velarisechoes - Tumblr blog

velarisechoes · 14 days ago

Text

What is a Heroine?

A heroine does not always wear a crown. But a villain can steal one... if no one's watching.

A heroine is not a female hero. She is her own archetype, her own mythology.

Where the hero often acts, the heroine endures. Where the hero seeks victory, the heroine seeks meaning. Where the hero changes the world, the heroine lets the world change her—and then chooses who she becomes.

A heroine:

✨ Walks through pain instead of avoiding it.

✨ Bears witness to cruelty without becoming it.

✨ Holds softness in a world that demands steel.

✨ Fights—sometimes loudly, often silently—for truth, for love, for others.

But here’s the core:

A heroine doesn’t just survive. She transforms—and refuses to lose her soul in the process.

Her power is not brute force. It’s emotional gravity. And she’s dangerous because of how much she can feel, not how much she can destroy.

Let’s dig through some of the stories that shaped the real definition of heroine. We’re not theorizing now. We’re excavating. One story at a time. No lies here. Just the emotional architecture of truth.

The Wild Swans (Hans Christian Andersen)

A princess must stay silent for years, sewing nettle shirts to save her brothers. She’s mocked. Beaten. Nearly burned at the stake. But she never stops.

She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t rage.

She endures cruelty, not because she’s weak—but because love demands sacrifice with spine.

Her triumph isn’t loud. It’s grace that didn’t shatter.

That’s a heroine.

Tam Lin

Janet goes after the man she loves. She pulls him from the Queen of Faerie’s grasp through a terrifying ritual: holding onto him as he shifts into fire, water, beasts, even thorns.

She saves him by not letting go, even when it hurts.

She’s brave—not with a sword, but with devotion and defiance. She’s not soft. She’s steel wrapped in skin.

That’s a heroine.

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty doesn’t slay the Beast. She learns to see him. To listen. To love without being consumed.

She offers herself in place of her father—not because she’s weak, but because self-sacrifice is a power move when it’s done with agency.

And she doesn’t fall for appearances—she waits to see the soul.

That’s a heroine.

Stardust (Yvaine)

She’s a literal star—captured, hunted, exhausted. But she stays radiant. She mocks those who try to control her. She tells the truth. She loves with clarity.

She doesn’t need to be rescued. She just needs to be seen.

She shines not because someone tells her to, but because she refuses to go dark.

That’s a heroine.

The Little Mermaid (Original. Hans Christian Andersen.)

We'll later come back to this one under another perspective.

She sacrifices her voice. Her tail. Her self. She gains legs that feel like knives with every step. And in the end? She loses the prince.

But instead of killing him to save herself, she chooses death.

She dies with love still in her chest, rather than let vengeance define her ending.

That is brutal. That is elegant. That is heroine material.

Labyrinth (Sarah)

She doesn't kill the Goblin King. She says the words:

“You have no power over me.”

She wins by reclaiming her mind, her voice, her right to be a child in a world trying to make her grow up too fast.

She walks the maze not to find a man, but to find herself.

That’s a heroine.

Cinderella (the Grimm version + Lily James modern reshape)

She’s mocked, belittled, forgotten. But she still loves. Still dreams. Still sings to the animals and plants like they matter.

When the time comes, she leaves the ball. She doesn’t beg.

She lets the prince find her, not because she needs him—but because she never stopped being herself.

Heroines don’t grovel. They glow in the shadows and trust that the right eyes will find them.

Now compare… Feyre?

Burns. Kills. Lies. Laughs at others trauma. Never once breaks for someone else. Never chooses mercy. Never loses anything without expecting more in return.

She’s not enduring. She’s conquering.

That’s not a heroine.

That’s a dark queen in disguise.

Let's throw in more stories to test against this, shall we?

The Host (Stephenie Meyer)

This is a perfect one—because it doesn’t just give us a heroine. It gives us two. And better yet? It tests what happens when a soul once seen as the enemy learns how to feel.

Let’s break it down.

