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Gender treatment in fantasy, according to Bakker
Still from Pat's Fantasy Hotlist, interview of R. Scott Bakker, about the Prince of Nothing epic fantasy series which I reviewed here.
Now, I'd argue with the form of the question (it's arguable whether it's a genre convention "to subvert gender stereotypes by presenting worlds in which strong, independent female characters are plausible"...), but the subject of females characters in that series is certainly interesting.
For those who haven't read it, the world presented is indeed inescapably gritty and brutally violent, especially against women and there's a strong sense of realism to it.
Of the three characters that Bakker mentions, though, I'd say that only Esmenet, the "harlot", is a real success, she's the only one that can be seen as sympathetic and strong, and her story is compelling. The two others serve more as plot device than anything IMHO. The "harridan" doesn't even have a PoV and is intensely creepy (not that creepiness is exceptionnal in those books ^^), and the "waif", Serwë, is victimised, shallow and stupid enough that despite the sympathy I felt for what she lived through, I would never say I found her interesting as a character.
I do agree about Bakker's point about "problematizing", which is worthy enough, although in this case one should also take into consideration the context of the genre, because if every story is one of gritty realism, then the problematization may be more of a reinforcement than he would think.
Then there's the issue which he fails to mention, which is the treatment of sex and sexuality, and of the bad guys of the setting utilisation of sex in extremely creepy way, and how it relates to his treatment of gender.
Thoughts?
- 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.
Now, I'd argue with the form of the question (it's arguable whether it's a genre convention "to subvert gender stereotypes by presenting worlds in which strong, independent female characters are plausible"...), but the subject of females characters in that series is certainly interesting.
For those who haven't read it, the world presented is indeed inescapably gritty and brutally violent, especially against women and there's a strong sense of realism to it.
Of the three characters that Bakker mentions, though, I'd say that only Esmenet, the "harlot", is a real success, she's the only one that can be seen as sympathetic and strong, and her story is compelling. The two others serve more as plot device than anything IMHO. The "harridan" doesn't even have a PoV and is intensely creepy (not that creepiness is exceptionnal in those books ^^), and the "waif", Serwë, is victimised, shallow and stupid enough that despite the sympathy I felt for what she lived through, I would never say I found her interesting as a character.
I do agree about Bakker's point about "problematizing", which is worthy enough, although in this case one should also take into consideration the context of the genre, because if every story is one of gritty realism, then the problematization may be more of a reinforcement than he would think.
Then there's the issue which he fails to mention, which is the treatment of sex and sexuality, and of the bad guys of the setting utilisation of sex in extremely creepy way, and how it relates to his treatment of gender.
Thoughts?
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I also agree with Bakker that there's nothing wrong with purportedly exaggerating current society's tendencies in order to pick them apart more easily. I can understand why he picked the three archetypes he did, certainly. But I do think you're right that Esme's the only one who's actually a character. (Which isn't to say all of the male presences are characters, of course - they aren't.)
Mostly, though, what I don't understand is this willful self-separation of 'what I meant' from 'what I wrote' -- for someone who is lauded for using his words so precisely, and for being willing to confront the ugly truth, then why is he so reluctant to admit that some of those "self-validating interpretations" are of the nasty type? Not of him, but of those very characters he said weren't being criticised by his work?
Of course, I also disagree with Pat's assertion that Bakker's highlighting of the patriarchal nature of modern and 'idyllic earlier' society isn't part of what he wants to talk about. If he didn't want to talk about it, he wouldn't admit to making it such a big, deliberate inclusion in his work.
