It’s finally here. The project that myself, Brian Niemeier, and Bradford C. Walker set out to complete is under way. Three mech books — two currently released, one in pre-orders — can finally be purchased on Amazon. One even has a sequel out.
Combat Frame Xseed, by Brian Niemeier (and its sequel, Coalition Year 40.)
Star Knight Saga Book One: Reavers of the Void, by Bradford C. Walker.
And of course, my very own Shining Tomorrow Volume 1: Shadow Heart.
These stories are very different from one another. Xseed is military sci-fi in the Gundam mold, very grounded in realism; Reavers is “Christian knights in space,” strongly modeled off of both chivalric romances and classic Star Wars. My own book is based strongly on Japanese-style superhero shows, specifically Power Rangers, while also taking place in an alternate history.
However, all of these books have one thing in common.
The inciting incident is the abduction of a young woman.
That’s right, all three of us begin our novels with a damsel in distress.
Mind you, we each approach the damsels in our own way: in Xseed a protagonist must save his younger sister. In Reavers, the protagonist must rescue the most beautiful and desirable noblewoman in all the cosmos. In Shining Tomorrow, the protagonist has to save her best friend. Only the damsel in Reavers has any potential for romance; Xseed‘s damsel is a relative of the hero, and ShinTomo‘s* damsel has no amorous interest in other girls (the same is true of the heroine.)
However, the point remains: we used the trope.
Most modern entertainment — books, TV, film, video games — goes to great lengths to avoid this trope, considering it to be offensive and outdated; I remember watching the first Iron Man movie in the theater, waiting for something horrible to happen to Pepper Potts. Nothing happened, which surprised me greatly. Typical critiques of the damsel can be read here and here (with a counterpoint to those critiques here.)
In its place is the Action Girl, these days considered the gold standard for female character writing. The ideal woman in action-adventure stories must be strong and aggressive, with no desire for romance and no vulnerability to a man. She also must look plain and dress modestly, as making her attractive risks “objectifying” her.
If there is to be a kidnap victim, it must either be a man or a child. If it must be a woman, she should escape on her own. In rare cases (like The Fate of the Furious), the rescue can fail, resulting in the damsel’s death. The general rule is that the damsel must never kiss the hero, since most critics say that it makes her nothing more than a “reward” for the hero’s good deeds.
Jeffro Johnson, author of the wonderful Appendix N: The Literary History of Dungeons and Dragons, had a short e-mail chat with me a while back. With his permission, I post this conversation.
NYANZI: What is your largest objection to the warrior woman in fantasy, whether written by progressives, right-wingers, or apolitical folks?
JEFFRO: Gosh, where to start?
There is the odious girl power stuff, sure. (The updates for Princess Leia for the original series cartoon stand out here.) There is the active and aggressive subversion of traditional heroism and romance. (The movie Alien is a great example of this,) There is also the creepy fetish aspect of strong female heroines like you see in the comics, starting with Wonder Woman and continuing on through, say, Chris Claremont’s Phoenix. There’s just something gross and off about the guys that create that stuff.
So there you go. Most of it springs from either explicit propaganda, deliberate subversion, or tacky gamma male fantasies. I can’t decide which is worse!
NYANZI: An understandable objection — traditionally, heroes are men, and contemporary usages of female heroes try to undercut this aspect. While I share your objection to attacks on romance, I do not share your objections to female action heroism. Many females in real life *have* taken up arms in defense of those they cared about, so it’s not an
unusual behavior.As for their presentation as sexy, I would defend it as a matter of presentation and idealism. Stories don’t need to be 100% true to life, and just as male heroes can be idealized, so can female heroes.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but is your main problem the emasculation of men in these types of stories? Would you find it more acceptable if the men weren’t made to be wimps so the women can look good?
JEFFRO: That would definitely be a step in the right direction.
The thing is, men and women are distinct from one another both mentally and physically. They have entirely different drives and motivations. Differing strategies for dealing with conflict. Having a weak male play opposite of a stereotypical “strong female character” is like having both sexes going in drag. No romantic chemistry is possible with that dynamic, naturally. It’s sterile… and not very exciting.
The traditional solution is just way better all around: strong male leads set against a gamut of feminine foils. Even idealized masculinity and femininity should still ring true.
And there it is — the damsel is too romantic, and many attempts to be progressive (even by non-ideological writers) hinge on eliminating romance not just in terms of love, but also in terms of idealism. One merely has to glance at the typical books featured on the blog Fantasy Book Critic to see that modern fantasy tends toward the grim specifically to avoid the stain of the idealistic.
There should be more damsels — and brave heroes to rescue them. I’m glad that myself, Niemeier, and Walker took some small steps in that direction.
* As a short name for the Shining Tomorrow series, ShinTomo is perfect. It sounds Japanese, but is actually a contraction of two English words, reflecting the Japanese/American hybrid society of the North American Federation. ShinTomo can also be written with the kanji「神友」, which roughly translate to “divine friend,” reflecting Irma’s heritage as a valkyrie, as well as the spirits that the witches bargain with for their power. It can also be written as「真友」(true friend), reflecting Irma’s relationship with her classmate Virginia Shirer, or it can be written as 「新友」(new friends), representing the allies Irma meets along the way.
I think that a lot of modern critics tend to misunderstand (perhaps deliberately) the essential dynamic of the Damsel In Distress trope, which not the helplessness of women, but the preciousness of women. Both men and women, in my experience, find the idea of a man undertaking risk and hardship on behalf of a woman romantic.
The woman doesn’t want to be menaced by the dragon, and she certainly doesn’t want to get eaten by the dragon, but she does want to feel like the kind of woman that a man would kill a dragon for. The man doesn’t want the woman to suffer or be in peril, he wants her to see him suffering and risking himself in order to win her.
Which is why the subversion of the trope so often fails to move audiences. The message of a self-rescuing princess isn’t (as is the stated intent) that the woman is capable of rescuing herself, it’s that she has to rescue herself because the man either can’t (meaning that he is not worthy) or won’t (meaning that she is not worthy.)
Despite all the attempts to institute some kind of “equality”, the fact is that women appreciate a gentleman who will open doors for her, not because she can’t open a door herself, but because it shows that he wants to make her life smoother and easier. It shows that she is worth taking effort to indulge.
Dragon slaying is the same thing, just bigger.
An excellent point that feminist critics tend to ignore, since they see most things through the lens of conflict theory (always asking “Who holds power over whom?”) and reducing every human relationship to that.
And yet, if all stories followed the trope of male hero rescuing damsel in distress, it would get old really fast. I like female leads, too, and books that don’t focus on the rescue. I used to read survival books when I was a child, about a girl or boy stranded in the wilderness, learning how to survive. A rescue generally happened (sometimes not), but that’s not what the story was about. Those books were like crack to me.
What you say is true. Oftentimes, when I write a story with a feminine female lead, I find that having her be the support or the damsel was, on its own, dreadfully boring. Even when someone else is the main character, I often give my females something more to do than get tied up.
One aspect of the anti-damsel critique that I do agree with is that the damsel should be a well-defined character in her own right, with goals beyond merely supporting the hero. I find that when a well-defined female character is then damseled, it has a much stronger impact.
Pingback: Detective Pikachu's Utopia -Rawle Nyanzi
The Triumvirate is here! All Hail #AGundam4Us!
Pingback: Sensor Sweep: Spears of Clontarf, Mech, Max Brand, Melee, Dresden Files – castaliahouse.com
Pingback: Sensor Sweep: Spears of Clontarf, Mech, Max Brand, Melee, Dresden Files – Herman Watts
Thanks for the signal boost!
You’re quite welcome.