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The Bakker and Women Thread Returns


Darth Richard

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Great posts Maitha, and thanks for offering a reflection to the past discussion.

Madness, I don't understand what you mean by "normalize" here? Clarification appreciated.

Out of curiosity, does it matter to any critics that Bakker was attempting to write scriptural, rather than historical, fantasy?

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The problem would be to get someone to volunteer to read them, I guess? ;)

Regarding characterisation of women, we start out with Esmenet and Serwe soon after, which are two exploited women buying into the system. Then we are shown just how exploited they are, how negative that is, how they rely on male protection, how this is purchased with their bodies and their beauty as they have no other value than flesh. I mean, do we really need two whores/sex slaves to show us the exact same thing, over and over and over? When it should not be news how women are objectified and often exploiter in RL and have been through history? For the sake of this, both female characters are equipped with a pretty one track mind so that we never lose sight of what they are in the story for: to illustrate how women are exploited and oppressed by the system. OK fair enough.

Then we have Istrya rape alien, the evil, depraved mother who cannot get any power of her own, and that doesn't just make her manipulative, but it drives her to such lengths as to commit incest with her own son to gain some of his power. So we already have two women, described as flesh flesh flesh and only through flesh can they secure something in the world they are so oppressed in. Then Istrya comes in as the third, to illustrate....the same thing, more or less.

So ok, women are oppressed, we get it, really really really oppressed. For no obvious reason either (at least no compellin reason, even in most really sexist societies women have some niche where they are at leat valued, even if it is just for baby producing), they just are, in all areas.

And we have the heavy handed sexualisation on top of that. Women's only weapon is sex, flesh, being flesh. That reduces any higher personality to biology, to Other, to the animal side, to immanence. Especially in light of Simone de Beaviour's text "The Second Sex" one has to wonder why Bakker (who is certainly familiar with her work) goes to such lengths to force all three of his (very few) female characters into this role so very strongly.

It's also notable how totally free of any notion of their own oppression women are. They never reflect much upon it, as if being female automatically removed any higher brain function that didn't have to do with biology. Hence why Esmenet being "intelligent" is surprising. We are *told* that she is, but her total lack of higher reasoning, or anything concering an analysis of her situation, gainsays this. Cersei is often slammed for being dumber than a brick, but despite buying into a patriarchal system, Cersei is able to give an accurate analysis of her own situation as oppressed in her "sold and ridden like a horse" speech.

Being aware of your situation as being oppressed or disadvantaged doesn't prevent you from buying into the system, or continuing to emulate and perpetuate it. Bakker totally misses this subtlety or any nuances when he makes Esmenet, Serwe and Istrya to victims of oppression without any self awareness.

I don't think this is quite accurate. Esmenet seems aware of her situation. She talks of being an old whore and her thirst for outside knowledge is constantly mentioned. She seems well aware of the precarious type of power her life is built on and when presented the opportunity to throw it off, she takes it. (of course, the next bit of her story displays how unprepared for this she actually is and how she can't escape where she came from, given the construction of her society) And after establishing a comfortable life for herself again based on the same things, she throws that away as well. I think her actions throughout the whole first book display at least an unconcious understanding of the limitations of her station and a desire to break free of it.

And at the same time, you have other characters of similar position but differing reactions to it. Istrya seems well aware of her situation too, she just buys in to it. To piggyback your Cersei analogy, Istrya is well aware she's a horse to be sold, she's just decided she's damn well gonna be the one doing the selling. Both seems aware of the system of oppression they are a part of.

Serwe, on the other hand, is completely ignorant of the system that oppresses her. She doesn't understand it. To her it's just horrible shit that keeps happening to her.

I can understand the "you cannot pull yourself up by your bootstraps" commentary, but that gets overridden by the heavyhandedness and that the victims of said oppression seems to have the self awareness of automatons when it comes to their own oppression. It needs a man to tell Esmenet she is oppressed. In ASOIAF, Cat, Sansa, Arya, Brienne, Asha, Dany, Arianne and Cersei all express thoughts and critique of the patriarchal system in one way or another. They are reflecting on their situations and tie disadvantages to the fact that they women, not men. This doesn't negate oppression, or solve their problems, or present them with bootstraps to pull themselves up with. And they manage to do this on their own, without needing a man to explain it to them, but through the use of their own deductive powers and experience.

