IM: Has the tropification of the final girl expanded the trope or has the tropification made it worse?
DK: The praise may be limiting today. It is probably in need of a bigger refresh than is happening now.
ME: Likes when tropes become commonly- and well-known. "It's on the list now status." Now writers have to consider what it means to use that trope.
ME: "Let's do this: Cabin in the Woods."
SM: Epic rant I cannot reproduce but you should know I was clapping all by myself.
ME: First time many people in mainstream became fully aware of these tropes and how they're deployed.

Q: What are thoughts on the girls who get out because they join the antagonist. Are they still a final girl?
SM: You can become a villain after you're a final girl as long as you were the last one standing before you become a villain.
SM: If you were the villain all along you were playing a different role. If the final girl was never actually at risk then she's not a final girl.

Q: After reading My Heart's A Chainsaw--what's the next evolution of the final girl?
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/My-Heart-Is-a-Chainsaw/Stephen-Graham-Jones/The-Indian-Lake-Trilogy/9781982137632
SM: Have you read "We Are All Completely Fine?"
https://darylgregory.com/books/we-are-all-completely-fine/
ME: Seanan's Wayward Children series.
https://us.macmillan.com/series/waywardchildren

PS: Talking about gender issues with final girls.
(I remember fanfic from the Buffy days about a trans final girl.)
SM: Infantilization of women. Girls doesn't mean child. ASh is a final girl, you'd never say "final boy."
SM: Enby rep in media is new. Horror is going to be slow to catch up. Issues come up when trans (for example) characters die because it feels like killing the character for what they are instead of killing because it's slasher media. Nobody wants to be the first one to negotiate this.
DK: Hopeful. The change will start at the fringes and move inward.

Accessibility critique: If you are going to have captioning you must familiarize the captioners with the appropriate terms. They are messing up "slasher" during a panel on final girls.

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A Critical Look at the Final Girl Trope
Daniel Kraus, Ian Muneshwar (moderator), Meg Elison, Priya Sridhar, Seanan McGuire
The last character (often but not exclusively female) left in a film, particularly slasher films, traditionally ticks a lot of the same boxes that boil down to her being "purer" than the others. The term has been around since 1992, but the trope has been with us a lot longer and has evolved in recent years. What does this evolution look like? Has calling out the trope (to the point that there's now a book by Grady Hendrix called The Final Girl Support Group) helped in that evolution? Is it dead as a doornail, or is there some life left?

(I am delighted to be making the live panel for this. I LOVE final girls. I love deconstructing that topic. I also adore Seanan and all her writing.)

SM: I like slashers.
ME: New book "Number One Fan." https://www.amazon.com/Number-One-Fan-Meg-Elison-ebook/dp/B09GB91DJ1/
DK: Horror fan since he first saw Night of the Living Dead.
PS: Likes tropes and flipping them around.
IM: Teaches and writes horror and weird fiction.

IM: Carol J. Clover in her book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (1992)
https://www.amazon.com/Men-Women-Chain-Saws-Gender/dp/0691006202

IM: Talk about notable or favorite final girl.
PS: Raven from 2000s Teen Titans.
Buffy was supposed to be a deconstruction of the trope. (Joss is terrible but we won't go into that right now.)
DK: Men, Women, and Chainsaws was his first encounter with the trope. Likes Nancy from Nightmare on Elm Street
ME: Likes final girls in short fiction.
We the Girls Who Did Not Make It
Never Tell A Cop Your Real Name
ME: Wants to challenge the notion that final girls are only in horror. They also exist in action. Like Sarah Connor.
SM: Same elements in gothic fiction.
ME: Mina Harper is a final girl.
SM: Sam and Regina from Night of the Comet. Sam is explicitly saved by her sexuality.

IM: What is her staying power? Why is she so relevant?
ME: We expect girls to make smarter decisions which leads to the greater possibility they'll survive. Notes that it's false that girls are more mature, it's that society assumes they are.
SM: Not coming up with many female antagonists. Closest is Tiffany. Like Harley Quinn can't take out the Batman because the Joker would be sad in his heart.
DK: Girls are more prepared to continue fighting because of real life in a way "doofuses" aren't.
DK, ME, SM: Ash from The Evil Dead.
DK: He's sort of a Buster Keaton, which you don't get from final girls.
SM: He has the same aspect of improvising out of his environment that final girls have.
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Everyone: So many stories from the Middle Ages we need to revive. Not keep retelling the same things.
GP: There's a safety in recapping the same thing.
WW: We forgot that stories can challenge worldviews and perceptions. Fantasy is used as escapism. Fantasy is the best mechanism to carry mythological truths that can shake the core of your being.

KH: Brings up comment about religious intolerance.
"I just find it contradictory to say the middle ages weren't bad and weren't ruled by superstition when there are many instances of religious intolerance."
KH: There's an overall assumption that Middle Ages people were living in a time more benighted than ours, that people did not engage in critical thinking. Not true.
WW: The religious wars will also political and people in the Middle Ages knew that.
WW: Is superstition necessarily a bad thing?
GP: Superstition is a problem word. If something fits within a belief structure it's religion. Superstition refers to the stray remnants of stuff that doesn't fit when culture changes. (!!!)
(Gillian Polack is one of my favorite panelists. She knows her stuff and has such interesting stories.)

