What would you like to see in a fantasy novel?


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Lord Snow wrote:

cmastah, now I'm pretty sure you're kidding.

** spoiler omitted **...

In the case of Arya, I will grant that she is a plucky underdog, but she's not yet in a position where she can stop other people from deciding her fate.

Spoiler:

Sansa only RECENTLY, when she defended littlefinger took control of the situation rather than BE controlled (whereas prior, she was everyone's scratching post).

Brienne IS a strong character, but highly underused.

Daenerys...yeah, she is a strong character, I forgot about her because I just don't like her >.>' (I haven't read her mind in the books, but she's being awfully cruel right now (yes, slavers are bad, but she's acting as cruel as they were), so I don't understand how she FEELS about the matter).

Asha Greyjoy...admittedly I'm beginning to think I can't look past Catelyn, Sansa and Arya and that's probably because I just finished reading the first book whereas I finished watching the latest GoT ages ago.

Sand vipers....umm....who?

From the TV show, Shae feels more like she thinks she has strength, but she's really unhappily just following Tyrion's desires (not the sexual ones) until she gets upset with him and betrays him, and then she just lowers herself to become Tywin's...umm...not going to say it.

Ygritte...If she'd killed Jon, I'd be on board right now.

Melisandre...Ok, that one's tough AND scary and she's got someone as psychotically unstable as Stannis wrapped around her little finger.

Admittedly I'm probably judging my female characters by the first book.

The Exchange

Ice and Fire spoiler:
Arya unable to decide her own fate? I guess being the only northman to escape the Lannisters when Robert died doesn't count for anything. Or surviving for weeks after, on her own, in the slums of King's Landing. Or engineering the escape from Harrenhall.
Just because she isn't all powerful does not in any way make her a wake character or one who is dependent on men. If you insist that at certain points she gets captured and others determine her fight... well, that happens to almost all characters in the series, and I don't think you want to be saying that Jamie Lannister is not in a position to stop others from determining his fate.

Sansa's improvement from a noble brat to a more accomplished schemer is a slow and steady progress throughout the books. However, she is only smitten with princes and knights in the first half of the first book - she is disillusioned from that soon after her capture, and after that her story is about her hardships and how she learns to deal with them, NOT with how much she loves person X.

Brienne becomes a viewpoint character in the third book, at which points she is anything but underused.

Your opinion on Daenerys is not irrelevant in general, but it is irrelevant to the question of whether or not she is defined by men, the answer to which is a resounding no.

I don't know if the Sand Vipers are in the TV show yet (stopped watching after season 3), they are three deadly Dornish warriors.

Ygritte... what? How is her killing a main character a requirement for being her own person? Sure, her role in the story was to be Jon's lover, but that wasn't all she was - she was also a wildling and a combatant who fought for her people, which ultimately led to her death. Remember that when forced to choose between Jon or her people, she chose her people. How is she defined by him, then?

I'd say it's a combination of you only having read the first story, misinterpreting some of the characters (like thinking that Sansa is about loving Joffrey rather than about illusions of romance), forgetting others (such as Daenerys), and having a possibly too strong definition of what "defined by men" means about a female character. It doesn't mean being motivated by men-related objectives, or sometimes being bested by a man, it means being motivated by nothing other than a man. For example, if you describe a character as "the wife of a rich man who wants his love", that's being defined by a man. "a spoiled teenage lady who thinks she lives in a romantic world of chivalry" (Sansa) is not.

The Exchange

Because if you are going to say that being motivated by men related objectives is means being defined by men, the following logical conclusions follow:

1) If men are motivated by men related objectives, they are defined by the men in their lives (so a son wanting to impress his father is not his own person, he is defined by men)

2) Any man motivated by women related objectives is defined by the women in his life (So a man trying to rescue his wife is defined by women)

You willing to accept those conclusions?


Lord Snow wrote:

Because if you are going to say that being motivated by men related objectives is means being defined by men, the following logical conclusions follow:

1) If men are motivated by men related objectives, they are defined by the men in their lives (so a son wanting to impress his father is not his own person, he is defined by men)

2) Any man motivated by women related objectives is defined by the women in his life (So a man trying to rescue his wife is defined by women)

You willing to accept those conclusions?

It may be shallow to say so, but yes, I actually do :P

The Exchange

cmastah wrote:
Lord Snow wrote:

Because if you are going to say that being motivated by men related objectives is means being defined by men, the following logical conclusions follow:

1) If men are motivated by men related objectives, they are defined by the men in their lives (so a son wanting to impress his father is not his own person, he is defined by men)

2) Any man motivated by women related objectives is defined by the women in his life (So a man trying to rescue his wife is defined by women)

You willing to accept those conclusions?

It may be shallow to say so, but yes, I actually do :P

OK, great, that explains the difference in our opinions on the matter of a Song of Ice and Fire. To me it seems almost all characters are motivated by relationships, and happening to be motivated by characters only of a single sex is not a meaningful statistic. It's when a female character is nothing more that a role player in the lives of male characters that I have a problem, as it is an unfortunately common trope, and when that does not treat female characters fairly or realistically.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Ponswick wrote:
What are your favorite aspects of the fantasy genre? I personally like a book that feels like D&D. What have you liked in fantasy books or would like to see?

I personally detest most fantasy novels that read as bad as gaming fiction. Dragonlance only improved when they made the decision to move the game out of the way of the story.


I like my fantasy stories to take me on an emotional roller coaster, I like it when you hope beyond hope the people involved succeed and they get knocked back a few steps. Character deaths to drive the point home that these characters are not infallable (LOTR style).

Epic world and scope is also a favorite of mine, middle earth is a good example of this. Though WOT was overall a good series imo, there were some fluffwr books in the series. I believe this had a small part to do with the publishers wanting to stretch out a popular series. Of course this is speculation on my part and has no basis in actual evidence.

With that being said I do love the stories that are compiled from shorts such as the Elric and the blacksword series. I found them to be fast, fun, turn off your brain fluff candy. This series iw written by Michael Moorcock.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Tim Akers's Horns of Ruin stars a gunslinging paladin to a dead god. She has a cool scabbard that picks up her sword and stuff, too. A very cool setting, and she isn't defined by her relationships with men.

Also, that big dumb sorceress from Steven Brust's Phoenix Guard series isn't defined by her romantic relationships. She's basically a female version of Jayne Cobb with a butler and magic powers. And big giant sword.


I personally wish to see (and this happens a bit more now than it was) more characters that are not perfect. Flawed, biased, foolish, egotistical, selfish, etc. One need not be perfect to be heroic. If anything overcoming the faults of the self to still achieve victory is more satisfying of a tale than shining paladins who never do wrong and are infallible.

A perfect recent example of this is the Warden from Daniel Polanski's Low Town series. Hell, the main "hero" of the stories if a hardened war vet who was once an agent of the crown, but lost his position for sake of love, and becomes a drug dealer. He is a true SOB, but still ends up doing many things that are right and good. Moreover he is believable, as I had no issue seeing myself in his shoes were I faced with the hardships of his life.

Tis a great book BTW, well worth reading, as are all of the Low Town novels by Mr. Polanski

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