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Bakker is a philosopher. Maybe, he distinguishes between different layers of percieving a text. What the author is writing down, meaning the syntactical sturctures and the choice of words is never considered as synonym with the meaning of the story. (I got this comment to one of my papers that dealt with a text.) I also think, but I wasn't sure how to word it, that the author has no absolute control about what kind of issues surfaces in his work or what kind of subconscious problems. So, maybe, he is not totally aware of the problem you pointed out. *shrug*
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Of course, but then again, IMHO, both Xerius and Conphas are more realised characters than either Istrya(sp?) and Serwë. If those are the right male counterpart characters to compare them... ^^
I think Bakker comes across as slightly annoyed by a number of criticism which he thinks as misreading him, in that he was trying to deconstruct medieval sexism, and feels that some people read him as just being sexist. That's how I understood his highlight about the different between his intentions and the text. I agree that this is quite missing the point. If the text alone, without the helpful writer telling us how this should be taken, isn't enough to support a point then there's a flaw in the text. In this case I do think the text is enough, but obviously, lots of different peole have had different reactions to it.
Haha, i'd missed on Pat saying that. Yeap, I think that was definitly one of the novel theme, and quite purposefully.
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I think his portrayal is much more a caricature (sp.?) of "medieval sexism" than a real deconstruction, imo. I know that pre-modern society in Europe was pretty babaric, but even then women were able to play different roles than just having to chose between whore or nothing, even if they were mostly excluded from real power and there was no notion of belonging to oneself. This is the same thing that bothers me a little bit in his conception of the Nansur Empire and the Ikurei family; they are the incarnation of Western anti-byzantine prejudices. And even though, Conphas is an interesting character, the whole culture feels somewhat tacked on, not real.
But maybe, that's Bakker's intention writing a story that is constructed of our "cultural" biases and not the portrayal of any real culture.
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The Ikurei family feels all kind of head-scratching. I'm willing to believe that people might be that nuts on occasion, but there's an overthetop to it that never failed to defuddle me.
But maybe, that's Bakker's intention writing a story that is constructed of our "cultural" biases and not the portrayal of any real culture.
Errr... maybe?
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I more or less agree with your perception of the characters, and the problematic. I think he problematizes and reinforces stereotypes.
I also think that sexuality per se is one of those topics Bakker discusses and problematizes, and he shows sexuality mostly as something that either destroys people (like Cnaiur trying to shake off his sexuality) or is used to control people. I'm not sure though how much of this is part of the wish for "grit", or part of the story's core: What makes people behave the way they behave? (I have to admit that this is the reason why I can not bring up real love for the books. There is almost nothing and nobody that is balanced or healthy.)
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Bakker purposefully had the villains define themselves as "a race of lovers", and then showed us what it means (quite squicky), so he addresses sexuality in a specific way, even more acute than the determination of human behaviours IMHO. Unless he's just being Freudian ^^
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I have, however, suffered through the first four books of Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, (on the recommendation of a friend; I gave up on both the books and his recommendations when he saw the parallels to Christianity in the story not as a sad lack of imagination or preachiness, but as t3h profound) in which the bad guys have predictably evil traits: the pedophile, the misogynist, the rapist, etc. (As a result, Goodkind has to do almost no work to make us hate them, but that's an entirely different rant on bad writing.)
When it was just that rape is used as a weapon of war (that's reality) or that men from misogynistic cultures use sex as a way to humiliate and debase women, well, that might have passed for "gritty realism." He crossed the line with the constant threats of rape on the heroine that never actually came to pass, (I began to wonder, in a world so intent on raping her, how the hell she escaped intact, against all odds, and if this meant that her character could no longer be the brave and righteous heroine if she did in fact fall victim to rape, and in a perverse way, wished for her rape, because the goddamn constant suspense was annoying me) and with the mutilation, and various other things that seemed, if problematizing misogyny, to also give it a lot of long, lingering, glorified attention. (Not saying we should ignore the problems women face. There's a line here, and I'm not quite sure how to draw it. More exposure is good, but it depends on the context and how it's done?)
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. That a (male) author believes that a world in which women have no rights, no chance, and no spunk, and are pretty much reduced to victims and whores is "gritty realism" says more about his perception of reality than it does about reality itself.
