princesselwen

princesselwen @ 2019-02-02T12:28:00

2019-02-02T18:06:45Z

SPOILERS.

The latest creepy kid I saw was a young Leta Lestrange in the Fantastic Beasts sequel, The Crimes of Grindlewald. She probably isn't the greatest example because she does regret what she did and is continually haunted by it. But the idea that she would actually go through with the plan of switching her little brother with another baby just because he cried too much and it annoyed her, made me see her in a really unnerving light. I can understand getting annoyed by a crying little sibling, but I find incredibly creepy that she'd just swap him with someone else, even if she didn't like him to begin with because their father favored him. Its one thing to have the passing (not really seriously entertained, either) wish to swap away a sibling, and an entirely different thing to actually do it.
If I was going to change her, I'd just drop the whole switching thing. She'd have survivor's guilt because she couldn't save her brother, and feel even worse because she hated him and didn't want him around her anyway, and would be wondering if she might have tried harder to save him if she had liked him. The switching thing was only there for that canon-contradicting backstory, anyway, so the story would make more sense without it.

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Awesome heroines put. 2

2018-12-18T02:04:46Z

So this is a sequel to the last post, with some more great heroines:
Orual--"Till We Have Faces," by C. S. Lewis. Ever since I read this book, I've found its heroine fascinating, because she's so very different from so many others I've read about. She's sympathetic, yet deeply flawed; very unattractive; successfully holds a man's role in a male-dominated society (including fighting in battle); and her main story arc is her relationship with her younger half-sister (Psyche--the story is a Cupid and Psyche retelling) and not a romance. This story is also an example of how to reinterpret a villainous character from a legend as sympathetic without excusing the bad things they did.
Daylily and Imraldera--Tales of Goldstone Wood. A Christian fantasy series that sadly didn't sell well enough to get more than seven books, but I wanted to mention it because of how fascinating one of its characters is. Daylily is initially introduced as a classic 'Other Girl' rival to the heroine Rose. She's a stunningly beautiful noblewoman who is supposed to marry the prince, Lionheart, and does treat Rose badly at a couple of important points in the story. However, when she gets her own POV in book 6, she becomes a much more fleshed out character, and ends up a heroine in her own right, (after tumbling through a portal to the past. getting drawn into a fairy's dance, getting mindcontrolled by a cult, and finally saving her fiance in mental combat.)
I mainly brought up Imraldera (who has plenty of awesome moments of her own, like her willingness to sacrifice for her little sister, and her bargain with a fairy queen) because she's a nice, friendly, compassionate character without being a pushover.
Addie and Meryl--"The Two Princesses of Bamarre," Gail Carson Levine. This fairytale is enjoyable because of the way it flips tropes--Meryl wants adventures, Addie doesn't--and yet it ends up being Addie who has to go a quest to save Meryl. Addie gets a great character arc where she learns to be brave. There's also a romance with a charming young sorcerer, and a decidedly snarky dragon (sort of like a female Smaug).

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Favorite female characters and their relationships.

2018-12-10T02:26:23Z

So this was inspired by the spork of Mists of Avalon over at das-sporking2, and the community's disgust with its portrayal of women. So I thought I'd give a list of some better heroines, particularly ones who have good relationships with other girls or women. Some spoilers below!

Stephanie Harrington and Jessica Pherris --Honor Harrrington spin-off The Star Kingdom trilogy, by David Weber and Jane Lindskold. While the main Honor Harrrington series is also great, and I highly recommend at least the first nine books, the long technical descriptions could make it harder to get into for some readers. (However, it also has great friendships, especially with Honor and her best friend Michelle, or "Mike.") This YA spin-off doesn't have the super-long descriptions, and is a neat story about Honor's ancestor Stephanie forming a bond with a sentient cat-like alien who she names Lionheart. The rest of the story revolves around her trying to protect his people (who she calls 'treecats') and their growing relationship with humans. Jessica is introduced in the second book, as a newcomer to the planet who is quickly drawn into the treecatsx world and becomes fast friends with Stephanie. These books also have a very refreshing take on teenage relationships, especially in the third one.
Miri and Dashti--Princess Academy and Book of A Thousand Days, by Shannon Hale. The plot of the first of these, where a prince has to pick a wife from among a group of girls from the same village, means that there will be a lot of female characters in the story. Miri stands out for her cleverness and quick thinking, but her friends are also important, and they work very well together once they learn to do so. There is also a nice romance. Book of a Thousand Days has Dashti who's kind of the opposite of a 'typical' heroine--she's a servant to a princess, and she's not very pretty. But she turns out to be very determined and resourceful, even when her world is falling apart.
This is all I have time for now, but I will post some more awesome heroines later.)

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princesselwen @ 2018-11-30T20:02:00

2018-12-01T01:10:26Z

Sutcliff recommendation.
The Mark of the Horse Lord.
TW for suicide. highlight to read.

An ex-gladiator is brought in as a substitute for a blinded Scottish chieftain, and battles an evil Pictish queen who has some traits in common with Viviane. (She's the head of a matriarchal earth-goddess-worshipping religion, and she has a thing for incest, given that she tries to marry her own nephew.) This story has a lot of focus on the religious conflict between the earth-goddess worshippers and the sky-god ones, but neither side is presented as all bad or all good. Its a lot more complicated than that. The protagonist also has an interesting romance with the villainess' daughter (who actually turns out to be nice), which is more developed than the romances in some of Sutcliff's other books. But the reason I stuck this behind a spoiler tag comes with the theme of the sacrificial king, which gets developed throughout the novel--the idea that the king choosing to die for the people protects them. At the end, the protagonist gets captured by the Romans, and can only be ransomed by the tribe's young men joining the Roman Legions and getting sent abroad (which would cripple a tribe that has already lost many of them in the recent war). So rather than stay in captivity, which he doesn't want because he grew up in slavery, or purchase his freedom at the cost of his tribe, he chooses to kill himself so his death will protect the people. (He does have a potential heir because his wife is pregnant at the time.) And that's where the book ends. Its a good book, but I understand why some readers wouldn't want to read it.

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Hi

2017-06-27T22:21:53Z

Hi,I joined so I could comment.

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