Female Villains in Epic Fantasy (General Spoilers)

[Guest]

Maxal, you definitely hit on a lot of good points!  

 

I really think there is a nice size yet quiet population of us who greatly prefer non-stereotypical books/movies/shows as far as our gender goes.  My husband is forever grateful that I'd rather watch a "laser movie" with him 99% of the time instead of some romantically charged thing. 

 

My husband hates fantasy (he keeps laughing at me for it and refers to SA as my "stupid book" or the book where they do number two in armors          ) and anything unrealistic I learned that the hard way when I drag him to the movie theater to go see LoTR back when we started dating... The poor guy fell asleep during the movie but that's OK, he's got other stuff going on for him    Strange thing is I do know many women who prefer Thor ( ) to say Eat, Pray, Love or Bridget Jone's Diary (give me a bucket so I'll puke please ). I also know a few real-life women who read fantasy. Just recently I learned the girlfriend of one of my colleges just finished SoIaF and wondered what else similar she could read... I made her read SA: she LOVED it

 

 

The one thing I find working against us (females who like legit fantasy/sci-fi) is that with the popularity of things like Twilight and all the similar fiction it's pulled with it is that there still might be a stereotype that if you're female and like this kind of fiction, it's the romance disguised as [insert particular sub-genre of fantasy/sci-fi].  For example, at some point in time I was known at my old place of employment as the girl who liked fantasy/sci-fi.  If I wasn't talking about Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, it was something way more obscure.  Two coworkers in particular took this to mean that I would obviously like Twilight and invited me to go see the movie with them.  The only thing I liked about that movie was the soundtrack.  To them, though, it was only natural to assume I'd like it.  It was technically in the genres I enjoyed.  There's a girl I work with now who I learned really loved Harry Potter, which also helped open up fantasy to the masses.  She will also sit in the lunch room and talk about all the supernatural chick-lit she reads without end.  And she always asks if I've read it.  And the answer is always no.  But how do you not completely offend someone while still trying to be truthful?  You just don't say very much in response.  If we suffer for any reason as women who love legitimate fantasy/sci-fi, it's thanks to this movement and the prevalent assumption that being female means that's the type of fantasy/sci-fi we like.  Couldn't be further from the truth as far as I personally am concerned.  I'm sure many of the other women on this site would agree.

Luckily enough, I think I am too old to have really been dragged within the whole Twilight frenzy. I could just dismiss it as stuff worthy of teenagers and nobody ever tried to convince me otherwise. I do get what you mean though. I could add Hunger Games (which I shamefully must admit having enjoyed ) and Divergence (which I have utterly despised) to the mix. These so-called fantasy YA bringing forward female heroins are just cover up for teenaged angst romance in a drab futuristic worlds where dressing in black is supposed to be cool..... They called it fantasy because the worlds the characters evolved in are different, but overall they are just the same old story being told once again. Love triangles, inept lead female character, cheap jealousy, easy romance and the list goes on and on and on. By keeping dragging young women into such cliche stories, you raise them to believe this is how they should behave. Worst, you lead them to believe this is how men want them to behave, which is worst. Instead of telling them to be their own person, you tell them they need to live up to some guy. I mean, is there any female character more pathetic than Bella? I never want my daughter to read about Bella A girl who bases an entire existence on her relationship to as vampire and when he dumps her, she cries and cries and cries and WAKE-UP. Move. Do something. Stop being this pathetic crying thing. Gee, I'll stop there, I just couldn't manage that movie.

 

I don't often tell people what book I am reading. Just a few colleges. I tell them it is some book with swords and dragons ( :ph34r: ), which is often not the case at all (although I am reading Abercrombie right now, so I guess sword applies) or sometimes I just say it is GoT 2 :ph34r:   If someone comes forward with something that is not my taste, I'll just tell them it is not my cup of tea. Most people will usually raise an eyebrow at my reading tastes, but move forward. It's gotten easier with GoT being such a popular show. Having actually read the books gave me an aura of sort at work as all the guys would pop into my cubicle on Mondays to get my take on the last episode I could expand on theories and spoilers and I usually got the awe treatment for having read such big books (sigh doesn't anyone read these days?)...

 

 

I'm glad you mentioned Cersei, too.  Yeah, she's got a father and brothers and son all involved and mixed up in her motivations, but for her it's almost more that her FAMILY (not just the males in it) is into power-grabbing.  I've really enjoyed her as a villain in that series, too.

