Bakker LV - Nau's Ark

[Darth Richard II]

Pfft go read any Star Wars thread.

[Callan S.]

I've a friend whose gone off GOT because he thinks it's just a pattern of making a character to care about, then kill them off.

To me GOT seems lined up for 'Well, you bickered amongst yourselves instead of doing something and then the monsters came and wrecked your asses, the end'. Though I'm not a big reader of it, so I might be way off.

I recently watched the end of Monty Python and the holy grail with my young daughter - and it really bummed her out how they just all get arrested at the end (sorry about the spoilers!) - I felt the same way at her age. The cool thing was building up then anti climax!

[noshowjones]

On 11/3/2018 at 11:57 AM, Hello World said:

That's not true. There are whole threads of people complaining about how unrealistic the long seasons are in ASOIAF and I can't remember the last time a science fiction movie or series came out and people didn't get triggered by trivial things being unscientific. Go read the Expanse threads in Entertainment.

I think you’re quoting the wrong person here. I’ve stated I have issues with the science in Altered Carbon. I’m trying to figure out exactly what Callan S is trying to argue. 

[Darth Richard II]

1 hour ago, noshowjones said:

I think you’re quoting the wrong person here. I’ve stated I have issues with the science in Altered Carbon. I’m trying to figure out exactly what Callan S is trying to argue. 

We’ve all been trying to figure that out fir years.

[Callan S.]

On 11/4/2018 at 3:05 AM, noshowjones said:

Your original point was that people don’t get that bent out of shape about the impossibility of AC technology the way they do about whale mothers. Correct? Edit - and you believe that’s because the whale mothers engage with morality in a way sci fi doesn’t?

Well, how often does an author get called a mysogynist for how he depicted light speed travel? Does bad science really trigger much emotional responce like that? Yes, I think depicting a machine as working in a way that it doesn't actually work will get less responce than something that crosses a number of sexual boundaries. I would have thought this claim to be pretty non controversial.

[noshowjones]

4 hours ago, Callan S. said:

Well, how often does an author get called a mysogynist for how he depicted light speed travel? Does bad science really trigger much emotional responce like that? Yes, I think depicting a machine as working in a way that it doesn't actually work will get less responce than something that crosses a number of sexual boundaries. I would have thought this claim to be pretty non controversial.

It’s just a bit of a strange argument. I suspect it an author wrote a sci fi book in which the hyperdrive could only be operated by men because of (insert pseudo science reason) then people would accuse that author of mysogyny. Or at the least, question that author’s intentions. Likewise, if Altered Carbon had an episode where they explained they could “cure” gay folks from their sinful desires by tinkering with their DHF, the show runners would be called out for homophobia. 

Im glad you clarified your argument. As in everything in life, it depends. Edit - as others have said, there are a number of threads with people complaining about the bad science in sci fi on the basis of it just being bad science. 

[.H.]

4 hours ago, noshowjones said:

It’s just a bit of a strange argument. I suspect it an author wrote a sci fi book in which the hyperdrive could only be operated by men because of (insert pseudo science reason) then people would accuse that author of mysogyny. Or at the least, question that author’s intentions.

But it wasn't plausibly Bakker's intention to point out how terribly misogynistic the Dûnyain are for having created the whale mothers?

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, .H. said:

But it wasn't plausibly Bakker's intention to point out how terribly misogynistic the Dûnyain are for having created the whale mothers?

Yeah, I thought so. And the argument was never 'Whale Mothers are unrealistic because Bakker is misogynistic'; it was 'Whale Mothers are unrealistic and instead of being scary, the section becomes kind of stupid'. 

I argued a few times that it would have been far more effective (as well as not require stupid retconning of Kellhus from TDTCB) to make them normal Dunyain. Make it so that the Dunyain men logically decide that the best way to get to their goal is to take these women who could be as amazing as them and chain them up, brain damage them, and turn them into baby making machines for the greater good. Have incidental stories of how some brighter-than-usual toddler Dunyain child would normally be considered a prodigy, but was fed as grist for the mill anyway. 

It's far more horrific for the reader to imagine this happening to themselves or their friends or someone they know. Instead, what ended up happening was a weird combination of stupidity (because no mammals have anything close to the sexual dimorphism found in, say, angler fish), body horror (at the thought of the Manly Dunyain having to have sex with these bloated things), and disconnect. It's hard to be sympathetic towards these weird imbecilic sacred cows. It's hard to even understand if they're even suffering. (an aside: it would have been a completely horrible message if the Dunyain women were supersmart and willingly did this because they also accepted that this was the best way to get to the Logos. That would have really pissed people off, to the point where I"m genuinely surprised Bakker didn't go for that). 

