Time to answer my own tag :-) If you haven't done it yourself yet, you can get a clean copy of the questions on the party kickoff post.
1. Do you have any siblings? Yes, I have one brother who is five years younger and four inches taller than I am. We were very close when we were growing up, once he got to be about 7 years old and interesting enough for me to want to play with him. I'm afraid I was a fairly negligent older sister until then. But from then on, we were extremely close friends, and we're still close now.
2. Who are some of your favorite fictional siblings? The Curtis brothers in The Outsiders, Boromir and Faramir in The Lord of the Rings, all the Barkleys in The Big Valley, Sigrid and Tilda and Bain from The Hobbit movies, and all the Weasleys from Harry Potter.
3. Are there any fictional families you wish you could belong to yourself? I would love to join the Barkley clan! Victoria is such an amazing mother.
4. Have you ever watched or read a book that reminded you of your own family? Hmm. Speaking ONLY about the siblings, I think maybe Boromir and Faramir might be the closest match to my brother and I. We're actually both quite bookish, but my brother is rather less smash-and-bash by nature than I am. Plus, I'm older than he is, and my hair is more reddish, while his is blond. He actually dressed as Faramir for Halloween last year! (But I didn't go as Boromir, alas. I totally would sometime, though!)
5. What fictional sibling would you NOT want for your own sibling? John Thorpe from Northanger Abbey. I don't want any John Thorpes anywhere near me, ever, thank you very much.
6. Are you more drawn to stories about brothers or sisters? I'm much more drawn to stories about brothers, but I enjoy many about sisters too.
7. What makes a story involving siblings interesting to you? The sibling dynamic is so varied! It's a bond that can be close or loose. You can have siblings who are super protective of each other, siblings who cause problems for each other, or siblings who are indifferent to each other. You can explore so many human emotions and difficulties and strengths and weaknesses with sibling relationships.
Ha! I too would never, ever want to be related to a Thorpe.
ReplyDeleteBoromir and Faramir are one of my favorite sibling pairs as well! Boromir's fate gets me all over again in the second half of Two Towers when Faramir is all worried about him...and then the first half of Return of the King when he's mourning him even while his dad is all like "why aren't you better, like your brother?!".
I'm also much more drawn to brother stories (though I love many sister stories as well), and I used to be puzzled by that until I realized that my relationship with my sisters is in many ways more similar to typical brother relationships than sister relationships. Just...how we interact and the methods by which we have each other's backs, that shows up way more in brother stories than sister stories, which I really enjoy.
Sarah, yeah, John Thorpe is just the worst.
DeleteBoromir is my favorite LOTR character, and I really love the way people keep being sad and upset when they find out he's dead, all throughout the rest of the books.
I think my brother and I had a very brotherly relationship as well, so that may be a big part of why I'm drawn to brother stories. I mean, I don't have any sisters, so I don't have any experience there to relate to fictional sisterly relationships.
You know what's interesting? Even though I am generally more drawn to female characters than male characters across the board, I really enjoy brother stories and sister stories about equally. I don't make much of a distinction between them. I imagine this is because I have four brothers as well as three sisters, and I'm very close to all of them.
ReplyDeleteLoved your answers!
Katie, that does make sense! I think probably one of the reasons I'm really drawn to brother stories more than sister stories is that I have a brother, but I don't have a sister. (But part of it is also that the genres I enjoy most, westerns and action/adventure, are heavily populated with men, so brother stories just naturally occur more.)
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