Objectification is not the answer. Who knew?

Tags

feminism, men's issues, paranormal romance, romance, women's issues

The media has objectified women since there has been media. Whether it’s Greek statuary, books, movies, video games, music, or just about anything else, you can find examples of women portrayed as idealized embodiments of erotic fantasy, treated like commodities to be valued on their physical appeal.

Thanks to feminism, there has been a shift away from this. Audiences have started to demand more for female characters and publishers and production companies have responded (thank you, capitalism). It still happens and I could rattle off a list of modern franchises I gave up on mainly for this reason, but there has been some improvement. If nothing else, people are at least conscious of it now. There is enough awareness that when objectifying material comes along, it gets called what it is. There’s room for improvement, but I definitely believe we’re on the upward curve.

We’re starting to have complex female characters who aren’t “drop-dead gorgeous,” female characters who don’t have that lingering close up of their bikini thong, actually have a storyline, serve a purpose beyond a love interest, lean toward more realistic body standards, and sexual objectification of men instead—wait, what?

(Disclaimer: If you read Romance/Erotica, you will hate me by the time you get to the end of this post.)

(Was going to put the Magic Mike poster here, but, I just can’t pollute this blog like that. Google it if you must know.)

This is one of the worst methods of attempted feminism I have seen. We can all (at least I certainly hope we can) agree that women shouldn’t be objectified, but…men should??? Consider films such as the Magic Mike franchise *tries not to vomit* or just take a look at the covers in the romance aisle at your local bookstore *vomits*, both of which are tailored to a female audience. It’s basically an exposition of abs and biceps. It is also a direct defiance of feminism. *bashes head against desk*

Feminism is the radical ideology that men and women are equally valuable human beings who should be regarded as human beings. (Crazy, I know.) How are we supposed to treat a human being? The short answer—with respect. That’s a person, not a sex toy or living fantasy. Whether that person—male or female—is willingly being objectified or not (some of them get paid very well to look like that), they still deserve to be treated and viewed like a person. 

(And if you want to talk about the whole sexual empowerment thing…that’s a whole other blog post.)

For some reason, a lot of women get upset (and rightfully so) at blatantly sexualized female characters (do I need to list examples?), but then drool over Chris Hemsworth’s latest photoshoot. That’s pretty much a textbook example of hypocrisy. This is one of the main reasons I generally disregard the entire Romance genre with very few exceptions—it’s hollow wish fulfillment and basically porn marketed to women.

Saying it’s alright to have certain expectations/treatment of one gender, but not the other is discrimination, period. The solution to female objectification is not male objectification, that is just redistributed sexism. Sadly, many people seem to take the slew of female-oriented erotic content as progress, but it’s just presenting misandry as the solution to misogyny. Basically, we’re trading smallpox for anthrax.

Objectification is wrong no matter who it is being objectified and it solves nothing.

Conflicted Loyalties: Villains vs. Heroes

Tags

fandom, reading, villains, writing

A soft spot for villains.

All too often, I find myself watching a movie or a series for the sake of the villain, because I care more about him/her than the “good guys.”  If you go on Tumblr or any other fan site, you’ll see that villains in pretty much every genre and media garner massive followings, sometimes even larger than those of their heroic counterparts.

This led me to the inevitable question—why? Are the heroes just too boring? Are the good guys too good? Is it that the villains are a means of expressing our frustrations and resentments by proxy? I’m sure there’s a psychology dissertation in that somewhere.

The double standard.

Firstly, I notice that villains get away with a lot more by virtue of being villains. If a hero abducted and poisoned children or slaughtered entire armies defending their homes, he would be condemned by the readership rather quickly. Yet the villain gets away with it because we expect that. After all, he/she is a villain and villains by their nature do villainous things, but if a hero has so much as one selfish moment and yells at the wrong character, suddenly we’re all over him/her with pitchforks and torches. (But if the protagonist is too perfect, we’re still not happy.)

When a hero monologues about traumatic events in their lives, they too quickly come off as whiny complainers. When a villain discusses past trauma, however,  people are generally more sympathetic. Villains also tend to talk about past traumas less often and I wonder if that has something to do with it as well—we don’t have to listen to many sympathy-garnering speeches.

The perspective factor.

Interestingly, there seems to be more villain-centric fans in films and television series. Personally, I find heroes more relatable and easier to empathize with in books and I believe other people do too. It probably has something to do with being thrown into the hero’s psyche, sometimes exclusively, leading us to develop more attachment to him/her.

