If you read pop psychology, I'm seriously disturbed.

If you read ideological debates, I am normal. Women are said to identify with violence dealt to heroines in books simply because they project themselves as the character that is in torment. By becoming the "victim", they release the pent up, subconscious anger they have built up through their day to day routines. It is a healthy way to diffuse their frustrations. Most of these texts suggest that these frustrations stem from fixed gender roles.

When I was younger, in my early adolescence, I did daydream about such heroines. I became the martyred victim, the neglected wife, the child bride, the abandoned lover. I blame too many Taiwanese weepies and the romance novels I snuck out from my Mom's store of books. This is quite embarassing to admit in public. I hope to think myself above such unsophistication these days.

Alas, that is not so! (Does everyone detect the irony in my little melodramatic sigh? Bleah.:P)

I still identify with the martyred victim in my novels more often than not. And might I point out the fact that I still read romances and I still cry over them? Hah. Case solved. I am still the gauche little girl I was years ago.

No matter how I look at it, the characters in the book (or any other form of medium that produces fictitious characters) whom you identify most with, reveals much about your own individual personality.

I used to have crushes on the oddest fantasy men. And I thought everyone else would like the same character in a novel. After all, the author would flesh out the protagonists more and the readers would identify more with such characters, wouldn't they? Take the big hullaboo over LOTR. I mean lots of girls go gaga over Legolas or Aragorn. Men would love Arwen. There are some characters people are more sympathetic towards, simply because the author wants our interest to be directed that way.

Hell no. Take the Dragonlance series. I loved Raistlin Majere. He's gorgeous. To me anyway. BF thinks he's cool too. Paladin, on the other hand likes the Solamnic Knight Sturm Brightblade more than anyone else. An old friend in school obsessed about the elf maid Laurana, up to the point of growing her hair long and dyeing it blond during the school holidays.

That sums up each person's personality. Without Paladin saying anything, I knew he would pick the Paladin as the first RPG character to play in Diablo II. I knew my brat sister would pick either the Sorceress or the Amazon. And I knew BF would pick the same character as I did.

Heh. I will always favour the intellectual, who is more often than not, thin, nervous, power hungry, brilliant... and who translates into the real world as cute computer geeks :P

Oh and I exclusively play the Necromancer or Druid in Diablo II. No namby pamby female characters for me.

That says alot about my contempt for my own sex, no?