Sunday 22 March 2015

Why the Taboo Over Older Women in Urban Fantasy?

A friend has just shown me an article saying that having an older female protagonist is a big taboo in modern urban fantasy.

While I recognise that younger men are traditionally the heroes in pretty much all fiction, I was a bit surprised at older women protagonists being such a taboo in modern urban fantasy novels. After all, surely the witch figure is often an older woman? Terry Pratchett's Granny Weatherwax made a fine protagonist in his not-so-modern fantasy Discworld novels, so why the taboo in books set in the modern day?

What do you think? Let's get a discussion going.

Link: http://io9.com/the-worst-taboo-in-urban-fantasy-1692481622

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's interesting that even Pratchett used a young female protagonist when he wrote modern fantasy - Good Omens, cowritten with Gaiman.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

The Thursday Next books by Jasper Fforde have Thursday (young woman) teaming up with Miss Haversham (an old woman).