Even in multi-POV books, the hero has the most “screen time” and the villains are usually secondary or tertiary if their perspective is there at all. This means a certain amount of distance from the villain and a buffer zone of attachment, if you will.

In the end, this subject could probably span a few more blog posts plus that dissertation I mentioned. I’m just trying to tap into what makes all characters—villains, heroes, and everything in between—lovable.

But in the end, it’s still an art, not a science.

Things you DO NOT need to be a “good” character

Tags

am reading, book recommendation call, character chat, fantasy books, taylor swift

It’s probably a bad idea to watch a movie with me. When I watch movies, I tend to criticize the character development and the writers’ standardized methods of relaying a character’s “strength.” I do it with books, too, there’s just usually no one around to hear me griping at my Kindle. There are five things that especially bug me, hence I have decided to whine about them in a blog post accompanied by Taylor Swift GIF’s because everyone likes Taylor Swift.

A temper

Tempers are not awesome. It is one thing to have righteous anger over injustice or cruelty, but quite another to overreact and resort to violence. Writers moved away from this one for a while, but I’ve noticed it coming back—mainly in female characters because men and women should be held to different moral standards (not).

A long list of ex-lovers

Some of my favorite characters of all time are, shall we say, romantically prolific, but the fact remains that being desired and/or sexually active are not the hallmarks of a strong persona! It’s okay to not have a significant other or regular one-night stands, but you wouldn’t know it by the way mainstream media handles it.

Modern literature and film seem to think it makes a character interesting, relying on sex as a plot device rather than using something crazy, like a storyline. There are plenty of shows I could list where if the writers weren’t allowed to incorporate sex involving the main characters, they would run out of material in about two episodes.

A tragic backstory

Tragic backstories are about as common as mud. I have used them quite often myself, but lacking some horror in your past does not make you any less of a character or your input to the story any less valid. Despite this, characters without tragedy in their pasts are usually portrayed as the naive innocent that gets killed first or gruesomely victimized, but that’s just a sign of lazy writing.

A set of fighting skills

I prefer for my own characters to have fighting skills (because fight scenes allow my inner ninja to play), but they aren’t necessary to a solid character—male or female. I wish I could find more portrayals where it’s okay to not be a warrior, but it’s been becoming rarer, especially in fantasy books.

A postmodern mindset

It may sound like a contradiction to some, but it actually is possible for one to believe in traditional gender roles without being sexist. It’s also possible to firmly believe in one’s own religion as the sole truth without hating others and I could go on. However, the characters who are more traditional in their views are generally cast in a negative manner, which is a travesty, because it is an incomplete picture of what real people with similar opinions are actually like.

And that wraps up my rant for the month, but there’s plenty more where that came from. 😉

(As a side note, if you guys can think of any fantasy books that defy these tropes, I’d really like to hear about them.)

Three Action Heroines I actually liked

Tags

character chat, legend of the seeker, mistborn, salt, strong heroines

I’ll be blunt, I usually despise females in warrior roles. Why? I feel like they aren’t characters at all, just cardboard cutouts. They either aren’t allowed to have flaws or their flaws are excused by virtue of femininity. (Whole other blog post in that.) Anyway, here are the first three action heroines that come to my mind when I think of my favorites and they are my favorites with good reason.

Angelina Jolie as Evelyn Salt in “Salt.”

Evelyn Salt (Salt, 2010)

I keep seeing all these people whine about the lack of female action heroes and I want to hit them in the face with this. Salt is an incredible portrayal of a female spy/assassin who is not invincible, makes miscalculations, gets knocked down, but always gets back up. She basically leads a one-woman war against two governments and is pretty much as hardcore as they come. She’s probably my favorite action heroine in film, but not many seem to have heard of her (and judging by their mewling online, that includes Feminazis).

Vin (Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson)

If we’re talking vulnerabilities and relatability, Vin takes the gold without batting an eye. Insecurity and softness mixed with awesome power and a capability for terrible destruction, Brandon Sanderson really set a standard here. It is impossible to be in possession of a heart and not want to protect Vin, even though she’s the character who tears through 300 soldiers and comes out with nary a scratch (seriously, that happened once).

Tabrett Bethell as Cara in “Legend of the Seeker.”

