The reason I liked Amaranthe is that that wasn’t a part of her character. The female characters we do see often have that quality of expediency, ruthlessness, whatever you feel like calling it. What I’m trying to say is that since fantasy protagonists are more often thrust into positions of leadership where that kind of emotionless decision-making might be required, we’ve seen a lot of male characters.

There’s probably a whole essay worth of material on the subject of expectations of mothering instincts and leadership, but that’s not what I’m looking to write about. We’ve devalued caring to the point where it’s often seen as a liability in a leader, and we associate women with caring and judge women less capable of leadership. We’re now running into the problem that a lot of modern leaders are seen as disengaged, willing to write off any number of groups who face discrimination because it’s expedient to do so. Leadership is often characterised by making hard decisions, and so we tend to think leaders have to be able to not focus on caring about the wellbeing of every individual when it’s necessary to make a decision for the greater good, and for some reason this ability is expected more in men than women. I found Amaranthe a positive character in that regard. Something to work towards, but also not the reality. It would be better if we associated no qualities at all, but well, we’re not there yet. What there is is cultural association of certain qualities with gender, and while I think it’s bad, I think a work which highlights the qualities we devalue that are associated with women, and shows those qualities as a strength rather than a weakness, is a good thing.

I don’t think any quality of a person’s character – whether they’re fictional or not – depends on their gender. I realised I probably should have articulated this idea more, as it’s dangerous territory to start talking about masculine and feminine traits. In my last review, I said that Amaranthe Lokdon seemed like an attempt to create a fantasy lead who had personality traits we more commonly think of as feminine than masculine, and lacking some of the traits we think of as masculine which are present in most fantasy protagonists.

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