Today’s Women in SF&F Month guest is J. D. Evans! She is the author of the epic fantasy romance series Mages of the Wheel, which currently contains five novels. Reign & Ruin, her debut novel and the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off Award–winning first book in her series, features a Sultana and prince who “must find a way to save their people from annihilation and balance the sacred Wheel.” I’m thrilled she’s here today with her essay “In Defense of the Kind Character.”

About Reign & Ruin:

Reign & Ruin is Evans’ debut novel about a young Sultana trying to maintain order in her father’s court despite his failing mental health and a war looming on the horizon. It won the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off in 2021 and is the first book in the epic fantasy romance series Mages of the Wheel.

In Defense of the Kind Character

I want a strong female character.

This demand originated in response to the many, many damsels in distress, fridged wives/girlfriends, and soulless supporting women in popular media. They had no agency; they had no desires beyond what the main character needed from them. They didn’t have female friends, and in egregious cases, could be argued to be the sole woman in a book’s universe.

Readers wanted better. We wanted leading ladies. We wanted them to save themselves. We did not want them to be at the mercy of everyone around them. And so were born the Ripleys. The G.I. Janes. And romantasy’s beloved, sassy, back-talking, stabby heroine. She was the boss babe. She was a loner, a “not-like-other-girls” type who talked like a man, walked like a man, and generally behaved like your typical Western male hero and who definitely would not be caught dead wearing a dress. She still didn’t have female friends, but hey, she didn’t need them.

This woman was a reflection of how Western society values toughness, assertiveness, and winning at any cost. In seeking to show that women are equally as strong as men and capable of saving themselves, we perpetuated the mistaken belief that strength only looks like this collection of traits. Thankfully, our protagonists have come a long way from this prototype due to critiques and metrics like the Bechdel Test. Yet as readers, I think there is still one form of character strength we have yet to accept, and that is kindness.

In a value system that still disproportionately values stoicism and individuality, and with the trauma of the damsel-in-distress not so far behind us, kindness in a character can be misunderstood as weakness, or even as stupidity.

This is because kindness is often conflated with niceness. Women are so often expected to be nice, even to our detriment. We don’t want to see that in our heroines, we want them free of that burden.

However, kindness and niceness are not the same thing. Niceness is a mask we put on to maintain social order. It is a burden because it is an act. Kindness is not a burden, nor is it weakness. It requires courage, empathy, and resilience. To be kind, especially in challenging situations, is a powerful display of strength. To be calm when others are angry, to offer forgiveness instead of holding a grudge; these acts are not about being a doormat. They are about the core of who a character is and maintaining their own integrity while modeling a different way to be.

A person offers kindness not because they are weak, or afraid, or naive, but because they believe in it, and believe everyone is worthy of it and hope that kindness can make a difference.

Readers too often treat a character’s kindness as though it were a flaw, or boring, or “goody-two-shoes”, instead of a quiet act of power that can disarm hostility and open a path to understanding. Kindness has the ability to break barriers, heal emotional wounds, and foster opportunities for connection.

Some of my favorite characters in fiction are kind characters with immense social intelligence. Jessica Fletcher, from Murder, She Wrote. Danielle, from Ever After. Elle Woods, from Legally Blonde. Guinan, from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Chihiro, from Spirited Away. Miyazaki writes kind characters particularly well. He has spoken on how he chooses lead characters that win their battles by fostering understanding instead of slaying a Big Bad at the end. These “battles” of understanding are one of the many reasons Studio Ghibli is so popular.

These types of characters are particularly important now. We feel more divided than ever, distant even from those we are closest to. We are separated by screens, interacting more and more in faceless, impersonal ways that drive us apart and insulate us from each other and from genuine understanding and compassion. We don’t think kindness works in real life, and sometimes, it doesn’t. So, it is more important than ever to see a character’s kindness be an effective tool. Kind characters remind us that humanity’s greatest strength lies in our ability to care. Kindness is hope.

If fiction is escapism, then I want to escape to a world where kindness is valued and seen for the act of bravery that it is. It is for that reason that I choose most often to write characters, both male and female, whose strengths include compassion, kindness, and social intelligence.

When I say, I want a strong female character, I always hope that at least part of her strength is that she is kind.

J. D. Evans writes epic fantasy romance. After earning her degree in linguistics, J. D. served a decade as an army officer. Now she writes stories, knits, sews badly, gardens, and cultivates Pinterest Fails. After a stint in Beirut, J. D. fell in love with the Levant, which inspired the setting for her debut series, Mages of the Wheel. Originally hailing from Montana, J. D. now resides in North Carolina with her husband, two attempts at mini-clones gone rogue, and too many stories in her head.