Downcast that iconic female friendships in fantasy are so rare

But why, even with all the inroads women have made in the genre, both as authors and as characters, do friendships between female characters remain comparatively rare, especially in the most popular books/series?

Fantasy as a whole is still heavily tropey, and it's a long-standing thing to only portray women as either love interest, dead revenge-motive (fridge), or some kind of femme-fatale or vile temptress. Occasionally, also as some kind of regal queen, but then they're usually just set-dressing for the old king.

As for women not being shown as being friends... look no further than real life. Setting women against each other has long been an tradition in almost every western culture.

This reflects in art (such as fantasy literature) too. Even when you do see female friendships, there's almost always some kind of lesbian subtext (or just text) between them.

There's nothing wrong with that but that also plays into the idea that people cannot really be friends without also being intimate partners, which is not true.

/r/Fantasy Thread