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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   24106 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026

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What stops men from writing stories where they're already wonderful and people just don't realize it?

To me, this is an interesting question. From the female side of things, the story that comes to mind is Cinderella. Note that to become a beautiful and desirable woman, Cinderella didn't need to train with a Jedi master or do battle with some Dark Lord. She just needed a deus ex machina to provide her some nice clothes and a sweet ride.

So is there a male Cinderella story out there? What comes to my mind is The Once and Future King by T.H. White. It tells the story of a young King Arthur who is consigned to a subordinate and secondary role in relation to his foster-brother Kay. Possibly it served as inspiration for Harry Potter and Dudley which is also a sort of male Cinderella story in some respects.

But what's very different is that these male Cinderellas (1) go off on adventures; and (2) receive education and training. Only then can they assume their destinies.

So why the difference? The only thing I can think of is that generally speaking male main characters are aimed at male audiences and boys (and men) aren't very interested in stories where the male hero is already wonderful and it's just a matter of people realizing it.

In other words, it seems that this idea that women are born while men are made is believed at a very deep level by most people; perhaps it's even informed by our genes.

The Poor Miller's Boy and the Cat is pretty much exactly Cinderella but with a boy. Basically the king's daughter, in the form of a cat picks a poor and mistreated but hardworking boy to live with her in a golden palace. https://www.grimmstories.com/en/grimm_fairy-tales/the_poor_millers_boy_and_the_cat

I guess it's not as famous because it's a bit less plausible a fantasy for a boy to be picked out of obscurity by a princess than for a girl to be picked by a prince.

The Poor Miller's Boy and the Cat is pretty much exactly Cinderella but with a boy. Basically the king's daughter, in the form of a cat picks a poor and mistreated but hardworking boy to live with her in a golden palace. https://www.grimmstories.com/en/grimm_fairy-tales/the_poor_millers_boy_and_the_cat

I read the story and found something which to me was very interesting. Basically, in order to get his reward, the boy must serve the princess for 7 years; he must chop wood; tend to the meadow; and build a house:

, however, had to serve the cat, and chop some wood every day, and to do that, he had an axe of silver, and the wedge and saw were of silver and the mallet of copper. So he chopped the wood small; stayed there in the house and had good meat and drink, but never saw anyone but the tabby-cat and her servants. Once she said to him, "Go and mow my meadow, and dry the grass," and gave him a scythe of silver, and a whetstone of gold, but bade him deliver them up again carefully. So Hans went thither, and did what he was bidden, and when he had finished the work, he carried the scythe, whetstone, and hay to the house, and asked if it was not yet time for her to give him his reward. "No," said the cat, "you must first do something more for me of the same kind. There is timber of silver, carpenter's axe, square, and everything that is needful, all of silver, with these build me a small house." Then Hans built the small house, and said that he had now done everything, and still he had no horse. Nevertheless the seven years had gone by with him as if they were six months.

In other words, the boy had to prove that he was worthy.

While it's true that Cinderella had to do household chores, I would argue that the point of the chores was not to show how faithful she was, but rather to (narratively) show that society did not recognize her value.

So I would say that no, the two stories are not exactly the same. They are different in almost exactly the way described by posters who have argued that women automatically get value while men must earn their value.

To be sure, I don't dispute that if you looked hard enough you could find stories out there which go against this dichotomy. But it does seem like, at a minimum, the idea is very deeply ingrained in human thinking.

It's true, but what the boy has to do to prove to the cat he is worthy is pretty easy – just stick around and do the chores he is told to do. And it's worth noting that even in Cinderella, she is not literally taken from rags to riches with no agency. She has to 'do' a few things like blend in at a high society event, disguising her real identity; sprint out of the ball before midnight to avoid humiliation; and escape being locked in a room by her stepmother so that she can try on the slipper and prove she is the woman the prince danced with.

It's true, but what the boy has to do to prove to the cat he is worthy is pretty easy – just stick around and do the chores he is told to do.

Narratively it's 7 years of labor. More importantly, it's very clearly framed as stuff the protagonist must do to in order to prove himself.

She has to 'do' a few things like blend in at a high society event, disguising her real identity; sprint out of the ball before midnight to avoid humiliation; and escape being locked in a room by her stepmother so that she can try on the slipper and prove she is the woman the prince danced with.

Those things aren't really framed as labors she must do to prove her worthiness.

So I'm still not seeing it.

No, she isn't proving her worthiness to the prince with these actions. She's proved her worthiness to us the audience through her previous years of suffering with dignity though. The prince etc is her reward for that from our point of view, even though he probably doesn't know anything about her other than her beauty. You'll see this sometimes the other way round where an action hero gets the girl at the end despite her having only a very vague idea of what he's just done. E.g. he runs out of a burning building and they kiss, all she knows is that he's survived. Narratively her love is the reward for what we the audience know makes him worthy. (In such stories there's usually also an A plot in which he saves the world or such.)

I could believe that in-story characters rewarding a protagonist just for being beautiful and themselves is more common with female characters. I think they still have to manifest their character in action for us the audience to see they deserve to be selected by the Prince though.

She's proved her worthiness to us the audience through her previous years of suffering with dignity though.

That's not how the story is framed. And in a fable for children, if such a connection were intended it would be pretty obvious.Just look at the Miller's Boy and Cat story. They don't exactly hide the fact that the protagonist is being rewarded for his 7 years of faithful service.

I agree it's not how the story is framed (it's not a meta story), but it's how the story works. We wouldn't accept her being rewarded if she didn't demonstrate her character by having gone through something tough first. Granted, the Miller's Boy and Cat is not exactly the same in that the princess chooses Foolish Hans, then tests him with the seven years of labour before actually rewarding him. But it's made explicit that he is neither talented nor clever, just someone who gets on with drudgework in an unquestioning manner, so the message is similar in its appeal: that if you're lucky, you may find yourself catapulted from your long suffering peasant life to fabulous riches without having to do anything particularly out of the ordinary.

We wouldn't accept her being rewarded if she didn't demonstrate her character by having gone through something tough first.

Well, what if "going through something tough" had simply been that her (Cinderella's) sisters got nice clothes and such while she had to wear hand-me-downs; the sisters got to go to fancy events while she didn't, etc. In that case, she's not particularly doing any chores. It seems to me that with that change, the story would not be fundamentally different.

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