 

For me, having a female antagonist does not mean removing everything that makes a women, a women. Yes, women have children and yes we can get over-protective with them, we can do all sort of crazy things for them, I should know as I have two kids myself. It is great that Cersei got to be a women and not "a men with the outside of a women" as if often the case, and still got to be power hungry. She was still ruthless in using her tools to grab what she could and I utterly hated her the whole time.

 

I do not wish for women antagonists or protagonists to move outside the obvious relationships that built our life, but I want them to be their own person, to have their own motivation, their own ambitions. Men protagonists do not wait for their wife's approval before going on an adventure, why should women do the same? Kids? Bring them along or leave them with your stay-at-home husband These are getting more in vogue lately.

 

 

Also, like you, I find I'm much more of a rational creature.  This caused some consternation with an old roommate who very rarely made rational decisions.  Nearly everything she did was driven by emotion and her feelings toward a situation or person.  She'd ask for my opinion or advice outright, and I would often try to talk her down off the figurative cliff.  Even giving requested advice, she never took it.  My thoughts on her problems usually meant I suggested making logical and conscious decisions to work through or in spite of her sour feelings.  It's nice to know there are other women out there who can not only relate to this ability to be rational but also see how it can be an advantage.  I'm not heartless (as evidenced by the fact I got a little teary eyed while watching Guardians of the Galaxy last night), but most of the time I am able to make choices based less on emotion and more on logic.  

 

I had a friend like your roommate... Every day in her life brought forward a new tragedy. Every week, she was re-inventing her life based on her whim of the moment. She couldn't stand to be alone so, of course, her love life was a quick succession of pathetic losers on who she splurged money she did not have Shameful. I just wanted to shake her up and to yell at her to just try, for once, you know, a nice decent guy? Someone with a future? But no, it all ended up in tears and more tears and I hate tears

 

I am a rational person, I married a rational man, I chose a rational profession and I have a rational work who would score a 9.5 on a scale of 1 to 10 for the geekiest job ever. However, being rational does not mean being heartless, it means being able to bring problems down to a manageable size without making a big fuss out of it. It means being able to see arguments pros and arguments cons, before making a thoughtful decision. Of course, a rational person can get emotional from time to time. I am personally prone to anger at times and if I lose my keys yet again, I also lose all trace of rationality in mere seconds   Also, I did cry when Kaladin rescued Dalinar in WoK However, I do have a hard time to feel for the stupidity some people dig themselves up when it comes to relationship. The guy is an cremhole? Dump him. Now. Immediately. Needless to say the friend I mentioned is not my friend anymore, too complicated and to many tears

 

 

Edit to add:  Wouldn't it be awesome if a book featured a little girl who grew up with dreams of world/universe domination instead of any of the other stereotypical things little girls are said to dream about growing up?

 

Sweet..... I'd love that. Especially if the little girl has piggy tails with pink ribbons and a devilish grin.

Edited August 2, 2014 by maxal

[EHyde she/her]

I don't have a lot to add to the reasons behind this, I think a lot of excellent points have already been made. I just wanted to chime in with two of my favorite female villains, both from TV shows. One is Glory from BTVS and the other is Vee from Orange is the New Black (obviously not fantasy, but still, she's one of the best villains period I've seen in a while). 

 

I would love to see more female villains in high fantasy. 

[Left he/him]

Some of the legend of Drizzt books have female villains. Usually the ones with lots of Drow (Dark elves to the un dnd wise). I don't love those books in the first place though and the villains almost all seemed pretty flat. Except maybe for Enteri and that one mercenary Drow, those two were kind of cool.

[kari-no-sugata]

Hmm, nice thread.

 

I've been thinking about Brandon's villains in his main original works. If we flip the "big bad" to female, would it work?

• Elantris? Nope, don't think so. Well, we could make some special tweaks to the setting, particularly since we barely see the "big bad" at all.
• Mistborn? Nope for the Lord Ruler. Maybe for the Big Bad of the overall series though I don't think some of the character interactions would work so well... though it's interesting to note that when Brandon first came up with the concept, Vin was originally a boy
• Stormlight Archive? Yes and no. I think Odium could be done as female but it wouldn't "add" anything to the plot that I can see (and introduce some potential pitfalls)
• Warbreaker? YES! I totally think that the hidden-evil-mastermind (whose name I won't spoil) would work just fine as female. I think it would work better even.

