High Fantasy/Sword and Sorcery/Whatever with a Female Main Protagonist

[HellbirdIV]

I'm going to come right out and say it;

I love J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium.

The sweeping, iconic North European landscape of Middle Earth. The elegant, wise, calm Elves, the brutal, snarling, rampaging Orcs, the heroes that live myths, the everymen that still stand for something, and the way magic remains truly magical.

Ever since I saw the first of Peter Jackson's adaptations in early 2002, I've been completley hooked. I read the Hobbit and the entire Ring trilogy before the Two Towers hit cinemas. I started reading the Silmarillion while waiting on Return of the King.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that I am very, very biased in favour of the traditional style of modern Western fantasy.

I say this because I've been inclined to write some kind of epic fantasy in this vein for a long time, with 20-odd ideas bouncing around my head at any given time. And I recently settled on a simple concept that has one, quite major, hindrance;

I have never in my life seen or read a "High Fantasy" (or whatever you prefer to call it, I'm not getting into a debate about what does and does not constitute a certain genre of fantasy literature) story whose primary protagonist was female. There are bits and pieces. Plenty of women in secondary or supporting protagonist roles, especially in what we consider more "modern" (as in setting) fantasy.

Yet it seems to me that movies, games and books where a Brave Hero(tm) must go out and Slay The Dragon(tm) or Save the Kingdom(tm), unless it's a deliberate parody or bitter commentary, the protagonist is always a man? (I'm not counting video games with "optionally female" protagonists. That's just silly.)

Am I just looking in all the wrong places? Please, internet - prove me wrong. Just this once I'd hate to be right.

 

[Thaluikhain]

High Fantasy tends to be overwhelming about the straight white cisgender guy.

Surely, there'd be some, somewhere, it wouldn't be "always" like that, just almost always. Not sure if that should make you feel better, though.

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

Always male? No
Far, far, far, far, more often than not? Yeah

There are exceptions, The Deeds of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon stand out as an example. Dennis L McKiernan has groups of protagonists, about half of whom are strong female characters. And I've seen a growing trend with newer writers to create more and more female protagonists/characters. But the majority is, and probably will remain, male. At least for the time being.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

There's a series out from Black Library that, from what I can tell, has a woman in the main role, but she's also a vampire and it's set in the Warhammer world so it's probably closer to low fantasy. I've not read any because I'm a judgemental bastard and just generally assume that anything from GW involving a female vampire as a pratagonist is primarily going to be written with a lot of pandering to adolescent hot bisexual goth chic vampire fantasies*, but that's just me judging a book by it's cover (or at least the promotional book mark of the character I got with another book), they might well be great. Search Ulrika on the Black Library website

Also there's one about a female chaos champion of Khorne, it's written by a woman and again, it's Warhammer and I can't speak for the quality, not having read it myself but there you go. Search Valkia on etc etc

*though there is a much older series of related books in which one of the characters eventually became the main focus of one of them, they were collected together in The Vampire Genevieve, these are pretty good IMO but not solely focused on a female main character.

 

[Able Seacat]

Not sure if it's really high fantasy but Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP has a female protagonist.

Spoiler

 

[Fractral]

You've got a point. Come to think of it, the last fantasy book of any type I read with a female main character was Mistborn. I suppose although Wheel of Time's main character is a dude it has a number of major female characters as well, and probably around half of each book focuses in their doings. Then again, given that almost all the female characters are arrogant, manipulative swine (and seem to all have the same personality) it's probably not the best example to use.

 

[Caiphus]

Not to get the finger out. The majority of high fantasy, medieval-y games I've played recently have all been gender-optional (if you get what I mean).

Looking through my steam library, I've got Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls. Dark Souls lets you play as a female. Does Kingdoms of Amalur? I can't remember.
Mount and Blade let's you be male/female, and it's modelled after an era where women were mainly seen as walking birth canals. Fire Emblem Awakening let's you play as both.
Video games just seem to have caught onto the gender selection thing. Which is good, I think. Yeah. Happy times.

I mean, I see your point. The only major high fantasy game I've got here that forces you to play as a guy is the Witcher. And that's based on a book.