In addition to that, Mimara doesn't really experience the horror from the point of view of the Dunyain women nearly as much as she should; the point of view isn't on them, it's on the Dunyain man - particularly Kellhus. At that point the Dunyain women are even more turned from people with lives and dreams and thoughts into simply a plot point, a victim to be found, another nameless whore killed in a Frank Miller story. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

11 hours ago, Callan S. said:

Well, how often does an author get called a mysogynist for how he depicted light speed travel? Does bad science really trigger much emotional responce like that? Yes, I think depicting a machine as working in a way that it doesn't actually work will get less responce than something that crosses a number of sexual boundaries. I would have thought this claim to be pretty non controversial.

I mean, generally authors get 'called out' on misogyny based on their depiction of women.  It's not like I think Bakker handled the feminism angle he claimed he was taking poorly because of his portrayal of genetics.  It's because of his portrayal of women.

[Kalbear]

I mean, we also got into it about things like why sorcerers weren't used to level mountains and build roads, or where the heck things like queens and princesses were, or why the Great Ordeal didn't use their sorcerers to build massive roads for the army, or use teleportation to transfer massive amounts of goods...

But yeah, it's probably that OMG TRIGGERED LIBRULS thing

[.H.]

37 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Yeah, I thought so. And the argument was never 'Whale Mothers are unrealistic because Bakker is misogynistic'; it was 'Whale Mothers are unrealistic and instead of being scary, the section becomes kind of stupid'.

OK, I mean, I have never said I thought the section was well done.  Because I don't think it was and for the same essential reasons you outline.  But to make it seems as if Bakker was/is a misogynist for it doesn't make sense to me.  That isn't to say that Bakker's depiction of women isn't problematic.  Because part of his aim was to have it be problematic.  I think the issues creep in when you don't do an exceptionally good job on it.  Because then  you just get accused of advocating what you actually set out to advocate against.

I've say it near daily here though, this is what a good editor would probably help with and I really do always regret that Bakker didn't have a better one, because the whole Aspect Emperor series could have been so much more tightly done.

[Darth Richard II]

13 hours ago, Callan S. said:

Well, how often does an author get called a mysogynist for how he depicted light speed travel? Does bad science really trigger much emotional responce like that? Yes, I think depicting a machine as working in a way that it doesn't actually work will get less responce than something that crosses a number of sexual boundaries. I would have thought this claim to be pretty non controversial.

That is possible the dumbest thing I've read on the internet all year. And that's saying something.

[noshowjones]

7 hours ago, .H. said:

OK, I mean, I have never said I thought the section was well done.  Because I don't think it was and for the same essential reasons you outline.  But to make it seems as if Bakker was/is a misogynist for it doesn't make sense to me.  That isn't to say that Bakker's depiction of women isn't problematic.  Because part of his aim was to have it be problematic.  I think the issues creep in when you don't do an exceptionally good job on it.  Because then  you just get accused of advocating what you actually set out to advocate against.

I've say it near daily here though, this is what a good editor would probably help with and I really do always regret that Bakker didn't have a better one, because the whole Aspect Emperor series could have been so much more tightly done.

I’m not sure I believe Bakker knew his depictions of women were problematic until someone pointed out they were. And if he didn’t realize they were problematic then it’s a textbook example of misogyny. He did nothing in the series, as he said he would, to change my mind about that. I kept thinking he would, but he did not. The fact remains that he perhaps didn’t do a particularly good job because he was incapable of the nuanced thought required to do a good job of it. 

[noshowjones]

10 hours ago, .H. said:

But it wasn't plausibly Bakker's intention to point out how terribly misogynistic the Dûnyain are for having created the whale mothers?

Yeah, maybe. But there wasn’t anything else in the series to bolster “misogyny is bad” as a theme of the book. 

[.H.]

8 hours ago, noshowjones said:

He did nothing in the series, as he said he would, to change my mind about that. I kept thinking he would, but he did not.

OK.  And here, in my mind, Mimara is the most important human being in the story, thematically.  Not narratively, because the narrative is that of failure.

8 hours ago, noshowjones said:

The fact remains that he perhaps didn’t do a particularly good job because he was incapable of the nuanced thought required to do a good job of it.