 

 

Regarding publishers (or editors or agents)... I don't think they're the problem at all. After all, if you had an author come to you with a book with a good female villain would you ask them to change the villain to male? Hell no.

 

The problem is definitely to do with expectations and believability (ie society). For example, consider Vorin society in the Stormlight Achieve - would the story work if we flipped the gender roles around? I think it would be incredibly hard for it to not feel farcical or like a parody.

 

At least in a fantasy setting, female magic users face fewer hurdles - it's much easier to have a believable female mage fight on par with male mages than a believable female warrior fight on pair with male warriors. On the other hand, while I love Vin she is quite a tomboy (understandably, given her background) and I'm really happy that Brandon has gone the opposite way with Shallan - having a female protagonist who is feminine but still dangerously effective.

 

Edit - just noticed this sub-forum is supposed to specifically stay clear of being about Brandon's works so I'll add some more generic commentary...

 

Part of the problem is the uphill struggle against "men are from Mars women are from Venus" - the antagonist tends to be destructive, which is seen as a more "masculine" role. How do you get around that? One option is make your female Evil Overlord be non-human though you then have to be careful not to make her a cartoon villain. In the Dragonlance series the main "evil god" is female but that's more a YA series by modern standards rather than epic fantasy.

 

But hmm, let's ignore this line of reasoning actually... and try to think of possible interesting female villains in epic fantasy. How about a smart, well educated woman who reasons her way to the conclusion that the world is inherently broken and decides to fix it... but one of the problems she needs to solve to achieve that is to forcibly take over the world first...

Edited August 4, 2014 by kari-no-sugata

[Atilium she/her]

Hmm, nice thread.

 

I've been thinking about Brandon's villains in his main original works. If we flip the "big bad" to female, would it work?

• Elantris? Nope, don't think so. Well, we could make some special tweaks to the setting, particularly since we barely see the "big bad" at all.
• Mistborn? Nope for the Lord Ruler. Maybe for the Big Bad of the overall series though I don't think some of the character interactions would work so well... though it's interesting to note that when Brandon first came up with the concept, Vin was originally a boy
• Stormlight Archive? Yes and no. I think Odium could be done as female but it wouldn't "add" anything to the plot that I can see (and introduce some potential pitfalls)
• Warbreaker? YES! I totally think that the hidden-evil-mastermind (whose name I won't spoil) would work just fine as female. I think it would work better even.

 

 

Regarding publishers (or editors or agents)... I don't think they're the problem at all. After all, if you had an author come to you with a book with a good female villain would you ask them to change the villain to male? Hell no.

 

The problem is definitely to do with expectations and believability (ie society). For example, consider Vorin society in the Stormlight Achieve - would the story work if we flipped the gender roles around? I think it would be incredibly hard for it to not feel farcical or like a parody.

 

At least in a fantasy setting, female magic users face fewer hurdles - it's much easier to have a believable female mage fight on par with male mages than a believable female warrior fight on pair with male warriors. On the other hand, while I love Vin she is quite a tomboy (understandably, given her background) and I'm really happy that Brandon has gone the opposite way with Shallan - having a female protagonist who is feminine but still dangerously effective.

 

Edit - just noticed this sub-forum is supposed to specifically stay clear of being about Brandon's works so I'll add some more generic commentary...

 

Part of the problem is the uphill struggle against "men are from Mars women are from Venus" - the antagonist tends to be destructive, which is seen as a more "masculine" role. How do you get around that? One option is make your female Evil Overlord be non-human though you then have to be careful not to make her a cartoon villain. In the Dragonlance series the main "evil god" is female but that's more a YA series by modern standards rather than epic fantasy.

 

But hmm, let's ignore this line of reasoning actually... and try to think of possible interesting female villains in epic fantasy. How about a smart, well educated woman who reasons her way to the conclusion that the world is inherently broken and decides to fix it... but one of the problems she needs to solve to achieve that is to forcibly take over the world first...

 

Why do you say TLR wouldn't have worked as a female? It could have worked easily imo. 

[Argent he/him]

That's exactly what I was thinking - and Evil Queen would work just as well as an Evil King in Mistborn. Can't go into specifics in the General Discussion forum, but none of the things The Lord Ruler did were explicitly male-centric. He throws a few punches here and there, which works better for a man, but considering that most of his influence on the outside world comes from emotional Allomancy, a genderswap might actually help more than it would hurt (playing on the classical "women are better at emotions" trope).

