Violence, rape, and agency in the "gritty fantasies"

[Contrarius]

Terez isn't that. Terez is a lesbian because she is going to be raped and coerced into accepting that rape, and the leverage to be used is that she's a lesbian. (and as Contrarius argues, this is the best way to have it work and she must be a lesbian to both get reasonable coercion and maximum visceral result). It is being used against her. And it's being used against her in a way that many uppity women tropes have been in the past, making it doubly annoying to me.

Nonononono, a thousand times NO.

This is yet another of those pesky false accusations that several folks, including me, have already corrected several times. You keep ignoring us.

One More Time -- Terez didn't "have" to be lesbian. Her lesbianism was not used against her. Her LOVER was used against her -- that lover could have been either sex. Her lesbianism is ONLY significant because it makes her coerced sex more poignant/viscerably horrible to the readers.

[Contrarius]

As to examples, there are plenty over at tropes: for the psycho lesbians

This page appears to talk about how lesbians are portrayed as evil -- not how "uppity lesbians" are supposedly "set straight" with "deep dicking".

cure your gays.

This page appears to talk only about homosexual men, not "uppity lesbians" -- or any lesbians at all, so far as I can tell.

Or the even more horrible bury your gays.

This one is about homosexuals failing to have HEAs -- not about "uppity lesbians" getting "set straight".

[Shryke]

Huh. I had never heard that about Oz, and I'm somewhat skeptical given that he left the show two years before that storyline went anywhere (and the Willow is gay thing was hinted at for a lot longer than that, too). Do you happen to have a source for that?

I'll see if I can dig one up tommorow, but most of this info is rather defuse as it comes from conventions, talks, commentary tracks, etc.

And it's not terribly unbelievable. They had all sorts of ideas for what they could do long before they used them. There's references to stuff long before it's used or was decided on firmly.

Yes, a lot of things are like that. If you squint - if you look at it in a certain way - things aren't quite as great as they might be. For instance, Buffy loses the love of her life and does not end up destroying the world. Giles ends up losing the love of his life and does not end up becoming the great satan. Willow does. Why Willow and not Giles or Buffy? A lot of that is to do with Willow's character arcs and the fact that Season 6 was complete shit, but it makes a fair amount of sense. It's organic, is set up and is reasonable.

And yet it's still the psycho lesbian deal.

No it's not and that's exactly the point Kal. The plan was that Willow would go crazy. Her sexual orientation was no part of it. And yet, despite this, you say it's "psycho lesbian" just because she happens to be a lesbian.

Apparently no lesbian character can ever go psycho now without being a stereotype?

You are reading stereotypes into things because they look sorta like another thing. It's ridiculous.

]Being able to have a great backstory about why someone falls into a trope doesn't make it any less of a trope, Shryke. That's sort of the problem. You can write a story about how in your world women are objectively less worth than men and the world was designed that way, and thus it makes sense - an actual literal sense - for women to be treated as less than men, but at the end of the day you're still writing a story about women being treated less than men. You can write a story about how black people are measured to be less intelligent than white people by some special computer that can determine perfectly that this is the case and thus assigns all black people to be slaves to white people, and it makes sense in the context of that story - but at the end of the day you're still writing a story about black people getting to be slaves to white people.

Sometimes it does. Also, a trope is not a bad thing on it's own (TV Tropes is quite clear on this point). The thing you are trying to talk about is a stereotype or a cliche or whatnot.

A lesbian can be a psycho without implying that all lesbians are psychos and without being a stereotype of a psycho lesbian. A black man can be a criminal without implying that all black man are criminals and without being a stereotype of a black criminal.

Yes, you could write a story about how a world where all black people are inherently dumber then white people. That doesn't make the story itself bad. The handling thereof does. (a story about the societal ramifications of provable large-scale genetic inferiority would certainly be interesting)

[Kalbear]

I wanted to get back to this because at the very least I think it's worth clarifying. and honestly, the mistakes are probably mine.

2. Kalbear has claimed that Terez was raped "

for being a lesbian", that "

the punishment for her being a lesbian is institutionalized rape", and that Abercrombie is "

using rape as the way to punish"

. This is not at all true. In reality, Terez was coerced into sex because she refused to have sex with the king -- regardless of her sexual orientation. The coercion had nothing to do with punishment, and everything to do with producing heirs.