Cara the Mord Sith (The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind/The Legend of the Seeker, 2007-2009)

Cara is pretty much all the things I usually dislike in a character—sassy, sarcastic, dominant, sometimes outright cruel. But the author (and the writers of the television series) spent huge amounts of time humanizing and sympathizing the Mord Sith order as a whole. The reader/viewer is shown how much pain these women are in (physically and emotionally) every second of their lives. We see Cara cry and regret and mourn, then turn right around and level entire an entire battalion while dragging an evil sorceress by the hair.

I really wish there were more action heroines like this. Not one-dimensional tropes like Black Widow in Iron Man 2 or Andromeda in Wrath of the Titans. These three ladies are characters that feel real and I think that’s what all characters should be.

Too Young to Save the World: Ages in Fantasy

Tags

ages in fantasy, despicable me, epic fantasy, historical fantasy, maturity, writing

I am an old maid by Roman standards. Nineteen and not even a suitor? What a tragedy. This realization struck me not so long ago and led me to consider ages in books (because everything leads back to books with me).

Lots of people seem prone to criticizing ages in fantasy. They say “he/she’s not old enough for that kind of responsibility/maturity/what have you.” It makes sense in our modern context, especially after hanging out in a high school cafeteria or even a college lounge for more than an hour, but it’s just that—context.

30 is the new 15.

People all the way until the last century didn’t live as long as we did. Most of them were dead by the time they hit forty or younger. That means twenty was about middle aged and you had best get to work building empires and fighting battles and making babies before then or the human race was going to go extinct.

When kids rule the world.

Queen Victoria was eighteen when the throne passed to her. The infamous Battle of Crecy provided Edward the Black Prince the chance to lead men and win his spurs at sixteen. Joan of Arc handed the English their backsides and saved her country even though she never reached twenty. Before he got to double digits, a certain Austrian boy was already hashing out melodies on his violin and Isabella the She-Wolf showed remarkable political maneuvering when she was just twelve—enough to get favorites of the king banished.

With this in mind, I see no reason a fantasy character can’t command armies or take a crown or become the most powerful mage their respective world has seen when they just hit mid-teens. When a writer wants to explore certain themes, audiences might cringe and be uncomfortable if the character is what they consider too young, but that does not mean someone younger couldn’t have the same reactions and experiences.

Just to clarify…

I don’t think it has to do with when a person was born, I think it has to do with how they were brought up. (Heck, crazy little me was able to raise a baby donkey by myself at eight. Yes, he survived and lives to bother me to this day.) When children have people around them who expect them to be a grown ups by a certain time, overall they tend to meet those cultural norms. Therefore, I see no reason that epic fantasy heroes/heroines can’t keep on being teenagers.

Because we tend to have much different standards in the Western World today doesn’t mean younger people couldn’t be capable of the grand and glorious deeds that are often attributed to them in fantasy. It depends on the person and it depends on what kind of setting they come from. So long as a writer sets it up properly, I see no reason a character can’t have a whole series in adventures before they’re out of their high school years.

Salute to the Ships

Tags

falling kingdoms, st valentines, the captive, the cat eye chronicles shadowmarch, throne of glass

❤ ❤ ❤ In honor of St. Valentines’ Day, I would like to take a moment to pause and salute the results of my matchmaking amongst fictional characters. I can be a most passionate shipper, having been known to hyperventilate, swear, and shriek in reaction to whatever latest development has befallen my ship. You have probably heard me mention these before, but prepare to be hit with a wave of fangirling once more. ❤ ❤ ❤

 

Chaolaena (Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas)

I will ship this until the day I freaking die and I don’t bloody care what anyone says and if this ship sinks I will have WORDS.

 

Cleo & Magnus (Falling Kingdoms series by Morgan Rhodes)

As of page 316 of Rebel Spring, I ship this. I’m convinced they’re perfect for each other, if they’d ever stop with the sarcasm and the hostility long enough to figure it out.

 

Crora (The Cat’s Eye Chronicles by T.L. Shreffler)

From my current Favorite Series, I ship this so much it hurts. I love Crash, I love Sora, I love everything about them and I have shipped them from the moment they met. I need this to work out!

 

Braith & Arianna (The Captive series by Erica Stevens)

Just…yes. My inaugural foray into vampire literature, I adore these books and them as a couple and this series was one of the first romance titles to end up on my Shelf of Awesome.

