Top Ten *cof*day – Favourite Literary Heroines

The Broke and the Bookish, as you may know, host a fantastic meme every week called Top Ten Tuesday. Since I no longer regularly post on Tuesdays, this means I don’t really have any right, goshdurnit, to take part in the endeavour.

But this week – this week, I had no choice. They’re asking about my Top Ten Literary Heroines. Come on. I had to get involved in this, even if it’s a day late.

I have so many literary heroines that I had to create a longlist, and then a shortlist, and then a shorter shortlist. I’ve sweated and wept over these choices. I had to invoke criteria, like ‘no two characters written by the same author’ (which was painful, particularly when it came to Philip Pullman, Terry Pratchett and Frances Hardinge) and ‘they can’t all be from children’s books’. But, never one to shirk a challenge, I battled my way to a final list of ten.

And here they are, in no particular order of preference – because that, my friends, would’ve pushed my fragile mind right over the edge.

Top Ten Literary Heroines

Coraline Jones from Coraline

Image: coraline.wikia.com

What, I ask you, is not to love about this character? Clever, brave, adventurous, resolutely ungirly (oh, how I do love an ungirly girl), possessed of a powerful sense of justice and owner of the world’s coolest name, Coraline is a character who wriggled her way into my heart from the first second I met her. I was given a copy of Coraline by a dear friend, many years ago, as a birthday present, back when I wasn’t entirely familiar with Neil Gaiman as an author who wrote for children, and it isn’t overstating anything to say it changed my life. I adore her, and I adore her story, and I love her parents (the non button-eyed ones, at least), and I love the cast of crazy supporting characters who people her world. She rocks.

Lirael of the Clayr from Lirael and Abhorsen

I love pretty much all of the female characters in Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom books, and with good reason. They’re kick-ass (even the ones who don’t fight); none of them are superfluous, or objectified, or belittled because of their gender, or considered to be in any way less capable than the men in their world; they own their own sexualities and are unashamed of their own feelings, and they prove, time and again, that they can meet and exceed any challenge put in their path. Lirael is a great example of all this fabulousness, but she’s also amazing in her own right – a girl who feels she has no role in her world, who is a Daughter of the Clayr but who never awakens into the Clayr’s power as a seer, and who feels for many years like an embarrassment or a mistake, she is forced to find her own path. After struggling to fit in for many years, she eventually learns she has a far greater calling than she ever imagined and a much bigger role in the fate of her world than she or anyone else could have guessed. Also, she gets to use a sword and walk in Death, which is awesome.

Neverfell from A Face Like Glass

Choosing a top heroine from Frances Hardinge’s work was, I admit, a challenge. I could have gone for Triss, or Hathin, or Mosca Mye, but Neverfell was the one who called to me. The heroine of Hardinge’s masterful novel A Face Like Glass, Neverfell is the girl who falls into a vat of cheese in the underground city of Caverna, where nobody can form facial expressions and where everyone must be taught, by an elite group known as Facesmiths, how to arrange their faces to suit a certain, proscribed, set of emotions. Neverfell, however, is not stymied in the face department. Whatever she feels or thinks comes out in her expressions, which makes her incendiary in the world of Caverna, and marks her out as special – or, perhaps, worth getting rid of… Like all Hardinge’s heroines, Neverfell is spunky, sparky, clever, curious, undaunted by danger, possessed of a fierce determination to get to the bottom of whatever’s going on and full of hidden talents which come in handy at unexpected times. Is it any wonder I love her?

Katsa from the Graceling trilogy

Image: movieweb.com

It’s been far too long since I read these books, and I don’t own them anymore so I can’t just dip in and remind myself how good they are – curses. I will always remember Katsa, though, whose power and grace (not just her Graced power, which makes her a formidable fighter) as well as her compassion, strength and loyalty made her one of the best female characters I’ve ever read. Like the women in Garth Nix’s books, those in Kristin Cashore’s Graceling books are strong, independent, confident and capable, and their badassery is legendary. Katsa is the queen of them all.

Marian McAlpin from The Edible Woman

Another author whose work is chock-full of amazing heroines is Margaret Atwood. I struggled to choose just one, but I went for Marian because I read The Edible Woman at a formative point in my life where the book meant a huge amount to me. The idea of being consumed by expectation, weighed down by a static, predetermined idea of what your life (as a woman) should be, and the effort it takes to fight against the tiny boxes that others try to put you in is, and was, a powerful one. Marian seems at first like a passive, acted-upon woman who bends to gender and social expectation, before turning everything around as the novel reaches its conclusion. I loved her, I loved the book, and I love Atwood. If you haven’t read this one, do.

