"Dragonsbane", Barbara Hambly
3 May 2019 01:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeThis must have been a fairly early book on the author's part, as it is promoted on the cover as being by "the author of the Darwath Trilogy", and I have a number of her other books but not those... (I have a feeling I may have read them and returned them a long time ago; the character names ring a faint bell.)
"Dragonsbane" is refreshing and unusual in that it features a woman protagonist in a quasi-mediaeval setting who manages to be the central character in the story and save the day (and her menfolk) without stepping outside a 'female' role. Living as she does in the dangerous borderlands, Jenny Waynest is perfectly capable of disarming and killing a bandit using her weapon of choice (a halberd; keeps you well out of range) while riding home in her ordinary homespun skirts, but when it comes to disposing of a dragon it is she who handles the diplomatic and magical aspects while her lover is summoned to court to do the actual fighting.
It's not a consciously 'feminist' novel, but it's very unusual in being a high fantasy featuring a middle-aged woman protagonist operating within the constraints of a 'female' social role without even thinking about it. She isn't liberated, or even consciously oppressed. She simply takes it for granted that she is the witch and she brews the potions and deals with the petty social malices of the court and studies the magic and works out what is really going on, and he is the one who has to go out and hack and slash and be patched up afterwards if it is at all within her skill.
And there's a nice twist at the end where it's actually his mechanical ingenuity that saves her when magic can't do more than hold the opposition to a draw; it's a very equal and affectionate relationship, rather than one that's trying to make a point, and that's necessary because it's vital to her final decision. It has to be credible that she will choose human warmth over the capacity for infinite power, and we have to want her to do it rather than see her as throwing herself away. It's better to be human, and loved, and handicapped, and imperfect, than cold and powerful and impervious.
"Dragonsbane" is refreshing and unusual in that it features a woman protagonist in a quasi-mediaeval setting who manages to be the central character in the story and save the day (and her menfolk) without stepping outside a 'female' role. Living as she does in the dangerous borderlands, Jenny Waynest is perfectly capable of disarming and killing a bandit using her weapon of choice (a halberd; keeps you well out of range) while riding home in her ordinary homespun skirts, but when it comes to disposing of a dragon it is she who handles the diplomatic and magical aspects while her lover is summoned to court to do the actual fighting.
It's not a consciously 'feminist' novel, but it's very unusual in being a high fantasy featuring a middle-aged woman protagonist operating within the constraints of a 'female' social role without even thinking about it. She isn't liberated, or even consciously oppressed. She simply takes it for granted that she is the witch and she brews the potions and deals with the petty social malices of the court and studies the magic and works out what is really going on, and he is the one who has to go out and hack and slash and be patched up afterwards if it is at all within her skill.
And there's a nice twist at the end where it's actually his mechanical ingenuity that saves her when magic can't do more than hold the opposition to a draw; it's a very equal and affectionate relationship, rather than one that's trying to make a point, and that's necessary because it's vital to her final decision. It has to be credible that she will choose human warmth over the capacity for infinite power, and we have to want her to do it rather than see her as throwing herself away. It's better to be human, and loved, and handicapped, and imperfect, than cold and powerful and impervious.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-03 10:39 am (UTC)You might like Paladin of Souls - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61904.Paladin_of_Souls - anther book with an older female protagonist who stays within a 'female' role, but still manages to do what has to be done. (It's a favourite of mine)
no subject
Date: 2019-05-03 11:26 am (UTC)(A bit like the story I wrote for a cross-fandom challenge in which the climax was the protagonist realising that she was, in fact, dead -- something that packed an extra punch to any fandom-blind readers who were not aware that the character in question had already died at the climax of the original story :-p)
And now that you mention it, there is a resemblance between the 'backroom' roles of Ista and Jenny -- and the 'developing and managing new powers' strand, although that's a standard part of character development plus a method of world-building, I think. It's easier to explain the workings of your magical system if the protagonist is learning about them at the same time, and in any case it wouldn't be much fun to read about the powerful Archmage who starts off the book already able to annihilate all opponents. Although that might be a challenge to write and make interesting plot-wise; obviously he would have to have some other vulnerability, probably personality-based (he trusts someone and is manipulated/betrayed?) although it would be hard to come up with one that made the story interesting without taking the standard route of having it conveniently rob him of/block his powers, e.g. Merlin and Viviane.