Bakker XXXVII: One Big Happy Fanimry

[Callan S.]

As if the carapace isn't big enough for two!

 

It's the original odd couple!

 

Dah da dah da dah! Dah da daaa da da daaah dahhhhhhh *scenes of proyas cleaning up spilt bibles while akka is the messy one, inside the carapace which, like snoopies kennel, is surprisingly large inside (bigger on the inside...)*

[.H.]

As if the carapace isn't big enough for two!

 

It's the original odd couple!

 

Dah da dah da dah! Dah da daaa da da daaah dahhhhhhh *scenes of proyas cleaning up spilt bibles while akka is the messy one, inside the carapace which, like snoopies kennel, is surprisingly large inside (bigger on the inside...)*

 

If my theories are even possibly close to the truth, I believe there might not even be an inside inside, only Outside inside the inside. :smoking:

[Anatúrinbor]

Damn... I can't believe I never realized that the 'Traveller' in the JE prologue is Achamian's Galeoth slave Geraus, who is working for Kellhus. The same guy who tells Achamian about the inn in Marrow and who to talk to in order to hire the Skin Eaters. Read the beginning of chapter 6 JE... very suspicious. In fact, Bakker almost spells it out by having Achamian think that something is not true when it's actually true but he's too full of himself to realize it.

Even when his children were infants, Geraus seemed bent on impressing them with the inestimable survival value of humility. The greatest virtue of any slave, he always seemed to be saying, was the ability to pass unnoticed.

No different than a spy, Achamian could not help reflecting.

[Ser Bryar Ashford]

Whoa...

 

Between Geraus as the traveler/kellhus' spy and Kellhus being the father of Mimara's kid I can't wait for tUC to come out!

[sologdin]

so moe will turn out to be mimi's father, then?

[Kalbear]

From the increasingly poor thread on what to expect when your expecting Black Semen thread:

 

 

^ this. I remember in a past thread Kalbear tried to construe the Fanayal/Psatma scenes as if he was "actively trying to make sure she doesn't enjoy it," until we all called you out on it. Yes, it's a rough series but you go beyond that to make the rest of the writing something it isn't.

A woman beater to me is a man who uses his physical advantage over a woman to assert his emotional domination over her. [Spoiler]Akka hit Mimara[/spoiler] because he's a crotchety old man. If you can find the passage where he is overwhelmed by the irresistible impulse to [spoiler]strike her because she looks like Esmi,[/spoiler] maybe I'll change my mind. While you're at it, find me the passage and context where he hits Esmi as well because I'd love to read it.

BTW it's totally a spoiler that [spoiler] Mimara returns [/spoiler]

 

First off, Bolivar, I was pretty much proven correct. Madness was wrong. Fanayal straight-up rapes Psatma. The term 'ravishes her' was used; what do you think that means? It is literally another term for rape. Why are you trying to defend this? Do you really believe that Psatma and Fanayal had a loving, mutually beneficial relationship? The whole point of Yatwer as a cult figure is that she rewards those who accept the abuse and punishment that they are given. She rewards those who suffer. Suffering, for Yatwer, is an act of faith. Being raped, beaten, killed - these are what are expected for the caste-menials. Yatwer makes those abuses holy. Psatma wants Fayanal to abuse her so that she can show the depths of her faith. So that she can show that she can take what is given. 

 

To me, a woman beater is a man who beats women. It doesn't have to be much harder than that. 

 

Also, echoing the 'all penetration is rape'  thing is pretty telling, given that that specific meme is a very antifeminist statement that was used to discredit a feminist (Dworkin) despite her never, ya know, actually saying that:

Such descriptions are often cited by Dworkin's critics, claiming that Intercourse argued that "All heterosexual intercourse is rape." That statement, however, occurs nowhere in the book, and her comparisons of intercourse to "occupation," "possession," "collaboration," etc. are made in the context of discussions of the way in which intercourse is depicted "the discourse of male truth--literature, science, philosophy, pornography",^[3]:122 and the enforcement of those terms through men's social power over women.

 

So yes, I agree - what I wrote is very similar to the claims that all penetration is rape, in that you're ignoring what is being said in order to make some odd point based on wrong information. 

 

Meh. I guess you can read misogyny into anything if you try hard enough.

