Lisa Paitz Spindler, Danger Gal

“Someone’s got to save our skins!” (Princess Leia Organa, Star Wars: A New Hope)

I really can’t believe that it’s taken me this long to profile Princess Leia as a Danger Gal Friday. When Star Wars came out I was knee-deep in pixies and dragons and unicorns. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I still enjoy reading about pixies and dragons and unicorns. But Princess Leia Organa was the first princess I’d encountered who was a damsel but not in distress. Not to mention that Han Solo so ousted Princess Aurora’s (Sleeping Beauty) Prince Philip as my McDreamy. So much has been said already about what a watershed moment the original Star Wars trilogy was for the boys growing up in that generation, but less has been said about the girls. There are fewer of us, and my tastes in Science Fiction have changed since then, but the few female characters have matched the positive impact that Princess Leia had on how women are portrayed in Science Fiction and leadership roles in general for fiction. Along with watching the original Star Trek episodes at this time, Star Wars kicked off my interest in Science Fiction because there was as character I could identify with.

The only thing I would have changed about Princess Leia is to give her a lightsaber, and I’m still disappointed that there was no female Jedi as a main character in the Star Wars prequels. There are female Jedi, however, and characters in some of the books/comics (Mara Jade comes to mind immediately, but she’s a future Danger Gal post), but I’m still disappointed.
Deb Taylor at Mookychick summarized Princess Leia Organa beautifully:

Princess Leia was a strong and fearless character, who stood by her beliefs and fought for them. Whether it was saving the galaxy or the man she loved. She was more than willing to risk her own life for the struggle and never demanded that others do the same. Though she appreciated it when they did.

An important facet of Princess Leia’s story is that she not only had a career, but was at the top of the heap in her chosen profession, and she also didn’t have to sacrifice her love life for it. She fell in love with a rogue who decided to fly the straight and narrow path after experiencing her and Luke’s examples. She didn’t take a bad boy and change him, he chose to change himself.

Not only does Leia take charge, but people follow her commands. She also rescues the heroes several times over. She doesn’t fall prey to the SF stereotype of a scantily clad female until Return of the Jedi – and even then she’s saving all the guys, not to mention strangling her monster captor with her own shackles. Princess Leia challenges the stereotypical spacebabe when as a chatteled half-naked female turns the tables by slaying the monster herself. (Meanwhile, the guys are trying not to fall into a giant vagina dentata, but that’s a discussion for another time.)

No character is perfect, but a perfect character is boring. Real people are torn between social, political and religious issues and are not totally consistent in their opinions on those issues. Some have found fault with ways Leia could have subverted traditional feminine roles further and we should examine those. Mariana at Gatochy’s Blog makes a very good point about female Jedi in general and Leia in particular:

The Star Wars trilogy is generally great in keeping women in their place, because have you noticed how there’s not one. Single. Female. Jedi? Not one? Not ever? Puppets, yes. Samuel L. Jackson, sure, in the movies that followed. But women can’t handle that kind of power. And that’s where Princess Leia comes in: to show us how even if you do supposedly have the Force in you you simply can make no use of it unless you’re a man; and that even if you do hold a position of great power because it was handed down to you on a silver platter, if you’re a woman, you’re bound to be hopeless at it. In fact, you will notice it’s her twin brother, who she didn’t even know she had, who saves the universe, not her.

I couldn’t agree more (and I’ve made a similar complaint in the past), and there are many problems with other female characters in Star Wars as well. However, for the time she was written, this was a great step forward. Princess Leia became a template for later heroines and we continue to build on this new archetype in fits in starts, one step forward and sometimes four steps backward. Part of the motivation for me writing this blog is to highlight the great and not-so-great qualities in characters like Princess Leia so that we can discard the old, useless and degrading qualities of female stereotypes.

When as a kid in the 1970s I played Star Wars in the backyard, my version of Princess Leia indeed had a lightsaber and was a powerful Jedi. After she defeated the bad guy, she rode off into the sunset (the Tatooine binary star, mind you) in her landspeeder (or dragon or unicorn, sometimes) with Han Solo.

And, yes, she was driving.

