Byronic Shallan

[Stitof]

The gist for those who don’t want to read a massive post:

Shallan is a Byronic hero. Female Byronic characters are rare and tend to be received more poorly than their male counterparts. Do you think this may have affected how some readers responded to her?

 

Long version:

I recently watched a great PBS video about Byronic heroes and it got me thinking about a certain Veden redhead. If any of you aren’t familiar, a Byronic hero is a character modeled after the characters of Lord Byron (and indeed Lord Byron himself). They are a contrast to traditional heroes in that they are more morally ambiguous. These are deeply flawed and self destructive characters who lie somewhere between hero and villain, but we are meant to root for them anyways. There was a section of the video in which they discussed the recent trend of occasionally seeing female Byronic characters. Traditionally, pretty much all Byronic characters have been male, and the vast majority still are. They noted that Byronic heroines often haven’t been well received. Which is interesting because male Byronic heroes have been hugely popular over the centuries.

So, Shallan. I find the reactions Shallan draws to be fascinating. I know there are a lot of people who love, like, or are ambivalent towards her. But the large subgroup who hate her really, really hate her. Which is fine. It’s just interesting. I’ve seen calls for her to be killed, to have her head chopped off, to have a stroke. Commonly listed reasons being: Bad puns (Which, while bad, can’t possibly account for this reaction. Combined it’s like a paragraph's worth of puns in a 4,000+ page series). Some find her mental pathology off putting. But by far the most common is to give no reason at all. People just plain hate her. Can’t stand her. Annoying, loathsome, intolerable, cringe.

Shallan happens to be the most Byronic character in the Stormlight Archive. (Most Byronic in the entire cosmere goes to Kelsier). Classic Byronic characteristics that I feel fit Shallan are: tortured by a dark secret from her past, morally questionable, self-destructive, traumatized, highly intelligent, sardonic, arrogant, manipulative, self-serving, enigmatic, reckless, self-indulgent, prone to substance abuse, an air of dominance while deep down she’s extremely vulnerable, an obsession with getting what she wants regardless of the cost to others, and a persistent inability to face her demons.

This might be entirely unrelated to these strong reactions, but I can’t help but wonder if there is a connection. Shallan is a deeply flawed and messy character in ways that might have been more forgivable, or even appealing, if she were male. The more typical and expected male Byronic hero. Then again, it might have nothing to do with her gender. But I wish she were at least recognized and accepted for her Byronic nature instead of being treated like a traditional hero but a really crappy one. If you try to read Shallan like a traditional hero, she fails as a character. Shallan constantly makes bad choices and is very slow to learn from her mistakes. The narrative doesn’t necessarily punish her for bad behavior, and she doesn’t punish herself. Because she’s Byronic.

I know people respond to characters for many different reasons, but does anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

Edited August 28, 2021 by Stitof

[Frustration]

3 minutes ago, Stitof said:

But by far the most common is to have no reason at all.

No Nameable reason would be a better way to phrase that, and I do believe I have one.

The Way of Kings, WoK really give Shallan two big disadvantages

1. We are introduced to Kaladin first and the narrative is mainly focused on him. Which causes Shallan's chapters to feel like distractions rather than anything meaningful
2. It takes Shallan 100 pages to even reveal a plan, and then takes another 564 pages before she even does it, which feels realy stale.

There's a nice video looking at the negative community reactions I think you would like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ6Ymy2ZbDQ

 

[Stitof]

Yes, no nameable reason is definitely a better way to phrase it. Thanks!

She does get a slow start in book one, but people continue to have the same reactions to her, or even stronger reactions, over 3,500 pages later which I don't think can be explained by her slow burn narrative in the first half of WoK.

 

[jamesbondsmith He/him]

I hadn't thought of it that way, but I definitely see what you're getting at. I agree that she's deeply flawed and that some male characters have done similar things and are still beloved by fans.

According to the tvtropes page for Byronic Heroes, such a character tends to have 'a distaste for social institutions and norms and is disrespectful of rank and privilege, though he often has said rank and privilege himself.' I think one of the reasons people dislike Shallan is her classism, and in the first three books she defnitely holds onto her nobility, works very hard to get married to another noble and is dismissive of darkeyes and in some cases just walks all over them and insults them. From memory in ROW she has exactly one scene where she isn't with either high ranking lighteyes or other Radiants (who pretty much skipped the queue in the caste system), so we can't really say whether she's gotten over her prejudice.

I definitely don't like Shallan, but I understand why she'd do the things I dislike about her. I've been thinking about why I dislike her so much, and I think that a lack of consequences for her actions might be one of them.

Steal a priceless magical item from Jasnah, at worst the third most powerful woman in Alethkar, while pretending to be her ward? Stays as her ward, and when she confesses the theft to Jasnah's family the response is 'well that was dumb lol'.

Force Kaladin, a darkeyed soldier to give up his boots, making him walk barefoot on the rocky ground that tore her feet up? Gets told off once, and then it becomes a joke at her wedding which Kaladin totally forgives her for.

Victim blame slave soldiers for their own slavery and trauma, three of whom are currently protecting her and flying her across countries? BF will swoop in and tell the mean former slave not to tell her off about it.

Major ROW spoilers:

Spoiler

Cause two different deaths that will implicate the group you're a part of and piss off two different allies who have been shown to be completely unreasonable? They're suddenly cool with what you did. I know that killing Testament wasn't something that a reasonable person would blame her for, but the Honorspren have been the definition of unreasonable in holding modern humans personally accountable for the actions of their ancestors from millennia ago. For them to suddenly just stop contesting the issue was way too convenient.

To be fair, there are several characters who have gotten off way more lightly than they arguably should have. Dalinar and Adolin come to mind. 

I do agree that Shallan's Byronic traits as a woman might be a factor in why she is disliked, but they're definitely not the only ones.

Edited September 5, 2021 by jamesbondsmith

[earthexile]

I love reading Shallan as a character in a story, but I think I'd hate her if she was a real person that I had to actually interact with. She's racist, classist, her whole personality pivots on a moment-to-moment basis, she keeps important secrets from everyone in her life, she's able to straight up murder people and then make herself forget she had anything to do with it. This is all of course thematically appropriate, because Stormlight Archive is about mental illness and trauma, and sometimes the effects of those things can result in a person who's really hard to love and be patient with. I have had to remove people from my life because of the way their mental illness caused them to behave towards me. It's not their fault they are the way they are, but that doesn't change what you have to deal with by having them around.

Edited September 5, 2021 by earthexile
spelling

[+robardin he/him]

I would just like to observe that there are no such things as "bad puns", only puns thought of by other people.

[Frustration]

57 minutes ago, robardin said:

I would just like to observe that there are no such things as "bad puns", only puns thought of by other people.

On the contrary the quality of a pun is the inverse of how obvious it is.

For eggsample, egg puns are stupid.

eggstremely stupid.

[+robardin he/him]

5 hours ago, Frustration said:

On the contrary the quality of a pun is the inverse of how obvious it is.

For eggsample, egg puns are stupid.

eggstremely stupid.

Until you crack the core of the pun. Then the yolk's on you!

Edited September 6, 2021 by robardin