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

[Sci-2]

So a book can't contain scenes that reflect bad things that happen in real life?

A book can confirm or subvert the "put a bitch in her place" trope. Nothing changes if Terez is shown as an amicable character who simply doesn't want to have sex with Jezal.

I remember Sady Doyle had an article, where if she simply tells a man she is not interested he starts going off about how she's a bitch, she's not all that hot and should be grateful for his attention, etc. This whole narrative subplot seems rife with that behavior.

The problem is confirmation bias. I can watch a movie where a gay character gets AIDS and think "Getting AIDS is a terrible thing to happen for a human being." Someone who tacitly likes how gays are treated in Uganda, or lesbians in other countries who are locked up and "corrected" with electric shocks, will see the same movie and think "Sucks, but that's what happens when you stray from the Way of the Master."

I just think its a bit disappointing that First Law subverts tropes that don't matter in RL while a simple shift in Terez's nature would subvert a trope that has RL consequence.

Because mainstream pornography is fucking disturbing if you think about how it treats women for even 2 seconds?

Exactly my point. All that is required to not make it a common porno plot is a different presentation of Terez. She could be nice to Jezel, and maybe those wait on her, but when he tries to touch her she looks over at the Countess and retracts.

When Glokta takes the Countess away, Terez could promise - even just to herself - that he will pay. Personally, a Terez POV would have be a relief in the midst of the predictable author-fiat descents of the main characters.

ETA: I mean, look at the explanations we've gotten for Terez's behavior. She is filled with hubris, or is wanting to have her cake and eat it too. But we don't know anything about her motivations, but the explanations that've been forthcoming cast her in a negative light.

ETA II:

How does this "support rape culture"?

Sorry, that was more a general response. I find the Terez scene problematic, but I was thinking more about the Wind Up Girl creepiness. (I'm also curious what he has to say about the Thai being nonsense to a native speaker - I posted a link to the blog's review on his site but I don't think he ever responded.)

[Shryke]

A book can confirm or subvert the "put a bitch in her place" trope. Nothing changes if Terez is shown as an amicable character who simply doesn't want to have sex with Jezal.

Right, but nothing changes if she isn't nice to him either then. So why is it so important to you that she be nice to Jezal?

Frankly, her being kinda nasty to him both makes more sense and also makes the turnaround with Glokta more creepy since we kinda start off like "Yeah, I don't like her" and then quickly we begin to sympathize with her because of the horrible things happening to her.

The whole book is like that with Glokta in that it almost dares you to see him as a "hero" solely because he's the narrator and he's got a fun attitude, but his actions clearly illustrate he's a goddamn monster.

I remember Sady Doyle had an article, where if she simply tells a man she is not interested he starts going off about how she's a bitch, she's not all that hot and should be grateful for his attention, etc. This whole narrative subplot seems rife with that behavior.

What? Where?

The problem is confirmation bias. I can watch a movie where a gay character gets AIDS and think "Getting AIDS is a terrible thing to happen for a human being." Someone who tacitly likes how gays are treated in Uganda, or lesbians in other countries who are locked up and "corrected" with electric shocks, will see the same movie and think "Sucks, but that's what happens when you stray from the Way of the Master."

I just think its a bit disappointing that First Law subverts tropes that don't matter in RL while a simple shift in Terez's nature would subvert a trope that has RL consequence.

So what? Abercrombie could have done a ton of shit different. This doesn't mean he should have.

And what confirmation bias is going on here? She isn't punished because she's a lesbian. She's punished because she's not-Bayaz and in TFL that's the only requirement.

Exactly my point. All that is required to not make it a common porno plot is a different presentation of Terez. She could be nice to Jezel, and maybe those wait on her, but when he tries to touch her she looks over at the Countess and retracts.

When Glokta takes the Countess away, Terez could promise - even just to herself - that he will pay. Personally, a Terez POV would have be a relief in the midst of the predictable author-fiat descents of the main characters.

Exactly what point? Pornography is kinda disturbing. The part in question is meant to be disturbing.

Again, there's no reason for her to be nice to Jezal and her being dismissive of him works with the rest of the series much better. Hell, your idea would give the entire thing away.

You seem to want it solely to change around something that's not even there. She's not "getting a good dicking to set her straight" nor is she "being punished for being uppity and/or being a lesbian". She's still gay at the end and she's getting beaten into submission because that's what happens to everyone in the book. Nothing makes her unique in this respect and certainly not her attitude or sexual orientation.

