Let's talk about trauma in the fantasy genre.

(thread)

A trope I can't stand is when a character (usually female) goes through trauma (often sexual) in order to make her "stronger."

THAT'S NOT HOW THE HUMAN BRAIN WORKS

Hardship makes you stronger.

Trauma makes you TRAUMATIZED.

It's an icky trope both because it completely glosses over how trauma actually functions, and because of its subtle, inherent sexism.

There's this underlying idea that putting a character (again, often female) through really horrific violence is going to *improve her* somehow.

Which… AAAAAHHH NOOO

Trauma affects people in lots of different ways, but it is often messy, and ugly, and rage-filled, and irrational. It is often debilitating, not strengthening.

Frankly I think it's disrespectful to actual trauma victims to show characters going through events which *should traumatize them*, while glossing over that trauma.

Trauma deserves decent representation, like anything else. People should be able to read or watch stories and realize that what they're going through is normal and natural.

Too often, the fantasy genre will put characters through all sorts of horrors without dealing with the *consequences* of those horrors.

This is not good writing.

It also just makes me really uncomfortable the ease with which some stories (like GoT) dole out sexual abuse on their female characters.

"It's realistic!" people protest. But… is it really??

If you're putting your characters through traumatizing events, and you're treating it like character growth, then no, that is NOT realistic.

To be clear, if you want your character to go through something difficult that makes them stronger, that's fine!! There are lots of ways to do that.

Some ideas: How about the death of a loved one? Or a challenging journey that pushes the character out of her comfort zone?

Or a terrifying adventure that makes her face her fears? Or a situation where she suddenly has to lead people, and must rise to the occasion when no one else will?

All these are the kinds of difficult situations and hardships that will allow someone to grow stronger. Male characters get these narratives all the time.

But with female characters, you're just going to… show them get raped.

Really.

Is that really how you think this works?

If you're going to have your character go through something traumatizing, like sexual abuse, that's fine. But don't make it an opportunity for "character growth." (YUCK)

Make it, instead, an opportunity to authentically represent trauma.

Adding to this complexity is the fact that sometimes BOTH will happen: Sometimes a situation yields hardship (making the character stronger) AND trauma… and that's fine!!

The problem isn't that the situation happens at all, or that the character grows from it. The problem is when trauma isn't even in the picture.

The problem is also when character growth is used as a *substitute* for trauma, because that ultimately undermines the horror of things like sexual violence.

Trauma needs to be shown in all its pain and ugliness. If you're not prepared to do that, then a little tip for you: Don't put your characters through traumatizing events!!!

As you can tell, I'm pretty passionate about this. This issue was very present on my mind while writing my fantasy debut, #CityofReckoning.

It was really important to me to represent trauma as authentically as I could in this book. And it's… messy. It's dark. It's intense, sometimes.

But I didn't want to flinch away from that. I see too many stories that won't deal with this subject honestly, and I'm tired of it.

So anyway, this thread was a genuine, heart-felt complaint about a problem I see in the fantasy genre, but it was also an ad. I won't be shy about that.

If you want a dark fantasy book about winged people, wolf companions, and epic journeys that doesn't flinch away from showing trauma, here ya go: https://twitter.com/Brianna_daSilva/status/1353418381643243522