[Guest]

Hmm, nice thread.

 

I've been thinking about Brandon's villains in his main original works. If we flip the "big bad" to female, would it work?

• Elantris? Nope, don't think so. Well, we could make some special tweaks to the setting, particularly since we barely see the "big bad" at all.
• Mistborn? Nope for the Lord Ruler. Maybe for the Big Bad of the overall series though I don't think some of the character interactions would work so well... though it's interesting to note that when Brandon first came up with the concept, Vin was originally a boy
• Stormlight Archive? Yes and no. I think Odium could be done as female but it wouldn't "add" anything to the plot that I can see (and introduce some potential pitfalls)
• Warbreaker? YES! I totally think that the hidden-evil-mastermind (whose name I won't spoil) would work just fine as female. I think it would work better even.

 

I haven't read Elantris, yet, so I can't comment.

 

I believe the Lord Ruler could have easily been changed into a female character. Of course, the story to be told would have been different, but I don't see why it could not have worked.

 

I agree it does not add to the story to have a female Odium. However, I see the possibility to have a few female antagonists in SA.

Ialai for example has good antagonist potential: an ugly but smart women who while being impeccable when roaming in society carelessly puts her feet into the table while in private. She runs an impressive network of spies and assassins and I could see her taking a larger role in the following books. In fact, I am hoping she will. A cunning women hiding being the face of a distressed widow could make a strong enemy. Venly is another one. Brandon has created the Parshendi, a humanoid race where gender does not seem to affect the physical abilities of its members, which leaves the door wide open for a plenitude of evil female. Eshonai, despite being female, is a badass warrior who has beaten Dalinar and almost beaten Adolin in battle. That's a deed to remember.

 

Warbreaker, agree. Bluefinger could have easily been a woman.

 

 

The problem is definitely to do with expectations and believability (ie society). For example, consider Vorin society in the Stormlight Achieve - would the story work if we flipped the gender roles around? I think it would be incredibly hard for it to not feel farcical or like a parody.

 

 

It wouldn't be plausible if it were reversed. I would not want authors to write unbelievable worlds simply just to plant women as above men... That would not work either. As for SA, we have inkling the Vorin society has not always been this divided among sexes. Shardblades and shardplates does annihilate the physical difference between men and women, but a few priests thought is best if men got the control.... Plausible. The inverse scenario would have been more difficult to write, I believe, from an author's perspective.

 

 

At least in a fantasy setting, female magic users face fewer hurdles - it's much easier to have a believable female mage fight on par with male mages than a believable female warrior fight on pair with male warriors. On the other hand, while I love Vin she is quite a tomboy (understandably, given her background) and I'm really happy that Brandon has gone the opposite way with Shallan - having a female protagonist who is feminine but still dangerously effective.

 

There are a thousand ways of how effective a female character can be. I am glad we are starting to see some variety.

[kari-no-sugata]

Currently on lunch break, let's see if I can quickly justify my comments on gender-bending The Lord Ruler...

 

To put it a different way: I think there would be a number of knock-on effects that would (slightly) harm immersion, believability and reader expectations. You either have to accept that or start making more and more changes to the plot and characters.

 

Consider the back story: if tLR is female then the person who was thought to be the Hero of Ages would also have to be female - else that reveal would be blatantly obvious in advance. This also means we get two female "hero of ages", before the real one turns up, rather than mixed gender which harms the gender neutral aspect of the "hero of ages" that is an important part of the series climax.

 

Consider the society: if tLR is female then this would automatically have make it harder to have a society with "male privilege" (ie male dominated) - tLR has been ruler for 1000 years, so the effects of this would be deeply ingrained into society. This would normally be considered a good thing but if we make the society "better" then Kelsier becomes less justified in staging his bloody revolution.

 

Hope that makes sense.

[Argent he/him]

I don't think I agree with this. Let me hide my response behind a spoiler:

 

Mistborn Trilogy

As we know, the revelation that the Hero of Ages has to be female was ultimately an incorrect one. Sazed was the Hero of Ages, so The Well of Ascension would have been a little different. Alendi would've had to be a woman too (and so would Rashek), so Vin probably would've arrived at the conclusion that she could be the Hero of Ages a little earlier, but that realization, just like the one in the published WoA would've served Ruin - so the plot holds. We'd only have one plot twist ("we thought the Hero was a woman, but it ended up being an eunuch) instead of two ("we thought the Hero was a man, then we thought it was a woman, but it ended up being an eunuch"), but I confident Brandon could've pulled it off easily.

