Heroines vs Villainesses on the Supernatural Underground—Plus Giveaway
I’m posting on the Supernatural Underground today and my guest post is:
Heroines & Villainesses—Which Do We Prefer?
To find out and/or make your preference known, head on over to the Supernatural Underground and post a comment, here.
.
.
And there’s a giveaway, with two books up for grabs:
- Feed by Mira Grant
- Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel by Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris. (And you can read my recent interview with Pip & Tee, here.)
To enter the draw you do have to post on the Supernatural Underground—but you can gain extra points by commenting here as well. 😉
The draw will be open for comments until 12 midnight, 2 October US Eastern Standard Time.
Hi Helen, great topic. When I think about it villainesses and anti-heroines can be very interesting. I may even find myself cheering them on. What matters to me is that their characters are strong and their actions make sense. If I can “get” them then it goes a long way in me liking them.
Thanks, Na! I agree about the characters needing to make sense–I think that’s why Galadan moves more toward anti-hero than villain in Kay’s “Fionavar” series, because as a reader you understand the pain that drives him, even if there’s also a fair bit of rage, pride, and ego in the mix as well. It’s the same with Faith in Buffy–she does plenty of bad stuff, but you understand her as a whole person and so can’t just write her off. Drusilla,though–despite udnerstanding her backstory you also understand that she is now thoroughly evil, so villain, not anti-heroine. In the case of the Margravine though, as with Drusilla, and an arch-villainess like Cruella de Vil (“The Hundred and One Dalmatians”), I fear she has given into what the commenter described as her “egocentric malevolence.”
Great topic! I always cheer for the heroine, but it makes things so much more interesting with a good villainess. 🙂
You have to give the heroine someone to go up against, don’t you? There’s been some more good discussion around this going on the Supernatural Underground, if you want to check it out. 😉
Great post!
When a heroine is a bit bad, as well as being good, it’s interesting.
A female version of season 7 Spike.
Or perhaps Illyria in Season 5 of Angel? A “bad-ass” without actually being downright bad, perhaps! Not a common female prototype—I shall have to put my thinking cap on to come up with a few more examples … 😉
Or suggestions, anyone?
I love a good heroine so they will always get my vote, but its a tough call as you always need someone to bounce them off as such or else it would be boring to read.
And so the someone has to be convincing and believable, i.e. as well developed as the heroine …
I cheer for the heroine. They don’t have to be perfect, but they should be reasonably decent enough and believable for the circumstances.
The important things to me are good writing, good characters, actions that make sense in the context of the story and consistency (in no particular order).
Even SF and fantasy has to be believable and credible. It also helps if there is a character or characters that you like in a story.
June, I agree—those stories where you find yourself ‘not really liking’ any of the characters are hard to stick with, not unlike finding yourself in a ‘realtime’ room full of uncongenial people! As a reader, I definitely want someone I can empathise with, and preferably cheer along as well!