[Meme] Ask me my top 5 whatevers

[edenfalling]

Slightly modified from various places: Ask me my Top Five Whatevers, fannish or literary or otherwise. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really. I will answer them all in comments or a new post. (But definitely not with pictures. *grin*)

Because I am bored and I hate all my WIPs -- including the two things I was trying to write for Femgenficathon and which I failed miserably to finish by even the extended deadline. Please help distract me?

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ETA:

--5 fanfics I will never write (but want to read), courtesy of aishuu

--5 favorite manga and/or anime series, courtesy of theodosia21

--5 favorite stories I've written, also courtesy of theodosia21

--5 Naruto characters who've had all of five panels, but deserve their own story arcs/gaidens, courtesy of leahnari

--8 favorite things to eat, courtesy of hungrytiger11

--5 favorite scenes from The Chronicles of Narnia, also courtesy of hungrytiger11

--5 favorite female characters (from my childhood), courtesy of uminohikari

--5 tropes I love, courtesy of rianax

Comments

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

Top five favorite female characters!

[edenfalling]

I am going to give you characters from my childhood (ages 8-12), as they have had the longest and deepest effect on me.

1. Arha/Tenar from Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series. I first read The Tombs of Atuan when I was about eight years old, and it's sad that even then it was a revelation to me that a girl could be the hero of her own story, and that her choices mattered. In retrospect, I am so, so grateful I read that series out of order so I read Tombs before I read A Wizard of Earthsea, because otherwise I have a terrible feeling I would have spent most of Tombs waiting impatiently for Ged to appear, whereas without the primer of the first book, I was able to get to know, love, and respect Arha on her own terms in her own right, and Ged appeared to me as a supporting character to her quest for self-definition and freedom.

2. Nita Callahan, from Diane Duane's Young Wizards series. Because she was intelligent and socially inept and had an annoying little sister who seemed to get the world more than Nita ever could, and yet she found a calling, made a lifelong friend, and by god saved the universe. Also, she found her calling in a library, which is about the most awesome thing ever. :-)

3. Cimorene, from Patricia Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles and sequels, because she might have been a beautiful princess in a fairy-tale inspired world, but those were just trappings. She was awesome because she went out and made her own life, and because she used not only her brain but also her common sense, which is much, much rarer. Plus she liked books.

4. Eowyn, from The Lord of the Rings, because she found the stupid male chauvinist loophole and killed the Witch-King of Angmar. Also, she went to war to protect her family and her way of life, which is usually reserved for men. Also also, she was a subsidiary potential love interest for Aragon without being turned into a conniving bitch, and she loved a second time (Faramir) without being denigrated as a slut -- and I really liked that she and Faramir got together because of shared experiences and seemed to genuinely get along instead of just being shoved at each other by authorial fiat. (YMMV, as always, but that's how I read it at age 10.)

5. Guinevere from Parke Godwin's Firelord and Beloved Exile, because she wasn't just a king's wife. She was a ruling queen in her own right. And she had a personality shaped by her history, so even when she was in the wrong, she was understandable. Also, she grew and changed over those two books until by the end of the second, even she realized that the person she was at the start of the first would have found her current self incomprehensible. So often change and growth are only for male characters, so it was wonderful to get a whole book about what happened after Arthur died and left Guinevere to hold Britain alone. (Also, there were a bunch of female supporting characters, who were all people in their own right and not just recapitulations of Guinevere.)

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

2. Yes! I was rereading it yesterday, and it's so wonderful... but I must admit, I always liked Dairine a bit better.

[edenfalling]

Funnily enough, I think my little sister likes Dairine better too. :-) I have always assumed our preferences were based on which sister we could better relate to both in terms of family position and personality traits.

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

I'm the oldest though!

...I should get my little sister to read them and see who she likes