I haven't read much high fantasy outside of the Discworld series, which shows my ignorance, but I can certainly imagine that in a book, where you inherently have problems with letting the reader select their gender, the vast majority will have male protagonists.

And that probably sucks. Not for me necessarily, but yeah.

Edit: I may just be super tired and might have misunderstood OP's point about gender selection in games. Bleh.

 

[HellbirdIV]

I've put some more thought into it and noted another trend with female characters in fantasy (protagonists or no) and female protagonists in general: They are very rarely "everyman"-types.

Since I made a big deal about Lord of the Rings in my OP, I'll explain what I mean by everyman in this case:

Frodo (and his closest allies, Sam, Merry and Pippin) is not trained and an experienced fighter like the rest of the Fellowship. Frodo isn't secretly The Chosen One like Harry Potter who survives through raw talent, nor does he use mundane skills from his past life to succeed where others fail like Luke Skywalker - he gets by without anything special about him at all. He is a perfect archetype of "The Everyman Protagonist".

Male protagonists even outside of fantasy often have the same complete absence of "special traits" that make them the protagonist - they are only the protagonist by chance and not truly more suited to it than anyone else.

With female protagonists, that's almost never the case, is it? It's always a "Strong Independent Woman", a girl with some kind of hidden magical ability or "special skills" that makes her better than "The Men" (see Lara Croft in the TR Reboot).

The only cases I can think of where the real leading protagonist tends to be an "everyday" woman thrust into situations without any special skills, it's a horror-scifi like Terminator or Alien.

Edit to adress Caiphus:

Not to get the finger out. The majority of high fantasy, medieval-y games I've played recently have all been gender-optional (if you get what I mean).

The problem with those is that invariably the gender of the protagonist has no effect on the story, which is wildly unrealistic. Gender plays a large part in defining a person, from socionormative gender roles and religious beliefs to sexuality and physical traits.

I may just be super tired and might have misunderstood OP's point about gender selection in games. Bleh.

Pretty much. I posted this in the "Off-Topic Discussion" because it's not a strictly video game-related topic.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I haven't read much high fantasy outside of the Discworld series, which shows my ignorance, but I can certainly imagine that in a book, where you inherently have problems with letting the reader select their gender, the vast majority will have male protagonists.

Er...Discworld is high-fantasy? We seem to be working from somewhat different definitions.

 

[Caiphus]

I haven't read much high fantasy outside of the Discworld series, which shows my ignorance, but I can certainly imagine that in a book, where you inherently have problems with letting the reader select their gender, the vast majority will have male protagonists.

Er...Discworld is high-fantasy? We seem to be working from somewhat different definitions.

Is it not? It takes place in a different universe? Have I made an unbelievable faux pas? Fuck.

 

[HellbirdIV]

Er...Discworld is high-fantasy? We seem to be working from somewhat different definitions.

Is it not? It takes place in a different universe? Have I made an unbelievable faux pas? Fuck.

Let's just avoid arguing definitions of genre, please. It's pointless and adds very little to the discussion.

 

[Caiphus]

The problem with those is that invariably the gender of the protagonist has no effect on the story, which is wildly unrealistic. Gender plays a large part in defining a person, from socionormative gender roles and religious beliefs to sexuality and physical traits.

I may just be super tired and might have misunderstood OP's point about gender selection in games. Bleh.

Pretty much. I posted this in the "Off-Topic Discussion" because it's not a strictly video game-related topic.

I understand you weren't only talking about video games. But goddamnit that's where my expertise lies and I have an opinion and that's all the reason I need to make an embarrassingly long aside about nothing in particular.

You are right though. Aside from the romance options and minor differences in dialogue choosing to play as a woman really does make three-fifths of sweet fuck all difference.
Although it's difficult to envisage how they could go about it in a different way.

 

[God's Clown]

High fantasy (also referred to as epic fantasy) is a sub-genre of fantasy fiction, defined either by its taking place in an imaginary world distinct from our own or by the epic stature of its characters, themes and plot. Quintessential works of high fantasy, such as The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Worm Ouroboros, have both of these attributes. Accordingly, works where the fantasy world impinges on our world, or where the characters are concerned only with adventure or personal goals (as in sword and sorcery fiction) are less likely to be classed as high fantasy.

