International Women’s Day, A Celebration: Favourite Female Characters

My original thought was to mention some women writers, but there are so many - I’ve suddenly realised that about three quarters of the books I read are by women anyway, probably because it’s mostly women who write the kind of books I read - children’s and YA.

So, in no special order, a few female characters - some created by men - whom I like, as they pop into my head.

How about Caroline from Michael Pryor’s Laws Of Magic series? Caroline is one of the trio of main characters in this steampunk series, the other two being the hero, Aubrey, and his best friend George. These three are fighting a villainous sorcerer who wants to start World War I so he can use the death energy in his magic. Caroline is intelligent, beautiful and kick-ass, but not the Hermione Granger of this trio. She’s smart, but not the nerd of the group. Non of them is; Aubrey is probably the smartest of the three, but needs controlling. The kick-ass elements come in when something needs fighting - then the lovely, elegant young woman becomes a martial arts warrior!

And having mentioned Hermione, why not talk about her? She is the nerd of her particular trio. Harry is not dumb - after all, he solves a mystery in every novel - but without Hermione, he and Ron would have been killed quite early in the series. She is the most practical of the trio, also. Who is it who is prepared for their flight from the Burrow in Deathly Hallows? Yep - Hermione, with her TARDIS handbag, full of camping gear and all the other stuff they will need.

A wonderful character I’ve discovered in recent years is Blackthorn, from Juliet Marillier’s Blackthorn and Grim trilogy. Mind you, if I had to choose a man to help and support me, it would be Grim - such a lovely person! But Blackthorn... She is a wise woman who has had some awful tragedies in her life, and then is imprisoned and sentenced to death unjustly. She is helped to escape by magical means, on condition that she waits seven years before taking vengeance and never refuses a request for help during that time. So the trilogy is based on what she does to help others - and how it affects her life. Here is my interview with Juliet about these books. 

Really, anything by Juliet Marillier is worth reading. She is one of the top fairytale interpreters in Australia - and she tends to tackle the fairytales that have strong heroines. Daughter Of The Forest sets the story of “The Wild Swans” in mediaeval Ireland, as does Heart’s Blood, an interesting take on “Beauty And The Beast” in which the heroine, Caitrin, is fleeing from a very unwanted marriage and gets a summer job in the “Beast’s” castle as a scribe, to translate Latin documents and find an answer to a family curse(his appearance is unconnected - it’s the result of a childhood illness). 

And yeah, fairytales! I am irritated by the assumption that these are all about passive young women being rescued by princes. I mean, yes, some of them are. But recently Aussie author Kate Forsyth and artist Lorena Carrington produced an utterly gorgeous anthology of fairytales in which that doesn’t happen at all, Vasilisa The Wise And OtherTales of Brave Young Women. You can get it here, at Booktopia. 

The title story is, of course, Russian, and includes an encounter with the witch Baba Yaga, whose house runs around on chicken legs, and who travels in a flying mortar and pestle. Baba Yaga is not just any old witch, she is the witch! She appears in many fairytales. I can’t recall her ever being killed off, though she is defeated because the witch can’t win the fairytale battle, can she? And sometimes she helps. A powerful figure of womanhood indeed. 

But another story in the book is “Katie Crackernuts”, a story with two stepsisters who love each other - and the less beautiful daughter is the heroine. When the wicked Queen(Katie’s mother) magics a sheep’s head on to the body of her stepdaughter, Katie puts a veil on her sister and takes her out of danger. The girls arrive at a castle where the elder prince is going through a sort of reverse “Twelve Dancing Princesses” situation, which he isn’t doing willingly, and coming home exhausted every night. Katie saves him with her intelligence and is given his hand in marriage, while her sister, the spell removed with Katie’s help, marries his brother. 

This is one of my favourite fairy tales! 

In The Lord Of The Rings, I prefer Eowyn to Arwen, don’t you? Forget the movies, which gave Arwen a larger role. Book-Arwen is a 2000 year old elf maiden who is still living at home and having to obey her father, and she spends most of the novel stitching a banner for her man.

 Eowyn, on the other hand, does her job protecting the women and children of her people as required, then disguises as a boy to join the army and do what she really wants to do. (I got the impression the other soldiers knew perfectly well who she was, just not her uncle and brother). It is she who defends her wounded uncle from the Witch King of Angmar, and smuggles Merry along for the fight; between them, these two people who aren’t supposed to be there save the day. She gets over her crush on Aragorn and marries the right man for her, who is happy to support her needs, and chooses  to focus on life, as a healer, rather than death and glory in battle. 

One other woman in The Lord Of The Rings, who doesn’t get mentioned much in discussion of the book, is Lobelia Sackville-Baggins. Lobelia is the obnoxious Hobbit woman who once stole the spoons from Bilbo, who is always trying to avoid her and her family, and is made fun of a good deal. But when the Shire is invaded by the baddies, she comes into her own, a cranky elderly lady over 100 years old, the only one of the Hobbit community to stand up to the invaders, and is imprisoned for it. When Frodo escorts her out after the baddies are gone, she is cheered, popular for the first time in her life. What a woman! I wouldn’t want her for a neighbour, but I’m betting that you’d want her around if you were in danger. 

I might leave it there as I’ve already missed the International Women’s Day deadline, but perhaps you have some favourites you’d like to share?