Bakker LVII

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, Kalibear said:

He was able to look at the whirlwind and shout.

Did he yell "Fus Ro Dah!"?  

[jurble]

10 hours ago, Werthead said:

The final issue is that the online SFF fanbase has become a lot more dominated by women, particularly reviewers, bloggers and YouTube vloggers, and very few of them (although not all) who've tried the series have bounced hard off it, for reasons we have gone into a lot. That is also a problem.

I've always wondered how to deal with this as someone of South Asian Muslim descent wanting to do a story set in a Fantasy equivalent someday when I'm not lazy.  I certainly wouldn't want to upset women or turn myself into flamebait... but to be period accurate for medieval North India... the women (of middle and upper classes) were kept in purdah.  They literally couldn't leave the house (and some regions e.g. Peshawar people still practice purdah).  I believe the absolute peak of the upper-classes e.g. royalty had more leeway - certainly inside the walls of a palace all sorts of interesting stuff could happen... which is why that's the setting for 90% of South Asian romance novels.  

The situation in modern North India and Pakistan is still pretty alien to western women, I don't know how to safely tell a story set when it was, you know, worse. 

Do you know of anyone who's done "super patriarchal society" and handled it well?  Without having a heroine that bravely struggles against the societal norms, because that would just get you honor-killed.  Reminds of the one story in 1001 Nights where the Caliph forgives a man and his father-in-law for having murdered their wife/daughter, chopped her up and thrown her into the river because the husband saw a slave with an apple, whom when asked said that he had gotten the apple from his lover.  The husband had just brought apples home from a journey to Basra for his wife.  The slave ends up being spared execution when it turns out the guy's son took an apple and then the slave stole it.  The Caliph ends up giving the murderer a new wife - yay! 

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, ير بال said:

I've always wondered how to deal with this as someone of South Asian Muslim descent wanting to do a story set in a Fantasy equivalent someday when I'm not lazy.  I certainly wouldn't want to upset women or turn myself into flamebait... but to be period accurate for medieval North India... the women (of middle and upper classes) were kept in purdah.  They literally couldn't leave the house (and some regions e.g. Peshawar people still practice purdah).  I believe the absolute peak of the upper-classes e.g. royalty had more leeway - certainly inside the walls of a palace all sorts of interesting stuff could happen... which is why that's the setting for 90% of South Asian romance novels.  

The situation in modern North India and Pakistan is still pretty alien to western women, I don't know how to safely tell a story set when it was, you know, worse. 

Do you know of anyone who's done "super patriarchal society" and handled it well?  Without having a heroine that bravely struggles against the societal norms, because that would just get you honor-killed.  Reminds of the one story in 1001 Nights where the Caliph forgives a man and his father-in-law for having murdered their wife/daughter, chopped her up and thrown her into the river because the husband saw a slave with an apple, whom when asked said that he had gotten the apple from his lover.  The husband had just brought apples home from a journey to Basra for his wife.  The slave ends up being spared execution when it turns out the guy's son took an apple and then the slave stole it.  The Caliph ends up giving the murderer a new wife - yay! 

The trick is to treat the women like human beings. If you want to make it super realistic, that's probably okay - but you can make it super realistic and kind of horrible AND have those women be human characters with their own thoughts and feelings and compelling stories. Can you make a character who navigates these things and is able to exert power beyond how they can fuck? Can you come up with a story where the woman is able to manipulate someone else into murdering the son of the king because he's a horrible git and needs to be killed? 

In the above story, what's the new wife's reaction? What does she do about it? How does she feel about it? Is she joyous, afraid, guilty, angry? 

As far as super patriarchal society, honestly GRRM has done that pretty well in a lot of places, particularly with Cat. And there's the obvious Handmaid's Tale. 

[All Cats Are Bad]

2 hours ago, Kalibear said:

He was able to look at the whirlwind and shout. He didn't see the carapace, and the last result is him seeing...nothing at all. There's no indication that he can see anything at that point of the carapace. It also appears to be something of a continuum instead of a discrete item. Cnaiur starts as Cnaiur at the start of that scene, and as his physical body is assaulted and he charges towards the whirlwind he becomes less Cnaiur and more Ajokli. 

No, he saw it.