I know we've had this conversation before, but I think you are letting your dislike of the surface details of what's going on in that scene get in the way of what's actually happening.

Esmenet is aware of her oppression, but she lacks the ability to conceptualize it. (this is pretty much a core trait of Esmenet. She has the ability, but not the training to use it.) The scene itself begins with Kellhus calling her out for giving the stock "men are better then women" response despite the fact that she doesn't really believe it. She just hasn't extended this idea to a larger level. I don't think it's at all implausible that she wouldn't have yet thought of placing this idea in a larger systematic context. Especially given that she's been explicitly taught the opposite. I mean, her revelation is not that she is oppressed, but that her oppression is utterly arbitrary.

And, of course, the scene largely exists as a way to show how Kellhus disguises enslavement as revelation. He puts her understanding of her oppression in a wider context and tells her that her oppression is not necessary. And all as a way to control her more. It's meant to be disturbing.

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Dp,

You run a hard bargain, how can I refuse when you put it like that??

Maithanet,

Very good points. I also think the no-god, the gnosis etc are fascinating ideas.

Sci, I am also uncertain about what normalising means in this context, unless it's meant to be "but men get raped too" sort of reasoning. I have an answer for that if it is, but not on the god damn phone :P

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Sorry. Definitely, out of context and laden with my connotations.

The idea is that communicative media (words, pictures, video), through participative discourse (framing, conscious and unconscious perspection), normalize - make normal in social and cultural expression - gender (or racial) roles. [Good or bad, normalizing just refers to what consensual society thinks is "normal."]

I hope I didn't fall under that stereotype already, Lyanna. As far as a theme of critique being that the portrayal of women in SFF mostly normalizes really terrible social myth like "Woman Like Rape," that is so pervasive in all media, I would have thought that having a man raped (I might add that next to Esmenet's encounter with Aurang in TDTCB, Cnaiur raping Conphas is the most prominant act of sexual aggression in PON) problematizes the normalized expectations/portrayals of SFF audience.

I'm diving in here and I'm kind of immersing myself in Gender/Race critiques while waiting for the plumber :@ - hope I'm not committing any serious errors yet.

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I honestly don't even know what that's supposed to mean. As in we're reading a scriptural account of these events?

More as in "it's based on the world as the scripture describes it rather then how it might actually have been".

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Yeah, what Shryke said is better stated.

Also, there are divinities that actively enforce gender roles. Being raised Hindu one thing I really liked in the second trilogy is the Yatwer cult, as it shows how having goddesses does not necessarily mean an opening for women to be liberated.

That, I think is more of a fantasy first than guys getting raped. That happens in Berserk, and in Desert Spear. Out of all three I'd say Berserk did the best exploration and I just watched the anime.

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Anyways, I guess I forgot to make my conclusion in the previous post. I'm mostly just trying to say that I love a lot of the ideas and writing in Bakker's work. I am entirely fascinated to see the No-God, the Consult, etc and where the plot goes from there. But Bakker's weaknesses as a writer are compounded by the attitude towards criticism he has displayed online. And that is unfortunate, becuase a good dialogue between author and audience can really help the audience appreciate your work, as evidenced by the Abercrombie and Women discussions.

I too am fascinated by the No-God, Consult, Nonmen, methods of magic that Bakker writes about. I've not read much of what he's written online in response to criticsm because, frankly, I'm more interested in the story itself. But I'm not a writer and even **I** could have told him to keep that shit to himself - no good would come of it.

Did the fact that Esme and Serwe were used and abused piss me off? Yeah, it did. I thought that's how I was **supposed** to feel. but did I feel the author was making some statement about women in general by the fact that there were no women with agency in the story? Not really, mainly because everyone seemed to be pulled by unseen strings.