The Dog Woman from Sexing the Cherry

Another author whose work bristles with fabulous women is Jeanette Winterson, but The Dog Woman will always be my favourite. Large, childless (until the river delivers her a son, whom she loves as tenderly as any mother ever loved a baby of their own body), seen by others as grotesque, without a place in the world besides at the margins, The Dog Woman is nevertheless bountiful, generous, loving and possessed of a spirit so huge it changes the world. I can’t explain how much I love her. I see myself in her, and I see every woman in her, and I see her as my example. She’s a masterful creation.

Granny Weatherwax from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels

Image: en.wikipedia.org

I surprised myself with this choice. I love so many female characters in the Discworld – Tiffany Aching, her grandmother, Sergeant Angua of the city Watch, all the witches – but I’ve always had a special fondness for Granny Weatherwax, whose common sense and straightforward way of looking at the world appeal to me. Unsentimental (yet deeply loving, despite it all), fiercely intelligent, braver than an army, possessed of knowledge beyond anyone’s understanding, and full of the most profound advice, she’s a character who comes across like a piece of flint until you realise that there’s nobody you’d rather have at your bedside when Death comes calling, or when disease strikes, or when you’re in your direst hour of need. If anyone can help, Granny can. Whether you’ll listen to her advice – now, that’s a different story…

Lyra Belacqua from His Dark Materials

Choosing Lyra meant I couldn’t have Sally Lockhart, but to be honest it wasn’t all that difficult a decision. Lyra Belacqua is another brave and resourceful and intelligent and stubborn and fiercely loyal character, and so I’m really not surprised by the depth of my affection for her. A girl brave enough to travel to the ends of the earth for her friends, intelligent enough to outsmart the king of the armoured bears, open-minded enough to see beyond appearances, loyal enough to do what’s right no matter what the personal cost to her, she’s straight-up incredible. What a literary achievement she is.

Sophie Hatter from Howl’s Moving Castle and its sequels

I’m beginning to see a theme here. Courageous, uncaring about appearances, not remotely girly, willing to do anything in the pursuit of knowledge, fiercely loyal, impulsive and unafraid to make mistakes, hard-working, never afraid to love, Sophie Hatter is a fabulous character. Her interplay with the wizard Howl in the books in which they feature is a delight – she is never, not even for a second, anything less than his equal. I love that.

Sophie from Rooftoppers

Ah, yes – another Sophie. Foster-child of Charles Maxim, brave defier of gravity, tireless searcher for her mother, Sophie is a character I love. Now, admittedly, she wouldn’t be half as cool without her incredible guardian by her side, who raises her to be the strong, confident, intellectually curious, prodigiously gifted girl she is, and who encourages her to follow every single dream (even those which are probably impossible), but the fact remains that Sophie, with Charles Maxim by her side, is an awesome and memorable heroine in a wonderful and moving book. (I’m still sighing over Charles Maxim, by the way. Have you read this book yet? If not, you really really should).

So, there you are. The girls and women whittled down from a very long list to form my Top Ten Literary Heroines. I bet I won’t have this post published five seconds before I’m regretting some of my choices and wishing to swap them out for others – but isn’t that a great indication of how many wonderful female characters there are to choose from in the wide world of literature? Yes. Yes it is. Anyway, happy middle-of-the-week to you. May all be well and perfect in your small corner of the earth.

 

 

Great Power and Great Responsibility

In my rambles around the internet this week, this article caught my eye. For the unclickables among you, it sets out the case for bad relationships during a girl’s teen years being more than just upsetting, and sad, and heartbreaking, but also the cause of much mental distress and – even – ill-health. Teenage girls can, apparently, define too much of themselves and invest an excessive amount of their self-worth in their relationships with others, particularly their romantic entanglements with boys, and when these relationships end it can shatter these fragile constructions of identity.

Claire Danes as Juliet in Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 ‘William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet’ – surely the prime example of teenage love gone off-kilter…
Image: hotflick.net

The article goes on to discuss how girls and women (I think the author’s focus was America, but we can use it as a general base for discussion) are encouraged to think of themselves in relation to others, as caregivers or supporters or ‘good’ people who make life easier for those around them; decorative creatures who bring beauty and light to the lives of their loved ones simply by existing. Sex and sexuality education place undue pressure on girls – as both gatekeepers and providers of others’ pleasure, they must operate in an impossible situation. Now, I’m not saying I entirely agree with the viewpoints put forth in this article, but I think it’s interesting nonetheless. The author makes mention of cultural factors in her discussion – the hysteria surrounding weddings, for instance, and the pressure on women to have a ‘perfect’ day and to look like a ‘princess’ – but one thing she doesn’t mention, which is something I think is important when we’re discussing teenage girls and fraught romance, is the trope of the ‘perfect’ boyfriend in YA literature.