In order, he sees the whirlwind, runs down and starts stripping, Sranc part around him, he has horns and red eyes, he sees the "jewel" of the sarcophagus within the whirlwind, he starts spitting fire on Sranc and his scars are smoking, the whirlwind starts ripping his skin and eyes away, he looks "with Hell's own eyes and sees...nothing."

[jurble]

9 minutes ago, Kalibear said:

The trick is to treat the women like human beings. If you want to make it super realistic, that's probably okay - but you can make it super realistic and kind of horrible AND have those women be human characters with their own thoughts and feelings and compelling stories. Can you make a character who navigates these things and is able to exert power beyond how they can fuck? Can you come up with a story where the woman is able to manipulate someone else into murdering the son of the king because he's a horrible git and needs to be killed? 

In the above story, what's the new wife's reaction? What does she do about it? How does she feel about it? Is she joyous, afraid, guilty, angry? 

As far as super patriarchal society, honestly GRRM has done that pretty well in a lot of places, particularly with Cat. And there's the obvious Handmaid's Tale. 

Well the Handmaid's Tale is also about resistance and Westeros is, you know, liberal compared Islamic-Persianate societies.  I read an excerpt of a chronicle by a Muslim historian about meeting some European traders in India during the Mughal period and this guy had absolutely lost his mind that the Euros had brought their wives with them to the meeting - and that the European women were utterly shameless, of course.

Basically, we're talking about a society where you would be murdered if you were seen speaking to male guests inside your own house.  I know a doctor whose wife's family practiced purdah.  He courted her... but hearing about her from her cousin - calling on her house.., and having tea with her brothers and mother (as a widow the mother had some liberties).  He never saw her until the day of the marriage.  His story was actually very interesting in its details and I've wanted to incorporate it into something.

Again, sure within palaces you can have all sorts of stories, but if you want to tell an adventure - demons are attacking the kingdom, and our hero is from the middle class - is it acceptable... to write a story with no women at all outside the household sphere? And then have the household sphere play a minor or no part in the story.

[Kalbear]

Just now, SaltyGnosis said:

No, he saw it.

In order, he sees the whirlwind, runs down and starts stripping, Sranc part around him, he has horns and red eyes, he sees the "jewel" of the sarcophagus within the whirlwind, he starts spitting fire on Sranc and his scars are smoking, the whirlwind starts ripping his skin and eyes away, he looks "with Hell's own eyes and sees...nothing."

Sorry, I misremembered. So this is still consistent with him being possessed, and it's a gradual possession. He starts human and under the influence - basically like Kellhus is throughout most of TAE. As he gets more and more into it and more ridden by the god he loses that, until finally he sees nothing at all and is fully subsumed by Ajokli. 

Entirely consistent with the way godly possession has been portrayed throughout the books. 

[All Cats Are Bad]

Just now, Kalibear said:

Entirely consistent with the way godly possession has been portrayed throughout the books. 

No, every other person we've seen possessed by a God had the possession violently disrupted by Kelmomas. The Yatwer's vessel started bleeding from the ears and missed the chance to kill Kellhus, Kellhus himself was so startled a random Skin-Spy killed him (and Ajokli apparently didn't even know what happened). If anything Cnaiur seems to become more demonic the closer he comes to the No-God (and mortal death).

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, ير بال said:

Well the Handmaid's Tale is also about resistance and Westeros is, you know, liberal compared Islamic-Persianate societies.  I read an excerpt of a chronicle by a Muslim historian about meeting some European traders in India during the Mughal period and this guy had absolutely lost his mind that the Euros had brought their wives with them to the meeting - and that the European women were utterly shameless, of course. 

The Handmaid's tale isn't just about resistance. That's one person. There's all the people who aren't resisting either, and that's what makes it so compelling - Offred's story is one part of it. Everyone's life is affected. Everyone has some sympathy. 

1 minute ago, ير بال said:

Basically, we're talking about a society where you would be murdered if you were seen speaking to male guests inside your own house.  I know a doctor whose wife's family practiced purdah.  He courted her... but hearing about her from her cousin - calling on her house.., and having tea with her brothers and mother (as a widow the mother had some liberties).  He never saw her until the day of the marriage.  His story was actually very interesting in its details and I've wanted to incorporate it into something.