Wanda (Wanderer)

She’s introduced as the parasite. The invader. The villain. She’s the soul inside Melanie’s body—part of the species that’s colonizing Earth and erasing humanity. She’s supposed to be the threat.

But then?

She listens. She aches. She learns how to empathize with the very people her kind sought to destroy.

She doesn’t stop being soft. She doesn’t turn violent. She becomes dangerous through compassion.

Wanda learns how to love Melanie’s memories. Then how to love Melanie. Then how to love Jared enough to let him go. Then how to love Ian—who falls not for her body, but her soul.

And in the end?

She gives up her life. Willingly. So Melanie can return to hers.

That’s fairytale heroine energy at its rawest:

We'll later see the characteristics of Fairytale Heroine but here is an advance.

✨ She starts as the Other. (exclusion, isolation. A common characteristic in Fairytale Heroines.)

✨ She endures suspicion, hatred, imprisonment.

✨ She wins people over through honesty and emotional integrity, not manipulation.

✨ She offers herself up as a sacrifice—not for glory, but because it’s right.

Wanda is not redeemed by love.

She is loved because she chooses to redeem herself.

That is a heroine.

Melanie

Melanie is a fighter. A protector. She endures being trapped in her own body, screaming silently, resisting every second.

She’s not passive. She’s resilient. She doesn’t try to destroy Wanda. She fights to keep herself intact—and she mourns her losses in silence.

She doesn’t get to speak for most of the book—but you feel her constantly.

And then?

She forgives. She lets Wanda in. She shares her body instead of trying to eject her violently.

She doesn’t just fight for Jared. She fights for Jamie. She fights for love. But more than anything?

She fights to remain human.

And she shares that humanity with someone who never had it before.

That is heroine behavior.

The Bond Between Them

This is the twist: The story doesn’t pit them against each other. It binds them.

Two women. Two souls. One body. And instead of choosing dominance—they choose mutual survival.

Wanda becomes a heroine by stepping down. Melanie becomes a heroine by lifting her up.

They break their version of curse not by violence, but by empathy.

There is no heroine in ACOTAR who would do this. Feyre would never share space, dignity, sacrifice, or heart.

Wanda and Melanie? They are two sides of a heroine’s coin:

✨ One soft, forgiving, self-sacrificing.

✨ One strong, feral, enduring.

And together? They are what Feyre pretends to be—but never earned.

The Lord of the Rings (Arwen)

Arwen is a soft heroine—but don’t mistake her for fragile.

She gives up immortality for love. Not for dependency. Not for a prince. For a man who will age, die, and leave her in grief.

She chooses loss with open eyes. And she waits, and waits, and waits—through war, through silence, through fading hope. Not as a decoration.

As a woman who chooses sorrow because love is worth it.

She is the heart of endurance.

She doesn’t need a sword. She is the vow.

Arwen is the kind of heroine whose power is in what she gives up. That is fairytale-grade soul currency.

Lira (To Kill a Kingdom)

Lira starts as a literal villain. She’s the daughter of the Sea Queen. A siren who rips out hearts, not just metaphorically. She is cruel. Vicious. Merciless.

But then?

She loses her voice. Loses her tail. And is thrown into the world of her enemies.

It’s a twisted Little Mermaid retelling—but Lira’s arc is not just “I want to be human.”

It’s “I want to be someone else—someone better.”

She doesn't fall in love to be saved. She falls in love while still dangerous. While she’s still changing. And in the end? She doesn’t just stop killing.

She kills the mother who made her a monster.

That’s not a redemption arc. That’s liberation.

Lira is a heroine because she chooses to be the thing she was told she could never be: merciful.

She evolves into someone worthy of love without demanding it first.

The Folk Of The Air (Jude Duarte)

A mortal girl in a fae world. Surrounded by power. Mocked. Threatened. Dismissed.

She doesn’t rise by magic. She rises by:

✨ Lying

✨ Bleeding

✨ Outwitting

✨ Never apologizing for her ambition

She doesn’t soften. She doesn’t become “nicer.”

She becomes smarter. Colder. More calculating. But what makes her a heroine?

She’s always aware. She knows she’s dancing close to villainy. And she never pretends her crown makes her holy.