A few things here: the trope is that she's getting institutionalized rape for being a lesbian. That's what it matches, not necessarily what happens in the text. As it turns out in the text her being a lesbian is what causes her to be raped; the implication by you (that lesbianism is necessary as a motivator because you can't push on her family and you can't torture her) is that if she weren't a lesbian, she couldn't be coerced into being raped.

Therefore she is absolutely being punished as a result of her being a lesbian, though not because she is a lesbian, if that makes sense.

I think a lot of these points are going to go in that way - that there is confusion and lack of clarity from where I'm talking about the trope that it resembles and what actually happened. And that's my fault.

3. Kalbear has claimed that "

Terez's character is essentially only defined by her being a lesbian", and Dazed Bastard has claimed that she is "

defined solely by her sexual preference". This is not at all true. Terez is first defined by her beauty, breeding/family connections, poise, etc. (thus building up the HEA idea); then further defined by her ego, defiance, and condescension (thus starting to tear down the HEA and make her unsympathetic); and, only at the end, given the further attribute of being lesbian -- along with making her fiercely protective of her lover (thus making us newly sympathetic for her, and twisting the knife on the HEA's destruction).

This I think is a lot more true than you let on. Terez's character may not be defined by her being a lesbian, but her biggest moment of drama in the book (and really, she gets only one at all) is entirely related to her being a lesbian. Yes, she's pretty and smart and has good connections. We don't get a lot of that directly from her, mind you, but that's her description. But what defines her as a character is her relationship and love for the Countess and how that is used against her. Her beauty or connections aren't nearly as important to the plot or to her arc as whether or not she's a lesbian. Now, she's a minor character, so that might be okay in other situations, but it's that she's also having that used against her as a means to blackmail is a problem. In any case, I think this is definitely not a 'clearly not true' bit. You might disagree with how big a definition her being a lesbian is, but it's certainly the biggest defining characteristic of her personally.

4. Kalbear has complained about a supposed "sheer detail and titillation factor" and "massive detail" in the rape scene, and Seli has claimed that "The rape is in plain sight". In reality, we don't see the actual rape AT ALL.

No, we see all the sexiness before it. There's a lot of detail about that rape scene and a very clear arousal of Jezal, and it's written from his PoV. We don't get to get to the actual humping, but it doesn't change the fact that the situation is heavily and overtly sensualized.

5. Kalbear has claimed that "Abercrombie glorifies the rape of a lesbian". This is nonsense. There is absolutely nothing "glorified" about any part of Terez's situation.

This is my fault, and I apologize. By glorify I mean that he spends a lot of detail on it, the same way GRRM does on food and lesbian sex or the way Richard Morgan does on describing bits of brain matter exploding from someone's head. In this specific case the argument was that Abercrombie could have completely removed the scene with Jezal and still had the desired effect of making Glokta a horrible person. The reason not to is to make a more visceral reaction. And it's precisely that visceral reaction that I argue against as being unnecessary and gratuitous. Again, my apologies for not making it clearer.

6. Kalbear has claimed that

Abercrombie "made lesbianism something wrong" and "

Abercrombies world is anti-lesbianism"

. In reality, there is nothing in any of Abercrombie's books to suggest that either Abercrombie or the society of the Union thinks there is a single thing morally wrong with lesbianism.

I think that given that Terez's relationship is a secret (when having secret lovers is not at all anything special in the world), her reaction to the realization that someone else knows and her apparent powerlessness to do anything about it that lesbianism is at the very least not accepted as the proper thing to be doing. I realize that you interpret it differently, but in this case I think there's reasonable argument to go either way. I also think that there is certainly no clear-cut statement in the series that says homosexuality is acceptable, nor do we see it all that often for either sex - so if it is in the open you'd think it'd be more commonplace than two characters in 5 books.

[Kalbear]

Nonononono, a thousand times NO.

This is yet another of those pesky false accusations that several folks, including me, have already corrected several times. You keep ignoring us.

One More Time -- Terez didn't "have" to be lesbian. Her lesbianism was not used against her. Her LOVER was used against her -- that lover could have been either sex. Her lesbianism is ONLY significant because it makes her coerced sex more poignant/viscerably horrible to the readers.

