The Fantasy Heroine Factory

I want a heroine who does both. Defeats the ancient evil and makes a meat pie nobody can stop talking about.

We All Can’t Be Petite, Dangerous Fighters with Long Wavy Hair. 

Fantasy gave us dragons, immortal elves, sentient swords, magic schools, and men with actual wings. I’ve made peace with all of that. What I can’t seem to understand is the fact that every woman in every fictional kingdom is built exactly the same.

You know the fantasy heroine standard. You definitely know her. 

The  Five-foot-nothing. “Surprisingly strong” despite living on bread, stew, and unresolved trauma. A waist you could circle with two hands. Hair that falls in shampoo-commercial waves down her back, even after she’s just crawled out of a burning building.

As I sit around here daydreaming, there must be someone in this world who needs to invent a magical sports bra and riding leathers that will hold when I bend over.

The Chosen One Has A Type

Don’t get me wrong. I love a competent heroine.

One who can fight, outsmart a court full of liars, burn down a king’s throne room, and save the realm before lunch? Sure, sign me up.

What I don’t get is why they all seem to come from the same casting call. Every kingdom apparently has a shortage of women above a size ten.

Where are the broad-shouldered girls who split their own firewood? The ones with soft stomachs and strong calves? The ones who need a friend to yank their breastplate straps tight because… physics?

Every fantasy world has a guild of assassins. Somehow none of them have hips and a belly bulge at the same time. Curious.

And before anyone brings up “realism,” we’re talking about a genre where a nineteen-year-old bonds two dragons, splits a war college down the middle, and weds a prince who controls shadows, all before she’s old enough to legally drink.

I think I can handle a curvy pirate captain. A plus-sized dragon rider. A chubby witch whose familiar keeps stealing her snacks. A woman whose thighs carry her into battle instead of apologizing for existing.

It’s a world where the rules bend for everything else; I’m pretty sure they can find a way around female physiques.  

Small Is the Only Setting

Image credit: Unsplash

Men in fantasy get range. Lean, bulky, scarred, one-eyed, built like a barn door, bearded or smooth, nobody bats an eye.

Half the love interests are six-foot-five walls of muscle described in loving detail. The women get one factory setting. Tiny. Petite. Slight. Delicate. “Tiny but fierce,” which somehow shows up in every third book like it’s contractually required. “So small his hand swallowed hers.”

We get it, she’s travel-sized!!

Then there’s the hair.

Sword fight, forest sprint, dragon flight, house fire, and she still has waist-length waves with the shine of a salon blowout. No mousse. No product. Meanwhile, my hair tangles if I so much as sit next to a fan.

And don’t even get me started on the armor. Somebody convinced generations of fantasy artists that a breastplate should fit like a corset. I’m begging: let these women breathe.

Here’s the thing—bigger women do exist in these books. They’re just never the heroine. They’re the innkeeper ladling out stew. The warm-hearted mother. The funny aunt. The cook. Sometimes the whore who’s also a spy. The seer who hands out cryptic advice and then vanishes from the plot forever. Gain a few dress sizes in these worlds, and your arc quietly shifts from “Chosen One” to “Excellent Baker.”

Can We Have More Multi-Layered Heroines?

I want a heroine who does both. Defeats the ancient evil and makes a meat pie nobody can stop talking about.

None of this is about forcing every book to check every box. 

Writers should write who they want to write. But readers notice patterns, and after enough fantasy novels, you start clocking that “desirable” in these worlds comes in one very narrow shape. The damsel in distress who can fight, but not too much distress. The one with a mysterious debilitating illness who still somehow flattens three grown men in a sparring session.

It’d be nice if “desirable” showed a little more imagination,  especially in a genre built entirely on imagination. Magic rewrites reality here. Farm boys become kings. Surely there’s room for one heroine who isn’t described as tiny. 

Because some of us would show up to the final battle with thick thighs, frizzy hair, and enough snacks to feed the whole fellowship.

And we’d still deserve the dragon. The adventure. And the ending where we get to keep both.