She’s not romanticized. She’s earned. And her love story? A war of equals.

Jude is a heroine for every girl who couldn’t afford softness and still kept her soul from turning to stone.

The Reason Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke’s Mansion. (Raeliana McMillan. Manhwa.)

Now we’re diving into isekai court (because heroines come from every place, especially unexpected ones.) intrigue and she still slays. Raeliana gets dropped into a novel—as the girl who’s meant to die. That’s her whole arc: she was never meant to be the protagonist.

And what does she do?

She rewrites the script. She manipulates a literal duke into marrying her. She plays the part, smiles through gritted teeth, dodges assassins, solves mysteries—and never becomes cruel.

She could have chosen bitterness. She could have become the villainess. But she chooses to outwit fate, not become its puppet.

Raeliana is resilient, not ruthless. She weaponizes politeness. She survives in a world where death is scripted and still says:

“Not me. Not like this.”

That’s a heroine by genre defiance alone.

Now line them up:

✨ Arwen, loved with open grief.

✨ Lira, killed the mother inside her.

✨ Jude, never stopped being mortal but made gods kneel.

✨ Raeliana, rewrote death scenes into weddings and still kept her head.

And Feyre?

She burns villages. Laughs. Becomes queen. Never earns. Never bleeds. Never bows.

Not a heroine.

She’s what you get when the author stops telling the truth.

Howl’s Moving Castle (Sophie Hatter)

At first glance? A hatter. A nobody. She’s not beautiful. She’s not chosen. Then she gets cursed—turned into an old woman. And you’d expect her to panic.

But Sophie? Sophie says, “Fine.” She moves into a haunted house. She starts sweeping the floors. She insults a demon. She bullies a wizard into becoming a better person.

She’s not powerful. She’s stubborn. She doesn’t chase love—she earns it, quietly, through steadfast care and blunt honesty.

Sophie’s power is in refusing to be irrelevant.

She is the anti-Feyre:

✨ Sophie doesn’t need to be told she’s special to act like she matters.

✨ She doesn’t need revenge, a makeover, or a mate bond.

✨ She changes the world with cleaning supplies and attitude.

That’s a heroine.

Ouran High School Host Club (Haruhi Fujioka)

Haruhi isn’t rich. She’s not a princess. She’s a scholarship student with a buzzcut and a cardigan.

She gets mistaken for a boy and doesn’t care. She becomes the heart of a boyband full of chaos and trauma—and instead of falling into a love triangle?

She becomes their compass.

Haruhi never lets herself be glamorized. She never becomes soft to please anyone. She stays grounded, logical, emotionally intelligent.

She listens. She heals. She doesn’t get corrupted by wealth or ego.

Haruhi is a heroine because she never lets anyone else define her worth. Not a man. Not a story. Not even fate.

And when she falls in love? She does it without losing herself.

That’s a heroine in a soft cardigan with steel underneath.

Swan Lake (Odette. Ballet.)

Now we go to the tragic ballet archetype. Odette—the white swan.

She’s cursed. Transformed. Trapped by day. She falls in love with a prince who swears he’ll save her. And what happens?

He betrays her—accidentally. Chooses the wrong swan. Odette could have become bitter. But instead?

She chooses to die with dignity. In many versions, she flings herself into the lake. And in doing so—breaks the curse herself.

She sacrifices herself to end the cycle of pain. She is grace in grief. She is a woman who says:

“I will not be your pawn. If I cannot be free, I will be the one who chooses how this ends.”

Odette doesn’t scream. She doesn’t rage. She just rises and vanishes in water.

That’s a heroine of mythic proportions.

And Feyre?

Would she live in a cursed castle and sweep the floors? Would she dress plainly and choose listening over being adored? Would she die to break the curse—not for glory, not for pity, but because she knows the cost must end somewhere?

No.

Because Feyre doesn’t end cycles. She inherits them. And then rebrands them as empowerment.

True heroines—each different, but all dangerous in how deeply they love, listen, and refuse to become what the world tries to make them. This does not happen because the author gifts them a happy ending. Yes, Feyre died. But we'll talk about how it should have been in another topic. This one is already long enough.

