A wedding at the end

I haven't been keeping to my blogging schedule but I have Opinions about a point raised by this feminist critique of Disney's Frozen. I haven't seen Frozen and my opinions are not about the critique but about the first point the author discusses as a source of praise from other critics- "There was no wedding at the end of the film."

I've heard this before, and it's a source of some discomfort for me as a feminist. On the one hand, I don't like stories where the heroine's main quest is motivated solely by her love interest, or where the purpose of the female character is solely bride/love interest of the hero. On the OTHER hand, I'm currently engaged and have spent my entire life (as have most people, I expect) hoping that I would find a person who would love me as much as I loved them. This is not to say my whole life has been about finding that person and that love, or that I feel I've attained a Happy Ending by doing so. This is only to say that while I don't believe a woman needs love or marriage to be complete or that women who don't marry are somehow less successful as women, I do believe that most people (especially young girls/teens who internalize media in a way that shapes their identity) want to "end up" in love, or at least experience it in some significant way. We're not solitary creatures by nature. And while some people end up perfectly happy and content without partners, very few imagine this as children.

Which means that when we watch movies or read books, if we identify with the heroine, we probably want her to find love in one way or another. We want this for ourself and so we want it for the characters we wish we could be. And I think it is both reasonable and realistic to say that feminists and all women who have goals outside of marriage still largely end up with the opportunity to have a partner and love in their lives (though of course, some choose not to.)

What I think is the more harmful depiction is the emerging dichotomy between feminist characters who don't have love interests and the more traditional princess (or, worse, the faux-feminist Strong Female Characters) who do. Which sends the message to little girls or teens that being pretty will get you the man (or woman) and being smart/witty/brave/kind will not.

As for my own writing. I have two novels, both with female protagonists. The first does not find love, but her arc is more about finding safety and a sense of self. And she certainly finds non-romantic love. But it was very much the set up for a second book which would see her learning to love and allow herself to be loved. This was also a severe Mary Sue and so I didn't feel too badly about leaving her without a romantic interest because I knew she'd turn out all right in the end.

The second book is more complicated.  My main character is not a Mary Sue, and begins the book damaged and traumatized and wanting only to escape. The second portion of the book is about her quest for revenge and finally about how she can find a way to live as a whole person. Yes, she has a love interest and yes, there is a wedding. (Actually there are several.) I wanted this for her. She spends so much of the story isolated by her past and her dishonesty and her single-minded ambitions, but while she is flawed she is also intelligent and vulnerable and desiring mostly to do the right thing. To leave her alone (or to kill off her love interest) seemed like punishing her for these things, for not being a well-behaved woman.

But it was not just the affection of author for character that made me keep the wedding at the end. I thought about what I wanted readers who identify with the main character to take away. And what I wanted was this: that the world will try to break you, that it will punish you for defying patriarchy and for refusing to accept what you are told. You may lose people you love, you may suffer tragedy and make mistakes and be betrayed even by the ones who are supposed to protect you. But you will have friends and kind strangers and when it seems too hard to go on, somehow you will find the strength to do so. When you are ready, and when you find someone who sees the strength in you as something to be treasured and not smothered, even if you gave up on the idea and believed you were too old or too broken, love will be there in the end.

Falling in love has made me a better, calmer, stronger person. It has made things I once thought were impossible seem easy. I do not feel it has made me less of a feminist or less of a woman. If I have daughters, I hope that I can find the right way to explain this. That falling in love need not be the sum total of their life, but that it is no trifle, either. That it is not something they will ever have to trade for being smart, strong and independent. That love, and even marriage, with the right partner, is worth working for and fighting for. 

Let's talk about Romione.. Hermiron?

So JK Rowling has said that she regrets coupling up Ron and Hermione. We have Opinions about this (obviously) as both writers and Harry Potter fans. We thought this post would function best as a conversation.

KP: My main objection to this comes from the part of me that really responded to the Harry/Hermione friendship. I didn't want Harry and Hermione to end up together because I appreciated the story of a genuinely platonic pair of friends who love each other, rely upon one another, respect each other and DON'T WANT TO HAVE SEX. I like the idea that this can exist. I think that it's harmful to treat every female character as a sexual prize for the male protagonist and I appreciated that Harry found any implication of a romantic attachment between them to be laughable. 