Again, sure within palaces you can have all sorts of stories, but if you want to tell an adventure - demons are attacking the kingdom, and our hero is from the middle class - is it acceptable... to write a story with no women at all outside the household sphere? And then have the household sphere play a minor or no part in the story.

I think you're kind of missing the point. Women do, ya know, exist. They might exist in purdah, and they might exist only at home (or at least so their husbands think). But they're around, and part of things. Do these middle class heroes have children? Do they want them? Do they love their wives or do they hate them? What do their wives think of them? What do their wives think of this guy going off and slaying demons or whatever?

But...why tell that story? What is valuable about setting up a massively patriarchal story that also has some demons in it? Why does it need to be patriarchal to that degree? What value is that adding to the story? Is this just putting it into a supposedly historically accurate setting and then throwing supernatural shit at it - if so, why that setting in particular? And hell, why is it important to have historically accurate sexism, but completely ahistorical settings like 'middle class' or this random dude being the guy chosen to go kill demons? How ahistorical is that? 

That isn't to say that these things don't have answers, mind you. They might! They might have really good answers! But they should have been thought about. And if you don't care about it, there's no reason to make it particularly historically accurate or even particularly representative. 

For the above, you wanting to put that in a story - okay, how does his courting this woman from afar without ever meeting her matter as far as him fighting demons go? What relevance does it have to his story that he has courted this woman and married her without ever meeting her? What about her story - is she upset because her mother was widowed and now she might be? If it's just being inserted into the story as flavor for him, chances are good that it's not particularly good of a story no matter what you do with the women. Cersei's background and being married to an utter asshole and wanting desperately the power and approval of her father matters to what she does next; how does this guy's arranged marriage matter to what's next?

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, SaltyGnosis said:

No, every other person we've seen possessed by a God had the possession violently disrupted by Kelmomas.

Not true. We see Cnaiur possessed by Gilgaol in the first series. No disruption at all. We see Yatwer effectively possess Psatma. No issue with Kelmomas there!

We see Sorweel and the random WLW disrupted by Kelmomas, and we see Kellhus disrupted. But that's not all of the possessions. And simply encountering Kelmomas isn't enough. 

4 minutes ago, SaltyGnosis said:

The Yatwer's vessel started bleeding from the ears and missed the chance to kill Kellhus, Kellhus himself was so startled a random Skin-Spy killed him (and Ajokli apparently didn't even know what happened). If anything Cnaiur seems to become more demonic the closer he comes to the No-God (and mortal death).

He also sees less and less of the sarcophagus as he turns. Which again, consistent. My reading is that Cnaiur is slightly different in that he's not really sharing the body with Ajokli - he is for all intents Ajokli as he is scourged and dies. 

Or this is another one of Bakker's attempts to insert meaning and logic without having an actual answer behind it at all. Maybe, like the head on a pole, it was just cool and freaky.

(Cnaiur's return was one of the shittier story elements of TGO/TUC, and felt entirely useless given how little he ended up doing.)

[jurble]

15 minutes ago, Kalibear said:

I think you're kind of missing the point. Women do, ya know, exist. They might exist in purdah, and they might exist only at home (or at least so their husbands think). But they're around, and part of things. Do these middle class heroes have children? Do they want them? Do they love their wives or do they hate them? What do their wives think of them? What do their wives think of this guy going off and slaying demons or whatever?

Sure, but if the only PoV is the hero, having bare interactions with women along the lines of "I'm so worried!" "How will we survive if you die!" etc isn't the most interesting, and a good target for getting flamed online!

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But...why tell that story? What is valuable about setting up a massively patriarchal story that also has some demons in it? Why does it need to be patriarchal to that degree? What value is that adding to the story? Is this just putting it into a supposedly historically accurate setting and then throwing supernatural shit at it - if so, why that setting in particular?

Because Fantasy in general is such a white genre, even when it incorporates people of color, it's all completely Euro.  That is, why do Euros get to write about their medieval fantasy worlds but I shouldn't be allowed to write a fantasy version of my history?

