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]

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 almost the quintessence of the type you're writing about.

I don't see much in the way of athletic, muscular heroes there, but on the other hand I'm not seeing the "gentlemanly" type you describe, not as a major theme anyway. But that may be because I select some women writers over others. I'd almost say that "man who doesn't fit into the world he lives in" is a major theme: Miles, Tully, Shevek, most of the Norton young men, St.-Germain are all square pegs (and of course that's true also of Lord Peter, to go to a different genre).

[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.

As you mention, Le Guin's heroes don't fit that mold at all - all else aside, the Lymond/Miles/Peter Wimsey line of descent may be sensitive and intelligent, but they're also notably extroverted, making a splash wherever they go. They are the life of the party. They cannot walk into a room without making enemies or friends. And they're very aware of their effect on others, often working it for their own ends.

Le Guin's heroes are introverted, may be eloquent in a pinch but not as a matter of course, may be overlooked entirely due to lack of flash, and are not socially brilliant. They're diamonds in the rough rather than crown jewels. No one notices Ged at all until he unexpectedly saves the village. He makes an impression at Roke, but only on people who are either unusually perceptive or competitive. And Ged himself has no idea that anyone's paying any attention to him; he's wrapped up in his own interior life.

At a party, the Lymond-type heroes would be holding center stage, with an audience of star-struck, adoring, and/or violently hate-filled onlookers, while he's manipulating everyone for some intricate scheme. Meanwhile, off in some quiet corner, one or two people would be having a conversation with the Ged-type hero. Years later, they would point to it as a turning point in their life, and he, not having intended to influence them at all, would be surprised. (This actually happens in The Dispossessed.)

[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.

I suppose there is Arren, he's a prince, and fairly polished, but for one thing I'm not sure he's really the hero, and for another, I would say part of the point of the story is the stripping away of external things - all the graces and comforts and words - leaving only what really matters - life, death, sun on the grass, the sea, the dragon...

The other woman writer of heroes who leaps to my mind is Rosemary Sutcliff, and her heroes are mostly soldiers, or occasionally doctors or artists, with a definite lack of airs and graces. Even Marcus Flavius Aquila, who is supposedly an Equestrian, chooses a humble centurion's commission as an auxiliary, and we are left in no doubt that his semi-literate barbarian slave and friend Esca is worth ten of the loathsome Tribune Placidus. There is Artos the Bear (her historical and very definitely not very clean or gentlemanly version of King Arthur) but even he is a bastard, not a true-born prince.

It's a while since I've read any Mary Renault, but I don't remember her heroic Greeks being particularly gentlemanly either!

Hmm. I wonder if Poirot fits into the 'gentlemanly hero' mould? He is very clean and clever, but I'm not sure you'd call him witty, and within the English society in which he operates, I think there is something of a feeling that as a Belgian detective in patent-leather shoes, he is Not Quite A Gentleman.

[sartorias]

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

Oh, interesting, thinking about Poirot.