My favorite book of his so far has been The Judging Eye. I love Mimara and Sorweel, and got a big kick out of the tribute to Moria.

I would consider it a great pity if Bakker doesn't finish the series. I think he's accomplished something pretty unique with this flawed, but fascinating series.

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I think her actions throughout the whole first book display at least an unconcious understanding of the limitations of her station and a desire to break free of it.

Perhaps, I guess I am just feeling a bit...unconvinced? In that considering how heavy handed a lot of the other stuff is, why is this then so subtle? Also, I think it falls down whereby she doesn't vocalise this as criticism, she may be aware of her situation as being negative, but it's more of a "my situation is negative and I don't like it" and not as a "my situation is negative and here is why I think it is negative" with links to her gender being crucial. For comparison, Cersei laments not being born a man specifically when she goes off on how Jaime was given a sword and taught to fight, but she was taught to sing and please. Sansa laments her status as meat on the marriage market and how she will never be loved for herself, Asha's offer to Victarion of being hand is mistaken by Victarion as her wanting to become her mistress, Dany is reminded that queen's tasks are to birth babies, and that's not even touching on Arya and Brienne who are perhaps the most obvious examples of women vocalising their specific grievances with regards to their gender in particular. I'm finding that Esmenet, Serwe and Istrya fail at getting to this stage of actually making any sort of link between their situation and their gender. And that's hardly an enlightened feminist position either, as Lucy Stone remembered her mother (very traditional wife of a farmer) lamenting that she had given birth to a daughter, since women had such hard lives.

And at the same time, you have other characters of similar position but differing reactions to it. Istrya seems well aware of her situation too, she just buys in to it. To piggyback your Cersei analogy, Istrya is well aware she's a horse to be sold, she's just decided she's damn well gonna be the one doing the selling. Both seems aware of the system of oppression they are a part of.

I don't think Cersei is at all aware of the system of oppression she is aware of on a macro level, she is talking on a personal level, since she very much perpetuates the patriarchy and emulates a very male oriented power, Tywin style, with her rule. To be honest, Istrya always came across as almost 100% evil batshit insane with no nuances, so it felt difficult to say if she was just batshit from birth, or if it was an effect of oppression, and that if it was, it had driven her to be depravity and horrors in that she even violates her child. Cersei commits monstrous acts, but she is very protective of her children, which makes her human and nuanced. Istrya is just a monster pretending to be female. A powerhungry monster.

Is this really a useful way to illustrate oppression against women? Portraying that it turns them into evil child molesters? I miss nuance in this. I miss humanity. Even oppressed women are human, but Istrya doesn't really feel like it, even pre rape alien phase. She is a mother, yet where is that motherhood? How does it make her feel? Instead she is just a rape monster, using, abusing and violating her son without a second thought. So totally monstrous. Human in that perhaps, but an utterly monstrous human, more so than Cnaiur and Conphas, since she violates her own helpless child.

Serwe, on the other hand, is completely ignorant of the system that oppresses her. She doesn't understand it. To her it's just horrible shit that keeps happening to her.

Yes, I once voiced this as "even as a feminist, you want to perpetuate patriarchy when you read about Serwe" and it is true. She is not described as human. She is purely animal. You feel sorry for her in the same way you would a beaten dog, but not as a concious human with an intellect, because Serwe isn't one. She is animal, she is flesh, she is biology, she is the lowest common denominator for all the prejudice heaped on women through the ages. Raped, violated, abused, oppressed, dumber than a brick with barely enough mental capabilities to speak, she is completely unable to do anything but have sex with men and be beautiful. She has no other characteristics apart from being a victim.

In this, Istrya the rape alien is more human. An oppressed woman isn't an "alien mind" as most women in the world at some point has experienced oppression. It's not something that is as alien as deep sea fish or imagined species on other planets.

Esmenet is aware of her oppression, but she lacks the ability to conceptualize it. (this is pretty much a core trait of Esmenet. She has the ability, but not the training to use it.)

