Warning: Feminist rant below

It's what I do best!

After talking about why there is no real female equivalent to the bearded male wizard who is more powerful than everyone else and acts as a mentor to the hero of the story, I wanted to find some sort of character archetype that could match. Unfortunately, almost every powerful female magic user in the most famous stories of magic seem to be evil. It’s unfortunate, but I guess it goes back to misogyny (doesn’t everything, really?) and is a reflection of just how far society hasn’t come since the days of accusing random women of being witches. Sorry to go off on a feminist rant, but no, I’m actually not sorry.

I tend to prefer fantasy books, but I’ve unfortunately been disappointed by most fantasy novels intended for adults, because they typically tend to feature male protagonists. No offense to male characters or men in general, but to be honest…God, I am sick of you. I’m not being completely serious but it seems like authors who write fantasy novels with female protagonists are encouraged to write only young adult fiction, not adult fiction, because of the mistaken belief that women don’t read fantasy or science fiction (both of which are, incidentally, my favorite genres. Hmm.). It’s kind of sad that even in fantasy, where magic is an equalizer, when theoretically, anyone can be powerful, even if they lack physical strength, women are still seen as somehow lesser. It’s fantasy, and yet even in fantasy it’s hard to find someone to identify with. I’m not saying I can’t identify with male characters, because I’ve had to my entire life, but it’s because I’ve had to identify with male characters my entire life that it frustrates me so much to be unable to find female representation.

Hermione is great, but she’s not the lead. McGonagall is amazing too, but she’s not Dumbledore. And this is a young adult series. When I do find even young adult series with female protagonists in a fantasy environment, there are almost always stupid love triangles, making the book primarily a romance novel, rather than a book of fantasy. Even my favorite author falls victim to the dreaded love triangle sometimes (although she’s gotten way better about that over the years; there is still romance, yes, but at least the love triangles are gone). Women like romance novels, I guess? Is that all we’re supposed to read? I don’t understand that mindset. Men are expected to have diverse interests and are encouraged to be enthusiastic about “nerdy” things, and women…we like pink. And…romance. I like pink, but there is way more to me than that, and I’m not a fan of romance novels at all. 

This isn’t a problem exclusive to fantasy, but it is a problem with society, that there is a double standard even in novels. Authors are, of course, under no obligation to write something they don’t want to write, but it makes me really sad to think of how easily a male protagonist could be changed to a female, with no distinct differences between them, and how rarely it actually happens. And it seems especially unjust in a genre featuring magic, where all genders should be equal…but they aren’t.

(And if my math is correct, this should finally be 3,000 words)

Back to the fairy tales

                I really like fairy tales and while I can’t exactly speak for why people still enjoy reading them after all this time, I know that I like them because the originals, at least, demonstrate a level of cruelty and brutality that isn’t found in modern versions of the same stories. That’s not to say the modern ones aren’t good, too, but the originals were more true to life, while still being fantastical, just in different ways. Real life is painful and bloody, and sometimes if you really want something you can’t have, you have to cut off your toe or your heel in order to fit into the role you want for yourself. Maybe that wasn’t the message I was supposed to get from Cinderella, but it does sound pretty true. People are willing to do ridiculous and painful things in order to get what they want. And sometimes you can do everything right, you can work really hard to get what you want, without hurting anyone in the process, and still be pushed off a tower by a witch and blinded by thorns. At least fairy tales leave you with the promise that, despite being blinded through no fault of your own other than making the wrong witch angry, maybe you can still find your princess (and newborn twins, oops) and live happily ever after. Metaphorically speaking, that is.

                Life sucks, and nobody could tell us that better than Hansel and Gretel, I think. Not only were they starving, but their stepmother obviously wanted them dead, ordering her husband—their father—to leave them in the woods to fend for themselves. And their father actually did it?! It seems unreal, but we see stories like this on the news all the time, with people who everyone says “would never hurt anyone” doing terrible things to each other, sometimes out of desperation, sometimes out of love, and sometimes because they are just honestly terrible people. This part of the story absolutely rings true. The part with the witch…well, yeah, it’s very unlikely you’re going to run into an edible house owned by a witch who wants to eat you, but their lives already pretty much sucked, so it’s not too surprising, within the story. As for the duck at the end, well, we discussed in class how they were lost and obviously couldn’t trust any adults in their lives, so a talking animal is the best guide they could have. And even despite all this, despite everything happening because their father couldn’t say no to his wife, couldn’t say, “Hey, these are my kids! How about I leave you in the woods instead?” they accept him when they return home. That’s a level of forgiveness I think I would like to have, even if it may seems silly and naïve.