 

Reading misogyny into a person hitting a woman isn't a stretch for me. Is it for you? Is it that weird to say that because a guy hits women that he's a misogynist? And that's not all Akka does either - he calls women slits and cunts, thinks badly about women in general, actively tells Esme that she's not going to be as smart because she's a woman...I mean, really - Akka being a misogynist shouldn't be that weird of a concept. 

 

I think there's a certain hatred for women in treating them like they can't be treated as serious physical opponents. As if they can't be anything else but babies.

 

If Akka and Mimara were actually fighting and Mimara was attacking back you might have a point. Instead, Akka is using it just because he wants to hit her. 

 

As to the text of why Akka hits Mimara with a staff, here's a couple of relevant passages. Bolds are mine. 

She had instinctively sought out the highest point-something that inexplicably irritated him. She was short, obviously lithe beneath her leather and woollens. Her face was dark, beautiful, with the colour and contours of an acorn. Save for the green irises and a slight elongation of the jaw, she was exactly as he remembered her…

Except that he had never seen her in his life.

Was she the reason why Esmenet had betrayed him? Was she why his wife-his wife!-had chosen Kellhus over a sorcerer, a broken-hearted fool, all those years ago?
...
 

This time the anger shone through, enough to make her blink. Achamian had never stopped expecting the assassins, whether sent by the Consult or the Aspect-Emperor. But even still, the world beyond the horizon's rim had grown less and less substantial over the years. More abstract. Trying to forget, trying not to hear when your deepest ears were continually pricked was almost as difficult as trying to hate away love. At first nothing, not even holding his head and screaming could shut out the murderous bacchanal. But somehow, eventually, the roar had faded into a rumble, and the rumble had trailed into a murmur, and the Three Seas had taken on the character of a father's legendary exploits: near enough to be believed, distant enough to be dismissed.

He had found peace-real peace-waging his strange nocturnal war. Now this woman threatened to overthrow it all.
...

He turned back toward the tower. The sun instantly warmed his shoulders.

"But we do," her voice chimed from behind him-so like her mother's that chills skittered across his skin.
...

There is a progression to all things. Lives, encounters, histories, each trailing their own nameless residue, each burrowing into a black, black future, groping for the facts that conjure purpose out of the cruelties of mere coincidence.

And Achamian had had his fill of it.
...

His eyes are hard and incurious. For a moment, she struggles with a strange embarrassment, like someone caught cursing an animal in tones reserved for people. She spits water from her lips.

"Teach me," she says.

Without a word, he hefts his staff, which she could now see is made not of wood, but of bone. Quite unprepared, she watches him swing it like a mace-

An explosion against the side of her skull. Then sliding palms, knuckles scraped and skinned, arms and legs tangled rolling. She slams to a stop against a molar-shaped rock. Gasps for air.

In the chapter, Akka remarks first on how much she reminds him of Esme and how cruel that is. And now she's asking him to teach her, and that's the ultimate cruelty. He refuses her. The next interaction they have is of her shouting in the rain to teach her - and him beating her. That's not the act of a crotchety old man. Akka's interior monologue betrays this. He's doing it because the concept of teaching Mimara is too personally harmful to him. He has told her no, has told her he won't do it, that he doesn't want to - and she stays anyway. So he resorts to beating her. Pretty badly, actually; I didn't remember him hitting her with a staff, for instance. 

 

 

I'll see if I can find the TTT instance where he slaps around Esme. 

[Kalbear]

Didn't find the thing I was looking for, but I did find this bit when Akka is talking to everyone after the battle of Shimeh:

 

With a savagery that both thrilled and frightened him, he snatched her left wrist, twisted and bent it back, so that she could see the blurred tattoo that blackened the back of her hand. He thrust her away from him.

The crowd erupted in outrage. But strangely, no one moved to seize him.
''No!" Esmenet shrieked from the floor. "Leave him alone! Leave him! You don't know him! You don't kn — "

 

Esmenet basically saves his life as he grabs her and twists her wrist, because otherwise that action would be cause for death. You don't strike the empress of the world. 

[Bolivar]

I do give you props for doubling down on your position and going out to get the evidence. And I agree that the TTT ending is not Akka's best moment. But I still don't think he fits the profile of a woman beater, for reasons I've already said.

[sologdin]

The term 'ravishes her' was used; what do you think that means? It is literally another term for rape.

true enough. consider this language from a case from down my way:

While the victim was on the stand, she was asked the question "Was that the little girl with you on the night of the alleged rape and ravishment?" to which she answered "Yes". Defense counsel thereupon objected to the use of the word "ravishment". The judge sustained the objection and instructed the jury to disregard that word. Counsel then moved for a mistrial and, when it was denied, Bill No. 15 was reserved.