 

Edit: Also partially motivated by all the people that praised Saladin Ahmed for doing something so unique and non-Euro, and thought he was depicting an accurate Islamic-Persianate society... when he was just doing regular Euro-fantasy in cosplay.  The fact that people thought *that* was an accurate depiction of a medieval Persianate society was enraging. 

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And hell, why is it important to have historically accurate sexism, but completely ahistorical settings like 'middle class' or this random dude being the guy chosen to go kill demons? How ahistorical is that? 

Middle class isn't historically inaccurate - I'm using it as a gloss for petit bourgeoisie - artisans, clerks and merchants? Between the mass of subsistence farmers and the nobility.  Obviously, we've got the caste system and many of the clerks and some merchants are technically Brahmin and therefore the highest caste in spiritual terms for Hindus at least.  For Muslims in the period, there was a Persian-literate class that provided clerks and Muslim clerics (this is what my family was) that was between land-owning military nobles and the peasantry.

[Kalbear]

12 minutes ago, ير بال said:

Sure, but if the only PoV is the hero, having bare interactions with women along the lines of "I'm so worried!" "How will we survive if you die!" etc isn't the most interesting, and a good target for getting flamed online!

So don't have them have any interactions with women. Why do you need him to be married? Or merchant class? 

Or, ya know, maybe he has a mother, or sisters, or daughters. There are a lot of options. Again, if your goal is to just have this guy go off and fight, why are you choosing to put women in the places you're choosing? 

12 minutes ago, ير بال said:

Because Fantasy in general is such a white genre, even when it incorporates people of color, it's all completely Euro.  That is, why do Euros get to write about their medieval fantasy worlds but I shouldn't be allowed to write a fantasy version of my history? 

I didn't say you shouldn't. But write about more of it than just using it as a background. That's my point. And if you're going to write about the background, write about the actual background. This was a major mistake Bakker did as well - his characters and world really aren't lived in, and are just there without exploring any of it to any real degree. What does it mean to be a caste-menial, as an example? Why does that matter? 

GRRM has been flamed quite a bit for deciding that you must have historically realistic sexism and rape but are totes cool with having dragons and Others and whatnot. He has been flamed for his depictions of Dothraki and the shitty Essos backgrounds. And rightly so. You can have a sexist world if you want - but if you want to just tell a story in a sexist world, ask yourself why. 

12 minutes ago, ير بال said:

Middle class isn't historically inaccurate - I'm using it as a gloss for petit bourgeoisie - artisans, clerks and merchants? Between the mass of subsistence farmers and the nobility.  Obviously, we've got the caste system and many of the clerks and some merchants are technically Brahmin and therefore the highest caste in spiritual terms for Hindus at least.  For Muslims in the period, there was a Persian-literate class that provided clerks and Muslim clerics (this is what my family was) that was between land-owning military nobles and the peasantry.

It's pretty ahistorical to have artisans, clerks and merchants going off and being heroes. Would they have the ability to even wield a weapon legally? I don't personally know, I'm asking - but in many cultures that sort of thing was only allowed either in war or by the nobility. Why would this person be allowed to go off and fight anything? And if you're willing to be ahistorical there, why are you doing that but are being historical with massive subjugation of women? Why is that in particular necessary? Since you're telling a story of someone breaking caste and cultural norms anyway, why not have it be that woman who is getting married off to someone she's never met, and when she's in Purdah she's not just sitting around the house, she's out kicking demon ass. 

If that's not the story you want to tell, that's fine - but 'like the real shitty world but with demons that my self-insert person gets to kick the ass of' is not a particularly awesome start to a story. It might sell and be cool, but you'll be flamed for shitty worldbuilding and weak background characters and a bewildering desire to put women into subjugation for no particular reason.

[jurble]

34 minutes ago, Kalibear said:

Again, if your goal is to just have this guy go off and fight, why are you choosing to put women in the places you're choosing? 

Right, that's was in my post but you might've missed it - is it still acceptable in this day and age to a have story where there's barely any women at all aside from maybe visual descriptions of passing villages etc?

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I didn't say you shouldn't. But write about more of it than just using it as a background. That's my point. And if you're going to write about the background, write about the actual background. This was a major mistake Bakker did as well - his characters and world really aren't lived in, and are just there without exploring any of it to any real degree. What does it mean to be a caste-menial, as an example? Why does that matter? 