Right - which you said you must have because otherwise it's not as visceral.

So the only way the scene works - as you state many, many times - is if she's a lesbian. I don't see how we are in disagreement; you mention many times that in order to have coercion over her and make it as visceral as it is you must make her a lesbian and it must be done exactly as it was. How is that fundamentally different from the statement I made: "

and as Contrarius argues, this is the best way to have it work and she must be a lesbian to both get reasonable coercion and maximum visceral result"

from what you say:"

Her lesbianism was not used against her. Her LOVER was used against her -- that lover could have been either sex. Her lesbianism is ONLY significant because it makes her coerced sex more poignant/viscerably horrible to the readers."

I honestly don't see the difference between the two statements.

[Contrarius]

You don't think Willow going completely nuts in a way that Buffy didn't or Giles didn't (Willow actually was going to DESTROY THE WORLD) as an example of a psycho lesbian? Really? I mean...she decided that if Tara was dead the world must be destroyed. She was the big bad of the season - up there with Angelus, the Mayor and Glory. I'm not sure you can get more psycho lesbian than tearing the skin off of someone then deciding to wipe out all of the world. You really think that's not a good example?

OH my FREAKIN' GOD!!!!

Talk about desperately reaching for issues where there aren't any. Jiminy Cricket, Jeeeminy Christmas and Jesus Christ!!

Willow went psycho because her LOVER was killed. Not because that lover happened to be female. GIVE me a FREAKING BREAK.

[Kalbear]

No it's not and that's exactly the point Kal. The plan was that Willow would go crazy. Her sexual orientation was no part of it. And yet, despite this, you say it's "psycho lesbian" just because she happens to be a lesbian.

Apparently no lesbian character can ever go psycho now without being a stereotype?

You are reading stereotypes into things because they look sorta like another thing. It's ridiculous.

It's not really ridiculous, any more than if you see the only black character on a TV show eating watermelon being a stereotype that's offensive. Even if it's set up, it works out, whatever. That's sort of the point.

There were two lesbians on Buffy. One dies (another trope: all gays must die) and the other goes psycho. Yes, it makes sense in the context of the story, but it also falls in that trope. And that's sort of the point - why do all these lesbians go psycho over and over when other characters do not? What does that imply? If you're a lesbian and a lot of popular culture shows folks you identify with as either dying or going apeshit, is that reasonable? Do you think it's particularly subversive or feminist/homosexual-friendly to have that be the case?

Sometimes it does. Also, a trope is not a bad thing on it's own (TV Tropes is quite clear on this point). The thing you are trying to talk about is a stereotype or a cliche or whatnot.

A lesbian can be a psycho without implying that all lesbians are psychos and without being a stereotype of a psycho lesbian. A black man can be a criminal without implying that all black man are criminals and without being a stereotype of a black criminal.

That's true, but if you don't handle it all that well or you end up having only black people be criminals or only lesbians be psychos...that is more problematic. That can cause people to get offended or bothered. That can alienate.

Yes, you could write a story about how a world where all black people are inherently dumber then white people. That doesn't make the story itself bad. The handling thereof does. (a story about the societal ramifications of provable large-scale genetic inferiority would certainly be interesting)

I completely agree. And I think that it would be very reasonable for someone to bring up how this was clearly a racist point of view and was popularizing or glorifying racist views and not be completely shot down for it depending on how it was handled.

I happen to think that Abercrombie's handling of Terez was pretty lame. Not the worst ever, but certainly not the best. You obviously differ. I think GRRM's handling of Tyrion and Tysha was pretty bad. You can differ. And that's fine too.

[Kalbear]

Talk about desperately reaching for issues where there aren't any. Jiminy Cricket, Jeeeminy Christmas and Jesus Christ!!

Willow went psycho because her LOVER was killed. Not because that lover happened to be female. GIVE me a FREAKING BREAK.

Okay, I'll break it down for you.

Willow was set up as a vengeful personality from a very early age. Her character was the dichotomy of being the bookworm with the giant seething passion underneath, and a lot of that passion was not at all pretty. We get this hinted at multiple times in her character arc - something blue, the vamp willow arc, her reaction to Oz leaving, some of her issues with Xander. in addition, in S6 we get a lot of talk into her ability (or lackthereof) to handle power and using it as a drug. (This was probably the worst thing ever on Buffy, but they did set it up). So when Tara dies, Willow going completely nuts and wanting to wipe out everything makes a fair amount of sense. It's in character. It flows reasonably well.