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". While I agree that some authors go too far with the, "Look at my awesome woman! Women can be blacksmith warrior magic-users too! I so subverted all the stereotypes!" characterization, but there reaches a point where a character (yes, even a female character) has to cease being a political statement about how women are so oppressed or women are so kickass, and not represent all women ever or demonstrate the problems all women face, and just be....herself. If she does something cliche, so be it. Sometimes it's more in keeping with the character to do that than to detour way around it for the sole purpose of not being cliche. (Of course, if it's nothing BUT cliches, we're back to bad writing.)
Once I met a man who believed that if not for laws protecting women, we would be nothing but the battered sex-slaves of men, passed around like whores and forced to service their needs on whim. He considered laws to be almost a charity--made by men and showing remarkable self-restraint. Since then, I realize that many men believe in such a world, where only "civilization" protects the woman from becoming a used sexual object. Hence their "gritty realism." A pity more of them did not study history.
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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.
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Ummm...the prose is decent (having said this, I await quotes of godawful prose that I somehow missed--but my impression of the books on my first and only readthrough was that the author at least knew how to spin his yarn), and the plot of each sequel manages to spring from the events of the previous books? (I like consequences and causality. Yes please.) There, now you've heard something good about them. I'm afraid I still can't recommend them, though. Still, reading them has given me some ideas of things I would personally like to subvert. (Including the idea of a pedophiliac "hero"...only because I got sick of kid-touching being used for automatic villain-hate. Oh, and also out of a distaste for the whole "chosen one" genre. What if whatever force doing the choosing made a really, really unfortunate pick?)
I only brought the SoT series up because certain things you said reminded me of it, like "the world presented is indeed inescapably gritty and brutally violent, especially against women" and "...the treatment of sex and sexuality, and of the bad guys of the setting utilisation of sex in extremely creepy way..." Sorry, but this sounded just like Goodkind's writing. I'd read Bakker's books just to argue the point, but I don't really think I need to read a second fantasy series that fits the above quotes. Maybe when I'm looking for some more cliches to subvert.
Oh, and I find the idea of a prostitute who enjoys her work to be more of a bad thing than a good thing, as it's a common male fallacy that women "enjoy" various degrees of sexual victimization, from outright rape to the financial coercion of prostitution. I'd like to see these men sell buttsex for a night and tell me how much they liked it, and how healthy their sense of "owning their bodies" is.
(No, I don't hate men, but I hate the ignorance and male privilege many seem prone to spouting. Writers in particular should make an attempt to understand the opposite sex if they want to actually write members of said sex.)
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Including the idea of a pedophiliac "hero"...only because I got sick of kid-touching being used for automatic villain-hate
That would sure take a lot of work. If you really enjoy subversion of clichés, let me rec you Joe Abercrombie's The First Law series. One of his main character is a crippled guy by torture turned Inquisitor himself. It starts reading like Eddings and then getting every clichés gloriously subverted ♥
(nb: I do love reccing books to people, oh yes, I do. ^^)
Sorry, but this sounded just like Goodkind's writing.
Hey, i'm willing to believe you. My description also might not do justice to the series. Or maybe you're right about the similarity but my biais against Goodking won't let me know of that.
Oh, and I find the idea of a prostitute who enjoys her work to be more of a bad thing than a good thing, as it's a common male fallacy that women "enjoy" various degrees of sexual victimization, from outright rape to the financial coercion of prostitution.
Well, yes. Of course. And it's a tribute to Bakker's writing that he managed to write that Esmenet was occasionnaly able to enjoy the sex she did as part of the trade she did without having much choice in it without him writing it as Esmenet was a slut who was a whore simply because she liked sex so much.
I'd like to see these men sell buttsex for a night and tell me how much they liked it, and how healthy their sense of "owning their bodies" is.
You just haven't read enough badly written slash fanfics, have you?
Bakker actually has several male characters get raped in his novels, BTW.
No, I don't hate men, but I hate the ignorance and male privilege many seem prone to spouting.
Oh dear, don't worry about that here, please. I hope I don't have on my flist anyone idiotic enough to call someone a man-hater simply for talking about misogyny and male priviledge.
