Old women in fantasy


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Sovereign Court

Andrew R wrote:
Hama wrote:
It mostly played with my nerves and my murder instincts...
Hated it that much huh

No, I love the series. I have read all of the 14 books, more then once. But I positively hate 90% of the female characters in those novels. The only ones I don't are Nynaeve, Aviendha and....no, that's it.

Sovereign Court

Hama wrote:
No, I love the series. I have read all of the 14 books, more then once. But I positively hate 90% of the female characters in those novels. The only ones I don't are Nynaeve, Aviendha and....no, that's it.

Two of my favorite characters. I sort of like Tuon as well, mainly for how she played against Matt, but really there weren't that many characters in the series that I liked from their initial introduction to the very end. Nyneave is the only character I liked from start to finish.

Sovereign Court

Oooh, Nynaeve I hated till somewhere around book 4 or 5 if I am not mistaken. And, yes, Tuon can be OK too.


I liked a lot of the female characters in that series. Cadsuane, I think it was, was very interesting. Siuan Sanche as well.

I think some of the love triangle stuff made the main female characters a bit annoying, but other than that, I thought most of the female characters were well-written.

Sovereign Court

Oh they were well-written. Hated them all nonetheless.


Partly because of the role in society of all the major female characters, but having all of them be mysterious and manipulative got pretty old pretty fast.

Dark Archive

thejeff wrote:
Partly because of the role in society of all the major female characters, but having all of them be mysterious and manipulative got pretty old pretty fast.

IMO, the biggest flaw with that series was that all of the men seemed to regard all of the women as useless and untrustworthy and bubble-headed and all of the women seemed to regard all of the men as bumbling incompetents best distracted with trivia while the women ran things behind the scene. When it got to the point of describing how communities had councils of men who technically made all the big decisions, and secret women's councils who thought they were the ones actually running stuff, it went way past silly and felt more like the author hanging a lampshade on his own tendencies.

Half of the crap in the early books seemed like it would have been resolved if Moraine and Rand (the two biggest offenders, IMO) had actually shared information, and not refused to trust one another.

A richly detailed world, full of fascinating cultures and an interesting magic system, bogged down by terribly unlikable characters, who almost all shared a common arrogance and dismissive unwillingness to work with others (outside of whatever smallish same sex clique they are currently in).

The women came off worse, for that, I think, as there were a *few* men who weren't totally nuts on this score (such as Matt and Perrin), but almost all of the women of note seemed like raging misandrists, treating any male character like a bumbling child, more of an inconvenience than a possible help, not to be trusted with information or power. (And while some of the men, such as Rand, earned that with their own breathtakingly bullheaded choices, it still didn't justify that.)


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Note however that Rand's most spectacular "breathtakingly bullheaded" choices were born from an immense amount of pissed off at the treatment of him as a bumbling child when he HADN'T earned that, and then further exacerbated by a deep and abiding hatred/fear of Aes Sedai after the "box incident".

Dark Archive

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Rynjin wrote:
Note however that Rand's most spectacular "breathtakingly bullheaded" choices were born from an immense amount of pissed off at the treatment of him as a bumbling child when he HADN'T earned that, and then further exacerbated by an deep and abiding hatred/fear of Aes Sedai after the "box incident".

Oh, I agree. It was a two way street, and bad actors on side led to bad reactors on the other, feeding off of each other.

Anywho.

When I think of 'strong older woman' in a sci-fi/fantasy role, my favorite go-to image is T'Pau, from that old Star Trek episode.

This one. Not this one. :)


Set wrote:
Rynjin wrote:
Note however that Rand's most spectacular "breathtakingly bullheaded" choices were born from an immense amount of pissed off at the treatment of him as a bumbling child when he HADN'T earned that, and then further exacerbated by an deep and abiding hatred/fear of Aes Sedai after the "box incident".

Oh, I agree. It was a two way street, and bad actors on side led to bad reactors on the other, feeding off of each other.

Anywho.

When I think of 'strong older woman' in a sci-fi/fantasy role, my favorite go-to image is T'Pau, from that old Star Trek episode.

This one. Not this one. :)

In sci-fi: Cherryh's Signy Mallory. Though she's on rejuv so it's not quite clear how old she is.


Queen Elvanna fron Reign of Winter is venerable. Doesn't look it, though. So she doesn't really add to the visibility of older women.

The Exchange

In protoindoeuropean roots there is ansu (an-su) or old mother swine so an elderly lady who has her own herd of pigs and boars so little old ladies have been terrorising people for ten thousand years or more. Maybe it is the challenge and threat she represents to the patriarchy culture.

Grand Lodge

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I feel obligated to mention Olenna Tyrell from Game of Thrones. Or rather, from A Song of Ice and Fire, as she has thus far appeared more formidable in the books than in the TV show.

Minor Spoilers:
Olenna serves as an excellent foil to Cersei Lannister. Where Cersei tries to gain and solidify power by controlling people through her blatant sexuality and with outright threats, Olenna is an old lady who is the true leader of the Tyrell family. She rules through subtle manipulations, and appears to be a very sweet old lady. Beneath it all, she is obviously one of the most cunning players in the "Game of Thrones."

Scarab Sages

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Mike Franke wrote:
I'm pretty sure I remember lots of kick butt grannies on Kung-Fu theatre when I was a kid so old lady monk should work nicely.

The Landlady, from 'Kung Fu Hustle' would make a good high level Monk.

Grand Lodge

Lots of old ladies NPCs in mine campaigns, funny, wise, inspiring or badasses. But never saw a PC woman elder.

In Golarion we have a bunch too; Ailson Kindler and Baba Yaga to name two.


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I just watched the movie "Amazons and Gladiators" on Netflix.

It was suggested to me because I had given 3 stars to Deathstalker and Barbarian Queen.

The dialog is epically terrible and the acting is like melting a bad thing over a thing that is bad in order to create a double-layered bad dip...and you forgot the chips (U.S.)/crisps (U.K.).

But it has a theme of female empowerment throughout and also makes use of the virgin-mother-crone motif.

The virgin is essentially the hero of the story. The mother is the martial matron that instructs the virgin in her skills. And the crone is the bardic biographer of the virgin's story.

It's refreshing in that that Amazon's are nearly fully clothed or clothing-appropriate for a cold-season temperate climate. But there are many instances of pandering to the hetero-male throughout (though far less-so than the ~20 years earlier Deathstalker/Barbarian Queen movies).

One can extrapolate a couple/few decades on the mother-figures and twice that on the younger female characters to get various personalities and dispositions of old-age/venerable category women (all with a general martial focus).

But did I mention the terrible dialog and bad acting? Yeah, it's really a terrible movie that it goes right past becoming the good kind of bad and delves into the weird lacuna of the liminal Nicolas Cage.

But it's only a pseudo Cageian cenote as it's really mostly bad. Bad, bad.


Darklord Morius wrote:

Lots of old ladies NPCs in mine campaigns, funny, wise, inspiring or badasses. But never saw a PC woman elder.

It's a shame, too. Playing Sarae Somellin as clan matron and wise crone was a total blast.


I should mention that the gevet race in NeoExodus: A House Divided has a matriarchal society. Gevet names list clan name first, followed by mother's name, and then given name.


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DeathQuaker wrote:


So saying that LotR was one of the most boring series of books I ever read would be a bad idea?

Bring it, nerds!

It's one of my favorites *and* one of the most boring series of books I ever read :)

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