Let's Solve Problems Using Violence

[lea_hazel]

We all (I assume) want (more or less) the same thing: women characters who have agency, volition and power. Characters who are proactive in moving forward their own plots, who actively solve problems rather than just reacting to what happens around them. Many (most?) of the genres we consume have plots that revolve somehow around a violent conflict; if there is no apocalypse there will be at least a war, and if not a war, then a serial killer, or arsonist, or stalker.

Supposing you have all this, and also the desire to write a character who is something of a pacifist. Not necessarily a hardline pacifist, but someone who generally believes that violence is bad and ought to be avoided. How to make your character proactive, without reducing her involvement in the plot to out-of-character aggression? In a more general sense, how to resolve a violent struggle in a nonviolent way? In a more specific sense, how to avoid the typical conflation of conscientious pacifism with softness or passivity?

Each individually is a complicated question; I have not read many books that give a good nonviolent solution to a violent conflict. Writing primarily female characters complicates this, because of the conflation of women with a "healer archetype" opposite to a masculine "warrior archetype", and even more so when writing women in a contemporary setting, or any other setting in which the majority of fighting professions will be men.

Comments

[nagasvoice]

CJ Cherryh writes interesting political types for whom violence is a failure of their diplomacy; the main protag in the Foreigner series is a man, but he might as well code for female among the larger aliens he has to persuade to listen to him. Many of them are violently inclined and will take offense very easily, so it's not like this is a world of pacifists he's trying to navigate among. It's fun to watch him tapdance through situations without resorting to calling on the violence he could wield at the expense of losing some of his own people. But the main reason I bring this up is that some of the very queenly nonhuman women are the most powerful characters in the books. They don't mess about, and nonviolent political leverage is often the more effective, and they always go for what makes the most sense, whether it's a tidy little assassination or a carefully-calculated floral arrangement sent to a possible ally. Math is very big in their system, too, which also adds to the awesome.

Foreigner! I love you. :D

[krait]

Oooh, I'm so glad you brought up Foreigner, and Bren's coded female-ness. I love Bren Cameron SO SO MUCH. :D

Male characters whose strength is in diplomacy and discussion, not in waving firearms around! Who's surrounded by people who are physically bigger and stronger, and frequently (and unpredictably) more violent! Who's accustomed to being "the weird, emotional one", especially as regards sex/romance! Who's uncomfortable with the level of violence in the culture he's immersed in (it's legal, among atevi, to use lethal devices as housebreak alarms; this makes Bren pretty uncomfortable when such security measures are set up around his quarters.)

And then there's Ilisidi, the atevi ruler's grandmother! Sure, she'll poison you if that's the best way to deal with you; but she'd rather convince you to go along with her plan and be useful, and she's a master of the strategically planned marriage and the proper use of courtesy.

Re: Foreigner! I love you. :D

[nagasvoice]

Ilsidi really is one of the more terrifying queen characters I've ever had the privilege to read--and given some of Cherryh's other characters, that's saying something.
On a related topic, I really want to see the books and stories that folks here on this thread are talking about writing. The various mindsets at work behind the ideas are all so wonderfully subversive of the whole violence trope, and provocative in the true science fiction sense of exploration and hypothesizing.
or some years I've been working with an efficient warrior sort who only raids or fights when he thinks it might do some good. I even go so far as to say that he's capable of facing down potential brawls with a nasty mouth on him. However, he's still trying to wrap his head around the idea that a few well-chosen words gossiped at court could move entire mountain ranges that he can't even begin to touch, within the limits of being one man with a few edged weapons.

Re: Foreigner! I love you. :D

[krait]

and given some of Cherryh's other characters, that's saying something.

I know, right?! Haha! I adore Ilisidi only slightly less than I am terrified of her. :D

an efficient warrior sort

Your OC sounds like fun! I love it when the efficient types are confronted by a radically different sort of efficiency, and have to rewrite their worldview because of it. :D

Re: Foreigner! I love you. :D

[nagasvoice]

Why, thank you! And of course the warrior sort is all discombobulated by the fact that, once you start off that little piece of gossip, you have very little control over what happens to it or where it goes, very much like a wild roundhouse punch with no control. Wherein the efficient gossip will have to tutor him on how this stuff is done when you are better at it. I'm not sure I'l end up showing that in detail; it might be fun to leave it as a quick bit of dialogue with an outrageous tag line to finish it off, sort of like those funny tweets that end up on tee-shirts. If I'm clever enough, that is!