More Narnia silliness.

[gmtaslash]

Title: LOTR/Narnia Roundtable Discussion: The Female Role Model in Epic Fantasy
Author: gmtaslash
Fandom: LotR / Narnia
Rating: PG



ARWEN: Now, as you all know, we're here to discuss which of us is the best female role model.

SUSAN: In which case, why are you here? Your sole purpose was to provide angst. That's hardly a good example to set small girls.

ARWEN: (with dignity) I did save Frodo. And raise the river Bruinen.

SUSAN: Only in the movie version.

ARWEN: Well, if we're getting into it, you forsook your principles for lipstick!

SUSAN: *fumes* Does everyone have to be so LITERAL?

EOWYN: I agree with Arwen. Narnian women were hardly that exemplary. You didn't even fight properly.

SUSAN: Oh, you mean with a big butch sword? I probably killed a damn sight more enemies with my bow than you ever did with that meat-cleaver.

EOWYN: I beg your pardon, I saved the day with that meat-cleaver! At least I was in the battle, facing danger!

LUCY: (almost to herself) I did, y'know, ride into enemy territory alone to find the ally that would help us win the battle ...

SUSAN: Yes, because the archers' ranks were really safe when we were facing Telmarines with siege weapons! Anyway, you say I gave up my principles for lipstick, but at least I wasn't married off just 'cause my old crush told me to! Can't have all these warrior women flapping around loose without supervisory males! Who knows what they'd get up to!

EOWYN: You leave Faramir out of this!

SUSAN: I'm buggered if I will, if you're not going to leave out the lipstick thing. I mean, anyone would think you'd not got the point that the whole thing was an illustration of my loss of faith, not of some kind of vapid girliness.

ARWEN: I think you're all forgetting the essential point that motherhood is still an important role for women in society, and shouldn't be marginalised. And I was, like, totally a fantastic mum.

JADIS: So, what you're in fact saying is that your entire worth to the narrative and to the history of your world was as a baby-factory?

ARWEN: (blinkety-blink) ... I was more than a baby-factory. I was ... a help-meet. Aragorn couldn't have managed without me. Maybe I didn't turn the tide of warfare in an epic battle, but I helped reunite the long-sundered line of Earendil, right? That's worth something.

JADIS: Yes, that's exactly what we want to say to little girls; cherish your ovaries, one day they may help make history. Intelligence? Ability to think in a fix? Ability to defend yourself? Don't worry, a nice man will marry you and supply all those things while you get on and maintain your fertile womb.

EXIT ARWEN, stage left, in tears.

SUSAN: That was nasty.

JADIS: What did you expect? I'm evil. And she was really getting on my nerves.

LUCY: (mumbles) And I did go onto battlefields practically unarmed and alone to succour the wounded...

JADIS: Anyway, I'm clearly the best female role model here.

EOWYN: How on earth do you figure that one out?

JADIS: I ruled a country for one hundred years all on my own, I fought in battles as myself, without any of this crossdressing nonsense, and not staying back amongst the archers, either. I was an empowered female character!

SUSAN: (slowly, as if talking to a moron) But you were EVIL.

JADIS: That's only a matter of perspective ...

(at this point the 'discussion' degenerates into a downright screaming row about good versus evil. Caspian and Boromir are trying to peek in through the tinted windows of the boardroom, hoping to catch a glimpse of a threeway catfight. Lucy is still sitting in her seat)

LUCY: (sotto voce) And I did face down an entire army armed with only a knife ...