Feminist Fantasy: Alanna vs. Indigo

The other day I was in a used bookstore and I ran into Nocturne: Book Four of Indigo, by Louise Cooper (1990).  Now, I've been spending the past several years off and on perusing secondhand bookstores for the Indigo series - I've only been able to get book 3 at a library.  I picked the first one up on a whim at a used book store, and took about a year to get around to reading it.  It was kind of like what happened a couple weeks ago when I woke up in the middle of the night needing to read some trashy B-fantasy.  And I had Indigo on hand.  And about a chapter in, I realized my mistake.  This was not trashy at all.

The story starts with a princess who pulls a Pandora ("What's in this box that no one's ever, ever supposed to open?") and releases seven demons into the world, and condemns her boyfriend to eternal torment (or until the demons are destroyed) in the process.  She is given one chance to redeem herself - the goddess grants her immortality, so she has all the time in the world to destroy the demons. 

What I really love about the series is that it flips the traditional fairy-tale narrative on its head - the princess goes out and has adventures while the prince just sits in his tower.  It's one of the few books I know of that has a strong female protagonist who is not involved in a love triangle.  And the mutant wolf.  Gotta love the mutant wolf.

There is more than one kind of feminist literature, however.  When most people think of feminist fantasy, they think of Tamora Pierce (Actually, they probably think Katniss or Hermione, but for now we're going to pretend I'm right, 'kay?).  Pierce's characters are always defying the patriarchy and breaking gender roles and confusing misogynists and saving the world blah blah blah.

I was big into Tamora Pierce back in middle school/high school, having started with the Circle of Magic quartet in elementary school from the book orders, moving on to The Immortals because the first book had ponies on the cover (Yeah.  So?) and deciding to round out my repertoire with the author's first work, the Alanna books (Song of the Lioness, whatever).

Alanna is a princess (well, the daughter of a duke or a lord or something) who decides to switch places with her twin brother, disguising herself as a boy to go to knight school while he goes to magic school and becomes evil and gay. 

Contrasting approaches to feminism in the abovementioned works:

1.  The Strong Female Protagonist
Crossdressing.  Girl dressing as boy still gives power to masculinity.  Granted, she "comes out" as a woman in later books, and Pierce has a later series of an openly female knight, but crossdressing princesses still sends the message of "How does a woman get power in society?  Become a man!" 

Second point on the crossdressing note...it's just too damn convenient that she has a twin brother that she can switch places with.  Too-convenient things in novels just bug me.  And attributing it to divine intervention is cheating.

Indigo is a woman and it's not a big deal.  It's fantasy, after all, so the pseudo-medieval world does not have to be a rabid patriarchy if you don't want it to be.  Her gender is very rarely brought up.  She becomes a strong female character by being strong and female, rather than strong despite being female.  And yes, this route completely ignore relevant questions of gender roles, but it is still refreshing to have a woman character who is not defined by her woman-ness.

2.  Relationship with men
Tamora Pierce may have invented magical birth control.  The purpose of this was so that her characters could experience the sexual liberation that America was having by the 80's.  The books make a big fuss over Alanna's sex life and the double standard regarding women and sexuality.  And there's the love triangle with the prince and the rogue and blah blah blah.

Indigo has a boyfriend in hell. And she's a bit gloomy over missing him, and the fact that he's suffering - who wouldn't be? - but she spends remarkably little time brooding on it.  And she doesn't get tempted into a love triangle with another man (and the fact that she's immortal would make temptation awkward, I imagine).  There's a guy in book 3 who has a thing for her, but she's like "Uhh...no.  It's complicated."  Her love life is so much less important than slaying the demons.

3.  Relationship with gods.
Okay, done with the hard-core feministy stuff.  Moving on to the fantasy stuff. 

Pierce's pantheon are all just so meddlesome.  With Indigo, the god's function is to say "You fucked up.  Go be immortal and fix it."  And that's it.  She's done her part, and stays out of it.  With Alanna, the gods are constantly "Oh hey, go do this."  "Why?"  "I'm a god, don't argue.  Here's a thing to help you." "What's this do?"  "This gets you out of a situation later that the writer can't think of a proper resolution for."

4.  Animal companions
Alanna has a stupid cat that does what now?   It's basically just a mouthpiece for the gods; it's like that owl in the Legend of Zelda games, that shows up and tells you "Don't go to Kakariko village yet.  You have to go to the castle first," even if you know perfectly well you can't move on in the game until you go the castle and get the ocarina, but maybe you just feel like completing the cucco quest to get a bottle first and you don't need a stupid owl telling you not to.  Indigo has a freaking mutant telepathic wolf who has her own tragic backstory, and even though she falls a little flat as a character because she's just the supportive sidekick, she still has more motivation and personality than the stupid kitten who bullies the protagonist with plot advice.

So which do you prefer?  Female protagonists that actively subvert the patriarchy?  Or strong protagonists that just happen to be female?

I apologize if any of the information I gave on any of the books here is inaccurate.  I haven't read Alanna or the early Indigo books in a few years.

I will say I honestly like the later Pierce books a lot more than the early ones.  Maybe I'll do a post on that so you don't think I hate her.  I really don't.