342 replies to this topic

[fionwe1987]

Shryke, on 24 April 2012 - 04:39 PM, said:

Depends what magic means in the specific context and how one learns it.

And this is entirely under the control of the author. If he decides to write magic in a way that allows for geneder inequality to exist, then the author made the choice, it wasn't thrust upon him by the reality of Medieval Europe! And if he does make a choice, that doesn't mean he's a mysoginist or someone to be avoided. I'm just arguing against using "this is because the author wants things to be similar to 16 th century Europe" as an justification.

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It's not like women throughout history were any less capable of intellectual feats then men. That still didn't make a difference in who actually did that stuff though.

Intellectual feats aren't the same as being able to throw lightning at someone who annoys you.

Marcus Cicero, on 24 April 2012 - 05:29 PM, said:

I don't disagree with any of this.
Sure. Of course, it depends on the type and accessibility of the magic. But most fantasy authors don't depict magic as leveling the hierarchical playing field.

And that is a choice that they make, and is not in any way enforced on them by any historical reality.

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Kings and nobles still rule because of supposed blood surperiority. All I'm saying is if you have that as a social norm, then sexism and racism are easier to justify because the existence of inherent inequality is already taken as a given.

I fail to see how one follows the other. The existence of one form of inequality doesn't immedately set the stage for other inequalities. That's just ridiculous.

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Now, authors don't have to depict feudal societies. But if they do, then it is realistic to show their harsher implications, UNLESS, as you point out, magic is developed in such a way as to change that.

But "feudal society" is not a monolithic term. The extent of sexism/recism or any other ism in a "feudal" society isn't set in stone, even without the confounding variable of magic, which is entirely under the author's control.

Edited by fionwe1987, 24 April 2012 - 11:09 PM.

[JEORDHl]

Kal, I'm not really interested in arguing with you, but the kids are alseep and I don't have anything else to do. If you'd rather try again and have a reasonable conversation while trying not to make it personal, then I'd say you've grown some and I'm down with that, cause hey, I've grown some too.

If you'd rather not, well, I'm not tired yet. Your call.

[DanielAbraham]

JEORDHl, on 24 April 2012 - 10:33 PM, said:

I do think the discussion has merit, I was just a little surprised you didn't post it here since I think what you're arguing against originated here.

It may have started here, but I got in on the game after I commented on Saladin Ahmed's Salon piece.

[Sci-2]

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But I can`t imagine anyone actually wants to read a fantasy novel about a humble farm boy from a modest homestead that discovers he has a green thumb and then spends the entire novel questing the various ways to grow a pumpkin large enough to win at the local Fair.

Looks up from page 659 of his novel....Motherfucker, NOW you tell me this shit? ;-P

[JEORDHl]

Hahaha

[kalbear]

Jeordhi, you're right. I shouldn't have brought up your pain at the hands of the feminists.

That being said, I still see nothing valid about your argument. I don't even see it as topical. What do random peoples opinion on an author have to do with an author not fleshing out their world, or lazily assuming gender inequality or racial segregation? No one is saying that writing about bad situations is a bad thing or shouldnt be done, and Abraham went to great lengths to point out where that is a huge strength of some books.

Simply put, arguing that medieval history was like x is jus wrong, just as much as saying that Americans between 1790 and 1990 all acted one way is wrong. If you want to be more specific, well, that makes it better but still likely lazy. If you want to assume judeochristian morals and grecoroman ethics despite your world not having greece, Rome, jews or Christians that is even more lazy.

And that can be fine! But it isn't realism.

[JEORDHl]

DanielAbraham, on 24 April 2012 - 11:17 PM, said:

It may have started here, but I got in on the game after I commented on Saladin Ahmed's Salon piece.

Ok. So if I just read the one you're referring to, Mr Ahmed is using ASoIaF [in both forms] as a fulcrum to provide one conclusive paragraph of social commentary? Is that the one?

[JEORDHl]

Of course you don't see anything valid in my argument, Kal. You, quite simply, can't. Which isn't a bad thing. If the world takes all kinds, then it certainly needs those whom only subscribe to either black or white. I mean, relativity is something you've always struggled with in one form or another, in my experience with you, mind, but most especially when you've convinced yourself that you are correct and whomever you oppose is wrong. Some times its laudable. Other times, not so much. But I think we're straying into better take it to PM territory. What do you say?

[DanielAbraham]

JEORDHl, on 24 April 2012 - 11:31 PM, said:

Ok. So if I just read the one you're referring to, Mr Ahmed is using ASoIaF [in both forms] as a fulcrum to provide one conclusive paragraph of social commentary? Is that the one?