 

Second, I wouldn't necessarily call the Final Empire a male-dominated society. Or rather, it is, but not to the extent Medieval Europe, for example, was. Men rarely get to exercise power just because they are men - the power is centered around the nobility as a whole. So yeah, we would have to see a few more powerful wives, maybe Elend would have to resist his mother instead of his father, but I feel that most of the plot could remain the same.

[RenegadeShroom]

On Odium being female not adding anything to the plot, I don't see that it has to? The point of having female villains isn't really to add things to the plot, it's really about representing people. Odium's gender should really be completely irrelevant to the plot, so of course it doesn't add anything.

 

Mistborn

Second, I wouldn't necessarily call the Final Empire a male-dominated society. Or rather, it is, but not to the extent Medieval Europe, for example, was. Men rarely get to exercise power just because they are men - the power is centered around the nobility as a whole. So yeah, we would have to see a few more powerful wives, maybe Elend would have to resist his mother instead of his father, but I feel that most of the plot could remain the same.

 

On that note, though, what if instead of Elend having to resist his mother in this scenario, it would make Straff more of an underdog villain?That could have been very interesting and fun to see how that played out!

On the whole though, I agree with you, Argent. female!TLR wouldn't take a hell of a lot of tweaking to the plot.

 

The problem is definitely to do with expectations and believability (ie society). For example, consider Vorin society in the Stormlight Achieve - would the story work if we flipped the gender roles around? I think it would be incredibly hard for it to not feel farcical or like a parody.

 

It wouldn't be plausible if it were reversed. I would not want authors to write unbelievable worlds simply just to plant women as above men... That would not work either. As for SA, we have inkling the Vorin society has not always been this divided among sexes. Shardblades and shardplates does annihilate the physical difference between men and women, but a few priests thought is best if men got the control.... Plausible. The inverse scenario would have been more difficult to write, I believe, from an author's perspective.

 

I'm curious as to why you guys believe this? I disagree that it would be farcical, nonsensical or come off as a parody to see a matriarchal society in fantasy at all, so I'm wondering about your points of view here. There's far stranger things in fantasy than matriarchy after all, (the idea of which I don't find strange at all) and saying that matriarchy would come off as nonsensical does have some unfortunate implications! 

[Atilium she/her]

I'm with Argent and InsurrectionistFungus here. TLDR could ahve worked very well as a female, maybe even better than a male. And as for Odium, I ditto InsurrectionistFungus. Odium is an all-powerful god. We're scared of Odium because of his power (he's a shard) his intent (he's the shard of hate.) and the fact that even before he became a shardholder, he was a nasty person. None of those things are specifically masculine.

The main problem here is that people automatically assume any villain is male. They don't think a woman is scary enough, because women "arenta s strong as males" or some nonesense.   

[Guest]

I'm curious as to why you guys believe this? I disagree that it would be farcical, nonsensical or come off as a parody to see a matriarchal society in fantasy at all, so I'm wondering about your points of view here. There's far stranger things in fantasy than matriarchy after all, (the idea of which I don't find strange at all) and saying that matriarchy would come off as nonsensical does have some unfortunate implications! 

 

When I wrote my comment, I had the Alethki society, which is highly war oriented. Having the role reversed, having the women being the soldiers and the men the scholars would not have been this plausible as men are just stronger physically. There are just things most  women cannot compensate for. It would not make sense to have an entire society's army being comprised of women only when the men are being left with music, art and scholarship.

 

However, I could see a matriarchal society were women are in charge of everything, were women are carrying the shards and having tactical control over the armies, but the soldiers mostly remaining men.

 

Well, I guess maybe it would have worked, but it would have been a challenge to write. 

[Kasimir he/him]

Having read most of the discussion in this thread, there's something I've wondered with regard to the latest tangent. Maybe it would be more instructive to ask two questions:

 

1. What are the conditions required for there to be a militaristic society that is matriarchal, or at least women-dominated in nature?

2. What would a matriarchal/women-dominated militaristic society look like?

 

The two questions overlap a bit but are, of course, slightly different.

