Who's your daddy?

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is a terrible title, and no, I couldn't think of a better one. (But I'll take suggestions.)

Lately I've been thinking about father figures in fiction. And, in the ongoing quest to discuss every single aspect of the Queen's Thief series, I naturally turned the focus of these thinkings onto Gen and company.

It seems to me that father figures/mentors are a huge part of storytelling. In fact, I'm hard-pressed to think of a story wherein they aren't a factor (of varying degrees of positive or negative influence), even if it requires scratching beyond the surface. To give a few examples off the top of my head: Obi-Wan to Anakin, Captain Pike to James T. Kirk (see icon -- and please, don't hate me for loving the new movies despite destruction of canon), Sirius to Harry, Haymitch to Katniss, Gandalf to the World at Large.

And let's not be biased here - obviously mother figures exist too (thought I honestly can't think of as many in fiction--why is that?): fairy godmothers, Mrs. Weasley, Galadriel. (Peg Gratton from The Scorpio Races is, I think, a great example of an unusual mother figure to Puck.)

In fact, these mentor figures come in all guises: older siblings, teachers, wise friends.

My blanket definition would be an older/wiser character whose existence in the past or present plays a significant role in the growth, development, decision-making of the main character/current generation, for good or ill.

They are oftentimes unsung heroes and shadow characters. Sometimes, they are dead and/or out of the picture long before the official starting point of the story, and yet their influence remains key to the development of plot and character. Stories are bigger than individuals, progressing naturally from one generation to the next.

So, my questions for you are 1) Tell me some of your favorite (or least favorite--that could be interesting) father figures in fiction, and why? And 2) More specifically, what are some of the most or least obvious examples of father figures we can find in QT?

To get the discussion started, a few of my thoughts:

Gen's father, obviously. I find this relationship particularly interesting because, despite it being a complicated relationship, it's a very strong one. Gen takes after and exhibits more of his mother and grandfather's Thiefy side of the family, and yet as the series progresses we see more and more of the Kingy side of the family, in his military skill and leadership savvy. It interests me to no end how this is the side Gen tends to hide. Why?

An example of negative influence would be Baron Erondites to his sons. Dite is rebelling in a positive way, while Sejanus is more than happy to play the role of Good Son (...or would that be Bad Son?) But, whoa! Brotherly love darts in unexpectedly when Dite tries to save his younger brother. And was younger brother jaded on behalf of older brother's thwarted love? Watch out for the ties that bind, people of Attolia. (And isn't it sweet how Gen meets this with sympathy?)

I think there's an interesting reverse-role to be explored between Gen and Relius.

Sophos and Pol. Sophos and Ambiades. Sophos and the Magus. Sophos and Gen. In fact, Sophos is pretty much the universal son/little brother here. They're so cute when they grow up...

On the girls' side, I've often wondered about Attolia's relationship to her mother and brothers. And what about Eddis? For some reason I've always assumed she was close to her father, and to Gen's father too.

So, so, so. Who's influencing whom, hmm?

Comments

[hazelwillow.livejournal.com]

Whoops, I tried to post this before but it got marked as spam :P (so I deleted it)

I think Relius was a mentor to Attolia. And he's one of the few (if not the only) she's allowed herself to have. As an illegitimate son to a household steward, he wasn't a threat to her the way other "advisors" would have been... And she came to rely on him. And that mentor relationship is part of why she feels so betrayed when he lets her hard-given trust down.

I've been thinking about mentors a lot lately. I have a few in my life and I feel they are so very important, at this stage of life (as a young person starting out on my own, especially navigating the non-school/university world). So, a very important subject!

As for the dearth of female mentors in fiction, I wrote about that in part right here (No Leia I am your Mother) (http://hazelwillow.livejournal.com/5788.html). I was thinking about female "archetypal heroes," meaning by that term mythical type heroes who go through the Campbell "Hero's Journey" (a call to adventure, meeting a mentor, a series of tests and trials, an ordeal involving a death and rebirth or "entering the cave", a reward and coming in to ones own, a return to the normal world that is like a rebirth, etc.). Luke Skywalker, King Arthur, Theseus, Jesus, etc. all would fit this mythical arc. Most have mentors (Merlin, Obi-Wan Kenobi). Many have father-son relationships. But there are few mother-daughter relationships explored with the same operatic and mythical weight. I think there should be, and could be, but there aren't, at least not big ones in popular culture.

I should point out mentors and father/mother-figures are not always the same thing. A father-figure can overshadow the hero's psyche; their presence (or absence) is part of what the story deals with. Coming to terms with who one's parents are is a big part of becoming a distinct person, which is part of what a hero's story is all about. But a father isn't always the same thing as a mentor, who acts more as an independent guide, helping the hero to gain independence away from the family or normal world. Yoda is one of Luke's mentors, but not his father-figure. He helps him prepare to deal with the father-figure...but he isn't that figure himself.

