There's also the less frequently-occurring variant in which the female lead is somewhat paranormal/supernatural to begin with, although the male lead or leads at least initially is far more powerful. Series (they're usually series--Ilona Andrews' "On the Edge" is the only apparent one-off example of this I can think of) that fit this pattern include Andrews' "Magic Bites/Burns/Slays," etc., whose heroine is basically a very adept warrior with somewhat less well-developed magical abilities on the side, and Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire (a/k/a "True Blood") series, in which the otherwise apparently normal human Sookie is a telepath. (Evidently in the HBO TV version Sookie has now been revealed to be at least part fairy, although this doesn't happen until much farther into the book series, if it ever does--I've only read the first four or five novels so far.) Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson series probably also qualifies, since although Mercy as a skinwalker/were-coyote lacks some of the classic vulnerabilities of more conventional werewolves, she is also less physically powerful than the various male werewolves who are romantically interested in her. Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, vampire hunter, also starts out as a somewhat more formidable example of the "human except for one preternatural ability" type that Sookie Stackhouse fits into, with the preternatual ability in question in Anita's case being the ability to raise--and, to some extent, control--the dead. Of course, as the series progresses Anita becomes more and more powerful, going from a mere (re)animator to a fullblown necromancer, then beginning to develop her own unique variations of some of the powers of her various vampire and werewolf/wereleopard/shapeshifter lovers. By the time of "The Harlequin," fifteen books into the series, if not before, she seems to have become as powerful--in some ways perhaps even more powerful--than either of the two supernatural males she has spent much of the series bonded with in a magical triumvirate of power (i.e., the master vampire Jean-Claude and Richard Zeeman, the head of the local werewolf pack).
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branchandroot
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Date: 2011-07-30 03:20 pm (UTC)Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, vampire hunter, also starts out as a somewhat more formidable example of the "human except for one preternatural ability" type that Sookie Stackhouse fits into, with the preternatual ability in question in Anita's case being the ability to raise--and, to some extent, control--the dead. Of course, as the series progresses Anita becomes more and more powerful, going from a mere (re)animator to a fullblown necromancer, then beginning to develop her own unique variations of some of the powers of her various vampire and werewolf/wereleopard/shapeshifter lovers. By the time of "The Harlequin," fifteen books into the series, if not before, she seems to have become as powerful--in some ways perhaps even more powerful--than either of the two supernatural males she has spent much of the series bonded with in a magical triumvirate of power (i.e., the master vampire Jean-Claude and Richard Zeeman, the head of the local werewolf pack).