I have been most dreadfully spoiled.
I don't often read books like Divergent. I think I made that reasonably clear yesterday and in my 16 Book Recommendations post. Generally, I read book series like the ones I mention in that post: Charlie Bone, Alex and the Ironic Gentleman, The Mysterious Benedict Society, the Tiffany Aching books, etc. With the exceptions of my popular summertime readings, my only real forays into the world of teen literature have been Tiffany Aching, The Book Thief (which I liked, but not enough to add to my written list of favorite books) and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (another book I didn't end up adding to my list despite seriously considering it).
What I'm saying is that I've gotten very used to a certain kind of heroine.
I've gotten used to the likes of Olivia Vertigo, who dresses flamboyantly because she knows she's fabulous (unless of course she's sneaking into the home of an evil enchanter to steal his most prized possession and therefore must try to be inconspicuous). Or Alex Morningside, the ten-year-old friend of pirates and octopuses and temporary professional mind reader. Or Kate Weatherall, who is strong and exuberant and fearless and has a pet falcon. Or Tiffany, wordsmith, vanquisher of monsters, and hag o' the hills. These heroines, along with the book thief and at least a few of the peculiar girls, fit the same basic archetype; smart, confident, and generally both sweet and snarky, depending on the character and the situation.
I've discovered that this is not the kind of heroine typically found in those stories most popular among girls my age.
Evidently, my peers tend to prefer heroines like Tris and, because I consider the comparison rather unavoidable, Katniss.
I'm approaching the halfway point in Divergent now, and I've assembled a sort of list of traits that I think both Tris and Katniss have which, if my memory serves me correctly, the heroines I listed above, do not. They include:
- Low self-confidence
- A strong belief that they are undeserving of admiration
- A continued belief in their lack of likability or defining characteristics despite strong evidence that they possess both
- Less-than-ideal analytical thinking skills
Really, these four are all interconnected. Katniss and Tris think that they're unattractive, unremarkable, and disliked. They then proceed to fail to notice when anyone begins to admire, respect, or trust them, because they misinterpret and misanalyse the attention and cryptic comments they receive. Then there's the fact that even after Katniss becomes the Girl on Fire and Tris is told she's Divergent, they're both still all, "Oh, well, I'm nothing special, or at the very least everything special about me is disadvantageous and will make people hate me."
(Maybe I should explain what these things mean before I go further. Spoiler alert, but Katniss wins the first Hunger Games she participates in, after which people start calling her either the Girl on Fire or the Mockingjay. Tris belongs to a society in which people are sorted into different factions based on their primary character traits. Generally they're told they belong in only one faction, but Tris is compatible with three, forcing her to choose which one she wants. Her tri-compatibility is called Divergence.)
Now, before everybody jumps on me (and yes, I'm looking at you, Ilandere), I get that being the Girl on Fire and being Divergent are not presented as things to be proud of. Rather they're endangerments, differences that cause these girls to become marked as outcasts and hunted.
And yet......
Naturally I have no real idea of what my response to a situation like Tris's or Katniss's would be. All I know is that, sitting here comfortably in my chair in my not-really-dystopian society, if somebody told me, "You could belong to any of three factions, now don't ever tell anyone because it's extremely dangerous," I think I'd be like, "Do you mean dangerous for me or dangerous for everybody else? Because I've got triple the power, and so I think they'd better be watching their you-know-whats!"
I just feel like if Tris thought it through, she could come to the conclusion that Divergence could prove to be a useful attribute, especially if she's in a life-threatening situation and therefore needs to be both very brave and very intelligent instead of one or the other. Divergence means unpredictability and adaptability, both of which are invaluable if you're locked in a mindgame with someone.
Instead, Tris's reaction is more along the lines of, "No! What do you mean I have a complex character structure and can't be marginalized and pigeonholed? Is there something wrong with me?"
And with Katniss, obviously she's powerful, obviously she's skilled, obviously she's capable of survival, obviously she's terrifying. We know, because she won the Hunger Games! But every time she's asked to do something, she's fearful and mistrustful and reluctant because despite her proven superiority she has absolutely no self-confidence.
So I think my question is: why?
Why does the teenage female demographic evidently prefer this self-doubting, overly cautious breed of heroine to, say, Olivia Vertigo, who, upon discovering that she possesses a strange and potentially dangerous talent, flaunts it and loves it and uses it as a weapon against her antagonists? Or Tiffany Aching, who boldly and mostly unflinchingly faces off against massively powerful magical entities every book? Is it because teenage girls stereotypically have no self-confidence? And if that's the case, wouldn't it theoretically be better to create confident, assertive, and discerning female characters to act as role models rather than these unsure, self-deprecating caricatures created in an apparent attempt to be relatable?
Just to clarify, I'm not saying heroines should be incautious or brashly self-assured or unfeminine. I'm merely saying that it couldn't hurt to temper the hesitancy with a little more oomph.
And note (hi again, Ilandere) that I don't think Tris and Katniss are necessarily poorly written or weak characters. More than anything else I'm just jarred by how different they are from the heroines of the books I would normally choose to read.
Come back tomorrow for more nitpicking!
~Pearl Clayton
I think the goal was orginally to make the characters more relatable. It's like those music reviews we were watching about boy band music. They generalize that every girl is self concious (spelling?), and use that generalization to their advantage. Unfortunately, I think their generalization is probably right, which makes it a big part in the entertainment world...
ReplyDeleteInteresting observation though.
Yeah, I agree. I even say in my review that I think Roth is trying to appeal to the unstable teenage psyche. Actually, according to the bonus materials at the back of the book, Veronica Roth views Tris as a very strong character. I just apparently didn't pick up on that well.