But to stop talking about archetypal stories and just thinking of female mentors in general...

Professor McGonnagal (Harry Potter)
Morwen the Witch (Cimorene in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles)
Cinderella's Fairy Godmother
Izumi in Fullmetal Alchemist
Glinda to Dorothy
Mary Malone and Serafina Pekkala to Lyra from His Dark Materials (she also has a number of male mentors)
(she's more a mother figure, but) Merida's mother from Brave
Grandmother from The Princess and the Goblin
Miss Muriel Stacey in Anne of Green Gables

I feel that's a sadly short list, but there are some.

And in Queens Thief... I would say Eddis, but she's more of an older sister to Eugenides.
Eugenides's grandfather would be the main one. And what about Eugenides the God?

[tiegirl.livejournal.com]

Disney kills all the mothers. :P

No, just being silly while I appreciate the intelligence of Sounisians. I love you guys!

[1221bookworm.livejournal.com]

I like how you point out Professor McGonnagal! I don't think she gets enough love for the support she gave Harry and co. during all their mishaps. She may have given them a tough time verbally, but she stood up for them to everyone else - like when she told Prof. Umbridge she would coach Harry in the evenings if that's what it took to help him become an auror. As a side note, if you like Prof. McGonnagal, you'll love her in Downton Abbey. Her character is remarkable similar in outward actions, but she does have quite the heart underneath it all. She's also just hysterical!

[1221bookworm.livejournal.com]

Very interesting post! I have both a mother and father example, both from the Farsala Trilogy by Hilari Bell.

To stick with fatherhood first, you talk about the parent who isn't there who still guides the actions of the hero. This is true for Jiaan, who is the illegitimate son of Commander Merhab, who has some appearances in the first book, but is killed in battle in the last few pages of the first book. When I first read the series, I wasn't too devestated, felt bad for Jiaan, but it was. As the trilogy progresses, you see Commander Merhab more and more through Jiaan's eyes. Jiaan is constantly trying to grow into his father through the second book and part of the third book, but it is even more interesting to see Jiaan grow into his own commander as he finally stops trying to imitate his father and be himself, though you can still see his father's influences. When I re-read the series, I was devestated by Commander Merhab's death at the end of the first book, because you had gotten to know him so well from Jiaan's perspective in later books.

For the mothers, there is a great "Grandmotherly" figure in the Farsala Trilogy. Maok is an older women well respected in her tribe of Suud desertmen who takes Soraya - the main female protaganist - into her care while she is staying near the dessert. She teaches Soraya magic, with many doses of humility and other life lessons mixed in - including forgiveness, which Soraya certainly needs. However, Maok's mentoring doesn't stop with Soraya. When Jiaan crosses paths with her in several scenes, she helps him to gain perspective on many important decisions he has to make, and helps him cope with some of the responsibility of leading an army. In my mind, Maok is like everyone's grandmother, always looking out for everyone - and cutting the arogant off at the knees. (Take a look at my icon, and it shows one of Maok's favorite expressions!)

For another mother example I just thought of, there is Alissa's mother, Rema, in The Truth Series by Dawn Cook. Absent by distance, but not dead, you can see how her teachings influence Alissa. Also, in Alissa's culture, it is the mother who must approve the husband (which would also be neccessary in Alissa's case because her father is dead - but you can also see his influence in her life as well). So you can see Alissa's two suitors occasionally brag about which of them Alissa's mother would like better. And eventually it is a nearly long forgotten action of her mother that allows one of her suitors to ask for her hand is marriage even though they are halfway around the world from each other, and Alisssa isn't allowed that far away from her home/school because of the trouble she gets into. It is a nice way of getting the mother into the story. (Alissa also does have a mentor/father-figure come into her life, because he was very close to her father, and grows very fond of Alissa, and takes care of more than just her educational needs. She also gains an older brother who attempts to give her advice about her heart.)

Anyway, not neccessarily QT, but I hope you guys enjoyed!

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

Ah! I thought of McGonnagal too, but then forgot to add her to the list. She's awesome. I liked Maggie Smith's portrayal, though I have a very different image of her in the books.

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

Intelligence... obsession... in the words of the pirate, it's remarkable how often those two traits coincide. *ahem* ;)

*loves you back*

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

Wow, sounds like you have a bunch of great examples there! Thanks for sharing!!