 

Vansen & Briony (Shadowmarch series by Tad Williams)

 

You have not known the true pain of fangirling until you have shipped something for four gigantic books and the characters only speak twice while one of them makes plans to marry some prince. But I stuck with the series and it was soooooo worth it. The moral of the story? Stand by your ships.

 

❤ ❤ ❤ Happy St. Valentines’ Day to you, your ships, and, to those of you who have them, your significant other. ❤ ❤ ❤

Attack of the Supermodels

Tags

akasha chronicles, attack of the supermodels, pretty boys, writer chat

I am sick of pretty boys. It started a few months ago when I realized an overwhelming majority of my books basically had the same love interest cloned over and over—tall, dark, striking eyes, drop-dead gorgeous, and ripped like Ares. Sure the authors threw in a few traits to make an effort at singularity—one was a vampire pianist, for example—but for the most part, it really felt like the same guy rehashed again and again.

(I’m going to stop right here and say I have greatly enjoyed many of these series. I can think of three off the top of my head that are actually on my Shelf of Awesome. If you enjoy writing or reading those kinds of heroes, don’t let what I or anyone else says stop you.)

Back to my rant.

Someone once said that we don’t fall in love with a literary character’s appearance, we fall in love with their souls. Thanks to overtly swoon-worthy descriptions of certain characters, I’m not so sure that’s always true.

One reason I love BBC is that their actors look—for lack of a better word—human. They aren’t the photoshopped, surgically altered, mutant derivatives we get here in the US. For example, when Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) came onto Doctor Who, I was quite a little snob and thought he was rather homely. But as his character developed, Rory was revealed to be the most bad@$$, kindhearted, and awesome bloke on the show.

I think that’s what writers of books should strive for—to make their readers fall in love with their characters for their characters, not their mouthwatering descriptions. Maggie Stiefvater’s Sam Roth was a great example of a character who we loved for his soul. I know there are others, but I’m drawing a blank at the moment.

As a general rule, if a book blurb mentions “darkly handsome,” “alluring,” or anything along those lines, I tend to give it my “tired of this spiel” look. Though I might end up reading it anyway, because there are very few other YA fantasy romance books to be had. But who knows? I might end up liking the book anyway. That doesn’t change the fact I wish this pretty boy mania would stop.

Now, STAY evil!

Tags

chracter development, the key of amatahns, villains, writer chat

In the year of our Lord 2006, I was an eleven year old with too much time on my hands, a notebook, and an overactive imagination. I began to write a story and shortly after I had figured out who the heroine would be, the next step was finding the villain.

I set out to compile three characters—the Lord Argetallam, Lucan, and Malkalar—who were to cause as much hardship and difficulty for my heroine as conceivably possible. I had them be as bad as I could make them, giving them all a certain creativity when it came to nastiness and short tempers to match. Villains are, by their nature, villainous, right?

As I developed characters, grew as a writer, and explored the world, I ran into some trouble with the Lord Argetallam. He had a tragic back story and as I delved into the details of his relationship with my heroine’s mother—I found myself finding him to have an alarming number of not-bad qualities. But he was still a psychotic dictator and definitely a villain, so we were good.

When I went to write a prologue for the second book in the series—BOOM! All of a sudden, Lucan has a crush on the slave who’s nursing him back to health and feels guilty about the little girl he killed in the last book. Soon, Lucan was a boy struggling under the weight of his father’s and an entire race’s expectations, seeking approval through violence because he didn’t know another way—this was starting to get out of hand.

But at least I had Malkalar, right? The ethnocentric, genocidal bigot who wants everyone who’s not an elf dead. No way I had to worry about him getting any sympathetic qualities.

Then I started questioning his motivation for :SPOILER: rescuing the seeress Zeerla in The Key of Amatahns. :SPOILER OVER:. By the time I wrote a short story to explain that, my endeavor to create a purely evil villain had sunk like the Titanic.

The theme of relatable villains has become a fascination of mine and with the exception of some characters in a new project (and they don’t count because they are literally supposed to be the Devil and her—that’s not a typo—demons) one of my favorite parts in writing a new series is discovering all the little ins and outs of my villains. I often come to adore them as much as my heroes.

In other words, I have given up. No more purely evil bad guys. It feels sloppy now and I think a story feels more authentic if you feel sorry for the baddie *coughcoughKhanLokiRavennacoughcough* even as he/she is doing dastardly deeds. Besides, it’s just too much of a problem getting them to stay completely evil.

