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

[moloha]

David Eddings comes to mind (One of my favorite authors) he wrote a book called polagra the socreress which is the backstory of Polgara, one of the main characters of the Belgariad and the Malloreon pentalogies.

Like seriously, check those books out! This guy is seriously underrated. Pogara the Sorceress had me near in tear at some point. Start with the main pentalogies (about 200 pages in each book so you can chomp through it) then read belgarad the sorcerer and after that polgara the sorceress. Like seriously, do it. you'll thank me when you're done!

I would put david eddings up there with tolkien and g.r.r. martin!

 

[SadisticBrownie]

The Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson is a good one, though I wouldn't say it's high fantasy.
Certainly worth a shot though.

 

[Thaluikhain]

David Eddings comes to mind (One of my favorite authors) he wrote a book called polagra the socreress which is the backstory of Polgara, one of the main characters of the Belgariad and the Malloreon pentalogies.

Like seriously, check those books out! This guy is seriously underrated. Pogara the Sorceress had me near in tear at some point. Start with the main pentalogies (about 200 pages in each book so you can chomp through it) then read belgarad the sorcerer and after that polgara the sorceress. Like seriously, do it. you'll thank me when you're done!

I would put david eddings up there with tolkien and g.r.r. martin!

If you read the Belgariad and the Mallorean, though, don't read his other series.

At least in the Mallorean, they talk about why things are so much as they were in the Belgariad, it's because they need to be for the something something something.

His other series are almost cut and paste jobs.

 

[Zakarath]

Lets see...
The two main protagonists of the Rain Wilds Chronicles (Which I just finished reading), Alise Kincarrion and Thymara, are both female
A Song of Ice and Fire has a couple of quite notable female protagonists (Arya and Danaerys)
The Lanen Kaelar/Kolmar series' main protagonist is female
...That's the ones I can think of off the top of my head

 

[Hagi]

Whilst the majority of high-fantasy protagonists are definitely male it's by no means all.

If you're looking for more female protagonists I'd take a look at some of these authors, they're well-known for writing strong female characters in fantasy, almost always protagonists as well.

Robin Hobb
Robin McKinley
Juliet Marillier
Jacqueline Carey
Lois McMaster Bujold
Sharon Shinn
Melanie Rawn
Elizabeth Haydon
Jennifer Roberson

You can expand your search from there, there's a whole lot more to be found, but these are probably the most popular authors when it comes to female characters in fantasy.

 

[Substitute Troll]

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.

Because that's the majority of the people that like fantasy. They cater to the largest demographic. There should definitely be more variety, but on the other hand, if a transexual person can't enjoy a game because the protagonist isn't transexual, isn't that just as weird as a guy not being able to play a game with a female protagonist?

 

[Clura]

Well, I haven't read too many high fantasy books with female protagonists, but I seem to remember one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Artefacts_of_Power

I can't really remember any details, don't even remember if I finished the whole series... It's been 15 years...


Another fantasy series with a female protagonist would be the Abhorsen series:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Kingdom_series

I've been meaning to read this for a while, it's supposed to be pretty good...

 

[Miyenne]

I found some of Robin Hobb's books to have strong female leads, and them being normal women at that. One series is a male lead, a few of her 3-4 book series are women, and one 3 book series with a character that shows up in most of the series never has a defined gender, he/she acts as both.

They're all in a well constructed fantasy world. I don't know if I'd consider them High Fantasy, but I enjoy them.

 

[Thaluikhain]

There should definitely be more variety, but on the other hand, if a transexual person can't enjoy a game because the protagonist isn't transexual, isn't that just as weird as a guy not being able to play a game with a female protagonist?

Er, yes it would be. It would also mean they wouldn't be able to play almost any games. This isn't the case. There are massive amounts of people that aren't straight white cisgender guys that play games, but while it's accepted that minorities will accept media that doesn't feature them as protagonists, it doesn't work the other way around.