[lizzyazula.livejournal.com]

My favorite mentor-student stories have to be the ones where they take it to the next level, hahaha. Creepy as it sounds, I LOVE stories like Daine/Numair and Emma/Knightley. I drink those romances like fine wine. Deeeeeelicious

Edit: and why would anyone hate you for enjoying the new Star Trek movies? They are fantastic! Not to mention the presence of Benedict Cumberbatch...

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

It depends on the particular relationship. Emma/Knightley is definitely a keeper. But I stopped Laurie R. King's beekeeper series when she married Sherlock and Mary. It just never felt quite right to me, after Mary being so much younger and naive in the early books. (I also get a little cranky whenever it starts to feel like an author is inserting themselves into a well-known story, such as Sherlock Holmes, and essentially marrying themselves to the main character. It's a little... weird.)

Oh, I'm good friends with some major, long-time Trekkies who aren't so thrilled with the new movies. But that's okay. I understand - if someone came and tried to remake the original of something I loved, I might be a little over-particular, too. I respect the canon. I just really, really enjoy the new movies! :)

[manderelee.livejournal.com]

I second Maok!!

[sgwordy.livejournal.com]

This link** is a very interesting look at the roles of women in stories. It's a bit related to this theme of "why can't we list more female mentors and/or mother/daughter stories." HEADS UP: It's a respectfully written article but contains language that might offend in its examples of how women are often seen in stories.


I love the women in this series (and I don't for a second think they are anything like what is discussed in the article I've linked above) but I do often find myself wishing there were more women. More women doing things in the main action, more rooms filled with women talking about what they've been doing and are going to do. Does anyone else ever feel this way?

** I tried to link then got marked as SPAM... are we not to be linking in comments?

[1221bookworm.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I knew our fellow Farsalans would stand up for Maok!!

[agentmaly.livejournal.com]

I do often find myself wishing there were more women. More women doing things in the main action, more rooms filled with women talking about what they've been doing and are going to do. Does anyone else ever feel this way?

I struggle with this as someone who is trying to write myself. I've read plenty, plenty books with female lead characters, and there are a number of female characters I really like, but the characters whom I really love seem to all be men. There are women in books whose thoughts I enjoy experiencing, but the ones I find gripping, compelling - again, men. And the characters I like so much that I would want to be them? Male. Part of this is that I especially enjoy trickster characters, of whom Eugenides is the very best. And I can't think of any female trickster characters really at all, which is disappointing.

I wonder how much of this is personal history and psychology (often identifying with less classically feminine, more classically masculine traits), how much is personal orientation and expectation (I'm a heterosexual female who's always planned to find an exciting man to marry), and how much is culturally ingrained (in so far as many stories focus on men, and the more adventurous stories disproportionately so).

So in my own stories I have a reasonable complement of women (except for the one that I'm currently working on, which concerns me - I'm trying to balance it out but the only roles I currently have open are all bad, so I'm coming out with a story where all the women play negative parts), but the male characters are somehow just better. The ones who bear the essence of the type of human being I like best are male, and it's hard for me to conceive of writing a female character in the same manner, which doesn't make sense. Even the best, most capable female characters seem to me to be lacking the particular energy that pushes them over the edge into legend. What's strange is that I don't have this problem in real life - the way that I live my life and the friends that I have show that I do in fact strongly believe that women can be intrepid, daring, possessed of physical prowess and keen minds, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. But somehow it's hard for me to translate that into writing, or to find it in the writing of others. I think a lot of stories still have the, 'Look at me, I'm doing this and I'm a girl!' aspect, rather than the " 'I just beat fifty people in a swordfight,' she said, and the fact that she was a woman was unremarkable' aspect. We are getting there: the Hunger Games makes no sort of deal at all over the fact that Katniss is able to do what she does while being a girl, and in the movie Brave it seemed to me that the conflict was more about rebellion versus compliance vis-a-vis parental expectations and royalty than specially about settling down because you're a girl (or insisting you won't settle down as a reaction against this).

BUT we still need to keep producing stories like this, because this is what I believe society should be: anyone can do anything simply because they can, not because we're ignoring sex/gender as a factor but because they don't actually matter in determining whether or not I can be a pirate, and no one should be considering them on my pirate application.

Other authors who do a good job with this: Lemony Snicket is particularly good about mentioning a generic person or member of a profession thought to be traditionally male, and then pleasantly surprising you by specifying that the putative rabbi is actually female. I also read a delightful book a few months ago called Remarkable, by Lizzie K. Foley, which does a super good job of making gender a non-issue. In fact all the most capable characters are female, but not in a reactionary way.

[agentmaly.livejournal.com]

Surely there are more good female mentors around, but I'm coming up with examples from folklore more than from novels. Alanna is something of a mentor and definitely an inspiration to Kel in Tamora Pierce's books. Galadriel advises the Fellowship in The Lord of the Rings. For that matter, Melian is a big deal in The Silmarillion - people come to seek counsel of her, not of her husband (which is a good decision on their part; he's a bit impetuous). And the female Valar definitely hold their own, being arguably more often invoked and sought after for counsel and comfort. Though maybe that's just Elbereth.