OK.  Here are his own words on it:

Quote

- The genre exhibits a strong (albeit recent) tradition for subverting gender stereotypes by presenting worlds in which strong, independent female characters are plausible or even expected. Yet your world is as patriarchal as the reality that inspired it. I expect that this theme makes up for a good part of the discussions you have about your creation, possibly detracting from what you actually want to talk about. Is it difficult to resist the temptation to put something like a bad-ass tomboy warrior-princess with snappy dialogue and a heart of gold into the books?

First, let me say that I think I should be called out on the carpet on this issue, simply because I cover some pretty troubling ground. I certainly don’t believe in "quota characterization," either to be politically correct or to broaden the "gender appeal" of my books. Leave this for the after-school specials. I also don’t think that depiction automatically equals endorsement. The question that people should be asking, it seems to me, is one of whether I reinforce negative gender stereotypes or problematize them. If the books provide enough grist to argue this question, then the answer, it seems to me, automatically becomes the latter.

But the fact remains that a lot of people get hung up on my female characters: On the one hand, I self-consciously chose the harlot, the waif, and the harridan for my female characters, yet some seem to think a kind of unconscious moral defect chose them for me. If so, it would be a truly colossal coincidence that I would happen to pick the three misogynic types - I mean, isn’t it obvious that I’m up to something critical? On the other hand, I wanted my fantasy world to be realistic, to temper our yearning for premodern times with a good look at how ugly things got, particularly in times of war. When bad things happen to my female characters, it’s the circumstances that are being criticized, not the characters themselves!

But people get hunches while they read, and once they do, confirmation bias goes to work (and this is simply one among many reasons why we always buy our own bullshit), and the text, I think, possesses more than enough ambiguities for people spin any number of self-validating interpretations. It’s when they insist their interpretation is the only interpretation, or even worse, that it captures what’s really going on in my bean, that I become baffled.

Again, it seems to be to be valid to criticize the implementation of this.  Or the validity of the approach.  But to say that Bakker was incapable of the "nuanced thought required" is just too far, in my opinion.

[noshowjones]

59 minutes ago, .H. said:

OK.  And here, in my mind, Mimara is the most important human being in the story, thematically.  Not narratively, because the narrative is that of failure.

Do tell. I don’t think I agree, but what is the theme of the series and how is Mimara important to that theme? Or which particular theme do you think is most important (I can come up with several themes for it off the top of my head)

1 hour ago, .H. said:

OK.  Here are his own words on it:

Again, it seems to be to be valid to criticize the implementation of this.  Or the validity of the approach.  But to say that Bakker was incapable of the "nuanced thought required" is just too far, in my opinion.

Yeah, I’ve been on boards a long time even if I haven’t been posting. I’ve read the interviews. This all just seems like BS he came up with after the fact. Because reality (which the interviewer seems to ignore) is that Bakker’s world was more patriarchal than the reality that inspired it. He went out of his way to create a world where it was worse for women. Where exceptions didn’t exist (be they individual or societal—female dominated societies  existed in human history). The lack of nuance I mentioned is supported by that. And by the fact that he did nothing to subvert the patriarchy in the series. The most powerful women in the series, to a one, were treated as sex objects. He even transformed one from a crone into a sexpot. Hell, there were situations where it would have made sense to have female warriors (as opposed to just tokenism) such as shield maidens in northern sranc-infested lands, but there weren’t. They are surrounded by sranc, and still they ignore the fighting potential of half their population. Because vaginas. 

The argument that Bakker makes in that interview is itself a sexist argument, because he’s he can’t conceive of a world where a strong female character isn’t a token. It’s a common argument among racists and sexists alike. He then bolsters it with the idea that confirmation bias will just point people the direction they want to go, but I defended Bakker (in my head arguments against the naysayers like a cracked moon) until I read about the whale mothers. I made it five and half books in thinking, he’s gonna show em. He did. Just not in the way I anticipated. Haha. I remain a fan of the series. I’m listening to the audiobook of tUC at this moment. But the dude has some issues with women. I can think of no other conclusion. 

[noshowjones]

18 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Yeah, I thought so. And the argument was never 'Whale Mothers are unrealistic because Bakker is misogynistic'; it was 'Whale Mothers are unrealistic and instead of being scary, the section becomes kind of stupid'. 

I argued a few times that it would have been far more effective (as well as not require stupid retconning of Kellhus from TDTCB) to make them normal Dunyain. 

What do you think he retconned here? I didn’t read anything that stuck out to me. 

[Kalbear]

18 minutes ago, noshowjones said:

What do you think he retconned here? I didn’t read anything that stuck out to me. 

