Cashore’s Graceling and Pierce's Lioness
Recently having immersed myself in the Twilight Saga because I couldn’t pull myself from watching the trainwreck, I’ve been trying to actually read good YA fantasy by authors who can actually write enviable prose and featuring heroines that don’t make me want to tear out their spine through their throat.
It’s hard to think of a starker contrast to Twilight in terms of skilled writing and plotting, the values implied within the story, and well, not-silly world-building.
The funny thing especially coming straight from Meyer’s Bella, it made me wonder what it is about Cashore’s heroine that I find so much more appealing. On the surface, Katsa might seem more the Mary Sue. She’s royalty, she has “special eyes” (a mark of the “graced” not special to just her-all magically gifted in this world have eyes that don't match.) and because of her “grace” she is graceful, strong, heals fast and is a scary fighter.
I think first of all, it’s that the gifts have a price. Most do. Are you beautiful? You might not enjoy always being the center of attention, many might discount your intelligence, you’ll have doubts people liking you goes more than skin deep and if you build your identity on it, every wrinkle, paunch, gray hair becomes the enemy. Extraordinarily bright? Simply reasoning aloud will get you accusations of being elitist, a snob, too serious, mean and condescending, your interests boring, while often people will use your brain as if you’re the handy encyclopedia/dictionary/calculator.
Katsa and others in this book pay a steep price for their gifts. Isolation, distrust, and Katsa’s gift of fighting causes her uncle the King to use her as a thug, enforcer and executioner. So, does she endlessly angst about this? Contemplate suicide? Wait passively for her prince to come? No, she’s active, she does things to go after what she wants, to change her circumstances for herself and those around her. And that folks, is what good plotting imo is all about-it arising out of the protagonist and their choices and actions and not just reacting to what happens to her.
There is a love story here, and an appealing hero, but it’s the opposite of the Bronte/Meyers model. For Katsa, love doesn’t mean losing all ambition and obsessively clinging. It’s about finding a way to trust and be open to love while still remaining yourself. And prices are paid in this novel, high ones, that Meyers certainly didn’t have the guts to make her characters pay.
Also on silburygirl’s rec I’m reading and greatly enjoying Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness quartet, with her heroine Alanna, which are also YA Fantasy. I just finished Alanna: The First Adventure and am in the midst of In the Hand of the Goddess. The books remind me strongly of YA novels and heroines I loved as a young girl: McCaffrey’s Menolly in the Harper Hall tales; Lackey’s Thalia in Arrows of the Queen. The Harry Potter series fits well into this mold too. A child neglected, even abused, by their family and their gifts denigrated and forbidden find themselves among the chosen and select few able to be trained in a special school. There is a bully (tm) which they overcome and they eventually save the day. All of them have elements of romance too-even if it takes several books to develop.
For the record I love romance. But I far prefer it embedded in stories where it’s not so much the primary focus, but part of an overall adventure or drama. It tends to make for more interesting plots-and heroes and heroines.
Brought to you by more of silburygirl’s form of blackmail. She’ll share excepts of her fic-in-progress for excerpts of mine (mostly attempts at BOS lately). In lieu of my feeling too cranky tonight for fic-ing, she accepts pimping Kristin Cashore’s Graceling, which she was responsible for my reading.