Question of the day, #1

[mrissa]

So I was thinking about the recent rants from "oh noes, girl cooties in my SF" people. I was thinking about which traits of mine are most crucial to my reading experience when reflected in characters. I do not, for example, find it particularly difficult to care about male characters, or non-white characters, or homosexual characters. But I was pretty sure that if I thought about it, I would come up with some things where I really did want characters to be "like me."

What I came up with is loyalty.

I don't require a character with whom I can identify; caring is enough. But when a character is blithely disloyal to people who are showing them loyalty, I have a hard time not putting down the book and walking away.

How about you? What traits do you want to share--or at least not blatantly not share--with a character in order to care about their story?

Comments

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

The "girl cooties" thing goes back to a sort of gender essentialism, right? Certain kinds of SF are inherently male, and others aren't? I think that's mostly rubbish, and what's left is mostly cultural, but mostly *I DON'T CARE*. I don't care what the socially perceived gender of the person who wrote the book is; I care what the book is like. I certainly haven't perceived a reliable enough correlation to make me want to filter that way.

Of course, I don't fit many of the stereotypes being debated all that well. I like David Weber AND Marion Zimmer Bradley AND Ursula LeGuin AND Samuel Delany (older short fiction, anyway) AND Lois McMaster Bujold AND John Ringo AND Ken MacLeod AND Niven & Pournelle AND Emma Bull AND John M. Ford AND Joel Rosenberg.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think mostly the other side is the one debating stereotypes here, and our side is sort of snickering and shaking our heads. But yes, anyone who tried to coopt you as "middle-aged straight white male reader of Heinlein and Doc Smith, must be on our side against girl cooties" would have a pretty nasty shock.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, it's definitely their concept, not ours. Sorry I didn't make that clear enough.