Women in Abercrombie

[Shryke]

Ferro is supposed to have very little emotional depth. It's part of the whole demon blood thing as I remember Bayaz saying.

[MattL86]

They're all people who have a sneer in their smile. They're all people who are openly contemptuous. They're all people who are irritable. They're all people who are defensive. They're all ultimately practical people who are, in the words of our friend, "realistic about these things". They're all people who fantasise about slitting the throat of whatever person happens to be annoying them at that particular moment. And EVERYONE annoys them.

You just described Glokta, Gorst, Morveer, Shivers, and probably at least half the men in Abercrombie's books. Abercrombie doesn't write feminist or misogynist characters, he writes fucked up characters.

[Datepalm]

EDIT: Oh and she's also not really pretty or magnificently beautiful either. I think Monza is in many ways an anti-Sue, in that she's not a particularly nice and pleasant person and you can't really sympathise with her pure, moral motives either, really. And she has no superpowers! In essence, she is not spechul at all, just bloody minded and set up as a political pawn to destabilise the area.

Plus, hints of incest! Always a bonus. I think Monza is a really great character, actually, in walking a line of being a genuinely rather unpleasant person without so alienating readers (for the most part, anyway) as to make the book bad.

[trio]

You just described Glokta, Gorst, Morveer, Shivers, and probably at least half the men in Abercrombie's books. Abercrombie doesn't write feminist or misogynist characters, he writes fucked up characters.

And if you read the rest of my post, you'd have seen me point out the Glokta similarity...

But there is variety with the men that there isn't (yet) with the women. The men aren't ALL Glokta/Gorsts. There are loads of different types, right down to Tunny/Beck et al.

As for Wonderful - I'm not sure she's a million miles away. She's pretty cold and sarcastic too. And coolly practical. Like all Joe's women, you can imagine her fucking, but not hugging. She's just not as agonized by frustrated need as the others. The rawness isn't there admittedly, but I'm still not seeing a big jump away from type, just cos she's a successful warrior.

[MattL86]

And if you read the rest of my post, you'd have seen me point out the Glokta similarity...

But there is variety with the men that there isn't (yet) with the women. The men aren't ALL Glokta/Gorsts. There are loads of different types, right down to Tunny/Beck et al.

As for Wonderful - I'm not sure she's a million miles away. She's pretty cold and sarcastic too. And coolly practical. Like all Joe's women, you can imagine her fucking, but not hugging. She's just not as agonized by frustrated need as the others. The rawness isn't there admittedly, but I'm still not seeing a big jump away from type, just cos she's a successful warrior.

Yeah I know there's a bit more variety in Joe's male characters, but honestly how much? Of the traits you listed, just about everyone has at least one, and as I mentioned like half the male characters have about all of them. It's more Abercrombie writing Abercrombie characters than anything else. He has a big pile of bad character traits and each character is a combo of a few of them. Beck is a lot like Jezal really, except he grows up and Jezal never did. Tunny has a lot of Glokta in him.

I think it's actually fair if you want to criticize Abercrombie for having all his characters pretty much the same. Just when you focus it to only women, it seems a lot less fair and more of a reach to me. The differences between Finree and Ferro and Monza for example are just as pronounced (to me anyway) as the differences between any male characters. Finree's one of the most human and dare I say normal characters Joe's written, Ferro the least.

[Arthmail]

I brought up Bakker because he is often accused of misogyny on this board while Abercrombie isn't. Nevertheless, I think Bakker's women are stronger than Abercrombie's. Note that I'm talking of The First Law only since that's all that I've read. It's well possible that Abercrombie indeed improved his act in his later books.

Bayaz gets brought up, but Kellhus is several orders of magnitude better at manipulating people. Abercrombie's characters should be the ones with the advantage in making their own decisions. Indeed, someone like Glokta or West achieves quite a bit and shows a lot of autonomy even though they are ultimately serving Bayaz's ends. Women don't get to do the same. At best they get to fail miserably and get defeated by men, like Tolomei failing at getting the Seed and the merchant lady failing at brokering a surrender, at worst they are utterly passive characters like Cawneil who sit at home doing nothing in particular. The ones in between like Ferro and Vitari get to be simple cogs in men's plans, although I'm sure Ferro would object to that description.