                Speaking of silly and naïve, I think remembering that Snow White is 7 years old in the original story is really important. At 7, she is pure and innocent, but also young and naïve, which is how the queen was able to trick her several times. I think this story is as much about hospitality toward strangers than about not being an evil person or you’ll be forced to dance in hot iron shoes until you die (again, metaphorically). The dwarves are unendingly hospitable to Snow White, allowing her to stay in their house in return for cleaning, taking care of her by warning her not to open the door for anyone, and when they think she is dead, they make a beautiful coffin for her. They are under no obligation to do anything for her, but they do. Then we have Snow White, who tries to be hospitable in return to the old peddler woman (despite the dwarves’ warnings) and it backfires on her, multiple times. Is Snow White just a poor judge of character, or are the dwarves wrong to trust Snow White, simply based on the fact that she is a young girl? Maybe the fact that the old woman can’t be trusted more accurately illustrates how evil she is, that she takes advantage of Snow White’s hospitality, and tries to kill her anyway. Hospitality toward strangers was definitely valued in medieval society, so I can’t imagine that the story is conveying the message that strangers are not to be trusted. Even if she is naïve, Snow White’s kindness toward strangers is considered a virtue, and her goodness makes the queen seem that much more evil. In modern society, we definitely still have our “Snow Whites” and our “evil queens,” those people who are so good and pure that anyone who is mean to them (though hopefully not to the same extent) is seen as even worse in comparison to their goodness. Although I would say hospitality is still praised in modern society, we are also much more suspicious, to the extent that we can’t easily understand why Snow White would continue to trust an old peddler woman after being tricked several times. 

In Defense of Miranda

I’ve read The Tempest before and it’s actually one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream are the only plays by Shakespeare I really enjoy, in fact. I don’t know if it’s because of the magical element or if that is just a coincidence, but it’s probably something to think about. Prospero is kind of a jerk and is definitely full of himself, but for a powerful magic user, he sure lets his spirit, Ariel, do most of the work. Honestly, I find him a little bit boring, and Miranda is a much more interesting character (I’ll admit, I’m usually drawn to the women in Shakespeare’s plays, simply because their characters are so far in the background most of the time that I think it’s interesting to figure out what they are thinking when their male companions act like idiots).

It’s strange that not many people seem to want to analyze Miranda. They focus on Prospero, Ferdinand, and even Caliban, but few critics seem to want to look at Miranda at all. I guess it’s because she seems to fit the role Prospero intends for her. She is a dutiful, innocent daughter who falls in love with the first man she sees who isn’t her father or his slave, just as Prospero intends. I think it’s interesting, though, that Prospero uses his books to educate Miranda. She may be under her father’s control, like everyone else, but she has some level of education, as well. Prospero does not allow her to read his magic books, apparently, but she has to know what they are and what he does. It makes me wonder if, when everyone returns to civilization, Miranda will become like her father, absorbing herself in occult knowledge, and become just as powerful as he is.

 Despite Miranda’s position as being under her father’s control, and therefore under the control of male authority, she does speak against him several times, in Act I, scene ii, when she begs her father to stop the tempest, and again in the same scene, beginning around line 467, when Prospero freezes Ferdinand and she begs him to be nicer to him. Miranda may be young and naïve, but based on her ability to protest some of her father’s actions, I don’t believe it’s fair to say that she has no will of her own. Especially considering she lived her entire life on an island, with her only exposure to other people being her father and Caliban, her naivety and devotion to her father, and even the haste with which she falls in love and marries Ferdinand, is understandable.  I believe that with more life experience, and after meeting many new people, Miranda could possibly become a stronger, more independent woman. 

Even if she does not, that does not make her an inherently bad character or a reason for scorn. Miranda’s good traits are plentiful, despite living on a mostly uninhabited island and only having two men who are, basically, complete jerks for company. She is compassionate and loving, two words that would not describe either Prospero or Caliban, and while they are considered feminine traits, neither is bad in any way. Her calm demeanor and gentle innocence are also what calm Prospero’s rage, it seems. Prospero genuinely cares about his daughter and while he has his plan in mind before she protests what she believes is his murder of everyone on the ship, perhaps without her influence, his rage may have been so great that he would have simply killed everyone instead. 

Essentially, Miranda is a much more important character than she may seem to be at first, both in the role she plays as Prospero’s pawn and in her overall character. She may seem to be passive, but in a way, her passivity is exactly what her character, and the other characters, need, and is something that she shows hints of outgrowing even early in the play.