AEE:  Wait, we need to have a main objection?  Crap.  I object to this on SO many levels.  I’m not certain which objection I would like to tackle first…  No wait, I found it.  What about the fact that Ron spent so much time in the books playing second fiddle to Harry?  Not that, as you mention, every female character should be a sexual prize, but I found Ron and Hermione’s relationship to be a believable catalyst to the bond that Ron and Harry shared – he stuck with Harry many times not only because they were friends, but because the three characters together were such a great team, and because he not only loved and respected Harry, but loved and respected Hermione.  He was rewarded by this blossoming into something more, and I thought that this was a really beautiful thing.

Sidenote:  The comment about Ron and Hermione needing marriage counseling in the future is bullshit.  Of course they’d need marriage counseling!  All couples could likely benefit from marriage counseling at some point in their relationships/marriages!  Plus, look at Ron’s example of a married couple – Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are every bit as ‘compatible’ as Ron and Hermione, but I don’t see J.K. Rowling saying that they need counseling.  One of the reasons Ron and Hermione get together is that they enjoy the way they fight together.  It’s part of the spark between them, part of the passion that underlies their conversation and interactions. 

Okay, I’ve had two.  Kelsey?

JK is not exactly the model of creating realistic human relationships. See also: every character (including the Weasley parents and Mr. and Mrs. Potter) ends up with their HS sweetheart unless they are "damaged" in some way (a werewolf (Lupin) Gay (Dumbledore) existing solely to be a supporting character (Sirius) I think one of the things she fails at as a writer is pulling the books out of the storybook childlike innocence in regards to human relationships. The conflict becomes darker and more mature but 16 year old boys literally never talk about sex. Everyone's parents are married, unless they died or are black (Dean Thomas, Blaze Zabini) and everyone has One True Love and that is it. And, while I think there are a number of things that are compelling about JK's writing and characters, she's not great at writing complex romantic relationships. I find the idea of Harry/Hermione tediously immature and harmful to one of the more interesting relationships that she DID manage. But we should also discuss how we object to this as fans, given the material is already published...

EXACTLY!  It's in print, right there!  What kind of message are you sending your fans when you undermine - at a foundational level - the story that you have already published?  I understand looking back at your work and wondering how it could have turned out were you to have made a different decision - this is the nature of memory and retrospect.  But to say that you made a mistake with your work when your work has become such an integral part of pop culture and the basis of a vast empire?  This feels like something played for cheap thrills.  Currently, I feel as though the entire structure of the 7-book series is quaking -- I'm waiting for the next comment from JK to send it crashing to the ground.  This is extremely disrespectful to fans; she has carefully crafted a story so as to direct us in one particular direction, only to pull the rug out from under us and say that her story is incorrect in one of its most basic (and beloved) plot lines.  To say nothing of the fact that it calls the intelligence of her readers into question, as though to say that had they truly been in tune with her project, they would have been able to tell that her plot was incorrect...

This is part of the problem of writing a series that is so popular. I think the push to come out with the next books was so strong that she was writing for her life and not able to breathe and look at what she'd done and how the story had written itself away from her original plan. I think this led to a number of flaws including some circular plots and cheap devices (Crabbe just HAPPENS to summon the right kind of fire that can destroy Horcruxes? REALLY?) that were totally forgivable for the sake of such a beautiful story. But I don't think any authors are ever really satisfied with their work and at some point you have to stop changing it and let it go. This may have happened too quickly for JK but it's DONE it's printed and she's got to stop retelling it. WRITE SOMETHING NEW. Personally I think she should go with Marauder prequels...

My problem with this is that she said several times that she had planned everything out in advance.  Maybe that's my biggest problem with this revelation: if it's such a huge, glaring mistake, shouldn't she have noticed that if she had planned such intricate plotlines?  Plus her claim that she put the two of them together as a form of "wish fulfillment."  Isn't that one reason to become an author?  To be able to do stuff like that?  It created a stronger story to have Ron and Hermione end up together, precisely BECAUSE Harry didn't end up with Hermione.  I thought it was one of the more brilliant structures she plotted.  She planted seeds for it early on.  If she really kept a shoebox under her bed with the seven books planned out, and knew that early that she wanted Ron and Hermione together, and made it such an integral part of the story, she can't expect to tug on that plot thread and not have the whole web feel the vibration.  Now I'm unconsciously questioning what else she thinks she did "wrong."  It's weakened the whole thing.