Now let's go into the slippery slope before next point.

Heroines who danced with killing

Let's summon the ghosts of every heroine who got too close to the edge and everyone watched them for blood instead of mercy.

When softness meets power and the world starts hating them, sometimes it's dropped by narrative, others by an emotional promise that was broken.

We’re not talking villains. We’re talking heroines who’ve been pushed far enough to strike— and then punished for not bleeding instead.

Let’s break down these three queens:

The Vampire Diaries (Elena Gilbert)

Sweet girl. High schooler. Orphan. Heartbroken. Then? She’s thrown into a world of blood, trauma, vampires, war.

At first, she tries so hard to stay human. She feels everything. She loses everything. But then…

✨ She dies.

✨ Becomes a vampire.

✨ Kills.

✨ Rips out people’s memories.

✨ Gets cold, numb, confused.

And the fandom? Turns on her. Fast.

Why?

Three reasons.

1. Because Elena loses her softness. She survives instead of sacrificing herself over and over again. And the moment she starts mirroring the monsters who shaped her?

Fans call her selfish. Annoying. Manipulative. “Not like she used to be.”

She stops being a fantasy. She becomes flawed. And people wanted a savior. Not a girl making trauma-born decisions in a town where everyone dies.

- Elena and Sookie are punished because they try to be good, fail, and still keep going. Fans hated their emotional mess. Because it reminded them of their own humanity. Elena and Sookie started as heroines.

But they fell from grace because the narrative stopped punishing them, not because they became bad.

True Blood (Sookie Stackhouse)

Starts soft. Innocent. Southern. Psychic. Waitress. Loving. Then—bam. Vampires. Power. Lust. Murder.

Sookie doesn’t want to kill. But she gets dragged into bloodbaths. Again and again. She:

✨ Kills to protect.

✨ Screams when she’s gaslit.

✨ Cries after violence.

✨ Still tries to hold on to kindness.

And the fandom?

“She’s exhausting.”

“She’s fake.”

“She’s slutty.”

They hate that she can feel so much and still cause harm. They hate that she can be both vulnerable and messy.

Because audiences love clean pain. Not complicated survival.

Once Upon a Time (Emma Swan)

Here’s the curveball. Emma does the same arc:

✨ Abandoned as a baby.

✨ Raised in foster care.

✨ Abused. Betrayed. Weaponized.

She gets magic. She gets trauma. She kills. But she’s rarely hated. Why?

Because Emma never pretends she’s good. She owns her flaws. She snarls. She shoves people away. But she also shows up. She builds trust. She asks for help.

And most importantly— The narrative doesn’t idolize her. It doesn’t say: “She’s the savior and can do no wrong.”

It says:

“She’s broken. But she’s trying.”

So people forgave her. Because she was honest about her rage.

Now let’s look at Feyre.

Feyre kills innocents. Burns villages. Lies. Abuses people emotionally. Becomes a queen by gaslighting, seducing, manipulating.

But the fandom? Treats her like she’s a victim. A savior. A goddess. A saint.

Why is she not hated like Sookie or Elena?

Because she never owns what she does. And neither does the narrative.

She kills—and the story calls her “powerful.” She mocks trauma survivors—and the story claps. She betrays allies—and canon gives her Velaris.

Feyre never admits guilt. She never says, “I was wrong.”

She’s not a heroine who danced with killing. She’s a killer pretending she’s the heroine.

That’s the difference.

Emma is forgiven because she names her damage.

She doesn’t fake purity. She makes mistakes and doesn’t wrap them in empowerment bows.

Feyre is worshipped because the plot (and the author) refuses to hold her accountable.

Not because she’s better—but because she never admits she’s bad.

This isn’t just about what they do. It’s about what the narrative does with them—and what the audience expects of them.

Let’s walk this carefully. One foot on truth, one foot on analysis.

Do Elena and Sookie get hate because they killed? Or because the narrative stopped holding them accountable?

