Four Revelations
by rsbakker
Aphorism of the Day: If words were feathers then scientists would be falcons, preachers would be vultures, writers would be peacocks, and philosophers would be turkeys.
I’ve put up a draft of an Atrocity Tale here. [Click it now if you want to read it without any commentary whatsoever].
I’ve wanted to include a Nonman stream-of-consciousness piece in the books for quite some time, but I thought the exercise would simply gum the story up too much for too many readers, as well as compromise the singularity of the likewise opaque White-Luck Warrior sections, which I wanted to stand out as much as possible.
Comments are most welcome.
Three Pound Brain 
My Monday just significantly improved.
^ Same here.
Maybe I misread that but, Nin’janjin was riding Sil before he leaped to kill Cujara Cinmoi?
The mystery of Wutteat’s broken-neck escapades continue.
Conphas seems a bit weird here. I’d expect him more to masturbate onto the Nonman like the Concubine than to stab his eye.
Wish these comments had an edit option so I could add more rather than replying.
But it took me a few rereads, but the Nonman dude is tossing his daughter off a cliff right, as she dies from the womb-plague? Why? It can’t be for the sake of memory – the whole trauma-for-memory thing comes about because of erraticism, which would take centuries afterward to manifest, right?
The answer is actually in the text, Jurb. Not clearly so, but it’s there.
ahh ambiguity. Flesh Angels is One Revelation, where are the other three?
Do you really mean for us to copy and paste the text into word and then cut and paste it into separate sections so that we put the jigsaw puzzle back in order? Is that cumbersome and laborious process how we extract four revelations from such opacity? Or is the number four merely another jape, an opaque and meaningless number meant to tease and test the reader?
I took from this that the nonman had a daughter (who may not have been his daughter as it sounds like his wife liked to taunt him with the idea that she slept around) whom he got pregnant. I’m not sure, but maybe he killed his pregnant daughter as well (do nonmen think of incest as abominable as halaroi do?)…
And it seemed to me that this takes place mostly on the fields of Pir Pahal, and the nonman, fighting in that ancient battle, is having all his memories mixed up with the GO2.0 post-battle. I’m presuming the present day (burning) stuff is that the nonman was from Ishterebinth and fighting for Kellhus. The prince, I assume, was Moenghus. If he is the heir at this point, Kayutus is either dead or presumed dead because Cayuti (whoops, I mean Kayutas, funny how I mixed that up) is sneaking through the tunnels to try and enter Golgotteranth and recover the Heron Spear.
I love that word, jape. It think if you think about what you know about the Nonmen, the fog will lift somewhat (as much as the hero’s foggy soul allows). The Glossary is the rosetta stone for this piece.
There’s actually some very concrete clues regarding the identity of the human speaker.
Is this going to be comparable to the TTT appendix? That was such a bonus for the first trilogy, and it remains one of my favorite things to read.
The new glossary is shaping up to be far too big to be ‘appendicized,’ unfortunately.
That was fascinating. I had an idea of what it meant for Nonmen to become erratic and utterly consumed by their memories, but this . . . it’s almost like drowning for the character.
One question – I thought Sil died in the first conflict between Non-men and the Inchoroi, before the Inchoroi betrayed them with the Womb Plague. Is Cinial’jiin getting his memories mixed of the conflicts mixed up?
Memory is associative, as opposed to linear. I don’t know about you, but I never have memories unfold the way they seem to in the movies. A couple bad habits might explain that…
ahh, I missed the references to grandmother and uncle. I keyed in on heir and black hair and figured it was Moe.
It’s still weird though. Even if Cinial’jiin has his memories mixed up, he is still seeing a dead Cujara Cinmoi strapped to the shield of Sil, who should be dead already by that point in time. Dare one suggest a continuity error?
The ( superb) entry for the Cunu-inchoroi wars is shown here:
http://princeofnothing.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline
It says that the first battle sees Cujara Cinmoi strike down Sil and take from him the Heron Spear. This atrocity Tale clearly takes place during the second battle, it has Ciogli killing Wutteat, but has still Sil alive, with the Heron Spear, and a dead Cujara Cinmoi. Something’s off. Because we know that a few centuries later, Mekeritrig stole the Heron Spear from the Nonmen.
It’s also curious that the entry states that the Nonmen who came to Cujara’s position only ever found a headless corpse, yet in this tale you have him borne upon Sil’s shield. Any comments on that Scott, because it seems a bit suspicious.
Re; Conphas, of course, makes sense now, I just needed someone else to point it out ( not the first time in Earwa discussions).
And I still have no idea what the child is asking her father for.
That’s a continuity error, a product of the associative miasma of my memory. This is a draft remember. I posted this without giving it to anyone to proof, thinking it would be interesting to let everyone in on the process. Now I’m wondering whether I’m just ruining the illusion!
Honestly, retcon it. Maybe Nonmen who wrote the Isuphiryas were already losing it. Nin’janjin riding SIl is too cool.
It IS a cool image. But the idea all along was to accept that there would be a gradual accumulation of inconsistencies – since this is structure of actual history and actual memory – short of anything inexplicable. You could explain Cinial’jin misremembering certain things, but nothing as significant as this.
Oh Bakker how could you….don’t you know measure in unceasing. 😉
I invented Kellhus because life just wasn’t exacting enough…
You know, I have this ancient timeline, paper yellowed, printed on an inkjet, that I’ve added to and fiddled with over and over for over a decade now. My resolution is to MARK CHANGES I make adapting details to the books. Now it looks like messages scribbled in a public bathroom stall.
I’m starting to think I need to hire someone to go through and systemize everything. That, or stick to the wiki… Or maybe just doublecheck. Fuck.
There’s something perverse about a wiki that echos the fictions spine, then the wiki becoming the spine of the further fiction. Kinda makes me think of conciousness.
Well, according to some models, consciousness is a kind of wiki…
So it keeps bugging you for donations?
Wait…that probably works in the analogy…so it’s not funny anymore…
No worries Scott, as you say this is a draft, better to spot it now then in a published book.
Not a bad idea to use the Wiki’s timeline for yourself and then edit it on your PC by the way.
As for whether or not this should have been included in say, WLW, or a previous book, I think the style is certainly good enough to be in it, but I would say that the story itself is so inviting that you would then be required to put in a few more chapters about the Nonman in said book.
That’s thing I’m discovering with these stories: they provide an entirely different way to mine/explore/elaborate the world without any narrative restrictions.
So if the new Glossary is too big to appendicize in Unholy Consult why stick to the frame of dead trees?
You’ve already entered a new frame, free of dead trees, with this story, cannot this frame be used to encapsulate the glossary as its own entity.
Or perhaps a new frame shall be invoked? In the darkest reaches of the Amazon natives whisper of a glowing, eternal flame, a fire kept by kindling of ancient texts and new, a frame which encompasses all the past within its earthly bounds, a frame which can be seen both in darkness and in light of day. The Amazon natives take from this flame and when they do they leave an offering to the God and the gods who keep the flame alight.
Sounds like a frame job!
I agree with Adam. Self-publish the big ol’ version or place it on the net. It’s about time you finially gave in to industry pressure and devoted a website to you and all that implies 🙂
Anyway, the excerpt was very interesting. I’ve always been curious as to your writing process–how many drafts does it take to hone the text to such exacting rhythm? How many darlings are left on the wayside? etc. This was sort of a raw version of your book prose.
a note: “There they stood, the famed father and the cherished daughter, their names no longer remembered, *there* sandalled feel upon the abyssal lip…” — that one stood out like a sore thumb. The “As they stand milling, the Men…” tense shift was also a bit jarring. The rest is like good memories of a bad drug trip. I loved it.
Thanks for spotting the glitch, Ian. This piece pretty much wrote itself.
i guess what i liked about this was how obviously and inherently Christian the story was.
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2011/11/07/is-fantasy-a-christian-genre/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ordinary-gentlemen+%28The+League+of+Ordinary+Gentlemen%29
you know, because it’s fantasy.
ochlocrat – Actually, if you, I dunno, read my post you’d see that I say fantasy is *not* inherently Christian, and that Bakker’s books, while obviously using some Christian themes and symbolism, hardly do so in order to promote anything at all like a Christian morality.
Re: the bookclub below, I think it will be a good, honest discussion of these books. Why do you suppose otherwise? I’m a big fan of Bakker’s work, and have described his latest book as one of the finest pieces of epic fantasy I’ve ever read. Do you have some reason to suppose that a group of fantasy readers discussing this work on the internet will inevitably require the sort of response you suggest?
Don’t mind ochlo, Erik! I’m sure he pasted the link to share rather than to mock. You tend to find a bunch of cynics around here for some goddamn reason. The reading group looks very cool. Drop me a line if you want to host a Q&A or something at some point.
That actually looks quite cool!
by the way, you should totally join this new internet book club:
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2011/11/06/the-prince-of-nothing-book-club-the-darkness-that-comes-before-part-one/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ordinary-gentlemen+%28The+League+of+Ordinary+Gentlemen%29
your posts should be limited to single words, though (e.g. “wrong”, “dumbass” etc.), so as not to distract too much from TUC.
No out cynicizing me on my own goddamn blog, ochlo! I still say it looks cool…
Someone at Westeros pointed out an interesting line, where Cinial’jin’s wife mocks him with the line that the “sole curse of the Ishroi” is to only “hope that they fathered their sons”. Is there some weirdness with Non-men breeding that we haven’t learned yet, but will come out in the stories?
I interpreted it as Aisarinqu specifically referring to the Nonmen caste of Ishroi. And that something about their caste’s culture -perhaps recurrent warfare- gives their wives windows of opportunities in which to copulate out of wedlock, which would probably be common among Ishroi.
For some reason I hadn’t always assumed that the Nonmen were monogamous though, or how they interacted with their Nonwomen (ha), so this was somewhat surprising, as was Cinial’jin’s furious response.
I’ve just finished reading the story though, so this is probably a superficial and untrustworthy interpretation.
On a side note, female Nonmen don’t have hair, right? It randomly occurred to me that it might spoil their intractable alien (while familiar) nature if the women had hair and appealed to human impressions of beauty.
Sorry for posting so much about this minor thing. It just occurred to me that I remember Akka reflecting in TJE that, of the various stories in which Cil-Aujas falls, he thinks that the most likely one involves the Meori chieftains and thanes seducing the Ishroi.
I might be reading it wrong, but that would seem to indicate that the Ishroi are more inclined to being seduced by males. . . ? Notable aristocratic warriors in human history have been homosexual, though, so this might not be too much of a leap. Don’t know if that’s entirely relevant or not but I found it interesting.
Don’t apologize. I like your ideas.
I actually could see some type of homosexuality being very common among the Ishroi, particularly since Non-men society was organized around castes (the Quya were a special caste). It’s possible that they had a Sparta-like situation going on there, where male Ishroi spent most of their time with other male Ishroi, and homosexual relationships were actually encouraged.
I hope not. I always envisioned them as statuesque, inhumanly beautiful mole men, complete with hairless white skin and different teeth. Especially since they seem to be fond of living in underground cities.
RAFO! Been waiting for an excuse to pull that…
Excellent story Scott, I must admit I tend to follow this site more for your stories than your philosophy, love your work.
Any update on TUC? (can’t blame a guy for trying)
Plugging away. But it’s a big book, and still months away from submission.
Seraphimal wrote:
“I interpreted it as Aisarinqu specifically referring to the Nonmen caste of Ishroi. And that something about their caste’s culture -perhaps recurrent warfare- gives their wives windows of opportunities in which to copulate out of wedlock, which would probably be common among Ishroi.”
This is pretty much exactly how I read it.
Add two data points for that bit of ambiguity Scott. (Also, you really do like cheating and cuckolding as a recurring theme in your work. Like you said… literary fiction equivalent of a dragon…)
The recurring theme is actually the (often dysfunctional) way culture accomodates biology – which, as we all know, comes down to fucking.
Actually, that makes me think of the social repercussions of human technology again. Men now have the ability to completely ascertain their paternity. By and large, no one really talks about this or cares unless they’re watching Maury.
But think about it. This technology lets human males do something that no male in the entire evolutionary history has ever been able to do with near 100% confidence. In the long-term that would mean at least one very important thing: increased paternal investment in offspring should be selected for. Essentially, one the key distinguishing features
Here’s a technology available to anybody, with potentially disruptive long-term effects to a VERY long history of evolutionary adaptations and counter-adaptations to cuckolding. And we have only the most meager of legal and social institutions to govern its use…
Think of that poor bugger in Texas, who discovered that each of his three children were fathered by a different man, and was ordered by the court to provide support for all of them. These kinds of normative short circuits are simply going to proliferate as the technology accelerates. That’s the fear: that we lack the hardwired capacity to adapt our norms quickly enough.
Is there enough data in this short story to determine the location of Siol? I don’t know whether I ought to obsessively scan the books for references to peach trees or not.
Some kind of moonbase, isn’t it?
Heh, I have to admit I did laugh yesterday when it hit me that no female character has agency in this story either.
What male character has agency?
Hmmmm…Conphas? It is interesting to contrast this story about which burning with The Bread We Eat in Our Dreams:
http://apex-magazine.com/2011/11/01/the-bread-we-eat-in-dreams/
It feels like sides of a feminine/masculine coin.
I think Bakker has published Light Time Gravity under a nom de plume: Been Learner? Really? and also under a different title.
Wish there was an edit function. The joke doesn’t really work if I don’t leave a link to the article in question, and just leave the youtube bit. :-p
Here’s the book that sounds like Light Time Gravity, written by Ben Lerner.
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/09/142109786/life-without-plot-in-leaving-the-atocha-station
If Maude bore Spock’s child…
Funny stuff!
Bakker,
I was wondering, if kellhus become immortal like the nonmen would he develop the sociopathic tendencies. Would he experience the horror of existence would the ruts of trauma still dig as deep.
Nonmen become Erratics because their mental hard-disks fill up. Or their index simply grows so large searching under something like “Apples” reveals a zillion hits to the point where all they get is static and no meaningful information. They seek trauma because trauma is what they remember. However, that’s because they’re Nonmen. Nonmen Erratics remember pain and suffering. It’s just how they work.
Humans, not Nonmen, suppress and forget trauma as a coping mechanism. A Dunyain doesn’t even possess the ability to feel trauma. There’s no reason that Kellhus would become Erratic if immortal.
Moreover, if Kellhus were to become immortal, I’m sure he wouldn’t have the Consult apply the Womb-Plague to him. Aurang and Aurax have lived for millenia without any mental degradations. Shaeonanra and the Mangaecca probably haven’t lost their minds either. If Kellhus were to become immortal (entirely in reality and with some Outside-mumbojumbo or becoming the God/the No-God), he’d probably use the Mangaecca method, which from context clues seems to be soul-trapping related.
That is so awesome thank you.
Prior (I think) thousand fold thought embedding itself in Kellhus, there was a bit in one of the books which, in a passage related to Kellhus, he recalls the fur trapper he abandoned so long ago. I presume he’s remembering it and I presume he remembers it because it matters somehow. But post TTT, he has no POV frame for us any more, so maybe it doesn’t apply now.
Kellhus several times experiences emotion. The ones that I recall are when he feels pity for Cnaiur while he’s holding him over a cliff-edge, and when he sees Cnaiur raping Serwe and feels something. But those emotions are merely . He is physically incapable of feeling passion. They’re just vestigial.
But Kellhus’ insanity is already well-known. The What Has Come Before tells us he is insane. Moe thinks his son is insane. Kellhus thinks he hears the God’s voice in the environment or something. But insanity is non-normative behavior, and Kellhus is insane relative to Dunyain not relative to humans.
He remembers Lewin, I believe his name was, because he doesn’t forget things, not because Lewin was traumatic… It’s just easier for him (and thus the Shortest Path) to reuse actual events rather than fabricate them for the sake of his sermons – just as he uses Dunyain philosophy in his Zaudunyani Inrithism, what with its Shortest Path stuff.
my friend was suggesting that Kellhus is already insane, just wired in such a way of apparent martyrdom.
