Gender swapping heroes in literature

[Critterfixer]

Harry Potter is the one I'm mostly thinking of at this point. 

It isn't a feature of the more traditional quest plot--which should start out with the hero in a place that may not be great, and he may want a change, but it isn't a place where he is powerless.

For whatever reason, the feminine journey seems to begin with a place where the protagonist is not in a position of power.

 

Edit: Of course Harry Potter isn't a quest plot. So I really can't count it exactly. Discovery plots are REALLY character driven, they have elements of the quest in them, because it is a quest to understand who a person is and what they become. 

 

My sister mentioned that she finds Japanese anime (I hope I spelled that right!) to be strongly plot driven, and she thinks it has female protagonists that take more of the masculine journey outlined from the book I pulled the two examples from. She mentions for consideration Hayao Miyazaki and Kino's Journey. I'm no anime person, so I can't confirm, but she specifically wished to contribute those for thought.

 

I've thought of a few: Alice in Wonderland, maybe Poppy (I'm trying to remember if that little mouse has standing in the mouse community, it's been a while) and 

:blushing: The Last Unicorn. (You may laugh at will-I still love it after all these years.)

[maize]

 

 

 No girl should grow up thinking it's odd or unusual or somehow not intrinsically girl-like to be drawn to the kinds of experiences conventional society has limited for the boys. Likewise, no boy should grow up thinking it's odd or unusual or somehow not intrinsically boy-like to be drawn to the kinds of experiences conventional society has limited for the girls.

 

 

If it is unusual why deny that? I never personally perceived having interests that were relatively unusual for my gender as being a negative. Isn't part of what sets a hero apart the very fact that they are unusual within the context of their lives? Is being unusual bad? 

[Critterfixer]

Me either, Maize. At least not until I got started in this thread. I thought it was fine for me to enjoy participating in stories and in imaginative play as a male character. I'm kind of glad that nobody made a big deal of it.

It's only now that I'm thinking that I might be a lot unusual, but what the hey.

 

I do think that I'm on to something with the fact that I craved in fiction the heroes journey, and I am happy that I could fully relate to that with a male protagonist and no problems. But plenty of women here have posted that they felt they had to create female characters to enjoy that same experience, which is interesting to me.

[Slartibartfast]

Me either, Maize. At least not until I got started in this thread. I thought it was fine for me to enjoy participating in stories and in imaginative play as a male character. I'm kind of glad that nobody made a big deal of it.

It's only now that I'm thinking that I might be a lot unusual, but what the hey.

 

 

 

It isn't at all unusual. Walk into a Comic Convention and count the number of girls dressed as a male character or even a female version of a male character. It's common.

[maize]

Me either, Maize. At least not until I got started in this thread. I thought it was fine for me to enjoy participating in stories and in imaginative play as a male character. I'm kind of glad that nobody made a big deal of it.

It's only now that I'm thinking that I might be a lot unusual, but what the hey.

 

I do think that I'm on to something with the fact that I craved in fiction the heroes journey, and I am happy that I could fully relate to that with a male protagonist and no problems. But plenty of women here have posted that they felt they had to create female characters to enjoy that same experience, which is interesting to me.

 

 

I've never felt it was hard to relate to male characters, but my very favorite worlds I have placed myself in to enjoy further adventures, or expand on the adventures already in place--and in those cases I am always female because, well, I'm me, not someone else :) It is interesting to me that some girls/women feel it is difficult to relate to male characters. 

 

I like to write stories, just for fun, and sometimes the protagonist is female, sometimes male. In either case I find it easy to place myself in the protagonist's shoes. My current story moves back and forth between the viewpoints of two primary characters, one male and one female (not romantic interests--I don't tend to write romances) and I enjoy writing both.

[Critterfixer]

I wonder if there are enough women who could get into that role without a problem--basically could gender bend themselves enough, that having a male protagonist was a sure fire way to get the plot they wanted. 

 

[Critterfixer]

I prefer a male protagonist every time. I think I write strong female characters, but I just really like to work from a male perspective on things. 

I'm sort of tempted to take a female character and work her with this quest plot, though. Seems there's a bit of hole that could be filled there.