Answer: It’s both—but with a twist. They didn’t get hate just for the killing. They got hate when the story stopped making them suffer for it. When they stopped being punished or humbled.

Audiences are fine with women who make mistakes… as long as they’re always sorry. The second Elena or Sookie started:

✨ Not crumbling after bloodshed

✨ Not sacrificing every inch of themselves for others

✨ Not apologizing every time they survived instead of surrendered

People turned on them.

Why? Because these characters were allowed to evolve, but the audience still wanted them to atone endlessly. And when they didn’t? The fandom snapped: “She’s selfish.” “She changed.” “She’s fake now.” In reality? They were just done begging for forgiveness.

Does it sound like a patriarchy problem? Good, it should. We'll talk about that too, in another post.

Now—Buffy. Let’s correct this:

Buffy is a heroine. One of the greats.

And she never stopped being held accountable. Which is why she doesn’t belong in the same category as Feyre or Wanda.

But she did dance that line:

✨ She killed.

✨ She isolated.

✨ She was cold, at times emotionally brutal.

✨ She came back from the dead and hated being alive.

She had villain moments—and the narrative never let her off easy. Buffy wasn’t slippery because she fell. She was slippery because she knew the slope existed—and still climbed it daily.

Buffy never stopped being a heroine. She’s the example of how to do it right. The anti-Feyre. She is a heroine who walks the knife’s edge— but never lies about it. She’s held accountable. She holds herself accountable.

Wanda — A Hero Turned Anti-Heroine

Wanda starts heroic. And yes, in Multiverse of Madness she becomes an anti-heroine or borderline villain.

The reason I mentioned her earlier was not to lump her in with Feyre, but to ask:

What happens when a woman has too much power, too much grief, and the world keeps telling her to contain it?

Wanda:

✨ Grieves without permission

✨ Loses control

✨ Still mourns what she becomes

✨ Dies (or maybe disappears) trying to undo the damage

That’s not evil. That’s Greek tragedy.

She’s a heroine becoming monstrous for love—and realizing too late that love can’t justify it.

She’s not slippery. She’s falling with her eyes open. Wanda is not Feyre. Wanda is tragic. Honest. Still bleeding. Her arc is painful because it ends in realization, not reward.

Bella Swan – Is She a Heroine?

No.

Bella is a narrative object. She’s passive, reactive, and built to be a vessel—not a voice.

She doesn’t:

✨ Transform anyone but Edward

✨ Save anyone but herself... by accident

✨ Fight for others unless they’re part of her romantic arc

She’s not a villain. She’s just absent of arc.

A heroine is defined by emotional transformation + consequence + empathy

Bella flunks. She doesn’t lead. She follows. She doesn’t love with danger. She loves with devotion that erases her identity.

She’s the placeholder. Not the story. She’s a symbol. A fantasy. Not a forged soul.

Narrative Betrayal

Let's touch the root. Because Sookie and Elena weren’t hated just because they became messy. Or because they started to appeal male gaze. Or because they became too unforgiving which is again another form of hating on the girl for the sake of hating. They were hated because their own stories betrayed them.

This isn’t just about sexism. Patriarchy or even gender issues. Which, yes, there is a lot of it. Being a heroine or a hero tends to be more about outdated roles defined by patriarchy standards, and moral ones (we can see the same values being applied very differently depending on the gender. Metrics of worth are so unfair.). Though they are not necesarily the only things playing here.

This? This is about narrative betrayal (and authorial input that refuses to withhold accountability in the story)—when a character's arc makes a promise, and then violates it in front of the audience’s eyes.

ELENA GILBERT (yes, again.): Broken Narrative Contract

At the start, Elena is:

✨ Grieving but strong.

✨ Loving but thoughtful.

✨ Human—but a *moral center* in a supernatural world.

She doesn’t want the power. She wants to hold the people around her together. Her role is not just protagonist—it’s anchor.

So when she:

✨ Becomes a vampire

✨ Kills

✨ Compels

✨ Lies

✨ Starts acting detached from the morality she once clung to

…it’s not that she becomes evil. It’s that she abandons her own narrative DNA.