And you're right - Marauder prequels would be amazing.  Or even prequels as to how Hogwarts and the original four houses were founded.

 

The Second Second Blog Post

So here's the thing.

I've stopped writing.

There it is -- in print.  The ugly truth.

I stopped calling myself a writer for a while -- I felt like a fake.  I didn't have anything recently penned - nothing finished, at least - so I stopped talking about it.  Nothing to show, so why bring it up?

But other people called me a writer.  People who didn't know I didn't have much to show at the moment..  The few people in whom I confided that I was considering throwing in the towel.  People who had just met me, who had looked me straight in the eye and said, "You're a writer, aren't you?  You totally are."  I couldn't get away from it, even when I thought I wanted to do so.

And then I realized I didn't want to do so.  Because it's a fundamental part of who I am.

I have loud thoughts.  My brain has got to be one of the most vociferous, most insistent, most obnoxious noise machines I have ever encountered.  It takes hours for it to shut off at night; often I can't drown it out while trying to work, read, have conversations...

Writing requires ideas, which means thinking, which means listening, which means opening the floodgates and allowing the noise to sweep in.  I haven't yet learned - completely - how to filter out the superfluous.  But I can't let that stop me any more.

I like who I am when I write.  I like what I feel, I like what I say.  I like the euphoria when I see the pages fill with words.  

I like the way writing causes the noise to slowly grow quiet.

So I guess the only solution is to write.

So, my goals for this year (because, as it was so eloquently put previously, "it's not New Years but who cares):

 - Finish the short story that's haunted me for several months now

 - Finish the rest of the short stories that I believe will complete a fairly cohesive collection

 - Work on the novel that I began last week, finishing in time for November

 - Complete my fifth consecutive NaNoWriMo novel (and celebrate accordingly)

 - Blog at least 2 times a week, with the stretch goal of increasing to three

 - Something exercise related also, since I feel guilty for not including that...

I can do this.

This is important.

I must write again.

--AEE

My second blog post

First blog posts come with a lot of pressure. It has to be The Post that Introduces and Encompasses and Establishes the Mission of The Blog. So I will call this my second blog post and not worry too much about it.

 

I’ve been reading less lately. I don’t like it. I don’t understand it. I think it is, in part, due to the amount of time I spend reading the internet. A few years ago I was at a wedding and another guest told me he hasn’t read a book in years. He spent plenty of time reading, he assured me, but just on the internet. Short form reading.

 

I was shocked and appalled and confused.HOW? I wondered. How could a person get by without spending every spare second on the bus, in line or in the break room, in the bath or in bed. And then, somehow, in the slow slip of time that went to running, dating, working, writing, I stopped being a reader. I’ll check Slog and Jezebel and Facebook 50 times a day but I haven’t sat down with a book and just read for ages. I’ve read manuscripts for friends and listened to over a dozen audio books at the office but it just doesn’t feel the same.

 

My fiancé (I haven’t made up a name for him yet) reads comics on his iPad near constantly. While we watch Movies or TV he can, somehow, focus on both. I think he functions better this way, reading and listening at the same time. It helps him focus somehow. I need to learn to do this. To put aside my laptop and the online shopping or the latest draft of my manuscript and pick up a book, tune out Storage Wars  or Top Chef. To stop working on my own words and let myself get lost in someone else’s.

 

My literary goals for the year (It’s not New Years but who cares)

 

Read a new book each month (the old me cringes at the smallness of this goal)

Self-publish my 2 current manuscripts

Complete a new novel in November for NaNoWriMo

Blog at least 3 times a week.

Find a way to combine reading and exercise. Maybe long sessions on a stationary bike with my Kindle?

 

I also have a wedding upcoming in October, so I need to start getting into good habits and routines today.

 

I can do this.

 

This is important.

 

I must read again.