What I’m thinking of wasn’t part of a sermon, as I recall? Though I think he did use it latter for one, granted. No, it was just something that went through his head, much like when his heart beat when Esme walked along the top of a wall (for fun), somewhat like the two scenes with the twig. I guess I should have recorded the page number.
I remember it was a good scene, I think you are on to something.
It doesn’t have the option for me to reply to your post above this. I’ve just re-read the scene where Cnauir takes Serwe again. My reading is, he thinks that something is outraged (reality?) as opposed to himself feeling it.
” There was something… something here(italics) , he could sense. Something outraged.”
Of course this could be a description of someone totally unfamiliar with emotion feeling it, hence thinking it was something other than him that was feeling it. Or “here” was his sense of self
I thought this was the beginning of him getting “contacted” by the voice that hails him from the darkness.
Well i’m not sure of course it could be Kellhus conditoning breaking down.
Beyond those he already has? It’s hard question because it would force me to decide what kind of brain he has, whether the residuum of humanity he possesses would spike the selection of memories after his banks were filled.
Cool, that makes sense. and some interesting ideas about the issues involving the brain. I hadn’t thought about it in terms of some choice making process of the brain (not the self) to determine which memories reside in the brain. I guess in some huge distortion of Kellhus he might be able to choose those memories. Though I can see what you mean by the residue humanity inside of him. Thanks.
Okay, it might seem like I’m taking potshots but another thing that kind of took me out of the story was the possible incest, definite adultery of the Nonmen characters.
It just seems like everyone, all the time, has a fucked up sex life in Earwa. Maybe it is just me, but it starts to feel soap opera-ish at times.
I *still* don’t understand how Psatma seduced the Fanim prince, just seemed like a nod to the idea of the oversexed, stupid male stereotype.
Ever notice how when you buy a Volvo you suddenly start to see Volvos everywhere? Make a list of all the POV characters, then make a list of all those who have ‘fucked up sex lives,’ then keep in mind that the darknesses that come before are the thematic foundation of the series… Otherwise, what did you actually read in this particular text?
A fear of adultery. That’s it. The rest is just you seeing Volvos.
Oh, this particular text has fear of adultery. But looking at POV characters:
SPOILERS
-Emperor has sex with Mom
-Mimara has sex with Akka
-Cophas gets raped by Cnauir
-Inchies rape that tribe near Golgotterath
-Mimara nearly ends up raped by…Galian at the end of WLW
-Esmenet and the skin spy in Darkness Come Before
-Psatma seducing Fanim Prince
-Akka has sex with Serwe
-Mimara and Esmi both have sex with Inhalias (sp? probably messed up earlier ones)
-Sorweel jerks off to Serwa and Moe (mind you, I don’t think Serwa and Moe are fucked up)
It just seems like men are often easily seduced, and women have one vehicle toward controlling their lives and that is sex. Even Psatma, who starts off as an old woman, ends up using sex as a means of control.
Mimara decides, for reasons unclear to me at least, not learning sorcery and thus is helpless before her rapists and the end of WLW.
In this story we have perhaps one woman, the Nonman wife, who has agency, and she is presented as a bitch. The daughter is dying and the girl is strangled. Compare the role of women in the books to the Valente story I linked to. Both stories are excellent, but in terms of women’s agency it’s a pretty sharp contrast.
That said, the masculine psychology of this story and the books is very good, and many of the fallacies men use to deceive themselves is well done, my favorite being Sorweel just convinced that he has a chance with Serwa.
Perfect example. I asked you to draw up TWO lists, and you only gave me the one that confirms you.
You really wanted me to list all the POV characters in all the novels? I figured that was more a in-your-head thing.
I’m not sure what this is a “perfect example” of, please clarify. Not sure I even understand the thing about Volvos.
My point isn’t a complaint about smut, it is the predictability of the character motivations and backgrounds.
It’s perfect example of selective attention: as soon as our bean is primed to find something, we seem to see it everywhere. This is particularly the case when we’re making an argument: selective attention becomes the slave of confirmation bias. On top of that, we game ambiguities: what is merely the fear of adultery becomes ‘one more example of fucked up sexuality and incest.’ (I’m not sure how you managed to insert that last one into the text).
I spend a lot of time writing, and I don’t feel that much of it is given over to sexuality (none at all in this story), certainly not too much given the thematic importance of sexuality. As for pathology? That’s everywhere, not just in the sex. Pathology is the engine of story telling. Writers write about the extremes.
I understand it’s staring you right in the face: but it’s your reading, not my writing. Otherwise, how do you explain your reaction to this story as ‘more of the same excess’?
Incest possibility came from the “wayward desire” line.
MORE SPOILERS FOR WLW and TTT below:
It isn’t about the amount of sex, the Valente story is far more erotic, but rather sex as the only tool for women’s agency and an avenue for degradation of both genders. Sorweel watching Serwa and Moe have sex I could fathom, him jerking off seemed like railroading the character into greater humiliation upon his discovery.
Esmi is Empress, but a clearly powerless one, seemingly less effective than during her tenure as Master of Spies. Kellhus might have trained her, or given her intellect (the reason given for Kellhus mating with her) she might have shown more intelligence in her running of the Empire and still failed. Upon failure her recourse is to be rescued by a man she was sleeping with, who takes her to the apartment of a prostitute. Felt like another railroad, to me anyway.
For the male characters, we can expect them to be seduced or be lustful enough to be rapists. Mind you, the rape the soldiers engage in during the Holy War was realistic (to my untrained historical eye) and made the actions of Proyas regarding the girl he encounters at the end of TTT that much more poignant.
This isn’t your initial complaint.
One of the things I find interesting about this ‘Agency Argument’ is that it happens to probably be the one thing in the text that I most self-consciously work on. I’ve had a couple of copy-editors, for instance, complain about the frequency with which I say, ‘He found himself…’ I find it so interesting because I’ve come to realize how for so many readers the issue only becomes visible when paired with gender. There’s so much more going on. And there’s so much more yet to happen. This is an ugly world filled with ugly characters – the way worlds tend to be when they live on the edge of scarcity. Even given that, your generalizations are simply dead wrong. Caricatures.
I don’t know what to say except to rent some Disney movies. Or even better, check some stuff on the sex-slave trade. My female characters don’t suffer a fraction of the torment and humiliation that living, breathing women are suffering this moment now. And I certainly don’t see how turning them into Xena’s does anything other than reinforce the illusion that sexism has been licked.
In the meantime, at least try to entertain the possibility that the book I’m writing is a little bit bigger than the one you seem to be reading. Keep counting Volvo’s (which you will want to do, now that you have stake in the issue) and you will simply read the text you need to read to prove yourself right. Everybody does. Keep shouting ‘Volvo!’ and I’m sure you will influence others to do the same.
All I can do is remain honest to the original, and keep saying, ‘I know that trench is comfortable, but you can see so much more if you work to climb this hill.’ What else can I do? Pretend their isn’t more to be seen? Concede that your reading is the most exhaustive, complete one?
Similarly, Scott, keep assuming that no one who brings up the point that you might have too many Volvos could possibly be correct.Because if there’s one thing that selection bias needs, it’s confirmation bias on the other side shouting that you’re wrong without actually doing any real analysis.
Off the top of my head, here’s the PoV characters that I’m aware of.
heir to Anasurimbor – gets raped as a kid
Akka – all sorts of odd things, including but not limited to Serwe and Mimara and Inrau
Inrau – likely relationship with Akka
Esme – apparently really gets off on hooking
Cnaiur – seduced by Moe, rapist, homosexual (this isn’t a bad thing, only that it’s a very emphasized thing)
Serwe: defined almost entirely by sexual desire, sleeps with Akka because she’s told to.
Skin-spies: controlled by sex programmatically
Aurang: race of lovers, tentacle porn demons
Conphas – raped by grandmother most likely, raped by Cnaiur later
Conphas’ uncle – raped by mother
Proyas – to my knowledge doesn’t have any issues
Sorweel – jerks off while feeling shame to Serwa
Mimara – whore, raped repeatedly, fucks Akka
Psatma – fucks WLW to give him power, randomly seduces Fanim because hey, why not?
Meppo – to my knowledge nothing special, though those eyesockets are looking pretty purdy.
Random boy at end of TTT – almost certainly going to get raped by Consult
Traveller – to my knowledge nothing.
Cat – to my knowledge, nothing
Kelmomas – to my knowledge nothing, though he certainly thinks about it quite a bit
Those are all the PoVs I can think of that have any real meaningful conversation. There are probably more out there that I can’t think of; for instance, it took a while to come up with the cat from TWP.
So of all of those we have Proyas, Meppo, the Traveler, Kelmonas and the cat. Is that about right, Scott?
It was depravity that Sci was referring to.
Your forgot the Inchoroi, who genetically altered themselves according to maximize the Hedon, the highest nihilistic good. Or that they engineered armies of denegerate Nonmen knock-offs who’s behaviour they control by molding their libido to their ends, so that the World is threatened by raving hosts of inhuman rapists.
And sure enough, sex finds itself a salient feature on my characters lives, almost as if all of them were strapped on some kind of continuum. Hmm. You might almost think I WAS TRYING TO EXPLORE SEXUALITY.
That I wanted to paint this horrific, hyperbolic back-drop of pure animality to foreground a collection of miserable outsiders struggling to hold onto their humanity in a world who’s metaphysics, and not just mores, cut against our own.
I wanted this world to be unhygenic as a way saying something about moral hygiene and here you guys insist on criticizing my moral hygiene. Seriously, guys. I’m getting to the Boo-frickety-hoo phase. You keep arguing, so surely you have some kind of conclusion you’re aiming at. Is it really simply ‘add an unsexualized female character!’ or ‘abandon your stupid theme and stop with the sex!’ or ‘feel bad because my moral censor is never wrong!’
Or is it you just missed my point, that you found yourselves on the tweaked side?
Didn’t forget the inchoroi, Scott – you just glossed over them to make a point. Selective bias, remember? Here’s what I said: “Skin-spies: controlled by sex programmatically
Aurang: race of lovers, tentacle porn demons”
Sciborg’s point was that you emphasize sexual aspects of your character’s lives, especially the fucked-up kind. You responded with ‘nuh uh, look at all the PoVs’. So I show most of them (adam brought up a bunch more that had like 1 page and presumably didn’t get raped by tentacles during that time) and then you say ‘HAH, I actually wanted to emphasize sexuality after all! JOKES ON YOU!”
Really?
My point here, Scott, has been that sexuality is something that you’ve clearly emphasized. And not just sexuality but unhygenic sexuality, as you’d put it. You denied the claim entirely from sciborg and accused him of wanting a disneyfied world of happy princesses, but then you say that this is what you want all along. So…which is it?
I mean, if you’re trying to explore sexuality and specifically the horrible sexuality and the link between psychological horror and sex, and then someone says ‘hey, there sure is a lot of messed up sex in your book’ – can’t you just say ‘you’re right, and there’s a good reason for it’? And then…state that reason? Instead you accuse them of reading into something that isn’t there or only choosing the things they want to see, despite it being your goal all along. That seems odd.
I keep arguing this point because much like the Archie Bunker thing with women vs. race, eventually I figure you’ll actually admit your true intentions and get into a conversation instead of accusing readers of only reading what they want to in it. Just like you did here. The reason that there’s so much fucked up sex and everyone’s influenced by it? Because you wanted to explore sexuality, specifically unhygenic sexuality, and how it affects people’s psychology and darkness that comes before. That it’s a central theme of the series and is specifically written about because of that.
If you want less argument about this sort of thing, probably start with actually assuming your readers saw what you wanted them to see but didn’t see it in the way you wanted them to and start talking about what your intent was. You might get a lot more positive outcomes that way.
Please go back and read those first posts, grav. Sci said dysfunctional sexuality. I said there was nothing out of proportion to the thematic stakes. And that the characters do alot more asides. Show a little charity, and you’ll see I’ve been saying the same stupid thing all along.
What you need to do is go through your list again, game all the instances of sex you can find to make them seem as garish and dysfunctional as possible, and blah, blah, blah…
I’ve still don’t see any reason anyone has given me to bite any MORE bullets than I have. In the meantime, what bullets have you bitten grav? Why shouldn’t I feel like I’m the only one to budge?
On half a narrative arc.
Actually sci said ‘fucked up sex life’. You might have read it as dysfunctional. I read it as fucked up sex life.
And yes, there is nothing out of proportion to the thematic stakes. This is the same tautology you keep using as justification. Rapey book is rapey.
The characters do do a lot more besides have fucked up sex, but they still spend a bunch of time dealing with fucked up sex. You can dismiss it in various ways – by saying that it’s only a small proportion, or that it’s thematically relevant, or that he’s choosing to read only that – but at the end of the day you’re in agreement fundamentally. Your characters have a lot of fucked up sexual issues. And that is by design – by thematic fiat.
You don’t need to bite bullets. What you might do instead is, when someone actually reads your work and notices the things that you wanted to put in there – acknowledge that they did notice something in your work and talk about why you chose to do it instead of accusing them of seeing something that isn’t really there or only seeing what they want to see. Before the Bakker and Women threads many fans thought about what a great author you were who was displaying the medieval period so realistically, and that’s why it was so sexist. When it was brought up that this wasn’t historically true they argued it was and argued people were seeing things that weren’t there. But you came in and eventually pointed out that you did this all on purpose. That clearly it was a horrible world designed to highlight and lament the sexist actions that were going on and that things were purposely exaggerated. It wasn’t because you had some thing against women or that you were trying to be realistic; you were trying to make a point.
That was enough answer for everyone. It helped tremendously.
Similarly with the hypersexuality in the novels – you’ve answered this before. You’ve stated that there’s a very good link between horror and monsters in our minds and a sexual link. You wanted to explore this in your villains. You wanted to make villains that really truly wanted to rape the world and use that emotional connotation to emphasize their villiany. You’ve already said this before! Why not just say that to sciborg? Why accuse him of purposely seeing something that isn’t there when you purposely put it there?
As to what bullets I’ve bitten, well, I’ve tried for years to defend you to my wife as far as your writing goes. I’ve tried to convince her that you’re not a misogynist or just a creepy guy like Goodkind or Wright is. I’ve taken plenty of flak for liking your books or even actually bothering to read what’s there instead of project what I wanted to be there while having the gall to ask why you put it there. I’ve changed a number of views about neuroscience because of your books, though it’s been decidedly not in agreement with you. And I’ve admitted many times that I was wrong.
When I say it’s sexual because sexuality is a crucial theme, that is not a tautology. Charity please. Tautologies don’t possess information, as in ‘It’s sexual because it’s sexual.’
The issue is one of proportion: Again read Sci’s post. Maybe I’m making another ‘dysfunction = fucked up distortion.’ For me, the issue of sex is simply one of a very many (interrelated) things going on.
Of course I need to bite bullets. I made a number of bad bets. There’s alot that concerns me about these books. Not the least of which is the ability to get a job in teaching (a politically paranoid profession if there ever was one) after this industry collapses for real.
Oh, I don’t think my reading is the only one, and I concede my own issues regarding the text and agency are nebulous and overlapping. It is something I am trying to articulate but apparently not getting through – I do blame myself for that.
All that said, here’s another pass at it:
I think the reason gender and agency is questioned in the books is because it is rare that we see a contrast against the expected. Even an ugly woman who cannot use sex, but has to find some other avenue to power, would be an interesting divergence. Psatma was a refreshing alternative that ended up in a predictable role for women we get to know in Earwa.
“I don’t know what to say except to rent some Disney movies. Or even better, check some stuff on the sex-slave trade. My female characters don’t suffer a fraction of the torment and humiliation that living, breathing women are suffering this moment now. And I certainly don’t see how turning them into Xena’s does anything other than reinforce the illusion that sexism has been licked.”
