Bookish: Top 5 Wednesday – Favourite Siblings #2

Once upon a time a young (ish) woman sat at her desk and thought, “I shall write a list and I shall make it be about the top 5 siblings in fiction that are my favourite.” And she sat, long into the night or at least until early evening, with a list that kept getting longer and longer.

“How will I ever narrow this down?” she exclaimed. “There are too many siblings that I consider my favourite!”

A raven flew up to her window (or maybe it was just a dirty pigeon). “Caw,” it crowed through the glass, “why don’t you just write more than one list?”

“Could I?” asked the young (ish) woman who tried to pull her small yet feisty familiar cat away from the window ledge where she was thwaping at the glass. “Why are you like this?” she muttered to the feline.

“Of course,” spoke the raven, ignoring the cat. “There are no laws in the book blogging world.”

And then, with a final, poignant glance, the bird flew away.

It 100%, absolutely happened like that. 

National Sibling Day happened on the 10th April and I did a Top 5 Friday on my Favourite Siblings which you can find here if you are so inclined. I really did have so many more to include and because May’s Top 5 Wednesday’s are a bit more ‘free-form’ I’m deciding to go rogue and include the second part of my list here.

Enjoy!

(http://taryndraws.tumblr.com/post/133961105956/my-children-3-the-colder-weather-has-got-me) 

Yes. What says sibling love than petty jealousies over who is the more attractive sister, lying over the secret you and your baby sister share by telling the others that she is a liar and then agreeing to turn your brother and sisters over to a witch who wants to kill you all. Good times, good times.

Nothing says sibling love like The Pevensies. They got over it though and they weren’t without their moments of love and affection, they just had their disagreements along the way. So, just like actual siblings then?

Memo to self: Ask baby brother if he was ever tempted to sell me out to evil for a packet of Smarties. Actually don’t, the answer would be yes.

(Fables (c) Bill Willingham) 

If you want complicated sibling relationships where one sister is trying to get the other one killed due to a severe inferiority complex and reasons yet still deeply loves them at the same time than look no further than Snow White and Rose Red in the Fables series of graphic novels.

Ok, so complicated doesn’t even begin to sum up the relationship that these women have with each other from mini betrayals to extreme betrayals to solely relying on the other for survival. It’s a journey. It’s actually a wonderful journey and I love the depth of this series.

(Artist: PhantomRin)

In keeping with the theme of ‘complicated’ sibling relationships I’m going to chuck in The Archeron Sisters from A Court of Thorns and Roses.

Now my disclaimer is this: I don’t actually like the series. Sorry to those of you that do. I have my reasons which I won’t get into here but for some reason I do find some of the characters rather compelling. But that’s because I like complex, difficult women and complex, difficult relationships. In my books that is. I like the former in real life but not so much the latter.

The character I particularly find intriguing is either incredibly loved or incredibly despised. Some of the reasons for her being hated is a) because of her personality and/ or b) the way that she has treated another (beloved) character – her sister – in the past.

I have thoughts but like I said, I won’t get into it here. Needless to say, I find the sisterly dynamic between this trio more interesting than any of the romances in that series.

(Source: Disney)

I feel Wendy on some spiritual level. I am the eldest sister of three and the two younger siblings are brothers. Oddly enough we used to play ‘Neverland’ in our garden as children where different places in the garden were places in Neverland. The patch of grass behind the clothes line was were the mermaids lived, just as an example.

The Darlings have a pretty lovely sibling bond actually with Wendy ready to do anything and everything for her brothers and dreading the idea that she will have to move out of the nursery. Sure, you could also say it’s symbolic of her fear of growing up and becoming a woman and having to do what’s expected of her in Victorian society like raising a whole bunch of Lost Boys children. I could say it, but I’m not. Wink.

(Artist: Charles Santore)

Every single fairy tale ever.

Two of the above selections (Snow White and Rose Red & The Archeron Sisters) are based on fairy tale elements (obviously Snow White and Rose Red are actual fairy tale characters). There are a lot of fairy tale elements relating to siblings to choose from. Sisters that love each other, sisters that hate each other, brother and sisters that love and protect each other, creepy brother and sister relationships, competitive brothers, supporting brothers and so on.

So many choices! So many things to think about!

The picture I have chosen is based on The Little Mermaid (the original version and not Disney) as The Little Mermaid is my favourite fairy tale of all time. In the original when our titular mermaid realises that she’s going to die it’s her sisters that band together and give their hair to the sea-witch in order to get a knife for their baby sister to plunge into the prince’s heart.

She doesn’t go through with it but they tried.

How do these siblings shape up? Does anyone have any more to suggest? Keep them coming!