[Joanne]

It is not relatabity that is the issue. The issue is the gender scripting enmeshed in the culture so deeply that it is 1) not even questioned and 2) defended as ok.

 

The roles traditionally given to men and women in literature follows gender scripting. Now that we know better, we should do better.

 

That can include changing pronouns, especially on request of the child.

[maize]

I wonder if there are enough women who could get into that role without a problem--basically could gender bend themselves enough, that having a male protagonist was a sure fire way to get the plot they wanted. 

 

Do you mean as the reader of a book? 

 

I'm wondering now: when you read a book, how many of you envision yourself in the place of the protagonist? I don't often do this--in fact  there is only one book I can really remember doing this with, and it was one in which the protagonist happened to share my name as well as significant characteristics of my personality.  Usually, I enjoy the story without specifically identifying myself with the protagonist. I identify with the protagonist in the sense that I sympathize with him/her, but I don't become the character and live the story as if in first person--at least not for a whole book. I will place myself in a character's shoes for a particular scene here and there, especially if I want to modify the scene in some way. Do others do this, identify themself with a character throughout the book, live the story through the character's eyes? 

[Critterfixer]

Whenever I read I tend to identify with the protagonist. If he is male, I see things very much from his perspective. When I am writing, I am often very fully immersed in the character I am writing. I will back off when I'm working through some archetype stuff, or figuring out relationships to other characters, but I am fully that character for the time I work on him. Even while working on the romance bits. :blush:

 

To me it was interesting that the pronoun change also helped the one reading the story to enjoy the story. That speaks volumes to me of the importance of plot. I think that plot selection would be key to doing that with ease. Strongly character driven plots would be more difficult, and the outcomes would be altered significantly. Just as a rule, I spend about 400 pages of handwritten legal pad paper on a protagonist when I craft him. Sometimes more. There's a lot goes into that process of creating him from birth to eventual use in the story. His gender is one piece of that puzzle, and depending on the plot it could be a big piece. Not all puzzles have interchangeable pieces. 

Happily, the quest plot is one of the more forgiving ones.

[maize]

Whenever I read I tend to identify with the protagonist. If he is male, I see things very much from his perspective. When I am writing, I am often very fully immersed in the character I am writing. I will back off when I'm working through some archetype stuff, or figuring out relationships to other characters, but I am fully that character for the time I work on him. Even while working on the romance bits. :blush:

 

To me it was interesting that the pronoun change also helped the one reading the story to enjoy the story. That speaks volumes to me of the importance of plot. I think that plot selection would be key to doing that with ease. Strongly character driven plots would be more difficult, and the outcomes would be altered significantly. Just as a rule, I spend about 400 pages of handwritten legal pad paper on a protagonist when I craft him. Sometimes more. There's a lot goes into that process of creating him from birth to eventual use in the story. His gender is one piece of that puzzle, and depending on the plot it could be a big piece. Not all puzzles have interchangeable pieces.

Happily, the quest plot is one of the more forgiving ones.

This is very interesting to me. I definitely immerse myself in a character when writing, but rarely do so when reading.

[kiana]

Do you mean as the reader of a book? 

 

I'm wondering now: when you read a book, how many of you envision yourself in the place of the protagonist? I don't often do this--in fact  there is only one book I can really remember doing this with, and it was one in which the protagonist happened to share my name as well as significant characteristics of my personality.  Usually, I enjoy the story without specifically identifying myself with the protagonist. I identify with the protagonist in the sense that I sympathize with him/her, but I don't become the character and live the story as if in first person--at least not for a whole book. I will place myself in a character's shoes for a particular scene here and there, especially if I want to modify the scene in some way. Do others do this, identify themself with a character throughout the book, live the story through the character's eyes? 

 

I don't usually identify with a specific character but rather add myself to the book, if that makes sense?

 

This also has the advantage that when the character dies in a later book I'm not left going "HEY!"

[maize]

I don't usually identify with a specific character but rather add myself to the book, if that makes sense?

 

This also has the advantage that when the character dies in a later book I'm not left going "HEY!"

This is exactly what I do, but only with my favorite books :) Most literary worlds I don't find compelling enough to join in on...

[maize]

I prefer a male protagonist every time. I think I write strong female characters, but I just really like to work from a male perspective on things.

