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i've only read the ender series and ender's shadow - so if i'm missing something, my bad. even if by reading those i'm still missing something - please point it out.
just wondering if all the 'heroic' characters are male? it seems to me that all strong female characters are secondary, with the exception of jane (who has no true 'human' form [well...]).
i read all potent female characters as secondary... i'm not complaining, just wondering.
Posts: 1355 | Registered: Jul 2006
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I definitely wouldn't say that Valentine or Petra aren't heroic. 'Hero' comes in many different forms.
Posts: 980 | Registered: Aug 2005
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The Women of Genesis series, Saints, and Wyrms all have a female lead. Several of OSC's other books have strong female characters, and we do occasionally switch to their POV.
Posts: 364 | Registered: Dec 2005
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Read the rest of the Shadow series too- you'll get more female leads. Also Enchantment and Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus and much of the Alvin Maker series has a female lead.
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i gather those are more of his books? my dad turned me on to the ender series and my curiosity was piqued. i don't know anything about osc other than what he's written as the author of the books i mentioned.
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Those are all books by him. He actually seems to write a lot of female POV (at least for what I figure most writers do)
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OSC has wriiten a lot of books. Of course, I haven't read any, other than Ender/Shadow and Magic Street.
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Speaking of Maker, the Alvin Maker series has several heroic female characters. Most of the leads are men, but there are a lot of strong female characters who are often heroic.
I've only finished up to Prentice Alvin, but I don't think there has been a villainous female yet, where as we've seen lots of nasty men.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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The Homecoming series has some heroic female characters, especially later on in the series. However, the main protaganist is a male. I highly suggest reading this series.
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Card actually does a remarkable job with female characters, but I think it is natural that most of his protaganists are male. It's far easier for him to visualize detailed male responses. It's usually quite rare for a male author to have a female main character, and few of those who are brave enough to attempt it do as well as Card. However, there's another reason for that. Studies show that, in children at least, girls tend to relate ok to boy "main characters" but that boys simply aren't at all interested in girl "main characters". Maybe this is why most main characters, in everything but romance novels, are male... just a thought
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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I haven't read any book of his with a female Main Character (of course, since I haven't read outside of the Ender and Shadow series, that isn't surprising), but the major characters who are female tend to be awesome. (Here I am thinking of Virlomi, Petra, Valentine, Wang-mu, Jane, Sister Carlotta...)
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quote:Originally posted by DDDaysh: Studies show that, in children at least, girls tend to relate ok to boy "main characters" but that boys simply aren't at all interested in girl "main characters".
Ah yes. This explains the unpopularity of the Tomb Raider video games. Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Actually, the popularity of female main characters in video games has been observed. It's no coincidence that such games are often played from a third-person viewpoint. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I would also like to point out that in "video games" there is a VIDEO aspect, and that the visual appearance of the character may play a part in the popularity.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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Heck, if it's looks that explain it, heterosexual guys are probaby more likely to sit through Suriyawong's attraction to Virlomi or Achilles' and Bean's attractions to Petra than the other way around. Plus, how often every day does Petra stop to look in the mirror and think how beautiful she is? Whereas girls are obviously more likely to be reading books for the sheer intellectual joy of the storylines, philosophies, and so on. Otherwise, we'd never have forgiven Mr. Card for writing Bonzo as good-looking but a stupid jerk, and Ender and Bean as short and not-necessarily-good-looking yet smart and nice in Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow. Wow, making broad generalizations based on cliched gender stereotypes is fun!
Posts: 283 | Registered: Jul 2006
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Well, I wasn't trying to MAKE stereotypes the first time. I was simply reporting what I'd read somewhere else, in an education class actually, about the stories included in text books. However, the argument involving Toom Raider sorta irked me, becaus most of the time I watched friends playing it, they were paying much more attention to their character than what she was doing...
However, I really DO think girls have an easier time reading things that do not come from their natural viewpoints... or at least any girls who bother to post here. I'm really not sure about the ones who read Dollar Tree romance novels because I've never read them. Society is geared towards thinking that the male viewpoint is the natural one and the female viewpoint is somehow inferior, or at least "different". Even all the work in "equality" is really more about allowing females to be more like males than the other way around. I'm not trying to be super feminist here or anything, because I really just dont' care enough to get excited about any of that, it's just the way I see things. I mean, sure women are allowed to wear pants and things to work these days, there's really not much a girl can wear that would really make her look like a GUY, but you don't see alot of male dresses in existance. I mean, what would the female equivilant to drag even BE? So naturally it's harder to convert male readers to a female mindset than the other way around, because that's just the way the world around us is set up.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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I know you weren't, it was just kinda fun to take it that extra step.
I agree with your points on masculine-as-natural. Although now it's getting to blur the other direction a little more (guys not being afraid to get rid of disgustingly excess body hair, businessmen wearing light red as easily as light blue, et cetera), in most cases women doing what men have done traditionally is more accepted. I think that may be because a woman taking on what are traditionally men's roles is seen as bettering her position in the world somehow, whereas a man who does more traditionally feminine things is often considered ridiculous. Mainly by other guys.
That dynamic may be why it's so much easier for me to think of women authors who frequently write men as main characters (Anne McCaffrey, Lois McMaster Bujold, even J. K. Rowling) than the reverse.
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I know... though personally, as much as I usually hang out with guys, I can't really write them as a main character very well in stories I create, because I'm never sure that I'm not feminizing them in their own thoughts. It's a rather difficult path to tred in either direction, which is why I'm so impressed when OSC does it so well.
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Honestly, I think he succeeds by not trying to feminize his female characters. He just writes them as people, and as it turns out, women are people, so it ends up feeling very accurate Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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Well, men ARE people too, but that's not the same thing. He manages, for instance, to write very well about "motherly" things that Petra feels, and the insecurities that Luet feels, and MOST particularly does a good job of the demonstrating the different sorts of attacks on eachother that men and women get into. Kokor for instance, attacks quite differently than Elemak does.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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Yes, but I think that's more differences that would naturally occur between characters than their genders coming through.
Petra was so aggressive that the psychologist had her tested to make sure she was female. No one doubted Valentine's sex, on the other hand.
Honestly, if you made all the characters gender-neutral and then asked people to guess which person was which gender, I'd think they'd have quite a bit of difficulty.
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I don't know, I once asked OSC why there weren't more girls in battle school. I am afraid I can't accurately quote his answer, but it was something along the lines of them not belonging there.
I got the later edition of First Meetings last year in order to read "Teacher's Pest" but I haven't actually read it because I prefer the story I made up for myself where Theresa was a top Battle School graduate, who accepted marrying John Paul and raising a family as a mission from the IF. Yeah, kind of childish, I know. But hopefully as harmless as OSC's speculations on Harry Potter VII.
P.S. I think when it comes to female heros, Dinah Kirkham is my favorite. Jane is probably second. The women of Genesis are all very interesting, but they are definitely operating within the sphere of women. Luet is, again, very interesting but doesn't have that "Wow" factor that I associate with a hero.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:I don't know, I once asked OSC why there weren't more girls in battle school. I am afraid I can't accurately quote his answer, but it was something along the lines of them not belonging there.
Was this at the signing we were both at up in Bountiful? Somebody asked a question like that there, and his answer was closer to "More boys than girls have the emotional and psychological makeup that they are looking for at Battle School."
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