I mean I took caste-menial to be a shudra and just assumed all the associations related to that.  But maybe that doesn't click with people unfamiliar with the caste-system. 

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GRRM has been flamed quite a bit for deciding that you must have historically realistic sexism and rape but are totes cool with having dragons and Others and whatnot. He has been flamed for his depictions of Dothraki and the shitty Essos backgrounds. And rightly so. You can have a sexist world if you want - but if you want to just tell a story in a sexist world, ask yourself why. 

Dothraki and Essos are just straight up bad and under-thought in terms of world-building.  I think part of it is, is the assumption that a fantasy society should resemble existing societies from equivalent Earth periods, because otherwise would be 'unrealistic' insofar as societies develop.  Dragons and Others are supernatural entities, but humans are humans and given agricultural societies in Eurasia, Africa and even the Americas all developed patriarchy, there's an assumption that that's the norm for agriculture.  Is it necessarily the case?  I don't know, but patriarchy and agriculture seem to go hand-in-hand.

Assuming that's true, there's a stark area where GRRM's reasoning would fail - the Dothraki equivalents IRL were all fairly gender equal, Huns, Mongols, Scythians etc.  The steppe pastoral societies weren't nearly as patriarchal as the neighboring settled societies.  This actually intersects with South Asian history as the Turko-Mongol people, such as the Mughals themselves, initially had very different views regarding women's ability... to leave the house (or tent) compared to the 'civilized' Persianate societies they encountered.  And there was friction there. 

 

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It's pretty ahistorical to have artisans, clerks and merchants going off and being heroes. Would they have the ability to even wield a weapon legally? I don't personally know, I'm asking - but in many cultures that sort of thing was only allowed either in war or by the nobility. Why would this person be allowed to go off and fight anything?

One of the chief differences between the Islamic and Hindu societies, and one of the reasons Hindus were unprepared for the initial Islamic invasions was that the Hindu caste-system tended towards limited warfare (Ashoka didn't hold to this, hence his contrition).  Peasants weren't attacked and burned out, and armies weren't raised in the tens or hundreds of thousands.  It was nobles vs nobles.  The same didn't apply to Islamic societies where anyone can pick up a sword and become a ghazi - and peasants are targets.  Medieval Islamic India's Turkic nobles explicitly didn't have the same reservations Hindus did about giving anyone who wanted a weapon.  

Being a ghazi was a praised institution/situation.  

I mean, look how ignorant (no offense) you as someone very well-read, is of South Asian culture and history.  History books are kinda boring, but Fantasy can be a fun way to introduce others to my culture's history.  

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Why is that in particular necessary? Since you're telling a story of someone breaking caste and cultural norms anyway, why not have it be that woman who is getting married off to someone she's never met, and when she's in Purdah she's not just sitting around the house, she's out kicking demon ass. 

I'm not telling a story about someone breaking caste and cultural norms :O.   Rather, my hypothetical story would be about characters that generally adhere to those norms because I think that'd be so much more different (and interesting, to me at least) than something that appeals to Western liberal sensibilities explicitly like Saladin Ahmed's did.  

I wasn't thinking the main character would be the son of a clerk, as an aside, I was thinking petty nobility.  Son of a small Turco-Persian equivalent landowner - otherwise he wouldn't a have horse, and horses are cool.  The petty nobility kept the same norms as the middle classes as opposed to the DECADENCE of the palace, ya know. 

 

But let's say I set the book in real the world, 13th century North India, and make it historical fantasy/magical realism/whatever the genre is called.  Does that obviate that sort of setting criticism?

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, ير بال said:

Right, that's was in my post but you might've missed it - is it still acceptable in this day and age to a have story where there's barely any women at all aside from maybe visual descriptions of passing villages etc?

Yes? But it's not a particularly cool world. Having few interactions with anyone isn't that interesting. 

1 minute ago, ير بال said:

I mean I took caste-menial to be a shudra and just assumed all the associations related to that.  But maybe that doesn't click with people unfamiliar with the caste-system. 

There are a LOT of caste systems though. And none to my knowledge use the term 'caste-menial' or even have that as a translation. 