I'm sort of tempted to take a female character and work her with this quest plot, though. Seems there's a bit of hole that could be filled there.

I hope you do write it, I want to read it!

[Rosie_0801]

Rosie< Are you finding that plot line in girl's fiction? Or more in adult/YA fiction? 

 

I'm thinking of the girls classics, I guess. I haven't read any modern fiction in a while except for Terry Pratchett witch books. :p

 

How do Tamora Pierce's books rate? They have strong female leads, but perhaps they lose points for having love interests?

[marbel]

It is not relatabity that is the issue. The issue is the gender scripting enmeshed in the culture so deeply that it is 1) not even questioned and 2) defended as ok.

 

The roles traditionally given to men and women in literature follows gender scripting. Now that we know better, we should do better.

 

That can include changing pronouns, especially on request of the child.

 

How do we know we aren't doing better?    The original study looked at books published as long ago as 1900 and only up to 2000.   What if the sample was 1960 - 2010?   Might it be different?  (I don't know, but my gut tells me it would be.)   I feel like someone already said this but I can't find it in all these pages, so my apologies if I am being repetitive. 

 

[Critterfixer]

Might be worth a look, but the book I reference with the "feminine" journey and the "masculine" journey was from 2001. Now, again to be fair, it wasn't aimed at writers of children's literature. I'm quite sure they have their own books on plot, and I don't have any. I don't particularly like writing for children.

 

Rosie, I don't think I'd ding a quest with a love interest in it, because there can be subplots, and romance is a fairly short, easy plot in itself, so often can be woven into an overreaching quest theme. In a quest theme with a male protagonist, however, those trials that come in the middle to prove the heroes worth can include specific trials that show he is worthy to claim her heart at the end, don't they? I would expect that in a quest plot with a female protagonist, she would also endure various tests to show she is worthy to claim her love interest at the end. She can't be worthy from the get-go, she can't be rescued (although she could do a little rescuing of her own-but at great risk to her life-or it wouldn't be a fair test). She has to prove herself.

 

BTW, I strongly suspect that the feminine journey MUST appeal to enough people or it wouldn't have been in the book in the first place.

 

Edit: Lest it be taken wrong, the love interest for the female protagonist had better be worth it, when it comes to a quest plot. If he or she is part of the reward at the end of the quest for the protagonist, they can't be anything less than equals.

A good example of one of these romances I liked as a girl would be another Robin McKinley book, The Blue Sword. That one did get a Newbery Honor, while the Hero and the Crown by the same author (also awesome) picked up the Newbery Medal.

 

[Cricket]

Just out of curiosity, I tried to find statistics on why the stereotype for a video gamer is a male and not female. I found this: http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/141/videogames.asp

 

My boys are drawn to the typical masculine quest in video games. Even with options to make the main character in the video game female, my girls just aren't as interested. My oldest dd is highly competitive, highly adventurous and very athletic in real life. She'd love to climb a mountain or be the first person on Mars, but she also loves to play dolls and dreams of getting married and having lots of babies. (My boys dream big too but they usually stop before the wife and babies part!) She likes stories about friendship and typical "feminine" things whereas my boys, given a choice, don't seem to care much about "boring" stories like that. We are a consumer-driven society. Is there a lack of female characters taking the masculine journey because there isn't much market for it? If a girl prefers the typical feminine journey, why is there an underlying assumption that it is only because of societal influence? I just hesitate to see a statistic about male v. female characters in books and jump to the conclusion that society is sending the message to girls that they matter less than boys or can't have adventures like boys.

 

(Earlier I said that I would not change a pronoun in a book, but if some parent out there thinks it would help their dd, then go for it.)

[maize]

I was thinking about this discussion this morning, and it occurred to me that The Hobbit would be a relatively easy book to change the gender of a character in for a number of reasons: it is set in a fantasy world, so social expectations of our world need not apply. Bilbo is a hobbit, not a human, so again human expectations need not apply (for example, there are not a lot of female names ending in "O" in English, but there could be among hobbits). Bilbo's mother is mentioned several times as being one of the adventurous Tooks, so Belladonna having an adventurous daughter fits right in. Tolkien even mentions elsewhere that Dwarvish women look and behave very much like the men, so it would not be surprising for male dwarves to travel with a female companion. The story itself does not involve any love interests or other complicated gender relations (in fact females are hardly mentioned, but it does simplify making changes). In addition it seems to me that Tolkien makes fairly sparse use of pronouns in his writing, so there would not be so much to change. So I thought I would try a bit from the hobbit to see how things go. Here is Bilbo's introduction as a character:

 

"This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and her name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking her. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found herself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. She may have lost the neighbours' respect, but she gained -- well, you will see whether she gained anything in the end.

