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But if the Wheel of Time was one of the guys in the "clasping arms" image template, and Three-Body Problem was the other, their clasped hands would be "dudebro fandoms endlessly bashing woman protagonists." :(
I can understand the critique that Cheng Xin, while the viewpoint character of "Death's End," isn't necessarily supposed to be who we root for, and in that sense, some of the blame for the way events play out falls on her shoulders. (But also, on humanity in general for pushing her to that position, which is a point the book explicitly makes.) But with Egwene, it feels like a lot of the hatred is "how dare she actually take an interest in events and forge her own narrative, the people who just grudgingly accept the Destiny dictated to them by the author of this fictional work are the only allowable heroes," which, nope.
And like, in both cases, the authors clearly can write a wide variety of complex characters who are women! It's just, they both have their own set of issues with how they do that. In Liu's case, it seems to be more "women on some level need to have had a mothering figure in their past and then play a mothering role in the future, whether or not they're literally parents." (I read "Ball Lightning" as well and there's more of that also.)
I can understand the critique that Cheng Xin, while the viewpoint character of "Death's End," isn't necessarily supposed to be who we root for, and in that sense, some of the blame for the way events play out falls on her shoulders. (But also, on humanity in general for pushing her to that position, which is a point the book explicitly makes.) But with Egwene, it feels like a lot of the hatred is "how dare she actually take an interest in events and forge her own narrative, the people who just grudgingly accept the Destiny dictated to them by the author of this fictional work are the only allowable heroes," which, nope.
And like, in both cases, the authors clearly can write a wide variety of complex characters who are women! It's just, they both have their own set of issues with how they do that. In Liu's case, it seems to be more "women on some level need to have had a mothering figure in their past and then play a mothering role in the future, whether or not they're literally parents." (I read "Ball Lightning" as well and there's more of that also.)
