The Chosen One*

*But only if male, cisgendered, and white.

[It's been a while since I last posted and I have no excuse. I'll sum it up as LIFE and leave it at that.]

Instead, here's what I want to talk about: The Chosen One trope.

It occurred to me today that often, when this trope is used in a story, it refers to a male protagonist. Usually young (10-18), always--as far as I can recall--heterosexual cis-gendered, and frankly, usually white.

The kid learns that their normal life is a fraud/to keep them safe/about to change irreversibly, and they have been chosen to defeat a great evil. Harry Potter was far from the first, and nowhere near the last.

It's not to say girls/women can't be protagonists or heroes, but more often, they seem thrust into the role through circumstances. Katniss just wants to protect her little sister. Sabriel just wants to find her father.

What I do find more is the role of female protagonist as "Not like the other girls." You see it a lot in romantic comedies. Debra Messing's character, Cat, from The Wedding Date: not the first woman to hire Dermot Mulroney as a date, but the first to make him fall in love. Katherine Heigl's Jane in 27 Dresses is like many women in her love for weddings and desire to help friends, but she's the only person to make James Marsden's Kevin see the love and romance is weddings and marriages.

It feels like a way to simplify their characters. Why, out of all the other women these men meet, are these the ones who get through to them? Why, they aren't like other women! Of course! How aren't they like other women? Uh, well, they sing? You know what? Just trust us on this.

But that's not the only place. You can find the trope in fantasy books as well, but they take a different approach.

Alanna is the only girl who wants to be a knight in Tortall and poses as a boy to do it, and later, Kel is the first girl to become a knight since it was allowed through royal decree. Daine, in the same world, is the only Wild Mage. October Daye is a changeling who has one foot in the fae world and one in the human world, the first person to really befriend the Luidaeg, who doesn't like anyone. Cat and Beatrice in Cold Magic have their own special (slightly spoilery so I won't mention specifics) traits that set them apart from everyone else in their community.

But rather than being called Chosen Ones, and beyond their special something that separates them from other women, they are heroines through the choices they make and the circumstances of society around them.

It makes all of these characters even more complicated--sometimes they make the wrong choices and have to deal with those consequences. Sometimes they want to do one thing, but the rest of the world is working against them because other forces have their own motivations and goals. The characters are complex and the worlds are complex.

On the one hand, it'd be nice to see more female Chosen Ones. But maybe the answer is more to get rid of the Chosen One trope for males. One of the fan theories (almost canon? actually canon?) that's always intrigued me is the idea that Neville could have been the Boy Who Lived. He was born around the same time, his parents suffered because of Voldemort, and if Voldemort had thought it was him and gone after his family, the books might have turned out differently in some very interesting ways. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy in terms of the villains choices, but how could it have been different if there wasn't the label of Chosen One hanging over Harry's head?

Anyway, those are my thoughts today. I'll try not to wait so long to post again.

Books/Series referenced:
Harry Potter: The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
Katniss: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Sabriel: Sabriel/Abhorsen by Garth Nix
Alanna: The Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce
Kel: Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce
Daine: The Immortals Quartet by Tamora Pierce
October Daye: The October Daye series by Seanan McGuire
Cat and Beatrice: The Spiritwalker Trilogy by Kate Elliott

Two Pieces of Good Advice: Do Research and Wear Sunscreen

"Wear Sunscreen" is a song/rap/spoken word poem set to music, which I heartedly enjoyed when it came out. In college, a friend made me a cd of awesome songs, mostly from the 90s, and included this one.

Today, there is a new version out, courtesy of author Seanan McGuire: Do Research.

For the writers out there, it is an adaptation filled with advice, both concrete ("Get plenty of sleep. Be kind to your wrists, you'll miss them when they're gone," and "Stretch") and more abstract or hard-to-quantify ("Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to correct your spelling through interpretive dance," and "Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to spend your life writing").

It's a great way to start the day (my opinion, but I'm not the only one who thinks so, according to the comment stream). It's just great fun, and I suggest anyone who needs a smile clikcing over there and giving it a read. It has the same feel to the original, plucking at my emotions when she writes "Do not read Amazon reviews, they will only make you feel ugly," even though I haven't published anything yet for this to be an issue.

Still. It's good advice. Go. Read. Enjoy.
~Sabrina


Seanan McGuire is the author of "Rosemary and Rue," and "A Local Habitation" (urban fantasy, starring a changeling who has lost everything). Under her pseudonym, Mira Grant, she has a political zombie apocalyse, "Feed," in stores now.

Short Admin-y Post, and then some

Just to let readers, particularly those who grace me with comments now and again, that I've added word verification to the comment page.

I didn't want to throw in a bunch of additional requirements for people who wanted to leave their opinions, but I don't like seeing "1 comment" and getting my hopes up, only to have them dashed by a completely nonsensical piece of spam.

Although there was one a few posts down that had some funny lines.

***

To give you something fun to read, there is an interview with new-ish author, Seanan McGuire, over at Bitten by Books. I received her first book, Rosemary and Rue, for my birthday last month, and will soon be buying its recently released sequel, A Local Habitation.

[Actually, having not read the books yet, the few mentions of its plot make Writer-Me paranoid, because I've been working on my own UF 'Hounds' for years, but I keep seeing little details in descriptions of her protagonist that seem similar.

I keep thinking two things: 1. What if the books -are- too similar, and I can't get mine published because there's already one like it on the shelves, and 2. I can't read it until I've edited mine as far as I think it can go, so as to avoid inadvertently drawing from her book. The novel is written, but needs more editing, so I keep vacillating between -reeeaally- wanting to read McGuire's books, and wanting to hold off, so I can say this is my story without a too-close influence from hers.

...Of course, since I -have- the first book now, it is in the cue to be read, and the blue and orange cover entices me, saying "I'm sure once you read it, you'll see they're vastly different books, nothing to worry about. Read it. Reeeaaddd it. You know you want to." And I do, so I will, Writer Paranoia be damned.