Lyanna Stark Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 I did not know that story but I am aware of all the shape-shifting bestiality of classical myth like Zeus with Europa, Leda etc. (but the offspring with a shape shifting god in animal shape looks usually human, unlike the Minotaur of a normal bull and a human female) and he also abducted the beautiful boy Ganymedes to serve him on Olympus. Have you not heard of Sleipnir, Odin's 8 legged steed? That's Loki-as-a-mare's offspring. I've seen phallus and phalli used. I always thought the latter to be plural. Only time I've ever seen phalloi used is by the infamous Solo. Excellent. I think I might go with "Cactoi" for my succulent collection from now on instead of being confused between "cactus" and "cacti". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Drizztos Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 the infamous Solo. I fear I haven't made the acquaintance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lyanna Stark Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 I fear I haven't made the acquaintance. Sologdin, the hammer in "the hammer and sickle", our resident Head Marxist who can out-wit, out-type, out-think and out-verbiage anyone, anywhere. Beret optional. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jo498 Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 Have you not heard of Sleipnir, Odin's 8 legged steed? That's Loki-as-a-mare's offspring. I knew of the horse but not its family tree. Norse mythology is not my forte. As a kid I only read versions of the medieval Germanic epics and stories. These (like the Nibelungs story) have some bits from the older mythology but they are changed (more or less christianized). And Wagner also did his private remoulding of the mythology, I am afraid I never went close to the sources. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Seswatha Jordan Posted July 8, 2015 Author Share Posted July 8, 2015 I've a question for those who find rape scenes with a male victim less palatable. Is this purely because of the male on male aspect, or do you find it to be the same in scenes with a female rapist such as, for example, the conception of the Children of the Dead Seed in Malazan?I will tell you that the Dead Seed bit is some freaky shit. I forgot all about it, til just now. Imagine seeing that! Or, being the product of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Seswatha Jordan Posted July 8, 2015 Author Share Posted July 8, 2015 I fear I haven't made the acquaintance.He's all over the place. At first I thought his posts were gibberish. But, I took the time and connected the dots, and yes, pure evil genius! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jo498 Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 I don't think I find them less palatable, this depends very much on the specific scenes (and I do not know the scene you refer to).I only dispute that we generally find male rape more comical than serious. There also quite rare, I cannot think of any in Martin or Abercrombie. In Brett's second book it seems to me that the sodomizing as part of the warrior education of young boys is quite obviously played for shock value, so the author seems to expect strong reactions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.T. Phipps Posted July 11, 2015 Share Posted July 11, 2015 I believe everyone in this thread would be very interested in this article by me on the SF Signal. The Appeal of Grimdark http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2015/07/the-appeal-of-grimdark-by-c-t-phipps-author-of-esoterrorism/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callan S. Posted July 11, 2015 Share Posted July 11, 2015 Also what Lyanna said, you can't rape a prostitute - you can only steal what she is selling (this is probably the view across most cultural histories) bearing in mind the very low status of prostitutes in societies.Call me SJW for checking, but you're just jokingly refering to various historical attitudes with the first sentence, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callan S. Posted July 11, 2015 Share Posted July 11, 2015 As you correctly point out, male rape is played for laughs. Female rape isn’t. (In particular, if it happens to an ingroup female.)Yeah, but I think it's the 'close to home' effect. Why a beaten child might strike home more than a dismembered adult male might - because beaten children happen more in ones experience than dismemberment. Thus you get outrageous violence in grand theft auto...but no children. Similarly rape of males might simply not seem close to home. It's as close to home as...being bitten in half by a dragon. And who flinches at the idea of being bitten in half by a dragon? None of us. Not without really trying to flinch, anyway. I still remember the interview of the guy, voice distorted, face blurred, as he gave the account of his rape and crying, said he got an erection during it - betrayed by his body as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galactus Posted July 11, 2015 Share Posted July 11, 2015 Well, that was sardonic, but yes, rape used to be more of a property crime since if a woman is a man's property, then rape = property crime. Of course, if rape is assumed to mean "lack of consent" then this changes things, but generally a virgin is property with additional fertility control imposed by the ruling patriarch, while a prostitute has neither the protection of patriarchy nor the constraints. This is one of those memes that keeps cropping up, but depending on locality, it's just not true. Rape was definitely considered as a violation of the woman's honor. It's considered an act of violence against her and her personal honour. (people often miss out on "honor" as an important factor in people's way of thinking, eg. in medieval swedish law murdering someone face-to-face was bad, but it was to some extent acceptable, you just had to pay a fine, but murdering someone else *and trying to hide it* was dishonourable and punished by death) While honour was clearly gendered, it was considered an actual real thing, and attacks on a person's honour was concieved of as important as attacks on one's body. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted July 12, 2015 Share Posted July 12, 2015 Glokta's not really a rapist, his threatening to have Terez's lover gang raped was a little jarring to read though, given he seemed to have a soft spot for women up until then, but he is a son of a bitch. That being said he's also one of the most entertaining and fascinating First Law characters to read. His POVs demonstrate Abercrombie's ability to flawlessly move from black humor to content that's truly sickening without missing a beat. Body found floating in water cracked me up every time, then a few pages later he'd start cutting off people's fingers and make my stomach churn. Ironically the one person he tortures that we don't read in gruesome detail, is the one guy that really deserved it. Why is this praiseworthy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Seswatha Jordan Posted July 12, 2015 Author Share Posted July 12, 2015 Why is this praiseworthy?You gotta enjoy somebody. And they all do bad things in this genre. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilentRoamer Posted July 12, 2015 Share Posted July 12, 2015 Call me SJW for checking, but you're just jokingly refering to various historical attitudes with the first sentence, right? I'm pretty sure the second part of my sentence: "you can only steal what she is selling (this is probably the view across most cultural histories) bearing in mind the very low status of prostitutes in societies." qualifies the first with a sense of irony. Although I should realise irony and sarcasm are a fickle thing and seldom translated in perfection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jo498 Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 This is one of those memes that keeps cropping up, but depending on locality, it's just not true. Rape was definitely considered as a violation of the woman's honor. It's considered an act of violence against her and her personal honour. (people often miss out on "honor" as an important factor in people's way of thinking, eg. in medieval swedish law murdering someone face-to-face was bad, but it was to some extent acceptable, you just had to pay a fine, but murdering someone else *and trying to hide it* was dishonourable and punished by death) While honour was clearly gendered, it was considered an actual real thing, and attacks on a person's honour was concieved of as important as attacks on one's body. We have almost completely lost such conceptions of honor (the closest today might be the touchiness of members of ghetto street gangs who would beat you up because you looked at them in the wrong way) but we can relate very well to buying and selling, so we tend to re-interpret everything in terms of property rights. (A fascinating thing about some of the Icelandic sagas is that there was an accepted way to make good for a murder or manslaughter by paying a price to the victim's family at the Allthingi but apparently it did not make the grudges go away, so when the occasion arose the wronged party would try to kill someone from the offending party anyway and so on. Most of the story of Gunnar of Hlidarendi seems to progress in such a fashion, despite Gunnar being most generous with those compensatory payments and willing to reconcile.) Almost all (newer) fantasy I have read completely misses the "honor mindset" which is very clearly at work from many archaic epics through the middle ages until the late 19th century (when not only hot-blooded young men still fought duels because their honor was attacked and it was not always about women) and the same is true for a religious mindset. In Sayer's Strong Poison (1930) the female protagonist becomes a murder suspect because she bears a huge grudge against her former lover. Main reason: he convinced her to enter a "free love" relationship with him because cool bohemien live style but after a year or so he wanted to marry her anyway, so he actually just wanted to "try her out" sexually not try something different in principle. And she feels so abused by this that it is considered a valid motive for murder by everyone in the setting. My "gut feelings" are rather conservative wrt sexual mores but I found this very hard to believe when I read it. It's very hard for us to understand, even less empathically feel those fine degrees of "honor" and injured trust at work there. And this was only our (great)-grandparent's time! The typical grimdark character of contemporary fantasy is a hardboiled cynic without any connection to what in reality ordered "grimdark societies", namely honor codes and/or strong religious ties and prescriptions. The only thing we can somewhat rely to are strong ties of family and friendship. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Seswatha Jordan Posted July 13, 2015 Author Share Posted July 13, 2015 Well, I don't believe honor has vanished from society. We just call it a different word....manhood. I mean, if someone tries to slight you or put you down in front of family or friends, then their testing your manhood/honor. Isn't acceptable to kill someone over it, yet I've seen many a fight when someone pushes another a bit too far. And nobody should be killed over things like that. Its a total upgrade in society. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jo498 Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 I am not for re-introducing old-fashioned honor codes and duels. I just wanted to point out that despite its prevalence from ancient times until only 2-3 generations ago, thinking in terms of honor (and that a women's "honor" is identified with or closely connected to her chastity) has become so alien to us that even our pseudo-historic fantasy literature almost completely skips those ideas although they used to be the glue of similar historical societies the fantasy world are modelled on. Before Troy Aias literally goes insane because he lost in a competition (for the arms of the fallen Achilles) although he was the strongest and should have won. In his madness he mistakes a flock of sheep for his Greek companions who in his opinion wronged him and slaughters those sheep. After he wakes up from this madness this loss of face (the mad slaughter of the sheep) is equal to a loss of honor and social death, so he kills himself. Sayers' Harriet Vane gets so upset because she gave in - against her principles - to her former lover and cohabitated without marriage because he supposedly refused marriage as too bourgeois but just wanted to get into her pants quickly and later wants to marry her anyway that *she* breaks up with him and the whole affair is considered as a motive for murder! in 1930!It would be understandable if *he* had dumped her after playing the cool anti-bourgeois. But it's the other way round. Apparently she was willing to sacrifice her "honor" and her principles for love if the other party had really objected to marriage on principle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Seswatha Jordan Posted July 13, 2015 Author Share Posted July 13, 2015 Jo498, I can think of one cultural where I've heard of honor killings, Islam. There is a whole list of things they have honor killings for. And, I'm sure its only radicals that do it, but, I could be wrong. Any Muslims care to elaborate? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanF Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 We have almost completely lost such conceptions of honor (the closest today might be the touchiness of members of ghetto street gangs who would beat you up because you looked at them in the wrong way) but we can relate very well to buying and selling, so we tend to re-interpret everything in terms of property rights. (A fascinating thing about some of the Icelandic sagas is that there was an accepted way to make good for a murder or manslaughter by paying a price to the victim's family at the Allthingi but apparently it did not make the grudges go away, so when the occasion arose the wronged party would try to kill someone from the offending party anyway and so on. Most of the story of Gunnar of Hlidarendi seems to progress in such a fashion, despite Gunnar being most generous with those compensatory payments and willing to reconcile.) Almost all (newer) fantasy I have read completely misses the "honor mindset" which is very clearly at work from many archaic epics through the middle ages until the late 19th century (when not only hot-blooded young men still fought duels because their honor was attacked and it was not always about women) and the same is true for a religious mindset. In Sayer's Strong Poison (1930) the female protagonist becomes a murder suspect because she bears a huge grudge against her former lover. Main reason: he convinced her to enter a "free love" relationship with him because cool bohemien live style but after a year or so he wanted to marry her anyway, so he actually just wanted to "try her out" sexually not try something different in principle. And she feels so abused by this that it is considered a valid motive for murder by everyone in the setting. My "gut feelings" are rather conservative wrt sexual mores but I found this very hard to believe when I read it. It's very hard for us to understand, even less empathically feel those fine degrees of "honor" and injured trust at work there. And this was only our (great)-grandparent's time! The typical grimdark character of contemporary fantasy is a hardboiled cynic without any connection to what in reality ordered "grimdark societies", namely honor codes and/or strong religious ties and prescriptions. The only thing we can somewhat rely to are strong ties of family and friendship. That's very interesting. ASOIAF does bring it very well, I think, the idea of a society that's governed by codes of honour. Things that can appear morally dubious to us, such as taking revenge for wrongs done to family members in the past, or waging war to regain a kingdom, are praiseworthy within the context of Martin's world. I think that honour codes are an aristocratic form of morality, whereas dominant moral codes in the West are now more middle class. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanF Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Jo498, I can think of one cultural where I've heard of honor killings, Islam. There is a whole list of things they have honor killings for. And, I'm sure its only radicals that do it, but, I could be wrong. Any Muslims care to elaborate? In modern Britain, we think of honour killings as being about the murder of girls who form relationships that they're families disapprove of. But, killing someone who'd wronged, or gravely insulted, insulted you or a family member would be just as much an honour killing. Probably the point at which notions of honour began to seem anachronistic in the UK was when duelling fell out of fashion, and came to be treated as murder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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