Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt was “characters you loved from books you didn’t”, but that doesn’t quite work for me, so I went with this alteration!
Characters are at the heart of what I love about stories, and it’s hard for me to dislike a book where I had strong feelings about characters. Instead, I’ve chosen to expound on characters who, one way or another, deserved better than they got.
(Note: most of this is highly tongue in cheek, and I’ve generally left out books where the unfairness is part of the point.)
Surreal, The Black Jewels series
Surreal was always one of my favorite characters from The Black Jewels – it’s hard not to love an assassin/prostitute combination, and she’s just so sassy. What I don’t love is the ending to her story, as wrapped up in the more recent collection of Black Jewels stories, Twilight’s Dawn. Without spoilers, I’ll just say this: pining away and settling for being second best is not what I wanted for Surreal.
Lyra, The Golden Compass
Lyra did not deserve that ending, let alone those parents!
Vin, Mistborn
I love Vin. She’s a great embodiment of the “prickly loner learns about friends” trope, which is dear to me. I just wish that Vin, as both a character and a person, had more time to form and pursue her own goals, instead of the goals of the men around her.
Arya, The Inheritance Cycle
Arya never had a chance to be anything beyond a vessel into which Eragon would pour his every desire, but I dearly wish she had.
Lady Trent, A Natural History of Dragons
Lady Trent did not deserve that. She just didn’t. (I’d like to avoid spoiling this one, but she just didn’t deserve what happened near the end of the first book. I felt so bad for her.)
Julia, 1984
The more I reread 1984, the more insufferable I find the main character and narrator. Julia deserved better than that self-centered whiner, and I wish she’d known that.
Shay, Uglies
Poor Shay. In a certain light, she’s the real protagonist of the Uglies series. She’s the one who felt the full force of dissatisfaction with her life and tried to change her own stars. With every turn, fate (and sometimes Tally) pulled her deeper and deeper into a totally unfair life.
Alice, Twilight
I am not a Twilight hater, but I love Alice way out of proportion to my tepid liking of the rest of the series and characters. I want an Alice-centered series – she just shines.
Susan, The Chronicles of Narnia
Susan is another one whose injustices have gotten clearer and clearer as I’ve grown up. There have been many words written on the subject, so I won’t retread – but seriously, solidarity for Susan.
Princess Pheresa, The Sword, The Ring, and The Chalice
Pheresa is a stand-in for all the female characters in all the fantasy novels who are simultaneously ridiculed by the text (or the other characters) for their airheaded frivolity and given no choice in having acquired it in the first place. She deserved better than being pitted against Alexeika for “only important female character”.
What characters do you want to go back and retroactively protect from their own stories – from themselves, other characters, or maybe the author? I’d love to know in the comments!
Solidarity for Susan! I have nothing against the rest of the Pevense children, but Susan definitely deserved better.
She really did! The unfairness struck me harder and harder the older I got, myself.