     The mother of our particular hobbit [...]--of Bilbo Baggins, that is -- was the famous Belladonna Took, one of the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took, head of the hobbits who lived across The Water, the small river that ran at the foot of The Hill. It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife. That was, of course, absurd, but certainly there was still something not entirely hobbitlike about them, and once in a while members of the Took-clan would go and have adventures. They discreetly disappeared, and the family hushed it up; but the fact remained that the Tooks were not as respectable as the Bagginses, though they were undoubtedly richer.

     Not that Belladonna Took ever had any adventures after she became Mrs Bungo Baggins. [...] Still it is probable that Bilbo, her only daughter, although she looked and behaved exactly like a second edition of her solid and comfortable father, got something a bit queer in her make-up from the Took side, something that only waited for a chance to come out. The chance never arrived, until Bilbo Baggins was grown up, being about fifty years old or so, and living in the beautiful hobbit-hole built by her father, which I have just described for you, until she had in fact apparently settled down immovably.

     All that the unsuspecting Bilbo saw that morning was an old man with a staff. He had a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, a silver scarf over which his long white beard hung down below his waist, and immense black boots.

     'Good morning!' said Bilbo, and she meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at her from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat."

 

What do you all think? Really the only awkward bit is where it says Bilbo is a second edition of her father, which comes across not quite a smoothly for a female as for a male. I don't think I would want to keep it up while reading aloud for the whole book though, I would get a headache from the effort! And of course Bilbo in my mind will forever be male, but it was a fun exercise.

 

 

[Critterfixer]

It's a great writer's exercise. 

You can see that you already want to change something--Bilbo looking like a second edition of her father. So...as a writer, do you alter that passage to make Bilbo more feminine, or do you let Bilbo look like her dad? Maybe he was a very good looking hobbit.

 

It gets much more complicated with character driven fiction, where you may have to alter other characters to work with the story, or invent new backstory to explain a character's actions. 

[kiana]

You know, it would be kinda fun to rewrite the whole book swapping the genders of every character.

 

But much too much work. Interesting mental images coming up though.

[maize]

It's a great writer's exercise.

You can see that you already want to change something--Bilbo looking like a second edition of her father. So...as a writer, do you alter that passage to make Bilbo more feminine, or do you let Bilbo look like her dad? Maybe he was a very good looking hobbit.

 

It gets much more complicated with character driven fiction, where you may have to alter other characters to work with the story, or invent new backstory to explain a character's actions.

I think I would just reword it and say something about Bilbo taking after her dad, the "second edition" bit just makes it sound like she's his clone which seems like going a bit to far. I take after my dad more than my mom, but I could never be identical to him.

[Critterfixer]

A lot of work.

Better to take a section and play with it, instead of trying a whole book. Then reflect on how the story might change as a result.

Which means you have to know how it goes the way that the author wrote it in the first place. 

[maize]

Making Bilbo feminine does change the way other parts of the story would appear. Bilbo in the story is smaller, weaker, slower, and much of the time more timid than his companions. As long as Bilbo is male, this comes across as being because he is a hobbit, not used to adventure, etc. But make Bilbo the only female in the group and it could appear that Bilbo is small, weak and timid because of being female. He also often provides an element of comic relief that I would be uncomfortable to see heaped on the only female--again, because in that context it would be hard to not see the silliness as somehow tied to femaleness.

[Word Nerd]

If I were a female Bilbo, I would totally have a crush on Kili—which would also change the story. 

 

[it kills me to have to delete that one.]

Sorry the photo file is so huge. #notreallysorry

[Critterfixer]

Bilbo is somewhat portly. He likes food, in fact, his whole life is devoted to clothes and food at the beginning of the quest. I actually think that works pretty well for Bilbo being a girl, but did you check out the picture in the article--a nice, thin, fit Bilbo. 