Not even sure what this has to do with my posts, you seem to be lumping my considerations into arguments others have had against your works.
You said you wanted more agency. I assumed you thought this would be more appropriate – that your criticism was moral and political (and one that I admit fatigues me).
But this,
Is an aesthetic argument, and a refreshing for it! Women are prisoners of reproduction of Earwa, the same they typically were in our prescientific past. The difference is that the ideologies our ancestors used to justify their institutional oppression had no basis in reality, whereas in Earwa, they do. Psatma was all about reproduction from the very beginning, simply because the prescriptive reproductive role of women is an ontological fact of the world, one personified in the Goddess Yatwer. Condemned to give, to be exploited – and taught that this is something they should celebrate (as women are many religious contexts today). Even worship.
So take Esmi: she climbs out of the box, takes lovers the way a man would, only to find herself trapped on the box’s outside, forced to watch herself as an object.
Now pair this with the allegorical role played by Kellhus in all this and the role that science (via the rationalization of values and technical innovations like birth control) plays in modern status of women… And you could cobble together a sense of the problems I’m mining.
But I’ve already said too much.
Dude, I went to a Christian wedding this summer where the minister basically said everything except: “your duty is to fuck and make children”.
This was in the United States, and the groom’s family belong to a somewhat conservative brand of protestant born-again Christianity.
A woman’s power has always been one of empathy, negotiation, reasoning, and manipulation. SciBorg, maybe the women in Earwa have more agency than you are giving them credit for: given that they have no strength of arm, are roped by the Goddess for their biological duty, have been socially prohibited from learning sorcery for centuries, they are tremendously influential, n’est pas?
The craziest thing is that the average woman is probably more like Kellhus (who we can all agree is the most powerful mortal character in the books) than the average man. Because women have been selected by evolution to be socially conscious, they are better at reading faces, understanding motives and adjudicating emotion.
“Dude, I went to a Christian wedding this summer where the minister basically said everything except: “your duty is to fuck and make children”.
This was in the United States, and the groom’s family belong to a somewhat conservative brand of protestant born-again Christianity.”
At my brothers wedding, the priest made it quite clear that my brother and his new wifes main duty was to reproduce and bring those children to the Lord and more specifically, to the Evangelical Covenant Church in Cook, MN.
It’s funny. I was watching a zoo doco the other day, and in it they had some lions in an enclosure. They had introduced a lioness who had apparently been raised with dogs. This meant she had the habit acting like the dogs and of looking the male lion right in the face, constantly. Or maybe she’d become the alpha of the dogs, who knows, she’d be bigger? Anyway, you could see this kinda put him off, which in turn started up a rage in him. The funny thing is another female lion was there and she slid underneath the other female, so as to plop her over, then she herself prostrated on the ground in front of the male. Though lets not forget with paws, massive claws inside them, held playfully in the air above her prostrate form. She was showing the other female what to do, how to act. Though the other female didn’t and got a smack in the face from the male (though let’s remember, their faces are alot tougher than ours). Zookeepers stand around outside, fire extinguishers in hand.
I also remember them introducing a male to another pair of lionesses. The females chased the bewildered male around and battered him around alot. I think they settled down after awhile, but any sort of ‘male is in charge’ was surely underpinned by ‘so sorry, master, to have smacked you around so easily…sooo sorry’
It’s funny that although the females play the demure, it’s with alot of physical power behind the playfully waving paw. If you’ve seen docos of them mating and the claw marks on the males faces…
That’s another thing – it really depressed me when I realised male lions, apart from chasing off a baboon or two, really do sweet FA for the pride. They don’t hunt, they just take from the females. And they see other males off – their only purpose comes from their own actual existance. It reminds me of the WLW line “Men are good medicine against other men” – what would be even better medicine, hmmm? NO men! Sometimes I wonder if we hit the age of the obsolescent male along time ago.
“Sometimes I wonder if we hit the age of the obsolescent male along time ago”
We must have hit that age prior to 1967, which is when Valerie Solanas wrote here lovely SCUM Manifesto.
Wow, I googled it and you can really hear the neeeeed in it. Sure, to supposedly destroy, but I destroy food with my jaws and yet I neeeeed it. I’m not saying sexual or romantic need, but something unforfilled and screaming.
Anyway, I think it’s too easy to pick out that external analysis and then drop the subject. I’m talking about an internal analysis – by ones own standards. Sure, you can pick off external arguements all day long, especially the nutty sounding ones, but that can be a distraction from simply asking yourself questions on the matter.
“-Sorweel jerks off to Serwa and Moe (mind you, I don’t think Serwa and Moe are fucked up)”
It cracks me up that THIS of all things is the bit of the latest novel that has the gasping crowd getting a touch of the vapors. How DARE that awful awful author have such a thing be written! who could think of such a thing? Only a SICK, sex obsessed man could even invent such a thing!
For Sorweel to NOT masturbate would mean that Bakker got voyeurism entirely wrong. We modern day humans are primed by television and film and visual media to think of voyeurism as something that merely involves looking, that voyeurism is passive. It’s a nice illusion, but no one looks at internet porn passively, unless you’re logging it for a research project. We just WANT to think that it is only looking. Our brain conveniently edits out the hand-on-genitals actions that accompany the looking.
Why would readers be MORE okay with Sorweel just looking? Because Sorweel is a sympathetic character and “just looking” is what the reader wants to believe the reader would do in that situation. “Just Looking” is the self-flattering scenario, that edits out the ‘shameful’ actions that always accompany ‘just looking’ when voyeurism is engaged.
Men look at porn–which is an exercise in voyeurism–and they masturbate. Sorweel was doing the same thing. Back in the day, Peeping Toms would look in on copulating couples, or sleeping females and masturbate outside their window while they peered through the window at whatever was arousing them. Yes Masturbated right there, in public. Exactly what one would expect Sorweel to do.
We’re just primed by our culture to build a wall of euphemisms around the many acts of voyeurism virtually all men engage in. No porn user ever wants to admit that one is a voyeur, afterall.
Btw, just in TDTCB the following POVs have no sexual depravities that I recall:
Eleazaras
Geshrunni
Inrau
Leweth
Nautzera
Yursalka
There’s many more in TWP and TTT, but you have a point with TJE and WLW, the only POV in either of those two books that isn’t fucked up is Malowebi, and since the second trilogy has abandoned the dozens of minor character viewpoints of the first trilogy, perhaps it feels like everyone is fucking with everyone else, ala a soap opera, professional wrestling or an episode of Friends.
Which makes me think there’s a ‘black swan effect’ lurking around here, as well, making all this stuff seem much more like a thumb in the eye.
I really need to write up ‘stock responses’ for issues like this, so that I can just post a link in response and avoid the aggravation. The questions and concerns are entirely legitimate, but it gets hard to treat them that way after so many times. Sex and gender are one of those risks that have ‘sorted readers’ far more than I would have wished, and are probably why the series is always on the bubble. There’s a disconnect between the ‘artistic legitimacy’ of what I’m doing and the real-world effects. But part of the problem with a project this big is that consistency welds you to any number of early mistakes.
But the real worry for me, is something I call the Sustain Problem. All along I’ve known that the sheer length of the series would transform its distinctive features – its themes and style in particular – into growing liabilities for many readers. Esmenet in WLW is perfect example: the thematic stakes of her character, I think, have developed beautifully. Hers is a genuinely evolving dilemma, and yet I’m losing count of the number of times I’ve come across ‘Here we go again,’ dismissals. It’s just the way it works: when the brain thinks it recognizes something, that’s all it sees. The nuances are overlooked or dismissed in the name of metabolic economy. “Here we go with the whore-whore-whore stuff.”
It’s human nature, really, which means I’m the one who needs to adapt.
I actually thought about this when I came up with the line about Nonmen living long enough to become strangers to their children. Perhaps this series will be the same with a certain percentage of readers.
I’m kinda surprised at the responce to Sorweel too. Young man, full of hormones, been dreaming of this lass for ages. I’m just surprised he wasn’t more stealthy – but perhaps that speaks of good character, means he’s less devious? Frankly given all the hurting everyone seems to do to each other, wanking seemed to almost be a blessed lighter note at that point. Just a major embaressment instead of harming someone! Huzzah! But don’t tell Scott, he’ll just knuckle down and make far worse situations if he hears that! 😉
I think people here are misunderstanding what I’m saying, or perhaps using what I’ve brought up to hash out issues they have or feel others have with the books.
Re:Sorweel – I can concede the voyeurism point to an extent, but the scene felt forced to me. Mind you, my point wasn’t masturbation was wrong or porn is wrong (though I do think http://theyshootstars.com/ sheds some damning light on the industry), but character plausibility.
Re:Status of Women – Again, my point was not that women living in Earwa is too sad for me to read or too unrealistic. It especially was not an accusation of misogyny against Bakker. I think the issue here is us men (are any of us posting here female) will observe reality through a male gaze. Obviously we all have to stretch when trying to depict the Other, whether that is gender/race/sexuality but society has, for the very reasons described in the book, done a lot to condition the male gaze. The role of women in a story, especially a fantasy story, is if not hardwired pretty well ensconced in the hardware.
Regardless of intent, I found the helpless status of the female characters in WLW to stretch plausibility, that they fell into predictable roles. I’m going to give the sections another reading given what Bakker said here – I don’t think I’m the only one with these concerns, and I do wonder at what point blaming the reader is missing flaws in the text presented.
Re:Esmi – I have to admit though male Esmi continues to be one of my favorite characters and one I most strongly identity with. Many of her insecurities and evaluations are ones we share. So there is that, the idea that *I*, and therefore she, would do better. That said, I continue to think the direction of the character in WLW felt disassociated with the character I read about up to TJE.
Another thing I need to write a stock response for. Saying that there’s more than meets the eye does not amount to ‘blaming the eye.’ If it does, then there’s no way for me to say there more than meets the eye. And you saying “I do wonder at what point blaming the reader is missing flaws in the text presented” amounts to suggesting that any defense of the text I make is simply me ‘blaming the reader to cover for my ineptitude.’
Which is simplistic bullshit, sciborg, plain and simple. What should be the rule, here: your reading or my writing? I don’t pretend to know the answer to this question – do you? If my response to adam didn’t make that clear then I don’t know what would.
Me referencing the psychology of interpretation simply describes the ‘lossiness’ of communication between all writers and all readers. If anyone needs to adapt to anything, it’s me. But this doesn’t mean there isn’t more than meets the eye! Of course you’re missing shit, over-simplifying, skewing ambiguities to confirm your interpretation. There’s simply no other way to interpret. In this respect, you’re doing so in a way that deadens your enjoyment of the text. The more people who do the same the more of a problem I have.
Maybe I’m misremembering Eleazaras I’m pretty sure has sex with a slave girl BTW.
He does, but slave-girl was able to joke with Eli without inviting punishment. But still, concubines don’t fall under sexual depravity to people in Earwa just as they certainly didn’t to my ancestors.
Oh, I assure you I’m still enjoying the text, and I am merely raising the question regarding the spectrum between reader and writer.
Not trying to make objective claims about the text’s quality, but I think it’d be unfair of me not to be honest and say that while I readily accept my own gaming of ambiguities I still find the text to have flaws. I do think you are allowed to defend your text, and I have argued against people making leaps of logic used to dismiss an author’s work.
One only has to note the recent row over Umberto Eco’s book (haven’t read it yet) and the claim that it promotes Anti-Semitism to understand readers are too eager to bring out their torches and pitchforks for anyone attempting to say more than “Prejudice? Itz bad!” in their works.
There is a wider problem in that fantasy comes to rely so much on sexual victimization as a trope it becomes hard to sort out the wheat from the dross. And admittedly my sensitivities are piqued given recent discussions about the current Pope helping to hide child molesters and Penn State’s riots over the sex abuse scandal.
I think with stuff like Kelhuss says 4k years when he should have said 5k years, when it gets down to emperical numbers like that we can definately say the text has flaws (and that’s been acknowledged).
Sciborg, do you acknowledge that the text can retreat backwards from the emperical into a sort of hazy, vague semantic sort of zone? While bringing up ‘flaws’ is really the language of the emperical?
I think I don’t exactly buy ‘Your interpreting it in a way that deadens your enjoyment’ myself, even – it just seems to be ‘if you’d just start enjoying it, then you’d be enjoying it’. But if you acknowledge you’ve moved out from the emperical zone into the hazy semantic zone, is it fair to bring up hard emperical measures like ‘flawed’? Or have we left behind the recourse of hard emperical error?
Not that, without the capacity to be wrong, an author can’t disapear up his own ass. Oh yeah, they can! But then it’s a matter of ‘Well, I just kinda didn’t find it fun or enjoyable anymore’, which isn’t really an indicator of failure.
heh, wheat from dross…damn my mixed metaphors!
I’m not sure I know what your question is, then.
I’d be hard pressed to find a more arbitrary, senseless rule in all of literature.
“I’d be hard pressed to find a more arbitrary, senseless rule in all of literature.”
not sure what this is referring to.
The rule against mixing metaphors.
Gotcha.
I’m very much inclined to say I understand the tremendous exasperation on Scott’s part for having to fight this female agency battle on such a frequent basis. I’ve never found this a problem in the books, I find the portrayals internally consistent with the beautifully brutal, epic world that has been created. And I would be inclined to say to those critics that I at least feel that Scott has countered them effectively, and that they should wait until the series has progressed further before making judgement. But that will not make a bit of difference, because people will continue to comment on it anyway.
But I’m not going to utter that inclination because let’s face it, this exasperation is only fair punishment for the author. He killed Cleric. He killed Maithanet. He cliffhangered us with murdered Dunyain. He holds from us prime intel regarding the details of the Consult. Taunts us with false Nonmen alliances, introduced an Inchoroi prophecy in an offhand manner, withholds from us the mighty halls of Ishterebinth, confounds us with what is really going on inside the Anasurimbor’s leonine head, introduces wild ideas about damnation, the Outside, the Hundred Gods, has us going back to read chapter headings for possible hidden gems, does not show us Mimara seeing Kellhus and generally disquiets us our tranquil souls. And he killed Cleric.
So yeah, some exasperating drops of sweat seem fair enough to me.
Funny, man! But it needs to be the right sweat! Cleric must be avenged! Bring out…the comfy chair!
Yeah. The problem isn’t that it is a problem, it just the time I end up plowing into saying basically the same thing. I’m thinking maybe I should set up a ‘Controversies’ section, or even better, ‘Frequently Asked Criticisms’ where I can post little position pieces.
Frequently asked criticisms sounds FACing awesome!
I suppose the issue is if one just thumbs at it as if that’s enough. Some people do that with the bible, of course. I’ll indulge my own yardstick and say sure, drop the time spent alot, even mostly ignore those who say it’s not enough. But there needs to be some small amount of time set aside or its bible thumbing? Isn’t it? And if that already seemed obvious, cool, I’m just being boring on the internet as usual…
Ha! The above is pretty funny. I am bummed about that character being killed off as well, but perhaps we needed to fully understand that it’s likely to end that way with any erratic.
Mithfânion – seeing as WLW came out this year, and it is the book my concern/critique centers around, I really don’t understand how the issue could be settled. Especially given my concerns are about how a male gaze can lead to subpar writing of women, which I believe to be different than the usual “Bakker hates women” track.
Callan – If Sorweel went back to the camp and jerked off, I’d find it more plausible. If he woke up at the campsite, saw the other two having sex, and jerked off in his bedroll and was discovered – again, plausible.
YMMV.
It’s just such tricky semantic ground sci, one that makes it too easy to find what’s need to criticize as well as find what’s needed to defend. For me, having an explicitly feminist agenda all the way through, I find this stuff extremely frustrating. Here I’m explicitly putting all this stuff into the text that no one seems to see because they’re so busy cherrypicking. And you are cherrypicking, Sci. If you had come to me with an interpretation which said, Scott, I see that this is what you are trying to do here, here, and here, but I think you are failing because of this, this, and this, I would be far more inclined to take a careful look at your point. But all you really seem to be going on is a feeling that you can’t quite articulate. Since you missed the explicit reading, how can I respond to any of your first-order criticisms other than to say: There’s more than meets your particular eye! Over and over. Because, as a matter of fact, there is.
