Watch As I Wave My Nerd Flag

suckitkindle:

I forgot how much I love this book!  It’s so great.  It addresses so many gender issues in very subtle awesome ways.  There are spoilers ahead, so be forewarned. 

First of all, there’s Cimorene, the protagonist.  She doesn’t want to be a princess because princesses are expected to be silly, not too bright, and good at decorum and crafts.  She finds she wants more to life than the droll palace life royalty has to offer. Now, Cimorene isn’t anti-feminine, which I absolutely love about her.  She wears dresses, she cooks, she cleans, but she does other things designated as “un-feminine” by her society, too.  She reads Latin, she does a little bit of magic, she runs off to have great adventures.  Really, Cimorene is against the propriety that comes with being a princess and would rather live life by her own set of rules.  That’s what’s so radical about her.  I love a strong female character who isn’t afraid to be feminine.

Then, there’s Alianora, the princess of the dragon Woraug & Cimorene’s friend.  While the other two princesses, Hallanna & Keredwel, are preoccupied with propriety and maintaining their etiquette (screaming in all the right places during a duel, for instance), Alianora is not (despite wanting to be a proper princess).  Alianora is a wonderful mix of wanting to be a proper princess, but not being a snot about it.  We get the feeling that Cimorene’s sisters, as well as Hallanna & Keredwel, are all proper to the point of condescension.  Whereas, Alianora is so terrible at being a proper princess, it’s all she really wants & we all know she’d be grateful to have it.  Alianora wanting to be proper is treated as totally ok (she gets her proper happy ending, after all) because she’s not snooty about it.  The nice traditional girl isn’t bad; it’s the unkind traditional ones who are.

The gender commentary doesn’t stop with human beings; it extends into the dragons’ world as well.  When Cimorene first enters the cave, there is a comment about the number of horns distinguishes the sex of the dragon.  There is a horn-less dragon and the author makes a mention of how it’s too young to have “chosen its sex.”  While this still enforces a gender binary, for 1990, the idea that some kind of animal is capable of choosing its sex is quite progressive.  I really like the idea of dragons choosing if they’re male or female.  Hell, I really like the idea of any animal, humans included, choosing its sex.  If we could all choose the parts we feel comfortable with, wouldn’t that be something?  If we could grow up sex-less until reaching the age of adulthood, where we’d choose our identity, wouldn’t that be awesome?  Too bad our bodies don’t work that way (and I’d argue that there isn’t much of choice in human identity since being transgender, cisgender, or somewhere in between is much more of an inherent feeling than a choice).  

Continuing on with the King of the Dragons.  I love how its just a title, although I wish we could do without gendered language here, but it’s difficult to make the royalty parallel without gendered language (damn monarchies!).  While human kings are always male, dragon kings are not (as Kazul, the female dragon who takes in Cimorene, demonstrates at the end).  I love that they don’t discriminate who their leader is based on gender.  It’s about an inherent magical quality decided by a magical vibrating stone (so, I suppose some kind of mix of meritocracy & divine right?).  

After about a decade or so since reading this book, I still give it the highest marks possible!  I highly recommend this series if you want a strong female character in the fantasy genre!

~The Roaring Girl