Taken in isolation, her gender and behavior might bother me a lot, because she’s very much the stereotype of the femme fatale: beautiful, seductive, manipulative, and so on. In fairness, I should say the fact that I don’t have a problem with that probably owes something to the age at which I read this story; I was a lot less critical about that sort of thing when I was twelve. But I also think it owes a lot to the larger context of the story as a whole, because Winnowill is only one female character, in a cast that features a broad array of contrasting figures.
I was just thinking about this, and I think it helps a lot that she's not only contrasted against a number of different female characters, but a number of powerful women and female leaders, as well. Savah, Kahvi, Leetah, and later Ember are all powerful in their own way and command a respectful following among their people. So it's not only that Winnowill doesn't have to carry the weight of being the only (or one of the only) female characters in the series, but she's also not the sole model in the series for what female leadership and female power looks like.
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yati
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Date: 2017-03-01 04:28 am (UTC)I was just thinking about this, and I think it helps a lot that she's not only contrasted against a number of different female characters, but a number of powerful women and female leaders, as well. Savah, Kahvi, Leetah, and later Ember are all powerful in their own way and command a respectful following among their people. So it's not only that Winnowill doesn't have to carry the weight of being the only (or one of the only) female characters in the series, but she's also not the sole model in the series for what female leadership and female power looks like.