Anyway, I do think Abercrombie probably tried to pander to someone by including women like Ferro and Vitari, although I'm not sure if it's men or women or himself. Ferro in particular reads like Abercrombie "rolled a natural one" (i.e. failed dismally) at creating a heroine that appeals to feminists. Ferro is all "attitude" and supernatural fighting ability attached to zero emotional depth and no notable intelligence. Just compare her to the other supernatural fighter, Logen.

Bakker gets accused of misogyny because he walks the tighest line possible. None of his female characters, none, do much of anything on their own. You can't bring up the old empress, she's dead. I don't care what we are TOLD she has done. Likewise, i do not care that we are TOLD that Esmenet is something special. That she is super intelligent. She is simply part of a breeding program, and i don't feel that she is a developed character. And lets forget Serwe.

See, your natural dislike of the First Law is coming through. What the fuck does Bayaz have to do with anything? Or Khellus? This thread is not about either of them. That being said, i'll respond to this statement simply. Bayaz at least feels plausible, Khellus has always been bullshit to me. He is so amazing at manipulating people because the author decided so, not because at any point felt that he was actually that good. Revealing a man to himself causes him to weep? Bleh. (And i won't deny, i enjoyed the PoN series immensely, but TJE was far better).

I'm not sure how Ferro is a cog in a man's plan. I mean, technically, she is. Sure. But fucking everyone is a cog in Bayaz's plan. All of the main characters are ultimately controlled, in some way, by this man. And it has less to do with him being a man, and more with him being a lying, murdering, fuck.

And, i'll also add, i think you're on crack if you think Abercrombie was trying to appeal to feminists by including Vitari and Ferro. I think more that he had these characters in mind, and he went with it. His only arguably good guy, West, does not come out of the series a winner. Thats the thing with Abercrombie, no one comes out a winner. Because like in real life, most people are motivated by different things, and they rarely win, but they surely go about their business independant of what you think they should be doing. The same with his characters. They all have their reasons.

[Guest Raids]

Anyway, I do think Abercrombie probably tried to pander to someone by including women like Ferro and Vitari, although I'm not sure if it's men or women or himself. Ferro in particular reads like Abercrombie "rolled a natural one" (i.e. failed dismally) at creating a heroine that appeals to feminists. Ferro is all "attitude" and supernatural fighting ability attached to zero emotional depth and no notable intelligence. Just compare her to the other supernatural fighter, Logen.

For me, Ferro doesn't even register as primarily female. She's demon-spawn that happens to be female. Her gender is not a very important part of her character, or even noteworthy, really. As a feminist, I certainly did not read her as a heroine, especially one that was written for me. Finree does, certainly, because she's just like the historical characters whose influence feminists are always trying to tease out. Vitari doesn't even really come across for me that way either - she kind of makes me think of that female acolyte of Sub-Zero in Mortal Kombat.

I think it's worth exploring the possibility that some people are sort of weirded by female characters that have not an ounce of femininity - not that they object, but that the absence of femininity, for them, reads as so not like the norm that it pulls them out of the story and they end up encoding those characters very much as "women" because it violates their norms. This is not a problem that I have.

FTR, I did not think Monza was like this - she definitely has some feminine aspects, but I know some people found her to be masculine beyond the point of believability also.

I guess that's a long and polite way of saying that I don't think a person who thinks that Bakker writes better female characters than Abercrombie is much of a feminist. Which is not to say that Abercrombie is feminist or anything, just that Bakker writes more believable and readily acceptable female characters for a certain type of male.

[Nerdanel]

It seems there is a double standard at play: Bayaz justifies everything and Kellhus justifies nothing. I myself feel that it's Bayaz benefiting from author fiat in his manipulations while Kellhus is just that good.

