Recs: Women Creating Their Story

[rachelmanija]

This is for a possible Sirens presentation. The theme this year is "retold tales."

Can you recommend to me fantasy media or myth in which female characters, in some sense, alter reality by telling stories about it?

This "altering reality" doesn't have to be magic in itself; the ultimate example is Scheherazade, who changes the world by telling stories. There's also Martha's world-changing storytelling in Doctor Who.

The other examples I thought of were magical: Paperhouse (girl creates spooky new reality by drawing it), Fudoki (a dying princess of the Heian court writes a story about a cat who becomes a woman; she may or may not create a reality in which the story is true), The Secret Country (kids create a fantasy world, then travel to it and find that it is and isn't as they imagined), The Tricksters (characters from a girl's lush fantasy narrative show up, again not exactly as she pictured them), Voices (Annals of the Western Shore) (spoilery but sort of fits), Witch Week (the entire climax depends on a girl telling a story which alters reality.)

Can you think of others? Especially, examples from myth and folklore, and examples which aren't about white girls?

ETA: If you rec something, please explain how it fits.

Comments

[skygiants]

The recent anime Mawaru Penguindrum features a character (Japanese) who explicitly shifts realities by writing the change that she wants to make down in her diary. The penalties for making this kind of change are written on her body -- she saves the life of an animal, and comes to school the next day with a burn scar. Saving the life of another child carries a much more significant cost.

Would Princess Tutu count? I mean, technically the men -- Drosselmeyer and Fakir -- are the traditional storytellers, but Duck is the one who changes the narrative by insisting on the possibility of a happy ending.

Pretty much all of Catherynne Valente's books that I've read deal with this in one respect or another, but the most obvious fit is The Orphan's Tales, a pair of books in which the titular female orphan tells a complex and interwoven series of stories and, in the telling of them, makes the conclusion happen. In keeping with the Scheherezade feel, the frame setting is Middle Eastern, although I forget exactly what background the orphan turns out to come from except that it's EXTREMELY COMPLICATED.

In Labyrinth, Sarah tells a story about goblins taking away her brother, and they do. It's strongly implied that the Labyrinth itself sprang out of Sarah's imagination and all the influences around her; she escapes it by telling herself a story in which David Bowie and his terrifying tight pants have no power over her.

There is also Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters and Witches Abroad, which is kind of a different twist in that in both those books, a villain is altering reality with a false story, and the female protagonists re-tell the story in order to set the world straight.

DON'T GO AWAY, I'M SURE I'VE GOT MORE.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Whatsherface in Death Note is also able to write changes into reality, though it's more limited than what you describe for Mawaru Penguindrum.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Misa!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Keep going!

I was debating over Princess Tutu. It's kind of an edge case.

[skygiants]

I also refuse to believe that Patricia McKillip has not done this trope at least once, but I can't keep her books distinct enough in my head to remember which or when! So someone else will have to help me out there.

[sovay]

I also refuse to believe that Patricia McKillip has not done this trope at least once, but I can't keep her books distinct enough in my head to remember which or when!

The Sorceress and the Cygnet (1991) involves reshaping myth, although not solely by female characters. Alphabet of Thorn (2004) involves the decoding of a narrative written by a woman, although it is more of a warning, a record, and an invitation than it is a magical alteration. Would you count Lydea and Mag's collaboration in the climax of Ombria in Shadow (2002)?

[erikagillian.livejournal.com]

The Bell at Sealey Head? I'm not positive the story teller actually changes the reality, I read it pretty fast and haven't reread yet, but I'm pretty sure that's how they manage to change it, there is a very wonderful story teller in it with wonderful stories.

[skygiants]

YET ANOTHER: The Stories of Ibis, another explicit Scheherezade-echo, in which a female-identified robot tells fictional stories to explain the truth about the robot revolution to a human male who refuses to hear actual the history in case it turns out to be part of a CUNNING BRAINWASHING PLOT. This is the frame device; some of the stories themselves also contain women changing the world with narrative, including a female fanfic writer who saves her troubled RP-buddy by writing him the right story.

And I can't believe I forgot The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya series (books and anime), in which Haruhi Suzumiya is the only one who is not aware that she has brought time travelers and robots and telepaths into existence by very firmly believing and explaining to everyone about how they have to exist. (Said time travelers and robots and telepaths, interested in studying the phenomenon, immediately vow to tell her nothing about it.)

Also, yet another, more sinister DWJ example: Time of the Ghost, in which the four sisters awaken the Morrigan by telling stories about her.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Monigan, and is it stories or their (not-so-mock) worship? Though obviously there is a fuzzy line there.