How does that show how we regard girls in adventure/quest stories?

[Critterfixer]

He's nice, but that is SO not a dwarf's beard!

[Critterfixer]

Good grief. I might actually run out of likes today if I'm not careful.

[maize]

He's nice, but that is SO not a dwarf's beard!

No kidding! How ever is he going to tuck that beard into his belt?!? Shameful, I say!

[kiana]

He's nice, but that is SO not a dwarf's beard!

 

 

Nice?

 

Nice?!

 

Words fail me.

 

Cupcakes are nice. THIS IS BEYOND NICE.

 

[flyingiguana]

My guess is that there are plenty of books out there with strong female protagonists -- but many of them aren't published and never will be.  They're sitting on someone's computer or in a box in a garage somewhere.  Along with a stack of rejection letters from agents/publishers.

 

Why do I think this?  Because there are probably more female readers than there are males. Because there are probably more female writers (I'm not just talking about published writers).  Because people who write tend to write about what they know and what interests them.

 

Why is Harry Potter male?  Why does the writer of the Harry Potter books go by initials instead of her feminine name?  Sure, she snuck in a strong female character, but let's face it - *boys* never would have read the book if it were about a girl.  Girls will read anything (many of us tend to be obsessed that way), but it takes a pretty strong boy to pick up a book about a girl and read it if he knows there's any chance at all that anyone will see him do it.

 

Publishers know this.  They cater accordingly.

 

Yes, there may be more "girl" books coming out now (although I'd like to see the stats to prove it), but my guess is that they tend to be in the "girls in school who live lives other girls can relate to" genre.  There just aren't that many in fantasy/sci fi.

 

And, I repeat, it's probably NOT because those books aren't written.  They're just not published.

 

Same way as there are probably lots of unpublished chick lit books out there that just don't happen to have a preponderance of soft porn that publishers think sell those books.  (I absolutely HATE the soft porn in these books -- to me it signals a book that wasn't good enough to be published, but something had to be in it to sell it)

 

And I'm not sure how we can compare Anne of Green Gables to The Hobbit.  Really?  Anne is a strong girl who becomes a school teacher and marries her childhood friend.  Bilbo Baggins finds the ring of power that will rule the world. 

 

Girls are constrained to girl roles -- school teacher and nurse and sweetheart and mother.  Boys (and men) however, are allowed to dream things no one could every conceivably actually do.

 

I have nothing against Anne of Green Gables.  But they're not the same thing.  Find me a female Bilbo Baggins.  (Most of them, as I've pointed out, are unpublished -- at best, they're fan fiction)

[flyingiguana]

Making Bilbo feminine does change the way other parts of the story would appear. Bilbo in the story is smaller, weaker, slower, and much of the time more timid than his companions. As long as Bilbo is male, this comes across as being because he is a hobbit, not used to adventure, etc. But make Bilbo the only female in the group and it could appear that Bilbo is small, weak and timid because of being female. He also often provides an element of comic relief that I would be uncomfortable to see heaped on the only female--again, because in that context it would be hard to not see the silliness as somehow tied to femaleness.

 

Bilbo learns to be brave -- that's the point

[flyingiguana]

If you google "was harry potter a girl?" you actually do run into a number of fan fiction sites where people are writing Harry as a girl.

 

I googled this because I was looking for a reference to something I thought I heard years ago that Rowling actually did start out with Harry as a girl, but changed it in order to get published.  I don't know if that was wishful thinking on someone's part or actual fact.

[maize]

Bilbo is somewhat portly. He likes food, in fact, his whole life is devoted to clothes and food at the beginning of the quest. I actually think that works pretty well for Bilbo being a girl, but did you check out the picture in the article--a nice, thin, fit Bilbo. 

How does that show how we regard girls in adventure/quest stories?

 

True. This brought to mind the Elves at Rivendale taunting Bilbo about being fat: "Mind Bilbo doesn't eat all the cakes!" they called. "He is too fat to get through key-holes yet!" 

 

Female Bilbo:

 "Mind Bilbo doesn't eat all the cakes!" they  called. "She is too fat to get through key-holes yet!" feels different. I think we're less comfortable taunting a female character about being fat. And yes, less comfortable with a portly female protagonist on a quest...