(#6)

1. Think Geek’s #include . Except for me it’d be in PHP: php include (‘love.php’);
2. Roses at #FF0000
3. There’s No Place like 127.0.0.1
4. All My Base Are Belong to You
5. Schrodiger’s Cat is Dead
6. SciFi Chick (Don’t tell SciFiChick!)
7. All Damsel, No Distress
8. 3.14159
9. Cu Ti
10. Colonial Viper Squadron
11. Girl Power!
12. Hot Topic’s Princess Leia t-shirt that said “Someone’s got to save our skins!”
(I can’t find it online anywhere. If anyone knows of it, please leave a comment.)
13. Dark Side of the Garden

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Another song from my writing playlist. . .

(#5)

1. Talk about a huge breast!
2. Tying the legs together keeps the inside moist.
3. It’s Cool Whip time!
4. If I don’t undo my pants, I’ll burst!
5. Whew, that’s a nice spread!.
6. Are you ready for seconds yet?
7. It’s a little dry, do you still want to eat it?
8. You’ll know it’s ready when it pops up.
9. Don’t play with your meat.
10. Just spread those legs open and I’ll stuff it in.
11. Do you think you’ll be able to handle all these people at once?
12. I didn’t expect everyone to come at once!
13. You still have a little bit on your chin.

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Did anyone notice that I thought yesterday was Monday? It’s been that kind of week. While I may not be making much sense these past few days, many other people are, so here’s some linkitude to amuse you while I get my act back together.

The Book Bitches are grousing about the results of the AAR’s Top 100 Romances Poll. Unlike my friend Leslie Dicken, I’ve read about 40 of the books on this list. Also unlike the Book Bitches, I enjoyed Brockmann’s Out of Control, but it took too long to get to that story. I felt the Alyssa/Sam storyline had been dragged out for too long and by the time their book came out I wasn’t so into them as I had been at one point. Having said that, even books Brockmann writes on an off-day I know are going to be a great way to spend a few hours. It’s a real shame no Science Fiction Romance showed up on that list, though, not even Catherine Asaro. Linnea Sinclair has done a fine job of rounding up the thoughts of the people in her readers’ group about what they look for in SFR.

Pyr editor Lou Anders over at Bowing to the Future is covering the state of speculative fiction magazines. He links to a discussion over at Windupstories.com about how to market Science Fiction/Fantasy to teenage girls and there’s some interesting conversation in the comments. As as little girl, sure I loved rainbows and unicorns and dragons. It all came to a screeching halt when I discovered Princess Leia, though, and I wanted a lightsaber. So I guess I’m sort of the “full body armor with a spatter of blood on her faceplate” type. Maybe. Except that as a teen I was reading Arthur C. Clarke not Madeline L’Engle. I remember watching the original Star Trek with my Dad and being amazed that not only had he seen all of the episodes already, but that he could remember what each one was about. My Mom liked it too, so Science Fiction was a family pastime. I’m the big reader in my family, but we always experienced SF movies and TV together. I’m equally anticipating both Enchanted and the Sarah Connor Chronicles coming out. Really, Prince Phillip was the original McDreamy.

If I had half a brain this week, I’d tie the SF for teenage girls thing into the recent trend of special marketing to women in general. This is the tendency to make something pink and/or slap Hello Kitty or rhinestones onto something and market it as “for women.” In general, I’d rather companies just make their products better to fit a broader audience than come up with something special for a segment of it. Don’t listen to me, though, since I’m writing this while listening to my pink iPod. The iPod was actually a gift, but even so all the other colors were just not appealing. So we come back to just making the base product a better product. Gee, maybe that nap earlier did help my sleep-deprived brain?

My friend Kaigou has a fantastic article on the dynamics of the street in her article Dear Urban Fantasy Author.

Salon Magazine reviews the new Beowulf movie and outlines why it falls so far short of what it could have been, a story akin to The Lord of the Rings. Article author Gary Kamiya taps into the liminal aspects of LOTR and Beowulf, how both stand at the threshold of a time between Paganism and Christianity.

I’m grousing online about a recent MacWorld article comparing various blog software platforms like WordPress, TypePad and Blogger. Catch me in the comments.

