You know what YA urban fantasy/acton is missing?
Teenagers.
Hear me out, okay?
I was thinking about two much loved series that have withstood years of being closed - Buffy and Harry Potter. They overlapped in both fans and when they were released, which I think helped their popularity and the subsequent fandoms grow (as well as LOTR - there was a lot of nerdgasm going around back then). Anyway, there's something I've felt strangely lacking in more recent YA fantasy/action.
Then it hit me. Forgetting about romance being the focus and everything else people often bring up, what makes Buffy and Harry Potter unique is that if you strip it all down, you have a story about kids. Joss Whedon and JKR set out to write about preteens, teens and young adults as they really are.
Let's talk about Buffy and Harry. At times they are misunderstood or underestimated, yet at other times asked to do way more than young people should be. They have to carry the world on their shoulders when they don't want to, but when they do want to or need to, the world fights back. That's how teenagers feel on a regular basis; they ask for it, they don't get it, they don't ask for it, they get it. They complain about it, "it's just hormones." No wonder my music choices were so emo back then.
There are, of course, other characters, and their arcs and the corresponding relationships are very important. Ron and Xander are the Jack Russell Terriers of the group - loyal to a fault, and incidentally, the first ones Harry and Buffy interact with. However, they're also deeply insecure - in their respective trios they are the most "normal," the closest to the audience in terms of fantastical experience. Because they don't know they're characters, this makes them feel upstaged. But they're actually quite crucial for this reason - first, the audience needs a more "average" character they can relate to, who still kicks ass in his own right. While Xander is closer to the movie version of Ron than the book version, they nonetheless both feel like the underdogs in their group, even if their friends would disagree. Again, something a lot of teenagers deal with on a regular basis.
But there's also an interesting parallel to Ron and Harry's friendship in Buffy and Willow. Harry and Buffy are completely new to their surroundings, and the first peers who really "pick them up" are Draco and Cordelia. We learn from Pottermore that Draco wondered if Harry didn't have some dark magic potential in him, which would make him something of an equal; Cordelia outright quizzes Buffy on whether or not she's an equal, a quiz Buffy seems undaunted by. BUT - they're soon put to a test when less socially acceptable redheads turn up. Both Harry and Buffy immediately choose their loyalties, though possibly for different reasons - Harry never really liked Draco to begin with, whereas he saw a bit of Ron in himself as, while not poor, he'd also never been able to treat himself to sweets until recently. Buffy, meanwhile, possibly sees a bit of Cordelia in herself, and remembers the life she was trying to get away from. Buffy later admits that even before she was a Slayer and moved to Sunnydale, she didn't always feel like her hordes of friends really valued her; so when Buffy realizes Cordelia is basically the sort of girl Buffy would've befriended, or even been, she sees an alternate path in Willow (who seems more like the kind of person Buffy wants to be - a nice, normal girl).
Character and arc parallels aside, what's also important in both series is the strong dynamic between the characters. Both Harry and Buffy consider their friends family, and would do anything for them. That's something teenagers want. Moreover, they interact like teenagers. They talk about boys, annoying siblings and parents and cousins, they argue and gossip and learn things about each other. Sometimes their friendship is tested; sometimes their friendships fall apart; sometimes they find new friendships where they wouldn't expect it. They have crushes and bad dates and bad hair days. Harry has permanent bed hair. They're real with each other. Because they're real.
So even if we discovered Harry and Buffy when we were well past those days, the books and show respectively resonate with us. It's a part of us that we remember and can relate to, and maybe haven't even entirely let go of. And if we did grow up with Buffy and Harry? Even better, because that's probably what got us through it. We could relate to the characters on some level, if not all levels.
And I think that's what's missing from a lot of YA urban fantasy and fiction. It shouldn't just be about werewolves or vampires or whatever else; it should be about growing up. The rawness of teenage years, the vulnerability, the goofyness, the cynicism, the unyielding trust and lingering distrust, the trouble with being abnormal in a so-called normal world.
Because in the end, it's not just the trolls you knocked out or the demons you slayed. It's what you learned, how you grew as a person; it's also the people you stuck out those growing pains with.