ETA: I mean, look at the explanations we've gotten for Terez's behavior. She is filled with hubris, or is wanting to have her cake and eat it too. But we don't know anything about her motivations, but the explanations that've been forthcoming cast her in a negative light.

They cast her as someone of high station looking down on someone of lower station. You can say this "casts her in a negative light", but really it's just being realistic. People today still look down on lower class people.

[Sci-2]

And what confirmation bias is going on here? She isn't punished because she's a lesbian. She's punished because she's not-Bayaz and in TFL that's the only requirement.

The bias is from those readers who like to see "bitches" put in their place. There must be a good number of that kind of person out there given how much porn tailors itself to the trope. We could probably look at how many spec-fic books have this trope as well to get at least an approximate sense of how it helps books in the genre sell.

Again, there's no reason for her to be nice to Jezal and her being dismissive of him works with the rest of the series much better. Hell, your idea would give the entire thing away.

Give what away?

My idea retains the plot but removes the aspect of it that makes it cleave so close to an often seen tropes of lesbians as man-haters and the humiliation of a beautiful but bitchy woman.

Heck, the same trope is used against Cersei in ADWD. We could probably find tons of examples, going from Disney movies to comics to likely video games.

TFL goes out of its way to subvert tropes in the genre, but misses (AFAIK) the subversion in all depictions of women.

(Now Heroes, OTOH, does a great job with Finree IMHO.)

[Serious Callers Only]

It's funny because it seems like (as changing the attitude of the antagonists won't fly in the grimdark world of Bayaz), you're left wanting for the victim to handle itself better, to not reinforce the "put a bitch in her place trope" - ie: you want her to be stoical and sly and smart, and preferably avoid the trap altogether (run away with her lover?). Maybe even less of a unsympathetic figure at first?

Well, it would be a different book wouldn't it? It would have a heroine to the villain narrator.

[Sci-2]

you want her to be stoical and sly and smart, and preferably avoid the trap altogether (run away with her lover?

Actually I want to know why Terez is depicted as she is, given said depiction cleaves so close to the tropes under discussion -> Man-hating lesbian (we never see her interact with males she doesn't hate IIRC), bitchy woman who refuses to have sex but then is forced into it.

Also seems like there is a meta-level discussion to be had here:

Do negative portrayals in media result in negative consequences for depicted groups?

If we can confirm the above, what - if anything - is the responsibility of the author?

Is negative portrayal of specific historically marginalized groups a valid criticism? What criteria should be used to determine the validity of the claim? Do we seek a threshold where we need to see a certain number of people bothered?

As to importance of confirmation bias, let me give an example. In college I worked at an inner city elementary school, and when we took two of our kids to a restaurant in the higher end DC area they were terrified they'd be kicked out because they were black.

So yes, I do think portrayals in media matter.

[Nerdanel]

IMNSHO, Abercrombie actually "just wanted" to stomp on the HEA good and proper -- so, instead of making the queen be a loving, biddable, brainless bimbo, he made her a strong-willed harpie bitch who was determined to get what she wanted. And then he squashed her just like he squashed everyone else.

Abercrombie made her an idiot with incomprehensible thought processes and no connection to the reality. Oh, and he made her a vicious, man-hating lesbian - such a nasty, hateful, misogynist stereotype that I can only wonder what went through his head when he came up with her. Was he proud of himself?

Terez's character makes so little sense that I have a sinking feeling that Abercrombie might actually have thought he was writing a realistic and unromanticized portrayal of a lesbian queen and not having a clue how hard he was failing. Or maybe Terez was meant to be a comic relief character. I have no idea.

Actually, the prince's death is quite important to the plot. In fact, without that death (and the death of his brother), Jezal wouldn't have become king.

You cut text from my quote. "These latter events" referred to the text you cut. No doubt you cut that text because the events mentioned were utterly unimportant, which was kind of my point...

The prince's death is of course very important, and I thought I made that clear. The manner of his death on the other hand could have something entirely different. Perhaps he could have slipped and fallen to his death when standing on icy stones and pissing into a ravine. The possibilities are endless. But Abercrombie decided to go with rape to show how evil the prince was and to give West a righteous reason to kill him. I find that unimaginative. Rape-as-characterization and rape-as-motivation are so overdone.

