Women in fantasy

[Zero Angel]

Have you read the book, Mask? The only bits of the movie that were any good were where they stayed close to the book. When things diverged, it got bad. Towards the end, Sophie is such a wet blanket passive character in the film. In the book she's still proactive. As for the "tough old woman", that's a favouroite trope of Miyazaki's. All his old women are like that. She lacks individuality throughout, with the age thing meaning that in the film, she gets two different personalities - tough old woman and sweet passive heroine, neither of which are unseen in Miyazaki's other movies. In fact I'd go as far as to say he really doesn't create interesting female characters, for how many of them are protagonists in his movies. They're almost none of the proactive except Nausicaa and Kiki, but rather reactive - following where the story takes them, doing what they're told they should do, letting others decide things for them. But even Nausicaa and Kiki are fairly flat, dull characters. There's barely any substance to them. In what way do any of Miyazaki's female main characters - Nausicaa, Kiki, Chihiro, Laputa, Mononoke and so on - actually stand out from one another in characterisation? It's all in their history and their social standing and what happens to them. Their motivations are plot-dictated; without them they are blank canvasses. Take them all from their individual stories and put them all in the same context, and they'd all just stand there waiting for something to happen or someone to explain to them what's going on.

I don't think San in Princess Mononoke is very strong and I don't recall Laputa (maybe I haven't seen that one), but I enjoyed Sophie more in the movie (also enjoyed turnip-head more, although that's off-topic). In the book, she seemed much more defined by her feelings for Howl. The only thing I disliked in the characterization of Sophie in the movie is stripping her of having magic (or at least not explicitly talking about the fact that she has magic).

Spoiler: Howl's Moving Castle Movie and Book

I also thought the inclusion of war between the two kingdoms instead of just leading up to war was logical and added to the story. It was necessary with removing the witch as the bad guy. I found the end of the book to be anti-climactic.

Why does that bother him so much? Also, has anyone here seen "Legend of Earthsea", the Sci-Fi channel miniseries?

I enjoyed the miniseries, fell asleep during the Studio Ghibli film. If I remember correctly, LeGuin disliked the miniseries for whitewashing the characters.

 

[Mindfire]

I enjoyed the miniseries, fell asleep during the Studio Ghibli film. If I remember correctly, LeGuin disliked the miniseries for whitewashing the characters.

I was both confused and angered by the whitewashing. But it had more problems than that. It completely mangled the story from the source material, meshing the first two books into a chimeric mess that no longer made any sense. And the special effects were beyond laughable. It was bad even by Sci-Fi standards.

 

[Chilari]

Why does that bother him so much? Also, has anyone here seen "Legend of Earthsea", the Sci-Fi channel miniseries?

I don't know why it bothers him so much. But he really hates it when people turn into dragons. Possibly because it's stupid, perhaps not a satisfying ending, often a sort of "he died, but not really" sort of sacrifice ending - certainly for Oblivion.

As for Howl's Moving Castle, I didn't like the inclusion of the war in the film. I liked that Howl's troubles all stemmed from things he did, and I like the he needed Sophie not only to stop him running from them all the time, but also to help him solve them. I felt the inclusion of the war in the Miyazaki film made it less personal, and frankly stupid. In fact Howl turning into a giant bird monster thing at the end bordered close enough to dragon that it made Matt rage too. I liked the original ending, where everything is happening at once in a big chaotic mess, falling apart and coming together in equal measure. The Wales bit was a bit off the wall, it's true, and perhaps the story could have as well been accomplished with a different setting - like the neighbouring country with which they were going to go to war - but making the black dot door lead to an airship in the middle of the war that Miyazaki basically made up didn't work. The whole second half of the movie was just Miyazaki trying to stamp his story over it and shoehorn another bloody flying contraption into it. He loves his flying contraptions, does Miyazaki.

I enjoyed the stage adaptation immensely. It pared the story back drastically to fit it all in, and made Howl more of a focus than Sophie, and it lacked some of the subtlety in the book, but again, cutting it back so harshly meant it had to. But it kept the core of it - that all of the story was essentially caused by Howl's weaknesses (for women, for the chase, and running away), and that because of those same weaknesses, he couldn't get out of trouble on his own. Also Stephen Fry narrated (in a recording, he wasn't there live unfortunately).

 

[Steerpike]

I don't know why it bothers him so much. But he really hates it when people turn into dragons. Possibly because it's stupid, perhaps not a satisfying ending, often a sort of "he died, but not really" sort of sacrifice ending - certainly for Oblivion.

I thought the bit with the dragon in Spirited Away made good sense. I like that film a lot, and Chihiro and Kiki are also my favorites from Miyazaki.

 

[Ophiucha]

I was both confused and angered by the whitewashing. But it had more problems than that. It completely mangled the story from the source material, meshing the first two books into a chimeric mess that no longer made any sense. And the special effects were beyond laughable. It was bad even by Sci-Fi standards.

