Give me more female heroines, damnit

[schneefink]

I just read Rick Riordan's "House of Hades". (I read the other books in the series out of order and over the course of several years, so I don't remember all the details.)

I enjoyed it more than I expected. I also haven't had a stronger wish to see a cast genderbent than this one in ages.


It's not that the female characters are treated badly. Annabeth is great, so are Hazel and Piper and Reyna, and in the first books Clarisse etc. Sure, the books have a stronger romance aspect than I'd prefer - does everyone have to be paired up? - but ymmv.

But if you gave me a description of the characters and made me guess which ones were male and female I'm pretty sure I'd get all of them right.

I want female!Percy and female!Jason, daughters of the most powerful gods and leaders of their peers. I want male!Annabeth, no obvious superpowers and relying on his wits, and with conflicted romantic feelings, but not the center of what's happening. Male!Piper, and many more male children of Aphrodite; more female children of male gods and male children of female gods, please. I want female!Leo and female!Frank, working with machines and fire and weapons and war strategy. I want female!Nico the Ghost Queen and male!Hazel attracting jewels and gold.

It just seems a bit like the author took the easy way: many of the characters are "known" in these genders (the hero, the smart love interest, the mechanic, the war general, the charmer, the witch) and it would be much more interesting to switch it up. Off the top of my head I can't recall a female character with a role similar to Percy's and of similar importance to the plot in a popular series, which is sad. (But I haven't read a lot of YA/fantasy recently, they probably exist somewhere.)

Comments

[arduinna]

Try Tamora Pierce. She tends toward female leads, and all of her girls and women are different -- they span classes, interests, and abilities.

[schneefink]

I know her books, and yeah, I forgot about Alanna :) My favorite of hers are the Emelan books, and while they have three fantastic female main characters, none of them are the ~heroic type that Percy is, especially in terms of outside acknowledgement.

[ambyr]

The "outside acknowledgement as hero" part is the hard one, I think. I can think of plenty of recent YA with female action leads, but there's generally some explicit subversion in them taking the role, or they're more of a trickster or shadow power type. Even Alanna doesn't get to be The Hero in quite the same way until later in her life, when she's champion.

[schneefink]

Agreed. Like Katniss, who is made a heroic symbol against her will. Comics superheroines are heroic, but also one hero among many. (The only one who stands out is Wonder Woman, but I don't know her enough.)

[zombieallomorph]

Have you read the Nightrunner series by Lynn Flewelling? I've been told her other series aren't any good, but Nightrunner has some very cool female characters (although the protagonists are male - but bi!)

[schneefink]

I haven't, but I'll see if they have them at the library :)

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

I may be wildly off-base, but you might like Runemarks, by Joanne Harris, as far as myth-based YA goes.

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip! I'll see if they have it at the library.