Sirens Panels

[rachelmanija]

I am on two panels which I might be moderating - I'm not sure. One is going to be more of a general discussion, though, since there's only three of us.

I know that most of you, sadly, will not be present for these panels. (If you're lucky, someone will take and post notes.) But since I got really rushed due to grad school and traineeships, please help me out by proposing thought-provoking questions and discussion topics on either or both of these subjects. If I like them (and I'm modding) I'll put them to the panel.

The Huntress and the Dude in Distress: Gender Roles in The Hunger Games

Rachel Manija Brown, Faye Bi, Marie Brennan, Artemis Grey, Shveta Thakrar

This panel will discuss gender and gender roles as they relate to characters in Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games trilogy. We will focus our discussion on the changing roles of Katniss, Gale, and Peeta, but will also explore gender roles as they pertain to secondary characters and to the societies of Panem.

[NOTE: Discussion will be spoilery for all three books.]

Women Who Run with Wolves and Dance with Dragons

Rachel Manija Brown, Cora Anderson, Janni Lee Simner

From the magic horses of Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar series to the psychic wolves of Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear’s A Companion to Wolves, fantasy novels have featured a wide variety of soul-bonded animal companions. These bonds, which range from wish-fulfillment fantasy to outright horror, are as diverse as the creatures themselves. This panel will discuss the tropes and themes of the animal companion motif, and explore the metaphoric nature of the bonds between women and their very special animals.

[NOTE: Bear and Monette's series was mentioned because it explicitly deals with gender roles; however, we'll discuss both women with animal companions, and any gender issues which involve animal companions. We will not discuss men and their animal companions unless there's some gender issue involved. ie, no discussion of Ged and his otak.]

Comments

[starlady]

Yeah, the person who's listed first is the official moderator, though of course you can do what you want. See you soon!

[ursula]

You should talk about Clare Bell's People of the Sky! (Parasitic alien butterfly companion animals.)

[kate_nepveu]

Are HDM daemons on-topic for the second?

[cofax7]

Please please please for the Women who Run With Wolves panel, talk about CJ Cherryh's Finisterre novels, if anyone can. Because it's a really critical look at the question. Although I admit that it doesn't show a lot of women, and the most important woman in the novels is a pubescent girl whose bond with a telepathic creature results in mass murder…

Hmm. Possibly not a perfect match, but certainly an interesting one, and the novels were written pretty explicitly as a counter-argument to McCaffrey and Lackey, or so I understand...

[oyceter]

There's also the evil horse things in Sherri Tepper's Grass. I think the riders are of both genders, but I vaguely remember a female rider disappearing or really being entranced and a male one being injured?

Also don't know if it's applicable, but the generally female-reader-targeted horse books, versus other animals books, which I think tend to be more evenly distributed among genders? Which come to think of it is a little weird since I think Black Beauty is owned by people of different genders, and Marguerite Henry's King of the Wind (the only Henry book I read) has a male trainer? And maybe I am making up the female-audience of horse books, except that has been my general impression in a way that dog books are not (eg. Where the Red Fern Grows and Lassie and dogs + hunting stories). I mean, I do think it's interesting that there is more than one cannibal horse soul bond book out there.

Girls and their dogs: Mette Ivie Harrison's The Princess and the Hound, Robin McKinley's Deerskin, ...?

And now just rambling, but wondering how the stereotype of Crazy Cat Lady fits in.

Also, I'd be interested in how romances between bonded animals and their humans are treated in different ways (Lyra and Will's daemons fondling each other when they hit puberty, Pern dragon mating and noncon sex, can't remember how Valdemar does it, etc.).

For Hunger Games, I don't know if it's relevant, but I found Jennifer Lawrence's movie portrayal of Katniss as Stoic Action Hero to be really interesting and cool.

tldr comment now ending.

[kore]

One thing that struck me about Hunger Games was when Katniss watched her own story (IIRC) they'd feminized her - yeah she was shown as stoic and cold at first, but then more sisterly-maternal with Rue and so when Rue died, that was her big Narrative Arc. It seemed more stereotypically 'feminine' than she actually was....although she did enter the games to save Prim, so. OTOH, having to pretend she was in love with Peeta seemed more like a traditional plotline. I didn't see her so much as maternal, personally, as deliberately taking the place of her father -- hunting, defending the family, always planning, &c.


