fandomsecrets | (no subject)

⌈ Secret Post #2524 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

__________________________________________________

08.

__________________________________________________

09.

__________________________________________________

10.

Notes:

Secret Santa sign-ups go up tomorrow! There will be a post explaining everything again/open to questions, too. Keep an eye out! :)

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 073 secrets from Secret Submission Post #361.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I get your point of view, OP, I really do, but like someone else said, I don't think people are annoyed with the ending she gets because of her personally, but because it's such a general trend in books and movies: the female character eventually realizes that she wants to settle down, marry the nice boy and have children. People aren't bothered as such by KATNISS making that decision, but by so many authors deciding that this is what their female character wants in the end.

Is it the nice boy and children that's the problem, or the lack of other stuff? Like, would people be mad about the husband and kids if she was still in the military or something? Would people be mad about the resigning from conflict/public life if she was single?

My only knowledge of The Hunger Games is having seen the first film, where I kind of shipped Katniss/Peeta, there's that. But speaking as a girl who has never wanted neither the nice boy nor the children, I'll have to say that I find it troubling that so, so many stories end in places that make it clear that in order for a woman to have a happy ending, there must be at least a very good possibility of marriage in her future. (see: every Disney Princess film ever made)

tbf, that's partially a more general bias towards seeing procreation as a necessary component of a happy ending, which is understandable from a historical point of view. Men are more likely to be let out of it, but more than a few stories imply that the hero isn't really happy until he at least has a wife, and the implied possibility of children.

I think I'm willing to guess that most stories imply the hero, male or female, isn't truly happy until they have people who are like family. Marriage and children is a shortcut to that.

I'm hoping to have dodged that in a novel I've written... I'm kind of waiting for a confidant to do a final edit-through where I trust his eyes more than mine so I can slap it on Kindle because I can't seem to get anyone interested in real-publishing it.

Anyway, my main characters are a (human) female protagonist and her male best friend and a couple of supernatural creatures. At the end of the story, the male best friend marries (someone else) and has unnamed children while my protagonist is happy without a nuclear family. I wanted to hint that "aesexuality exists." I'm pretty sure if I ever get it out there anyone reads it that fandom will ruin it, though. It's okay. In canon, she's an ace.

As for the Hunger Games - I liked the ending because I thought it made sense for the story. I'm actually tired of people (male and female) holding female characters up to this or that standard that they'd never scrutinize for males: this includes the feminist stuff. I get the feeling that any strong female character is "damned if she does, damned if she don't" - Either she's badass to cartoonish proportions or any showing of emotions or realism or wanting normal things means she's "weak."

Male protagonist also get love interests, so it's not like it's only female protagonist getting singled out. Looking at Disney (since you brought it up), Aladdin, Simba, Robin Hood, Bambi, Mogli, Quasimodo (eventually), Hercules, Tarzan, Milo, that car from Cars - all had a love interest in the end.

The fox in Fox and the Hound...

and just who was Quasimodo's love interest in the disney movie? I had understood Esmeralda hooked up with Phoebus.

Madellaine

http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/21200000/The-Hunchback-of-Notre-Dame-2-Madellaine-madellaine-21269351-636-456.png

Problem is, all those dudes? Generally shown as having their relationship as *part* of their happy ending. Looking through your list, I think the only one for whom the relationship is more or less the sum of the happy ending is Tarzan.

But a lot of stories about women end with the marriage and babies being the *only* thing they need for their happy ending. They got their wedding and their children and now all is right with their world. It's a weird implication that men want a balanced life in which family is a part but women have no real interests beyond popping out babies, which is unsettling

Their irritation is pretty misguided, though, if they insist on applying it to every story without considering it individually. It would have been great I guess if Collins had written a story that ended like that, but she would have had to change a lot of things in the rest of the story (including the personality of the protagonist and a whole lot about the plot and ending) in order to make it work. I'm honestly kind of surprised that people apparently expected it to end with the Warrior Forever thing. That would not have worked for Katniss.

It's a fair point, but THG doesn't need to be drawn into it imo.