The not-so-quite-themes of the Maiden Knight series

Being that I am only on the 12th chapter of this novel, I can't completely say or figure what all the themes are. But I will share with you what I want to explore in this 4 book series.

One: How does a woman fit into both the soldier and mother roles?

I see many women soldiers here in the U.S balance duty and motherhood with sacrifices and sometimes despair. What I really want to capture in this series is the doubt that female soldiers have when entering into combat. Some would say that a woman would never have to fight to protect her country, that the men can take care of it all. Of course you had the Amazons in Greek mythology, but what if they had their male counter parts (or allowed them in the tribes) would they have taken care of the home front instead of the war zone?

It enters her mind that, later on when the war between her country and its rival, she really didn't need to be there on the front lines. Her whole dream growing up had been becoming a mother and having her own family, not being in trenches covered in mud, sweat and blood, fearing her death and the deaths of her friends and lover.

She continues knighthood to take care of her ever growing family, and to re-establish her dead mother's title, but all the same she wishes for a different life, despite her breaking many of the social norms and for the first time in all the land women are becoming more independent of men. But even though she becomes the poster child for the princess' "women's revolution", she sacrifices and suffers.

So with Iris I am creating the I-don't-want-to-be-a-hero character to really convey that it's not all kicks and flying chakrams when it comes to women being in combat. Xena was a great fantasy show, but sadly all it was, was indeed just fantasy. I want to show the struggle and the character being torn between two lives and even two different dreams.

When Iris does become a mother, this duel life really comes about. One day she can be playing with her child, celebrating with her family, and then the next dodging arrows and cutting off heads. The complexity of it all is what is most interesting for me to write.

2) How does one find love/intimacy after rape or sexual abuse?

This is a hard theme to write. Not just because it's a hard subject, but because everyone is different. Some are more fragile than others, some don't even need to find it again, it finds them. So when I am writing Iris, I really have to push away my feelings towards my own sexual abuse and understand what happened to Iris. Iris gets labeled as 'soiled' by society and therefore no man would think of her as marriage material. That's one key factor I had to consider. Also, Iris has 6 brothers, a cousin, and a protective brother-in-law. This enables her to not fear men, and understand that not all men would do that to women.

She finds in her training as a male that there are respectable men and she even considers the ones she gets close to as brothers. So Iris is pretty comfortable being around men and trusting them.

Her issue is intimacy. When she marries Wrider and they actually try to have sex, she has flash backs to the rape. Wrider could touch her a certain way, or even move like her rapist did and she would shut down and fear her husband. Wrider eventually finds this frustrating as most men would. Not being able to be truly close to the one you love.

But after a battle in which Iris gets injured, Wrider takes her away from the battle field and back home to help her. There, after Wrider proves to her family that he can protect her and that he in fact loves her with all of his being, she realizes that Wrider is in no way like her rapist nor does he have any mal-intentions for her. Also, since she is injured, when they do have sex his approach is extremely gentle which is why Iris is able to completely give herself to him.

3) Can women have their own kind of chivalry?

Usually when someone says that word the first image that comes to mind are male knights, or King Arthur. Probably the last thing someone would see is the dead body of a woman soldier. Grim as it is, that word was what I thought when I saw a picture of a dead Israelite woman soldier. When I see the list of names of people who died for America I think the same word, but it has a different meaning than when I specifically think of women.

For one a woman's love is chivalrous sometimes. Like how much she risks for the ones she loves. Being that women are the weaker sex when it comes to physical strength, when she goes out to fight, knowing full well her death is more likely than that of her male peers, that is what I find chivalrous. If course physical strength isn't what makes a good knight or soldier, but the fact that a woman is not as strong as the men around her plays into that fear in the back of everyone's mind.

So for a woman to be in a knight's role, fight for who she loves, defy the odds, and still manage to keep her maternal ways is the kind of chivalry I want to explore more in this series.