Comparing The Sorcerer To The Crown And Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Sorcerer to The Crown and Buffy The Vampire Slayer are two fantasy works that break norms and conventions. The characters Prunella Gentleman and Buffy, share similarities and have differences. The views on darkness and ”the other” is distinctive. In this essay, we will look closer at these and also discuss how these characters challenge gender bias in fantasy.

Prunella did not choose to be a sorceress royal, correspondingly Buffy did not either choose to be the vampire slayer. They both were forced into roles they did not initially want. Though, they both accepted their roles later on. Buffy and Prunella Gentleman are also similar in the sense that they are both strong, female characters. In 1997 was Buffy The Vampire Slayer released, and

She saves Zacharias many times, which challenges the notion that the girl always has to be saved by the knight. At the end of chapter 27, the male main character Zacharias Wythe secludes himself into a more solitary mundane lifestyle. He lives uninterrupted in the countryside and takes care of plants. At the same time, Prunella has a higher-ranking, paying job. The typical gender roles are reversed in the sense that Zacharias Wythe resembles being a ” housewife” and gets taken care of by Prunella. Brian Attebery writes in Fantasy: How it works (2022) on page 135 how easy it is to write fiction that challenges norms and expectations about gender because gender bias is easy to find. Later on, he highlights a book that follows typical gender conventions such as ”men are wizards, women weak and wicked witches…” (Page 137)(2022). In Sorcerer To The Crown that convention has literalized itself in the minds of society. Women are believed to be too weak to have magic. Even Prunella thinks so in the beginning, ”If she were a man she might be a thaumaturge, and employ her magical abilities to good purpose. Since she was a female of gentle birth, however, she could not employ her magical talent to any purpose…” (pages 49-50). Prunella Gentleman is a primary example that such thinking is wrong, challenging gender conventions in its

In Buffy’s world, darkness is associated with vampires since they only can be outside if it is dark. Magical creatures are seen as evil. These are signs of othering that can be associated with a racialized ideal. Attebery refers to an author demonstrating othering, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, which states: “Darkness is personified, embodied, and most assuredly racialized.” (2022). Prunella herself is of Indian origin, and she falls in love with a dark man. She also raises little magic familiars. The view on darkness and magic is the total opposite compared to Buffy The Vampire