Comments | feminist_rage: I am a bitter Fantasy fan (now with recs)

mothwing in feminist_rage

I am a bitter Fantasy fan (now with recs)

Dec 26, 2009 13:05

I have been reading Fantasy written by English and American authors ever since I was fourteen. It is my favourite genre, and most of my favourite books are Fantasy books. This genre was my cure for sadness, loneliness, and boredom ever since I discovered it. And even though I love that genre and spend quite an amount of time defending its literary ( Read more... )

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Agree. 100%. seeinglife December 26 2009, 13:28:01 UTC

Dear SF/F: Presenting female characters that are NOT love interests would be great. Males get to be just characters with their own lives and stories... how come women seem to have to be somebody's love interest to get in the story?

(Also a Pratchett fan!)

Re: Agree. 100%. mothwing December 26 2009, 17:08:36 UTC

Good question.... I'm trying to think of SF/F books which have female characters who are not love interests, and the list is pitifully short compared to list of the ones that are.

Re: Agree. 100%. emily_goddess December 27 2009, 18:24:07 UTC

Dear SF/F: Presenting female characters that are NOT love interests would be great.

P.S.: presenting female villains that aren't seductresses/insane/abuse survivors would also be lovely. Thanks.

Re: Agree. 100%. emily_goddess December 27 2009, 18:25:52 UTC

Ack! Should've said "women," not "female". Sorry.

Re: Agree. 100%. seeinglife December 27 2009, 20:08:28 UTC

God yes, this. I recall a certain decades old trememdously popular fantasy series of books where the female characters can be related thusly: one, two good elven women who do useful stuff but mostly get captured, cause problems by heedlessly following their beloved male w/o thinking, and/or are pined for who, virginal until marriage so much so that they completely leave that part out; two good human women who occasionally do useful stuff. One is a healing priestess who is virginal til marriage then impregnated and taken out of it by the second book. The other follows the man she's in love with, mainly causing complications and as dangerous to her friends with a sword as to enemies, virginal til a certain point of in love ness. The biggest baddest villain is the goddess of destruction and seduction. One of the main villains is a woman with a major appetite for men. Dichotomy much?

Re: Agree. 100%. seeinglife December 27 2009, 22:17:00 UTC

Also, just realized another reason why, like so many here, I think Terry Pratchett is awesome: the villain of Witches Abroad. I thought the villain was great in that one, female, diabolically clever, and NOT an ebil seductress causing the downfall of men.

Re: Agree. 100%. mothwing December 28 2009, 02:12:56 UTC

It's so awesome, the entire dynamic of the Witches Abroad plot has nothing to do whatsoever with men, for a change - it's a battle of wills between two bad-ass women with very own motivations. Awesome. And there's no epic final battle in which the evil overlady is killed off horribly, either. It's just perfect, although, being ignorant and white, I'm not sure how well he does on non-white people in that book. Gender-wise I can't bake that man enough cookies for that book.

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