You need to be charitable to the text first, otherwise you’re simply critiquing a strawman.
I don’t know if a person has to be charitable to the text first, that sorta smells like a tone argument (as in, if a marginalized group wants to critique something, they have to be nice and polite about it otherwise their concern should be dismissed outright).
I also think that respect should go both ways, seeing as you told me to go watch Disney movies or learn about treatment of women in the world. Having volunteered at a woman’s shelter as well as a women’s domestic violence prevention group, not to mention having known several women who’ve suffered horribly on a personal level, while I wouldn’t speak for women who have been abused I’m thinking I just might have a better sense of these things that your belittling comment gave me credit for.
(MASSIVE WLW SPOILERS FOLLOW)
To address your point – I actually think your desire to say something about women and men had you railroad the characters. We’re told Esmenet is intelligent, but never really shown it. What we’re given in WLW is a character who, despite having spent twenty years as Empress, beside a Dunyain no less, bumbling around as if it is her first day on the job. Mind you, this seems in sharp contrast to the competency she displayed in the first series as well as TJE.
After she is rescued from her panicky state by a man she was sleeping with, she seems reduced to the status of caricature, a vehicle that ends up in whorehouse to serve as a means for you to present observations about human nature.
From there she is captured, and returned to power by Maithanet rather than due to any action of her own. At the end of the novel, she finally does something, finally takes the reins of power, and the Fanim invade and she starts pulling her and going into hysterics.
Her entire arc could be read by a sexist eye as a prejudiced treatise on the inability of women to rule. I don’t doubt you were trying to say something quite different, your ability to depict how men fool themselves with their relation to women (which I mentioned at least twice above I believe), but that collapse of Esmi’s agency seemed rather glaring.
This is why I mention the male gaze – it is one I have as well. In any depiction of the other, I think we’re going to bring in our conditioning so that even our best attempts to address issues we’re on the outside of will be colored.
Of course everyone should be charitable (which is distinct from polite). As a point of fact, your tendency is to strawman. Unless you think you’re magically immune, or you’re happy criticizing things of your own invention that you foist on others, you need to give the text charity. If you think you’re immune, then you are deluded. Who wants that? If you’re happy criticizing your own projections then why should anyone care to engage you?
Sciborg
My mileage does indeed vary. The issue you brought up has been discussed and responded to ad nauseum, no matter what semantic difference you seem to see in it. You know very well that there is nothing that could be said on the topic that would convince you that you like Bakker’s portrayal of women, or that would change your mind on women having enough agency for you, you’re just venting grievances. For some men like yourself, it is clearly very important that women always have agency in every book they read, and it makes me wonder why. Personally the topic bores the hell out of me and gets way too much attention.
What always strikes me is how little discussion there seems to be of female authors who write thousands of books dominated by female leads, where the male characters are nothing but accessories, without any agency. There are whole genres full of that shit, and many of these authors are well-known, high profile and respected authors. Many prolific female Fantasy writers have casts that revolve largely around women and they receive nothing like the flack that Bakker gets.
I think some male readers ( such as yourself) are being curiously oversensitive to the topic and are being very selective in their criticism.
I find it interesting that I am “venting”, rather than giving an honest critique of what I found problematic. You say it is been gone over “ad nauseum” yet fail to provide a link, as well as telling me what I know about my own apparent inability to be satisfied by any explanation. This is interesting because I repeatedly say I am still trying to formulate what makes me react this way, and even offer caveats as to why I as the reader might feel this way.
My favorite line is when you tell me I am “overly sensitive”.
As for this question of all these female authors and their depiction of men, I haven’t read any like that. This seems like a rather strange argument, reducing my concerns to a tit-for-tat competition between sexes as well as stuffing into my mouth my apparent opinion on the subject before I’ve given it.
Sigh…this reminds me of when I tried to explain why Song of Kali winning the World Fantasy Award shows the inherent racism of the genre (not to mention why people have trouble taking the genre seriously).
Your post makes me glad I’m not a woman bringing up these concerns, though admittedly it seems the readership of these books is a sausage-fest so one might be hard to come by.
So the question is, Sci: What would change your mind?
What would change yours, Scott?
I mean, you can talk about how everyone does strawmen and whatnot, but at the end of the day you can choose to discuss how people look at your book and actually answer those questions. Simply stating ‘you know, that wasn’t my intent and I wanted to go in this way or that way but many people have seen this so chances are there’s something there and it’s something I consider’ is a lot more effective of an answer than ‘go watch disney movies’.
I’ll put it another way, Scott: you’ve repeatedly been talked to negatively by a large number of writers and fans in very public ways. Do you think that this is because all of them just don’t get it and that they’re all misinterpreting things? Or could it be that the intent of your actions does not match the observed behavior?
As to what would change my mind: let’s see. Having a woman realize they are being manipulated and actively try to fight that manipulation like Akka and Cnaiur did in the first series. Having more women be competent and succeed without having to be rescued by men (Esme’s storyline in WLW is an example). Having more women able to do something that doesn’t involve sex in order to exert agency (Serwa is a good counterexample; more women like her would be great). Fewer objective justifications for why women have it so bad in the world (Psatma using sex because she’s a priestess of a sex goddess is a good example of this tautology).
Again. I need Frequently Answered Criticisms page. About what, Grav?
I’ve bitten all kind of bullets. The Archie Bunker effect worries me. I’ve acknowledged many times, even in the course of this debate, that my choices have alienated too many readers, and that is a situation that I’m ultimately have to take responsibility for.
If you mean “Change my mind about what I intended”? I’m not sure the question makes much sense here. Evidence of some kind manipulation of my memory, I guess.
As for changing your mind, are you suggesting I need more positive ‘female role models’? Seriously, man. I’m not interested in writing an after-school special. I WANT this book to rile people, to be politically incorrect. It’s the ‘numbers of’ people who are misreading me that bothers me, not the ‘fact of.’
So you tell me: you want to write about A) How unforgiving prescientific societies were, and B) How tortured the relation between rationalization and emancipation (in this case, gender) is. All the while refusing to fall for C) the Fallacy that people locked in alien social conditions can only redeem themselves by adopting the normative expectations of their readers. How would you do it?
Look. I understand how hard it is to let go when your sense of propriety has been tweaked. We’re talking about the same suite of cognitive systems involved in honour killings. But it really sounds to me like you’re saying I should not have tried to take on A, B, and C.
And I have to argue this about only half a fucking plot arc…
” I’ve acknowledged many times, even in the course of this debate, that my choices have alienated too many readers, and that is a situation that I’m ultimately have to take responsibility for.”
So why do you often tell people that the reason they’re seeing something is because of selection bias? Especially when you were actively gaming to get said bias and that was the goal?
“As for changing your mind, are you suggesting I need more positive ‘female role models’? ”
No, but you’ve used that chestnut many times. Again, fun selection bias – clearly anyone who doesn’t like the female characters in your book wants them to be disney princesses or Mulan, right? I stated pretty clearly what I would want to see to indicate that you think about these things a bit more than women as allegory vs. men as characters. But here, I’ll spell it out even more clearly: I want competent female actors. They don’t have to be role models; a great example is the lead character in Homeland. She’s horrible, completely fucked up, but is a great, great character who actually gets shit done.
“So you tell me: you want to write about A) How unforgiving prescientific societies were, and B) How tortured the relation between rationalization and emancipation (in this case, gender) is. All the while refusing to fall for C) the Fallacy that people locked in alien social conditions can only redeem themselves by adopting the normative expectations of their readers. How would you do it?”
Perhaps by not making your female characters allegories to also prove a point about modernity? Heck, you’ve already shown that you can do it to some degree with Serwa. Ultimately it’s your problem because you’ve decided that prescientific societies have zero upward mobility or place for women despite historical evidence against this. So yes, in a world where women have no upwards mobility and no place other than as sex and breeding objects women have no place except as sex and breeding objects. That’s not all that interesting of an argument. That would be the tautological argument I mentioned before.
Ultimately one of the bigger complaints many readers have with the series is that the female characters are very poorly done. That they don’t feel realistic or reasonable and are often caricatures or written to fulfill a specific role instead of being good in their own right. You’ve admitted to this already – the whole virgin/harridan/whore thing. What I’d like to see is you write a female character that doesn’t fit an allegory. That being said, given that basically no women can have a role in Earwa without it being sexual, I’m not sure that’s possible for you any more.
“Look. I understand how hard it is to let go when your sense of propriety has been tweaked.”
See, there you go again. Instead of listening to what people are saying you simply dismiss it as neuropsychological garbage. You asked what would change my mind – that’s an answer. And no, I’m not saying you shouldn’t have tackled A,B,and C – but I am saying that because of the way you chose to tackle it it does open up some issues. You chose to make women an allegory for modernity and feminism, and the issue there is that the women become less solid characters for it. You chose to make sexuality – unhygenic sexuality – be a focus especially as it ties into psychological triggers, horror, and motivation – but that also means that most of the characters have fucked up sex lives. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do these things – but I am saying that you shouldn’t clutch your pearls when someone calls you on them.
It’s not dismissal. Look at what Sci made of 4 Revelations. Once you smell a rat reading, you find rats everywhere. You do it. I do it. We all do it. In this case, I just happen to have the edge of knowing the author. I keep bringing it up in the hope of impressing upon you that this is an issue where we can only meet in the middle. I`ve bitten my bullets some time ago. And you?
Now it’s a new argument justifying an old conclusion. Allegorical flattening. Having seen them come and go, forgive me if I am less than impressed. I am sorry you find my female characters flat. Esmenet remains for me one of the most interesting and fascinating to write, and somewhere near the bottom of the list when it comes to feeling superficial (Sorweel, for instance, would be near the top). I am sorry that the subtext you did not see had the effect making the narrative shallow. The kind of agency you want is not the kind of agency I`m interested in giving.
Does that make me sexist?
sci didn’t make anything of 4 revelations that wasn’t already there. It wasn’t like this was just something completely out of left field. As he said – it was ‘more of the same’.
If I thought it wasn’t worth discussing or reading I wouldn’t waste my time. I assume that things are going to get more interesting and that the misogyny, poor characterization of women and rape themes are going to go somewhere and aren’t some deathmetal porn fantasy. That’s the bullet I’ve bitten.
I do agree Sorweel is pretty shallow. His chapters remain disappointments so far, though he sees a lot of cool stuff.
I do tend to like Mimara. I don’t like her background or her being in rape peril every other chapter, but her as a character is a really nice cry from Esmi’s passivity. Her attempted seduction of Cleric was a great bit, for instance.
What kind of agency do you think I want, honestly? What do you see that I’m desiring?
And when did I ever say you were sexist? I’ve maintained for years that the biggest problem you have is that your intent is marred by your execution. You intend for the women to represent certain things and be archetypical as much as people, but that means that they’re shallow – especially compared to the men, who are not archetypical largely. You intend for the world to demonstrate the horribleness of misogyny, especially belief-oriented misogyny, but a side effect is that some people view it as awesome that you’re putting those bitches in their place while others clearly see you wanting to put bitches in their place. You’ve acknowledged these issues yourself. Why take such umbrage when people agree with you?
Hm. So you think it’s about dysfunctional sexuality as well? You think there’s incest in it (like Sci did)? This is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. I write a 5000 word story, and there’s one sentence recollecting a fight with an ancient wife, where she suggests the protagonist might not have fathered all their children – one sentence – and ‘it’s more of the same.’
Like I say, proportion.
Why don’t you poll the people at Westeros, Kal? Even ask Sci whether he thinks you have an axe to grind. I know why I’m defending my position: I know how it works. On average, people only need to hear a slur 3 times and they accept it as factual. This stuff is serious. I had that Dude from Requires Hate convict me of misogyny on the basis of reading six pages! Several others sounded off about my ‘reputation’ – even in real life! (You know I actually posted a question on the site: ‘Certainly you don’t think that all accusations of misogyny are true: What criteria do you use to sort real charges of misogyny from spurious ones?’ Last I checked it had been months and the Dude had yet to approve it.) The fact is Kal, you’ve been flogging and flogging this horse for years, and now it’s ‘Allegorical Flattening.’ Now I only have to admit that one of my favourite characters is superficial.
You have accused me of misogyny in the past. I apologize for not recalling when you actually bit that particular bullet in dialogue with me. I tend to hear the grindstone when interacting with you, to assume that one sentence among hundreds will convict me in your eyes…
“Hm. So you think it’s about dysfunctional sexuality as well? You think there’s incest in it (like Sci did)? “I don’t think there’s incest. I do think that based on that little bit that there’s a good possibility of some really different nonmen sexual mores, and as far as I can tell it doesn’t have particularly any useful narrative value in the story. I can’t be sure of that; it might be hugely important that all nonmen are cuckolded later on. But it’s sticks out because…why would it be there?
it sticks out because it’s intended to stick out.
“You have accused me of misogyny in the past.” No, I never have. Not once. I’ve been one of the people willing to say unequivocably that you’re not a misogynist. My point has been the following in that regard: that you clearly had some reason to craft your world the way you did, and that I didn’t understand it at the time. What I absolutely knew is that it wasn’t accidental nor was it historically motivated. That it wasn’t because you thought those bitches needed to be put in their place or that Kellhus was really, really awesome. I just didn’t know what it was. Now I do.
I continue to correct anyone who will listen that you’re not a misogynist, Scott. At the same time I completely understand and sympathize with many who think otherwise. I’m totally willing to admit that I have an axe to grind with you because ultimately I think – much like you do – that people can change their minds. And that the conversation is worth the time to try.
So here’s my axe to grind, Scott, and why I decided to come in here and talk to you. You’ll notice that I didn’t actually agree that you were doing more of the same. You’ll notice that I even stated why you had sexual overtones or freakiness in your books (and it’s not just Earwa) – a point that you actually agree with. The axe I grind with you is that when people bring these things up – things like the lack of agency of your primary female characters or that they do not seem as well realized as the men to them, the overt sexism and rape themes, the sexually charged prose and fucked up sex lives your reaction to them is almost always combative.
The reason I came in today was because sciborg brought up points about your novels and you responded by saying that whatever he sees is entirely because of his programming and selective bias. Which honestly is about as aggressive a tactic as you’ll find.
Here’s what I’d like you to take away from this, Scott – there is a much better way to get your messages out there. You can inform everyone that whatever they see is because of selection bias, but that immediately discourages conversation and hides the actual meaning they bring – a meaning that you deliberately fostered by putting these things in. As I’ve said something like 5 times now, instead of telling people that they’re just deciding to emphasize something in the books that really isnt’ there why not actually tell them why you put it in? Because it is there, you certainly put it there for a reason – so why not own up to it?
When people said the novels were full of misogyny and overt sexism and you said that there is another reason, maybe – why be coy? Why did it take 40 pages and multiple days to get you to admit that you put it in there for a very good reason? Why not tell them the honest to goodness truth? When you admitted that you went one direction but misinterpretation and ugliness were a possibilty and one that you regretted, why was that so hard?
And for that, I don’t have the answer. I don’t smell a rat. I don’t think your intentions are impure. I don’t think you’re a sexist or a pervert or have some axe to grind against women. But I do think that you have an axe to grind against anyone who doesn’t immediately see what you’re doing and why, and you have this bizarre unwillingness to discuss it with people in a way that fosters open communication.
I wish it was as simple as me thinking you’re a sexist asshole who likes writing women as helpless sex objects, but that really isn’t the case. But it’s a lot harder for me to promote your books and your stories when your actions towards folks who have genuine questions about your books are so combative.
Here, to show you: this is something I wrote earlier today.
http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/58410-white-luck-warrior-vii/page__view__findpost__p__2805668
See if you disagree with my interpretation of your answers there. See if that sounds like the kind of thing someone who thought you were a sexist asshole would write. And then maybe go back and read what I suggested you do.
