Hello, Readers! Clevenger here.

Discussing problematic topics in our genre is difficult. But it’s also important. As Graham said, there have been (and continue to persist) a few topics in Fantasy that are problematic. But I have to think that as a whole, Fantasy is coming of age and modernizing quite well. Authors with unique voices are rising up all over and getting some fantastic stories out there. Our sincere hope is to be one of those.

Graham talked about one of the biggest. Misogyny. Yikes. It’s rampant.

As Graham said, we actively looked to break away from the tropes, counter-tropes, and typical themes that female characters bring in fantasy. While Thorn is prominent throughout the series, a few of our other our strongest female characters really get to shine in Books 2-4. But the challenge was deconstructing and reconstructing our fantasy society.

One dimensional damsels, villains, and objects of desire are all rooted in a society where the males are dominant. The obvious counter-balance to that is the Matriarchal society (similar to the Drow in Salvatore’s series). But BOTH of these concepts are steeped in a Western-culture (talk about that later) centric power model. So when we would have conversations in the book about two young people falling in love and courting, we had to break the standards. Asking the permission of the woman’s family wouldn’t make sense if we had a truly equal society. Where women weren’t the “property” of their family that was handed off to new owners. So we took active strides to sub out a lot of long-standing tropes and made the balance equal.

The other trope that attached to this was the misogynistic anti-theme to the “Save the Cat” trope. When you need to identify the “Good Guy,” have them save a helpless cat. Everyone points and says, “Yep. That’s the hero.” The anti-version is how to make a “Bad Guy” irredeemable. Simple. Have them sexually assault someone. Again, we are attaching this dominance to a male vs. female perspective where the power over someone’s body is control. The other big problem with this is how quickly the victims recover. Both of the Main Characters in the Sword of Truth series are sexually assaulted at one point, and neither of them suffer any significant trauma from these ordeals.

I think that a lot of this comes down to Euro-centric or Western-culture centric lore. So much of the myth of fantasy has been centered in the medieval European traditions (which stole from a lot more) and propogate this problem. Correcting it isn’t as simple.

I personally would LOVE to continue to read more fantasy stories that are based on or contain influence from other cultures. Egyptian and Indian folklore and history have always intrigued me. But as an author, I can’t really do that. Appropriation is a severe topic, and even with years of research, the danger of misinterpreting the importance of a single cultural element exists and could have a great negative impact. When we built a wedding (in book 2, minor spoilers) we dug out customs from around the globe. But they have all been repackaged into a single cohesive ritual that speaks to the new culture we created. We wanted something new and beautiful, but didn’t want to insult or steal from any culture. That balance is extremely delicate, and we have friends and family that serve as sensitivity consultants for us. (Although, if we can get a traditional publisher, I’m VERY excited to get access to a professional sensitivity editor).

I guess the main thing is, we cannot tackle this on our own. But we are looking forward to the future, and hopefully adding a voice that takes us a step further.

Be Kind,

-Clevenger