The complaint is shallow. It appears to us that the judge was overly cautious in sustaining the objection of counsel as the word "ravishment" is nothing more than a synonym of rape but, in any event, we are at a loss to understand the theory upon which counsel conceive that appellant was entitled to a mistrial.

During the examination of the victim on the stand, she was asked -- "While you were on your stomach, please state to the court and jury just what the defendant did?". Defense counsel objected and, when overruled, reserved Bill No. 16. Thereupon, the victim answered "He tried to enter me from the back". Counsel then moved for a mistrial on the ground that the district attorney had not mentioned this fact in his opening statement. When the judge denied the motion, Bill No. 17 was taken.

These bills are clearly without merit. Counsel do not advance any reason for the objection to the question concerning appellant's action after he had forced the victim to lie on her stomach and we can think of none.

State of Louisiana v. Michel, 225 La. 1040, 1060-61 (La. 1954). we should note however that the law tends to consider the term archaic and usually disfavors it because laypersons have inexplicably adopted it as a synonym for vigorous consensual encounters. ambiguity is normally a good thing in literary texts; i think it means that interpretation of the scene in question as a rape will be at least as plausible as the other way. that said, if she wants to be raped in order to endure ecclesiastical suffering, is it not converted into a consensual act--or is it consensual for her intrinsically, but non-consensual extrinsically? schrodinger's sex act? it works kinda like the expect not admonition.

[Kalbear]

But I still don't think he fits the profile of a woman beater, for reasons I've already said.

Okay, I guess. For me it's not really whether or not he's happily willing to abuse women a whole lot or not; it's whether or not he's willing to beat women who aren't doing what he wants them to. It doesn't need to be more than once for me to consider it to be a fairly horrible act. That act, right there, makes him pretty unlikable to me. 

 

That all being said, I will say this: of the characters in the book I enjoy reading Akka's chapters the most, in both the first and second series. His story is the most interesting and he's the most believable character to me. That doesn't mean I like him, and I think there's a lot of conflating enjoying his story with liking the person. 

[themerchant]

Kellhus saved his life, no one else had any influence on Akka's leaving that meeting alive. sure some folk may have had a fortutious correspondence of cause with Kellhus but it was him alone that decided if Akka died then and there.

 

 

On sitting in judgement of Akka's Character at that moment , no idea. Pretty extreme circumstances in the lead up to him performing short-joint manipulation so Esme could see her own "branding".

[Kalbear]

i think it means that interpretation of the scene in question as a rape will be at least as plausible as the other way. that said, if she wants to be raped in order to endure ecclesiastical suffering, is it not converted into a consensual act--or is it consensual for her intrinsically, but non-consensual extrinsically? schrodinger's sex act? it works kinda like the expect not admonition.

Heh. Was thinking about this too. I think that because meaning and intent are hugely important in the world (and not just action) that in order to be considered sacred you have to genuinely not want the act to happen but accept it anyway. If it's something that you want, it can't count. 

 

Kellhus saved his life, no one else had any influence on Akka's leaving that meeting alive. sure some folk may have had a fortutious correspondence of cause with Kellhus but it was him alone that decided if Akka died then and there.

 

 

On sitting in judgement of Akka's Character at that moment , no idea. Pretty extreme circumstances in the lead up to him performing short-joint manipulation so Esme could see her own "branding".

Kellhus certainly has the power, but if Esme doesn't say something he dies right there. 

We sit on judgment for all characters at all times. For me, that was just another bit of evidence that Akka's a misogynist. There are others. When Akka gets refused by his once-wife, he physically assaults her and shows the world that she is a whore in his mind. It's not a good look. Again, I understand why he did it and can empathize with his anger and disappointment, but that doesn't make him a good person for doing it. 

[Ser Drizztos]

She cucked him. By rights, he should have torn them both to pieces (preferably before teaching Kellhus the Gnosis). Grabbing her wrists and basically telling her "once a whore, always a whore" was a pretty tame thing to do.

 

There's a saying that I've always been fond of; "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned" which I find both apt and true (and not at all misandrist). It is puzzling to me that a sorcerer scorned should meekly accept his fate and congratulate the happy new couple.

 

Reading misogyny into a person hitting a woman isn't a stretch for me. Is it for you? Is it that weird to say that because a guy hits women that he's a misogynist?