The animal-companion books I liked were Forty Thousand in Gehenna and Deerskin. Are the Dragonriders of Pern out? If that's too rape-heavy, what about Menolly's firelizards? Another good one was Cordwainer Smith's "The Game of Rat and Dragon," but that was a male human and female cat, IIRC, so probably not what you want. -- It's a bit heavy on the Mary Sue and woo-woo, but uh, I kinda loved Vicky Austin mindbonding or whatever with the dolphins as a twelve-year-old. Heh.

Genderfuckery: I never saw much of the series, but on Star Trek DS-9 there was the Trill who had been a man and then a female. And I don't know if it fits into the 'companion animal' genre exactly, but there's Kalessin and Tehanu in Le Guin's novel, and The Other Wind (talk about dancing with dragons....).

[kore]

-- Oh yeah, what about Granny Weatherwax and "Borrowing"? She doesn't bond with anyone, I don't think, but it seems like a variation on the trope. Or there's Tiffany and the uh, spoiler thing, in Hatful of Sky.

Maybe "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" could be seen as the ultimate female soulbonding-companion story. Heh. Heh.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

For the first panel, it might be interesting to look at how Panem is willing to put girls at risk as well as boys - how does that make their society different from ours? At the same time, there's the fake romance plot to appeal to the voters in the first book. Also, Katniss is shown as protective of younger females twice - how does this role as guardian equate to mothers portrayed in the series, or other mentoring characters?

For the second panel, perhaps how the animal companions take a role that family or society has previously denied the human character? Animal companions taking the role of female role models (even if the animals are male or magically neuter)? Animal companions representing aspects of the personality that have been previously denied expression?

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Why is it acceptable that the dragons and mediated rape in the Pern books is seen as unobjectionable by so many people?

[marfisa.livejournal.com]

Also, you could bring up the whole "young girls and cute animal sidekicks" trope characteristic of both Disney princess movies and many Japanese magical girl anime. In Disney the animals seem to start out as glorified pets who mostly can't speak human language (even when they wear clothes and are obviously reasonably sentient, like the mice in "Cinderella") and only help in relatively minor ways. But in some later films like "Mulan" and the non-Disney (I think), non-princess protagonist Shrek, the animal sidekicks (a fast-talking undersized dragon and a donkey, both with the voice of Eddie Murphy) act more like coaches or meddling best friends who are always full of well-meaning (if not always terribly useful) advice, whether the protagonist wants it or not.

In magical girl anime, on the other hand, the animals talk a lot and try to tell the heroine what to do starting as early as the Sailor Moon manga and anime, at least. In "Sailor Moon," Luna the cat has to break the news of her mission and supernatural powers to the heroine and give her step by step instructions on how to transform into her magical girl form, how to use her various evil-fighting gadgets, etc. (Of course, in the more recent notorious "deconstruction of magical girl tropes" series "Puella Magica Madoka," the cute talking animal who shows up to lure innocent girls into making a contract with him so the girl can have a wish granted in exchange for fighting evil and allegedly saving the world actually has rather sinister motives.)

All of this may or may not relate back in some way to the talking horse in the European fairy tale "Falada" (at least, that's the horse's name, even if the story isn't called that) in which the princess' horse keeps vainly warning her against the "All About Eve"-type servant girl who tricks her into switching places on the journey to her fiance's kingdom, then steals the princess' identity and marries the prince herself--after ordering the horse's head cut off so it can't give her away. Of course, once the severed head is nailed up on a bridge it becomes chattier than ever, and keeps giving the princess-turned-fake servant girl even more astute advice until the truth eventually comes out, I think when the royal procession rides past and the dead horse calls out accusing the usurping servant-turned-princess of her crimes.

[erikagillian.livejournal.com]

For some reason I thought of Red Mars, but both male. Then I thought of Star Beast. Which has that lovely twist at the end. Of course the sexism when it comes to his girlfriend is.. gah.

McKinley's Pegasus (which does have a cliff hanger ending though not a terrible one but I still wouldn't have read it if I had known) has the bonding thing, human and Pegasuses (that really can't be right, can it?), the Pegasusii being full sentient, and not at all like horses. I don't think Spindle's End counts, the protagonist can speak to all animals but there are a few who are special. Possibly the boy and his dragon one, Dragonhaven, dragon is female, named Lois, would count.

Only bonding with animals thing I read extensively was Pern, and I, like almost everyone, I think, wanted a firedragon.

I can't think of any books that do this off the top of my head but young girls and horses? Seems like what the dragons in Pern may have started from. If I remember correctly McCaffrey wrote at least one of her gothics around horses. But the idea of that bond is such a popular trope and it truly gives the girl more physical power than she'd have on her own.