[Meme] Ask me my top 5 whatevers

[edenfalling]

Slightly modified from various places: Ask me my Top Five Whatevers, fannish or literary or otherwise. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really. I will answer them all in comments or a new post. (But definitely not with pictures. *grin*)Because I am bored and I hate all my WIPs -- including the two things I was trying to write for Femgenficathon

Comments

[uminohikari]

Top five favorite female characters!

[edenfalling]

I am going to give you characters from my childhood (ages 8-12), as they have had the longest and deepest effect on me.

1. Arha/Tenar from Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series. I first read The Tombs of Atuan when I was about eight years old, and it's sad that even then it was a revelation to me that a girl could be the hero of her own story, and that her choices mattered. In retrospect, I am so, so grateful I read that series out of order so I read Tombs before I read A Wizard of Earthsea, because otherwise I have a terrible feeling I would have spent most of Tombs waiting impatiently for Ged to appear, whereas without the primer of the first book, I was able to get to know, love, and respect Arha on her own terms in her own right, and Ged appeared to me as a supporting character to her quest for self-definition and freedom.

2. Nita Callahan, from Diane Duane's Young Wizards series. Because she was intelligent and socially inept and had an annoying little sister who seemed to get the world more than Nita ever could, and yet she found a

[uminohikari]

2. Yes! I was rereading it yesterday, and it's so wonderful... but I must admit, I always liked Dairine a bit better.

[edenfalling]

Funnily enough, I think my little sister likes Dairine better too. :-) I have always assumed our preferences were based on which sister we could better relate to both in terms of family position and personality traits.

[uminohikari]

I'm the oldest though!

...I should get my little sister to read them and see who she likes