Q: If you had to recommend a single book that best demonstrates the richness of the Middle Ages, which book would it be?
KH: The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco.
Likes description of monastery and dive into 14thC philosophy. Notes book is told through white Christian male pov. Notes book is problematic in some ways.
WW: Baudolino, Umberto Eco.
It's a wild romp through the Middle Ages.
It's the kind of farce that people in the Middle Ages loved to write themselves.
GP: Can't specifically recommend because we write in our language so it doesn't reflect the Middle Ages. Does rec a specific book for specific things: Raoul de Cambrai.
WW: The Decameron.
GP: Keep in mind why you are reading. If you want to understand the Middle Ages read the Middle Ages. If you want to read modern fantasy then read that.
KH: Interesting to read different translations of medieval lit. Mentions Beowulf translations.
WW: Remember that in the Middle Ages they were often retelling stories. Just like us, creating new and rewriting old.

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The Middle Ages Weren't Actually Bad
Gillian Polack, Kate Heartfield (moderator), W.B.J. Williams
The new book The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe makes the case that the Middle Ages were actually a remarkable time in human history, that the common depictions of "Dark Age" superstition, ignorance, and poor hygiene are mischarecterizing hundreds of years of vibrant culture. What does that imply about rethinking Medieval-inspired fantasy? What are basically-Medieval, basically-European fantasies getting wrong, and how do "period" fantasies feed back into current popular misconceptions?

The Bright Ages
https://www.amazon.com/Bright-Ages-History-Medieval-Europe-ebook/dp/B08Y913GY3/

KH: We understand history in narratives, those narratives come from specific perspectives.
KH: What are some of the most common misconceptions about the Medieval Ages.
GP: Using spices to cover taste and smell of rotten meat means you die from rotten meat.
KH: Misconception--Spices were unheard of in medieval Europe.
WW: Misconception--Feudalism was ubiquitous. Instead there were democracies and communes also.
CP: City-states existed too.
KH: Misconception--Everyone thought the earth was flat.
GP: Misconception--Everyone was dirty and didn't wash.
WW: Misconception--live was nasty, brutal, and short. Instead there were many festivals.
GP: People lived 60-90 years, at 6000 calories a day. (From a study, the details of which I missed.)
WW: Plague in 1300s lead to technological advancements--automated things, water power--because of labor shortages.

GP: Structure of a type of medieval story is familiar to modern superhero storytelling.
GP: How popular a story is doesn't tell you how well it's written.
GP: The Middle Ages has the stories that everybody copies.
WW: The Decameron
(Me: This is like a flashback to my medieval lit class.)

WW: Misconception--that there was no respect for other cultures or traditions. Specifically mentions Jewish stories. Literary and philosophers were borrowing and crediting.
GP: Also stories that were not told across cultures. Specifically a Jewish story about Jesus. There were secret traditions in every culture.
KH: Also propaganda. Like stories about Jews created in England in the Middle Ages. Don't assume because it's medieval that it's true.

KH: Why do misconceptions matter in fantasy?
WW: The stories that get sold. Agents and publishers look at misconceptions in existing lit and assume that's the standard and will not publish stories without it/contradicting it. Example: No people of color in Nordic lands. Example: That religion and science were not antithetical.

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Libraries in SFF
Kathryn Sullivan (moderator), Mary Anne Mohanraj, Sultana Raza
Libraries are frequently seen in science fiction and fantasy. How are these institutions regarded and used in those stories? How does the futuristic technology enhance the mission of libraries, and what does the use of magic in fantasy libraries tell us about how we wished they worked? How do those places serve their visitors? This panel will explore libraries in SFF and what the libraries of today might learn to become them in the future.

MM: Mentions this is probably a common genre reader experience: we read everything in our small library that had a dragon or spaceship on the cover.

KS: Talking about how actual libraries today have a different, wider purpose than they did 5-10 years ago.
MM: Libraries are the community center.
MM: Her specific library has partnered with Parks Dept. Some rooms are pottery studio, jewelry center, video gaming for teens. Librarians do popup libraries in laundromats and barbershops--places where they usually aren't.
[Me: I think this is great. Libraries as a center of community is wonderful. Popups are so cool.]

KS: Some libraries lend out kitchen tools.
MM: Space is an issue with many libraries.
MM: Fictional libraries say things about the world/characters.

Comparison of who reads paper books or digital books and why.
[Me: digital books are an accessibility aid.]

MM: Book of your life. Books from author who died before they got to finish. Books you meant to read but didn't get to.
KS: All the books that had never been written.

SR: Compares extremely long-lived characters to walking, talking libraries.

From a Commenter: libraries are all about discovery, self-discovery as well as about the world, the universe
MM: Not what is there, but what you go there for.

obligatory mention of The Librarian from Pratchett

Rec: Excerpt from If on a winter's night a traveler, Italo Calvino
https://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/00/pwillen1/lit/winter.htm

MM: Who gets to have knowledge (library) and who doesn't.
MM: Women were not literate throughout history. Slaves weren't allowed to read or write.
SR: WWII people not allowed to read or write in French. People were not allowed to read and write in Welsh at some time.

MM: The librarian of the future is a chip in your brain.

[Me: They did not go into the actual topic very much. There was a bit of chat about personal favorite SFF libraries.]

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