That sad fact is I enjoy the combat! I apologize for mischaracterizing your motivation, Kal. I never thought you believed me to be ‘sexist’ in the caricature sense above – some charity, please. I do seem to find myself writing versions of ‘That’s not what I said’ while debating you. And I have been spilling so much e-ink for so many years as to be perplexed by your motives. You, my friend, definitely have something to prove. You keep promoting your reading as exemplary – that’s a fact. And I keep saying your reading is just another reading – that’s a fact. Both of us can’t be right. Thus all the hermeneutic psych, or ‘aggression,’ as you happily term it!
So once more unto the breach: What is it you want me to concede? Is it really just ‘Drop all the psych?’
Sure. Stop insisting your reading is exemplary.
“So once more unto the breach: What is it you want me to concede? Is it really just ‘Drop all the psych?’Sure. Stop insisting your reading is exemplary.”
IF I thought for one second you were serious I’d totally take you up on that.
In the meantime I’d say this: the only person that you’re hurting is yourself whenever you confront your fans who have questions about your work with deflection and ridicule. You declare them not true fans of your work and encourage more mindless, uncritical thinking. There are plenty of people I know who enjoyed the series but are stopping reading the books because of your attitudes online towards your fanbase and towards random people.
So it’s not ‘drop all the psych’. It’s maybe, instead, try and talk with people instead of lumping them into neuropsych baskets. Because at the end of the day you’re entirely right and it’s entirely meaningless that you’re right as far as changing their minds or their actions, but it does lose you respect and sales.
I think the books show that I made the wrong decisions when it comes to the ‘truth or sales’ dilemma all down the line. The thing that has always confused me about you continually, continually making this argument is that it’s my own as well. Maybe you don’t follow the blog regularly.
Scott – You wrote about women being abused and degraded in order to same something about human nature – and I do think many of the things you say are valuable. But you seem to have this idea that women, along with men, will laud you for your efforts, that there will be no controversy.
That you can even say it fatigues you makes *me* want to tell *you* to stop boo-hooing, that you should have expected people to not fall in line with your interpretations, that you might wonder about the male gaze and how it affects your depiction of women no matter your intention. Let’s face it, men have been giving women advice and like to say things about feminism – I think it is only natural they’d be suspicious, just as I’m suspicious of white people saying things about people of color.
Honestly, I had similar problems when try to be a positive advocate for women, gays, victims of sexual abuse, and other groups I’m not a part of. Yeah, we can be well-intentioned and still fuck up. It happens.
The question is not about censoring the amount of moral hygiene in story, at least not to me. As Kalbear noted over on Westeros, it feels like the women are allegories, lacking the extra dimension the men have. The women end up in situations to make statements about human nature, and this happens to such an extent it doesn’t feel like the women are real characters.
What I find troubling is this rancor, that in criticizing the text I’ve someone attacked you on a personal level, that I have a point to prove – that there is a crown to be won. Or that I cannot talk about things in the text, or that I see in the text, that bother me without being challenged or belittled here. Maybe part of the problem is this apparent sausage-fest, that being male we have so much trouble parsing our feelings without interpreting discussion as debate.
(Heck, I wonder if I’m the only person of color reading these books, let alone if there are women out there in the wilderness.)
Looking over my statements, I don’t see where I have made an attack – I feel like I’ve gone out of my way to do the opposite. Because there is a lot of good stuff in these books, but I don’t think representation of women is one of them.
Sci… C’mon. This all started with you suggesting that 4 Revelations was ‘more of the same.’ When I say, no, you turn to the fantasy series. When I say there’s more than meets they eye, you try to argue there isn’t. When I finally cough up the thematic subtext, suddenly it’s, Aha! Your characters are just shills for the subtext! So now, I don’t know what to say, except BFH.
Again, Scott, you keep thinking I’m jumping around in order to win the argument. There isn’t a prize, or if there is it is almost never worth the pain – Hell arguing against depictions created from an outsider’s gaze usually ends up being nothing but head desking.
I’m not arguing that there isn’t more than meets the eye, I’m saying there is something about the text that makes feel…off when I consider how women are represented. It is admittedly something I’m trying to put my finger on.
Four Revelations is “more of the same” in that the narratives begin to feel predictable, that we can expect something that deviates from a healthy sexual relationship. Admittedly, perhaps I read too much and saw incest where there was none.
I think Kalbear hits the nail with the complaint that the women feel like allegorical characters, figures that end up being pushed into situations to express some moral lesson or observation about life.
Beyond that, I find it interesting that just by raising these concerns I’m greeted with the following:
1. These concerns are only as relevant as the death of a fictional character, if even that.
2. That these concerns should not be brought up because they’ve been argued to the point that it is “nauseating”. This suggests any and every complaint about depiction of women in the series is the same and should be swept into a pile – personally I find the groans from the peanut gallery rather disturbing on this matter.
3. The author meant well, and you’re being mean for suggesting the work has issues that you are uncomfortable with, that you’d like to resolve but simply are unable to. We came to talk about dragons and spaceships and now you’ve broken our toys!
4. My concerns are born of some internal mechanism, they have no legitimacy because I am either too sensitive or have been confused or just can’t see the greatness.
Do posters here realize that anyone attempting to complain about depiction has to hear some variation on these just about every time? Hell, I’ve offered some variation on these until women pointed the fallacy of these arguments and I saw how they come up when trying to discuss prejudice in the genre.
You have bounced around, Sci. It took you quite some time to find the argument you needed. “Yeah. That’s it. The characterization is flat. The narrative is predictable.” There’s nothing more predictable than hindsight, or flatter than strawmen. “Esmenet is flat! So there!” is not an argument.
But that’s not the point. The point is I can’t give you guys what you want (partially because it does change). Do you really think I’m going to bite any bullets past the one’s I’ve bitten? Do you sit there at your keyboard thinking, “This’ll make him see!”
So to be blunt: What is that you want? I know I’m not writing something for everybody. I know I have scared away any real female readership (career suicide, I’ve been told by more than one insider). I know there’s a chance that some readers might be conditioned in the wrong way. All these are big problems. At the same time I also know I’m mining something important in a way it hasn’t been mined before. I also know that I have to risk offending well-intentioned readers to pursue it. I also know that Esmenet is my favourite character primarily because she feels so deep. I also KNOW THE END OF THE STORY, which is to say I know I’m not changing the story arc for you, not magically curing Esmenet of her depression, and so on.
The reason I keep bringing up the hermeneutic-psych stuff is simply because it explains why the concessions above are pretty much as far as I can go. Not to insult you, but to remind you there’s a mismatch between your tone, your claims, and the status of your reading. There is no fact of the matter about what the text ultimately means.
And for the life of me, I can’t make sense of what you guys are arguing outside of assuming you think this is the case. There’s so few qualifiers with you guys. There’s no, “Well, by my reading… x is z,” it’s all “X is z, er, no, y,” Esmenet has to be objectively flat for that to be a concern to me beyond the concerns I’ve already acknowledged. Four Revelations has to be objectively “More of the same.” And so on.
So to repeat the question: Understanding that your reading is just a reading, what do you want me to concede over and above what I have already conceded, but short of those things I cannot concede (simply because your reading is just that, one more reading)?
Otherwise, I apologize for getting my back up. But like I say, the stakes for me are real in this: for you its just sauce for the goose.
“So you tell me: you want to write about A) How unforgiving prescientific societies were, and B) How tortured the relation between rationalization and emancipation (in this case, gender) is. All the while refusing to fall for C) the Fallacy that people locked in alien social conditions can only redeem themselves by adopting the normative expectations of their readers. How would you do it?”
i would do it by creating a character that is a human slave, born with the gift of the Few to a woman fed a steady diet of chanv during her pregnancy to retard aging and better simulate Nonmannishness. he’s raised as the first Nonman child in ages, and trained as a Quya mage, while locked for decades in a child’s body, perpetually forced to defend himself from a brutal and sudden death at the hands of his doting but Erratic Fathers. ritual shaving. teeth filed flat. playing a role for his Fathers, who confuse love and violence, and strive and fail to chain their passions to a narrative that eludes their too-full souls. have a Man disfigured in service to a twisted parody of Nonmen salvation charge himself with it, and set out for vengeance on the Inchoroi.
and why does that solve The Problem?
because The Real Problem is that Bakker fucking killed Cleric, that’s why.
(all apologies if feminism is the only legitimate reason for telling the author how to write his books. otherwise, the nonmanist critique of WLW demands redress).
Answering my own question:
The sad part is you think it is okay to compare the status of a real group to fictional Nonmen.
The funny part is you think you are being clever or original when you do this.
But please, let’s go back to wringing our hands over why the literati don’t invite us to the parties in Manhattan. Because that is far more important than any concern over the portrayal of a non-fictional group.
Just popped in to say that I am a young black man that throughly enjoys this series and while I totally understand the issues that many have with the text, I myself do not have them. As Scott has stated, the women in this world are just flat out inferior to men, as a minority it was hard for me at first to just accept this, and I wondered if I would have continued to read the books if say, instead of women being inferior to men, it was one race of men being inferior to another, and the author told me this was a fact like gravity. As uncomfortable as it would make me, I would and if Scott gave the same reasons why he wanted to make it this way, I personally would not find it racist. However many others most likely would and I honestly think that when it gets to that place, both parties should just agree to disagree.
The core of the argument becomes lost and insults and grievances arise, rather directly thrown, meant or implied. Neither side is going to convince the other and the point of the entire thing becomes loss in “you said this” and “no I did not, I said this”. Scott reaction and response was very point blank and in your face, overly so I my opinion. However, I understand why. Here we are begging for an Atrocity Tale and he delivers one to us, only to have the battle what he considers to be an issue that he has went up against many times before, in a story that does not even remotely have it. That does not mean that you should not voice your opinions, it just means that the author is going to respond to them however he wishes.
This was a really good post. kudos.
My lack of patience stems from just how many damn times I find myself in this debate, and with the same people no less. I really don’t understand the need to make these same arguments over and over again: Yes, I realize this is a problem. No, your reading isn’t special. What more needs to be said? But here we are – again – mired as you say in digressions and feelings of injured pride. I’m also keenly aware of the power of labels, so for me this becomes soaked in a FOX NEWS vibe, where the point seems to be dragging the controversy out just to make sure the relevant parties are duly tainted. I’m sure this is in my head, and yet it… drags… on…
Race is another hot button issue where I play a lot of games in the book: the genre is rife with it, especially the ‘classics’ like LoTR and Conan and the ways they index ‘goodness’ to racial difference. Premodern thinking was essentialist, so much so that racism as we now know it really didn’t arise until the advent of modernity and the conceptualization of ‘super-groups.’ The coalitional us versus them puzzle box was simply too mixed up: hard to hate some super-group you never really encountered when those devil-worshippers the next vale over were raiding your fields. So I approach the issue primarily through the transhuman races, while trying to make the human characters largely blind to the race dynamic as it exists today, to be more conscious of local tribal and cultural affiliations than the colour of skin. Zsoronga and Sorweel utterly lack the history and acculturation that bedevils so many of us today. Of all the differences they have to find their way past, skin-colour is the least of them.
The point is, this is a situation where I think the premodern fact actually (coincidentally) fits the politically correct ideal, and so it doesn’t tweak anyone’s internal censor. This is not the case with gender… Fortunately or unfortunately. For whatever reason, premodern religion seems much more race blind than sex blind. Could you imagine the shit-storm I would be in if I made a world where skin-colour rather than genitalia was the marker of spiritual inferiority? Yeesh.
“all apologies if feminism is the only legitimate reason for telling the author how to write his books. otherwise, the nonmanist critique of WLW demands redress”
Ah, the continued belittling of my concerns, followed by the accusation that I’ve impugned on the author’s agency to write his books because I offered a critique about the depictions of a marginalized group.
You guys are so textbook, I don’t know if it is sad, funny, or some weird combination of the two.
Wait. The Bakker is sexist argument has evolved into “Bakker is Lewis?” Sciborg came up with a new frame for the sexist debate (allegorical flattening) and suddenly Kal says that allegorical flattening is what he’s been talking about all along, and he wants more women characters like Cnaiur and Akka who resist Kellhus manipulations? That is Insanely Impressive self-editing right there.
But lets examine the Cnaiur and Akka have agency myth, along with the myth that they ever resisted Kellhus.
Cnaiur had two strategies for resisting Kellhus. The first was the most effective, he never spoke to Kellhus and only allowed Kellhus to speak with women. This robbed Kellhus of a great deal of the power in Scylvendi language, so it excessively reduced the leverage Kellhus could exert with words.
But once Cnaiur began to reply to Kellhus, all that was over and Kellhus neutralized and overcame this strategy in a matter of minutes as they rode across the Steppe.
Cnaiur’s second strategy was to erratically resist Kellhus by doing the opposite of his own inclination. Kellhus realizes this is his new strategy within seconds, and though it takes some effort, he compensates for it within an afternoon. Before they’ve ever left the Juniuti Steppe, Cnaiur is completely within his control and Kellhus allows him the illusion of resistence becuase Cnaiur is more within his control when Cnaiur believes himself independent.
Any point after that in which the reader believes Cnaiur to be successfully resisting Kellhus is an illusion. Cnaiur is so spectacularly and completely conditioned that he shows up Right On Time to save Kellhus on the Tree. He is such a perfect tool that Kellhus had him calibrated to the degree of an atomic clock. Kellhus knew exactly how long it would take for Cnaiur to self-wallow before Cnaiur headed to the Circumfix, and Kellhus used all of his skill to make that timing work for himself first and foremost.
And how about Akka? Akka never once successfully resists Kellhus in any of the books. From the first moment Akka sees him, he’s completely in thrall to Kellhus (because Kellhus has already recognized a sorcerer, knows he needs his magic knowledge and has begun a non-verbal conditioning before Akka is even really consciously curious about the Barbarian’s companion. All of Akka’s doubts in TTT? Completely part of Kellhus’ plan and puppetry. Like Cnaiur, Akka will make a better tool if he has the illusion of independence, which incompasses the illusion that doubt is a savior. Akka renounced Kellhus because that was what Kellhus wanted. If Kellhus had not wanted it, Akka would have been dead before he could ever utter a word, and Kellhus would have wept over his body and the betrayal of X who slew Akka. Kellhus would have seen Akka’s renouncement coming from half a world away and could have circumvented it with ease. Akka never once resisted Kellhus successfully, to believe so is nothing more than a self-flattering readerly illusion where the reader identifies with Akka and so believes that Akka is resisting as successfully as the reader would naturally resist.
And SYMBOLS? Really? The men are NOT symbols but the women ARE? What the hell are you guys smoking? I gave up the series for years after Warrior Prophet because I was so pissed off at the blatent Christ/Messiah symbology with Kellhus. I laughed when I begun the series and you literally have an array of empty masculine D&D symbols: Monk, Barbarian, Wizard as your primary male viewpoints. I found Esmenet and Serwe refreshing because they didn’t immediately read as symbols to me. If Esme or Serwe had been a Warrior-Princess symbol I’d never have finished the first book.
If readers want to go reducing everything to symbols and allegorical flattening they need to look long and hard at all the males rather than focusing so exclusively on the females because there is just as much outrage in the text on the other gender as well.
@adam – actually, up thread I mention that the depiction of men runs into caricature at times, specifically the overwhelming lust that drives them to folly or rape.
@Scott – I think there is a miscommunication here in that you think Kalbear, or I for that matter, have an ax to grind. Again, trust me, minorities/women/gays and other marginalized groups, along with their allies, don’t really enjoy bringing these things up because:
1. We end up belittled. Our concerns are either hackneyed, superficial, idiotic, or some other negative that pushes it into irrelevance.
2. We find out how little our friends care about our concerns once we’ve broken their toys. From this point on, we’re the wet blankets that make everyone uncomfortable.