[Shryke]

Abercrombie made her an idiot with incomprehensible thought processes and no connection to the reality. Oh, and he made her a vicious, man-hating lesbian - such a nasty, hateful, misogynist stereotype that I can only wonder what went through his head when he came up with her. Was he proud of himself?

Terez's character makes so little sense that I have a sinking feeling that Abercrombie might actually have thought he was writing a realistic and unromanticized portrayal of a lesbian queen and not having a clue how hard he was failing. Or maybe Terez was meant to be a comic relief character. I have no idea.

What the hell? She's none of those things. Her thought processes are perfectly understandable.

She's gay, so she wants nothing to do with fucking Jezal (or any man). She's rich and powerful and Jezal is a bastard, so she looks down on him. And further to that she thinks she can get away with shutting down any sexual advances of his.

What's not understandable here?

You cut text from my quote. "These latter events" referred to the text you cut. No doubt you cut that text because the events mentioned were utterly unimportant, which was kind of my point...

The prince's death is of course very important, and I thought I made that clear. The manner of his death on the other hand could have something entirely different. Perhaps he could have slipped and fallen to his death when standing on icy stones and pissing into a ravine. The possibilities are endless. But Abercrombie decided to go with rape to show how evil the prince was and to give West a righteous reason to kill him. I find that unimaginative. Rape-as-characterization and rape-as-motivation are so overdone.

Actually West killing him is important to his story arc. It's an important turning point for West as he essentially betrays his sworn duty (the only thing that's raising him above the station he was born into) over the attempted rape. And largely not out of some sense of "must protect the ladies" duty, but out of rage.

[jurble]

Also seems like there is a meta-level discussion to be had here:

Do negative portrayals in media result in negative consequences for depicted groups?

If we can confirm the above, what - if anything - is the responsibility of the author?

Well those South Park episodes about gingers did lead to little kids making fun of gingers, so there's that. Whether negative portrayal leads to negative behavior is axiomatic is something else.

So are Trey Parker and Matt Stone responsible for Kick a Ginger day? I don't think so. The author has no responsibilities, whether to his audience or to society. He can write whatever he wants. That South Park's middle school-aged fans are stupid and acted like morons in response to that episode reflects on them and their parents - not on Parker and Stone. Even if Stone and Parker had said, with no hint of sarcasm, "HEY GO KILL ALL GINGERS!", the fault would still lie with the kids and their parents. In this scenario, Parker and Stone would possess the fault of creating a work that extorts people to kill gingers, but the fault of the murders would not lay with them. In the actual scenario, Stone and Parker were making a joke about ginger-hate, and this was turned into real-world ginger-violence by morons.

Of course, this is the same reason you think that the Terez scene was poorly written - that it somehow reenforces a trope of the bitchy-lesbian-being-getting-raped-into-submission (and similarly to Parker/Stone regardless of his intent, the effects could be disastrous?) and that Abercrombie could have written it any other way because the way he wrote it, Terez exists only to be raped for the sake of showing the audience how terrible Glokta is. And that somehow this is wrong.

But I don't see that. Why is it wrong that Terez exists only to be raped? Is it poor story-telling? That's a criticism I could understand. But Kalbear and others give counter-examples like making her heterosexual, or having Glokta threaten her brother. What is wrong with taking a previous trope - the rape of a lesbian - and using it? Similar to Stone and Parker, I don't see what they did as wrong, and I don't see what Abercrombie did as wrong. Neither parties condone the scene, nor do I agree that the scene is as titillating as some would think. And even if it were, why does it matter? The scene is from Jezal's point-of-view and he's an idiot. If it were the most erotic scene Abercrombie has ever written, it wouldn't matter because it's conceivable that Jezal is stupid enough to experience it like that.

As for Terez, she exists for the sake of the plot. Do we require all characters be 3-dimensional rational actors now?

[Shryke]

The bias is from those readers who like to see "bitches" put in their place. There must be a good number of that kind of person out there given how much porn tailors itself to the trope. We could probably look at how many spec-fic books have this trope as well to get at least an approximate sense of how it helps books in the genre sell.

Fuck those people. Who cares about them.

Give what away?

My idea retains the plot but removes the aspect of it that makes it cleave so close to an often seen tropes of lesbians as man-haters and the humiliation of a beautiful but bitchy woman.

It gives away the reason for her attitude. At first, she comes off as just an asshole. We hate her because, hey, she's being mean to the protagonist and he's not such a bad guy, right? (actually he mostly is, but no so much at this point) This, of course, doesn't reflect bad on lesbians because at this point we don't know she is one. She's just an asshole.

