Another random note for today (TW)

[anagramofbrat]

Going through my Goodreads log of Stuff To Read and updating my "Read" also rolling my eyes at myself for not renewing my library books a couple weeks ago, I've managed to rack up a whopping $3 in fines. (I know I know.) Wellp, I have only one left out now, so... feh.

One of the ones I read recently was Juliet Marillier's Daughter of the Forest, which was excellent. I had one cranky/woobly moment with it though, but it's not the fault of the book, really just... I'm really REALLY tired of reading about fantasy heroine rape survivors, man. The more I encounter it, the more it seems like a quick and dirty way to be all "See? See? THIS IS A STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER. SHE TOOK A DICKIN' AND KEPT ON TICKIN'." Can we find some other way of portraying that, please? Once in a while, okay, you know what, that shit happens and yes, it's bad. However this crops up so often in fantasy that it's well nigh become a trope, often compounded with the idea that the heroine's suffering is magically erased by Sympathetic Hero Cock +5. Yeah, um... IT DON'T WORK THAT WAY HELLO. And yet it keeps getting written that way to the point where it's getting offensive. This book wasn't that bad, as I felt it portrayed Sorcha's trauma and trust issues afterwards accurately, right on up to her Sympathetic Hero Cock moment, but... but. COME ON. All I'm asking is skipping this trope entirely, kthx. Bonus if you can have said heroine's coitarche be a positive experience for a change, and not involve Sympathetic Hero Cock, but that might be a bit too much to ask. :P

Just started The Passage. It's off to a very slow start, and is so far reminding me so much of an updated version of Firestarter that I can see a six year old Drew Barrymore holding hands with Stephen King and both of them slowly shaking their heads with disapproval. However I'm only thirtyish pages in out of 700+, so hopefully that first impression will change.

Comments

[northernwalker]

I liked Forest but choked on the same point. I'm trying to think of books that don't use this trope and just realized how many do. I think Mercedes Lackey's Vows and Honor series is one of the few- both of the lead female characters were raped, one joins a celibate priesthood, the other goes on to have a love life before she marries. Although the celibate priesthood did kind of make me side-eye it.

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

You mean Tarma? I don't think she joined a celibate priesthood, so much as swore herself to a goddess of vengeance who required her devotees only consider her family or whatever. I took it in the same vein as in the Tiger and Del series, where Del sacrifices her fertility as part of her oath to the goddess to get vengeance for her family's destruction (and then once the goddess judges vengeance has been acheived, she gets it back -- eight books later...).