Tori: She's not really a likeable person, she's presented as bland and unlikeable almost on purpose. But guys still protect her sound familiar?
Me: Oh god... Not... Bella?! :O
Tori: yeah. Except katniss has the decency to hate herself as much as I do.
As you can tell, Katniss is not Tori's favourite heroine. Anyway, the discussion of Bella's purpose and Katniss' much needed demise soon followed, and when we were truly depressed we began to nitpick at different aspects of the typical female heroine. My first thing was that women within fantasy novels/shows are all healers.
Katara - Avatar: The Last Airbender. A waterbender, who can heal people with water.
Primrose - The Hunger Games. A healer.
Lucy Pevensie - The Chronicles of Narnia. She has a magical healing potion.
Sakura Haruno - Naruto. A Medical Ninja.
Orihime Inoue - Bleach. Medical reiatsu.
I mean, yeh, women are more compassionate than men, and traditionally nurses have been women, but in today's time we shouldn't be labelled as the healers, the people who stand back until someone is hurt. Women can do somehting other than making the hardcore male protagonist better.
Another thing. Trios. There is always two boys and one girl.
Avatar: The Last Airbender - Aang, Sokka, Katara.
Avatar: The Legend of Korra - Korra, Balin, Mako
Pokémon - Ash, Brock, Misty
Narnia - Jill, Eustace, Prince Trinian
Naruto - Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura
Harry Potter - Harry, Ron, Hermione.
Percy Jackson and The Olympians - Percy, Grover, Annabeth.
What is with this? Why can't there be a team of hardcore women?! Why are the girls always last, and always the love-interest / damsel in distress. Anyway, upon this realisation, Tori and I went in search of some hardcore female heroines. At first, it was really hard, but we eventually (once we got going) realised that there are quite a few. If we count supporting characters.
#1 - Eowyn, Shieldmaiden of Rohan - Defeats the WitchKing, and defies social norms.
#2 - Thirrin Freer - A princess who inherits her kingdom when she's 15 and the equivalent of Rome is about to invade.
#3 - Hermione Granger - She's not the main character, but without her, Harry would be dead.
#4 - Mulan - She runs away to join an army to save her Father.
#5 - Maid Marion - Robin's off in Sherwood forest and she has to defend against the corrupt knights by herself.
And I think Tori had another valid point:
"This is why its far easier to admire the morally questionable women in books as in the evil queens and stepmothers. Because they aren't pathetic."
So I'll leave you with this. Women just aren't appreciated in fantasy novels. Perhaps it is because most of these novels are set some time in the past, where women were second class citizens. But hey, it's fantasy. Why can't we kick arse?!
Our favourite heroines:
Before I write anything I don't mean anything I say in a sexist manner and I apologise if I offend you.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair I think it's quite alot to expect a wealth of strong female characters within literature because we've had over ten thousand years of male dominated society and has only changed in the past sixty to seventy years. Though women have equal rights it still takes time to change a society as a whole views on something. In addition if the last several thousand years worth of writing and stories is written in a male dominated world then their will be more writings with men as the central characters which will in turn inspire more male heroes as everything is inspired by a previous work.
I'd also make a guess that alot of female characters are not slaughtering their way over battlefields because they physically couldn't. Even today women can be part of the armed forces but not as front line service women. They act as logistics, support medical etc. because they can't keep up with men in the field, and either they or someone else will end up dead. Girls just don't have the muscle density of boys, sorry.
Finally, in terms of healers, Lucy is what 11? She'd be murdered as soon as she stepped onto the battlefield (even more than the others)but is one of the bravest characters in the books even though she is a healer. Katara also seems to spend alot more time clobbering people with her water powers than healing them so for me the healing was always an "on the side"
Also Garth Nix's Lirael, Sabriel and Abhorsen have very strong female characters in them.
DeleteThat's what I said later :) poor George doesn't know of this redeeming trilogy to the female heroines.
DeleteI see your point about girls not keeping up with guys with physical prowess but there are many other ways to win a fight. The White Witch is proof of this in Narnia as is Storm in X Men. Of course we don't expect all books ever written to be good representatives of women. But the modern writers should try harder. This is a mordern society and women should be represented better. Terry Goodkind, Stephanie Meyer and Suzanne Collins aren't helping. Of course not all books should have women as being amazing or better than men. It would be nice if more of the celebrated books were. As it is the teens of the next generation only have Bella Swan and Katniss Everdeen to look up to
Whoa. Controversy. I agree that though during the times women couldn't go onto the battlefield, but the point of fantasy is that is simply is fantastical. It isn't real (cries). Therefore, why can't women step up to the mark and play a role which is as important as that of a male protagonist?
DeleteAnd no worries, no offence taken, Kylar, was just a Skype chat that ended up on here ;) Glad I got a response, to be honest! XD x
I also completely agree with Tori's point. If fantasy is what it's meant to be, fantastical, then within today's fantasy stories surely there should be a better type of role-model for young women. Let's face it, if you had characters like Eowyn in today's fantasy books, it would be a lot more hardcore than twilight.
ReplyDelete