I felt about the same. I actually like a few things the SyFy network makes (anyone seen Eureka? that's science fiction, not fantasy, but it's fantastic - and it has great female characters), but this one was just lazy. Basically boiled the whole story and setting down to its most base elements. And the whitewashing seemed particularly out of place when they didn't even cast particularly good or recognizable actors in the roles. I don't agree with it regardless, but at least when Iron Man 3 casts a white guy as the Mandarin, they go with Ben Kingsley. I think Ged was played by the kid who did Iceman in the X-Men films. Not exactly going to get people to set up their DVR.

@Chilari, Stephen Fry, you say? And where might I find this?

 

[Zero Angel]

I was both confused and angered by the whitewashing. But it had more problems than that. It completely mangled the story from the source material, meshing the first two books into a chimeric mess that no longer made any sense. And the special effects were beyond laughable. It was bad even by Sci-Fi standards.

I read it when I was a kid so I didn't realize the characters were a specific ethnicity, and I've already said that I didn't particular care for the story, so the miniseries was A-OK by me on all accounts

I don't know why it bothers him so much. But he really hates it when people turn into dragons. Possibly because it's stupid, perhaps not a satisfying ending, often a sort of "he died, but not really" sort of sacrifice ending - certainly for Oblivion.

Is he like that with dragons that can shapeshift back and forth? Because that's pretty common in the last 20 years or so. The Dragonlance Saga, D&D in general, The Halfblood Chronicles, etc. ...my series -_-

Haven't seen the play.

 

[Zero Angel]

I thought the bit with the dragon in Spirited Away made good sense. I like that film a lot, and Chihiro and Kiki are also my favorites from Miyazaki.

How could I forget Kiki? That's a good bildungsroman for a female character that isn't obsessed with romance for once.

 

[Mindfire]

I felt about the same. I actually like a few things the SyFy network makes (anyone seen Eureka? that's science fiction, not fantasy, but it's fantastic - and it has great female characters), but this one was just lazy. Basically boiled the whole story and setting down to its most base elements. And the whitewashing seemed particularly out of place when they didn't even cast particularly good or recognizable actors in the roles. I don't agree with it regardless, but at least when Iron Man 3 casts a white guy as the Mandarin, they go with Ben Kingsley. I think Ged was played by the kid who did Iceman in the X-Men films. Not exactly going to get people to set up their DVR.

@Chilari, Stephen Fry, you say? And where might I find this?

The Mandarin thing wasn't so much whitewashing as trying to avoid offending Chinese people. And I think Ben Kingsley is half-Indian, so whether it's truly "white"washing is debatable.

 

[Subcreator]

Mindfire, I looked it up, and you're right. Ben Kingsley's father was a Gujarati Indian who moved to England. He's pretty much the go-to guy for non-English characters: Gandhi, Moses, Pharaoh, and others that I can't remember. Also, I think it is more to avoid offending the Chinese. The idea of the Mandarin is what's called a "Yellow Menace" villain, which is pretty much a stereotype from the 19th and early 20th centuries. (For anyone who doesn't know, look up anti-Chinese sentiment in America, particularly in immigration.)

One problem I see with film adaptations of anything is that whitewashing of the characters, or even just dumbing them down into stereotypes, is really easy. You don't have the time or space to really extend and experience the characters unless you do something like HBO did and make the book into an entire season of a series. Even then, how would you experience the thoughts and back story without voice-overs (which are generally NOT wanted) and flashbacks (which are often spotty at best)?

As such, you end up with "foreign" characters seeming like racial caricatures and gender stereotypes where there had been more well-rounded characters.

 

[Ophiucha]

I don't know, they seem to manage fine with all of the white male characters. I'm white, so I'm not at liberty to say for a character like Ged or the Mandarin, but I'd personally prefer a character is a gross stereotype of a woman than have the character changed to a man or removed from the script. Like, to take a reverse example, the ladies of the Lord of the Rings movies are hardly going to go down as feminist icons (though who doesn't love the "I am no man" line?) and not half as developed as the entirely male main cast, but I'd take that any day over the basically non-present women of the books. Particularly in the older stories, where the choice really was either be a stereotype or don't exist. I may not like the way Bram Stoker writes Mina Harker or Lucy, but I love that they are there when compared to, say, Jekyll and Hyde which I think might have had a nameless maid and that's about it.

On the subject of the 1800s and our brother (sister?) genres, Mary Shelley, anyone? Not many female characters in her stories, but she's a very early female SFF writer and her mother - Mary Wollstonecraft - wrote quite an early work on women's rights called A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in the late 1700s.

 

[Chilari]

@Chilari, Stephen Fry, you say? And where might I find this?