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You just haven't read enough badly written slash fanfics, have you? Too many, I'm afraid. But those are written by women, and more's the pity. I'm not saying that I want to read men selling their bodies, I'm saying I want men who think that women selling their bodies is so grand to consider themselves in the same position and approach the issue with less gender bias and more universal humanity. We are not so different.
That would sure take a lot of work. ...actually, it's less "work" and more tasteless squick humor ripped off of 4chan. "I swear I didn't know she was three!" just never gets old. Also, *dramatic tear* he's doing it all for the children. Literally.
....okay, that may go a few steps past "subverting cliches" and straight into "WTF why." I don't care, since that was kind of the point. (Another cliche I was trying to subvert was the whole, "unlikeable hero" or "antihero" thing. People try to make their heroes grittier and meaner by having them kill and torture with an apparent lack of conscience. I figure if you're going to make your hero unlikeable, go for the gold. Or, "This antihero thing has gone too far.")
Bakker actually has several male characters get raped in his novels, BTW.
...which says less about equal opportunity and more about an obsession with sexual violence. Hardly uncommon in today's culture. We seem transfixed by rape and pedophilia, like a train wreck we just can't look away from. (The reason I again bring pedo into this again is because of various paranoid people who have never met a pedophile but constantly go on about strangers who must want their children, and the dangers of
MySpacethe interbutts. For something that has had no contact with their lives, they certainly give it a lot of thought. Women who are ruled by a constant fear of rape, despite never having been raped, are no better off.)I am also reminded of Fushigi Yuugi, which, although I enjoyed it, I noticed that just about every plot point seemed to have rape in it somewhere, and both male and female characters dealt with the issues of being raped.
Someday, I will figure out what this absolute fascination with rape is, and how it ties into twoo wub. FFN has sent me a total curveball with all its bizarre rapefics. Including a Fruits Basket fic in which Tohru is raped by an anonymous stranger, and hours later, one of the boys (Yuki, maybe? It was all so OOC I can't recall) heals her poor violated vee-jay-jay with some nice soothing vaginal intercourse. Just what the doctor ordered!
RE: misogyny and male privilege, sadly, they are probably every bit as common in women as they are in men. I wish a VJJ granted immunity from the ignorance, but it does not. (A feminist once remarked: "Why is it that every time I look up from a gang rape, it's women holding my arms and legs?" While that's probably hyperbole, I have sympathy for what she's trying to say.)
I shall look into that book as soon as the sky puts the "firm" in firmament and stops falling on me. Although I warn you, I am extremely squeamish about torture, and nearly puked all over Goodkind's books for that very reason. (And used them to smack the guy who recced them to me. Skinning alive, what the holy fuck!)
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She was actually one of the easier characters to write - though now, after having learned more about prostitution, I’m inclined to think I romanticized her way too much. The crazy thing is that if I had made her realistic, I’m pretty sure she would have been almost universally despised, and I would have been even more severely criticized for making her "weak."
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Well I did link to my precedent review : http://etrangere.livejournal.com/141300.html?nc=7
The story is inspired by the First Crusade, following the launch of a Holy War through the eyes of several characters. The story is also about the raise to power of Kellhus a man raised in an isolated sect, the Dunyains, which studies reason (the Logos) and understands the world in purely determinist form (what comes before determines what comes after), as a result of which as well as a modicum of eugenist practice, make the Dunyains capable of level of understanding and manipulations of their fellow humans that is properly superhuman. Kellhus is NOT a sympathetic protagonist. His worship of the Logos makes him purely rationalist in a way that denies human emotions and moralities. Only the goal matters. The story, finally, is also the first step into the broader story of the Second Appocalypse as signs of the returns of the Consult and of the No God draws near. Those are the bad guys who use sexuality in an intensely creepy and alien way.