Top Ten Favorite Bromances

Tags

books, bromance, fantasy, gif, movies, paranormal, top ten, tv

In the wake of last week’s bromance talk, I decided to write up a blog post detailing my top ten favorite bromances.

Darmik and Neco (True Reign series by Jennifer Anne Davis)

Their bromance isn’t really in plain sight until the second book in the trilogy, but I adore it. They have that whole brothers at arms thing going on and that just gets to me.

Peter Pevensie and Edmund Pevensie (The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis)

These two brothers fight, argue, and are basically just boys. But they always have each other’s backs. I especially love how Edmund is there for Peter in the later books and movies. So sweet.

Gimli and Legolas (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien)

I particularly like the Legolas/Gimli dynamic. They start off making racist jibes at one another and end up sailing off into the unknown as BFF’s. (Shh, don’t tell Thranduil.)

Devon and Julian (The Kindred series by Erica Stevens)

Unless you’ve read the last three books in the series, this won’t make sense. Devon and Julian are literally trying to kill each other in books 1-2, but bond over their shared love of Cassie and their desire to protect her. In the end, they get over their jealousy of one another and stand shoulder to shoulder, a true bromance.

Harry Potter and Ron Weasley (Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling)

If this one needs explaining, go read the books and then we’ll talk.

Will Treaty and Horace (Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan)

In the beginning, Horace is the bully who kicks little Will’s backside for laughs. Then as girls, war, bigger bullies, giant pigs, battles, and other horrors assail them, they become close friends, even besties. I may have decided I disliked this series after book 5, but their relationship was still adorable.

Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, and Castiel (Supernatural, created by Eric Kripke)

Okay. Talk about a bromance! Nine seasons of these idiots killing monsters, betraying, making up, going to hell, going to heaven, coming back, dying, resurrecting, hunting, crying, being there for each other, missing each other—yeah. It’s just really hard not to love these guys.

Dorian Haviliard and Chaol Westfall (Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas)

As Crown Prince and Captain of the Guard, there is a certain class barrier, but they’re both one another’s only true friends and it’s precious to see them tease and scold each other. I really hope their friendship isn’t damaged after Crown of Midnight because that would suck rotten eggs. (GO TEAM CHAOL!!!)

Terence and Sir Gawaine (The Squire’s Tales series by Gerald Morris)

They start out as a teacher/student type duo, but as Terence gets older, Gawaine becomes closer to Terence than his own siblings. Then they become brothers-in-law, thus canonizing their bromance.

Arthur and Merlin (The Adventures of Merlin, created by Julian Jones)

Oh my gosh, I started this series two weeks ago and I’m besotted. The brotherly relationship between Merlin and Arthur—with all their teasing and name-calling and being willing to die for one another—is definitely one of the highlights.

Thus concludes my Top Ten. If you haven’t read/watched any of these series, you really should. What are you favorite bromances?

Love me a Bromance

Tags

bromance, character chat, Harry potter, supernatural

Let’s talk about bromance. A bromance is a colloquial word used to describe a strong friendship between two men in a brotherly relationship. (It is referencing a purely fraternal bond, not a romantic one.) Though the term is relatively new, it could be argued that this particular literary device itself dates back to antiquity.

The Greeks had them, the Romans were huge fans. Friendship between men as the driving force behind a story were not uncommon at all.

I love me a bromance. Just something about two guys with a brotherly bond strong enough that they would die for one another touches the heartstrings. Though romantic relationships tend to be considered the ultimate embodiment of love, I think that’s not fair to parental relationships, sibling relationships, and friendships.

As I said, I appreciate a good bromance, but looking at my favorite books, I realized that…well, only one or two series have them. (My favorite movie on the other hand has about five going on, so maybe that makes up for it.)

Ron Weasley and Harry Potter are one of my favorite bromances along with the Winchesters and Castiel of Supernatural. There’s all the complexities and nuances of close interpersonal relationship without the BS that comes with romance. They tease each other, they play pranks on each other, they fight for each other, and they’re willing to die for each other (which the Supernatural boys plainly demonstrate about once a season).

I think writers would do well to add in more bromances. Personally, I’ve kind of had them in my published works (Armandius and Velaskas of Argetallam Saga could maybe qualify. As well as Karile and Saoven in later books). But haven’t really tackled them the way I am in this WIP for summer 2015 (yes, I’m talking about the assassin one again—here’s that Pinterest board for like the umpteenth time).

Anyone else here like a bromance? Have a favorite?