To balance my father issue article from last week, I present to you the flip side: mothers in fantasy. I have to say I’m a bit disappointed in some of the portrayals of mothers in fantasy. It seems like mothers are the ones usually killed off first, or the mothers are put on a pedestal and idolized as the perfect symbols of womanhood.
Excuse me while I slip some whiskey into my coffee and snicker…
I’ve been wracking my brain to come up with some good examples of realistic mothers in fantasy, and the candidates are few and far between. Now, I do think it must be said that once you give a woman a child, her potential for kicking bad guy ass is greatly reduced. I mean, someone has to breastfeed and make sure the baby is clothed. Most heroes aren’t exactly prepared to handle that stuff.
So my take on mothers in fantasy is a little different than some others might be, and it’s a little different from the father issue article.
The overprotective Mama Bear. I love Mama Bear characters, to be honest. I can relate to them. There is something primal about protecting your young. I think Catelyn Stark and CerseiLannister are two fantastic examples of the Mama Bear character. But what I love about Catelyn and Cersei is that even though both are Mama Bears, they aren’t stereotypes. Catelyn is loving and tolerant of her children’s differences, but she’s not perfect. Her treatment of Jon Snow, her husband’s illegitimate son (or is he?), is deplorable. Cersei is a scheming crazy woman, and she overindulges her children, but it’s clear that she does what she does out of a misguided protectiveness for them.
Why they work: Mama Bears work because they’re true to life. Most mothers get a little tense when their kids are picked on, and it tends to be fairly easy to trigger the Mama Bear thing.
What I’d like to see: More disinterested moms—more fantasy mothers who are present in the lives of their children, but tend to be flighty, reserved, or too busy with fantasy “careers” to pay much attention to what happens with their kids.
The Dutiful Mother. The first one who popped to mind here was Morgase Trakand of The Wheel of Time. Her relationship with her children, Gawyn and Elayne and stepson GaladDamodred, is one marked largely by obligation and duty. She loves them, but she’s so devoted to her country and her throne that her primary concern is making sure Elayne is ready to be a queen. She also put her throne so high on her list of priorities that she abdicated to Elayne when she realized she could no longer be a good queen. (Disclaimer: It’s been years since I read these books, and I think I stopped after book six. I got some of this from my 12-year-old son. Yes, it’s totally awesome to do literary criticism on fantasy novels with him. I’m a lucky mom.)
Why it works: It highlights the kind of tug of war most working moms experience—kids or career—and then levels it up. Royals don’t have the luxury of taking the day off to deal with a sick baby when there’s a horde of demon-spawn at the gates.
What I’d like to see: Actually, more of this. I think putting more women with minor-age children in fantasy novels would make them more relatable for the rest of us who are struggling with balance.
The Grieving Mother.There seems to be a trend in fantasy to give heroines a pregnancy and the promptly make them miscarry. Kahlan Amnell very nearly aborted her baby before changing her mind and then being beaten so badly that she miscarried. Daenerys Targaryen makes a deal with the devil, basically, before losing her baby and being told she’ll never have another. I get why authors do this—as a character-building exercise, it’s fantastic, and it doesn’t leave a heroine stuck with a baby when she’s trying to destroy evil.
Why it works: We automatically sympathize with a mother who loses a child. Yes, even CerseiLannister, to a point. Even an evil, scheming mother is sympathetic when she’s grieving.
What I’d like to see: Let her have the baby, for heaven’s sake! If anyone could’ve kicked butt with a Baby Björn strapped over her shoulders, it would be Dany. I can’t imagine anything more interesting than a woman who has to figure out how to defend herself and smash evil’s big warty head while worrying about naptimes and introducing solid food.
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Here’s my beef with mothers (and, more generally, women) in fantasy: we don’t see enough of the real struggles mothers face day to day. I’m not saying we can’t let a queen have nursemaids to take care of her kids while she runs a country. By all means—give her those! But then show us her internal struggle about that. Does she wish she didn’t have the duties of a royal so she could spend more time with her children? Or does the warrior woman wish evil would just go away so she could go home to her babies? Maybe her own mother has been caring for them while she’s been off slaying dragons—how does she feel about that? What conflict does that cause with her mother?
My challenge to fantasy writers of today and tomorrow is to give us more moms to relate to. I maintain that most fantasy settings tend to highlight many of today’s real-world struggles, so why not put more real-world people in those settings? Show us real working-mom issues against a backdrop we aren’t used to. Give us more food for thought.
Next time, one last relationship article: the joy and pain of siblings in fantasy.
