Ahira's Hangar

I was inspired to make this thread by some posts in different threads (different forums) over at the Watch.

SRD is brilliant at writing all sorts of heros of all ages, shapes, and sizes. You have overweight heros in Lord Hyrim and the Tor and Brew (from the Man Who books) -- gray haired heros in High Lord Prothall and again, the Tor, as well as High Lord Mhoram in TPTP. Young untried handsome heros like Geraden.Thomas Covenant, of course, hardly sounds like a dreamboat, so often gaunt, with wild eyes and an untended beard...

But all three (four if you count Ginny from The Man Who books) of his main female characters -- Linden Avery, Teresa Morgan, and Morn Hyland -- are all babes.

Why is this?

Is this a flaw in his writing? Is he falling into that old sf&f cliche, where all of the female leads have to be beautiful?

Or is it crucial in some way to the plots of his series that his leading women characters are all so physically beautiful?

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Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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This is a deep topic! Can't concentrate too well on this while at work, but I'll toss out a thought or two...

I never thought of Donaldson's depiction of women in his stories as flawed or stereotypical. If anything, I feel his handling of female characters is one of his strengths. But here's the rub: am I saying this because I'm a guy, so that I'm already biased in favor of stories that have attractive "babes" as main female protagonists? I certainly can't deny that when I read a story that features a central female character, I tend to "pre-emptively" imagine that character to be attractive. So maybe Donaldson is falling into the old cliche as you say. Maybe it's a "shortcut" to a reader's sympathies in always having an attractive female lead.

It's certainly possible that I would not have been as willing to accept and love Linden Avery's character if she had been not as pretty. But on the other hand, there are no shortage of readers who can't stand Linden, and their hostility towards her have nothing to do with whether or not she happens to be beautiful. And I like to think that my sympathy for her character has very much to do with her inner character, not her surface looks. But again, this could be my bias towards beauty clouding what I say. Ugh, hope I'm making sense here... <i></i>

I really wonder -- being beautiful certainly made it easier for Teresa to be accepted in Mordant. But would the books have possibly been even more interesting if she had had to struggle a bit more for her accceptance?

The Gap would have definately been a completely different story if Morn had not been such a prize physically. Angus probably would have just killed her, and that would have been that.

I don't know if Linden's story would have changed in the least bit if she had not been physiclaly attractive...
Covenant loved her as much for her courage and intelligence and her drive to heal as he did her body... ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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I think the answer is simply that Donaldson's women reflect the era in which he wrote them. Like the early Star Trek women in their short, revealing uniforms, these heroines were automatically beautiful, despite Donaldson's more 3-dimensional rendering of their history or resultant flaws/weaknesses. We look at them with our 2006 eyes and ask why he made them so, but they were made in an era where 'why is she beautiful?' was no more often asked than 'why is the hero battle-scarred?' It would be as illogical as asking in 1977 why no Haruchai women ever left their husbands to fill the place of a fallen member of the Bloodguard. Too much leaping out of stereotype.

I've come to realise over the last few years that I have to forgive Donaldson for his limitations when it comes to women. Why are so many women objectified, fondled like toys, even raped, in his books. I used to think it was just that the guy had issues (and maybe he did/does), but now I tend to think that a man of his generation simply lacked imagination when it came to women. When it came to hurting women he used the same old methods that men have always used - treat her like a thing, take away her chastity (which will of course devastate her the way it would never devastate a man...it was always assumed), use sexual violence.

It's disgusting, in terms of constantly repeated themes it's even boring, but it's also typical of the era. With the themes of women's liberation floating through the entertainment world, writers created new, strong, female characters, but when it came to quelling their strength they resorted to old ways of hurting women. Their paradigm hadn't quite shifted enough for anything else yet. <i></i>

Excellent post and right on the mark. At the time, 1978 and '82, I thought Donaldson's depictions of women were fairly groundbreaking. I think the reason I like Linden Avery so much is that Donaldson appreared, to me, to be the first male author to actually attempt to try to get into a woman's head and look at things from that perspective. I'm sure there were others, throughout time, but I hadn't read them at that point...A Sorceress or a Queen perhaps as powerful influences, but not much else... *****
Before, you are wise; after, you are wise. In between you are otherwise.
Fravashi saying (from the formularies of Osho the Fool) <i></i>