[Polyhedron] Are women interested in this type of fantasy?

[Belen]

Well, another way of thinking about the subject is this: Can anyone identify female fantasy and/or science fiction writers that have published in the last few decades that have strong female characters saving weak male characters. I think the answer is yes.

Now, did those female characters grow romantically attached to those males? I read a lot and I cannot think of any as of yet. I will keep trying though.

Now, in the current literature, I can think of a lot of female characters who have saved competent males (those able to contribute EQUALLY) in the relationship.

However, I have not seen these women fall in love with these men. I could be wrong, but that is one way to think of it.

Traditionally, women who do save men, always seem to save valiant kings, warriors, poets, or clergy. They sometimes fall for the first three (clergy usually shown as older precludes romance.)

Let's take a look at some current fantasy:

Kate Elliot's Crown of Stars: Liath saves Prince Saglant several times- Saglant however is a prince and accomplished warrior.

Anne McCaffrey's Pern: Lessa saves everyone, but still falls for a very competent F'lar.

Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar: Cannot think of any of the prodigious female characters falling for a weakling. Selenay's traitorous husband may have been a weakling, but do we know yet? She ends up lifebonded to a warrior prince.

J.K Rowling's Potter series: Girls always seem nice to Neville, but never attracted to him.

Just a few examples. I could be wrong about the literature and I'd love to see an example of things.

However, it seems that even female fantasy authors do not have ladies falling for weak males. Those they do save are always strong in some regard. If anything, weak males are subject to pity rather than romance.

Of course, I am a firm believer that women can fall for a non-archetypical male in real life. Again, in many respects these males have their own strengths such as intelligence, wit, ambition....

Now, if you look at traditional fantasy, do women heroes fall for good-looking, yet mindless vapid waifs. Male heroes do all the time. The scantily-clad vapid blond princess who needs saving is a strong stereotype that gets used in abundance.

We just have not seen strong women fall for the Prince Vallium's of the world.

Just a thought.

 

[Lizard]

If you need an archetype for the 'in need of rescuing but not a wuss' male, I'd say: Xander Harris from Buffy.

Brave, resourceful, competant, committed, a vital part of the team -- and perennially in over his head. He's not a wimp or a coward -- if he was, he wouldn't need rescuing nearly as often. He is determined to help his friends and do his bit to save the world, DESPITE having no special skills, talents, powers, or weapons. He also has utterly wretched luck, to the point where "Help, my date is actually a demon who wants to kill me" is hot-keyed on his cell phone.

Of course, I don't know how much hentai fanfic has been written about Xander. Not being female, I can't judge if women find him attractive. My wife prefers Spike, and I'm torn between Anya and Willow...

 

[Shadoe's Lady]

If you need an archetype for the 'in need of rescuing but not a wuss' male, I'd say: Xander Harris from Buffy.

Brave, resourceful, competant, committed, a vital part of the team -- and perennially in over his head. He's not a wimp or a coward -- if he was, he wouldn't need rescuing nearly as often. He is determined to help his friends and do his bit to save the world, DESPITE having no special skills, talents, powers, or weapons. He also has utterly wretched luck, to the point where "Help, my date is actually a demon who wants to kill me" is hot-keyed on his cell phone.

Of course, I don't know how much hentai fanfic has been written about Xander. Not being female, I can't judge if women find him attractive. My wife prefers Spike, and I'm torn between Anya and Willow...

Is Xander hot...I'd have to go with "marginally", but he gets upgraded when he gets all calm and manly (as opposed to just acting macho).

 

[jdavis]

You're all over the place on this. All the women that I know more or less agree with my wife. That is not a generalization about all women. That is a fact about something on the order of a half-dozen or so women.

Yes I got that already, of course you posted it as a response to Kahuna Burger's defense against Artimoff's post. So why would I not assume you agreed with Artimoff's post which was a generalization; you were obviously attacking Kahuna Burger's defense against that generalization.

What Kahuna Burger said in response to a post that women who rescued men would find the man less desirable. (a generalized statement by Artimoff)

OK, flat out, are you a psych major, relationship consuler or very powerful telepath? Because if not, I would love to know where you get the power to make these sort of statements? I have never seen an example of this kind of thinking in myself or the mirdrid competent women I know.

What you said:

Now you just need to get some relevant context. My queries about competence versus incompetence were directed to Kahuna Burger, who very flatly stated that all of the "competent women" that she knows agree with her opinions about the matters in question. The apparent corrolary to her statement is that any woman who disagrees with her is incompetent.

I see no corralary to her saying that any side is incompetent, only that she has never seen a example of this line of thought in the women she knows. I can't say what she actually meant but I saw no insult directed at women with different opinions. Furthermore if her stating that all the women she knows would not be bothered causes you to think it as a insult then how would you stating the same exact thing but with a yes instead of a no not be the same thing? It's offensive for her to say all the women she knows wouldn't be bothered by this but it's not offensive for you to say that all the women you know would be bothered by this? You made the exact same statement but changed no to yes. Her's is a "apparent corrolary" but yours is being misrepresented? If you truly believe her "apparent corrolary" then how can you sit there and say yours is any different? You said the exact same thing just with a different answer to the question.

