact that the girl is smart despite Latula feigning cluelessness whenever Porrim explains the nuances of her beliefs, and how Latula’s behavior is more of an attempt to overcompensate for her insecurities than as an actual method of supporting feminism due to some inherent flaws in the logic behind her behavior regarding it.
Another aspect of Porrim that strikes one as uncharacteristically mature of the trolls is the way she cares for the other trolls: her relationship with Kankri, in particular, resembles that of a tough-love mother with a rebellious teenage son—in the middle of an argument, she does not hesitate to rub some food off of Kankri’s face and chastise him for being messy; with Latula, she is able to make the other girl feel at ease so that she does not feel the need to be so over-the-top with her ‘can do badass cool girl’ gimmick and is able to be herself, and Porrim is able to make her feel better about her concerns pretty quickly. Another example that was, sadly, not shown on-screen was Porrim not only comforting Kanaya (who had spent up to then two years feeling like a complete and utter failure) and giving the girl renewed hope in a short time.
The above are also examples of Porrim’s general charming and charismatic nature. Kankri aside, all the others (even Meenah) enjoy speaking with Porrim and enjoy her presence. She was also able to obviously calm Kanaya down to have a conversation with her—Kanaya was ‘in shambles’ at the very thought of speaking with Porrim, but afterwards was comfortable with doing so and described her as nice and cool. People naturally feel comfortable speaking with her, even the characters that were heavily suggested to having a romantic/sexual relationship with her: particularly Latula, who still obviously holds Porrim in high regard and as a close friend despite having had and broken off an intimate relationship at some point. And let us be frank, how many teenage relationships of that type end up with those involved still being close friends?
Alright, it is impossible to speak of Porrim without getting into feminism. It was put off to this point in the section because it is possible to overlook the other facets of her personality and to twist her role as a feminist into something it is not, such as making it the entirety of her personality or giving her qualities offensive to feminism. As stated by Wikipedia, a feminist is “an advocate or supporter of the rights and equality of women”. Period. And that is what Porrim is: she believes men and women are equal, their rights should be equal, and their roles in society should be equal. She sees flaws in Beforus society that put females in a less-than-equal position: for example, her own caste (the jadebloods) are either entirely or almost entirely female and are restricted solely to being kept in caves for the entirety of their lives to raise baby trolls; on the flip side, the two ruling castes below the highest caste (which contains ONLY the empress and the princess, period) are drastically male-dominated and are the ones that hold most of the power in enforcing rules, laws, societal norms, and the like. While Beforus is by definition a matriarchy (there is an Empress, so…duh), it is apparent from Porrim’s explanation and not at all unbelievable that the far larger-in-number penultimate and antepenultimate male-dominated ruling classes would have a larger influence in society. As those in power try to keep their power, it is not unexpected that they would keep the other classes—including the female-dominated castes, such as Porrim’s—under their control and their roles static. She does not go into details regarding the other female-dominated castes (presumably the castes of the female Alternia/Beforus trolls) or the roles of any other castes so it is difficult to determine other possible flaws in Alternian and Beforan society regarding gender inequality.
Porrim initially rebelled against her enforced role, but eventually came to accept the task—under her own free will of choice, not because she was forced to, which is key. It can be assumed that this rebelliousness was similar to Latula’s overcompensation but Porrim eventually matured and realized, as she told Latula, that attempting to show women are equal via over-the-top feats—and perhaps attempting to show some superiority rather than equality—she was actually lending credence to the argument she was attempting to disprove: to show women were as good as men she attempted to spurn things stereotypically female (her role of raising the newborns in particular) and go over-the-top, which she realized suggested that there WAS some innate flaw in being female that she had to overcome to prove herself equal—which is the point she makes to Latula, who goes on and on about being just as capable as or even better than guys at various things and perceiving the idea of creating equality as a ‘us versus them’ situation, which Porrim understands is not the case.
So, while this following part should be unnecessary, I feel it is needed due to the many misconceptions and blatant misunderstandings of the concept of feminism and feminists. Porrim does not hate men and does not believe they should be removed from society. Porrim does not feel women are superior: she does not believe either gender is superior to the other, hence equal. Porrim does not twist every conversation towards her beliefs (like someone else who I will get to). She does not believe things society associates with feminine are bad—she herself wears a dress and ended up taking pride in her singular ability to raise trolls—she believes it should be a choice. Porrim does not perceive sex as a negative thing (good god I’ll get to that as well). Again, the previous section should not be a necessary clarification of her, her beliefs, or anything else, but there are enough misconceptions that these were, in the end, probably necessary.
Another topic important to Porrim and very necessary to mention is that Porrim is a very sexual person. She is comfortable with it, straight-up enjoys it, she makes innuendo, she flirts with others, and is content with having had numerous relationships that did not last despite that not being seen as a positive seen by others.
Naturally, Porrim does have flaws, even though she is not a walking personification of teenage flaws like most of the other Beforan trolls. She enjoy gossiping with others and talking about others behind their backs, which is arguably not a very nice thing to do and a bit contradictory to her otherwise considerate and compassionate nature. While she admits that she has few secrets and likely does not put much effort into keeping her secrets secret that does not justify the behavior. She also criticizes other’s fashion which can be bad, but at the same time this only occurred with Kankri and his quite literally wearing pants that reached to his armpits.
Some argue that her lack of long-term relationships is a flaw, but due both her and those involved with her (Aranea and Latula) being ok with it and their friendships being perfectly fine, it’s difficult to consider it a flaw beyond the reasoning that standard society considers it one.