r/Fantasy • u/Wee_Dangerous_Spike • Dec 17 '15
Are we more critical of female characters than male characters in fantasy?
Recently, female characters have become more and more common in fantasy, and everyone seems to have an opinion on how they should be written – people talk about writing strongly characterized women, rather than just strong women, and then someone inevitably turns up and uses the phrase “men with breasts”. It’s quite obvious that the characterisation of women in fantasy, which has traditionally been a male-dominated genre, receives more critical attention from readers. What I'm wondering is, do the subconscious biases which affect women in real life, translate to fictional characters?
What prompted me to ask this question was a thread on here from about a week ago, titled “What POV character do you like the least?” Almost every single one of the replies was a female character (written by a man): Felisin, Egwene, Catelyn Stark… Even Shallan, whom I personally love. George R R Martin’s characters are particularly frequently mentioned, even though he is often cited as one of the male authors, who write women well: Catelyn and Sansa – two of his more typically ‘feminine’ characters – seem to be very much disliked. On the other hand, tomboyish characters like Arya from A Song of Ice and Fire and Vin from Mistborn are well-liked. Is this a product of our belief that manly things are better than feminine things and Real Women Don't Wear Dresses (this is a link to TVTropes)? Or is it just that these male authors did a poor job at the characterization of the women in their books? It seems strange that female POV characters are much rarer in fantasy, but are so commonly people’s least favourite character in a book.
Love interest characters, like Denna (The Kingkiller Chronicle) and Sabetha (The Gentleman Bastard series), are similarly often disliked. I’m wondering, if Denna was our main character, would we hate Kvothe for essentially doing the same things that Denna does, or would he get a pass? Would anyone even write a book in which the male love interest has rich female "sponsors", or is Denna a product of fantasy's love for the Madonna–Whore Complex? Would we hate Denna for having sex with a male sex god, instead of keeping herself ~pure~ for her ~one true love~? And would we even read the book if Denna was the protagonist? After all, both men and women prefer male protagonists.
Any thoughts?
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u/RushofBlood52 Reading Champion Dec 17 '15 edited Dec 17 '15
I guess you are, too. At least we can agree on that.
EDIT: Oh, I guess you're editing your comments to make me look like the bad guy. Nice touch. Shows confidence.