[flyingiguana]

http://www.salon.com/2000/01/13/potter/

Article on one reader's discomfort with the girls in Harry Potter.

 

The fact that there were girls at all, to me, is a step forward, but yeah, pretty much we're still back in the dark ages when it comes to children's lit and female role models.

[flyingiguana]

I also have to point out that I found The Lord of the Rings a complete and utter slog -- BECAUSE there were no females.  OK, one.  Some gal "pledged her troth" or something to one of the guys.  I remember sitting up and being AWAKE for that because I expected she was going to DO something.  She did something -- if you count disappearing as doing something.  By the time we got to the elves I'd fallen asleep, so if there was actually a woman there, I kind of missed it.  Maybe she didn't do much but sit.

 

The movies surprised me -- a woman went into battle.

 

I also had to just put Watership Down down -- apparently the females were only breeders.  Without any prompting on my part, my daughter counted up all the times a female actually SPOKE in that book.  It wasn't much.  And the things they had to say weren't all that important.  These are bunnies we're talking about.  Why was the prevailing patriarchy in fantasy literature put on rabbits, of all things?

 

The Lion King?  Um, WHY did all those lionesses not just overthrow Scar?  And Nala makes a big trek over the desert to find Simba so he can be on the throne -- NOTHING of interest happened in that trek?  And when she gets back.... she gets to be a mother.  Yeah, mothers are great (I'm one too), but, um, mothers can do others things as well.  So can pregnant women.  Well, some pregnant women.  Not sure I would have been good for much.

 

But wait!  I was just lying in bed with excess brain power!  I could have run the world computer if someone had just plugged me in. 

 

Is that written up somewhere? 

 

Best I'm coming up with is Amy Pond -- was she running anything while pregnant?

 

Dr Who is another interesting data point -- they keep coming up with strong female characters and then taking that all away by making them girlfriends and mothers.  It's like they know they're going to lose their male audience, and they figure the female audience will stick with it no matter what happens.

 

Oddly, though, I wonder if they do lose male audience with this tactic.  My husband doesn't even want to watch it anymore.  They keep dumbing down his favorite females and he just can't stand it.

 

 

[Critterfixer]

I agree with you FlyingIguana. They are not selling. Quest books are not selling. Quests have been relegated to the video game industry.

However, comparing Anne of Green Gables to a book like the Hobbit is apples to oranges for plot. Anne is not on a quest. She is growing up. That is a Maturation plot. Or a coming of age story, if you prefer. That's why I tried to stay with quest plots since the story in question to gender bend was The Hobbit.

Yet another great plot to try to swap genders in as an exercise.

 

It's hard to make fun of Bilbo as fat if he is a girl. If the elves tease a hobbit about his weight, and that hobbit is male, it's okay. If they do it to Bilbo the girl, they seem mean and not having fun. 

And the idea of a fat girl going off on a quest--do we question her worth because of her weight? Or can we just say she had a great time being joked with, and handled it better than the proud dwarves?  

[flyingiguana]

That Kili is not the Kili that was in the book I read.

[Critterfixer]

Not in the book I read either, but after all, once an author lets a book out of his cold dead fingers and the film industry gets hold of it, you can really throw your plot and characters both out the window.  :laugh:

 

[maize]

 

 

The movies surprised me -- a woman went into battle.

 

 

Ah, you gave up on the book too soon if you missed Eowyn there! I haven't seen the movie, but people earlier in the thread said it makes her look much weaker than she is presented in the book...

[flyingiguana]

I would just like to point out to all publishers reading this thread that there's a reason I no longer buy books.

 

The vast majority of new books bore me to tears.  (I keep trying suggestions -- I get unwitty, repetitive, big plot holes, women I can't relate to, no humor, no big ideas to think about, porn masquerading as literature.....  the list just goes on and on)

 

I can't help thinking there's an untapped market out there.  Someone should get on that.

[Word Nerd]

http://www.salon.com/2000/01/13/potter/

Article on one reader's discomfort with the girls in Harry Potter.

 

 

I think it's hogwash—but the article also came out before the later books were released.

[Critterfixer]

How about the fact that the settings stink? 