I think I read it more charitably than you may have, but I was tweeting back and forth with him about it, and Aiden asked me if I wanted to expand my thoughts on his blog.  I thought that seemed like a fine thought, so I said yes.

[JEORDHl]

I'm not being uncharitable, I don't think. Not sure if I agree with his conclusion [would love to know what George thought of that article] And I'm not judging the guy, I just... I'm not sure. Definitely not sure if he was himself charitable in the article. What's curious, is I loved your Long Price Quartet and wasn't enamoured with Throne of the Crescent Moon. Hmn.

[Shryke]

Mlle. Zabzie, on 24 April 2012 - 08:04 PM, said:

Well - I would argue that his world is well created and deeper than one novella, the novellas link to the broader work, and if you read other Hedge Knight novellas, you DO find women dealing with these issues, so I'm not sure that holds water.

This point doesn't matter unless you think he'd have written the story completely differently if it had been a standalone.

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But this debate isn't about Martin, really.  As I have said, what he has created WORKS in his world (which is, to repeat, not England in the 15th Century, no matter how many comparisons I can draw to actual people in the 15th C).  I don't have a problem with that.  What I do have a problem with is the assumption that a pseudo feudal world necessitates sexism (it doesn't), and the formost (or only) explanation for sexism in the writing (and, and this is distinguishable, sexism portrayed in scenes in the work) is "that's just the way it was."  Flip it on its head, because there's a similar problem in your basic Space Opera (Dune, I'm looking at you).  The society's structure is only bound by the author's imagination and intent.

A pseudo-medieval world doesn't necessitate sexism, but it will very likely include it unless the author has some reason not to.

A society's structure in a book isn't just bound by imagination. Most of the time, it's taking some sort of setting and twisting it. That's the way ALL setting in ALL books are done. You don't reinvent the wheel without a reason and you don't rename the horse without a reason either. (renaming the horse, as it were, is generally considered shit writing)

You write something like Sex and the City, you do "New York but with people and companies and such that don't exist".

You write urban fantasy, you do "London but with vampires".

You write pseudo-medieval fantasy, you do "the middle ages (what you know of it anyway, sexism and all) but with Dragons" or some such.

You could do any setting you want, but if it's not important to you, you fill it in with the usual.

Edited by Shryke, 24 April 2012 - 11:54 PM.

[kalbear]

JEORDHl, on 24 April 2012 - 11:39 PM, said:

Of course you don't see anything valid in my argument, Kal. You, quite simply, can't.

well, thank goodness we aren't makin this personal. And here I thought simply talking about the points you were making was impersonal; I had no idea I could simply characterize the other person and ascribe motives and feelings to them and that was impersonal too.

By all means jeordhi, keep it here. I'm curious if you can mount any kind of defense of your statements that does not actually reference what you think of my personality. Let's try and see.

For starters: how does an author's desire to not examine certain things but who still puts those things in their completely ahistorical novel make the author not lazy? what other motives can they have for simply writing what their audience expects?
How does the defense "it's realistic" make sense when dealing with humans and nonhumans which have magical powers?
Does it make the story a better one as a whole to include racism and sexism and classism just because other books do it too?
Given that over 50% of he reading audience for fantasy are women, do you feel that writing books for men is as your put it, smartly writing for the auction?
Would you consider the argument about "it's realistic" to apply to John Norman or terry Goodkind?

[Shryke]

fionwe1987, on 24 April 2012 - 11:06 PM, said:

And this is entirely under the control of the author. If he decides to write magic in a way that allows for geneder inequality to exist, then the author made the choice, it wasn't thrust upon him by the reality of Medieval Europe! And if he does make a choice, that doesn't mean he's a mysoginist or someone to be avoided. I'm just arguing against using "this is because the author wants things to be similar to 16 th century Europe" as an justification.

The point is though, magic need not alter large aspects of society. Depends on it's type. If you make "medieval society but with magic", I'd still expect sexism and religiosity and rampant bigotry unless the magic was structured such that it would change that.

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Intellectual feats aren't the same as being able to throw lightning at someone who annoys you.

They are in that just because someone is capable of them with proper training doesn't mean they will actually do them. Or that their ability to do them will have an influence on society.

[JEORDHl]

An example then, Daniel. Mr Ahmed says [and yes, I'm cherry picking]

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The savage hordes described by Tolkien have been imported by his dozens of imitators over the years, becoming a mainstay of fantasy in books, movies and video games. It’s a convention that Martin both takes up and departs from in depicting the Mongol-inspired Dothraki. As a people en masse, the Dothraki value only their horses, treating life cheaply, and reveling in violence:

Across the road, a girl no older than Dany was sobbing in a high thin voice as a rider shoved her over a pile of corpses, facedown, and thrust himself inside her. Other riders dismounted to take their turns. That was the sort of deliverance the Dothraki brought the Lamb Men.