Sansa, Dany, Cersei, Arya, Brienne, Asha, Cat and Arianne have the training to conceptualise it? Because they do. They are described as humans with intellect and higher reasoning. I'm not sure this is surface details as such, as it pertains to the way the characters are structured.

The scene itself begins with Kellhus calling her out for giving the stock "men are better then women" response despite the fact that she doesn't really believe it. She just hasn't extended this idea to a larger level. I don't think it's at all implausible that she wouldn't have yet thought of placing this idea in a larger systematic context. Especially given that she's been explicitly taught the opposite. I mean, her revelation is not that she is oppressed, but that her oppression is utterly arbitrary.

Most of the ASOIAF women have been taught the opposite as well, definitely Sansa and Cersei, yet they can correctly identify why being a woman specifically is negative for them. I'm wondering why Esmenet, described as a very intelligent woman (while Cersei at least are at best average and Sansa good at reading but with her head in the clouds a lot) fails at this. Septa Mordane told Sansa "all men are beautiful" but she finds this to be a lie, for instance. I think it's odd that oppressed women as a matter of necessity are unable to question their position, because they have been told not to. Feminists were constantly told not to question this or that, and women still have the vote despite this. Being told not to hasn't stopped women in real life, it doesn't stop women in ASOIAF, so I think reality here weighs in against Esmenet being so clueless.

And, of course, the scene largely exists as a way to show how Kellhus disguises enslavement as revelation. He puts her understanding of her oppression in a wider context and tells her that her oppression is not necessary. And all as a way to control her more. It's meant to be disturbing.

Oh, I am not trying to argue with you on what the author meant, not at all. However, what the author meant to convey and what we take away can differ, as it does in this case. It's completely clear that Kellhus is after manipulating, that's been sort of placed as a basic tenet. It's what he does. But what we take away is that he has to be Captain Obvious since Esmenet is just too dense to grasp something we readers have been beaten over the head with for N amount of hundred pages. So the whole thing just takes on a different meaning, not clever Kellhus manipulating super intelligent Esme, but that he's desperately leading a horse to water, trying his damndest to make it drink. It's just...incredibly heavy handed.

So it doesn't come across as disturbing so much as clumsy.

Hence Esmenet is not believable at all as a woman who suddenly had a feminist awakening, since at first she is told by men that she should accept her lot, and then by a man that she's better than that. So...she's still told by a dude what's what. Ibsen understood this with "A Doll's House"

Nora says:

"If I'm ever to reach any understanding of myself and the things around me, I must learn to stand alone. That's why I can't stay here with you any longer."

So Esmenet isn't really manipulated, she's just pointed in another direction by yet another man. It's more of the same, basically. So this illustrates that first, Esmenet is oppressed, a victim and clueless, then she's..... oppressed, a victim and clueless. I'm uncertain what the point is with this regarding illustrating misogyny. That it always continues? That there is no hope? That only men can really fight it? Or something else, I don't know.

DatePalm,

I just got "The Judging Eye" in used paperback for £4.03. When we meet, you owe me at least a double moccachino for that. :P

(Apparently the Kindle edition was not available for plebs in my country. :bawl: )

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Sorry double post, it got too long!

Sorry. Definitely, out of context and laden with my connotations.

The idea is that communicative media (words, pictures, video), through participative discourse (framing, conscious and unconscious perspection), normalize - make normal in social and cultural expression - gender (or racial) roles. [Good or bad, normalizing just refers to what consensual society thinks is "normal."]

I hope I didn't fall under that stereotype already, Lyanna. As far as a theme of critique being that the portrayal of women in SFF mostly normalizes really terrible social myth like "Woman Like Rape," that is so pervasive in all media, I would have thought that having a man raped (I might add that next to Esmenet's encounter with Aurang in TDTCB, Cnaiur raping Conphas is the most prominant act of sexual aggression in PON) problematizes the normalized expectations/portrayals of SFF audience.

I'm diving in here and I'm kind of immersing myself in Gender/Race critiques while waiting for the plumber :@ - hope I'm not committing any serious errors yet.