There is plenty of description that is flowery and empty, and all relates to the character and how he feels, thinks, and acts. Little world building for the reader to get immersed in.

 

But that's a whole 'nother soapbox for me. Publishers don't want it--takes too long to read. Doesn't move fast enough.

[maize]

How about the fact that the settings stink? 

There is plenty of description that is flowery and empty, and all relates to the character and how he feels, thinks, and acts. Little world building for the reader to get immersed in.

 

But that's a whole 'nother soapbox for me. Publishers don't want it--takes too long to read. Doesn't move fast enough.

 

Agreed. Tolkien's world-building was amazing, but he spent decades on it. 

[flyingiguana]

Ah, you gave up on the book too soon if you missed Eowyn there! I haven't seen the movie, but people earlier in the thread said it makes her look much weaker than she is presented in the book...

 

OK, you may have convinced me -- I'll give it another shot.

 

I do think I may have read the books when I was too young.  There are a lot of words....  Words I probably didn't appreciate at the time.

[Critterfixer]

Yup. 

I remember being so delighted to collect everything Tolkien at the time I read LOTR. I had to have every scrap of writing Tolkien wrote on Middle Earth. 

 

I've got a protagonist right now I've been working on who is a librarian. He's well over 500 years old, and has accumulated the history and literature of his people literally in his body. It has been so refreshing to build the history of that world with that character. I only hope I'll be able to articulate that world building experience as well as Tolkien did.

[Critterfixer]

That wordiness in Tolkien actually can turn people off. LOTR is hard to read aloud because Tolkien actually gives you very good directions. When reading it you can tell he is looking over the panorama of Middle Earth and seeing it with a geographer's eye and he wants you to see it, too. It's a type of fantasy fiction we don't see much of anymore.

[Mrs Mungo]

Just out of curiosity, I tried to find statistics on why the stereotype for a video gamer is a male and not female. I found this: http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/141/videogames.asp

I don't know that this shows any kind of causality. I think a big reason more girls don't play video games or engage in more typical male behavior is because of how they are treated.

 

I know a lot of women and girls who play a certain MMORPG. They are regularly followed by other players who say, "why is your character a girl? You aren't a real girl." And so forth.

 

My eldest plays Call of Duty. She is regularly called a liar by males she knows in real life who don't believe she plays when it comes up. She is a tall, dainty very feminine girl who cares about fashion and nail polish, so she must be lying about playing video games in order to impress boys.

 

Last week my middle dd was wearing a Green Lantern shirt. A guy asked her in a disdainful voice, "who is your favorite Green Lantern?" She said, "Wally West" without missing a beat. I told her, "he doesn't really care, but you are a girl, so someone has to check your geek cred to make sure you aren't a fake."

[Critterfixer]

I do think a good quest should appeal to either sex. Now, certain things in that quest might not. Not every quest has to be action packed. I think you can craft a female character to be an honest, engaging, and worthy hero, and that she can face the challenge, accept it, work through the tests of her worthiness and learn valuable lessons at the end without having that same hero burdened by a horrible past, or a backstory that puts her into the "trapped-quest is the only escape" option. 

 

And if we can remember that there are plenty of girls out there who actually DO love action adventure, that would be good too...

 

Since it looks like we are going to have to write it, girls. Er. Ladies.

[kiana]

I don't know that this shows any kind of causality. I think a big reason more girls don't play video games or engage in more typical male behavior is because of how they are treated.

 

I know a lot of women and girls who play a certain MMORPG. They are regularly followed by other players who say, "why is your character a girl? You aren't a real girl." And so forth.

 

My eldest plays Call of Duty. She is regularly called a liar by males she knows in real life who don't believe she plays when it comes up. She is a tall, dainty very feminine girl who cares about fashion and nail polish, so she must be lying about playing video games in order to impress boys.

 

Last week my middle dd was wearing a Green Lantern shirt. A guy asked her in a disdainful voice, "who is your favorite Green Lantern?" She said, "Wally West" without missing a beat. I told her, "he doesn't really care, but you are a girl, so someone has to check your geek cred to make sure you aren't a fake."

 

Yep. Rather disturbing article about the harassment of women involved in video games: http://www.vice.com/read/female-game-designers-are-being-threatened-with-rape