writeontheedge:
flo-lore-writes:
throneofno:
I do really wish, in YA books, that we could have...
I do really wish, in YA books, that we could have multiple female protagonists who don’t look down on each other. Can we, for once, have a protagonist who isn’t the epitome of goodness and who doesn’t condescend towards any other girl who behaves differently than her?
Can we have actual female friendships, that are portrayed as being just as important (if not more) than romantic relationships? Even in stories where the main couple isn’t straight, it’s framed as though romance is always more important than platonic relationships.
Could we finally get a protagonist treating her friends like they’re actually fucking important to her, and not using them as pawns or tools? That’s fine if it’s portrayed as a legitimate character flaw, but it isn’t. In Throne of Glass, Aelin only starts treating other girls like actual people when they bow down to her and say she’s the best-queen-who-ever-lived-ever.
This is so frustrating to me, because all these tropes are so prevalent. You’re lucky if you can find a book with one positive female relationship, let alone more than two. This needs to change.
(This ended up being kind of ranty, ignore this.)
THIS.
Writers (and even female writers?!) seem to think that women fight more than we actually do, and for the most ridiculous reasons. I’m sick of seeing women in fiction fight over petty shit or be nasty to each other, especially when the author has set up a patriarchal fantasy world. “Oh, here’s women fighting each other even though I’ve set the world up so that they have to fight men for respect anyway, but they’d still be catty to each other OBVIOUSLY. #GirlPower”
Why don’t we get women who fight over something other than men? Women that straight out loathe one another and have blood feuds unlike anything you’ve ever seen, who are brutal and uncompromising and unapologetically opposed to one another? Women that fight for land, for status, for their families, for respect. If we want to see men fight over something other than women all we have to do is read a fantasy novel with “kings” in the title, but women’s vilification or aggression is so inherently tied to their sexuality and role in relation to men and I just … I want more. I want women that are out-and-out fucking horrible people and who aren’t woobified or jilted exes, who aren’t “crazy” or whatever gross thing people keep trying to pull. If they trade sex for power, don’t make that a building block for all that is evil about them. If they don’t, that doesn’t mean they’re prudish or cold.
Point being, women have the same scope as men in the real world both positively and negatively. Why can’t we show that in fiction?
This is so accurate.
Another thing that is missing from YA: friendships between males and females that aren’t romantic in any way. In pretty much every YA book I’ve read, the main purpose of the protagonist having a friend of the opposite gender is to create a romantic subplot. I understand that romance is a great way to add tension to a book, but I’d love to see some male/female friendships that are strong without the characters having romantic interests in each other.
I especially hate when female characters are introduced for the sole purpose of being the male protagonist’s love interest. Or when a female protagonist has no purpose or happiness until a male character comes and sweeps her off her feet.
YA writers, keep this post in mind, especially if you’re a female writer.
