Good female characters meme
From thistlerose:
If there's one constant in every fandom, it's the bashing of female characters. List your favourite 10 female characters of any fandom and why you like these girls/women.
1. Rose (Dr Who) My new best girl. She's competent, compassionate, smart, funny, and is doing something about a family, a boyfriend and a society that expect so little from her and in turn offer her so little. I would watch Dr Who just for Rose alone. It's no accident, I'm sure, that she was created by a gay man. I love Rose.
2. Buffy (BtVS) She's like the stylised version of Rose -- not quite recognisable from real life, but inspirational nonetheless.
3. Eowyn (LotR, movieverse because I haven't read the books) Ooh, I'm starting to see a pattern here. And how could Aragorn not choose someone who could destroy the Witch-King and still look fabulous afterwards?
4. Eddi McCandry (War for the Oaks) She has her own motorbike, she plays rhythm guitar in a band and she's Minneapolis's answer to Eowyn.
5. Anne Shirley (AoGG) She broke a slate over the head of the best-looking boy in the class, and meant it! Anne is adorable as a child, and retains her faults believably into adulthood, where she makes them seem endearing. She's another inspirational figure and I felt real sorrow when she seemed to lose her voice in the later books.
6. Tessa (HL) As well as all the usual (compassionate, smart, etc), she's also creative. And she doesn't depend on Duncan, or manipulate him; she isn't needy or 'charming'; she merely loves him. She's her own woman.
7. Elizabeth Bennett (P&P) Full of fun, blinkered, decent: how could anybody not love her? I just hope marriage to Darcy didn't disappoint, although I have my doubts.
8, 9 and 10... Umm... I'm sure I'll think of lots more when I go away from the computer...
There are women characters I like, but passively rather than actively. Like Beverley Crusher - about whom the most annoying thing was, of course, her son - and Deanna Troi; Willow Rosenberg; Luna Lovegood - JKR's only representative, but then I don't think female characters are her strong point.
From other fandoms I like: well, there are no female characters that inspire me from The Dark is Rising (I find Jane too much of a drip) or His Dark Materials (Lyra's a well-drawn character but she borders on the irritating a lot of the time). Trillian I liked but she spent too much time playing second fiddle to Zaphod; she deserved a higher billing.
This meme got me thinking a little about the (male) Flawed Hero characters I like who are always thrown into sharper relief by The Trickster (whom I often like even more than the FH) who turns up to undermine the FH and make him question himself. I'm thinking of Methos, Q, Ethan Rayne... The Trickster often goes on to steal all the glory, and all the fans, away from the FH, which is totally unfair, but the way of the world, I suppose: inherent in the role of Flawed Hero is the thanklessness of the task.
Anyway, for some reason, this model doesn't work for me with women. They only get to be Heroines, flawed or otherwise. This isn't to say they don't have flaws -- they do, but they don't need any Tricksters to point out their fallibility or ridiculousness. The characteristics shared by all my favourite fictional women are strength and integrity. No games, no manipulation, no fannying about. Just integrity. Strength, dependability and something inspirational for me. That's not too much to ask, is it? Is it?
I don't have any conclusions to draw from that, other than maybe I expect more from my women than from my men. But then, doesn't everyone?
Wow, more than one update in a fortnight! Whatever next -- a pope who lives in the real world, maybe?
If there's one constant in every fandom, it's the bashing of female characters. List your favourite 10 female characters of any fandom and why you like these girls/women.
1. Rose (Dr Who) My new best girl. She's competent, compassionate, smart, funny, and is doing something about a family, a boyfriend and a society that expect so little from her and in turn offer her so little. I would watch Dr Who just for Rose alone. It's no accident, I'm sure, that she was created by a gay man. I love Rose.
2. Buffy (BtVS) She's like the stylised version of Rose -- not quite recognisable from real life, but inspirational nonetheless.
3. Eowyn (LotR, movieverse because I haven't read the books) Ooh, I'm starting to see a pattern here. And how could Aragorn not choose someone who could destroy the Witch-King and still look fabulous afterwards?
4. Eddi McCandry (War for the Oaks) She has her own motorbike, she plays rhythm guitar in a band and she's Minneapolis's answer to Eowyn.
5. Anne Shirley (AoGG) She broke a slate over the head of the best-looking boy in the class, and meant it! Anne is adorable as a child, and retains her faults believably into adulthood, where she makes them seem endearing. She's another inspirational figure and I felt real sorrow when she seemed to lose her voice in the later books.
6. Tessa (HL) As well as all the usual (compassionate, smart, etc), she's also creative. And she doesn't depend on Duncan, or manipulate him; she isn't needy or 'charming'; she merely loves him. She's her own woman.
7. Elizabeth Bennett (P&P) Full of fun, blinkered, decent: how could anybody not love her? I just hope marriage to Darcy didn't disappoint, although I have my doubts.
8, 9 and 10... Umm... I'm sure I'll think of lots more when I go away from the computer...
There are women characters I like, but passively rather than actively. Like Beverley Crusher - about whom the most annoying thing was, of course, her son - and Deanna Troi; Willow Rosenberg; Luna Lovegood - JKR's only representative, but then I don't think female characters are her strong point.
From other fandoms I like: well, there are no female characters that inspire me from The Dark is Rising (I find Jane too much of a drip) or His Dark Materials (Lyra's a well-drawn character but she borders on the irritating a lot of the time). Trillian I liked but she spent too much time playing second fiddle to Zaphod; she deserved a higher billing.
This meme got me thinking a little about the (male) Flawed Hero characters I like who are always thrown into sharper relief by The Trickster (whom I often like even more than the FH) who turns up to undermine the FH and make him question himself. I'm thinking of Methos, Q, Ethan Rayne... The Trickster often goes on to steal all the glory, and all the fans, away from the FH, which is totally unfair, but the way of the world, I suppose: inherent in the role of Flawed Hero is the thanklessness of the task.
Anyway, for some reason, this model doesn't work for me with women. They only get to be Heroines, flawed or otherwise. This isn't to say they don't have flaws -- they do, but they don't need any Tricksters to point out their fallibility or ridiculousness. The characteristics shared by all my favourite fictional women are strength and integrity. No games, no manipulation, no fannying about. Just integrity. Strength, dependability and something inspirational for me. That's not too much to ask, is it? Is it?
I don't have any conclusions to draw from that, other than maybe I expect more from my women than from my men. But then, doesn't everyone?
Wow, more than one update in a fortnight! Whatever next -- a pope who lives in the real world, maybe?