Female Heroes in Young Adult Fantasy Fiction: Reframing Myths of Adolescent Girlhood (Library of Gender and Popular Culture)

"Hero stories are deeply rooted in Western Culture. From religion and myth to blockbuster films and YA literature, the story is everywhere, and it shapes how we, the ones who hear and see it, understand the world around us. For too long, hero stories, which could also be called dominant discourse, have undertaken this social and cultural work through the archetypal hero: a white, often 'god'-touched, young man who exists in opposition and superiority to that which he is not, including adolescent girls. This paradigm works by imposing radical alterity on that which is not-hero to ensure his heroicness. Crucially, while this exclusion affects all girls, it does not do so evenly. If the girl is also Black or Brown, disabled, or otherwise not performing expected and accepted versions of adolescent girlhood, marginalisation increases. Female Heroes explores how the heroes in a subgenre of YA fantasy, one it names mythopoeic YA, intervene in this narrative of superiority by breaking the boundaries and blurring the borders of what it means to be hero, girl, and even human. These heroes -- such as Tamora Pierce's Alanna the Lioness, Marissa Meyer's Cinder, and the heterogeneous 'crew' at the heart of Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows duology -- disrupt heroic norms and standards by occupying the spaces between oppositions. This occupation frustrates violent hierarchy, radical alterity and erasure, particularly of bodily difference, while also disrupting isolating individuality. In so doing, female heroes offer an alternative and inclusive model of being-hero, one directly impacting adolescent girlhood and beyond."-- Provided by publisher The heroic romance is one of the West's most enduring narratives, found everywhere, from religion and myth to blockbuster films and young adult literature. Within this story, adolescent girls are not, and cannot be, the heroes. They are, at best, the hero's bride, a prize he wins for slaying monsters. Crucially, although the girl's exclusion from heroic selfhood affects all girls, it does not do so equally- whiteness and able-bodiedness are taken as markers of heightened, fantasy femininity. Female Heroes in Young Adult Fantasy Fiction explores how the young female-heroes of mythopoeic YA, a Tolkienian-inspired genre drawing on myth's world-creating power and YA's liminal potential, disrupt the conventional heroic narrative. These heroes, such as Tamora Pierce's Alanna the Lioness, Daine the Wildmage, and Marissa Meyer's Cinder and Iko, offer a model of being-hero, an embodied way of living and being in this world that disrupts the typical hero's violent hierarchy, isolating individuality, and erasure of difference. In doing so, they push the boundaries of what it means to be a hero, a girl, and even human. Cover 1 Contents 8 Series editors’ introduction 9 Preface 11 Acknowledgements 23 1 The hero’s prize: The myth of ‘successful’ adolescent girlhood 24 2 Mythopoeic YA: Bringing new worlds into being to conceive new ways of being 46 3 Disrupting the myth: Alanna becomes a warrior-maiden 78 4 Breaking the mirror: Cinder(ella) is a cyborg 102 5 Engendering a new myth: Daine is ‘of the people’ 134 6 Being-Hero: Relational, embodied, procreative selfhood 162 Appendices 173 Notes 174 Bibliography 183 Index 201