This is obviously not an appropriate, honest line of argumentation, and I have not accused anyone of being competent or incompetent based on their opinions about anything.

So you didn't actually mean this:

Of all the females of any age that I know, I can only think of one that finds the idea of the ineffectual, "fixer-upper" man attractive, and this particular young lady is 15. While I risk be accused of "ageism," I try not to put much stock in the relationship experiences and opinions of 15-year-old girls.

So this isn't a statement of incompetence of a 15 year old? If I could go back to the whole "apparent corrolary" bit, so are you implying that this is the type of decision a inexperienced 15 year old would make? If that's not the point then why make this statement to start with? It most definatly is a accusation of incompetence based on a person's choice and it does imply that the choice is one only a 15 year old would make, thus the choice is a incompetent one. This is the same logic you used to start the whole thing off, a "apparent corrolary" if you will.

Yes you never made any directly worded statements but you based your statement on a "apparent corrolary" so why are you so very very defensive (and a little bit of a smart ass) when somebody points out the same exact thing? Your post is worded as a statement on the subject with a couple of offhanded remarks that can be viewed very negatively, your replies have been to make little snide comments and to skirt around it with "prove it" remarks. I posted at length on how the way you phrased the question would change the answer (as did others) but I was answered with:

I'm sorry I forgot to get our opinions pre-approved by the Proper Authorities.

You turned "somewhat ineffectual" into an "ineffectual man who required her to basically mother me" which just one of many interpretations, it's a leading type of interpretation, of course nobody wants a worthless person, it's sort of like asking "would you fall in love with inept doofus". It's a very easy "apparent corrolary" that anybody who said this would not bother them prefers men who are inept, which is sort of insulting there.

Yes my statements were not the best either and I did jump to a conclusion based on what you were replying to, not on exact statements but what I interpeted out of what I read and the post you quoted. An arguement on what women believe and your comment that the other choice was the choice of a inexperienced 15 year old. If you were not attacking her post then why quote her post, and if you were not implying the other choice was the choice of a 15 year old then why say that was the choice a 15 year old would make? If you did not agree with Artimoff's general reaction of women post then why attach your post to a arguement over that post? You jumped into two peoples post about generalizing reactions and then got mad when I attached your post to that argument. Hey if I did that I'd get misrepresented too (and have before, I had to learn that one the hard way). So maybe there was no intentional guilt by association but you're the one who associated your post with their arguement.

As for the rest of it yes you are right I confused you with a post by David Argall so for that I will apologise for my mistake. On the whole subject of fat people I admit I was misquoting (and David Argall responded to that already). Of course instead of saying hey that wasn't my post that was David Argall's you decided to insult me. I didn't realize my mistake till I saw David Argall's post on down the page in response.

the rest of your post doesn't merit comment since it isn't actually directed against anything I've posted.

So your only worried about the "I didn't directly say that" things, that's fine but if you are not trying to make a statement on generalizing things then why belittle my statement on people shouldn't generalize things? My opinion that people should not make these generalizations does not merit your comment? Isn't that what you are saying you are not doing? If you are not doing that and don't believe in that then why insult a statement to that effect? You skim over, belittle or ignore my opinions but seem to be saying you agree with my opinion that people shouldn't generalize these things. Why insult a opinion you claim to agree with and then get mad at me when I question your beliefs in that opinion?

Threads like this crack me up, especially the "you don't have the proper credentials so don't you dare express yourself in an unapproved manner" crowd. Too many people are so enamored of their own points of view and impressed with their own "credentials" that they forget that often the answer to a question isn't Either-Or but is Both-And.

and that is different from my statement:

I think it is safe to say that there is no real answer here, some people say no and some people say yes but when you get right down to it who has actually had this situation come up and had to deal with this in real life?

or this one:

I think you have sucessfully argued that for some women this would be a romantic problem and other people have shown proof that for some women this wouldn't be a problem, now all we need to do is take a poll of all the female Martain fighters to see how many of them married somebody they rescued. There is no A or B answer to this heck there really isn't a majority answer to this because there are 6,302,346,040* people on the planet with several hundred different cultural backgrounds, there is just no answer to this.

My opinion on this matter is that there is no either/or answer to this question, there is just no actual way to judge how most people will react. You stated it "isn't Either-Or but is Both-And." So why are my opinions of no merit then? I was asking you to clarify your position on this because 1. your first post contained wording that was definatly biased and 2. I looked at the wrong post yesterday. You chose to belittle and insult, so how was I to come to the conclusion that you actually agreed there was no generalizations to be made here? Yes I admit my comments were biased by the post you quoted (and the post that was a response to) but there is a definate bias in your post that led me to the conclusion you were making a statement of support for what was said by Artimoff, heck you quoted a response to his comments and attacked the response by showing a example of how Artimoff could be right, then you belittled the other choice as choosing a incompetent that needed mothering as a romantic interest and the choice of a silly 15 year old girl.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Umm, why is this thread still open?

Can't we all just get along?

Here's a thread that could use some activity: http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?threadid=51506&goto=newpost

 

[jdavis]

Umm, why is this thread still open?

Can't we all just get along?

Here's a thread that could use some activity: http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?threadid=51506&goto=newpost

Get along? in a EN World thread? (I do get the point though, off to post about something that actually is important)