And at the same time - it's still a lesbian going crazy.

It's not really reaching, Contrarius. I can perfectly and totally understand why Willow did what she did. I can see it established cleanly in the text from multiple seasons and not feel it's out of character for her, and I can even agree that it would have happened if it were Oz or Xander. At the same time, i can also see it totally falling into that trope, because at the end of the day it's a psycho lesbian. Similarly, I can see Tara's death falling into that trope of all gays must die. Even if it made sense, even if it fit the arc, etc. It's still fitting into that trope.

And that's kind of the overall point - just because the intentions or the setup are well-intentioned doesn''t mean you still can't offend. Just because you explain that your lesbians really do need to go psycho here doesn't mean that it isn't psycho lesbian go time. Just because you didn't mean any offense when you said that this song is gay doesn't mean you should say it or at least understand why it could be a problem.

[Contrarius]

<p style="text-align: left">

<br />

Yep.As well as the "uppity lesbian getting raped by the guy she was a jerk to"; that shows up in so many romance novels.

WHAT romance novels? I've read a bunch of romance this year, and so far I haven't come across any examples of "lesbian getting raped by the guy she was a jerk to". But I could have missed some, obviously, since there are thousands of romance novels out there. Of course, you're so certain that the "lesbian getting raped by the guy she was a jerk to shows up in so many romance novels", that I'm certain you could list some examples for us.

Right?

Put it this way, Shryke: I would have WAY less of an issue with Terez being a lesbian if 20% of all the women we meet in the story are lesbians.

</p>

Well, let's see. In the whole First Law trilogy, we have about 6 female characters with any significant character description, maybe 7. Of those 6 or 7, 2 are lesbian. Yup, that's even more than 20%. So you should be happy now.

Right?

I do think that if you're going to do something like an uppity lesbian you should do it with a bit more thought than what Abercrombie used.

There's that pesky "should" again.

Exactly what would constitute sufficient "thought" to satisfy you? And how would those satisfying changes be materially different from censorship?

Let's frame it a different way. Do you have a problem with people using the word "fag" as a perjorative? Or "gay"? Or calling Chinese descent people "chinks"? If someone you knew said something like that, said that he's acting like a little faggot - would you have an issue with that?

What in the everlovin' world has any of this got to do with Abercrombie??

how using lesbianism as a way to invoke pain and having the only lesbians in your book suffer in a specific way because they are lesbians can be offensive, and why.

Wow. You're just completely and totally ignoring what people are saying to you, aren't you....

One More Time: Terez and her lover are NOT made to suffer "because they are lesbians". Not, not, notnotnot.

Please try and READ what I'm telling you. Terez is made to suffer BECAUSE SHE IS REFUSING TO HAVE SEX. REGARDLESS OF HER SEXUAL ORIENTATION. The motivating force is her lack of cooperation, NOT HER LESBIANISM.

Did you actually READ it this time??

ETA: sorry, had to edit out a bunch of formatting symbols...

[Grack21]

OH my FREAKIN' GOD!!!!

Talk about desperately reaching for issues where there aren't any. Jiminy Cricket, Jeeeminy Christmas and Jesus Christ!!

Willow went psycho because her LOVER was killed. Not because that lover happened to be female. GIVE me a FREAKING BREAK.

You have won the coveted Grack person of the month award.

Stop arguing with this guy, he's either a really clever troll, or he's got some grudge that makes him see crazy things. Take my flipping out post as an example. It's not worth it.

[Grack21]

weird double post there

[Contrarius]

Actually from what I remember of the first novel that's not true, right? Jamie gets raped by another guy who thinks 'just wants to be subdued' works the other way as well.

But the guy who rapes Jamie isn't the hero. Jamie is supposed to be all heroic and romantic and crap, yet he rapes the heroine and it's all supposed to be fine and hunky-dory.

For instance, Buffy loses the love of her life and does not end up destroying the world. Giles ends up losing the love of his life and does not end up becoming the great satan.

Well geez. You can only have so many apocalypses.

