'Women's work'
Apr. 13th, 2020 04:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12It's fandom meme time, and we're up to Day Eleven:
K: What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?
The obvious answer would be any of the main characters from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Honestly, I often want to sit all writers of serialised fiction down and make them watch the series from beginning to end, because I remain staggered at how good its characterisation and character development was.
But instead I'm going to talk about Mai, my favourite character from Kate Elliott's Crossroads trilogy.
Elliott is a really underrated author, and this series in particular seems to have gone unnoticed by almost everyone, which is a real shame, because it's excellent. It's set in a world reminiscent of China and central Asia, with a particular emphasis on the Silk Road, but with magic and giant messenger eagles and people who ride them. What you think you're getting is a standard epic fantasy — about a kingdom in collapse, racked by neglect, chaos, and civil war, and its heroic rightful ruler, dispossessed of his own birthright, who sweeps in to save everyone.
But actually, it's a deconstruction of that hackneyed epic fantasy trope. The 'rightful' ruler is an acquisistive despot, a coloniser rather than a saviour, his own tragic backstory no excuse for his selfish carelessness and lack of respect for the people he's 'liberated'. And it takes readers a long time to realise this.
The reason it takes so long is because we're never told the story from his point of view — instead we mostly see Anji (the eventual ruler) through the eyes of his wife, Mai. Mai is the teenage daughter of a merchant in a minor Silk Road analogue town, and Anji spots her working a market stall when he and his band of mercenaries sweep through the town. Mai is not your typical 'strong female character'. She has no magical abilities, no physical strength, nor does she want to break free of the patriarchal gender roles of her culture. Her talents lie in bargaining and diplomacy, in softly persuading people to her cause (which is usually to buy her family's goods at a higher price than they wanted) without anyone realising that she has done so. I wouldn't even describe her as a power behind the throne: she's simply good at forging connections, driving a hard bargain, and maintaining harmony.
Anji is drawn to her firstly because she's extremely beautiful, and secondly because he's impressed at her mercantile skills, and sees her as a canny way to soften the blow of his colonising intentions. Mai, however, doesn't realise that she's being used: she sees their marriage as one of equals, two people with complementary skills, and Elliott is careful to show that Mai's mercantile and diplomatic abilities (once they're ensconced in the new kingdom, she sets to work restoring markets, settling Anji's mercenaries in disused farms, and organising marriages between the mercenaries and local women) are of equal, if not greater importance than Anji's military might in establishing his rule.
But slowly, subtly, Mai realises she's been used — and the reader discovers this through her horrified eyes at the same moment. She thought she, Anji, and the mercenaries were coming as humble refugees, adapting to local culture and finding a place for themselves within an existing social structure, giving according to their own abilities and their new home's need. But actually Anji is a colonising despot, and he used Mai and her talents as a kind of sweet, soft face to disguise his true intentions. The betrayal is horrifying, and the entire story is so well constructed. And best of all, while Anji hasn't changed at all throughout the trilogy — all that's changed is that Mai and the readers can see his true face — Mai's transformation from a cowed, unvalued daughter so terrified of saying no to any man that she developed her mercentile, bargaining skills as a way to allow herself to say no in such an equivocating way that no one notices she's doing it, to a woman who has left her frightened childhood behind, put down roots, built a home and a community, and remains the only person in the series brave enough to defy Anji. I love her so much.
Which character arcs do you like the best?
L: Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves.
M: Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.
N: Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).
O: Choose a song at random, what ship does it remind you of?
P: Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).
Q: A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.
R: Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?
S: Show us an example of your personal headcanon.
T: Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?
U: Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.
V: Which character do you relate to most?
W: A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.
X: A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.
Y: What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?
Z: Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go!
K: What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?
The obvious answer would be any of the main characters from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Honestly, I often want to sit all writers of serialised fiction down and make them watch the series from beginning to end, because I remain staggered at how good its characterisation and character development was.
But instead I'm going to talk about Mai, my favourite character from Kate Elliott's Crossroads trilogy.
Elliott is a really underrated author, and this series in particular seems to have gone unnoticed by almost everyone, which is a real shame, because it's excellent. It's set in a world reminiscent of China and central Asia, with a particular emphasis on the Silk Road, but with magic and giant messenger eagles and people who ride them. What you think you're getting is a standard epic fantasy — about a kingdom in collapse, racked by neglect, chaos, and civil war, and its heroic rightful ruler, dispossessed of his own birthright, who sweeps in to save everyone.
But actually, it's a deconstruction of that hackneyed epic fantasy trope. The 'rightful' ruler is an acquisistive despot, a coloniser rather than a saviour, his own tragic backstory no excuse for his selfish carelessness and lack of respect for the people he's 'liberated'. And it takes readers a long time to realise this.
The reason it takes so long is because we're never told the story from his point of view — instead we mostly see Anji (the eventual ruler) through the eyes of his wife, Mai. Mai is the teenage daughter of a merchant in a minor Silk Road analogue town, and Anji spots her working a market stall when he and his band of mercenaries sweep through the town. Mai is not your typical 'strong female character'. She has no magical abilities, no physical strength, nor does she want to break free of the patriarchal gender roles of her culture. Her talents lie in bargaining and diplomacy, in softly persuading people to her cause (which is usually to buy her family's goods at a higher price than they wanted) without anyone realising that she has done so. I wouldn't even describe her as a power behind the throne: she's simply good at forging connections, driving a hard bargain, and maintaining harmony.
Anji is drawn to her firstly because she's extremely beautiful, and secondly because he's impressed at her mercantile skills, and sees her as a canny way to soften the blow of his colonising intentions. Mai, however, doesn't realise that she's being used: she sees their marriage as one of equals, two people with complementary skills, and Elliott is careful to show that Mai's mercantile and diplomatic abilities (once they're ensconced in the new kingdom, she sets to work restoring markets, settling Anji's mercenaries in disused farms, and organising marriages between the mercenaries and local women) are of equal, if not greater importance than Anji's military might in establishing his rule.
But slowly, subtly, Mai realises she's been used — and the reader discovers this through her horrified eyes at the same moment. She thought she, Anji, and the mercenaries were coming as humble refugees, adapting to local culture and finding a place for themselves within an existing social structure, giving according to their own abilities and their new home's need. But actually Anji is a colonising despot, and he used Mai and her talents as a kind of sweet, soft face to disguise his true intentions. The betrayal is horrifying, and the entire story is so well constructed. And best of all, while Anji hasn't changed at all throughout the trilogy — all that's changed is that Mai and the readers can see his true face — Mai's transformation from a cowed, unvalued daughter so terrified of saying no to any man that she developed her mercentile, bargaining skills as a way to allow herself to say no in such an equivocating way that no one notices she's doing it, to a woman who has left her frightened childhood behind, put down roots, built a home and a community, and remains the only person in the series brave enough to defy Anji. I love her so much.
Which character arcs do you like the best?
L: Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves.
M: Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.
N: Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).
O: Choose a song at random, what ship does it remind you of?
P: Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).
Q: A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.
R: Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?
S: Show us an example of your personal headcanon.
T: Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?
U: Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.
V: Which character do you relate to most?
W: A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.
X: A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.
Y: What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?
Z: Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go!
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