3. If we are trying to be an ally, we’ve betrayed the majority or empowered group we belong to.
4. We’re told to lighten up, or told we should have been more polite. This is known as invalidation by tone.
5. We’re told we are wrong because we brought up our concern in the wrong space or at the wrong time, which is worse crime than our feelings on the matter. Again, see broken toy syndrome.
6. After all is said and done, god forbid we trip up on issue, because all our past arguments, no matter what point we made, are now completely invalidated.
7. We should feel bad because we made you feel bad. I’ve tried to use this on women in the past, and eventually it entered my thick skull that the point isn’t to make me feel guilty. The point is for me to be aware and try to make the world more bearable for the women I am around by not invalidating their concerns.
What this all means is we have to come hat in hand, “yes’ums” and “massers” prepared in advance, tip-toeing on eggshells lest we, again, break the toy for someone else. We’re met with the “But I was trying to help!” argument and yes, even I’ve given that argument when it comes to gay rights. I even dared to suggest those who felt I was co-opting their voice or misrepresenting them should be more grateful for my assistance.
And I was wrong, and pigheaded, and arrogant. Being straight, my straight gaze deformed those I thought I was helping into creatures that fit my expectations. Of course they’d hate organized religion like me, of course they’d want me to rise up with my arguments for rationality and attack Christianity…again, I was young and stupid and arrogant and ultimately I wanted the limelight. I wanted to be the hero of *their* story.
I’m not going to speak for Kalbear, but my point is that being male you have a male gaze, just as I have one. It is probably the one that most suffers from the mirror-shard-in-eye-of-Kay effect, because as you yourself point out the subjugation of women is vital to male dominance and reassurance against our insecurities. (As a female friend pointed out to me, being against the patriarchy is realizing how it chains men and women)
We are conditioned going back to perhaps the beginning of humanity. I doubt either of us are self-moving souls, which means even though you “know the author” you aren’t freed from the prejudice of this gaze.
Which is why I linked to the Valente story, because despite the subjugation of the female lead, whose fate is a similar yet different to the Nonman here, it feels like that character displays a sense of agency your characters at time lack.
As such, the way you see women will be distorted, just as they way I see women will be distorted, which is why I’d love for a woman to comment – whether she agrees with me or not. Though my fear is the fan boys will sigh with relief if they can find a woman who agrees with them, as if one member of a marginalized group can exonerate the empowered – and yes, we get that one a lot as well.
The sad part is you think it is okay to compare the status of a real group to fictional Nonmen.
The women of Earwa are not real.
The only connection I could see is if you have some evidence the texts encourage the RL mistreatment of RL women.
Once again I write a post I can’t predict in the slightest the responce.
Are you ochlocrat? My point is his belittling of my concern by his raising concerns about “nonmanist concerns”.
Specifically, I’m pointing out that this is a classic tactic – make the person raising concern about discrimination feel silly. Try to get others to laugh, so the herd can get back to playing with their toys.
That the enlightened fans of the Bakkerverse are falling so readily into these predictable tracks is, again, very disturbing to me.
If I was a woman, I’d have been misrepresented as the silly one, the bitchy one, the overly sensitive one. All classic boxes women are put into, and it just so happens that I’ve had the temerity to raise my concerns about the depiction of women in works of fiction, even stating that I am not trying to accuse the author of misogyny.
As to why there might be a problem even if men aren’t using TTT as an excuse to beat their wives, every depiction of a marginalized group that distorts how they are seen further confirms in the eye of the viewer (or reader) that the distortion is the truth.
We may know, rationally, for example, that gay men are not all effeminate, but it can inform our interaction with them where we might invalidate their feelings as overly dramatic. And yes, again, I’ve unfortunately done this despite having many gay roommates over the years.
I’m not trying to set myself on a pedestal, I’m trying to say maybe there are issues in the novel regardless of the intent of the author.
Actually, looking back, I’m also the prude and the nagging wife. Those might be covered by or overlap the stereotypes I mentioned above, but it is interesting that the fandom has covered all the bases.
Sexism everwhere you look now? Victimization?
Obviously you don’t believe that all accusations of sexism are automatically true. What criteria do you use to distinguish between spurious accusations and legitimate ones?
every depiction of a marginalized group that distorts how they are seen further confirms in the eye of the viewer (or reader) that the distortion is the truth.
Seems a possible hypothesis; the books are to go out to a wide audience. The idea being some might have their beliefs confirmed or even reinforced (though as a side note I’ll say those who have their beliefs reinforced will probably read the whole series, and Scott has waggled his arms about the whole story not done yet).
So how is the hypothesis proved or disproved – what emperical method?
I mean, if I raised a concern and directions for you to follow based on it, would you instantly take directions from myself? I would think it fair enough if you didn’t, anyway. I can’t say that’s a galactic standard or anything, though.
The hypothesis seems possible (it just comes down to hard number). I’d like to think I’m seriously pondering this by asking for a proving/disproving method, without just doing what I’m urged to do.
Are you ochlocrat?
No. My actual name is Callan. I spent alot of time on a forum that promoted intellectual honesty by using real names and it’s rubbed off on me.
Specifically, I’m pointing out that this is a classic tactic – make the person raising concern about discrimination feel silly. Try to get others to laugh, so the herd can get back to playing with their toys.
lol. Honestly made me stop and wonder if you were a troll.
“You guys belittle my concerns and flatten my perspectives. . . Classic over-simplification to narrow the scope of conversation! Hmm. I should have known this would happen. It must be because my intricate, well-founded arguments utterly destroyed the wish-fulfilling fantasies of herd-minded nerds and threatens their fragile impressions of Earwa.”
Why are you complaining about your perspective being “flattened” when you characterize everyone who contradicts you as part of a herd nursing ‘crushed’ romanticism of a “broken toy” ?
In my opinion, and I might be wrong, “BAKKER AND CARDBOARD WOMEN, BRO!” is just beating a dead horse, and this reiteration of the dead horse isn’t particularly imaginative or enlightening, or even particularly threatening to how Bakkerites interpret/read Earwa. It just isn’t new/relevatory/exciting, at least in my opinion. Doesn’t mean I want to fiddle with a “broken toy”. lol. I just haven’t been conditioned to see it as intensely frustrating as you do. It’s just not a concern to me. I found Esmi in PON and Mimara in TJE to be pretty well-realized characters, realistic and engaging. I also like Serwa, but as she isn’t a POV it’s a bit of a detached enjoyment.
You can say “maybe there are issues in the novel regardless of the intent of the author” without leaping to “Pfah! The unwashed masses, concerned in the trivialities of Nonman culture and rabble rabble rabble! Am I the only one who sees the more meaningful ongoing thread of fucked up sexuality and flattening of female characters?!”
No, I warrant you’re not. And you’re free to air these concerns. I just wouldn’t reinforce them with pseudo-melodramatic reflections like, “Dear Lord, what have I done? How could the Bakker fandom be so predictable? I should have seen this coming. . . ” and so on and so forth because it just sounds silly and as dismissive as the attitude you criticize. Simultaneously, your reaching into one line out of 4 Revelations might seem predictable to people on the other side of the fence.
In the end, everything ultimately boils down to personal preference and the conditioning of individuals. If we were all reading As I Lay Dying, or some other Faulknerian tale, some people would obsess about Darl, and perhaps others would obsess over Addie Bundren, or something else. Pretending one is more important than the other is simply wish-fulfillment (and we’re all victims of this).
Again, I’m not telling you to stop voicing your concerns, or even entirely saying I disagree with you, on Bakker and women. But don’t pretend to be a victim of tendencies to disregard and stereotype others when you disregard differing opinions as ” troubling the herd obsessed with their broken toys.”
TL;DR. You are just as conditioned to belittle and dismiss as what you describe as “the herd”, i.e., anyone who doesn’t care as intensely as you about the ongoing thread of fucked up sexuality in Earwa.
Adam: I want to ignore the main topic right now and just geek out on the books with you for awhile
Cnaiur is so spectacularly and completely conditioned that he shows up Right On Time to save Kellhus on the Tree. He is such a perfect tool that Kellhus had him calibrated to the degree of an atomic clock. Kellhus knew exactly how long it would take for Cnaiur to self-wallow before Cnaiur headed to the Circumfix, and Kellhus used all of his skill to make that timing work for himself first and foremost.
Yeah, but remember when Cnaiur pins Kellhus and is just a fraction from breaking his neck? Or that the whole circumfix thing was “Some paths are unknown until trodden”? And I think Kellhus even thinks “I should have killed him” at one point, IIRC. Sure, Kellhus is Kasperov Vs a chess amatuer, but this amatuer has obsessively thought about chess for years and years. He does pull some moves, even if mostly out manouvered. In a game that has no fixed end.
And with Akka renouncing, WHY? What use is having a fat crazy guy renounce you in your own throne room? Seriously, everyone there needed someone to hate that much or something?
I think both of these characters squirm under Kellhus’s thumb, to a degree.
Cnaiur I really don’t know, it’s been a long time since I read the first two books, but I do remember we see from Kellhus perspective how he recognizes and overcomes Cnaiur’s attempts to thwart him, so even though these insights fade over the next few books I assume he continues to do the same thing, with increasing effectiveness and alacrity to Cnaiur and everyone else. I think Kell knew Cnaiur well enough to trust his life, but there was no way he could know every variable with the thousands who could throw a rock that might kill him while circumfixed.
Akka renouncing, I don’t know yet, we’re not sure of Kellhus’ end game. But if Akka needs to go to Ishual when the Great Ordeal departs (and isn’t it funny how he changes and leaves immediately when he hears the GO has begun, almost as though he had a post hypnotic suggestion compelling him to leave) and he needed to go in a way that he arrives from off the chess board then Kellhus needed to remove him from the board ahead of time and for a long time. Look at how shocked the synthese is that Akka is back on the board, they had basically forgotten about him. Also, Akka had an outsize influence on the opposition to Kellhus. Kell wouldn’t know the exact words Akka would use on him, but he would know how Akka would shape his sentiments, and by having Akka be the voice of the opposition, Kellhus is able to shape their knowledge, what better way to completely misdirect everyone than by having their most trusted source be completely under your influence. iirc, this would even play into the potential cognitive fallacies of the disbelievers. People who ground their frame in not going with the flow will be extremely susceptible to becoming an evangelist for the anti view. Why didn’t the Consult kidnap Akka and torture him for information? because he was protected, most likely.
He somewhat does, but not perfectly. The probability trance told him that he needed to make a leap of faith, but Kellhus doesn’t know and can’t predict what was going to happen as soon as he goes on the circumfix. Cnaiur rescuing him wasn’t part of any plan, and he knows as much. Moe admits this as well – these actions were beyond his trance to anticipate.
And yes, multiple times Kellhus remarks that he should have killed Cnaiur. Sending him off to deal with Conphas was basically Kellhus’ way of doing so without explicitly doing so.
In any case, the best that Kellhus can manage with Cnaiur is a small modicum of direct control through Serwe. Cnaiur’s madness makes him uncontrollable except in small doses, and even then it doesn’t work out like he expects it should. It’s very doubtful that moe even anticipated Cnaiur’s actions; he certainly didn’t anticipate him being so smart that he could outplan Kellhus and the Dunyain, and he remarks as much.
On Akka – I don’t think he was conditioned 20 years ago, but I do think that Kellhus knows him well enough to know how he would jump. Mimara is the one that’s conditioned. All Kellhus has to do is send Mimara, set up the GO to get going, and have the Skin eaters in the right place at the right time. He doesn’t have to do anything tricky to Akka to get him to do these things; he just has to know him like no one else does. That’s the real neat thing about Kellhus. He doesn’t have to use hypnotic suggestion or magic to get people to do what he wants them to. He simply has to understand them on a fundamental level and then understand what specific events will trigger what actions. In that way everyone is a pawn of Kellhus. The difference in feel is that many don’t think they are and act as if they have agency and purpose and are not so passive.
Like I said, I’m not sure I buy this argument as a whole, especially with the later books. Mimara isn’t particularly passive, though I think she’s essentially programmed by Kellhus to a large degree. Serwa is clearly a Modern Woman, complete with modern sexual mores and modern utilitarian mores. If you look at her funny Psatma is someone with tons of agency, though the feminist would note that it comes from sexuality and fertility gods and thus isn’t the best example of a woman doing her own thing. But I can see the argument as it applies to Serwe and Esmi and I will say that until I got to Esmi’s removal as ruler the book was easily the best of the series yet – and that drug it down for me tremendously just because of how passive and meek the queen had become. It showed me the facade and lie her supposed power and intellect was. It was disappointing.
But when your removed from all your sources of power, doesn’t intellect become useless? Like the diving bell and the butterfly, that guy didn’t have much agency except to blink his little eyelid. Yet intellectually he was all there. He didn’t become stupid. Isn’t Esme paralysed by circumstance? Most notably, despite how murderously the commoners are put down, whether they support her seems a significant factor, and how do you command so many minds? And she still seemd to have a 50/50 split with them, even so.
I think when you’re removed from power your intellect is still very useful. It certainly was for Esme all those years as a whore, allowing her to survive when others died. But my point was more that her intellect while having power wasn’t used all that well. She knew that Maithanet was potentially against her and instead of planning and dealing with it she reacted – quickly – and found herself completely blown apart by his simple plan. Her ‘plan’ was to have him arrested. A guy who is physically as powerful as any man in the realm and is beloved by all – that was her plan. (It’s kind of awesome how he just walks out and harumphs and ignores her orders and her guards).
Or heck, why she’s putting the commoners down like that? Why is she unable to get the love that Kellhus does? Why do they blame her? It’s a toughy. It doesn’t seem like she even tries to get their love, regardless; we’re introduced to her as the ‘fist who beats us’ in her first chapter. She’s feared somewhat, but that fear hasn’t earned loyalty or respect.
Don’t get me wrong – it makes sense, as it’s written, to see Esme beaten so badly. Kinda. I just wish there were some victories for Esme before that. It would both make her loss that much more and make her foes that much more. As it stands it looks like she just acts the fool and gets blown away almost immediately; her only triumph is one set up by other outside forces that are also playing her, and arguably alienating Maithanet can’t even be considered a triumph. I get, sorta, why she’d believe Kelmomas despite all the evidence and all her experience with Kellhus’ progeny. I’ve read that need for love.
It still fell somewhat flat to me, and I wish there was more showing of Esme’s needs and showing of Esme’s plans instead of seeing the failures only. Again, we might get more of her intellect and prowess later (though after Scott said she was chosen only for her genes I suspect otherwise) but for right now it’s disappointing to me.
Yeah, well once Akka went under the hypnosis of Kellhus – ACK! Honestly, that’s like taking down the firewall on your computer then clicking all the advert links on as many porn sights as possible.
I still really care for Akka, but I have no idea in how many ways he’s been compromised. I guess I even presume he’s still alive and not semantically replaced by a program and the zombified components of his former self.
“It showed me the facade and lie her supposed power and intellect was. It was disappointing.”
Yeah, though it was the lack of depiction of her intellect that felt off to me. Had she simply failed (because really the deck is pretty heavily stacked against anyone in that situation) despite showing brilliance I’d have liked those chapters more.
Her power, as well as Maitha’s, were largely illusions granted by Kellhus. Remove the central force of modernity, as it were, and the past conditioning – eons of sexism – takes root despite Kellhus’s supposed erasures. This I think was well done, the realization that sexism is so ingrained it isn’t something Kellhus will magic away.
As I’ve said upthread, the depictions of the labyrinthine male mind in the books is possibly without peer.
What do you know of depression?
On a clinical level – next to nothing. On an experiential level – possibly a lot, though I hesitate to co-opt that term.
Many researchers think depression (which is likely just a label for whole grab bag of maladies) is the human version of ‘learned helplessness.’ If I gave Esmenet the agency you wanted she would not be depressed. If she was not suffering depression, she would not be a psychologically realistic character, given that depression is the typical result of sustained exposure to stress and abuse.