1 minute ago, ير بال said:

Dothraki and Essos are just straight up bad and under-thought in terms of world-building.  I think part of it is, is the assumption that a fantasy society should resemble existing societies from equivalent Earth periods, because otherwise would be 'unrealistic' insofar as societies develop.  Dragons and Others are supernatural entities, but humans are humans and given agricultural societies in Eurasia, Africa and even the Americas all developed patriarchy, there's an assumption that that's the norm for agriculture.  Is it necessarily the case?  I don't know, but patriarchy and agriculture seem to go hand-in-hand. 

Agriculture would be, well, a bit different assuming dragons  can come and destroy your entire crop at a moment's notice. And while patriarchy developed in various places, it didn't all do it the same way, nor did it stay static. 

And the problem isn't having patriarchy; it's assuming that everyone is totes cool with it and not showing the problems with it. If you simply want to use patriarchy as window dressing without examining it at all, I guess that's fine, but again - not particularly interesting. 

1 minute ago, ير بال said:

Assuming that's true, there's a stark area where GRRM's reasoning would fail - the Dothraki equivalents IRL were all fairly gender equal, Huns, Mongols, Scythians etc.  The steppe pastoral societies weren't nearly as patriarchal as the neighboring settled societies.  This actually intersects with South Asian history as the Turko-Mongol people, such as the Mughals themselves, initially had very different views regarding women's ability... to leave the house (or tent) compared to the 'civilized' Persianate societies they encountered.  And there was friction there. 

See, now that's interesting. If you want to contrast the Persianate origin of your heroes' culture with the freewheeling women of the Khanate analogue, that'd be a pretty neat trick. Even moreso if you want to show how the Khans were pretty egalitarian with respect to religion too. 

1 minute ago, ير بال said:

One of the chief differences between the Islamic and Hindu societies, and one of the reasons Hindus were unprepared for the initial Islamic invasions was that the Hindu caste-system tended towards limited warfare (Ashoka didn't hold to this, hence his contrition).  Peasants weren't attacked and burned out, and armies weren't raised in the tens or hundreds of thousands.  It was nobles vs nobles.  The same didn't apply to Islamic societies where anyone can pick up a sword and become a ghazi - and peasants are targets.  Medieval Islamic India's Turkic nobles explicitly didn't have the same reservations Hindus did about giving anyone who wanted a weapon.  

But it's still something to spell out, and very much depending on the time period and the area you're going after it'll change that a lot - as well as the rules around Purdah. For instance,  most lower-caste or poorer women didn't practice Purdah at all - they couldn't afford to hide away the workers on the farm for most of the day (assuming you're talking about that form of purdah). It was mostly a practice among the nobility. 

1 minute ago, ير بال said:

I'm not telling a story about someone breaking caste and cultural norms :O.   Rather, my hypothetical story would be about characters that generally adhere to those norms because I think that'd be so much more different (and interesting, to me at least) than something that appeals to Western liberal sensibilities explicitly like Saladin Ahmed's did.  

And that's fine - you don't have to. But there aren't many caste norms of merchants going off to fight against demons, and that's my point. Even if they can pick up a sword, something like a high value prestigious target wouldn't be relegated to some accountants. And adventures are often about seeing new things - and there are a lot of things to expose there for this person. Have they been so secluded that they've never actually seen a woman who isn't clothed? Are they a zealot who think it's entirely wrong for any woman to not wear the veil? 

1 minute ago, ير بال said:

I wasn't thinking the main character would be the son of a clerk, as an aside, I was thinking petty nobility.  Son of a small Turco-Persian equivalent landowner - otherwise he wouldn't a have horse, and horses are cool.  The petty nobility kept the same norms as the middle classes as opposed to the DECADENCE of the palace, ya know. 

So in the historical period, how many sons of clerks fought or went off on adventures instead of, well, hanging out and dealing with the business? If demon-fighting is a norm for clerks, how come? (I personally get that SOX compliance is a beast, but this is stretching the norms). 

I guess the tl;dr version of this is that any story can be potentially interesting provided you've put thought into it. And if you're going to stretch some historical norms you better figure out why you did one without doing the other and actually expand on it some. Don't insert whale-mothers just because it's cool or a real gotcha moment. Don't just say 'what if women were objectively worse' without actually examining that and making that something of a big deal, because that wasn't the historical norm either.

