{"id":9962,"date":"2010-04-19T15:55:45","date_gmt":"2010-04-19T22:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=9962"},"modified":"2010-04-19T15:55:45","modified_gmt":"2010-04-19T22:55:45","slug":"new-big-other-post-passive-versus-active-death-match-or-possibly-just-a-cup-of-tea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=9962","title":{"rendered":"New Big Other Post: "Passive versus Active: DEATH MATCH, or possibly just a cup of tea""},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a new post up at Big Other<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Discussions around active and passive characters tend to make me uncomfortable. It\u2019s possible to discuss active or passive traits as value-neutral dimensions, but most often, people seem to want to make judgments about them. Active characters are lauded. Passive characters are considered deficient.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t accept those judgments.<\/p>\n

For one thing, I find it awfully suspicious that \u2018active\u2019 is a coded masculine trait and \u2018passive\u2019 is a coded feminine trait. It seems unlikely to me that it\u2019s just coincidence that the so-called masculine trait is awesome-pants and the theoretically feminine trait is icky.<\/p>\n

But more than that, I feel like there\u2019s a coding here that I just don\u2019t agree with\u2013the idea that some people are suitable protagonists for fiction, and others aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n

This is an old idea, right? Kings are suitable protagonists! Knights are suitable protagonists! Stories about mill workers? What\u2019s wrong with you?<\/p>\n

I think this class-based attitude toward who is the acceptable lead of a story is still very much alive in modern fantasy fiction, and I occasionally hear complaints about \u201cboring\u201d protagonists that are made about very exciting, action-filled stories, and thus seem to boil down to \u201che\u2019s a farmer\u201d rather than a sorcerer…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Comments over there.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a new post up at Big Other: Discussions around active and passive characters tend to make me uncomfortable. It\u2019s possible to discuss active or passive traits as value-neutral dimensions, but most often, people seem to want to make … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whatever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}