Re: Esmenet as a prize, I'd say Esmenet is a prize in the same way a hugely talented young baseball player is a prize to a baseball team manager. Esmenet becomes Kellhus's empress because she wants to. According to Aurang, she isn't even in love with Kellhus.

[Happy Ent]

None of his female characters, none, do much of anything on their own.

I don’t understand your usage of “none”. Istrya has been scheming an manipulation all her life. Esmenet does nothing on her own? She SPOILER SPOILER! Is SPOILER SPOILER sitting at home doing what she’s told? On the contrary. She is extremely single-minded, driven, ambitious, …. And even Serwë: the only reason that Serwë hasn’t murdered Cnaiür, displaying as much agency as you can desire, is that Kellhus stopped her hand at the very last moment.

So when you say none—none!—you mean 25%? Or almost all? Or all?

I always think this kind of dichotomic rhetoric is inimical to informed discourse.

[trio]

think it's worth exploring the possibility that some people are sort of weirded by female characters that have not an ounce of femininity - not that they object, but that the absence of femininity, for them, reads as so not like the norm that it pulls them out of the story and they end up encoding those characters very much as "women" because it violates their norms. This is not a problem that I have.

I think I'm dumb, cos I'm not really sure I understand all of this paragraph. But anyhoo.

I think it's an interesting debate that Ferro does not come across as any gender. As a woman, I certainly felt that. She's just an animal. There are no identifiable gender traits there at all, really. I didn't really mind that - so what? She had to be something. May as well as be female as not.

What I did object to with Ferro was the characterisation, which was so unsympathetic that I kinda didn't care what happened to her, female or male or animal or whatever.

But when you're having a debate about female characters, then you have to include her as an example of how Abercrombie writes women, cos she is one, and there isn't exactly a cast of a hundred female characters to discuss.

[Sariel]

And Practical Frost is how Abercrombie writes men...

This discussion seems more than a little silly to me, and in the end feels more like the result of some people having a need to find cause for offense than anything else.

Bakker's portrayal of women made me feel uncomfortable at times and deserves discussion, which might seem to have been the author's point. Heinlein for instance certainly portrayed massive, steaming piles of misogyny in his books. The same can be said of several sci fi and fantasy authors up through the years and I agree that highlighting these things are important. But Abercrombie? If I were to mention modern fantasy authors where misogyny is not a problem Abercrombie would certainly be part of that list.

[Nerdanel]

Comparing Ferro to Practical Frost is telling. Ferro has a tongue, POV scenes of her own, and in general a bigger role in the plot. Nevertheless, Ferro doesn't manage to surpass Frost in character depth. At best, they're about equal. Plus Frost has the benefit of possibly possessing hidden depths that we know Ferro doesn't have.

The males in The First Law include the likes of Glokta, Logen, West, and Dogman. Yes, they are flawed, but so is everyone else, and the females in the books can only dream about being that strong and rounded. I'd say Ardee gets the closest, but not anywhere close enough. The rest of the pack is even more hopeless and passive. And at the low end we get the likes of Cawneil.

Also, I agree with Happy Ent about Bakker's women.

[Guest Raids]

Nerdanel, I don't think you can really have an educated opinion on this in any way whatsoever without reading Best Served Cold, at least. I don't even think you can say, oh Joe was like this at first, as evidence by the First Law Trilogy, because for all you know he was planning on having a female lead character in the next book. And she is the lead - I don't think Shivers is really even on equal footing with Monza in terms of who the book is really about.

[trio]

Sariel, who said Abercrombie is a misogynist? That's not what this is about. I don't think anyone really thinks that at all.

This is debating whether his female characters aren't varied enough. That doesn't mean the dude writes women terribly. I don't think he does a bad job, actually, in depicting the driven, cold, practical type who's prone to fits of fury.

It's just that perhaps it'd be cool to see him explore another type of woman entirely.

[Datepalm]

For me, Ferro doesn't even register as primarily female. She's demon-spawn that happens to be female. Her gender is not a very important part of her character, or even noteworthy, really.