Baba Yaga is a really fascinating staple of Russian fairy tales, because sometimes she's really evil, and sometimes she's somewhat evil but helpful, and sometimes she's super helpful and exactly what the hero needs (and often there are three of her). And in these stories when someone needs help they're referred specifically to Baba Yaga (or her and her two sisters), often as their sole source of mentoring. It's not that she's competing with another, male, mentor - she's the only deal in town.

[1221bookworm.livejournal.com]

Hi again!

I went and read the link to your post about women who have to fight gender roles, and I was just wondering if you had read Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith. Everyone is pretty much taken at face value instead of by gender, and so it is a non-issue. The story is not as epic as, say Star Wars or Harry Potter, but it is definetly an equal society. And by the way, I just love the last 2 paragraphs of hte epilogue *see icon*

[booksrgood4u.livejournal.com]

THere's a ship in The Legend of Eli Monpress by Rachel Aaron which is kind of like that, so if that's what you like, you might want to check this series out. I wasn't really a fan of Daine/Numair because he was just so....old. Like twice her age, or something.......I get so tired of girls in Fantasy marrying these guys who are soooo much older than them. Gotta give Irene and Helen credit for breaking that mold

[booksrgood4u.livejournal.com]

*gasp* I love the mentors Alissa has in the Truth Series! I love the fatherly relationship she had with Useless, but I also loved the more uncle-ish relationship she had with Redal-Stan. Plus, I loved Reeve as father-figure to Lodesh.

[sgwordy.livejournal.com]

This makes me wish even more that that link had gone through as I think you'd find the article really interesting in light of some of the points you made above.

On a personal note: I do hope you'll be an ambassador for female characters that have that "extra something." The great characters and great stories shouldn't only go to the boys.

[hazelwillow.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't, but I will now! Thanks for the recc. :)

[agentmaly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I really enjoy pairings where the woman is older, both in fiction and in real life (and, it seems, in my own life).

The thing with Daine and Numair that gets me is the scene (I think it's at the end of the third book?) where they're acting on their feelings for each other for the first time, and he tells her that he's been canoodling since before she was born. That perspective only serves to make the relationship feel stranger. Also, in that scene Tamora Pierce talks about them 'coming up for air', which really threw me the first time I read it - I thought, What, they were kissing underwater somehow? And then finally realised she meant they took a short break because I guess they couldn't breathe? I don't remember ever being in a situation where kissing made me actually unable to breathe.

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

Seconding Crown Duel. Such a great book!

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

Maybe they both had head colds at the time? :P

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

I relate to so much of what you said. I'm a writer too, and I can't figure out why female characters are so much harder! Perhaps the simple fact of having both genders present just makes for more complex storytelling. Because one isn't certain what sort of relationships will develop. And I don't just mean romantic relationships. I've never liked it when all the characters get paired up at the end of the story, as if to wrap things up tidily. Life isn't like that. It's not tidy. And relationships don't always fit into moulds. I have all kinds of good and funny and random relationships will all ages and genders. And just because I end up sharing in a particular situation or adventure with so-and-so and we happen to be boy and girl and we happen to be straight and we happen to be the right age doesn't mean we end up in love! So I for one tend to write stories with a whole bunch of characters of different ages and genders, with a whole range of relationships, and purposely avoid playing author-matchmaker. To me, it seems more realistic.

This goes for my female characters too. They don't have to end up in love in order to have a story arch. They grow and make friends and improve themselves and change their circumstances. They always have an impact on the other people around them, for good or ill, because I do think females hold a lot of relational power. And while I don't think a female has to end up romantically involved in order to be complete as a character, I don't think love makes her weaker, either. I don't really like the whole overcompensating trend with female characters who kill and work out and cuss and whatever else to prove they're just as 'strong' as a man. I'm sick of that whole mantra, to be honest. It's essentially saying, 'The less like a girl you are, the stronger you are.' I completely reject that. It's not like any of those things define a man, either, for that matter!

But regardless of gender, and regardless of which types of strength are supposedly more common in one or the other, I try to focus instead on individual strengths... whether that's the power of personality, physical strength, wisdom, words... or a combination thereof. Yes, gender is a factor, but it's just one factor out of many.

[agentmaly.livejournal.com]

Haha, maybe. Clogged sinuses make a whole lot of things less manageable.

[sgwordy.livejournal.com]

" 'The less like a girl you are, the stronger you are.' I completely reject that."

hear, hear!