Context and motivation actually do matter. I find no indication in your quoted passage to suggest that Esmi's hypothetical son in the very same circumstances would be treated any differently than Mimara. Least Akka wants in that situation is to be reminded of Esmi, his one true love (who cucked him, remember?) and his last student, Kellhus (also an accomplice in said cucking) so he takes it out on the kid. Reading a general hate for women into it is, indeed, a stretch.

[sologdin]

huh? did esmi and DA wed at some point? and then she got together with AK after DA was presumed dead meats? that's not problematic, i'd think?

but assuming that these allegations are supported by the text, why would a sex act amounting to 'cuckoldry' create a right in the allegedly aggrieved spouse to tear the offending spouse and alienator of her affections limb from limb? that's kinda gross, proprietary, fascistic, no?

[Darth Richard II]

huh? did esmi and DA wed at some point? and then she got together with AK after DA was presumed dead meats? that's not problematic, i'd think?

but assuming that these allegations are supported by the text, why would a sex act amounting to 'cuckoldry' create a right in the allegedly aggrieved spouse to tear the offending spouse and alienator of her affections limb from limb? that's kinda gross, proprietary, fascistic, no?

Yeah, what?

[Madness]

I am arrogant and infallible as my exs keep telling me, Kalbear ;).

[Kalbear]

I am arrogant and infallible as my exs keep telling me, Kalbear

Well, good thing there's no ego there.

 

 I find no indication in your quoted passage to suggest that Esmi's hypothetical son in the very same circumstances would be treated any differently than Mimara.

 

You don't? The parts where she sounds exactly like Esme, that she looks like her? No where in the text is he particularly upset by the notion of teaching again, nor is he caring about being reminded about Kellhus; what offends him and hurts him is how much Mimara is like Esme. 

 

Yeah, I guess if Esme's son sounded exactly like Esme for some odd reason, that he looked like her in almost every single way - that you might have a point. But that's not really the case. But hey, if you think that it's completely acceptable to tear someone apart for sleeping with someone else after thinking you're dead I suspect I'm not going to sway you to reason all that well. 

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

Solo, from other thread. I see your point and stated multiple times I see Kalbears side. Just name me a series in this genre or fantasy in general, where if you scrutinize enough, you can't find misogyny? So I think Akka is a woman beater? No. He grabbed Esme by the wrists, that's not beating. Smacking Mimara? Didn't Mimara come after him also? As I said, one can find these types of actions in most books/series. I, at least still enjoy the characters. Not for their brutal actions, but, many other reasons. Cnaüir might be my favorite character in literal, because his internal conflict and such. I root for him, even though he truly is a horrible human indeed. :dunno: Its a two edged knife.

[Kalbear]

Solo, from other thread. I see your point and stated multiple times I see Kalbears side. Just name me a series in this genre or fantasy in general, where if you scrutinize enough, you can't find misogyny?

 

Solo wasn't taking your side, dude. You misread him entirely. 

 

The point isn't that misogyny doesn't exist in some series. The point is that, for me, it doesn't make Akka particularly likable. It actively makes me not like him. He could be your favorite character, but your favoritism doesn't make him a 'pretty good guy'. Arya is my absolute favorite character in ASOIAF, but she's also a sociopath, and I wouldn't call Arya a pretty good girl. 

 

That said, there are a whole lot of books where the main character doesn't beat a woman because reasons. Game of Thrones has a whole bunch of guys who have not on screen actually ever hit women - and no one is going to reasonably claim that misogyny doesn't exist in that series. 

 

Smacking Mimara? Didn't Mimara come after him also?

 

Read the quoted lines above. No, she did not. 

[Callan S.]

Reading misogyny into a person hitting a woman isn't a stretch for me. Is it for you? Is it that weird to say that because a guy hits women that he's a misogynist?

No, it's not even minded at all. It's jumping to a conclusion and coddling it. The same way a mysogynist jumps to their conclusions and coddles them, as if there is no alternative.

 

 

 

If Akka and Mimara were actually fighting and Mimara was attacking back you might have a point. Instead, Akka is using it just because he wants to hit her.

You're so easily primed.

 

If Akka was a meth user and Mimara was asking him to give her some meth to use, you'd be all over the shop in another direction.

 

Always the bigger picture eludes you for your more satisfying and knee jerk small picture conclusion...damnation, for f's sake.

 

What's a knock to the freakin' head compared to eternal torture...