It’s been one of those Mondays! Adam Levine makes it all better, though, doesn’t he?

This week’s Danger Gal Friday profile is of Raina Bowen, heroine in Eve Kenin’s new book DRIVEN. Mad Max meets the History Channel’s Ice Road Truckers.

Raina Bowen is a tough as nails I-can-take-care-of-myself-thank-you-very-much kind of gal with a soft spot for — albeit the oddly named — tall dark and silent type. Wizard is like Star Trek’s Commander Data in Tom Wisdom’s body (Astinos, 300). His name really isn’t that strange once its reason is revealed.

DRIVEN is one of the recent books out by the new Shomi line, which publishes books with female protagonists who challenge feminine stereotypes. Raina Bowen owns her own rig, tricked out with not only a nifty 30-second shower, but also a magazine of weapons any military character would drool over. She’s been on the run from a dangerous enemy her whole life and, of course, finally has to face off with him.

Raina also has her own snow mobile and rescues Wizard not once, but twice, the second time in an adrenaline-punched action sequence.

One of the factors that interested me was how well Kenin handled writing about two characters who are essentially cut off from their emotions — and making me see into their pain and care about them. I enjoyed watching these two people learn how to emote.

This book has just been released, so I don’t want to spoil the plot and the ending for anyone. If you like reading about strong, no-nonsense heroines in a fast-paced story, like a steamy Romance with some fun Science Fiction tech, then you’ll enjoy DRIVEN.

Kenin dropped hints that this might be the first in a series of sorts. There were many characters introduced who could carry their own books.

Check out an excerpt here.

(#4)

Here are thirteen actors I’d cast in a Black Dagger Brotherhood Mhovie. The Black Dagger Brotherhood is from J.R. Ward’s vampire series of books, that are as other people have described “crack.” Once you start reading them, you can’t stop. For more information on this series, check out the Wikipedia entry.

1. Wrath: Christian Bale
2. Zsadist: Gerard Butler
3. Butch/Dhestroyer: Alex O’Loughlin

4. Rhage: Jason Lewis
5. Vishous: Ryan Reynolds
6. Phury: Brian Krause
7. Tohrment: Will Kemp
8. Darius/John: Jared Padalecki
9. Rehvenge: Hugh Jackman
10. Lash: Milo Ventimiglia
11. Qhuinn: Tom Wisdom
12. Blaylock: Kyle Schmid
13. Hhurt: Nicholas D’Agosto

Hat-tip: Paranormal Fan

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My friend Tawny Weber is talking about me in her recent blog post at the Romance Bandits. Yep, I’m the one “who writes sci-fi/fantasy/romance and she mentioned that she’s a thinker vs a feeler, so she shows this incredible action and detailed plot structure, but her characters can be on fire and barely show an actual reaction.”

That might be a tad of an overstatement — and Tawny’s characters do not emote over toilet paper (Jim collapsed onto the floor, a spare square in his hand. He had expected quilted, but Candy bought the cheap kind again. Didn’t she know how sensitive he was? Didn’t she care? Once again his needs never mattered, only hers did. When would he ever learn? See, I can emote over TP.).

However, I do think personality types play a role in how we writers discover our stories, specifically what we write first. On the Myers-Briggs scale, I’m an ESTJ, but on the fence on the Extroversion/Introversion spectrum (right now I’m obviously in full-on E-mode). The first time through a scene I’m writing the action and dialog, and my characters on a macro level are following their external GMCs (Goal, Motivation and Conflict). I always have to go back with a special eye on my character’s emotions. The advantage to this is that emotion gets some extra attention, but I do sometimes wish my character’s emotions were closer to the surface. However, deeply buried emotions are a plus for the kind of characters I write about — those who need to keep their cool in high-stress situations. My main protagonist can’t have an emotional breakdown when she’s trying to infiltrate an enemy compound. Those emotions still have to be there, though, creating tension in every line, in every thought, even if she doesn’t give into them until later.

For my fellow writers, how do you think your personality affects how you write? As a reader, do you like character-driven, deeply emotional stories, or stories driven more by the situation a character finds herself in?

Lollercoaster! Check out Jim Hines’ LOLBookCovers.

Hat tip: Tobias Buckell