[jurble]

53 minutes ago, Kalibear said:

Yes? But it's not a particularly cool world. Having few interactions with anyone isn't that interesting. 

There are a LOT of caste systems though. And none to my knowledge use the term 'caste-menial' or even have that as a translation. 

The two most prominent would be the Hindu caste system and the castas of the Spanish Empire.  Historically varna (the four caste distinction brahmin/kshatriya/vaishya/shudra) was only relevant and debated by Brahmins.  In practical terms, most people had a jati (a sub-caste in Brahmin eyes but in their eyes more like a ... tribe-guild?) and didn't care about their varna status.  But within varna, caste-menial (i.e. lowest caste, is how I took it) would seem like shudra, the day-laborers that worked others' fields and servants etc.

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But it's still something to spell out, and very much depending on the time period and the area you're going after it'll change that a lot - as well as the rules around Purdah. For instance,  most lower-caste or poorer women didn't practice Purdah at all - they couldn't afford to hide away the workers on the farm for most of the day (assuming you're talking about that form of purdah). It was mostly a practice among the nobility. 

Nobility has the connotations of the Turco-Persian landowning class (especially the guys with horses) while the literate class of clerks, ulema (clerics) and merchants practiced it as well.  But yes, peasants needed the labor.

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So in the historical period, how many sons of clerks fought or went off on adventures instead of, well, hanging out and dealing with the business? If demon-fighting is a norm for clerks, how come? (I personally get that SOX compliance is a beast, but this is stretching the norms). 

Sure, which is why a member of the Turco-Persian (or the fantasy equivalent) gentry would be easier than a merchant's son.

1 hour ago, Kalibear said:

I guess the tl;dr version of this is that any story can be potentially interesting provided you've put thought into it. And if you're going to stretch some historical norms you better figure out why you did one without doing the other and actually expand on it some. Don't insert whale-mothers just because it's cool or a real gotcha moment. Don't just say 'what if women were objectively worse' without actually examining that and making that something of a big deal, because that wasn't the historical norm either.

Well, ultimately, for me, it's about imagining what life was like in ye olden days but without having to research for dates/names/etc "Who was the governor of Lahore in 1315? How many sons did the Sultan have?  What was the manner of land tenure was granted nobles in the period, ownership or tax farming or labor-grants etc?" Being historically accurate for historical fiction is a lot of work.  I'd like to explore the historical setting without being adherent to the actual trivia like I would be if I were writing historical fiction.  And fantastical elements, you know, are cool - jinns and paris, pirs and rishis - to live in the world that people thought they lived in.  These supernatural elements were very real to them, they just were lucky enough to never encounter them (or perhaps they think they did).  At the same, I'd like to introduce Western audiences to the culture of the Islamic subcontinent (there's obviously a heavy Hindu bias in depictions of India that Westerners are familiar with), of which purdah was a very real element for many people until recently (and still is for women in some areas).

But the fear is that, you know, either depiction gets confused with endorsement (and to the degree that I enjoy imagining such a time period because I have the luxury of having testicles that might not be far off the mark) or that women pan the book because they can't relate.  My dad's cousin is actually one of the most famous novelists (well was, she's dead) in Pakistan, Razia Butt, and her protagonists are all women, but the novels are 90% household politics/romance due to the constraints of... reality she was trying to work under.  If I look to her, for example, as inspiration for my female characters, I suspect that I would be flamed for not giving women agency or limiting them in roles to daughter/wife/mother, ya know?  That is, however popular a book I could write would be with the general populace, I want to avoid criticism from Twitter, but maybe the book I want to write isn't really capable of avoiding that, I dunno. 

[All Cats Are Bad]

3 hours ago, Kalibear said:

Not true. We see Cnaiur possessed by Gilgaol in the first series. No disruption at all. We see Yatwer effectively possess Psatma. No issue with Kelmomas there!

No.

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(Cnaiur's return was one of the shittier story elements of TGO/TUC, and felt entirely useless given how little he ended up doing.)

Ah, there it is.

[All Cats Are Bad]

Also Sorweel was the one anointed, not filled. He was never possessed.