 

For one, it doesn't seem strictly necessary to me (in the sense of strict logical necessity) that the (on average, which means a lot less than we think it does) greater physical strength of men makes them better soldiers. A quick example: imagine a militaristic society whether soldiers are basically fused to some sort of implanted power-armour. But here's the problem: the power-armour reacts badly beyond a certain threshold-level of testosterone. I would imagine that in such a case, you could have a militaristic society (imagine, perhaps, that the technological edge provided by the power-armour allows the society to project power. It is, in fact, the basis of their hegemony. It's possible to have that be the founding development of a matriarchy, I imagine, with all sorts of traditions and stuff coming onward from that. Physical strength has, in essence, become irrelevant.

 

This is an extreme example of how to answer 2. based on technology as the deciding factor, but my point, and perhaps, a relevant question to ask, is why we seem impelled to insist upon paradigms of war that require both optimisation (strength is good therefore all-strong is better) and a focus on strength. It may very well be the case that we have good reason to do so. But I think interrogating this and discovering underlying assumptions we have been clinging to would be instructive in this regard.

[Guest]

Having read most of the discussion in this thread, there's something I've wondered with regard to the latest tangent. Maybe it would be more instructive to ask two questions:

 

1. What are the conditions required for there to be a militaristic society that is matriarchal, or at least women-dominated in nature?

2. What would a matriarchal/women-dominated militaristic society look like?

 

 

You would need a society where success in a war campaign does not solely rely on physical strength. Unless, as you suggested later on in your post, some artifact gets develop to nullify this inconvenient. However, for any fight involving swords and spear fighting, women will always be at a disadvantage due to them being smaller and not as physically strong. Brandon sort of worked around this by giving Warform to the Parshendi which enables men and women to fight on an equal footing.

 

Or maybe you could go Kingkiller's and give them a fighting style akin to martial arts where women smaller frame becomes an advantage. You could have your army divided in women's squad and men's squad. Men to do the butchery and the arm work and women for the more refined tasks and the fighting that requires skill. Your men thus become nothing more than brainless thugs (sorry guys I don't think you are brainless thugs) pushed around being more skillful, more agile and more intelligent women.

 

In this matriarchal society, women would held all positions of power. The would lead the armies and direct the fights as women are more sound then men, more level-headed and less prone to impulsivity. Men are thus reduced to simple-minded tasks requiring physical strength and reproduction High powered women would chose their partner based on when the decide it is time to have a child. Beign chosen to shire a child would be seen as a great honor for most men Once the child is born, it would be given to the men care-takers, ie the men who were not born physically strong and are thus reduced to the task of taking care of the children

 

Men are thus left with no power, just brawn.

 

Would this work? I almost feel sorry for the poor men here

[traceria she/her]

First, I've been following the thread since my last comment, but work has been way too crazy to actually post a decent response.  I'm going to try to dredge up some thoughts I had while reading over the past so many days.

 

Kasimer, you bring up some good questions with regard to women-dominated militaristic societies.  Another possibility, to borrow from your power-armour idea, is the idea that women, usually being smaller in form, might fit better into such machinery.  For example, maybe women in such a society fit better in a cockpit of a mobile suit or aircraft.  It's possible that being of smaller size might be an advantage in a society that's developed that way.  Maybe there are limited resources, enough to warrant being very frugal with the materials that make up suits or aircraft.

 

One of the reasons I like Star Trek so much is that they tend to run into societies that do things differently than the peoples that make up the Federation.  There was one society where women were definitely the undisputed leaders.  In the one episode of Next Gen (it was season 1 and not necessarily a favorite of mine, but still...) I'm thinking of, obviously Riker ends up interacting with one of the women leaders.  And he manages at least for a short time to give her the view of a man who is actually worth respecting.  It doesn't have a lasting effect, at least not much of one (they end up only banishing some men instead of executing them).  The men in their society were treated much like slaves, in my opinion.  (No one deserves that, no matter what gender or any other attribute they possess.)  From what I can remember, military was not a huge deal in that society.  They must have had some kind of peace-keeping group because they were dealing with the trouble-making men (Federation guys who survived a crash on the planet), but at least in the episode there wasn't a huge military presence.  Even this episode assumes that women in leadership is unequal to military power.

 

So, to evolve our Villainous Little Girl with Domination Dreams idea...  It could go one way where she wields power by using those who are physically strong around her (be they female or male).  Or it could go another way and she could wield power because she herself has the skill or figures out some way to be physically 'indestructible' (not unlike the view of the Lord Ruler) and takes over everything that way (or tries to).

