Rantlet

[skygiants]

. . . what is the appropriate term for a mini-rant? Rantling? Rantita? Anyways.

I have noticed lately that whenever an author/character uses the term 'innocence' to describe the source of a heroine's attraction/heroism/overall good qualities, it pings my DO NOT WANT buttons pretty much right away. Now, I am sure that there are places where it is good and valid for it to be used! However, in most cases, it tends to remind me of a long tradition of putting women up on pedestals as good, pure, and needing to be protected from the harsh reality of life. And in fiction, I feel, it tends to translate to either 'too stupid to know that certain things are BAD NEWS', or 'too good to be sullied by the Evil Of The World and therefore fated to win through in the end!'

Authors, ask me to expect your female characters to reach victory because they're clever, or stubborn, or practical, or can lift a Jeep over their heads, or shoot an ant's antenna off at two hundred paces, or recite the Odyssey in the original Greek - almost anything, really. I'm an easy sell! But please don't expect me to root for them because of their big-eyed innocence. I do not really feel like 'innocence' is a good trait for a role model.

So this is my latest pet peeve. What about you guys? What words/character traits leave you making faces at the text or the screen when they come up? ('Spunky' is too easy a target.)

This post is brought to you by the letter P for procrastination.

Comments

[andy-longwood.livejournal.com]

Innocence is a dumb trait to have, because in real life "innocent" people just end up getting depressed when shit happens. And depression is not something I look for in my heroines either.

I know this is a completely normal pet peeve to have, but I'm almost immediately disinterested in a character who is infinitely beautiful, so much so that it gets described around every corner. I will make exceptions, as in cases where the concept of physical beauty is integral to the story plot (although it then has to be a pretty interesting plot to keep me reading), or in case the character is in a profession where good looks are a plus, like, say, prostitution. Or modeling, but since I'm not particularly interested in that topic I'm less likely to read THAT story too . . .

Anyway, my pet peeve is when a character in a profession that is likely to impede her physical appearance (like traipsing about in the wilderness all the time with no hairbrushes or hygenic products), or just in a story where it's not necessary to look good, is described as impossibly beautiful, just because. I dislike it when good genetics overshadows the traits a character actually worked for. You want a heroine who can pin a fly to a tapestry from a hundred yards away? Great! Take those seven paragraphs you spent describing each of her facial features and use them to describe her training and her motivation.

For pete's sake people, stop treating looks like they're a pretty person's best attribute.

[skygiants]

Oh, god, me too.

I mean, I can overlook it, or allow it not to bother me, if the character is fully developed outside of their fantastic looks - and I even sometimes find it interesting in stories where those looks are described as a disadvantage (example: Sherwood Smith's Inda, which features two side characters who are incredibly beautiful, and who both hold extremely cynical views about the world on account of the generally sexualized treatment their beauty receives). But when a hero or heroine's eye-candy traits are given more positive notice by the author than any of their other characteristics? Yeah, they've generally lost me.

[genarti]

LIKEWISE.

Honestly, my biggest pet peeve with beautiful characters is not when they're described as stunningly gorgeous. It's when EVERYBODY AGREES that they're stunningly gorgeous. Regardless of type, sexual orientation, occasionally (and egregiously) even species -- everyone thinks character X is incredibly lovely.

Nobody ever says "Enh, yeah, she's pretty enough, but I kinda go for brunettes with curves. Blond and willowy's not my type." Or vice versa. Or says "Yeah, she's gorgeous, but I don't much like her and that means I don't notice the looks so much." Or whatever.

[agoodshinkickin.livejournal.com]

Innocence is just Ignorance misspelled.

[skygiants]

Word.

[daniidebrabant.livejournal.com]

*coughs and seriously recommends anything by Jim Butcher (especially the Codex Alera as Kitai kicks SO much buttock)*

Mine is "willful".

...I'm sorry. The definition for that is 'obstinately bent on having one's own way' and half the time I see a heroin in a book/movie/show who's 'willful', she annoys the living crap out of me. Usually, she's a spoiled wench.

[skygiants]

I read the first Dresden Files book! Got it from Mu Ji at Millicon, released it into the bookcrossing wilds of Central Park . . . and then my mom saw it and swooped down before we moved two steps from the location. *giggles* And I liked Murphy a lot, though I do wish she hadn't gotten unconscious and damseled at the end.