Ah, I see what you mean. I too wonder if this was how the Cnaiur Conphas rape was meant to mean.

However, my take on it was that Conphas first rapes a girl while admiring himself in the mirror, and then later Cnaiur rapes Conphas. As rape is about power, I took away from it that it was an act where Cnaiur is subjugating Conphas completely, i.e. like in the Victarion chapters where a Maester complains about "having been used as a woman".

It's also interesting that Cnaiur's rape of Conphas is far more shocking and visceral than Cnaiur's rape of Serwe or Conphas' rape of the girl where he admires himself. So in that sense, male rape of women is normalised in Bakker-verse, and it's also utilised that way in the text. I can't buy that we're not supposed to react strongly to Cnaiur raping Conphas, and *stronger* than we are supposed to react to the Cnaiur/Serwe and Conphas/random girl.

So even if we're supposed to lament women's oppression and the tale is instructive in why oppression vs women is Wrong, male rape is used as a writer's tool to inflict more shock and awe, or at least this is how it seemed to me.

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Uh, Lyanna, I'll just warn you that you're probably better off for having the paperback version of TJE. The first few chapters where Mimara meets up with Akka will undoubtedly result in your throwing the book against the wall.

:P

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Hmmm, good reading of the Khellus/Esmi relationship Lyanna. There was at minimum a spoonful of melodrama there, though I do think it is hard to set up a scene like that where emancipation is enslavement.

Part of the issue is Bakker - despite IMO of doing a good job- not really having the chops to make Khellus 100% convincing as a prophet, which extends to a lot scenes where he mystifies people with some observations about their identity.

[Regarding the rape of a male character:] It's also Conphas, a sociopath who doesn't seem to care. Why I said Berserk does it better - Guts being raped is far more painful to consider and it informs who he is later in life.

Even Desert Spear does a better job of making it matter, though it also suffers from the perspective that rape is somehow more horrifying when done to men.

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Perhaps, I guess I am just feeling a bit...unconvinced? In that considering how heavy handed a lot of the other stuff is, why is this then so subtle? Also, I think it falls down whereby she doesn't vocalise this as criticism, she may be aware of her situation as being negative, but it's more of a "my situation is negative and I don't like it" and not as a "my situation is negative and here is why I think it is negative" with links to her gender being crucial. For comparison, Cersei laments not being born a man specifically when she goes off on how Jaime was given a sword and taught to fight, but she was taught to sing and please. Sansa laments her status as meat on the marriage market and how she will never be loved for herself, Asha's offer to Victarion of being hand is mistaken by Victarion as her wanting to become her mistress, Dany is reminded that queen's tasks are to birth babies, and that's not even touching on Arya and Brienne who are perhaps the most obvious examples of women vocalising their specific grievances with regards to their gender in particular. I'm finding that Esmenet, Serwe and Istrya fail at getting to this stage of actually making any sort of link between their situation and their gender. And that's hardly an enlightened feminist position either, as Lucy Stone remembered her mother (very traditional wife of a farmer) lamenting that she had given birth to a daughter, since women had such hard lives.

I just ... don't even get this. Esmenet explicitly makes the connection between her lack of options and her gender. She just views it as axiomatic to a certain degree.

I don't think Cersei is at all aware of the system of oppression she is aware of on a macro level, she is talking on a personal level, since she very much perpetuates the patriarchy and emulates a very male oriented power, Tywin style, with her rule. To be honest, Istrya always came across as almost 100% evil batshit insane with no nuances, so it felt difficult to say if she was just batshit from birth, or if it was an effect of oppression, and that if it was, it had driven her to be depravity and horrors in that she even violates her child. Cersei commits monstrous acts, but she is very protective of her children, which makes her human and nuanced. Istrya is just a monster pretending to be female. A powerhungry monster.

Is this really a useful way to illustrate oppression against women? Portraying that it turns them into evil child molesters? I miss nuance in this. I miss humanity. Even oppressed women are human, but Istrya doesn't feel like it, even pre rape alien phase.