When Glokta leans on her, we perhaps feel a certain amount of release. The asshole is getting what's coming to her. Then this gets turned around as we realise at least a part of her attitude is that she's actually a lesbian with a lover and has no desire for the cock. And suddenly it's not another of our protagonists (he's a protagonist, so he's a good guy, right?) putting some asshole down, it's a guy forcing a girl to voluntarily manufacture her own rape.

There's alot of these kind of scenes throughout the series as our expectations and understandings are turned around on us.

TFL goes out of its way to subvert tropes in the genre, but misses (AFAIK) the subversion in all depictions of women.

It doesn't miss them, it just doesn't subvert the particular trope you seem to demand it should.

[Shryke]

Actually I want to know why Terez is depicted as she is, given said depiction cleaves so close to the tropes under discussion -> Man-hating lesbian (we never see her interact with males she doesn't hate IIRC), bitchy woman who refuses to have sex but then is forced into it.

Also seems like there is a meta-level discussion to be had here:

Do negative portrayals in media result in negative consequences for depicted groups?

If we can confirm the above, what - if anything - is the responsibility of the author?

Is negative portrayal of specific historically marginalized groups a valid criticism? What criteria should be used to determine the validity of the claim? Do we seek a threshold where we need to see a certain number of people bothered?

As to importance of confirmation bias, let me give an example. In college I worked at an inner city elementary school, and when we took two of our kids to a restaurant in the higher end DC area they were terrified they'd be kicked out because they were black.

So yes, I do think portrayals in media matter.

And how far are you willing to take the belief though? Cause as someone referenced earlier, this is the kind of thing that leads to people trying to ban violent video games or keep Janet Jackson's tits off TV.

It's censorship talk.

Which is especially silly in cases like the scene mentioned or the Ginger episode mentioned above where the portrayal is very obviously not meant to be an endorsement.

Yet you and others seem to be making the argument that because it portrays this at all or because some dumbass could mistake it for endorsement, it shouldn't be done.

[Contrarius]

Abercrombie made her an idiot with incomprehensible thought processes and no connection to the reality.

Nope. Shryke and Serious Callers Only have already answered most of this. Terez may be naive and/or have an unrealistic outlook in some ways, but she is neither an idiot nor incomprehensible.

You cut text from my quote. "These latter events" referred to the text you cut. No doubt you cut that text because the events mentioned were utterly unimportant, which was kind of my point...

Sorry -- if I cut out something that you actually thought was relevant, it was unintentional.

As Shryke has pointed out, the manner of the prince's death DID matter. It mattered not only because it illustrated the prince's own character, but also because of the effects it had on Collem West.

[Seli]

Abercrombie made her an idiot with incomprehensible thought processes and no connection to the reality. Oh, and he made her a vicious, man-hating lesbian - such a nasty, hateful, misogynist stereotype that I can only wonder what went through his head when he came up with her. Was he proud of himself?

Terez's character makes so little sense that I have a sinking feeling that Abercrombie might actually have thought he was writing a realistic and unromanticized portrayal of a lesbian queen and not having a clue how hard he was failing. Or maybe Terez was meant to be a comic relief character. I have no idea.

...

Wasn't she following the strong temperamental Italian woman stereotype? The foreigner isolated in a court that has a different culture, where most close support has deliberately been removed.

The single person in the trilogy in a healthy relation (before the marriage that was)?

Your interpretation is valid, but not the only valid one, perhaps not the intended one, or more problematic one that never crossed the mind of the author. Which goes back to the underlying problem of privilege.

[Ser Plissken]

Well those South Park episodes about gingers did lead to little kids making fun of gingers, so there's that.

Gingers were being persecuted when Parker and Stone were but atoms in a star.

It is known.

[Sci-2]

I don't think anyone is calling for legal censorship. The question, as I see it, is artistic integrity and freedom in the face of depiction leading to RL negative outcomes.

Everyone is free to offer their reviews and subsequently decide with their wallets. I see myself buying Joe A novels, but will be checking Windup Girl out at the library and giving the guy a fair shake.

As a straight dude who grew up and continues to live in privilege, most depictions don't affect me. But I think it is worth examining what depiction in spec-fic means to society at large and specifically those depicted. Is it fair for me to demand the allowance of depictions for my entertainment if they increase the probability that those depicted might come to harm physically or otherwise?