In the first book a young Kellhus in Ishual looks at a mountain range and compares its arcing curves to the back of a beautiful woman (or something along those lines - H. probably has the quote). 

Which makes no sense if the only women he's ever seen are the whale mothers. 

[.H.]

3 minutes ago, noshowjones said:

Do tell. I don’t think I agree, but what is the theme of the series and how is Mimara important to that theme? Or which particular theme do you think is most important (I can come up with several themes for it off the top of my head)

That Mimara is an actual prophet.  Not in the sense that God speaks to her, because the Eärwan God-of-gods is the demiurge, it does not care, isn't conscious, has no active will.  And not that she speaks to The God, again, because the Eärwan God-of-gods doesn't listen.  Rather, that she is the perspective of God from the mortal viewpoint.  That is, the view of God, from God (because The God is infinite), by God, through Mimara.  But the kicker is that God is not conscious and doesn't care.  But Mimara does.  So, in this way Mimara can actually judge, where The God cannot.  This is the same as Christ as judge, in the Christian sense.  That is, Christ came to "humanize" Old Testament God, by allowing God to suffer, to be mortal, to be limited in a way God could not otherwise be.  Mimara fulfills that same role.  It's just that we have only narratively read the "Old Testament" by Bakker so far.  And so Mimara's narrative role is totally incomplete.

13 minutes ago, noshowjones said:

This all just seems like BS he came up with after the fact. Because reality (which the interviewer seems to ignore) is that Bakker’s world was more patriarchal than the reality that inspired it. He went out of his way to create a world where it was worse for women. Where exceptions didn’t exist (be they individual or societal—female dominated societies  existed in human history).

After which fact?  That interview was in 2008.  Yes, Eärwa is more patriarchal to display how bad it would be if we actually lived in a world that our pre-modern ancestors thought we lived in.  That is, if the world really was determinately patriarchal as people thought it was.  In the same way that the world was as meaningful and moral.  In the same way that the gods  were real.  That Eärwa is akin to actual Hell because of this.  That fact that you object to the character of Eärwa proves Bakker's point: that the pre-modern world is sexist and capricious and akin to Hell.  If he included token female roles, or empowered more female characters, he would be saying instead that the gross, arbitrary nature of Eärwa isn't so bad, because you could transcend it if you just really tried.  But the fact is that Eärwa is morally stacked against this, so much so that it is basically impossible.  And this is what should offend our modern sensibilities.

22 minutes ago, noshowjones said:

The argument that Bakker makes in that interview is itself a sexist argument, because he’s he can’t conceive of a world where a strong female character isn’t a token.

I think you take that the wrong way, because Eärwa, again, is fashioned directly off a worse-off version of our own past.  That is, the past where the "arbitrary nature" of reality isn't just opinion, it is a fact.  So, yes, in Eärwa, a strong women would just be a token, because the sexist nature of reality there would demand it be so.  Substituting a woman in a traditional masculine role isn't really feminism.  It's egalitarian, in a sense, and perhaps a victory for some women but isn't a victory for femininity at all.  Because it actually discounts the importance of femininity itself, saying it should be replaced by the masculine role.  What  then of the feminine role?  What value does feminine virtue have, if our default position is to assume it be better off replaced by a masculine role?

You seem to want things to be very cut-and-dry here, but I'm not seeing it anywhere near as such.  Could Bakker right better women characters?  Yes.  Is his depiction of a misogynistic world sexist?  Well, yes, in the sense that it highlights how shitty and sexist it is the believe that kind of crap.  Is then Bakker a misogynist?  Nah, not buying it.

[.H.]

14 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

In the first book a young Kellhus in Ishual looks at a mountain range and compares its arcing curves to the back of a beautiful woman (or something along those lines - H. probably has the quote). 

Which makes no sense if the only women he's ever seen are the whale mothers. 

Well, this is true but it's not the Prologue (it's chapter 17 of Darknes):

Quote

Then the sun broke from the glacier, and he was dumbstruck by its beauty. Smouldering orange cresting cold planes of shining snow and ice. And for a heartbeat the proposition escaped him, and he thought only of the way the glacier reared, curved like the back of a beautiful woman . . .
The Pragma leapt forward and struck him, his face a rictus of counterfeit rage. “Repeat the proposition!” he screamed.

There are ways to explain this, because Koringhus knew what the "First Mothers" looked like too.  The simplest of course is that they still had paintings or representations of women, but if you are dead set to have it make no sense, then of course it doesn't.