Girls Rule and Boys Drool…for now!

Whew, the last couple days have been busy, busy, busy. I finished up the first draft of the novella I’m tentatively calling Nemesis and now I’m about elbows deep in the second draft. Coupled on top of that are the ongoing edits and redrafts of Infinity Lost and Mind Breach (books 1.5 and 2 in the Firstborn Saga respectively), so needless to say, this and last week have been very busy. By the way, that’s not a bad thing, and should by no means be taken as a complaint. I just wanted to lay the groundwork for why this post is technically a day behind schedule.

So for those of you with short term memory problems I’ll remind you that the other day I wrote about gender norms in the toy aisle, and since you have memory problems I’ll also remind you that you absolutely loved everything I said and agreed to give me a hundred dollar. Not sure why, precisely, but hey, they were your words not mine, so pay up already!

*quickly stuffs your money into my g-string* No take-backsies! Muahaha.

Oh, god… I tried finding a funny gstring picture for you all. Oh, jesus, I should of defined my search parameters more specifically than “guy in g-string”.

Anyways, that post brought up some really good discussion points that I wanted to fondle a bit before moving onto the main topic.

– Boys had to sit in the backseat on the last post, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t suffering from advertising/toy companies shoddy gender stereotypes. As pointed out by a very astute commentator, we still live in a culture that perceives “masculine” as good and “feminine” as bad. Case in point, it’s okay for girls to dress as “boys” and play with “boy” toys, but the reverse is not true. Boys are ostracized for liking the color pink, or wanting to play with dolls, or glitter, or anything that has become part of our cultural lexicon as “feminine”.

Regardless, these terms are outdated in their scope and need to die quick, horrible deaths at the hands of a wood-chipper ala Fargo.

– My friend Zach pointed out that it’s lame the only two modalities seem to be either “pink princess” or “squinty eyed, scowling tomboy”. I think in particular he was calling me out for using the phrase “she kicks ass on her own terms and doesn’t take shit from noone.”

And rightly so. But I want to clarify what I meant.

There are a ton of ways to write your character whether it be male or female. The ones we typically get behind, however, are the ones that have strong agency. That is, they exert their will on the story rather than letting the story act on them. When I say, “she kicks ass”, I didn’t necessarily mean that literally (though in the case of this particular character–Black Widow–it was in reference to her beating some people up.

More so what I meant was simply that she has agency. She is doing stuff and making decisions that alter the course of the story. I use the phrase “kicks ass” because I’m lazy and rely on cliches to do a lot of my literary heavy lifting, so sue me.

Okay, moving on from that, as I promised in that last post, here are a couple of my favorite strong female leads. Not all of them physically kick ass, but for one reason or another, they all kick “figurative ass” much like little Riley in those videos I posted.

So here’s my top ten list in no particular order:

Lagartha Lothbrok – Vikings

Vikings is pretty much the only show that the History channel has ever gotten right. Seasons one and two were amazing. Season three has been a bit of a let down for me, but hey, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad, right Meatloaf? (Any 80’s children out there?)

Lagertha exerts her will constantly in one of the most patriarchal societies imaginable. She’s not afraid to mix it up with the boys, but she doesn’t act like one of the boys. And that’s amazing. With a character like this, it would be so easy to simply make her into a male with boobs. Thankfully the show creators haven’t done that and the end result is my second favorite character in the entire show.

Hermione Granger – Harry Potter Series

Hermoine kept popping into my head as I thought about this topic because she is the quintessential strong female character. Harry and Ron, like a couple nimkapoops, keep getting their heads stuck places they don’t belong (ya know, like between a railing or something).

If not for Hermione the Harry Potter franchise would’ve been one book long and a dud–mostly on account of the fact that Harry would’ve died within the first half of the first book. What I love about Hermione is the fact that she isn’t simply a scowly faced tomboy. She has her own lists of wants and desires and she enacts her will throughout the story to achieve those wants. Even more amazing is the fact that she does all this while effectively being a support character for the first five or so books.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Harry, our main character, is really lame when it comes to agency and having wants/wishes. He does very little throughout the story, it seems. Rather, a lot is happening to him, to which he reacts, but he’s not initiating much.

Shai – The Emperor’s Soul – Brandon Sanderson

Brandon Sanderson takes a step away from writing the epic fantasy with this novella, for which he won a Hugo no less. If you haven’t read anything from Sanderson this might be a good starting point. It’s short and very accessible. Though, I’d argue all his stuff is accessible, they are rarely short. So there ya go.

Shai is an amazing character. Deep and insightful with twisted motivations that constantly keep you guessing. Whenever it seems as though she’s falling into a single category, she defies your expectations and changes in a subtle way.

For those of you unfamiliar with The Emperor’s Soul, Shai is a Forger who goes around using a complex magic system to create forgeries of priceless masterpieces. We pick up with her after she gets nipped by the boys in blue and we spend the rest of the story with her as she is given an impossible task to achieve, otherwise they’re gonna kill her. The way she works through her situation, and ultimately saves herself, are fantastic.

Miriam Black – Blackbirds – Chuck Wendig

Miriam Black is such an awesome character, but you don’t have to take my word for it, she’ll soon be coming to a television. I love this character because she is dark and gritty. Her past is troubling to say the least, but she doesn’t let that keep her down. She’s by no means an optimist, but she’s also not a fatalist. At no point does Miriam ever lay down and give up. The story tries to push her in one direction, and she shoves it right back, kicks it in the shin, and spits in its eye for good measure.

She kicks literal ass, but only ’cause she’s a scrapper. There is no high end special op’s training that allows her to twirly-bird her way through the bad guys. Instead, she gets in the muck and gets dirty, when she has too. Which is kind of a lot because she runs her mouth at a prodigious clip. But that’s who she is and she’s unapologetic about that to the extreme.

Miriam Black is a polarizing character, for sure, but nobody can ever accuse her of being weak-willed.

Alright Kiddos, that’s enough from me. Now it’s your turn. Get down to the comments and share your favorite female leads, or hey, if you want to be contrarian, tell us your least favorite female leads. That could be just as, if not more, entertaining!