Willow does. Why Willow and not Giles or Buffy?

Because Willow is the most powerful witch. Buffy isn't even a witch at all.

As somebody mentioned earlier -- bad things can happen to minorities just as easily as to non-minorities. Minorities can do bad things just as easily as non-minorities. Just because a member of some minority happens to do something bad, that does not at all mean that his or her membership in that minority is being exploited in any way.

[fionwe1987]

I haven't been able to read the whole of this thread, and so I might be repeating a point that might already have come up. In which case, apologies.

Towards the broader point of the lack of female agency in gritty fantasies, what I find most troubling is the assumption that "Middle Ages=misogyny" is taken as a reasonable explanation for the lack of female empowerment in these series. I'm going to illustrate the point using Martin as an example, though I don't even think he's the most egregious when it comes to this kind of poor treatment we see in fantasy. I'm just more familiar with his work, and this has been one of the few things that has pissed me off about aSoIaF.

So, the Seven Kingdoms as a whole is pretty shitty place for women to live in, save in Dorne. The Noble Houses barter women to shore up alliances (and men too, to be fair), women aren't allowed in the highest echelons of power, in the nobility as well as the clergy, and access to education is barred. All this, on the surface, seems to fit. But dig deeper, and you'll see that there is no actual explanation for the rampant misogyny in this society.

Take the religion of the Seven, for example. Yes, it is beyond obvious this is meant to be a parallel for the Church. But why are septas not allowed to become High Septons (or High Septas as the case may be) and lead the religion? The books are silent. There is no in story justification for this, and we can only understand this behavior in the context of its real world parallel.

Again, there is no explanation for why Dornish customs, which treat women so much better, haven't permeated to the rest of Westeros. Dorne is not politically or economically isolated from the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, but somehow it remained socially isolated for thousands of years?

I don't think any of this is a sign that Martin is a misogynist. His treatment of individual female characters within the context of this sexist world remains excellent (which cannot be said for a ton of other fantasy authors who write in similar worlds, however). But within the wider context of poorly constructed fantasy worlds evoking the Middle Ages, and using that to justify all sorts of political, economic and social behaviors, the treatment of women in these stories sticks out.

At best, we get the lack of female physical strength as an explanation for their disempowerment, at worse, we get no explanation at all. It is my belief that by ignoring the complex sociological context surrounding the lack of female agency in the Middle Ages, and instead depicting this as an obvious component of a pre-techological society, they are unconsciously subscribing to the notion that misogyny is a default condition of pre-modern societies. They are unwittingly saying that the default human state is sexist, and advances in the condition of women is a special sonsequence of modern society. This is both inaccurate and offensive, and definitely worthy of discussion.

[Contrarius]

A few things here: the trope is that she's getting institutionalized rape for being a lesbian. That's what it matches, not necessarily what happens in the text. As it turns out in the text her being a lesbian is what causes her to be raped; the implication by you (that lesbianism is necessary as a motivator because you can't push on her family and you can't torture her) is that if she weren't a lesbian, she couldn't be coerced into being raped.

Kalbear, you're not even making any sense any more. She could absolutely have been coerced into having sex without being a lesbian; being a lesbian is absolutely NOT what "causes her to be raped". Making her a lesbian simply makes more dramatic sense, in giving us more sympathy for her and making her plight even more miserable.

Terez's character may not be defined by her being a lesbian

This is correct. Despite your previous claims to the contrary, her character is NOT defined by her lesbianism.

but her biggest moment of drama in the book (and really, she gets only one at all) is entirely related to her being a lesbian.

No, it isn't. It is mostly related to her refusal to have sex with Jezal -- regardless of her sexual orientation.

it's that she's also having that used against her as a means to blackmail is a problem.

But -- for about the thousandth time -- she is NOT having her lesbianism "used against her". She is having her LOVER used against her, REGARDLESS of whether that lover is male or female.

No, we see all the sexiness before it.

There isn't much sexiness to it, actually. They swap spit with squelching noises. Jezal grunts. Terez quotes Glokta. Where's the sexiness??

and a very clear arousal of Jezal

Oh please, because he gets a tingle and grunts??

and it's written from his PoV.