 

[Serenegoose]

Vin from Mistborn. (Brandon Sanderson
Sonea from the black magician trilogy (Trudi Canavan, and all of her books have female lead characters, even if her most recent series is an ensemble (so male leads too))
Mallian from the Wall of Night series (Helen Lowe)
Shy from Red Country (Joe Abercrombie (also low fantasy))

This is just off the top of my head and a quick glance of my bookshelf. Will add more as I think of them.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

All of mine have already been said.

Paksennarion in Deeds of Paksennarion. Shit book, awful writing, horrid characters you don't understand or care about; don't bother.
Vin in Mistborn. Good book, twists aplenty, not great, but good.
Sonea and Auraya from Canavan's "Black Magician" and "Age of the Five" trilogies respectively. A bit childish to be honest, I think they're aimed at Young Readers however.
Rhapsody in Elizabeth Haydon's "Symphony of Ages". Bloody brilliant series, recommended.
R'shiel in Fallon's "Demon Child" trilogy. Fantastic debut trilogy from probably my favourite author.
I haven't read them, but "Eona" by Alison Goodman, IIRC was about a girl disguised as a boy. Or something like that, it was so damned awful I couldn't read beyond a quarter way in. Boring and appalling in every way.

Anyway, please kindly don't let this thread turn into another fu****g sexism thread about books I love. I'm tried of the debate about games and sick of it in general.

 

[HellbirdIV]

Dragonborn from Skyrim: Canonically male (and Nord)

Source?

Same thing with Shepard in ME. Every single piece of promotional art/video shows the big burly male caucasian.

 

[Fappy]

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?

Bioware has stated multiple times that there is no canon Shepard. Promotional material =/= canon.

Bethesda's always been the same way. There is no canon protagonist in any of the games. Every character anyone has ever made is canon and not canon at the same time. TES lore is funny that way.

 

[HellbirdIV]

Bioware has stated multiple times that there is no canon Shepard. Promotional material =/= canon.

What they say unfortunately doesn't match what they do.

 

[Fappy]

Bioware has stated multiple times that there is no canon Shepard. Promotional material =/= canon.

What they say unfortunately doesn't match what they do.

What do you mean? Every piece of Mass Effect fiction either lets you decide what gender Shepard is or avoids the question altogether.

 

[Velociferocks]

Didn't read the previous posts very close so forgive me if these have already been suggested.
The Pellinor quartet by Alison Croggon
Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey (part of the series "Dragon riders of pern" but there are different protagonist, both female and male)

 

[hazabaza1]

Same thing with Shepard in ME. Every single piece of promotional art/video shows the big burly male caucasian.

Nope. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYDmq1TeDFs]

And yes, there is a big difference between canon material and advertising material. Otherwise these trailers [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nETxAJsD0N4] would all be canon. But that's wrong for several reasons.

Spoiler: The reasons

Ashley is being romanced, but is killed on Virmire. Can't happen.
Ashely comes back to life in Me2. Can't happen.
From what I can tell, Kiadan and Ashley are alive in the ME3 trailer, but don't take my word on that.

But, if you import a default save, (arguably the most "canon" thing you can do)

Spoiler

Shepard has no romances, regardless of gender.
Garrus isn't recruited in ME2, yet you see him in the squad in the ME2 trailer.
The Virmire survivor can be chosen.

On top of that, all the books, again, canon material, only ever call Shepard "Shepard". And don't mention anything that he or she does. No gender, no paragon, no renegade.

So yeah. Canonical and commercial are very different.

 

[HellbirdIV]

So yeah. Canonical and commercial are very different.

For the purposes of this discussion they aren't. The question was wether or not Mass Effect was written with a male protagonist that was then given the option of being female after being written. The answer is "yes". And that's why I don't include Dragon Age, Mass Effect and the like as stories with a female lead protagonist.

I wasn't going to say anything, but it occurred to me that you might not actually have read the thread before posting.

 

[hazabaza1]

The question was wether or not Mass Effect was written with a male protagonist that was then given the option of being female after being written.

Wasn't trying to argue that point. Just pointing out that the end result of what's "canonical" or not isn't based on how they advertise something.