Kevin's Watch

HI

I was wondeing if there had been any discussions on the portrayal of women in the discussion forum (I'm a newbie)

It seems to me that the female characters are much better defined than in other fantasy books (particularly LOTR)

As a man I find the female characters quite believable.....reflecting the characteristics of women I have met throughout my life. Do any women have any views on this subject?....or on the portrayal of men....TC himself is the perfect Anti-hero as there is a little of him in all of us.

Contradiction is the essence of life!

J

I love the female characters in all of Donaldson's works. Elena, Osondrea, Tamarantha, Shetra, Loerya, Amatin, Atiaran, Lena, Linden, Morn, Mikka, Min, Koina, Sorus, the list goes on. I don't want to rubbish the journeys of Covenant or Angus or Davies, but I have always found the female chaacters to be much fuller.

Sum sui generis
Vs

Donaldson has wonderful female characters -- for example, I have long thought that Princess Myste functions as sort of a personal mouthpiece for the author's idealism in his Mordant duology. She has these wonderful lines about the nature of people.

He is not afraid to show women as both strong and as fragile -- and everything in between, as with Terisa, Morn, and Linden.

yes, it's decidedly nice to see women as something other than, "Oh, look, it's our token female badass" or "Ooh, a tavern wence!" I have always had that problem with fantasy...

fightingmyinstincts wrote:yes, it's decidedly nice to see women as something other than, "Oh, look, it's our token female badass" or "Ooh, a tavern wence!" I have always had that problem with fantasy...

Yes, or the spoiled, headstrong, bratty princess...or the powerful female magic user with terminal PMS

And its great to see you back, FMI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*bows* Yes, I am indeed back! And this time, with a COMPUTER!
Wow, my previous post on this thread should have been more detailed...but it was late and I was tired...

I've only read mordant's need and the first two chronicles, but from what I saw there I thought SRD did a fairly good job with female characters in general, but specifically Linden Avery was a really great character. In most of the other female characters I saw a specific ideal or quality personified, but in Linden he managed to make a character who was convincingly female and ALSO convincingly disturbed. It shows great skill IMHO to make a character different from yourself, and then work with that character at such a personal level. She is a great representation of a woman who suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome acquired at an early age.

JemCheeta wrote:specifically Linden Avery was a really great character

Argh! We already have enough Linden lovers, without another one swelling the ranks

Jem - if you haven't already, you should watch the SRD clip regarding favorite characters (located on the SRD website.) He tells a great story about why Linden is so important to him.

Yes...on that basis I had to cancel my plans to tell him how awful Linden is when I see him

I think he writes TCOTC women much like he writes his other characters in the series. They're not dominated by their being women (which I felt a little of in Mordant's Need), but by their "issues" (to use psychobabble terminology). And a lot of the characters in TCOTC are most definable by their psychological scars/problems, not necesarily the cliche categories they might fall into (mysterious wizard, brave knight, general-purpose damsel etc.). Just a quick reaction while surfing late at night.

I love the way SRD portrait the women in TCTC! With most characters it almost feels like gender was determined a long time after the character had developed.

I like that kind of writing: not letting the gender determine what kind of character it will be and thereby not falling into a lot of sexistic traps (which exists everywhere and are almost impossible to avoid since we are/were raised in a rather sexistic environment and probably have rather weird values. That is if we compare ourselves to future generations (I hope ))

Right, I think it's excellent that it starts with a character concept, and the flaws therein... where I think SRD excells is that he can take a pile of flaws and strengths that ignore gender bounderies, and then view it through a lense of gender to alter it in the subtle ways that reflect femininity without resorting to stereotypes.

Well said.

Linden's still a gitette though

She is not! (Didn't we have a razzberry emoticon? Why can't I find it??? Arrgh!)

Anyhow. I agree with the earlier posters. SRD's women characters aren't just window-dressing -- they're actual people. It's very refreshing. Particularly in genre fiction.

I think the emoticon you're looking for is

Well, I guess I will just take your word on it. (after all, how would I know, I am concave) SRD's Girls are unusual in a genre dominated by men. (It's not just main characters, he puts girls everywhere in The Land. Think of Shetra, Veremont, that warhaft chick, etc.)

In books like Lord of the Rings, the only time you ever see a chick is when she has the hots for Aragorn. (Which makes sense for what he was doing. Are there any chicks in Beowulf?)

P.S. My literary spider sense is going crazy, too many damn parenthesis. Oh well.

The Dreaming wrote:Veremont

Verement was a man

CovenantJr wrote:

The Dreaming wrote:Veremont

Verement was a man

Oh crap... That’s right, he was Shetra's husband right? There *was* another female lord though wasn't there? The one with the Daughters... Can't remember...

Osondrea? Loerya? Amatin?