Cersei is well aware of her oppression on a macro level. That's the whole point of her speech. The entire system is against her. That she still thinks of "winning" as rising to the top of that same system rather then changing it doesn't effect this. Istrya, from what we get of her, understands the system but simply accepts it and plays her part. Rather then trying to be the patriarch as Cersei does, she instead pro-actively leverages the only power the system grants her. Though interestingly, she is far less traditionally "feminine" then Cersei, despite following an explicitly femine path to power within her society. Cersei is very much a mother, while Istrya cares only for power.

And what's the purpose of the question "Is this really a useful way to illustrate oppression against women?"? What's this even mean? She exists as a way to illustrate someone who buys completely into the system that oppresses them, while still being power-hungry.

Yes, I once voiced this as "even as a feminist, you want to perpetuate patriarchy when you read about Serwe" and it is true. She is not described as human. She is purely animal. You feel sorry for her in the same way you would a beaten dog, but not as a concious human with an intellect, because Serwe isn't one. She is animal, she is flesh, she is biology, she is the lowest common denominator for all the prejudice heaped on women through the ages. Raped, violated, abused, oppressed, dumber than a brick with barely enough mental capabilities to speak, she is completely unable to do anything but have sex with men and be beautiful. She has no other characteristics apart from being a victim.

In this, Istrya the rape alien is more human. An oppressed woman isn't an "alien mind" as most women in the world at some point has experienced oppression. It's not something that is as alien as deep sea fish or imagined species on other planets.

I think Serwe is completely human. She's just, well, not that smart.

All 3 of the female characters illustrate different reactions to the society that oppresses them. Esmenet notes her own oppression and continually seeks a way out from under that oppression (though not perhaps forcefully because she still accepts some tenets of the system). Istrya embraces the system and uses it. And Serwe is simply unaware of it and is victimized by it.

Sansa, Dany, Cersei, Arya, Brienne, Asha, Cat and Arianne have the training to conceptualise it? Because they do. They are described as humans with intellect and higher reasoning. I'm not sure this is surface details as such, as it pertains to the way the characters are structured.

I think they are more aware of it on a societal level. Partially because they are aware of it as merely social and partially because they think alot more ... modern then many of the characters in PON. And this plays into the first point there too.

Most of the ASOIAF women have been taught the opposite as well, definitely Sansa and Cersei, yet they can correctly identify why being a woman specifically is negative for them. I'm wondering why Esmenet, described as a very intelligent woman (while Cersei at least are at best average and Sansa good at reading but with her head in the clouds a lot) fails at this. Septa Mordane told Sansa "all men are beautiful" but she finds this to be a lie, for instance. I think it's odd that oppressed women as a matter of necessity are unable to question their position, because they have been told not to. Feminists were constantly told not to question this or that, and women still have the vote despite this. Being told not to hasn't stopped women in real life, it doesn't stop women in ASOIAF, so I think reality here weighs in against Esmenet being so clueless.

I don't think the women in ASOIAF have been taught they are a lesser species in anything like the same way Esmenet has. For Esmenet, this is a tenet of her religion. This is god handing down revelation from on high. Sansa and Cersei are just kinda treated as marriage chattle. They aren't told "God said you are lesser then a man". This is in part a reflection of ASOIAF's lack of religion with punch.

Oh, I am not trying to argue with you on what the author meant, not at all. However, what the author meant to convey and what we take away can differ, as it does in this case. It's completely clear that Kellhus is after manipulating, that's been sort of placed as a basic tenet. It's what he does. But what we take away is that he has to be Captain Obvious since Esmenet is just too dense to grasp something we readers have been beaten over the head with for N amount of hundred pages. So the whole thing just takes on a different meaning, not clever Kellhus manipulating super intelligent Esme, but that he's desperately leading a horse to water, trying his damndest to make it drink. It's just...incredibly heavy handed.

So it doesn't come across as disturbing so much as clumsy.

Hence Esmenet is not believable at all as a woman who suddenly had a feminist awakening, since at first she is told by men that she should accept her lot, and then by a man that she's better than that. So...she's still told by a dude what's what. Ibsen understood this with "A Doll's House"

Nora says:

"If I'm ever to reach any understanding of myself and the things around me, I must learn to stand alone. That's why I can't stay here with you any longer."

