Montgomery's Anne: Fallible and Fun

I remark in another context that "Anne of Green Gables...is the Western answer [to the fallible female heroine]." 

My point in the other context is that manga is somewhat better these days at creating female heroes who can fail yet remain protagonists. 

Recently, I read a complaint that Eilonwy from Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series wasn't treated more seriously even though she was just as courageous as Taran!! But as a kid, I never found Eilonwy all that enchanting; as an adult, I find her behavior in the early books mostly irritating. It truly isn't okay for someone to crash a military expedition, all for the sake of proving "I'm as good as you!"

In fairness, I don't think Alexander thought so either. Eilonwy is an individual, not a role model or virtue-signaling character type. 

However, Eilonwy never has to come to terms with her behavior in the early books. In the case that I mention, she turns out to be right: they should have let her go on the mission from the beginning! (In real life, her gate-crashing would potentially lead to the entire party being massacred.)

As stated above, I think manga generally handles this type of heroine better. She may do rash things, like Kasahara in Library Wars, but she learns from her mistakes and improves, without losing her joie de vivre. 

Anne of Green Gables is an accomplished product of this approach--one reason, I suggest, she is so beloved. Readers truly don't enjoy slogging through the so-called tribulations of perfect specimens (one reason, earlier children's fables in which well-behaved girls and boys are rewarded and badly behaved girls and boys are punished failed; these plots were successfully mocked by writers like E. Nesbit and Mark Twain). 

Much better to have a raw, lively, risk-taking, joyful character who matures than a character who is right and triumphant again and again and again. 

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