Well, that’s one aspect of one kind of depression. Many others see depression as an environmental cue. others as a specific kind of chemical issue in the brain without any real root cause, one that they can detect long before brain development is particularly advanced.
Saying depression is the typical result of sustained exposure to stress and abuse is pretty facile for you. It’s a far more complex case than that. Put it another way: why isn’t Kellhus depressed?
Also another question: do you believe, honestly, that if you are depressed you are incapable of action?
In any event, the objection is more of why Esmi has to have learned helplessness. You’re basically arguing that because Esmi is helpless she has to be helpless. Yes, as she’s written in the situation she’s in she’s helpless – but that’s entirely your doing, Scott. And you’ve just admitted to such. Why not discuss why you wanted Esmi to be helpless and what this represents instead of arguing that she’s not or arguing that it’s justifiable why she is?
Like I say, it’s a grab bag. My guess is that it will go the way of ‘melancholia.’
You’re right. I should have used the indefinite article. ‘A typical result of sustained exposure to stress and abuse.’ Otherwise your ‘facile’ criticism escapes me. Charity.
Depression doesn’t render ‘people incapable of acting.’ Where did you get this? Not me. C’mon, charity. Otherwise you’re just wasting everyone’s time.
I already have discussed the things you mention, Kal – to no avail. And please give the tautology stuff a rest. I’m not arguing she’s helpless because she has to be helpless. I’m arguing that part of the reason she doesn’t have the agency Sci wants because she is suffering depression. Why would you think I’m arguing anything other than that?
Kal. You simply have to start giving me the benefit of the doubt when replying. This shit is both pointless and exhausting. And totally unnecessary. I checked out your posts on Westeros. After all these years you actually sound more like me than me, for Christ’s sake. You wouldn’t foist any of these misinterpretations on yourself, would you?
“Depression doesn’t render ‘people incapable of acting.’ Where did you get this? Not me. C’mon, charity. Otherwise you’re just wasting everyone’s time.” – yes, you. From what you stated:”If I gave Esmenet the agency you wanted she would not be depressed. If she was not suffering depression, she would not be a psychologically realistic character, given that depression is the typical result of sustained exposure to stress and abuse.”
So…you can’t give her agency because she’s depressed. Not sure how my argument doesn’t follow from that.
I guess I could rephrase and say that why do you think depressed people can’t have agency?
I also wonder why Esme has to have learned helplessness. It does happen in abuse cases – but so does a desire for vengeance. And in some cases, nothing horrible happens at all. You’ve chosen to make Esme an example of learned helplessness, and that’s fine, but a side effect of that is that she doesn’t have agency. Now again, I’m curious – why do you want Esme to be helpless? Why does Kellhus? I have theories on that, but I’d be curious to hear what you have to say.
” I’m arguing that part of the reason she doesn’t have the agency Sci wants because she is suffering depression. Why would you think I’m arguing anything other than that?”
Right – and why is she suffering depression? Because of learned helplessness. And why does she have that? That’s the real question. Regardless, the point of her not having agency is still valid and it’s even supported by you. Why doesn’t Esme have agency? Because she’s in a psychological state known as learned helplessness that was entirely fostered by Kellhus preying on her prior vulnerabilities and issues; Kellhus wants her to have a lack of agency. That’s an actually good answer! Why not just…say that? Then your readers will be curious about it. Then your readers will wonder what’s going on. That it isn’t just some random thing you’ve chosen.
That being said, another question is why it’s Esme that has the learned helplessness and not Maithanet. Or Akka. Or Sorweel.
I’ve broken the authorial ‘rule’ about interpreting my own work with you in particular more times than I can count, Kal. Check out all the threads if you don’t believe me (which you won’t).
Learned futility.
Since I don’t know what your rule is or how that applies, I guess I …agree? Maybe? Or should i not? I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do here.
Again, I’ll repeat just this little bit:
“Depression doesn’t render ‘people incapable of acting.’ Where did you get this? Not me. C’mon, charity. Otherwise you’re just wasting everyone’s time.” – yes, you. From what you stated:”If I gave Esmenet the agency you wanted she would not be depressed. If she was not suffering depression, she would not be a psychologically realistic character, given that depression is the typical result of sustained exposure to stress and abuse.”
So…you can’t give her agency because she’s depressed. Not sure how my argument doesn’t follow from that.
For you, agency means that you’re not depressed. If Esme had agency – or at least the agency that sci wants – she wouldn’t be depressed.That’s a direct statement. Not sure how else to interpret that. That seems wrong to me, but let’s assume that Esme has no agency because of willful design and not sloppy writing. I’m okay with that too.
Why have Esme helpless? And I suspect you have an answer to that. But don’t justify your answer with ‘depressed people don’t have agency’. Unless, of course, that’s what you actually think.
You weren’t around for the beginning of this debate?
Yes, as she’s written in the situation she’s in she’s helpless – but that’s entirely your doing, Scott.
Why have Esme helpless?
You know when you do this Kal, you attempt to become the invisible author? You argue any outcome that you wouldn’t want written and so attempt to author through an inverse process (elimination of all undesired material, rather than creation of desired material)
What would you have Esme doing? Why is your authorial urge better in some overall global way?
If you were to put your position as a suggestion, without consequence for not following it, I wouldn’t describe that as attempting to author.
Callan: you might be right if you were interpreting my question correctly. You’re not.
I’m not wanting Esme to be different necessarily. I am wanting reason for why she is what she is. I do not understand why Esme – who we have been told is exceedingly smart and capable and ruthless – fails so horribly as an empress and looks so confused and passive with it. How she is caught so offguard and has no real plans, and allows this random guy she’s been sleeping with to tell her what to do (and eventually gets sold out).
This is something that doesn’t make sense to me. But I don’t assume that because it doesn’t make sense to me that it doesn’t make sense; I assume Scott’s thought of a reason for it. That there is a cause and effect. I might not even agree with said cause and effect (for instance – if Scott assumed that if you’re depressed you’re incapable of doing things like planning or action, I’d be bothered by that), but I’d understand the reasoning.
So yes, why Esme has to be depressed is something I wonder. Or why Esme is the one that suffers from depression while other characters who have had similar beatdowns (Mimara is a prime example) do not.
Would you not have me ask the question at all? Does it not confuse you that this supposed very competent, ruthless ruler fails at it so spectacularly?
What are the consequences proposed if no further reasons are given? If none, it’s pitched as aesthetic suggestion, okay, I was wrong. Otherwise, it’s still attempting to invisibly author. I’m reading charitably that it’s the former. Which is good – I like being wrong in that way.
Does it not confuse you that this supposed very competent, ruthless ruler fails at it so spectacularly?
I think she did better than I would in those situations, at the very least. And it didn’t seem that spectacular. Are there consequences if I can’t really address your ‘spectacular fail’ issue?
What are the consequences if further reasons aren’t given…Hmm. Good question. I’d say that the big one would be my disappointment and lack of understanding. Note that a simple “I have an answer and read and find out” is often perfectly satisfactory for a series that’s in the middle; I don’t necessarily need an answer now, just the promise of one later to be happy. Now, if it doesn’t ever get answered at all? I’d be disappointed. It would color my view of the books negatively. It would be a dropped plot point and those tend to bug a bit. Or I’d think it was just a thoughtless choice by the author. And then I’d move on.
Scott should be commended because I do give the benefit of the doubt in most cases. I don’t assume it was just not thought about. I figure that there is a reason in there somewhere. Many authors I figure just throw shit in and don’t think about it at all. Scott’s ability is that I trust he has thought of these things, that his writing is pregnant with purpose, and I’m willing to not assume that it’s just sloppiness; I’m willing to start from the view that I simply don’t understand and that there is more to this than what I can see. But it still doesn’t mean my curiosity isn’t there.
I think she did better than I would in those situations, at the very least.
Oh come on Callan, you’re better than that. Kellhus hand-picked Esme, we’re told, because of her intelligence and ability. This is a man who is as a god to most of us here. Esme is supposed to be pretty smart – smarter than most of us, I’d imagine. This is a woman who has been ruling the realm for close to 20 years, who had the ability to find Mimara and wipe out every single person involved in her life. But the only evidence of her intelligence is reacting quickly to a very rapidly evolving situation when Maithanet dies. She gets played by everyone around her despite knowing what a hornet’s nest she’s in. She has zero contingency plans and is wiped out almost as an afterthought by Maitha. Her decisions about Yatwer and the Fanim continue to fail in ugly succession. Her entire reign that we see has basically zero victories for her or for her empire. She’s got more in common with Cersei than with Tywin.
So yes, I would categorize this as a spectacular failure. What Kellhus built in 20 years she loses in less than 6 months. She’s got a really shitty hand dealt to her and enemies that are very, very powerful and smart, but some successes would have been nice. Some demonstration of her intellect and prowess. Unless..that’s not what Kellhus wants.
Consequences for this? I probably would respect your opinion less if you don’t agree or can’t reasonably argue otherwise why you don’t agree.
Kellhus picked Esmi because of her genes. But that’s beside the point. I could go on ad nauseum about my narrative and thematic intentions, and I have on several occasions, but the point you don’t seem to realize is that all I really have to say is that they exist, so long as my work displays enough complexity to make the claim plausible. Believe or disbelieve. I’m not wasting the e-ink here. Submit questions for the next interview. (The reason it’s bad to go too much into detail about your intentions as an author is that it has the effect of closing down speculation on alternatives, when the holy GRAIL of writing, for me, is finding that magic line between clear representation and the generation of a plurality of interpretative possibilities).
I say ‘wasting the e-ink’ because the bottom line is that it won’t matter for you. Death by a thousand qualifications. I say x does y, you say, Aha! Not w though. Hmm. And so it goes.
You know, a funny thing is that these books are RIDDLED with lazinesses, shortcuts, things that make me wince when I think about them. I imagine most all books are. But you consistently – I mean consistently – pick at the threads that I have put the MOST thought into! Then cry, ‘Laziness!’ It’s kind of surreal.
You do think your reading is an exemplary one. That’s a problem, sure. You make noises to the contrary, but you really think that you have seen more clearly than those you argue against. Given that this is simply par, it shouldn’t be an insurmountable problem, except that you have something to prove. I’m not sure what, but you’re not here out of genuine curiosity. It seems like you’re here to ‘put me in my place,’ or to show ‘that I’m not all that,’ or ‘to give me a dose of my own medicine.’ I dunno. But I trust my ear on this one.
Trust is a condition of stable communication, because no one wants to feel like they are wasting their time. I don’t trust you, Kal. Why should I, when you leap for the most uncharitable interpretation of every other thing I say?
Add to this the fact that this topic is one that I am well and truly exhausted on…
You’re right, Scott. I do have something to prove. But it has very little to do with the books. It has more to do with your interacting with your fans. With folks like sci who have spent countless hours looking through the books with a measured eye and trying to figure out what’s going on.
If you really believe that I leap for the most uncharitable interpretation of every other thing that you say, you’re right – there is never going to be trust between you and I. That’s not my interpretation, and while I’m sure I could find many places where I’ve explicitly been charitable to your interpretations and viewpoints or even been correct in my viewpoints despite others saying fairly negative things about you, it won’t matter. Selection bias and all that. If you’re willing to only remember things like me calling you a misogynist (something I’ve never done) or think of me as the person who is in charge of the anti-Scott anti-misogyny brigade, there’s little I can do about that. That’s the bucket you’ve sorted me in, and as you say it’s hard to break out of that bucket. I will try to keep that in mind in the future when discussing your work, especially in places you frequent, and I’ll try to be more charitable to your views in the future.
As I’ve stated a few times in this thread the thing I wish you’d take into advisement is how you deal with your fans. Sciborg is truly, really a fan of your work. He doesn’t like one aspect of it – or it bothers him – but he’s still a very big fan. Perhaps he’s not as uncritical as other fans – either by simply stating that you can do no wrong or loving certain aspects of the novels that abhor others – but he’s still quite a big fan. If you can’t have a critical discussion about what bothers them about your work and why it bothers them – without accusing them of wanting Disney princesses – how are you going to deal with a fandom? These are the people that you should be marketing towards. These are the people that will get the word out.
It’s been said many times on Westeros that people really enjoy the books but really get turned off by your internet behavior. I’ve heard this multiple times now said about multiple occasions. There are plenty of ways to dismiss this out of course or ignore it, but my suspicion is that you’re doing a very bad job of marketing yourself and your work.
So that’s my final word, Scott. Do try and see when people have a decent argument or comment about the stories and try not to over psychoanalyze that person – or if you do, do the same thing to everyone who loves what you’re writing with the same zeal and energy. Ultimately the fan who loves everything you write is as right and as wrong as the fan who likes some of it and the fan who hates all of it, so be equally charitable to everyone, no? Or…try and be nice to most and spiteful to those who really deserve it. Especially when you know that you’ve put something in to provoke and that was your intention – don’t cry so much when it actually does.
Seriously, Kal. I know how I come across. I wish I didn’t! There’s multiple posts on this site where I discuss the dilemma – even the possibility that the best way for me to promote my books is to fold up shop altogether. One reason I don’t trust is that I don’t understand why it is you keep telling me to bite bullets I have already bitten.
I’ve tried the ‘Let us be stupid together, you and I,’ approach, and many, many people simply hear, ‘You are stupid.’
You come up with a word-count efficient, non-threatening way for me to call people stupid, then I’ll listen. Otherwise, for someone who claims to have such a thorough, charitable grasp on my outlook, you consistently fail to see that the popularization of ugly, threatening ideas is what my career and this blog are all about. You read my interviews and all you see is the ‘same old message.’ What you fail to see are the different formulations, the way I try to refine the message. What I can’t take away is the ugliness. As for being a critical know-it-all, that’s what I am.
Since ignorance of our stupidity is what will likely kill us, I’m not about to stop shouting. Especially not now, when so many people are shouting with me.
“TL;DR. You are just as conditioned to belittle and dismiss as what you describe as “the herd”, i.e., anyone who doesn’t care as intensely as you about the ongoing thread of fucked up sexuality in Earwa.”
I think you are setting up yourself up for my comments to include you. Anyway, seeing as I’m not a woman, beyond this thread most of this isn’t something I have to worry about. I do worry about persons from marginalized groups having to deal with some of the posters here though.
Broken Toy Syndrome, for what it’s worth, refers to the tendency of fantasy and SF fans to immediately castigate any response that is critical to one of their works. It leads to the above behavior, along with the outrage that people are bringing up these “nauseating” works. Among minorities/women/allies discussing this stuff, it is a pretty well understood term.
As for being conditioned, yeah but now you’re just muddying the waters so everyone responses is excusable. If I had started off with my first post accusing the author of hating women, secretly beating his wife, you might have more of a case.
I am merely stating the observation that several posters chose to engage in herd mentality – I think its pretty telling that the responses ranged from “watch Disney movies” (though I can sort of understand Bakker’s frustration glad I am not a woman being talked down to) to the implying I should feel bad because I am “venting”, “oversenstive” and nauseating. Followed by equating any concern about depiction of women to the killing off of a fictional character and Bakker being a “Nonmanist”.
A simple, friendly, “We’ve touched on this before, though maybe you are saying something new you should check out this link here” would be the opposite, but that is apparently hard to type than attempting to make me feel bad. Again, it doesn’t really affect me, though I think it’d be interesting if someone like Sady Doyle came and posted here.
Perhaps it isn’t something you’ve ever experienced, due to the privileges conferred on you by having being part of the empowered (heck, so am I on 90% of things) but as someone who has tried to bring up these issues in speculative fiction circles before and follows this sort of thing, trust me the responses were like me playing a broken record.
I do worry about persons from marginalized groups having to deal with some of the posters here though.
This… What do marginalized groups (if I’m understanding you correctly, pre-industrial women) have to deal with from fans of Bakker’s work?