It's not on any more. It had a brief run either side of Christmas 2011, in London at the Southwark theatre. Can't remember how I heard about it, but as soon as I did I booked because it's one of my favourite books ever. I really should look out for more stage adaptations of books I've read, they'd be great to review for my website.

 

[Zero Angel]

Mindfire, I looked it up, and you're right. Ben Kingsley's father was a Gujarati Indian who moved to England. He's pretty much the go-to guy for non-English characters: Gandhi, Moses, Pharaoh, and others that I can't remember. Also, I think it is more to avoid offending the Chinese. The idea of the Mandarin is what's called a "Yellow Menace" villain, which is pretty much a stereotype from the 19th and early 20th centuries. (For anyone who doesn't know, look up anti-Chinese sentiment in America, particularly in immigration.)

One problem I see with film adaptations of anything is that whitewashing of the characters, or even just dumbing them down into stereotypes, is really easy. You don't have the time or space to really extend and experience the characters unless you do something like HBO did and make the book into an entire season of a series. Even then, how would you experience the thoughts and back story without voice-overs (which are generally NOT wanted) and flashbacks (which are often spotty at best)?

As such, you end up with "foreign" characters seeming like racial caricatures and gender stereotypes where there had been more well-rounded characters.

The Mandarin thing wasn't so much whitewashing as trying to avoid offending Chinese people. And I think Ben Kingsley is half-Indian, so whether it's truly "white"washing is debatable.

So is the upcoming Mandarin in the movies Ben Kingsley playing a Chinese character or a non-Chinese character played by Ben Kingsley?

 

[Mindfire]

So is the upcoming Mandarin in the movies Ben Kingsley playing a Chinese character or a non-Chinese character played by Ben Kingsley?

A non-Chinese character played by Ben Kingsley. The way they explain it, the "Mandarin" is a terrorist mastermind who collects bits and pieces from cultures he likes all over Asia in order to build up his mystique. He apes the Chinese emperor, the Samurai, Al Qaeda, etc. But he's not really apart of those cultures, he's just stealing from them.

 

[Philip Overby]

Back to women in fantasy, are there any books coming out soon that you're excited about due to women characters involved? We've talked about current women writers and characters we like, but how about future women characters? Where do you see women in fantasy going as time progresses?

 

[Ophiucha]

Yeah, the Mandarin in the comics is Chinese, but they've rewritten the character to make him not Chinese for the movies, presumably because they cast Ben Kingsley in the role and it would have just been both ridiculous and offensive. Certainly better than giving him the Fu Manchu treatment, though admittedly I think it would have been easier just to keep the character Chinese instead of coming up with the somewhat convoluted backstory they're giving him in the movies.

@Chilari, I wonder if anyone got a camcorder recording or something. Sounds cool...

 

[Ophiucha]

Back to women in fantasy, are there any books coming out soon that you're excited about due to women characters involved? We've talked about current women writers and characters we like, but how about future women characters? Where do you see women in fantasy going as time progresses?

Hmm, the next book in Scott Lynch's series is coming out this year, I believe. He writes some awesome female characters in the sort of fantastical adventure sense of the word. The black pirate lady from the second one whose name I have forgotten was pretty rad. Can't think of any others off the top of my head... I'm sure a new series/stand alone will come out with something good, but I tend not to hear about those until after they've become popular, not before they're published.

 

[Philip Overby]

I have Scott Lynch's first book, but I had an "accident" with it a while back that makes me kind of not want to read it. Has nothing to do with the actual content, but the physical book itself.

That said, I like what I've read of Lynch. I don't know if I got to any of his female characters yet, but it's good to hear he's doing something along the lines of what some of us mentioned we'd like to see happen with women.

 

[glutton]

I've tried writing a male MC as the damsel in distress [he looked and sounded like a Hero but needed someone to keep him safe most of the time] but I found it difficult in the world I was using to have a strong female MC [as a counterbalance for him] that would be take seriously by other men and women in the story. I couldn't escape the narrativium that the [DiD] man would be followed because he was the man. There as only so many times you can write variations "Ah, XX was were right" or "If only we'd listened to XX..." before it grates...

I'd probably solve this problem by making the female MC obviously so 'much' that anyone, whether a woman or a man or the strongest man in the world, has to take her seriously. Although, that's my thing.

 

[glutton]

Also, relating to the argument about physical abilities a few pages back, my fictional worlds don't follow the same rules as our reality. The average woman is still weaker than the average man because they're not likely to be as physical active, but the female great warriors are 85-100% as strong as the strongest men despite being smaller. I guess their super-estrogen is at least as powerful (arguably moreso since they do so much with less size) as testosterone. A scene I loved which I recently wrote was of a mean, scary princess who talks down to the female MC of that story... hurling a boulder at a dragon.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Something I found in a recent io9 post, which may prove both relevant and amusing.