The HBO production – which has been so remarkable on so many fronts — has exacerbated this hard-R-rated cartoonishness, bringing out some of the novel’s more unfortunate tendencies. The show’s depiction of the Dothraki has been positively cringe-inducing.

I don't know the man. You do. I'm curious what you think about this as an example of the whole, and how his article in Salon would be considered a careful reasoning of a complex issue? Was he constrained by word count or something?

[kalbear]

Shryke, on 25 April 2012 - 12:03 AM, said:

The point is though, magic need not alter large aspects of society. Depends on it's type. If you make "medieval society but with magic", I'd still expect sexism and religiosity and rampant bigotry unless the magic was structured such that it would change that.

that is totally true. It doesn't have to change things. But it certainly could depending on what it is. For instance, if men and women can cast spells there had better be a good reason why women aren't combat mages (if those exist) or why women in general aren't being used. It might be that magic is common enough that the world doesn't need magic users, or that a patriarchy has enforced that women don't use magic and things are even more oppressive. But not doing things like that make the world feel underdeveloped and lazy.

And to be clear the majority of fantasy does shitty things like that. That doesn't make it less lazy. Nor does going along with the flow of a readers base expectations make it not lazy. And that's fine, but let's not praise someone for doing mediocre work or pretend it is something it's not.

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They are in that just because someone is capable of them with proper training doesn't mean they will actually do them. Or that their ability to do them will have an influence on society.

a better argument is that just because someone is capable of doing the same job doesn't mean they have the opportunity to do that job. If no Mage will teach a woman it doesn't matter how good she is.

[Shryke]

Kalbear, on 25 April 2012 - 12:15 AM, said:

that is totally true. It doesn't have to change things. But it certainly could depending on what it is. For instance, if men and women can cast spells there had better be a good reason why women aren't combat mages (if those exist) or why women in general aren't being used. It might be that magic is common enough that the world doesn't need magic users, or that a patriarchy has enforced that women don't use magic and things are even more oppressive. But not doing things like that make the world feel underdeveloped and lazy.

And to be clear the majority of fantasy does shitty things like that. That doesn't make it less lazy. Nor does going along with the flow of a readers base expectations make it not lazy. And that's fine, but let's not praise someone for doing mediocre work or pretend it is something it's not.

The whole "women are totally equal just because" thing is, imo, just as lazy. (like in a world where the fantastic elements give no obvious reason why gender equality should exist) Although I wouldn't say it's always lazy. It's situational.

It's just not a big deal the majority of the time because often it's rather obvious the author is going for a less ... let's go with "authentic", feel. I'm thinking something like The Name of the Wind where it's not super realistic, but it's obvious that's not the point so most people just don't care.

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a better argument is that just because someone is capable of doing the same job doesn't mean they have the opportunity to do that job. If no Mage will teach a woman it doesn't matter how good she is.

What I was trying to say. Damn fat fingers.

Edited by Shryke, 25 April 2012 - 12:26 AM.

[JEORDHl]

Kalbear, on 25 April 2012 - 12:01 AM, said:

well, thank goodness we aren't makin this personal. And here I thought simply talking about the points you were making was impersonal; I had no idea I could simply characterize the other person and ascribe motives and feelings to them and that was impersonal too.

There were actually some compliments in there, despite your previous attempts at engagement. I'd drop it, were I you. But, you're not me so do as you will.

Kalbear, on 25 April 2012 - 12:01 AM, said:

For starters: how does an author's desire to not examine certain things but who still puts those things in their completely ahistorical novel make the author not lazy? what other motives can they have for simply writing what their audience expects?

Off the top of my head, suspending judgement of the individual, the answer would be setting. Seems like you're attempting to move the goalposts though, Kal. If you want to argue about intellectual vigor rather than course with the vein of the thread then I concede the point. It is lazy.

Kalbear, on 25 April 2012 - 12:01 AM, said:

How does the defense "it's realistic" make sense when dealing with humans and nonhumans which have magical powers?
Does it make the story a better one as a whole to include racism and sexism and classism just because other books do it too?

Not in the least, in my opinion. Especially if the effects of the above listed aren't shown credibly, on personal and/or broader fronts.

Kalbear, on 25 April 2012 - 12:01 AM, said:

Given that over 50% of he reading audience for fantasy are women, do you feel that writing books for men is as your put it, smartly writing for the auction?
Would you consider the argument about "it's realistic" to apply to John Norman or terry Goodkind?