Really? If anything, I could have done with hr being a bit less...female. I thought it undercut from the whole 'total mess, barely human' aspect of the character. Not in her personal behaviour, I agree thats more or less neutral* but the framing of the story for her - that she was raped and a sex slave, that her very first act of defiance was to scar her face - to destroy her beauty (at least that was the intimation I picked up) and that to reap revenge on them is her whole goal in life, that reaching out for her is in the form of sex with Logen...they're gendered tropes, and would probably read differently if written about a man.

*(The whole idea that there are simply ways in which women inherently behave, and ways in which women just don't - including women in fantasy worlds, women with magic powers, women who are uncontroversial medieval military commanders, women who have led lives like nothing any woman on earth has ever led, etc - strikes me as...well, missing the point rather.)

[Sariel]

Sariel, who said Abercrombie is a misogynist? That's not what this is about. I don't think anyone really thinks that at all.

This is debating whether his female characters aren't varied enough. That doesn't mean the dude writes women terribly. I don't think he does a bad job, actually, in depicting the driven, cold, practical type who's prone to fits of fury.

It's just that perhaps it'd be cool to see him explore another type of woman entirely.

My impression was that at least one very vocal poster was implying that, my appologies if mistaken.

However, I would disagree with the statement that his women are not varied enough. Abercrombie's world is a dark and nasty place. To climb the social ladder to a point where you'd be mentioned in the world changing events of the books you'd have to be a pretty rutheless bastard. Considering womens' position in this society (though this seems less true in Styria than other places) the ones capable of climbing to a position of power must be even more vicious and rutheless than their male counterparts. His women are generally (or so it seems to me) smarter than the people surrounding them, and it has more or less always been that way for them. In my opinion characters such as Ardee and Finree are very different to each other, yet they've struggled against some of the very same things which give them a couple of common traits too.

[mormont]

Frost is a deeper character than Ferro? :stunned: I mean, not even 'in my view', but just thrown out there as a fact? Huh. And potential depth is being counted now? In that case, can I cite Aliz as being a terrific example of how Joe can write a really deep female character, because for all we know she might be?

I can't get into the Bakker comparison as frankly, all of his characters (as well other aspects of his writing) left me so cold that I gave up fifty pages into the second book.

[Nerdanel]

You know the saying that goes something like "Better be silent and be thought a fool than speak up and remove all doubt"? I think the case of Frost and Ferro is a bit like that.

Frost is a minor character. He is mostly in the background, so it's completely understandable that he doesn't get much development. We don't need a detailed character history for every random innkeeper and such. Ferro, on the other hand, is a POV character highly involved with the plot. We see the world through her eyes and also see her through the eyes of the other POV characters. We can see for ourselves that Ferro's character is flatter than a pancake that was run over by a steamroller. Indeed, we see so much of Ferro's character that her sole emotion gets really repetitive to read about.

And Ferro and Ardee are the two most prominent female characters in the story...

[Guest Raids]

Really? If anything, I could have done with hr being a bit less...female. I thought it undercut from the whole 'total mess, barely human' aspect of the character. Not in her personal behaviour, I agree thats more or less neutral* but the framing of the story for her - that she was raped and a sex slave, that her very first act of defiance was to scar her face - to destroy her beauty (at least that was the intimation I picked up) and that to reap revenge on them is her whole goal in life, that reaching out for her is in the form of sex with Logen...they're gendered tropes, and would probably read differently if written about a man.

I'm not saying she didn't strike me as a character with a vagina. But that's about the extent that she's marked out as female.

[Datepalm]

I'm not saying she didn't strike me as a character with a vagina. But that's about the extent that she's marked out as female.

What does mark someone out as female? Should she have spent more time thinking about babies, maybe done some emberiodery? The circumstances of her life (within the setting) are distinctly female. So are many of her reactions to them. (the same goes for Ardee, on both counts. Vitari, if anything, is far less distinctly a female character, despite being a mother) I'm not sure where else a character is supposed to be indentified as female.