DeleteWhoops.
Ooo, I’ve been mentioned by name (or, you know, username)! What an exquisite honor! :-)
ReplyDelete[slight spoiler alert for anyone who hasn’t read it]
Anyway, I like your theoretical reaction to being Divergent. However, I sort of understand her response as well. I mean, yes, she’s multitalented, but I don’t care how brave or intelligent she is, if she’s got most of the Dauntless faction leaders and almost the entire Erudite faction after her, I think she’s got a right to freak out just a little. Really, I think she’s being remarkably calm about it, considering that she knows she’s Divergent and that it’s somehow dangerous, but doesn’t know what it is or why (at first).
I think that teenage girls find this type of heroine more relatable for several reasons. You mentioned that Tris doesn’t think she’s attractive. Now, I’m not saying it’s unusual or wrong or anything to look in the mirror and say, “Hey. I’m actually…pretty.” But you know all those girls who are fashion diehards, or who are fixing their hair or makeup every ten seconds even when it doesn’t need it? Do you really think they think they’re attractive? And also (and this is the part I relate to), isn’t the whole “pretty heroine” a cliché by now? Therefore, in turn, a new cliché springs up in response and that is, you guessed it, the heroine who either isn’t pretty or doesn’t think she is.
And I can’t speak for Olivia Vertigo, but I have read The Mysterious Benedict Society. The Mysterious Benedict Society is a great story, I thoroughly enjoyed it all three times, but it’s also kind of…Silly. Juvenile. In a good way, but I see it as more of a kids’ book than for teens. And why isn’t Kate Weatherall a more prominent archetype in today’s teen lit? Well, Pearl, I don’t know about you, but last I checked I was not orphaned/abandoned because [again, spoiler alert] my father was a secret agent who was kidnapped by an evil genius, I did not join the circus; I can’t measure things just by looking at them; I don’t wear a fire-engine red bucket on my belt because, not only would I feel like an idiot if I did, but it’s really uncomfortable and gets in the way (trust me, I tried it once), and it would theoretically also be very heavy and thus be pulling your pants down constantly; and I wouldn’t dream of trying to swallow a key or cough it up again. …I do, however, wish I had a falcon. Tiffany Aching is less so, and I can actually relate to her. But what I’m saying is that, no, I don’t know anyone who’s had to make the Choice or who’s gone through any of this. But as a part of the intended audience, there are a lot of decisions to make. Huge, life-changing decisions that sometimes will separate you from your family and plunge you into the big, scary world.
I don’t think it’s necessarily a lack of confidence so much as it is the awkwardness and fear that almost certainly go with suddenly being plunged into “adulthood” when previously you’ve only been a child.
…No idea if that makes sense, but whatever. ;-)
I did observe that her eventual reaction to being Divergent, when she finally understood what Divergence was, was rather similar to my theoretical initial reaction. So that was neat.
DeleteAnyway, once again an excellent defense. Now, of course I wasn't saying that I consider Kate Weatherall relatable because of her circumstances. But in the same way teenagers find Tris relatable because she has to make a life-altering choice which threatens to separate her from everything she knows and force her into adulthood, younger kids find Kate relatable because they all dream of going on adventures and saving the world with their friends. Yes, Kate isn't an archetype in today's teen lit because, like you said, she's a character created for children. But there are other characters, like Tiffany Aching and the girls in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, who combine Kate's adventurousness with weighty decision-making and complex emotions so that they can appeal to teenage readers.
And maybe Tris does that too. It's possible I misjudged her in the beginning because, as I said in Day 3, her character baffled me for a while. I'm still working to figure her out. *Shrugs lamely because she doesn't know how to conclude this comment well*
Good point about Kate's relatableness.
DeleteI would like to point out that Tris also shows some of that adventurousness when she chooses Dauntless (and follows through). I mean, the zip-lining scene?! She shows that she is brave and that she is willing to make sacrifices. She has a certain bravado, but, unlike Kate, she is mature enough to understand that the odds are stacked against her, not just because there are powerful people who want her dead, but also because she can't really relate to anyone there because she's so very different (except maybe Four).
Another reason that teens relate to Tris, by the way, is because she doesn't fit in and, aside from feeling lonely, there are very real social implications because she's in a culture where all that matters is fitting into a group. Is our world like that? Not quite (well, sort of, but not to that extent). But guess what is like that? High school. Only in Divergent there isn't a great alternative like we've found, just a lifetime of high school and she doesn't fit in. Yikes.
You'll note, too, that Tiffany Aching also had moments when she doubted herself (i.e. with Wintersmith). Now, she made a conscious choice to do whatever she could and to succeed, despite her fears. Tris did that too, but she's more hesitant because she's already feeling insecure because she doesn't fit into this society that preaches "Faction Before Blood" and "The world belongs to those who know where they belong.”
Okay, yes, Tris is adventurous. The further I get in the series the more I see that she's maybe more similar to my preferred kind of heroine than I initially thought. And now that her concerns about her Divergence have been replaced by other, more pressing concerns, it's even easier to tell.
DeleteBasically, I concede and accept all your points. I'm still have trouble liking her and relating to her, though. Maybe it has something to do with your (quite insightful) high school analogy. Even when I was in public high school, I never felt like an outcast, and now that I'm homeschooling again I really don't. Tris is certainly the ideal heroine to appeal to her target audience...... which I'm not in.
But then again, you're not in that particular target audience either.
Maybe I demand way too much from female main characters. Looking back over my list, I realize that most if not all of my favorite heroines have eccentricities that go way beyond in-simulation awareness.
Hmmmmmm......