Character Flaws

[defectivewookie]

I recently finished reading a dystopian YA novel that has had a rather lasting impact on me, in the form of a persistant background thought spiral where I attempt to make sense of just what it was that I found so annoying.

First things first, since I am doing this for myself, I will not be revealing the novel in question. This is an attempt to

Comments

[nightshade1972]

This is why I very, very rarely read romance novels, particularly the "bodice-ripper" variety. They all seem to center around "heroine's beloved has just tragically died" or "heroine enters into an arranged marriage and actually falls in love with the guy after all, usually after their first night of wild me-first (from the man's perspective) sex". Or any other flavor of "female protagonist must depend on a man for fulfillment" you care to name.

I first read Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonsinger" when I was ten years old. At the time, I remember thinking how cool it was that Menolly ran away from home so she wouldn't have to take shit from the adults in her life who "knew better" anymore. That was thirty years ago. It pains me to think there's apparently at least one SF/F YA author writing today who thinks that a helpless female is somehow a positive role model for the author's intended audience.

[defectivewookie]

"At least one" is kind of an understatement.

In this instance, I'm hoping that the author missed out on what was driving the plot. She seemed to want her protagonist to have goals, but never put her in the driver's seat about taking them on. When the world forces you to move in the general direction of your dreams, you're not acting of your own volition.

I could tell that there was a vision for the character that went beyond what was on the page. Every character that wasn't the protagonist went out of the way to tell her that they felt like she wanted more from life than they were able to give. Too bad she failed to convince ME of that.

By the way, thanks for pointing me in the direction of "Dragonsinger". I've never read it; might have to track a copy down.

[nightshade1972]

Dragonsinger is actually the middle book in a trilogy, although it's the first of the trilogy I actually read. In order, it's Dragonsong/Dragonsinger/Dragondrums. She's written other books about Pern and Masterharper Hall, but that specific trilogy deals with Menolly as the central character.

I grew up watching reruns of ST:TOS, where Uhura was basically an afterthought (a controversial one for the time, to be sure, but an afterthought nonetheless) and all the other female characters were nothing more than Kirk's conquest of the week. It was nice to find McCaffrey's novels, which showed me that female characters can be just as strong and important (if not more so) than the male characters.

[anomilygrace]

I'm fairly certain I know the book you're referring too, and - yes, it's entirely problematic in so many ways. The thing that make me really sad was that I'd read a short story set in the same world first and kind of fell in love with the way the overall premise was presented. To be honest, I enjoyed the first part of the book more than the second (partially because the MC is awful in the second half). But the first part both raises the question of how to live an authentic life within the confines of a horrifying society and also how a society could react to outside threats and develop to that point in order to survive

[defectivewookie]

I think expecting any author to reflect on the choices made within and during the creation of a novel is perfectly appropriate. In the case of YA, I feel like that takes on an added dimension, given that the intended audience is still forming what will become an adult worldview. I absolutely do not think that this limits YA to being instructive, which is more the box I feel like it used to be trapped in.

Presenting a world where the consequences do not ring true is a failure no matter the audience. When, in the context of that failure, one also gives a kind of tacit consent to one of the more negative mental traps that teens fall into, I consider that an additional and distinct failure.

Also, shoot me an email: I'd like to know if you pegged the book - or if there's more of this out there than I feared.