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White Tiger - Kylie Chan
Mar. 23rd, 2010 11:40 amLast night I saw Elektra. I have a giant weakness for superhero films. I accept incongruencies and plot holes and even bad acting from them to a level I would not accept from most other films.
I find it very hard to admit though, that I tend to judge female superhero films more harshly than male. I want Elektra and Storm to be more three-dimensional and complex and have greater depth in their private lives than Daredevil and Wolverine. This is because somewhere, the little girl in me wants to be a superhero, I suppose, and knows that dishes have to be washed and friends have personal crises at the precise moment one is supposed to be saving the world, and that even in a superhero existence, it's not possible to waft one step above and beyond all of this. I don't know if it's biological or cultural or simply brainwashing, but I associate being a woman with living a real and rather difficult everyday life.
I'm learning though, that I should be judging female superheroes by the same standards as male. This means that my favourite superheroes are the ones who aren't superrich and who really do have to wash the dishes and deal with the personal problems of friends at time when they think they ought to be saving the world.
This is superheroes in movies. Comics are more complicated and can wait till another day. Superheroes in books are different. Sometimes it takes me a while to even recognise them.
I'm not the only one. When Kylie Chan's Dark Heavens Trilogy first came out, it copped quite a bit of flak for being a Mary Sue trilogy. All about wish fulfillment and saving the world. I recently had a chance to re-read the first volume, because Angry Robot sent me a review copy. I was in superhero mode, having recently borrowed a bunch of movies from friends and having worked my way solidly through them. Finally I recognised something that I should have seen right up front.
The plot trajectory in White Tiger is a superhero plot trajectory. Yes, it's about wish fulfillment, because that's part of superhero stuff, but more than that, it's about how someone with superhero potential discovers her abilities, sorts out her allegiances and finds out how to play big games in a massive arena.
Emma starts off as a nanny. This is like Clark Kent starting off as a farm boy. Humble origins and mysterious origins are definitely an aspect of superherodom.
When I first read White Tiger, I objected to Emma's amazing discoveries about herself and her skills potential. But I was reading the book as a fantasy romance. This was the wrong approach. There is a romance element, and it's important. The romance is intrinsic to the work not because it's a romance novel, but because Chan is breaking with the pattern of superhero women who are denied happiness simply because they're exceptional and will be increasingly alone (Buffy-style) as they come into their abilities. This is not a bad trope to break, to be honest. Why should powerful women always be unhappy?
If I read it as a dragon fantasy or an Asian-borrowing fantasy the beats are in the wrong place and the tropes don't quite work and the novel just doesn’t quite work. When I read it as a superhero novel, everything fits into place.
How did I miss this? Partly it was the early PR. Partly it was the writing style, which is very much in the world of the nanny (trying to entertain a bored child is a blip in most superhero narratives, not a constant in superhero lives). Partly it was the first person narrator. Mostly, though, it was my mindset.
As I keep reminding myself, I carry a bunch of biases from my culture. One of them is that amazing women have to fit a particular pattern. I'm rethinking Chan's book because it twists things I know and offers a new pattern. It's familiar, yet strange. This is not a bad thing. What I need to do now is apply the same filtering I apply to other superhero narratives and judge the book for what it is, not for things I thought it was.
I find it very hard to admit though, that I tend to judge female superhero films more harshly than male. I want Elektra and Storm to be more three-dimensional and complex and have greater depth in their private lives than Daredevil and Wolverine. This is because somewhere, the little girl in me wants to be a superhero, I suppose, and knows that dishes have to be washed and friends have personal crises at the precise moment one is supposed to be saving the world, and that even in a superhero existence, it's not possible to waft one step above and beyond all of this. I don't know if it's biological or cultural or simply brainwashing, but I associate being a woman with living a real and rather difficult everyday life.
I'm learning though, that I should be judging female superheroes by the same standards as male. This means that my favourite superheroes are the ones who aren't superrich and who really do have to wash the dishes and deal with the personal problems of friends at time when they think they ought to be saving the world.
This is superheroes in movies. Comics are more complicated and can wait till another day. Superheroes in books are different. Sometimes it takes me a while to even recognise them.
I'm not the only one. When Kylie Chan's Dark Heavens Trilogy first came out, it copped quite a bit of flak for being a Mary Sue trilogy. All about wish fulfillment and saving the world. I recently had a chance to re-read the first volume, because Angry Robot sent me a review copy. I was in superhero mode, having recently borrowed a bunch of movies from friends and having worked my way solidly through them. Finally I recognised something that I should have seen right up front.
The plot trajectory in White Tiger is a superhero plot trajectory. Yes, it's about wish fulfillment, because that's part of superhero stuff, but more than that, it's about how someone with superhero potential discovers her abilities, sorts out her allegiances and finds out how to play big games in a massive arena.
Emma starts off as a nanny. This is like Clark Kent starting off as a farm boy. Humble origins and mysterious origins are definitely an aspect of superherodom.
When I first read White Tiger, I objected to Emma's amazing discoveries about herself and her skills potential. But I was reading the book as a fantasy romance. This was the wrong approach. There is a romance element, and it's important. The romance is intrinsic to the work not because it's a romance novel, but because Chan is breaking with the pattern of superhero women who are denied happiness simply because they're exceptional and will be increasingly alone (Buffy-style) as they come into their abilities. This is not a bad trope to break, to be honest. Why should powerful women always be unhappy?
If I read it as a dragon fantasy or an Asian-borrowing fantasy the beats are in the wrong place and the tropes don't quite work and the novel just doesn’t quite work. When I read it as a superhero novel, everything fits into place.
How did I miss this? Partly it was the early PR. Partly it was the writing style, which is very much in the world of the nanny (trying to entertain a bored child is a blip in most superhero narratives, not a constant in superhero lives). Partly it was the first person narrator. Mostly, though, it was my mindset.
As I keep reminding myself, I carry a bunch of biases from my culture. One of them is that amazing women have to fit a particular pattern. I'm rethinking Chan's book because it twists things I know and offers a new pattern. It's familiar, yet strange. This is not a bad thing. What I need to do now is apply the same filtering I apply to other superhero narratives and judge the book for what it is, not for things I thought it was.