I'm not sure where or when I might've put it like that. Reference, please. Moving on, I haven't read John Norman [haven't even heard of him] and I dropped Goodkind after the third book? Something like that. Absurd fucker. Have no problem saying that. Let's move this to the less obscure, say, Martin and the above quoted passage from the Salon article instead how about-- what does George's inclusion of this scene, the raping of the Lamb Women, necessarily say about him? Does it mean he's a misogynist? Lazy? A racist? A dated old fart who doesn't know any better because he's a product of his times and environment?


ETA: spelling, grammar

Edited by JEORDHl, 25 April 2012 - 12:41 AM.

[Errant Bard]

Shryke, on 24 April 2012 - 04:44 PM, said:

Just cause it isn't 100% realistic doesn't mean it's 0% realistic. "Historical accurate except for the dragons" or some such is a thing. A thing many people are looking for, judging from comments from people all over the internets and such.

You missed the point. Nobody is saying that an author cannot write a book 100% faithful to history, only with an additional helping of dragons, what's said is that by including elements that were not in actual history, you lose the right to explain your authorial choices as being forced by history, because it's not history anymore, and in that Fantasy world, if you can add dragons, it's just as easy to change gender dynamics or, heaven forbid, write outside faux-medieval England.

So if you write that same old faux-feudal society, it's not to be accurate, it's to be pandering, to be marketable, to throw out a message about gender dynamics, or about the genre, or simply because you enjoy the misogyny, whatever, but you as the author bear the responsibility of that choice, it's not history that forced you to write it: you're already not writing history. If you want to pretend history forced you to include such society, you better not include elements that never existed.

Also, funny thing, but historical fiction societies tend to generally be more balanced than the Fantasy ones.

[kalbear]

Agreed, Shryke - you can be just as lazy with having a world that is totally egalitarian in all respects and there are no race/class/sex conflicts. The argument that 'it's just realistic' cuts both ways there. The argument 'it's just fantasy' is just as vacuous.

Mind you, I think those kinds of worlds can be more interesting even if the premise sucks, because you can do some interesting examination of societal values. This is the general premise in sci-fi as a rule anyway - set up some what if scenario (even if it's totally high) and then explore it. But if you're just doing it because GIRL POWER or everyone should sing kumbaya, well, that's pretty weaksauce too.

Name of the Wind is a great example of where the author isn't caring at all about realism, examining anything or being particularly self-consistent. And in that respect, Rothfuss is completely lazy. He's not trying to make any kind of point and he's happy to carry on sexist tropes because he's just about the story. It's a pretty vacuous story And while I love the books, I'd say the same about Scott Lynch. There's very little that is realistic about his world either externally or internally, but I don't think for a second that he cares or that his goal was realism or replicating some medieval time.

[fionwe1987]

Shryke, on 25 April 2012 - 12:03 AM, said:

The point is though, magic need not alter large aspects of society. Depends on it's type. If you make "medieval society but with magic", I'd still expect sexism and religiosity and rampant bigotry unless the magic was structured such that it would change that.

Of course. But you're ignoring the fact that the structure of the magic is the author's choice. You could pull a Jordan and make it that men can't use magic, and still get a pseudo-medieval world, no problem. The issue here isn't that you can't have magic and sexism in the same universe. But if you structure the magic to allow this, then that is your choice as an author, not something forced on you by the relaity of 14th century Europe.

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They are in that just because someone is capable of them with proper training doesn't mean they will actually do them. Or that their ability to do them will have an influence on society.

Yes, but there again, the author better have damn good reasons for why this is so. If there is a reason why the ability to do mangic among women isn't causing them to have greater parity with men, the author better expand on it. "This is how it was in the Middle Ages" doesn't cut it, since the Middle Ages have no comparable situation.

You referenced Name of the Wind. I don't know about others, but I do find it poor writing that there is no in story explanation for why more women aren't allowed to learn Sympathy and why there are no female teachers in the University.

Heck, I even find it poor writing that GRRM hasn't got an in story explanation for why the Faith doesn't have women High Septas, or why the close proximity of Dorne and the Dornish view of women for so many centuries hasn't affected the mainstream Westerosi view of the role and position of women. I mean, take a Middle Ages Europe and remove the influence of the Church on the role of women, and add in a country where you have women holding high office and being sexually liberated and allowed more freedoms, and do you get the same levels of sexism?

If not, then can we really even use "fealty to the Middel Ages" as any kind of justification for the sexism in Westeros?