In case you didn't notice, Jezal is one of only 4 POV characters (uhhh....is it 5? I'm nearly asleep right now, I forget!) throughout the trilogy. Terez is not one of those 4 characters. Logically, therefore, the scene shows Jezal's train of thought but not Terez's. Duh.

We don't get to get to the actual humping, but it doesn't change the fact that the situation is heavily and overtly sensualized.

It is mostly "sensualized" in unappetizing ways -- spit noises, grunting, Glokta-quoting. The only real "sensualism" is only there to show Jezal being oblivious.

By glorify I mean that he spends a lot of detail on it

But he doesn't actually "spend a lot of detail on it" at all. Literally, **at all** -- since the rape itself isn't actually anywhere present in the text, period.

In this specific case the argument was that Abercrombie could have completely removed the scene with Jezal and still had the desired effect of making Glokta a horrible person.

Sure, but we wouldn't have seen Jezal being clueless; we wouldn't have seen Terez capitulating; we wouldn't have seen how the encounter between Jezal and Terez could look so different from their two perspectives. A lot would have been missed.

I think that given that Terez's relationship is a secret (when having secret lovers is not at all anything special in the world),

Gawd, you keep saying this as though it's something true and relevant.

Queens can't safely take male lovers before they produce heirs. Obviously, that would hopelessly confuse issues of inheritance, and seriously piss off the king (not to mention Bayaz). So Terez could never safely flaunt her lover, regardless of whether she's lesbian or not, until after heirs have been produced with trustworthy bloodlines.

I also think that there is certainly no clear-cut statement in the series that says homosexuality is acceptable

OH my FREAKING.......sigh, you're driving me to expletives again.

Do you really expect authors to go around saying "oh btw, homosexuality is perfectly acceptable in this society"???? I mean, REALLY??? Please oh please oh please, TRY to get serious.

And now it's after 3:30 here, and I'm going to bed!

[Grack21]

Having just taken a Early Eng Lit course where we actually talked about misogyny in the middle ages, and it was way worse then some of you revisionists like to believe. I'd even say that westeros has it way better then we did.

[fionwe1987]

Having just taken a Early Eng Lit course where we actually talked about misogyny in the middle ages, and it was way worse then some of you revisionists like to believe. I'd even say that westeros has it way better then we did.

That is not the point. The question isn't how much misogyny there is. Its why.

[Lyanna Stark]

Having just taken a Early Eng Lit course where we actually talked about misogyny in the middle ages, and it was way worse then some of you revisionists like to believe. I'd even say that westeros has it way better then we did.

Really? My old teacher who has a PhD on medieval saints disagree with you. She claims that middle ages were not too bad, and that the real oppression came about later, during early renaissance and onwards. Women during the middle ages could normally run businesses and could also make a career for themselves, of a sort, within the church (see for instance St Bridgit and Hildegard of Bingen). I think you could also argue that there are differences between areas and that what was the default in one region wasn't necessarily so in another place.

Re the Buffy comment: I have no opinion on Buffy since I think it's an utter piece of trash and refuse to watch it. TV tropes do normally make good points tho, even if some of their examples can be...a bit on the juvenile side for me.

[Contrarius]

Okay, okay, I came back for ONE last post. Then bed!

So the only way the scene works - as you state many, many times - is if she's a lesbian.

You're still ignoring everything I say.

What I actually said was that this is the way that works **best dramatically**. Terez can be coerced with or without having her be a lesbian. Her lesbianism simply adds more poignancy and drama.

There were two lesbians on Buffy. One dies (another trope: all gays must die) and the other goes psycho.

Actually, there were more than two. Willow takes a new lover in the last season, for instance, and I'm pretty sure there were at least a couple -- friends or something -- while Tara was still alive.

And that's sort of the point - why do all these lesbians go psycho over and over when other characters do not?

But they don't. For one thing, there are many many non-lesbian psycho characters throughout the course of the show; and for another, not all of the lesbians do go psycho (Tara wasn't psycho, for instance, and neither was Willow's second lover).

Willow was set up as a vengeful personality from a very early age.

This is an interesting point -- since Willow wasn't even portrayed as being lesbian "from a very early age". Therefore, by your own argument, her personality setup had nothing to do with her subsequent lesbianism. :)

[Horza]

Way to spoil Last Argument of Kings and Buffy.

You people are the worst.