And, lol, you don’t have to define Broken Toy Syndrome, your context made it clear enough. I would just be skeptical of its application here. By dismissing individuals who don’t share your view as members of “the herd”, you end up characterizing the qualities you oppose. Try playing devil’s advocate and seeing yourself from the opposite perspective. Perhaps your arguments would be better received and reviewed by fans in a context where they are more applicable. They might mutually consider you part of the “herd” of people who search for ongoing threads of fucked-up sexuality in Bakker’s work and tend to obsess on this point.
Neither attitude is conducive to healthy debate.
As for being conditioned, I’m not just muddying the waters. . . The recollection is relevant. Your conditioning determines how you received and digested Four Revelations. You began this by complaining about sexuality in Earwa, possible incest in the story (when there was none), and then going on to the “flattening” of female characters. (I’m actually not entirely sure what exactly your argument is, since its tackled considerably diverse ground since the beginning of this conversational thread). But it seems like the bulk of your problems centers on a subjective appreciation of the female characters, especially beyond this particular text. I.E., your conditioning leads you to be perturbed by their sexuality and notice sexual extremes and incest where others might be less alarmed. Others might notice it too, and just not be profoundly bothered by it. A classic case of herd mentality? Or just individual people expressing their conditioning and subjective points of interest in the text?
Dismissal of your views isn’t really exemplary of “herd mentality” in this case, at least the way I’m reading it. It’s not really your criticism that offends and “nauseates.” I just don’t think people on the other side find it contextually significant. Again, I believe that you might have better results if you framed your argument differently, and in response to a different text.
I do agree though, that your arguments could have been received in a lighter context, as most of the responses do initially seem curt and dismissive. I just think most people were exasperated to see what seemed familiar to them, or at least out-of-place.
Perhaps it isn’t something you’ve ever experienced, due to the privileges conferred on you by having being part of the empowered
Boy, I sure do hope these privileges of empowerment conferred upon me kick in sometime soon. Because black koreans are the most empowered class of people you’ll ever see. I was wondering when it would kick in back in high school, where I wasn’t accepted in black or asian groups, and every white clique I happened to fall into inevitably had a number of kids who couldn’t get over the novelty of my “blackness”, my resemblance to apes, and so on and so forth.
In closing, though, I must say that I actually have been on your side of the fence. I remember when I was annoyed by Dragon Ball Z’s portrayal of people of color, while European-modeled Saiyans or Aryans were portrayed as being almighty, pure, masterful, etc. I found the association with Aryans as beautiful, noble, and all-powerful, while people of dark complexion or dark hair/eye colors as silly, weak, or ridiculous to be very trying. I voiced my concerns to DBZ fans. Some people thought I was spot on. Others got angry with me and said, “LULZ, THERE ARE NO ARYANS IN DBZ, THE SAIYANS ARE ALIENS, NOT HUMAN! THEREFORE NOT RACISS! AND EVERYONE LOVES MR. POPO!”
Then I remembered that DBZ was dumb and that I had stopped watching it a long time ago for a reason. (Not suggesting that you should have this response to Bakker’s work, lol).
But I think the difference in responses is conditioning. I see ridiculous black man incapable of speaking English getting beaten up by a white kid and say, “Hmm, kinda racist.” Others say, “Well, X, Y, Z about Japanese-Black race relations, and this is a kids show, and blah blah blah.” I didn’t dismiss them as being part of an antagonistic herd. I just thought, “Wow, some people are amazingly colorblind.”
That was a really bad analogy, lol, but I just want you to know that I HAVE been in your position before.
“Sexism everwhere you look now? Victimization?
Obviously you don’t believe that all accusations of sexism are automatically true. What criteria do you use to distinguish between spurious accusations and legitimate ones?”
Wow Scott, you just completely missed the point of everything I was talking about, and went right to the avenue that allows for martyrdom – which again I find silly given you wrote a controversial work and then hem and haw when it, you know, generates controversy.
Your entire goal seems to be to prove your innocence, or those who’ve posted the stock sexist responses (again, response I’ve used before), when I haven’t leveled any accusation against you that doesn’t include myself. In fact, my initial point wasn’t an accusation at all, though post “watch Disney movies” I think I have some ground for concern. Again, the possible victims are more the women or other marginalized persons in your life.
You don’t think it is a little disturbing that from the moment I say I have a bad feeling about how the book treats women, I’ve gotten the stock responses against women who complain about depiction? Is it possible that maybe, just maybe, being a person of color I might a tinsy bit of insight that you might not? That when I say we don’t like to point these things out I might be telling the truth and not trying to twist the argument to…actually, on this one you’re going to have to enlighten me as to my ulterior motive. I’m guessing it involves more about me being conditioned rather than my concern having legitimacy.
That maybe, just maybe, it might be time to ask a girlfriend/wife/sister/mother/friend or minority/homosexual if the responses here are what they are used to? That you might look up the term “male gaze” or gaze of the outsider and consider what I’ve said? Because, believe it or not, I didn’t come to any of these ideas about female depiction without having to take multiple crash courses in feminist theory given my own boneheaded observations.
But Callan does seem to be on to something, there might be a way to parse this via some hypothesis testing. But the problem there is it puts the concerns about depiction into a solvable problem, invalidating the reaction of the reader who cannot articulate their claims. It is something I’ll think about, though I feel uncomfortable trying to represent a group I’m not a part of.
I apologize if I misread your list, Sci. I thought you were insinuating a connection between your perceived victimization here and the victimization of women in the books. You do realize that every time you expand the debate to justify your case you are simply adding more disputation. Take the feeling you had writing the response I’m replying to, bottle it, then project it onto me, ohlocrat, or whomever has sparked your ire. Everyone is ‘misreading’ everyone else here. One of the reasons I come back to the hermeneutic psych stuff is just to keep a handle on the debate. So please, set aside all your knock-on grievances, accept that you’re as much a party to this fracas as I am, and believe me when I say I’m just trying to get a handle on what you want and/or expect.
“I apologize if I misread your list, Sci.”
Italicized “list” because…..why?
The point of my “list” on reasons we don’t bring these things up was to try to get you to understand this isn’t about me trying to win something, and maybe get people posting here to think about their privilege and the way it can distort their views. Not to mention have sympathy for the next woman/minority/LBGTQ-person who has a complaint.
Again Scott, you keep framing things in terms of a “debate” and my attempts to “justify” – the implication being that my concern is not valid, either in regard to the text or to the behavior of people like ohlocrat and the others who spark my “ire”, implying now that I am filling the role of the “angry woman” and getting angry about nothing. That you don’t think comparing feminism to “Nonmanism” isn’t a problem should be a cause you might want to reflect on.
On a personal level it doesn’t affect me, because people on the internet can’t victimize me by treating me how they treat women as, not being female, it doesn’t register on the same level of disrespect. If there are victims it is, again, possibly, the marginalized people, specifically women, who have to roll their eyes and complain behind your backs about your prejudices and dismissals. God forbid they bring them up and hurt you feelings – again, women did this for me my whole life now that I’m aware of it.
Since you seem so convinced I’m carping over nothing, let’s take a step back through time:
1. I say I have concerns about the depiction of women.
2. I’m told I am venting, overly sensitive, and then there is a joke equating feminist concerns to killing Cleric. At which point you join in and state you need a FAQ, which may seem like harmless ribbing to you and doesn’t really affect me BUT it implies that all concerns about women in the books is said and done and can be handled by stock responses. It implies you, as a man, have already parsed this stuff out and no one could possibly have anything to say that could knock you off your perch. Classic invalidation tactic.
3. You tell me to go watch Disney movies, or look up how badly women are treated. This implies, again, that my concern is pointless or comes from either prudishness or ignorance regarding the status of women. This one settles in the grey-area in that part of me does get your frustration, and the points weren’t clear, but again I think writing a book that depicts women in the way you have and then acting like a suffering martyr when people find it problematic strikes me as silly. It is also a classic invalidation tactic.
4. ohlocrat continues Mith’s equating of feminist concerns with Nonmanism. When I point out this is continuing the tactic of invalidation, you tell me my ire is just flaying around, getting upset without justification. This is, again, classic invalidation. It is a signal to the rest of the herd to not worry, this is all silly, we can go back to talking about dragons and spaceships without concern. It is a reassurance that the toy isn’t broken.
As to what I want, really I’m not sure. My original purpose was seeking a discussion about my feelings that something in the book is off when it comes to women, but a few of the responses on this thread make me more dubious as to the fanbase of these books. Taking a stab at some ideas:
I’d be really interested in what a feminist would think of the discussions here. I doubt I’ve performed up to snuff either – My guess is I’ve overstepped in co-opting women’s issues despite my intention in seeking the parallels between marginalized groups voicing discontent. Because marginalized groups get this shit all the time, from “it is just a book or a small part of the book” along with “if only you could see what I am doing here you’d realize I’m on your side” leading to “the book is so good you should get over your complaints” and finally “there are worse things out there so this is okay”. Again, I’ve used all of them in my own time.
I’d like to think that if a woman ever does post concerns about this series, she won’t be met with a herd stampeding over her because her concern threatens to break the shiny toy. Really, 90% of the arguing might have been avoided if someone had linked to the threads on Westeros (I had already searched them out, but it’d be nice if concerns are taken seriously) and you had reined in the snark in yourself and your bros.
One thing you, admittedly from my limited observation, I think have problem with Scott is you are so quick to dismiss concerns and point out everyone is gaming ambiguities, that they must have an axe to grind, a witch hunt to pursue, or their conditioning has deluded them. In all this, your concessions seem hollow because you don’t really, as far as I can tell, pursue your own conditioning. Did you even read the story I linked to before you told me to watch Disney movies?
Again, the way I came to understand the male gaze was by listening to women in the way I wanted white people, or really anyone I had a problem with, to listen to me. It never seems like you listen to anyone who criticizes your work before you jump to the tried and true defense that their concern is not legitimate but rather can be excused away due to some other factor. I’ve never seen you sit down with a feminist and discuss your works – if you have this feminist agenda, and I do see it in the books, I’d think you’d go out, hat in hand, and seek this discussion out. Maybe you have and I missed it, but maybe a trip over to Ars Marginal (http://arsmarginal.wordpress.com/) might do you some good.
Finally, please believe me, my “list” is my honest attempt to let people know why despite their best intentions and confidence in their liberal mindset, just maybe, have lingering prejudices that people aren’t going to point out because they conclude it isn’t worth the hassle. I have nothing to gain, save aggravation apparently, in bringing up this stuff.
You piling on strawmen on my strawmen is simply suffocating things. The idea is to shrink this debate. Let’s try again:
just to be clear – i didn’t equate feminism with nonmanism to upset you, sciborg2.
i am indifferent to how you feel – my comment was at your expense, surely, but the real point was to emphasize how much i enjoyed Cleric as a character, and like the concept of the Nonmen more generally. the ironic intent was to satirize the notion that the author would take narrative requests like a club DJ takes musical requests.
you can’t “break” our “toys” – you can’t even properly identify the toys. these books are a toy spaceship that you’ve mistaken for a fire truck, and you can’t seem to stop complaining about how upset you are that you can’t find the ladders or hoses.
i think you overestimate the pervasiveness and potency of “stereotype threat” in what most people are reading for other reasons (e.g., Cleric). that says more about you than about the books themselves.
But Callan does seem to be on to something, there might be a way to parse this via some hypothesis testing. But the problem there is it puts the concerns about depiction into a solvable problem, invalidating the reaction of the reader who cannot articulate their claims.
Let me claim this – I have had concerns myself, in the past. Latter, evidence, sufficient for me, showed my concern was founded on nothing. My reaction was invalidated. As it was, by my own standards, my concern was incorrect.
Atleast in terms of myself, if I can’t articulate a claim, that doesn’t make my concern a real one.
And some of my reactions deserve, upon latter reflection of evidence, to be invalidated.
Whether anyone else would want to adopt this paradigm, I do not know.
And again, remember, the women of Earwa are not real.
The intense connection you’ve made between the fiction (fiction as much as nonmen are fiction) with real life groups is a connection you have invented.
Yes, your hypothesis that others could also invent connections to real life groups that validate their belief (one ones we know as misstreatments), that might be true and it might be testable. But it might also be false. If it turns out false, how do you make up for any effects of having acted like it was true in the meantime? Say, a thousand potential readers lost. Your not going to buy a thousand books, for example. Equally, if it does actually validate beliefs (and lets not forget that if so, they will be hooked into the story and that story has not been played out yet (ie, the experiment is not complete)), well I guess I can’t repair that validation, I’ll grant.
If you’re wrong? Well, the thing is that you can always sell those books later. You can always write great reviews that are blessing the wonder of the books and that while things look bleak or misogynistic or whatever early on, the payoff is there.
At the same time, I think that there’s a difference between ‘being incorrect’ and ‘not enjoying things’. For a lot of people the books are uncomfortable enough to read or simply annoying enough to read because it just isn’t their thing. They don’t care about a payoff or if it’s worth it; they are pretty quickly turned off by certain aspects. For them, no reward is worth this. And that’s a very valid opinion. One that need not be corrected. And them saying that it is misogynistic or preachy isn’t something that need be mathematically verified. It is just an opinion. If others believe it, well, so it goes. Not everyone’s going to read these books.
If you’re wrong? Well, the thing is that you can always sell those books later. You can always write great reviews that are blessing the wonder of the books and that while things look bleak or misogynistic or whatever early on, the payoff is there.
I think Scott’s mentioned the findings that if someone hears a claim three times, they are likely to just believe that. Latter reviews or not (why read the review, they already know what the books like). Granted, if that’s not true I’d pay what your saying has alot of potential to mitigate. But I think it comes from actual research, though I don’t have a link for it.
At the same time, I think that there’s a difference between ‘being incorrect’ and ‘not enjoying things’.
I think Scott has shown interest in questions of aesthetics, even though he’s basically said “I know how the story ends, neener neener, not gunna change anything except that which doesn’t change the story”.
It’s just that in question of aesthetics, how do you win that arm wrestling match?
Other than trying to win the aesthetics thing, yeah, totally pitch what you don’t enjoy. Just make sure your not tempted to win at the whole thing 🙂
Speaking of, I wanted Ciogli back to hammering down bashrags instead of simply vaguely being associated with a pile of undefined dead. I’ll pay, I was tempted to try and win that one. I think just in terms of a particular value set, I did. Which is enough for me.
Valuable info. Lucky me I found your website by accident, and I am surprised why this twist of fate didn’t came about earlier! I bookmarked it.
Hi there, You have performed a great job. I’ll certainly digg it and in my opinion suggest to my friends. I’m sure they’ll be benefited from this web site.
Thanks for the upvote! It’s nice to know I’m not pissing EVERYONE off.
Awesome things here. I am very happy to peer your post. Thank you so much and I am having a look ahead to touch you. Will you please drop me a mail?
This basically about him choking the girl.
Ballsy doing a non linear stream of consciousness as the first POV from a nonman. I like how you explore the role emotional and episodic memory plays in the perception of self. It’s like “erratic” is your take on a kinda gradual dissociative fugue state. The kicker for me is that they can’t encode memory without it involving suffering and trauma, what psychologists call negative valence. Sometimes love isn’t enough right ?
I get this choice on your part can potentially make the nonman character/s more intriguing and it overlays a nice, if not particularly nuanced, sense of melancholy…….BUT…….is needing to remember so fundamental to a sense of self, and a sense of self so fundamental to existence, that anything would be willing to eventually have all it’s memories be horrific, just to retain their identity ? Who would even WANT that identity ?
Memory encoding and memory retrieval are completely different things – you seem to randomly mix and match nonmen amnesia – anterograde, retrograde, dissociative, you even have the Elju bit. I would have liked to have seen you give what is a great philosophical exploration of the need for a sense of self a more solid psychological grounding. Memory doesn’t just simply overflow like that. This is fantasy though right ? Still got me hooked.
Not the girl though, she was random, a memory he didn’t need, gratuitous, a poor pretense. Makes him black, not gray. I like your characters better gray, even your dark shade.