 

In the Lord Ruler as a woman debate, I'm going to have to say I fall on the side that thinks the Lord Ruler would have to remain a man, at least in the society we see in the books already.  I think big enough changes to the structure of the society and to the prophecy about the Hero of Ages (otherwise, why all the surprise when Vin, a woman, is thought to be the Hero?) would have to be made to make it work for a female Lord Ruler.  It could work, but some big changes would have to be made.  I say this even knowing that female feruchemists, mistings, mistborn, kandra, etc. are just as strong, solid and destructive than their male counterparts, but the society we're presented with doesn't outright see them that way even if it's, in fact, true.

[Two McMillion he/him]

I think I will go and write a fantasy novel with a female as the big bad.

[Shaggai]

Having read most of the discussion in this thread, there's something I've wondered with regard to the latest tangent. Maybe it would be more instructive to ask two questions:

 

1. What are the conditions required for there to be a militaristic society that is matriarchal, or at least women-dominated in nature?

2. What would a matriarchal/women-dominated militaristic society look like?

 

The two questions overlap a bit but are, of course, slightly different.

 

For one, it doesn't seem strictly necessary to me (in the sense of strict logical necessity) that the (on average, which means a lot less than we think it does) greater physical strength of men makes them better soldiers. A quick example: imagine a militaristic society whether soldiers are basically fused to some sort of implanted power-armour. But here's the problem: the power-armour reacts badly beyond a certain threshold-level of testosterone. I would imagine that in such a case, you could have a militaristic society (imagine, perhaps, that the technological edge provided by the power-armour allows the society to project power. It is, in fact, the basis of their hegemony. It's possible to have that be the founding development of a matriarchy, I imagine, with all sorts of traditions and stuff coming onward from that. Physical strength has, in essence, become irrelevant.

 

This is an extreme example of how to answer 2. based on technology as the deciding factor, but my point, and perhaps, a relevant question to ask, is why we seem impelled to insist upon paradigms of war that require both optimisation (strength is good therefore all-strong is better) and a focus on strength. It may very well be the case that we have good reason to do so. But I think interrogating this and discovering underlying assumptions we have been clinging to would be instructive in this regard.

The real problem with a female-dominated militaristic society isn't that women are weak. It's that they get pregnant. If you have the females be the primary ones who hunt/fight/do the dangerous things in a small tribe, and half of them die, your tribe's birthrate gets cut in half. If you have the males do the dangerous things, and half of them die, you can keep up a birthrate that's pretty close to what it was. Over a few generations, the tribes with the males fighting are the ones that are larger and more powerful, so they outcompete and conquer the other tribes. Then the males take power, because they're the ones with combat experience and the females don't have the combat ability to prevent it or reverse it. This is an oversimplification, of course, but the gist is what matters.

 

Edit: This should not be taken to mean that there cannot be female villains. There are plenty of ways for individual female villains to gain power. It should also not be taken to mean that there cannot be female-dominated societies - it just means that they have to have evolved differently. For example, the female dominance could have arisen late enough in the development of the society that birthrates weren't a problem.

Edited August 12, 2014 by Shaggai

[Kadrok she/her]

I haven't bothered to read the thread (just the OP), so sorry if this has been covered (lazy much, Kadrok?). I just wanted to give a shout out to my two favourite female villains. Technically they're both from Science fiction, so let's add irrelevance to the growing list of crimes I'm committing in this post.

 

SHODAN from System Shock and System Shock 2

 

Darth Treya from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2

 

Both the big bad, and both awesome. I obviously don't intend for this to be a counter argument to the OP (that would be dumb... wrong genre, and two examples are drops in the ocean), I just wanted to extol their virtu... vices?

 

Carry on with relevant discussion...

[Evil_Reptile]

Well, of the top of my head, I can think of one (Non-human, mind you) female Big Bad. Sister Reverence from the Malazan Book of the Fallen, despite only being in book ten, pretty much ranks among Big Bads due to multiple end-of-humanity-related offences. Mab, from the Dresden Files is a sort-of villain. A bunch of the Taken, as well as the Lady (sort of) from the Black Company series are female.

 

EDIT: Oh, and Cersei Lannister, but that might just be me.

Edited September 14, 2015 by Evil_Reptile

[Silverblade5 he/him]

If we expand our search past just literature, and look at all forms of modern media, then I could argue that Carla, Starlight Glimmer, and Crysalis were pretty strong villains.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Silverblade5

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

If we expand our search past just literature, and look at all forms of modern media, then I could argue that Carla, Starlight Glimmer, and Crysalis were pretty strong villains.

