Over the last several months, I’ve been reading one long fantasy series that has completely taken over my life.

They’re called The Legend of Drizzt books and they’re fucking awesome. R.A. Salvatore is just an absolute master of story telling and character development. I do wish the books had a stronger theme of romance than they do, but that’s not really a criticism because the books aren’t designed for that. But I’m a hopeless romantic and that’ll never change.

These books take place in the world of Dungeons and Dragons and they follow the character Drizzt Do’Urdan, a rogue drow who forsakes his kind and leaves the Underdark to live on the surface with humans, surface elves, dwarves, and other such races. As he makes friends and learns more about the surface world, tensions rise and fall as wars brew and conflict ensues. Drizzt, a compassionate and caring person since birth, finds the people with whom he fits in the most and he comes to love them more than anything else in the world. The books follow his life and their many journeys as a group.

I am loving these books for so many reasons. The world building is tremendous. The characters are simply wonderful (Drizzt, Jarlaxle, and Zaknafein are three characters for whom I care the most about over any other characters I’ve ever read and if you know, you know). The moral and ethical questions the books pose, especially as regards racism within many different fantasy tropes, are thoroughly developed and well considered. The books do not shy away from complex political and interpersonal issues that impact marginalized communities. I love that about these books more than almost anything else because, again, they don’t hold back, and yet the messages and themes feel natural to the story and the characters.

And yet the stories are also interesting. And aggravating. And compelling. And heartbreaking. When I say that I have cried heavily over certain scenes and certain characters (Zaknafein, Clacker, Thibbledorf Pwent, Guenhwyvar), I mean that they were open sobs. The relationships between characters, the love and devotion and selflessness and the losses they face, are utterly moving.

The characters are mostly men, unless a book covers the drow who live in the Underdark. The drow are dark elves and their society is a matriarchy, which means that there are many strong, intelligent, and complex women villains in a lot of these books. Unfortunately, there aren’t many women who are in the primary cast of characters. At least, not at first. That changes somewhat as the novels progress and you can see Salvatore trying to diversify his primary cast of characters, but it does fall short at times. And unfortunately, there is very little queer representation; though Jarlaxle is extremely pansexual, he is the only obvious representation of anything non-heteronormative. And it isn’t really that these are marks against the books, but rather that it seems odd in a world filled with so much magic and so many different types of characters that there would only be one openly queer character.

But this does make me think about the ways in which gender is represented in fantasy books. One of my favorite fantasy books is The Lord of the Rings series, but there are flaws with them. They do not pass the Bechdel test. The books themselves only have two strong women characters that can be considered primary characters and they are Eowyn and Galadriel. There’s absolutely no non-white representation in the books at all unless the narrator is referring to humans who side with Sauron, which is really problematic. And while an argument can be made that Bilbo Baggins is queer, it’s never openly discussed or shown.

Now, areas that I think these books do well is in their representation of positive and negative masculinity. Aragorn, Faramir, the hobbits, Gandalf — they are extremely strong examples of the ways in which masculinity can be used for good. They are not toxic, they don’t seek power or fame or wealth, they’re not selfish, and they don’t shrink away from expressing emotions or showing affection to other men. They show their love for each other and I cannot even begin to express how refreshing that is, especially in light of the kind of masculinity we see in Game of Thrones or The Witcher. The men who are selfish and power-hungry, the ones who are domineering and cruel, the ones who crave violence — even when they’re on the side of the “good guys” — are clearly shown as being just as bad as the evils they’re fighting against. I think of Lord Denethor, Steward of Gondor, who is an absolutely cruel, heartless, evil man, and even though he is against Sauron in his values, his actions show him to be a terrible person. I appreciate that as well because too often, toxic masculinity is glorified.

But the women in these books not only have less page time, but they also have less development. Eowyn’s entire character revolves around her unrequited love of Aragorn. So even though she faces off against and takes down the fucking Witch King of Angmar, it’s not nearly as badass as it would have been if there had been more to her character than pining after a man who doesn’t love her.

