Heroes through the female gaze

[sartorias]

Not just one but a couple of times, at ConDor, we were talking about quests, heroes, heroines, and glanced off heroes as written by women. That fit into a larger question about women's influence in letters that I actually wrote up, and will appear at the Fantasy Cafe in a few weeks.

But first, confining myself to heroes as written by females. I'd

Comments

[whswhs]

I am reminded, when you write that I can imagine that they did not see the ‘perfect knight’ in huge men tromping sweaty and filthy straight from the battlefield into her fine rooms, blabbing exclusively of killing unruly barons and damned Saracens, to the exclusion of wit, literature, music, and other emotions besides the urge to deal death, of taking a look into Castiglione when I was writing GURPS Social Engineering. I was struck by his contrasting civilized Italian courtiers with crude French knights who had no interests other than war and hunting-at the time, because it so contrasted with the more modern image of the French as quintessentially civilized, but it also seems now to fit with your thesis. All those salons must have had an effect!

In an odd way, GURPS Social Engineering could be viewed as representing a parallel evolution in a modern hobby: It was an attempt to provide rules and game mechanics for roleplaying social relations and persuasion with as much detail as combat, the more traditional focus of rpgs. In the games

[sartorias]

Thanks for the data on the Gurps Social Engineering--that is fascinating stuff.

Re Tolkien, it's true, but have you noticed any patterns, either like what I mentioned or different, in female-penned heroes?

[whswhs]

Well, looking at the women authors I read somewhat frequently: Bujold of course has Miles, and Dag, and the male heroes of some of the other series; I'd say she's one of the strongest cases-even though Miles is also a hyperactive little git. Cherryh seems to run more to heroines, and when she does have heroes, they're often a bit dysfunctional as a result of having been thoroughly messed up by their past histories. The Le Guin characters who stand out for me are Ged, who's proud and makes friends with difficulty but is loyal to the few he has, and Shevek, who's primarily passionate about ideas and ideals. Moon mostly has heroines; on the other hand, Ky Vatta's love interest is a sardonic bad boy type but not a brutish thug. Going back a long way, I mostly remember Norton for her telepathic mutant outcast boys trying to survive in a hostile world, often in the wilderness. Willis again has a lot of heroines, especially in her time travel stories; her heroes strike me as more scholarly than anything else. Yarbro has St.-Germain, who is

[sartorias]

Interesting observations (except that I find Yarbro's St. Germaine increasingly smarmy and unctuous, as well as singularly wit-free.)

[rachelmanija]

Sherwood's eloquent gentleman of sometimes-dubious morality seems to me as well to be but one type of hero, among a great many

[sartorias]

Oh, nice one. Yes, this is a totally separate pattern. Now I'm trying to think who might be the model, the way the Pimpernel is for that other line.

[rachelmanija]

This might be a huge reach, but maybe Greek mythology? It would have been generally familiar in a western context, and you can find archetypal models for a lot of hero types in it.

The Lymond-model is Hermes, the handsome, clever, "mercurial" trickster, who talks his way out of trouble and has a way with women.

Apollo is the more straightforward hero, without the trickiness: a warrior and a gentleman. (Yes, I know he wasn't all that moral in the actual myths, but that's less central to the archetype as an archetype.)

The model for the quiet, overlooked hero with hidden depths would be Hephaestus, the scarred smith.

Hades could be the model for the entire "tall, dark, and (possibly) dangerous" tradition: Heathcliff, Mr. Rochester, every Gothic hero ever, etc. The moors and the attic are the Underworld, to which the innocent heroine descends and makes frightful yet thrilling discoveries.

[sartorias]

I like these, yes. They all resonate.

[rachelmanija]

Wait, I've got more!

Ares would be the brawler, the berserker - much more of a male-written archetype, in my experience. Though maybe that would be the archetype of the werewolf hero.

Zeus is the rich, powerful asshole alpha male, familiar from many female-written romances. The current incarnation is the popular sub-genre of "billionaire romance" spawned by 50 Shades of Gray, which was of course spawned by Twilight.

[sartorias]

The harsh hero (Mr. Rochester) type is that Zeus, then, or Ares from the female gaze?

[rachelmanija]

I think there's different types of the harsh hero. I was thinking of the Zeus archetype as the domineering, wealthy, powerful, controlling - and self-controlled - alpha male. He pops up a lot in romance novels.

[sartorias]

Right.

also a horndog rake like Zeus

[ext_1256016]

until he finds the Sparkly Hoo-Hah of Destiny!

Re: also a horndog rake like Zeus

[sartorias]

*snerk*

[bunn]

I was thinking of Ged in the same way (doesn't fit that type of hero at all) OK, he becomes educated, but he's very much not polished - in fact, he starts out as a goat-herd, and feels awkward and uncomfortable in a 'polished' environment

[sartorias]

I think Mary Renault was doing a different pattern, though parallel.

Oh, interesting, thinking about Poirot.