Blogging a touch early because tomorrow morning is going to be too busy.
Over the last couple of years I’ve read several stories that just didn’t work for me. I want to be clear: this isn’t a judgment of whether these stories are good or not, just whether they’re the kind of story I like to read.
Of those that come immediately to mind–and no, I’m not going to name names or titles–two are by well-established and well-loved authors and one is a debut novel.
The thing all these books have in common and that makes them not work for me is a relatively inactive protagonist. It’s an inactive female protagonist in each case, but the fact is that I can’t think of a novel with an inactive male protagonist. I don’t really think that’s coincidence. These stories make me absolutely crazy.
Now, what I mean by an inactive protagonist is that this character doesn’t seem to be taking the lead in trying to solve the problem of the story, whatever it is. For one reason or another, this putative protagonist isn’t the real hero of the story. And that bugs me. It bugs me so much that it ruins the whole story for me. It bothers me even more when the story is aimed at a YA audience.
The one I’ll talk about was a very famous fantasy trilogy. Some of you may even guess which one it was. There’s no doubt the author is one of the premier fantasy writers of our time. The story was just wrong for me.
The first book was great, with a really kick-ass female protagonist. The second book was very hard for me to finish, in large part because that female character placed herself behind a much less capable male character (and love interest). They were actually, potentially, a very good pair–each providing strengths the other lacked. He was the thinker, she was the fighter. Cool!
However the male character’s agenda was allowed to overwhelm the female protagonist’s. Even though she knew there was something she should be doing, she hung back, letting the male character take the lead. I had to force my way through that book, telling myself that the second book in a trilogy is often the worst. The third book would be better, I was sure, because I had liked the first so much.
At the end of that second book, the male character was magically given the same abilities that the female had. Not only that, he was stronger. Ugh! And once again in the third book, the female protagonist sublimated her goals to his. To me, they were essentially fiddling while their world burned. I couldn’t even finish this book because I frankly just didn’t care what happened to these characters anymore.
The other books I referenced above have similar patterns. Female characters waiting for some guy to come along and make a plan and lead the problem solving. I don’t care if the protagonist has to enlist allies. That’s fine. I don’t even care if the allies turn out to have special skills that place them in leadership positions during part of the story. I do very definitely mind when the protagonist is not the one trying to solve the problem of the story. Oddly, that only seems to happen with female protagonists, which really burns me.
I want my protagonists to be active in trying to solve the problem. Now you know what kind of story you won’t be getting from me.
I hear you; passive female protagonists are annoying. Sure, many might like the “knight in shining armour and damnsel in distress” storylines, but… eh; frankly they just get on my nerves.
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Yes! The debut novel I referenced above (and which some of my friends loved) was the worst, but I really hate to rag on debut novels. If the guy is going to be the one solving the problem, then he should be the protagonist. I might even like that story. But when the female protagonist is just sitting around waiting for him to help her, the kindest word I can use for that novel is boring.
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I’m not trying to guess which novel you’re talking about, but nothing comes to mind. A little hint please? xD
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Sorry. I said no titles or authors and I’m sticking to that. Especially with the debut novel. So much of a writer’s career depends on that success anymore. I’m not going to do anything to damage that for anybody.
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Fair enough. I apologize for asking; curiosity got the better of me!
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No harm in asking.
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Hmm. I wonder if this is a trap I could easily fall into in TWDY. Lear clearly leads the troupe of adventurers around, and while he does rescue Erica, I hardly think of her as a damsel in distress. She has her own struggle, though she doesn’t know how exactly to fight it.
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Well, I confess I’m not current on the latest updates. I’ll have to fix that.
Well, as I recall as far as I have read, Erica helped to rescue Lear shortly after he rescued her. So I wouldn’t call her inactive.
It’s okay if she doesn’t know how to solve her own problems at first. That’s what try/fail cycles are for. Just make sure that it is Erica who eventually solves it, not Lear doing it for her, and you should be okay.
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She’s not inactive, no. She’s just not the person pushing the plot forward. That’s something I try to be wary of — particularly in City of Magi, since Zia is a strong leader character, and yet Grayson is the one that does most (but not all) of the leading. Grayson is the protagonist, of course, so I’m somewhat exempt from falling into that category. I’m always afraid of accidentally creating damsels, though. Lillian had to go through a lot of changes not to be one.
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Well, Erica is no Zia. Then again, Lear is no Grayson, either.
I don’t know. It was Erica who set the main problem in motion, wasn’t it. And, it’s been a little while since I read it, but wasn’t Erica a big part of the reason they weren’t able to exile Lear in quite the way they’d intended? She’s definitely having an influence on how the plot moves and has things to add to the group.
Just don’t have her sitting around waiting for somebody else to tell her what to do all the time.
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Good points, and if I’m guessing right on that trilogy you couldn’t finish the third book on, does it make any difference that they both die? lol
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Donna, I think you probably do know which trilogy I was talking about above. And no, it doesn’t make any difference because by a third of the way through the third book I didn’t care what happened to them. Not at all.
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