Hear me out, okay?
I was thinking about two much loved series that have withstood years of being closed - Buffy and Harry Potter. They overlapped in both fans and when they were released, which I think helped their popularity and the subsequent fandoms grow (as well as LOTR - there was a lot of nerdgasm going around back then). Anyway, there's something I've felt strangely lacking in more recent YA fantasy/action.
Then it hit me. Forgetting about romance being the focus and everything else people often bring up, what makes Buffy and Harry Potter unique is that if you strip it all down, you have a story about kids. Joss Whedon and JKR set out to write about preteens, teens and young adults as they really are.
Let's talk about Buffy and Harry. At times they are misunderstood or underestimated, yet at other times asked to do way more than young people should be. They have to carry the world on their shoulders when they don't want to, but when they do want to or need to, the world fights back. That's how teenagers feel on a regular basis; they ask for it, they don't get it, they don't ask for it, they get it. They complain about it, "it's just hormones." No wonder my music choices were so emo back then.
There are, of course, other characters, and their arcs and the corresponding relationships are very important. Ron and Xander are the Jack Russell Terriers of the group - loyal to a fault, and incidentally, the first ones Harry and Buffy interact with. However, they're also deeply insecure - in their respective trios they are the most "normal," the closest to the audience in terms of fantastical experience. Because they don't know they're characters, this makes them feel upstaged. But they're actually quite crucial for this reason - first, the audience needs a more "average" character they can relate to, who still kicks ass in his own right. While Xander is closer to the movie version of Ron than the book version, they nonetheless both feel like the underdogs in their group, even if their friends would disagree. Again, something a lot of teenagers deal with on a regular basis.
But there's also an interesting parallel to Ron and Harry's friendship in Buffy and Willow. Harry and Buffy are completely new to their surroundings, and the first peers who really "pick them up" are Draco and Cordelia. We learn from Pottermore that Draco wondered if Harry didn't have some dark magic potential in him, which would make him something of an equal; Cordelia outright quizzes Buffy on whether or not she's an equal, a quiz Buffy seems undaunted by. BUT - they're soon put to a test when less socially acceptable redheads turn up. Both Harry and Buffy immediately choose their loyalties, though possibly for different reasons - Harry never really liked Draco to begin with, whereas he saw a bit of Ron in himself as, while not poor, he'd also never been able to treat himself to sweets until recently. Buffy, meanwhile, possibly sees a bit of Cordelia in herself, and remembers the life she was trying to get away from. Buffy later admits that even before she was a Slayer and moved to Sunnydale, she didn't always feel like her hordes of friends really valued her; so when Buffy realizes Cordelia is basically the sort of girl Buffy would've befriended, or even been, she sees an alternate path in Willow (who seems more like the kind of person Buffy wants to be - a nice, normal girl).
Character and arc parallels aside, what's also important in both series is the strong dynamic between the characters. Both Harry and Buffy consider their friends family, and would do anything for them. That's something teenagers want. Moreover, they interact like teenagers. They talk about boys, annoying siblings and parents and cousins, they argue and gossip and learn things about each other. Sometimes their friendship is tested; sometimes their friendships fall apart; sometimes they find new friendships where they wouldn't expect it. They have crushes and bad dates and bad hair days. Harry has permanent bed hair. They're real with each other. Because they're real.
So even if we discovered Harry and Buffy when we were well past those days, the books and show respectively resonate with us. It's a part of us that we remember and can relate to, and maybe haven't even entirely let go of. And if we did grow up with Buffy and Harry? Even better, because that's probably what got us through it. We could relate to the characters on some level, if not all levels.
And I think that's what's missing from a lot of YA urban fantasy and fiction. It shouldn't just be about werewolves or vampires or whatever else; it should be about growing up. The rawness of teenage years, the vulnerability, the goofyness, the cynicism, the unyielding trust and lingering distrust, the trouble with being abnormal in a so-called normal world.
Because in the end, it's not just the trolls you knocked out or the demons you slayed. It's what you learned, how you grew as a person; it's also the people you stuck out those growing pains with.