I never read it, but I've never ever heard anything good about the Sword of Truth series ^_^ acutally most people I know of makes it a hobby to mock. So I'm not sure that's a very comparable series.
It's also worth noting that any story "problematizing" a given thing is way more preachy than a story that writes about what the world would be like without said thing. The tomboy warrior princess grew up in a world where women were, if not equal, at least not oppressed to the point of breaking them. Such things have been realities, are reality, and will be reality again. Just because there are times and places where women are and have been oppressed does not mean that it has always been impossible for a woman to be powerful, everywhere. In fact, even in the medieval Europe that so many fantasies model themselves after, there was more power for some women than the layman who learned all his history from reading fantasy books would suspect. Absolutly! I think Mary Gentle's Book of Ash makes a great work of writing a medieval fantasy full of gritty realism, including violence and rape of women while still putting great female characters at the forefront. For a Space opera example, In Conquest Born by Celia Friedman shows a deeply structurally sexist (and faschist, and eugenistic...) society but still shows how some women still find way to get power in it. This is totally what I lack from Bakker's series because, while Esmenet is a great character she never seeks power by herself, and Istrya (an empress and mother of emperor) is more a caricature than a real character. And that's it. That's the sumn of the female characters who could be called strong in the setting, despite the scope of the numbers of cultures shown in the setting, and size of the cast of minor characters.
I am also fairly insulted that he thinks that the only reason someone would write a woman with any kind of personal power would be "to be politically correct or to broaden the 'gender appeal' of [their] books" and is best left to "after-school specials". Good point. I hadn't noticed it because I thought it more an answer to the unfortunately formalized question, but he definitly should have reacted differently to that.
Since then, I realize that many men believe in such a world, where only "civilization" protects the woman from becoming a used sexual object. yuck. The stupid, it burns. As if oppressive structure, to be enforced and maintained, didn't require organization, technology and sophisticated rules. As if being a victim was a "natural state" for women. I want to puke.
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It's also worth noting that any story "problematizing" a given thing is way more preachy than a story that writes about what the world would be like without said thing. The tomboy warrior princess grew up in a world where women were, if not equal, at least not oppressed to the point of breaking them. Such things have been realities, are reality, and will be reality again. Just because there are times and places where women are and have been oppressed does not mean that it has always been impossible for a woman to be powerful, everywhere. In fact, even in the medieval Europe that so many fantasies model themselves after, there was more power for some women than the layman who learned all his history from reading fantasy books would suspect.
Absolutly! I think Mary Gentle's Book of Ash makes a great work of writing a medieval fantasy full of gritty realism, including violence and rape of women while still putting great female characters at the forefront. For a Space opera example, In Conquest Born by Celia Friedman shows a deeply structurally sexist (and faschist, and eugenistic...) society but still shows how some women still find way to get power in it. This is totally what I lack from Bakker's series because, while Esmenet is a great character she never seeks power by herself, and Istrya (an empress and mother of emperor) is more a caricature than a real character. And that's it. That's the sumn of the female characters who could be called strong in the setting, despite the scope of the numbers of cultures shown in the setting, and size of the cast of minor characters.
I am also fairly insulted that he thinks that the only reason someone would write a woman with any kind of personal power would be "to be politically correct or to broaden the 'gender appeal' of [their] books" and is best left to "after-school specials".
Good point. I hadn't noticed it because I thought it more an answer to the unfortunately formalized question, but he definitly should have reacted differently to that.
Since then, I realize that many men believe in such a world, where only "civilization" protects the woman from becoming a used sexual object.
yuck. The stupid, it burns. As if oppressive structure, to be enforced and maintained, didn't require organization, technology and sophisticated rules. As if being a victim was a "natural state" for women. I want to puke.