I think we've all at least met guys who like the idea of uppity women/gays/minorities getting their comeuppance, and would look at the Terez scene or the Windup Girl shit the wrong way.

Of course, there is the artistic question - eliciting emotional response by using predictable tropes. Sexual assault/abuse is something that deserves, IMO, more consideration than being an act that spurs non-victims (typically male) into action or as a way to showcase the badness of the villain. Might be interesting to just start listing the different books we've read that fail in this regard.

Violence in spec-fic is likely the more difficult to examine because much of epic-fantasy depends on conflict. Wars between worlds or for saving the world are a keystone. The challenge is do you airbrush true conflict by ignoring reality or do you desensitize people by lurid descriptions of hacked limbs?

We've been busting a lot on Joe A. but here I am going to praise him. Heroes is a violent book, but I largely feel sickened and sad as the war goes on. Violence is shown to have consequences, and I think this has been a theme Joe A. has gotten right since TFL.

Bakker has violent scenes of epic destruction, but he also puts in violence that elicits pity or at least makes me question violence as a solution. Even the most sympathetic characters commit, directly or by orders given, acts of horrific violence. One woman, about to be raped, simply says, "Don't be mean to me." That acquiescing, that acceptance of her lot, to me was heart-breaking.

Valente I think should be praised for maintaining a powerful, mystic, and in some works epic feel without large recourse to violence. Where violence is used, I've found it to be done with reflection. In terms of agency, or activity, female/LGBT/minority characters of all sorts get representation and positive depiction. She is one of the authors to watch for sure.

Anyway, we've been talking a lot of authors getting it wrong, curious what works people feel do questions about violence and sexual assault justice.

ETA: grammar, as usual. Le Sigh.

[Richard]

As a writer myself, I confess I’m pretty horrified at the drubbing Joe Abercrombie is getting here, first and foremost because the overall implication of the drubbers seems to be that certain things are simply off-limits to a writer, that said writer must navigate narrow corridors of tasteful should and ought - which to my mind puts us a short hop, skip and jump away from Satanic Verses fatwa territory.

But I’m also horrified because, frankly, you’d have to have a reading age of about twelve to believe that Abercrombie’s intent here (conscious or sub) is to browbeat lesbians for their temerity in not liking cock. You’d have to never have heard of things like dramatic irony, variable p.o.v, the unsympathetic protagonist, horror by implication, subverted trope, unspoken authorial critique, show-don’t-tell, all ‘at good shit. In short, you would, in literary terms, have to be a child.

Honestly, in the last ten years I’ve seen some astonishingly poor (and/or willfully obtuse) interpretative reading of genre text, but I think this one takes the crown.

[sologdin]

Why is wrong that Terez exists only to be raped?

that was a good post. to speculate on this question, my suspicion is that there's nothing wrong in any particular instance of an x that's only present in order to be y. but, if, across the genre, every time x shows up, it's present only to be y, then it may be that something kinda nasty's going on--and we should expect each particular instance to generate objections, and, given enough time, justified vitriol. (it's kinda like me looking like an asshole if my rant about my wife's seeming solitary failure to load the dishawasher properly is viewed in isolation, apart from the 1000 other defaults, also each individually trifling, that have snowballed outside the perception of the viewer.)

i'm not read all the way through the first law, so i have no idea if abercrombie's lesbian is present only to be raped. i likewise don't know if lesbians only ever show up in order to be rape victims in fantasy literature. (likely we can eliminate the even stronger alternatives, in the order of increasing mindnumbingness--lesbians are always included only to be raped; only lesbians are raped; and lesbians and only lesbians are raped in every text.)

but if it's even close to trending toward something like "if the character in the movie is black, then he's either the villain or a porter," then, yeah, i understand the objection.

is it an important question, if there is a genre-wide defect, to apportion fault to individual writers? dunno. is it sensible to boycott an individual writer for participating in a politically defective cliche? dunno.

[Sci-2]

which to my mind puts us a short hop, skip and jump away from Satanic Verses fatwa territory.

I'm not seeing the logical leap, short or otherwise. Has anyone threatened Joe A. with death? Let's not descend into hyperbole as I think the discussion has been rather interesting so far.