 

Carla from….which show? I remember a villain named Carla on Burn Notice, but she was working for a male Big Bad, rather than on her own. Great villain, though. 

[Silverblade5 he/him]

Carla from….which show? I remember a villain named Carla on Burn Notice, but she was working for a male Big Bad, rather than on her own. Great villain, though. 

Yeah, but there wasn't any bigger bad all season. There was Management, and the organization in general, but until season 4, I'd say they were more greater scope villains rather than bigger bads.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Yeah, but there wasn't any bigger bad all season. There was Management, and the organization in general, but until season 4, I'd say they were more greater scope villains rather than bigger bads.

IIRC, Carla was never really purported to be acting on her own. Maybe in the beginning, but by the end of her run, it was pretty clear there was someone else calling the shots. Even before that, I felt it was at least implied there was more to Michael's getting burned than just Carla; she was a big piece of it, but a male Bigger Bad was behind the whole thing. I'd definitely call her a villain, but I don't think I'd call her the Big Bad of the series or even of Management.

[ccstat he/him]

In addition to the points already made, I think it is worth noting that many authors draw on historical events for their inspiration (with varying degrees of accuracy). I think it is safe to say that, despite the gulf we still need to cross, most eras of history (in many parts of the world) have featured less female enfranchisement and equal or greater sexism compared to what we see today. In epic fantasy specifically, a huge segment of the genre draws from medieval Europe, a cultural era in which political, financial, and religious power rested predominantly in male hands. The power balance in the pseudo-Europe popularized in much of fantasy is even more extremely skewed. I have some opinions on where that probably originated, but the main point is that since many writers are influenced by the themes of what they've read, this has become a self-reinforcing feedback loop.

 

TL;DR - I think the fake-Europe setting of many supposedly secondary-world fantasies is a contributing factor.

 

On the other hand, stories that draw on other eras or geographies (such as Guy Gavriel Kay's books) tend to have women in different roles, including the villain. My own first novel (not published) has females as two out of three villains, including the big bad. This was not a conscious decision, but I think it was influenced in part by the fact that I was using a pseudo-Tang dynasty China for the setting. I suspect that if I had started out putting the same story into a more-or-less European culture, one of the many differences would have been a different style of villain.

[Sera]

The problem with drawing inspiration from history isn't that history lacks notable women, it's that history not only was mostly written by men, but it has the bad habit of falling into the hands of men who don't look kindly on women. Add this to eurocentrism and you have the perfect "women were boooooring in the past I'm only being realist" recipe. An awful lot of authors don't research, they just perpetuate to ill-established tropes.

 

How many of us heard of Ching Shih when we first heard about pirates? She was one of the most powerful pirates in the world, commanding one of the largest fleets ever seen—manned by men, and women and children—, and challenged multiple empires at the same time. That woman retired from piracy. Pirates don't retire, they're killed. She can be viewed as a gray moral hero, anti-hero, or villain.

 

Want someone different, perhaps a scholar type? What about Fatima al-Fihri, founder of the University of al-Qarawiyyin, often said to be the first university in the world?

 

History is full of prominent—and regular—women full of agency. You only have to dig deeper, because history wasn't kind to them. Some, as the Mongolian Queens, were almost completely erased from it.

 

The common woman of medieval Europe was an active member of the society. Though they hadn't the same rights as men, they weren't seen as only good for procreation as some books would have you to believe. Women were artisans, builders, merchants, farmers. The poorer the woman was, more likely to work she were; and it wasn't restricted to "womanly" occupations. You can find multiple instances in the medieval Europe when roughly half of construction workers were female, because their condition as second class citizen made them cheaper labor, and society had a different view on workers rights at the time. Actually, in the London of 1300 men were to keep only one trade, but women were free to take as many they wished. Women had often multiple occupations, and no occupation was forbidden to them by law. (That actually contributed to the "second class" outlook, men were specialists, women were jack-of-all-trades).

 

___

Regarding this topic itself, I've seen few female villains indeed. Female antagonists are often used as a foil to female heroes, because you shouldn't punch women, and if there are two women in opposite sides they must fight each other, right?

 

Female big baddies are scarcer. Off the top of my head I can think of Portal's GLaDOS as inhuman example (not epic fantasy), and a stealthy one I won't name in Republic of Thieves, though there is a power shift at the very end of the book.

Edited September 17, 2015 by Sera