(no subject)
Apr. 11th, 2011 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tylikA few random thoughts on gender and fiction
So, I was reading the fourth Honor Harrington book, and the standard light fiction as analgesia thing that I often do when my spine is fried. It's been a while since I've read any of them, and it's one I never read before. (And if I'm reading fluff fiction, I am skewing my purchases towards DRM-free ebooks. Which, yes, I pay for.) I remember them mostly as fun fluff with some vaguely interesting military extrapolation, if with a fair bit of annoying, too. This one... Well, (spoilers ahead for anyone who cares and hasn't read this one, which seems like a pretty small group) so Honor's lover is killed. Her immediate reactions are that she lies down on her bed and refuses to eat, talk, or otherwise do anything for some unspecified time. (But long enough for her to lose substantial weight - though between her high metabolism and the general tendency for writers to play up this kind of drama, who knows?)
Then she starts training for revenge. Which, okay, not really my thing, but it seems reasonable... except, of course, it's all planned out as a revenge and suicide.
So Honor strikes me as an interesting character for many reasons. The books themselves are kind of strokes of marketing genius - I mean, on the one hand, strong female character, a fair bit of strategic detail, lots of melodrama in the plot-line, and fergodsakes an intelligent empathic six legged cat that rides around on her shoulder. I sometimes wonder if Weber actually sat down and thought "Y'know, if I could write a series that could bring in both the military SF buff and the Mercedes Lackey fans, I'd have it made!"
Honor... well, considering that she's general accepted as a strong female character (not unreasonably) and the books are quite popular, there's a lot in there about conception of the feminine. Okay, Weber's conceptions of the feminine, but they apparently resonate. She kicks ass in battle, wields authority capably... and is secretly wounded, lonely and vulnerable. While being surrounded by legions of people who love her, are devoted to her, and would like to protect her (but only rarely can).
The portrayal of her reactions strikes me as pretty specifically feminine - particularly in terms of the collapse, and the extent to which she's wrapped up in a relationship in a way in which her lover's death must lead to her own. But I'm wondering how much that's more general melodrama.
So I'm wondering about examples of male character's reactions in similar situations - both in terms of male characters in books aimed primarily at women, and those aimed at a more general audience or primarily for men. There are certainly plenty of examples of men who are motivated by a deceased spouse (usually a deceased spouse and children) - not usually by a lover of a few months. Not always to their own deaths (though there are examples - most that spring to mind involve class distinctions between the aggrieved men and those that killed their women and/or families). And I can't think of one right off with the major collapse, except perhaps Lackey's Vanyel, who is, I think the exception that proves the rule. But I'm probably missing all kinds of things.
Oh, and speaking of women in refigerators, on a completely different subject, it's occasionally bounced through my head that Lisa Sato in Bujold's Cryoburn [possible spoilers] is in many ways an answer to the woman in the refrigerator. I poked around a bit to see if other people were looking at this... and a few were, but most referred to Mile's rescuing her, which I think is missing the point. She was Dr. Lieber's woman in the refrigerator (particularly considering the way he'd acquired her cryo-chamber and was keeping her rather like some Snow White). And she got out of the Cryochamber, got to confront Lieber, his rather abstract romantic intention and conviction that he was rescuring her, and chewed him out but good. It may not be an ideal resolution, but it gave me a good chuckle, at least.
So, I was reading the fourth Honor Harrington book, and the standard light fiction as analgesia thing that I often do when my spine is fried. It's been a while since I've read any of them, and it's one I never read before. (And if I'm reading fluff fiction, I am skewing my purchases towards DRM-free ebooks. Which, yes, I pay for.) I remember them mostly as fun fluff with some vaguely interesting military extrapolation, if with a fair bit of annoying, too. This one... Well, (spoilers ahead for anyone who cares and hasn't read this one, which seems like a pretty small group) so Honor's lover is killed. Her immediate reactions are that she lies down on her bed and refuses to eat, talk, or otherwise do anything for some unspecified time. (But long enough for her to lose substantial weight - though between her high metabolism and the general tendency for writers to play up this kind of drama, who knows?)
Then she starts training for revenge. Which, okay, not really my thing, but it seems reasonable... except, of course, it's all planned out as a revenge and suicide.
So Honor strikes me as an interesting character for many reasons. The books themselves are kind of strokes of marketing genius - I mean, on the one hand, strong female character, a fair bit of strategic detail, lots of melodrama in the plot-line, and fergodsakes an intelligent empathic six legged cat that rides around on her shoulder. I sometimes wonder if Weber actually sat down and thought "Y'know, if I could write a series that could bring in both the military SF buff and the Mercedes Lackey fans, I'd have it made!"
Honor... well, considering that she's general accepted as a strong female character (not unreasonably) and the books are quite popular, there's a lot in there about conception of the feminine. Okay, Weber's conceptions of the feminine, but they apparently resonate. She kicks ass in battle, wields authority capably... and is secretly wounded, lonely and vulnerable. While being surrounded by legions of people who love her, are devoted to her, and would like to protect her (but only rarely can).
The portrayal of her reactions strikes me as pretty specifically feminine - particularly in terms of the collapse, and the extent to which she's wrapped up in a relationship in a way in which her lover's death must lead to her own. But I'm wondering how much that's more general melodrama.
So I'm wondering about examples of male character's reactions in similar situations - both in terms of male characters in books aimed primarily at women, and those aimed at a more general audience or primarily for men. There are certainly plenty of examples of men who are motivated by a deceased spouse (usually a deceased spouse and children) - not usually by a lover of a few months. Not always to their own deaths (though there are examples - most that spring to mind involve class distinctions between the aggrieved men and those that killed their women and/or families). And I can't think of one right off with the major collapse, except perhaps Lackey's Vanyel, who is, I think the exception that proves the rule. But I'm probably missing all kinds of things.
Oh, and speaking of women in refigerators, on a completely different subject, it's occasionally bounced through my head that Lisa Sato in Bujold's Cryoburn [possible spoilers] is in many ways an answer to the woman in the refrigerator. I poked around a bit to see if other people were looking at this... and a few were, but most referred to Mile's rescuing her, which I think is missing the point. She was Dr. Lieber's woman in the refrigerator (particularly considering the way he'd acquired her cryo-chamber and was keeping her rather like some Snow White). And she got out of the Cryochamber, got to confront Lieber, his rather abstract romantic intention and conviction that he was rescuring her, and chewed him out but good. It may not be an ideal resolution, but it gave me a good chuckle, at least.