But I’m also horrified because, frankly, you’d have to have a reading age of about twelve to believe that Abercrombie’s intent here (conscious or sub) is to browbeat lesbians for their temerity in not liking cock. You’d have to never have heard of things like dramatic irony, variable p.o.v, the unsympathetic protagonist, horror by implication, subverted trope, unspoken authorial critique, show-don’t-tell, all ‘at good shit. In short, you would, in literary terms, have to be a child.

There is a difference between intent and effects of depiction. I have heard of all the things you mention, and last I checked I wasn't a child, yet I still disagree with you but also don't need to throw out ad hominem. It may just be that the people you are insulting have had to live with stereotypes and biases you might have avoided given some level of privilege.

Perhaps, instead of this dramatic statement of how horrified you are, you might engage the conversation?

(I do agree that it isn't fair to single out one author for one scene that isn't nearly as problematic as, say, those in Windup Girl.)

Honestly, in the last ten years I’ve seen some astonishingly poor (and/or willfully obtuse) interpretative reading of genre text, but I think this one takes the crown.

This statement really doesn't give us anything to debate though. You say the interpretation is poor, but I am not even sure what you are arguing against.

I think the accusation of being "willfuly obtuse" is worthless. Just as I think most, if not all, the people here have avoided attempting to make remarks about author's characters, you might do everyone the courtesy of not questioning their motives.

[sologdin]

What would you suggest instead? Unearned, implicit advantage? Some privileges are rights, after all, just not granted to everyone. Prerogatives?

missed you the first time through, eefa.

not sure if i have a good answer. but, allow me to clarify. i was not attempting to challenge the concept of male privilege on its face, but rather destroy it as applied in the quoted article, where the privilege was articulated in terms that listed several items recognized as general rights of human persons under US and international law. my critique exhausted the list--with the exception of one item, which concerned a small greivance about couples being recognized in public with the assumption that the male member of the corporation was in charge--which nonetheless strikes me as manifestly erroneous to the extent that a standard recitation of misogynistic discourse is that wives henpeck husbands, control the household, and are the secret domestic power from which al bundies must flee, &c.

the listing that i quoted concerns numerous employment discrimination scenarios; several freedom of expression issues, and the right to life/corporeal security (or however we might want to designate it), including the freedom from sexual slavery & sexual violence, reproductive liberty, and other items reasonably within that constellation. These items are generally ennumerated as rights, even if their enforcement is not good, and even if we quibble with the rightwing about the scope of the rights--including with those cavepersons who wish to abolish these rights and reduce women once again to the status of chattels.

i do see, however, your point, that some portions of male privilege are in fact rights, and we might list numerous examples of differential sets of rights arising presently in states subject to sharia law, e.g. 100% agreed on that point. the US provides a fertile example to the extent that women at one time were subject to the law of coverture, and had therefore no independent legal personality apart from their father or husband, whose legal personality "covered" the dependent female. this resulted in the inability of women to own property, make contracts, testify, be held criminally responsible, and so on. male privilege is fairly plainly a matter of differential rights there, too.

i certainly didn't mean to suggest that these types of privilege were fictional. to be candid, i regard them as astronomically more important than disputes over the representations in literary texts, which are not, of course, unimportant. please accept the clarification; my intention was to challenge the rhetoric of a political tactics from the perspective of a sympathizer with the objectives of the women's movement. (i got into with coco in the OWS thread last month on the same type of issue, incidentally.)

[Callan S.]

Bakker has violent scenes of epic destruction, but he also puts in violence that elicits pity or at least makes me question violence as a solution. Even the most sympathetic characters commit, directly or by orders given, acts of horrific violence. One woman, about to be raped, simply says, "Don't be mean to me." That acquiescing, that acceptance of her lot, to me was heart-breaking.

I'm not sure that is acceptance. It's simply resistance purely at the level of an appeal to the human. Also, was that the scene where Serwe, after nearly being raped, gets her hands on a knife and knifes the guy? And then Cnaiur grabs her arm and marks a swazond across it, to represent the life she ended and now carries, as is the tradition of his people. Even though he was supposed to have taken Serwe as loot, so to speak, he then included her in an intimate tradition.

Not actually arguing with you, just an interesting complexity to it.

[Sci-2]

Yeah, sorry, I was thinking not of what actually happens a moment later, but how I interpreted at the time. It remains one of my "favorite" Bakker scenes though a lot of Mimara's scenes in WLW have topped it.

The emotional resonance the man can create is amazing.

ETA: grammar. MS Word has gutted my consideration for English.