So Esmenet isn't really manipulated, she's just pointed in another direction by yet another man. It's more of the same, basically. So this illustrates that first, Esmenet is oppressed, a victim and clueless, then she's..... oppressed, a victim and clueless.

Right, this seems to circle back to the same problem that you get what's going on in the scene, but you still dislike it because it's not actually some sort of "feminist awakening". It apes the general feel of one, but it's a guided revelation for the purpose of control. Of course it doesn't match up with that Nora quote of yours, it's not supposed to. I'm not seeing why this is a problem though. It's not like Kellhus' manipulation here is somehow unique. I guess in summary, I can't figure out what your actual problem here is. You seem to just hate the very idea of the scene itself.

You also seem to be unable to accept that people would not just, you know, obviously see this point. You act like it's so obvious everyone should see it. I find this, honestly, kinda silly. I don't think it's implausible at all for people to not think of their situation in those kind of terms. These ideas had to be developed and taught after all. They aren't obvious. There are tons of people right now who don't get it, as the internet clearly illustrates.

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Uh, Lyanna, I'll just warn you that you're probably better off for having the paperback version of TJE. The first few chapters where Mimara meets up with Akka will undoubtedly result in your throwing the book against the wall.

:P

Hahaha, you are actually making me want to read it now just to check it out. Oh woe. :P

Hmmm, good reading of the Khellus/Esmi relationship Lyanna. There was at minimum a spoonful of melodrama there, though I do think it is hard to set up a scene like that where emancipation is enslavement.

Part of the issue is Bakker - despite IMO of doing a good job- not really having the chops to make Khellus 100% convincing as a prophet, which extends to a lot scenes where he mystifies people with some observations about their identity.

I think you are right, that scene is hard to write. However, I think GRRM manages better to describe subtle manipulation. I mean take the scene where Tywin and Kevan tag teams Tyrion and persuades him to marry Sansa. It's *brilliant* since most readers, at least on a first read through, take away that Tyrion, poor ickle wittle little thing, was so forced he could not say now. He had no chance, no say, nothing, but really Tywin is playing him like a fine tuned piano in a masterpiece of manipulation.

The same can be seen with Varys and Littlefinger, who nudge people do act based on providing them with what they want, or what they believe in. Kellhus has to strongarm Esmenet here, there is no subtlety to his persuasion. LF's political wisdom is that once you know what a man wants, you can move him. But Esmenet has no wish to be emancipated, she has to be dragged to that conclusion through a long didactic conversation worthy of a middle school teacher.

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Shryke,

The "feminist awakening scene" is explained better in my response to Sci above.

As for Cersei and a macro level understanding, it's been dealt with here to a large degree, I seem to remember Butterbumps! making a brilliant post about it in there.

Hence I am not sure it is meaningful to debate ASOIAF characters in particular here since it would be OT, plus pretty boring without textual evidence and reasoning, too. :)

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However' date=' my take on it was that Conphas first rapes a girl while admiring himself in the mirror, and then later Cnaiur rapes Conphas. As rape is about power, I took away from it that it was an act where Cnaiur is subjugating Conphas completely, i.e. like in the Victarion chapters where a Maester complains about "having been']used as a woman".

It's also interesting that Cnaiur's rape of Conphas is far more shocking and visceral than Cnaiur's rape of Serwe or Conphas' rape of the girl where he admires himself. So in that sense, male rape of women is normalised in Bakker-verse, and it's also utilised that way in the text. I can't buy that we're not supposed to react strongly to Cnaiur raping Conphas, and *stronger* than we are supposed to react to the Cnaiur/Serwe and Conphas/random girl.

So even if we're supposed to lament women's oppression and the tale is instructive in why oppression vs women is Wrong, male rape is used as a writer's tool to inflict more shock and awe, or at least this is how it seemed to me.