[jurble]

14 minutes ago, SaltyGnosis said:

No.

He's saying that there's no disruption there because you said

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 every other person we've seen possessed by a God had the possession violently disrupted by Kelmomas.

Whereas what you meant was probably "every other person we've seen possessed by a god who also encountered Kelmomas."   Gilgaol possessed both Cnaiur and Saubon in the first series, and neither encountered Kelmomas.  Psatma similarly never encounters Kelmomas afaik.

 

In any case, Cnaiur is possessed by Ajokli at the end.  Not sure why you're contesting that, you can call Bakker and ask, it's not a matter of contention or worth arguing about.  

Everyone is basically possessed thinking about it, Mimara, I guess has the Holy Spirit inhabiting her.  Cnaiur and Kellhus get possessed by Ajokli.  Sorweel goes White-Luck which maybe isn't technically possession but is divine shenanigans.  Kelmomas is sorta possessed by insofar as his future as the No-God is causing some backwards causality shenanigans.  Achamian is possessed by Seswatha.  The Dunyain are possessed by Shaeonanra.

[All Cats Are Bad]

41 minutes ago, ير بال said:

He's saying that there's no disruption there because you said

Whereas what you meant was probably "every other person we've seen possessed by a god who also encountered Kelmomas."   Gilgaol possessed both Cnaiur and Saubon in the first series, and neither encountered Kelmomas.  Psatma similarly never encounters Kelmomas afaik.

Psatma was a prophet, unless I'm mistaken she wasn't possessed by Yatwer. And in either case she never encountered Kelmomas, so idk what the point of even bringing her up is. IIRC Conphas assumed Gilgioal possessed Cnaiur because his men saw four horns on his head during the fighting...I think we can all see how they could have gotten something confused. They said Saubon was possessed by Gilgiol, but I took that to be apocrypha. It certainly wasn't reflected in his POV compared with those we know to have been possessed by gods.

The Gift of Yatwer and Kellhus's POV when he rapes Proyas are both described as a "place" rather than as an individual person with agency. A place being occupied by the god/goddess in question. This fits with the way the gods are described as being stretched across time, too vast to be contained in any single will.

[Hello World]

12 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Um, that implies he’s NOT working on the sequels...

Yeah, there is little reason to think that he's actually working on a sequel at the moment. Unless he's keeping it a secret. I wish he is but people shouldn't hold their breath.

He mentioned years ago that he has some 4 or 5 projects that he hoped to work on at some point. I don't know what happened with any of them but there haven't been any updates. This is just a pure guess on my part but I think at some point he came to the conclusion that his writing career wasn't worth it anymore and he should just focus on his PhD / teaching. 

[Werthead]

16 hours ago, Lord Patrek said:

Given the current state of affairs, Bakker's value has dwindled and a future book deal wouldn't fetch him a big advance. Add that to the fact that he does have a following, I don't see why smaller imprints like Tachyon, Pyr, Angry Robots, etc, wouldn't want to take a chance on him. I mean, coming from Overlook, it would still be an improvement for Scott.

I know that one senior editor from one of those houses absolutely hates Bakker's books and won't touch him with a twenty foot bargepole.

The others, maybe but I feel that offer would have been made years ago if there was any real shot. I think Bakker's best shot would probably be with someone who really doesn't GAF like Baen. By far the best solution would have been for Orbit to have taken over the US side of the operation as well, but clearly they didn't feel that his sales profile for them was worth it.

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He mentioned years ago that he has some 4 or 5 projects that he hoped to work on at some point. I don't know what happened with any of them but there haven't been any updates. This is just a pure guess on my part but I think at some point he came to the conclusion that his writing career wasn't worth it anymore and he should just focus on his PhD / teaching. 

I know at one point he said that a solo book about the crab kid might come before The No-God Book 1, or it might even be The No-God Book 1, before he got back to the meat of the story.

I'm not actually entirely sure what could happen in a third series. Team Akka flee to Zeum, the No-God's horde overwhelms everything, our heroes find the Heron Spear (and/or the Sun Lance), destroy the No-God Mk. II and everyone lives happily ever after? That doesn't seem right. Or they put up a fight but then lose anyway? If that's the case you might as well leave it where it is.