Crossdressing and Magic: Alanna of Trebold

The power of Grayskull.

So, picture this:

You're the female of a set of twins in a far off and crazy land. You're magic, you've got purple eyes, and you really want to be a BAMF knight and protect the aforementioned far off land, but you have a vagina so no dice.

Except dice. Totally dice. Because you are Alanna of Trebond, and you cut your hair, cross-dress, pretend to be a boy, and become the most BAMF knight that the land of Tortall has ever seen, all while doing awesome magic, boning the hot prince and the hotter Price of Thieves, and hanging out with a talking cat who may or may not be a) a god, b) a constellation, c) voiced by David Hyde Pierce in the inevitable movie series.

Awesome.
So back in the day this nice lady named Tamora Pierce was writing a romance novel with a female knight protagonist who ends up sleeping with the price. Only no one wanted to publish it, and it was a bit too feminist to have a swooning heroine. Instead, someone told her "Hey, this is awesome. Cut it into a bunch of smaller books, and make it a YA novel, and it'll actually sell!"

The days before YA marketing.

I stumbled across Alanna: The First Adventure at one of the Scholastic Book Fairs (which, honestly, must have resulted in a buttload of kick backs for someone in the administration because all of that cash and funding would have been much better suited to a library budget, as opposed to pushing capitalism on young children in their place of learning, but I digress).

Despite having a very unfortunate cover and a truly cheesy name, I bought it because even back then I knew that girls kick ass, and I was a nerd.

And then I read it. Again, and again, and again. And then I bought the next three books in the series and read them. Again, and again, and again.

Because Alanna is a fantastic friggin' character. She's smart but not Mary-Sueish. She's a great warrior, but you know she doesn't get there overnight. She's got all the boys swooning, but doesn't really give two shakes until the end, and she's absolutely perfect as that blend of teenage awkward-eagerness-to-please and of-course-I-know-what-I'm-doing.

BAMF. The End.

The books were so successful that Pierce started writing more. A lot more. We've gotten books on the next female knight who tries to be a BAMF in Tortall, Alanna's spy daughter, a Beast Master/Dr Doolittle chick who hangs out with a hot sorcerer, a female cop from 200 years ago, and more.

As heroines they all follow different paths to greatness. But they're all wonderful, pure characters who encourage girls to work hard, be honest and honorable, and achieve great things with the help of loyal friends and strength of character. And then, once that's all done, consider boning someone.

A marvelous lesson.