(no subject)

[skygiants]

First things first: while I kind of suck at remembering birthdays in general (seriously, I will disappoint - in fact I just remembered a good friend whose birthday was four days ago that I forgot! BECAUSE I SUCK) there is one person's birthday that I always remember! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, cupenny! You and me know why this day is worthy of fireworks, and it's not because of some dude who failed to blow up Parliament. :D


Secondly: booklogging! I just finished The Shining Court, the third book in Michelle West's Sun Sword series, and I think it is my favorite so far. If The Uncrowned King centered on AU Fantasy Olympics, The Shining Court takes as its centerpiece AU Fantasy Mardi Gras. Demons are planning to do SOMETHING EVIL on the festival night involving cursed masks and the Winter Queen and worlds meeting and a crazy mage and honestly I was kind of confused as to what exactly their diabolical plan was and how Our Heroes thwarted it, but that's okay, because at least I could get that the characters were busy being awesome! My favorite might have been Jewel getting more and more pissed off at being stuck in a Beauty and the Beast plotline with Avandar and then running into five million immortals (and now that West seems to have stopped telling me how awesome Jewel is every five minutes, I think I am finally, fully on the Jewel-love bandwagon!) but I also loved Teresa coolly deciding to saunter right out of her own life and disappear. With bonus cross-dressing. (Teresa cross-dressing is MAD HOT, do not deny.) I also loved the Surprisingly Badass Radann! My favorite new character is definitely Matriarch/Serra Maria; I find the whole interplay of two completely different roles in her fascinating, and I hope we see more of her. Least favorite new character: Nicu, who is pretty much just a giant tool. The books still have their flaws, but their strengths are still very much their strengths, and moreso in this volume, where even more than before pretty much everything revolves around women and their relationships with other women, and the obvious and subtle ways that they hold power.

And, speaking of, I have a question for you guys! Okay, so we know that many characters in fiction are motivated by revenge. For female characters, I feel like that revenge tends to be for either personal trauma (assault, often sexual) or for dead dudes - husbands, fathers, sons. And dudes are always going around swearing revenge for their dead girlfriends or wives, but they're just as often avenging fathers and brothers and BFF-buddies, too. I could be wrong, but I feel like it's rare for women to be motivated by revenge for other women. Diora from these books is one very strong example; if I remember correctly Gelis in the House of Niccolo series is another, though I haven't gotten up to her books yet so I might be wrong. But those are about the only two I can think of - can you guys think of any other examples of women who are acting to avenge other women? Are there a million and I'm just crazy?

Comments

[misslucyjane]

Happy birthday!

I have vague memories of a revenge story about a sister, but I can't recall if it's a movie or a book. Curse my memory!

[skygiants]

Thank you! :D

And interesting - let me know if you remember! I will add it to the Great List that . . . exists nowhere outside my head. Um. But still!

[cupenny.livejournal.com]

Hey- he was going to blow up Parliment just for us. ^_^ Happy Birthday!


Hm. Again, I want to think there's at least one (if not a couple) 'out to avenge my sister' books out there, but none are springing to mind atm.

[skygiants]

Hee - I was trying to explain Guy Fawkes Day to my friend last night, and she was like "they get a HOLIDAY in England just because some guy didn't blow up Parliament? Someone could not blow up Parliament every day! A whole year of holidays!"

Happy birthday to you too. <3333

I keep thinking there must be, but then when I try and think of them I can't think of any except the Dorothy Dunnett books . . .

Happy Birthday to you both!!

[ceitfianna]

*spins both of you around and throws confetti*

[aberration]

I'm not going to come up with examples from books off the top of my head, but: Willow for Tara in Buffy. But that's the thing - relationships between women at all don't tend to be portrayed in fiction very often. Especially not in dramatic contexts that would have that kind of story. Usually they're, you know, romantic comedies or the like. In dramas women are so often only really defined by relationships with men one way or another - and relationships between men are Deep and Special and Important while those between women either don't exist or are portrayed as shallow or kind of catty.

Also in Buffy, Faith had a revenge issue with her old (female) Watcher. And all of Veronica Mars was pretty much Veronica getting revenge for Lilly, though not in a violent way, and that kind of co-opted by Duncan, but. Yeah.

[skygiants]

OH YEAH I can't believe I forgot Willow!

And yes, you're absolutely right - that's one of the reasons why I was curious, because I am always interested to see where women being motivated by other women does come up. I mean, a woman dying so another woman can be motivated by her death is still fridging, but it totally doesn't bother me in the same way as a woman dying to motivate a guy, because it means that at least there had to be a focus on the relationship between the women first.