And . . . yeah, I see what you mean. I can deal with 'willful' when it's classed as 'stubborn' and defined as 'not a uniformly positive trait but useful in some situations!' But 'willful' does tend to showcase 'spoiled and stubborn' as 'look how cute!', which is rather irritating.

[daniidebrabant.livejournal.com]

Murphy kicks more butt. As do others.

And I think it's just that they use it as this virtue even when, by all logic, they're being stupid by that point. I think the best example would be Buffy. Personally, I found the end of Season 7 to be the worst heroin behavior of anything I've ever seen.

...the only reason she ended up on top there is because her name is in the title of the show. Srsly.

[skygiants]

I am all in favor of this butt-kicking.

And - hmmm. *thoughtful* I didn't find Buffy's behavior in s7 particularly sympathetic, but I'm not sure I'd classify it as "willful", either - because she did have reasons for her treatment of the other characters, and somewhat valid ones, even if I thought that she was coming to the wrong conclusions from it and going about it in the wrong way. But it wasn't just out of selfish whim, either, at least, which is what "willful" tends to mean to me.

I'd classify it more like - oh, I don't know, Jasmine in Aladdin sneaking petulantly off to the marketplace and nearly getting her hand chopped off for thieving because she has no idea what she's doing.

[schiarire.livejournal.com]

You took mine!

[skygiants]

We can share! *generous*

[sdelmonte]

For the record, my best friend called me "the last of the innocents" even after I got married. So in real life, innocnence is not a bad quallty.

But it offers nothing to any heroine's hopes or victory, true. And innoences without other traits is empty or vapid.

[skygiants]

*grins* Well, 'innocence' also has different . . . backlog of social meaning, I guess? . . . when it's used to describe women, which is why it bothers me more in that case. Because when used to describe women it so often goes hand-in-hand with praise for a kind of vapidity, or the need for protection from that cruel world out there. But no, it's definitely not always a bad quality!

[ashen_key]

I don't mind innocence so much, but when it's an insult, or something the heroine realizes and gets angry about. It happens!

Wilful sounds patronizing, but my peeve is stubborn.

Yep.

Stubborn.

Call someone stubborn, and I just KNOW I'm going to be headdesking at them for being stupid. It always happens.

Also as a trait, ridiculously knowledgable. Not intelligent, just...better than everyone else, even though they are so much younger.

[skygiants]

I can deal with it better when it's not put on a pedestal as a good quality. And, I mean, when it's information-specific - things have been kept from the heroine in order to preserve her innocence, and then she kicks off the protective blanket and goes out and finds out about it - that I'm totally fine with.

I totally get the stubbornness peeve. I don't mind it so much myself - I think at least in part because I totally fell for the Tam Lynne story at a young age, and the message of that one is basically 'just be stubborn, girls, and you can kick fairy queen ass!' - but it can definitely be used as an excuse for stupidity.

[ashen_key]

Oh, yes. Good quality, not so much.

HEADSTRONG. That was the other one. Headstrong. I cannot STAND it. It's more stupidity making than stubborn, really. It's almost as if...girls can't be cooly rational and clinical about something, they have to be headstrong and get their way through that.

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

Doe-eyed innocence never does much for me in heroines. I'm with you: give me a strong female figure and she's much more interesting than a passive willowy one.

It's why Howl and I like Sophie, and why I like Hero, and it's why Spike likes Beth. I could keep going, but you get the picture.

I can't think of any other particular pet peeves, other than the cliche breathless and trembling and all that bodice-ripping stuff; I have no patience for that.

[skygiants]

Yes. Oh, yes, exactly, and that's why Sophie's so much fun - because she could so easily play the cliche innocent in her relations with Howl, and refuses to do so.

I actually got into a running argument with a friend at a creating writing program a few years back - we would edit each other's work, and she'd use the word "breathed" instead of "said" at various points in her writing, and I just could not deal and kept telling her to take it out. It sounded way too cheesy to me. But she never would. *grins* So yes.

[the_croupier]

Agreed! A mention of 'innocence' is just the thing to get me to hurl a book across the room, or to wish for a brick to hurtle into the screen.

And yet, the lamentable habit WILL NOT DIE.

[skygiants]

I think it's decreased, though! I hope, at least. *fingers crossed*