That would be definition of High Fantasy. Video Games in RPG form tend to depend on your perspective. You say "optionally female," I say "Optionally male." I always consider female canon unless specifically stated as otherwise, such as case with Revan from Knights of the Old Republic.

Speaking of KoToR, Jedi Exile is canon female, so if you consider Star Wars High Fantasy, then she is pretty beast.

 

[MisterColeman]

You are right though. Aside from the romance options and minor differences in dialogue choosing to play as a woman really does make three-fifths of sweet fuck all difference.
Although it's difficult to envisage how they could go about it in a different way.

Well unless you want them to simulate PMS and/or the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, ect. That's kinda the only difference there is.

 

[Caiphus]

You are right though. Aside from the romance options and minor differences in dialogue choosing to play as a woman really does make three-fifths of sweet fuck all difference.
Although it's difficult to envisage how they could go about it in a different way.

Well unless you want them to simulate PMS and/or the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, ect. That's kinda the only difference there is.

I suppose. I guess you could delve into the motivations of the character and how they might change if the gender was swapped. Although video games have never been all that good at explaining those, because the player's motivations are substituted in. /shrug.

 

[Caiphus]

That would be definition of High Fantasy. Video Games in RPG form tend to depend on your perspective. You say "optionally female," I say "Optionally male." I always consider female canon unless specifically stated as otherwise, such as case with Revan from Knights of the Old Republic.

That really is an interesting way to go about it. I might think about that more when the next RPG rolls around, which will probably be DA3 unless they make a decision about releasing Dragon's Dogma on PC.

 

[Candidus]

Snip

I actually came here to drop the same name. Ulrika is a great series. Contrary to the vein of most vampire novels-- which I despise-- it doesn't much bother with the seedy, erotic stuff that most classic vampire shit lavishes great volumes of detail upon. It being a WHF trilogy, it is in the largest parts about Ulrika's battles (personal and actual), and the various intrigues she gets wound up in.

Edit: Spoilered for length.

Spoiler

The only WHF female-protag novel that I'd warn you away from is anything on Valkia the Bloody, by Sarah Cawkwell. It's dreadfully written. Just one sample of the second-hand-embarrassment inducing awfulness: "She affirmed her understanding of the rules in a loud, clear, strong voice"

Loud. Clear. Strong.

You can tell when a not-even-average author is writing with someone elses' work open beside them, can't you? Because they imitate the other person's style even when it's completely inappropriate, and wind up doing things like using THREE virtually redundant descriptive words where one or none at all would have read better.

Not to mention "she affirmed her understanding of the rules" is just... It comes over bureaucratic, while the aforementioned descriptions (once you get past the fact they're just bad literature) come over `REMEMBER SHE'S STRONG OKAY, HUUR?`; it would have been better to scrap the whole sentence and have Valkia actually say something instead.

The whole book is like that. Sarah Cawkwell can't write for toffee- she's one of the worst Black Library authors published, and there are more than a few rotten apples at the BL let me tell you.

 

[HellbirdIV]

You say "optionally female," I say "Optionally male."

Revan from KotOR; Canonically male (and Caucasian)

Shepard from Mass Effect; Canonically Sheploo.

Dragonborn from Skyrim: Canonically male (and Nord)

That's why I say "Optionally female". They are almost always written as males first before being female is added as an option, and invariably it's also the "Secondary" option (with Default always being set to Male).

Too cynical? How come Female Shepard could romance Liara, y'think? Why do you suppose Morrigan getting pregnant is one of the "good" outcomes for Dragon Age: Origins?

 

[The_Echo]

Dragonborn from Skyrim: Canonically male (and Nord)

Source?

Far as I've ever known, none of the Heroes in the Elder Scrolls are canonically either gender, and are always referred to, in the UESP at least, by their title or as "the hero." The only time it's been canonically male was Cyrus in Redguard, though you didn't have the choice in that game.

 

[Pieturli]

Red Sonja is the only one that springs to my mind. Although that is definitely more low fantasy than anything else.