(Also, thanks for the LJ present! :D)

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

While we're in the Slayerverse, didn't Justine want to revenge her sister, too? Or do I misremember that?

[shati.livejournal.com]

The fanvid where Buffy had to avenge her sister Veronica who was murdered by Dean!!! And the other fanvid where Willow killed Dean and Sam because they accidentally shot Tara!!!

[aberration]

... now I'm just stuck thinking about all the weird Dean/demon!Elle icons I've seen. Thanks a lot.

[skygiants]

YOU ARE SO RIGHT. I can't believe I failed to investigate the deep and rich world of crossover fanvids in answering this question!!!!

(Now I just wish we could request fic for crossover fanvids for Yuletide.)

[mawombat.livejournal.com]

i feel like there are probably a ton about women avenging their children. See Boudica.

[skygiants]

Hmm . . . I think you're right, but I'm also having trouble thinking of times when it's specifically focused on daughters, rather than sons or children in general.

[miseline.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall a few where women are after revenge for close female relatives - sisters, daughters, mothers. It's not axactly a revenge story, but in one of Geraldine Harris' Seven Citadels books, there's a woman who bears a grudge against her ex husband for letting their daughter die. And in Vivian Vande Velde's The Conjurer Princess you have a girl trying to get justice for her abducted sister. Also, in Rebecca Lickiss' Eccentric Circles, you have a young woman trying to get justice for her murdered grandmother. Again, not exactly a revenge story, but close enough. Not sure if that's what you were after.

Judging by the way I feel, I'd say that's about it. I don't have any close friends, so it would be family members of either sex or my boyfriend/lover that mattered that much to me.

[skygiants]

Oh, interesting! This is actually exactly the kind of thing I am looking for - basically storylines where the character is motivated in one way or another by Wrongs done to another woman. Thank you!

[gramarye1971]

The Korean drama Dae Jang Geum (The Great Jang Geum), which I have been wanting to see for ages, is all about a 16th-century Korean woman who avenges the wrongs done to her mother and her mother's best friend, while being generally awesome -- to the point where she eventually becomes the king's personal physician. It's based on trufax history!

[skygiants]

. . . . dude. Clearly I must add this to my kdrama list - thanks for the rec! :D

[saphyria.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday, you!

[skygiants]

Thank you! :D I shall try to accept my cane with grace. *solemn*

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

This drabble came to mind as a present. Not sure if it's your cup of tea at all, of course, but at least it's mine. :-)


"You can't make me go out like this," David said.

Luke finished putting on lipstick and rolled his eyes. "Anyone would think it's the first time you've worn a dress."

"It is!"

"Really? Then it's certainly about time!"

David grimaced, and watched Luke's surprisingly shapely legs in the mirror. "It's all right for you. You actually look like a girl in those clothes." And how any red-haired boy could look so good in a revealing pink dress was beyond him. "I look like a freak."

"You're beautiful," Luke said with a grin. "You should have seen Thor."

[skygiants]

. . . *cracks UP* THANK YOU! That is so fabulous. *_* POOR DAVID. (Of course Luke can pull off the cross-dressing. And DWJ's Thor is the only Thor who would ever go along with it!)

[cursor-mundi.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday!

Unfortunately, I can't think of any women who go out to avenge other women (or at least not women who the avenging fury has not birthed herself) outside of classical Greek tragedy, and that's mostly just the Furies. And they're distinctly portrayed as anachronistic. Oh, wait! Maybe Mercedes Lackey, in her Swordsword work, and some of the Heralds of Valdemar stuff?

But have you read Janice Radway's Reading the Romance? She talks about Nancy Chodorow's theories of women's identities being constructed as relational identities: that is, a woman has less of her own personality than an amalgamation of relationships that she responds to. She's always defined as somebody's mother, sister, friend, wife, etc., rarely (if ever) as her own self. Anyway, Radway examined how that was being challenged by readers (not necessarily writers!) of romance novels, back in the late 70s and early 80s, amongst other concerns. Fascinating stuff.

[cursor-mundi.livejournal.com]

Ugh, Swordsworn, not Swordsword. *facepalm*

[skygiants]

Thank you! :D

- hmmm, now I am trying to remember what motivates Tarma and Kethry! (Tarma and Kethry are the Swordsworn ones, right? It has been too long!) I know Tarma is avenging basically her whole family, but I think they're mostly brothers . . .

Oooh. I have not, and I feel like I ought! Thanks - I will be adding it to the list. :D

[obopolsk.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday! :D

[skygiants]

Thank you! :D

(Oh also: how does next Monday work for coffeeshop-writing?)