It makes me wonder why fantasy authors make these choices with regards to women characters? Why make them hollow? Why make them stereotypes? Why wrap up their entire identity in the love of a man? And this is rhetorical, I know why they do this (misogyny), but what boggles my mind is how an author could sit down, write something like this, and not see that its problematic. When I write, I am cognizant of every choice I make regarding every character. If they’re queer, I agonize over whether or not I’m perpetuating something harmful, even unintentionally. If they’re a non-white character, I look up what harmful tropes and stereotypes exist and I avoid those these; I also make sure that, if I’m writing from a non-white character’s perspective, that I pay a sensitivity reader to offer feedback on how I’m writing this non-white character. Because even if I know what the harmful stereotypes are, it doesn’t mean I’m not inadvertently using them.

Literally every choice I make with my writing is carefully thought out in terms of creating the best content that is as well written as I can make it, and that includes the ways I represent people who are different from me. It’s not good writing if I don’t give a shit about how I write those characters.

So how can other authors not care about the same things? I know there are a lot of supposedly “hot takes” by authors who thrive on creating content that is shocking and offensive, and so they likely don’t care about the ways in which they represent people who are different from them. How many of us have seen those memes about how men authors write women characters and the absolutely unrealistic ways in which they describe their movements and their bodies. And because the publishing industry has been run primarily, if not exclusively, by cishet white men up until the last 70ish years or so — and even since then, it has not been equitable at all, especially not for BIPOC, queer, and disabled folks — there have been no critical voices in those rooms making the publishing decisions until very recently.

But it’s fucking 2023. Writing with awareness and intention should be the default by now. And sure, there are still those asswipes like John Grisham (or was it Dean Koontz?) who think it’s harder now to be a cishet white male author than any other demographic which is, of course, absolutely false in every way, but I really don’t want to think that the Grisham’s or the Koontz’s are the majority of the publishing and writing world. I’d like to think we are, even in small ways, moving towards a greater understanding of and appreciation for not only diverse representation in the books that are published, but also in the authors writing them.

I’d like to think.

All of the best movies, books, and tv shows I’ve consumed this year have been the most intentionally diverse pieces of content, regardless of genre. I think of the recent release of The Fall of the House of Usher. Holy fucking shit, was that show fucking amazing. Diverse in not only its representation of different races, but also of different sexualities and gender identities and types of abilities. It was honestly one of the best shows I watched this year, even if I was very dissatisfied with the ending.

Or what about Queen Charlotte? I know it didn’t come out this year, but this year was my first time watching it and it was seriously one of the most beautiful love stories I have ever seen. And yes, I know it’s an alternate, fictionalized version of history, but it still tackles issues of gender, race, and sexuality in so many beautiful ways! There is not only a Black woman playing the Queen of England, there is a confirmed gay couple between Brimsley and Reynolds, and their love story is one of the best I have ever seen. Like, on par with that one episode of season one of The Last of Us.

Oh yeah, and then there’s The Last of Us. And there’s Across the Spider-Verse (if you didn’t get the enormous trans allegory that is Gwen Stacey’s character arc, then you were not paying attention cause it was so fucking obvious). There’s Killers of the Flower Moon. There’s the Barbie Movie which, while a prime example of the peakest, whitest brand of feminism, was still a movie with some of the strongest representation of women in cinematic history. It was also one of, if not the, funniest movie I have ever seen. There was House of the Dragon, which I think came out last year, but was still fucking iconic and on par with season one of Game of Thrones, if not better. There was season two of Good Omens which, unfortunately, is tainted as Neil Gaiman has spoken out against the rights of Palestinians. The show was still wonderful and gay as fuck. I feel like I’m missing something from earlier this year, but regardless, the content I have engaged with this year that are the heaviest on my mind are those with the strongest forms of representations and diversity.

They’re the better films, the better shows, the better books. And the people who create them do so with intention and purposefulness. So when I encounter content that either isn’t diverse at all or even if it is, it feels half-hearted and not well done, it stands out all the more in negative ways. I don’t know what my point is here other than that, as an author in a large sea of other authors, it is discouraging to see how many don’t take these things seriously. One of my goals over 2024 is to read as many independent BIPOC authors as I can because they deserve the support. They should be getting more recognition.

Anyway, what are you thoughts on this issue? Let me know in the comments!