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I am currently reading Diana Wynne Jones' "The Game." And I know that she writes children's books, but I've gotta say that she is the *master* at creating male characters that you completely fall in love with. There are millions of anime fans out there in love with "Howl's Moving Castle" who know exactly what I mean here. Myself, I'm a Chrestomanci junkie. He was the stuff of my teenage fantasies. In "The Game," she creates this man with a few paragraphs. Less than one page, a tiny description and a bit of witty banter, and I completely adore Flute. But I gotta say, it makes me feel played. Like there is this stereotype of the man I would totally fall for, and she is exploiting it. Exploiting it to a tee.

I read some really embarassingly bad romance novels in my younger years. My sisters were big Harlequin readers, so I tried a few out. I think my favorite (at the time) were the Regency Romances, which were like tarted-up Jane Austen. But they were all terribly formulaic (like Jane Austen): girl meets boy, girl hates boy, girl and boy torment each other, girl realizes boy's Tortured Soul, boy discovers girl's True Worth, they pine away thinking the other hates him/her, then on the last page reveal their love and all is perfect. It got very tiresome, and thank god there was plenty of good Barbara Hambly out there to save me from it.

But I think a lot of people still hold to this stereotypical ideal of a man. I see it in film all the time, and people still *adore* Jane Austen. And although I am largely immune to their beloved Angry Misogynist With Troubled Past, I wonder when I watch Doctor Who if I am not just part of a different group of brainwashed women, seeking out the Lonely Jester. Yup, all around the world are hordes of women swooning over David Tennant. And that makes me feel... really damn stupid.

I've been completely brainwashed. This is not a real person with bad breath in the morning and a constant need to fondle your breasts at inconvenient moments. The Lonely Jester doth not need a fourth slice of pizza and a quick jaunt to the loo after. He doesn't even have annoying siblings and bossy parents. He is missing whole parts of a real human being, with the rest just sketched in by an artful and manipulative hand. But I still fall for it. *sigh* Adorable Flute with his white hair and ready grin. Damn you, Jones, you are perpetuating my unrealistic fantasies. And please don't stop... ;)