If I Love You, Is That A Fact Or A Weapon?

[redbrunja]

So, fresh off the delicious tragedy of Code Name Verity, I read The Spymaster's Lady, which was a romance I had seen recced multiple places. AND IT WAS FUCKING TERRIBLE. Like, even for a fucking historical romance.

The breaking point for me was the horrific sex scene, in which "the hero" is fondling the naked "heroine" and she's going, "I don't want to have sex" and "the hero" literally goes, "yes you do, and I'm going to keep touching you until you tell me yes." This being romance, he was correct, but I wanted to throw up.

Other things that were terrible:

1.) despite being a spy for ten years and having the text imply that she was raped on the first page, "the heroine" was an unspoiled, untouched virgin who had never known a man's body before.

2.) "the heroine" choose over and over again not to kill people who were trying to kill her. I hate that kind of behavior just on general principles but I LOATHE it in female characters, because it ties into centuries of sexist bullshit about women being the gentler sex. Basically, if a fictional chick is choosing not to kill people when her life is in danger or other people's lives are in danger, even if this position is supported by the text and other characters, the only thing I think is YOU ARE WEAK, WEAK, WEAK and I want you to die.

Help me, flist, you are my only hope: do you have any recommendations for WWII romances (or romances in general) that do not insult my intelligence and end happily (as a subset of the above, I would also accept happy Steve Rogers/Peggy Carter fanfic).

Comments

[tigerpetals.livejournal.com]

I don't really hate the characters, just get thrown out of the story because all I can see is the convention. Though I really think there is room for more pacifist heroines, and would not always reject one who wouldn't kill for her survival, especially if I want to take killing seriously as moral issue within the story, instead of just being so matter-of-fact about it or going woe-is-me after the killing is done. It's more bothersome in TV, since there it feels more required that a sympathetic heroine not kill (see what Amanda didn't do in the Revenge finale, where it definitely bugged me enough, among other things, that I might not continue watching).

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, seriously? What I loved about Amanda is the early episodes was how ruthless and unflinching she was. I take it she chokes in the Revenge finale? Damn. There goes my desire to catch up.

And I hate how writers seem to think that female characters much always be 'sympathetic' aka always morally upstanding and passive.

[tigerpetals.livejournal.com]

How far did you get? I'll say what happened in a few spaces after this paragraph. That's what I loved about her too, and I could see it spiraling away the farther the season got. I also hate what sympathetic and morally upstanding are interpreted to mean. Like there can't be a complex range of roles. I actually thought Amanda was occupying such a role, where she wasn't quite evil (which is hard to use accurately as a descriptor unless you have cardboard characters) but was not doing good things. At the very least she was questionable, but she was understandable and sympathetic. Apparently someone thinks sympathetic means 'stops being questionable or doing bad things' and 'be all vulnerable over a romantic interest'.






She discovered the man who killed her father, they had a fight, and then while she was pushing a pipe against his throat she had a flashback to her father saying...something I forgot. She gets up, tells the man she is honoring her father, and then she wants to tell Jack everything until she sees that Amily pops up pregnant. Also, there was some plot where Victoria sent evidence of the frameup to the government and was presumably on a plane that blew up, and Nolan made a copy of some of the evidence, but says things were so much more complicated than the Graysons. Also, her mother is alive and part of that new plot thing.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, there is just so much terrible in all those storytelling choices. So much.