Shailene Woodley as Hazel Grace Lancaster and Ansel Adams as Augustus (Gus) Waters in the promotional poster for the movie version of John Green’s novel ‘The Fault in Our Stars.’
Image: twitter.com

Movies, I think, have a lot to answer for – they’re the crucible of the perfect Hollywood romance of young girls’ dreams – but increasingly, too, YA novels (and, of course, their movie adaptations) mean that young female readers have more and more opportunity to lose their hearts to beautiful, flawless and – importantly – fictional men. A bit of romantic escapism is wonderful, of course; a little fantasy of how wonderful it would be to have someone love you the way Gus loves Hazel Grace, or Peeta loves Katniss – but when you start to bring those expectations into your real life, a phenomenon I’m pretty sure is not unknown to the teenage (and, sometimes, not so teenage) readers of these books, problems can arise.

For boys and men can’t live up to the standards of fictional heroes. Girls embarking upon tentative, tender relationships for the first time perhaps expect their partners to speak to them in the measured tones and poetic cadences of a John Green hero, or to be as strong, and yet supportive of their right to be themselves, as Four is to Tris or Po is to Katsa. I’m sure plenty of teenage readers understand that these characters are just that – characters – and are not supposed to reflect the reality of relationships, but perhaps there are some who find it harder to draw the demarcation line. As I was growing up, the only books we had to read about kids our own age were the ‘Babysitters’ Club’-types, the ‘Sweet Valley High’ sort of books which were, at their heart, more about girls than boys; I didn’t have an Augustus Waters to lose my heart to as a teen. My crushes were all movie-based, and that made it easier to exit the cinema, sighing, knowing that I was leaving behind the fiction and stepping back out into reality. I didn’t go home expecting Jack Dawson to come knocking on my front door with a glint in his eye – though it would have been amazing if he had.

Leonardo di Caprio as Jack Dawson, the hero of the movie ‘Titanic’ (1997)
Image: titanic3d.tumblr.com

Books are different. Books get into your heart in a way that movies don’t, I think. And the books that young people are reading these days are chock-full of the sorts of characters that grab the heart and mind, sweep the reader away into a fantastic world where male love interests are both strong and sympathetic, desirable and ‘safe’, utterly in love with the heroine and yet utterly respectful of her agency and boundaries. In so many ways, this is a great thing – girls are being given examples of the sorts of relationships which are healthy, and which will bring them satisfaction, and which they can strive for – but in another, it can be a drawback. They can start looking for this sort of mature relationship with boys who are not ready or able to give it to them (and for which they’re probably not ready themselves, if they were being honest), and when a boy acts like himself – goofy, and irresponsible, and interested in things besides his girlfriend, and fun-loving, and carefree, all things which are natural to him and which he should be doing at this stage of his life – his girlfriend can feel disappointed and disillusioned. Also, if girls’ expectations are raised, pressure is placed upon boys to conform, and that’s not a good thing either.

Writers of YA books have great power. The kidlit and YA market is a massive player in publishing, and fans read these books with utter devotion. But, of course, this great power has to bear responsibility for the mind-worlds it creates.

Perhaps – as I do with many things – I am overthinking this whole scenario. However, I do feel that the cultural landscape in which today’s teens are growing up and forming their ideas about love and relationships is entirely different to the one in which I formed mine; the Mr Darcy of ‘Pride and Prejudice’, whom I loved with my whole heart as a teenager, pales beside a modern literary hero. The ease with which I shifted between the fictional and actual worlds is perhaps unknown to teenagers today, who are surrounded by screens and .gifs and Tumblr and Twitter and Facebook and fan pages and discussion boards and goodness knows what else, all fuelling their dreams of romantic perfection. As I said, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of romantic escapism, and dreaming of the ‘perfect’ love which will one day be yours is something everyone does as a teenager, whether they read or not.

But it’s important to know that love is not perfect, because people are not perfect; it’s important to know that the love you read about and see in movies doesn’t always translate into real-life relationships. It’s important to know that there’s far more to life than who you’re dating, and that the only person to whom you owe happiness is yourself.

I wish I’d known all this when I was a kid. I wish today’s kids knew it, too.