I'm not entirely sure we're on the same page... I agree (I think) that we're probably meant to react more strongly to Cnaiur raping Conphas. I don't necessarily think that this automatically contrasts that rape of women is normalized as acceptable practice. Considering that we're discussing rape by Cnaiur, perhaps the question to ask is how Bakker's problematizing normalized hegemonic masculinity.

"Curious Pursuits [Magaret Atwood], states:

'I wanted to try a dystopia from the female point of view – the world according to Julia [a reference to Orwell’s 1984] as it were. However, this does not make The Handmaid’s Tale a ‘feminist dystopia’, except insofar as giving a woman a voice and an inner life will always be considered ‘feminist’ by those who think women ought not to have those things.' She also states that ‘to move us towards the improved world – the utopia we’re promised – dystopia must first hold sway. It’s a concept worthy of doublethink' (p339, ibid.)" http://cwparadox.wik....com/louisallen

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I'm not sure why its not posting my full post but here's another quote I'm trying to add:

"Barr’s own
Alien to Femininity: Speculative Fiction and Feminist Theory
in 1987. The volume not only offered insightful readings of a good many individual texts but also formulated the central insight of feminist sf criticism in general: "Speculative fiction in the best cases makes the patriarchal structures which constrain women obvious and perceptible.... Speculative fiction is thus a powerful educational tool which uses exaggeration to make women’s lack of power visible and discussable. It can motivate women to avoid handicapping themselves by conforming to the demands of femininity" (xx) … For science fiction is able not only to display actually existing gender relations with the appropriate shock of defamiliarization, but also to offer speculative representations of alternative modes of sexual and social organization: and not by fantastic inversions or cancellations of actuality, but by properly utopian imaginings that are cognitive and critical in character.
"
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Sorry double post, it got too long!

Ah, I see what you mean. I too wonder if this was how the Cnaiur Conphas rape was meant to mean.

However, my take on it was that Conphas first rapes a girl while admiring himself in the mirror, and then later Cnaiur rapes Conphas. As rape is about power, I took away from it that it was an act where Cnaiur is subjugating Conphas completely, i.e. like in the Victarion chapters where a Maester complains about "having been used as a woman".

It's also interesting that Cnaiur's rape of Conphas is far more shocking and visceral than Cnaiur's rape of Serwe or Conphas' rape of the girl where he admires himself. So in that sense, male rape of women is normalised in Bakker-verse, and it's also utilised that way in the text. I can't buy that we're not supposed to react strongly to Cnaiur raping Conphas, and *stronger* than we are supposed to react to the Cnaiur/Serwe and Conphas/random girl.

So even if we're supposed to lament women's oppression and the tale is instructive in why oppression vs women is Wrong, male rape is used as a writer's tool to inflict more shock and awe, or at least this is how it seemed to me.

I think it's certainly supposed to be more shocking, but I think mostly because of who is getting raped. Conphas is and has been the character who has always been in control. He's been the only person in the whole damn story to not be put under the thumb of Kellhus (or some other power). His infinite megalomania makes him immune to oppression and control in some ways.

Conphas rape is shocking not because he's a man, but because he's a character we can not imagine till now being dominated.

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Do we learn the name of Proyas's wife...maybe in TJE or WLW? Doesn't he have a daughter?

It's kinda weird that women aren't really thought about during the Holy War or Great Ordeal , yet the chance to fuck one is something men obsess over to the point of risking damnation.

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Anyways, I guess I forgot to make my conclusion in the previous post. I'm mostly just trying to say that I love a lot of the ideas and writing in Bakker's work. I am entirely fascinated to see the No-God, the Consult, etc and where the plot goes from there. But Bakker's weaknesses as a writer are compounded by the attitude towards criticism he has displayed online. And that is unfortunate, becuase a good dialogue between author and audience can really help the audience appreciate your work, as evidenced by the Abercrombie and Women discussions.

I agree.

One of the reasons why I think the Atrocity Tale "The False Sun" is so excellent is because it's an example of how good Bakker can be when he avoids writing sexualized female characters and whores/whore/whores.

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