The main characters, apart from Kellhus, are Achamian, a Sorcerer, deeply skeptical and knowledge-loving man, who, like all Sorcerers is seen as damned by the faith of the region, and who as a member of the Mandate School of Magic is always on the look out for signs of the Consult's doings (the rest of the world takes the Mandate for fools and paranoiac for this), Esmenet, the whore, lover and friend of Achamian, who shows much intelligence despite her status in life; Cnaïur the brutal barbarian whose violence and rapes can never erase his past shame; and, arguably, Conphas, the genius megalomaniac and possibly sociopathic general and heir of a decadent empire. All those characters are really well characterized. But not always sympathetically.
The story's main assets are a rich, exotic and excellent setting, brillant characterization, efficient writing and truly epic scope.
....okay, that may go a few steps past "subverting cliches" and straight into "WTF why."
That's what I was going to say.
People try to make their heroes grittier and meaner by having them kill and torture with an apparent lack of conscience. I figure if you're going to make your hero unlikeable, go for the gold. Or, "This antihero thing has gone too far.")
The antihero thing only go to far when everybody do it and do it in the very same way, which always involves handsome males with the 24 clock shadow, who wear bad ass longcoat and use katana/shoot gun/both while uttering (bad) sarcastic one liners. That particular cliché, I could do without but I never tire out of antiheros :p
...which says less about equal opportunity and more about an obsession with sexual violence.
Arguably, yes.
I'm no fonder of the pedophile hysteria-witchhunt (and its effect on LJland) than you are.
aaaah, Yuu Watase. Yeah, Fushigi Yuugi is one hell of a trainwreck. Not that it's the only one. I do love the shoujos, but sometimes, my, they do bring the crack.
Someday, I will figure out what this absolute fascination with rape is, and how it ties into twoo wub.
Beats me. I've written noncon, but I never saw it as sexy. Then again... I suppose I'm not one to harsh against someone else's kinks, given mine.
Including a Fruits Basket fic in which Tohru is raped by an anonymous stranger, and hours later, one of the boys (Yuki, maybe? It was all so OOC I can't recall) heals her poor violated vee-jay-jay with some nice soothing vaginal intercourse.
What a coincidence, just a couple of hours ago, I was reading a fic with the exact same plot except it was Obi-Wan/Anakin, complete with
AliensVoyeurs Made Them Do It. Boy, was it bad.And then there's Gravitation, where it's canon and after a gangrape *facepalms*
RE: misogyny and male privilege, sadly, they are probably every bit as common in women as they are in men.
I know :(
I am extremely squeamish about torture
Oh well. Maybe you shouldn't read them, then.
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which is a totally horrible message to have in your books. that only bad girls get raped, as though they somehow deserve it.
also the way that all the women seemed to curl up and die after they were raped, that they couldn't go on, they had to just quit, as though rape destroys women. i find that abhorant as well
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Anyway, not having read the series, here's my two cents.
Even with my own writing, I think as a female, I'm more aware of certain stereotypes and tropes than and I'm also more condescending of female characters than their male counterparts--in other words, a male and a female can exhibit the same character traits from similar upbringing, and as a female, I'm more likely to be condemning of the female (usually for various reasons, but usually, I just find them to be objectified twits). Even to keep having these conversations I think alludes that there is still gender inequality at least insofar as expectation. Then again, this is coming from a wannabe writer who reads mostly men, and is annoyed by the lack of characters I usually can identify with (at least, that aren't villainesses).
To play the devil's advocate over here, it's difficult to not soapbox with a given character one feels strongly about, and the harlot might speak for all the harlots in a given world if only because we only get to know one, rather than the entire brothel/cityworks. Personally, I find it easier to explore a more developed character who exhibits negative traits that I identify with, which might be why some male authors can only write certain ‘types’ of women.
Anyway, to get on the topic of females in gritty subjects, I usually like it more when male authors go on about it. I’ve noticed some female authors use rape to make us feel sorry for/sympathize with characters, or simply rape/maim characters the author doesn’t like. But to be fair, the novels I’m talking about generally speaking aren’t gritty fantasy.