The audience was told:

“This is the girl who saves the others by reminding them of humanity.”

And then suddenly she’s:

“The girl who becomes colder than them and is still treated like light.”

That’s what the fandom hated. Not just the change—but the dishonesty of the change.

She stopped being Elena. And the writers pretended nothing shifted.

That creates resentment.

SOOKIE STACKHOUSE (yes, again.): Broken Emotional Consistency

Sookie starts as:

✨ Kind

✨ Strong

✨ Open

✨ Empathic

✨ Deeply, painfully human

She reads minds. She gets hurt by everyone. But she keeps trying to understand people even when they don’t deserve it.

Her heroine power? Radical empathy.

But later in the series, as things spiral:

✨ She stops listening.

✨ She gets defensive.

✨ She makes quick judgments.

✨ She becomes emotionally inconsistent.

Not because the trauma changed her—(which we would accept!)— But because the writing stopped honoring her moral clarity. She starts snapping for drama, not truth. Reacting for tension, not logic. Getting with men just because they’re there.

The audience didn’t hate her for being messy. They hated that her mess wasn’t earned.

She became a plot device in her own story. That’s not character evolution. That’s story decay.

And that’s what separates these two from anti-heroine forgiveness arcs.

Wanda changes. Buffy breaks. Lira reforms.

But their arcs account for it. They give emotional receipts.

Sookie and Elena were rewritten mid-story to suit the engine, not the arc. They were told they were heroines. But their choices stopped being written as human. They became useful instead.

That is another reason why the audience turned. It wasn’t hate. It was betrayal. The hate came not because they failed a stereotype, but because the story failed them.

And that, is the ultimate form of narrative cruelty.

Feyre gets handled as a heroine and most people believe the lie. But she is the first to kill in the story.

Let's talk about the original sin of Feyre’s arc— the lie that her story was built on heroism… when it opened with a murder.

So yes, let’s talk about Andras. Because if we start there, everything that follows starts to unravel. And we are not even touching symbolism, or how wolves are sacred across many cultures, including them in Fae myths.

Who is Andras?

✨ A sentinel.

✨ A fae.

✨ Loyal to Tamlin.

✨ Sent across the wall as bait—as part of Tamlin’s desperate plan to break the curse.

He is not an aggressor. He is not hunting Feyre’s family. He’s not part of a war party. He’s not attacking anyone.

He is walking. Quiet. Alone. And Feyre kills him with an ash arrow through the eye.

What does Feyre think in that moment?

She convinces herself he’s just:

✨ A beast.

✨ A threat.

✨ A prize for fur.

But what does the story actually show?

Andras didn’t fight back. He let her kill him. His eyes were full of something—something human, something watching, something resigned.

And Feyre?

She doesn’t flinch. She feels a flicker of unease… and keeps going.

What do we learn later about Andras?

Tamlin confirms it.

He sent Andras out knowing he might die. Andras agreed, willingly, because it might save their people. He was not hunting. He was sacrificing himself to try to break the curse.

And Feyre?

She killed the one person who might have started her arc with mercy. And instead of guilt? She buries it under justification.

That is not a heroine’s beginning. That is a cold-blooded kill justified by ignorance—and never truly examined again.

The worst thing? One simple authorial decision would have changed everything even if she ended up killing Andras anyways. But we'll talk about this in another post.

Why does this matter so much?

Because we are told power comes from breaking things. But the real power, real heroism, has always looked like this. Like Desmond Doss. A man who saved without killing. No weapons, no crowns, no need to be adored. Just someone who refused to let the story end in blood.

GIF: Andrew Garfield as Desmon Doss, real World War hero. WW2. (Hacksaw Ridge movie.)

Because this is Page One. The moment the reader is told:

“Feyre is just doing what she has to. Survival.”

But it’s a lie.

She didn’t kill to survive. She killed because she could. Because she wanted control. Because she didn’t care who the beast was—only that she could kill it.

And the narrative never returns to Andras with real weight. No justice. No grief. Not even a dream.

Just… forgotten. And Feyre is crowned anyway.

7 notes · View notes