(Week 2 of 5)

My thoughts on Merlin

Even though I hadn’t seen the TV show Merlin before, I sort of knew a lot about it because it was everywhere on Tumblr a few years ago and it was kind of hard to escape. I never really had an interest in the show at all, but the first episode sort of drew me in. Great, now I have another show I have to watch and no time to watch it.

Anyway, my personal view of Merlin has always been the eccentric old wizard from Disney’s version of The Sword in the Stone, and when I found out we were going to read excerpts from the book, I was expecting to find out that a lot had been changed from the book to the movie. I was kind of surprised to find out that that wasn’t the case. The whole aging backwards thing really confuses me and I still don’t completely understand how that works, but maybe I would if I read the whole story.

Thinking about what was removed from the story compared to the earlier Merlin stories, it makes sense that Merlin’s origin story, being the son of a demon and getting his powers from God and the demons would be removed in modern tales of Merlin, because that is kind of a controversial detail. Also, I’m glad that creepy old Merlin hitting on a fifteen-year-old girl does not seem to be a thing anymore. That was a little bit too much for me to handle while reading the Prose Merlin. It’s kind of interesting how Merlin has been dumbed down, in a way, though. As time goes on and different adaptations are made, Merlin seems to know less and less about the world and about his own powers, so that when the TV show came out, this Merlin has no idea why he can do magic, and no longer has the knowledge of either the past or the future. It makes me wonder what a future Merlin will be like. Will he even have any magical abilities at all? I imagine he would have to have some kind of magic, or he wouldn't be Merlin anymore.

On a side note, I laughed when I realized one of Merlin’s incantations was just him asking Neptune to make Wart a fish written backwards. Are you kidding me?

Even after reading and watching these different versions of Merlin, I’m pretty sure the image in my head is still of this guy:

And it probably always will be, since he was my first exposure to the character of Merlin, and The Sword in the Stone was my favorite movie when I was a kid.

(Week 1 of 5)

Magical Segregation, or Why I'm Not a Potterhead

I think the biggest magic-related news story right now is that of JK Rowling's announcement that she is going to be screenwriting a movie based on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a book that exists within the world of Harry Potter. It seems like I can't escape this story; people have been flipping out about it on Tumblr and Facebook since its announcement. It's gotten bad enough that I have to make an important announcement: I am not, nor have I ever been, a fan of Harry Potter.

While a huge chunk of the reason behind my distaste for the series stems from its popularity (I'll be honest, there is a bit of a hipster side to me), mostly because the fans can be...obnoxious, to say the least (I remember the days when the fandom pretty much ruled LiveJournal), there are other reasons, too. I never found many of the characters to be very interesting, with the exceptions of Luna and Neville, both of whom ended up being as awesome as I hoped they would be. The characters everyone seemed to adore--Snape being a major example--always seemed gross and needy to me, and I will never understand their appeal. I think a large part of my avoidance of Harry Potter for my teen years, and the reason I only decided to give it another chance when I was twenty-one, was the separation of the "muggle" and magical worlds.

Yes, there was some overlap between them. There had to be, with characters like Hermione, who had muggle parents (don't even get me started on my hatred of the term "muggle"), but it seemed like, at Hogwarts at least, students didn't need to learn practical things like normal kids did. Where were the science classes, the regular math classes (okay, they had a wizard equivalent, but I don't count that), even literature classes? If they existed, we didn't really see them through Harry's eyes. Of course there would be more of an emphasis on magic for the students at a magical school, but what if one day magic disappeared? Those kids would be woefully underprepared for a world without magic. Hermione would probably be okay, but kids like Ron would be completely lost. The segregation of the magical and non-magical worlds has always seemed pretty ridiculous to me.

I think that, despite the word "occult" literally meaning "hidden" or "secret," I prefer my fantasy series to be a little more open about the existence of magic. That might be why my favorite young adult author is Tamora Pierce. At least in her books, people know magic exists, even if they can't all use it. And kids who receive magical educations also learn the "boring" stuff, which makes for a well-rounded mage, in my opinion. I don't think I would trust a magic user whose basic educational background stopped at age ten, but maybe that's just me. Besides that, the idea of a whole separate society existing in this world, made of people who can use magical while the rest of us can't, just makes me feel sad. Why can't I be magical too? I'd rather have no magic in the world at all than a world where people are separated based on an ability, or lack of an ability, to fly through the air on a broomstick.