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Above Our Own posted:Terez is a prop piece whose only functions are to highlight how awful Glokta/Bayaz are That is exactly the point; it's considered okay to make Terez a prop piece who is only there to highlight other (male) characters' personality traits, and to do so by having rape as a plot device (and to make things even worse, she is also in a situation where her sexual orientation is being forcefully repressed by others). Obviously, Abercrombie realised that it wasn't okay and later apologised about it; that's great! The problem is that it still happened in the first place, and that rape as a plot device is still incredibly common. Above Our Own posted:But as far as I see it, it's just a characterization issue and I think it's ridiculous to infer that the author has any misogynistic views or anything like that. No one is saying Abercrombie is deliberately being misogynistic or is an evil rapist, so you can stop being defensive about him. As an aside, pointing out that some of what he wrote is problematic is not an attack on your moral quality, so you can probably also stop insulting people you disagree with! It's a characterisation issue, yes. The fact that the characterisation issue in question happens to be using a lesbian woman's rape as a plot device is symptomatic of a culture that systemically allows this type of thing. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 10:35 on May 26, 2013 |
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May 26, 2013 10:32
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Above Our Own posted:But as far as I see it, it's just a characterization issue and I think it's ridiculous to infer that the author has any misogynistic views or anything like that. That's the thing about misogyny and racism and things of that nature, the words are thrown around like weapons meant to inflict pain instead of being used to explore the myriad ways we have all internalized racist and sexist thoughts and behavior. So with that considered perspective the author agrees that the characterization of Terez was misogynistic and that he himself had internalized misogynistic views which he is working on. Don't let self-righteous idiots on Tumblr ruin not being a shithead for you, you can be socially conscious and not be an otherkin at the same time.
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May 26, 2013 11:22
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Lemon Curdistan posted:I'm not Zeitguesit but I am fairly sure he's talking about rape culture (which, yeah, is doubtless why anyone would have considered that an acceptable plot device at all - I mean, the failure here is systemic since neither the author, the proofreaders or the editors stopped long enough to go "this is lovely, we should probably not do this"). I'm not arguing that Terez was well-handled but we never got the Gurkish dentist/Salem Rews/Anyone else under the knife as a POV and no-one cried foul there.
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May 26, 2013 11:30
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Lemon Curdistan posted:Obviously, Abercrombie realised that it wasn't okay and later apologised about it; that's great! The problem is that it still happened in the first place, and that rape as a plot device is still incredibly common. I don't think Joe was apologizing for what he did so much as how he went about it. Even in a perfect world he would have still had Terez used as a bargaining chip and raped and all that, he just would have made her a better character so the reader would better understand why that's so horrible. To wit, Joe Abercrombie posted:If Terez is a much more convincing, multi-faceted, less stereotyped character with an authentic voice and a more believable motivation I’m sure many people would still have their problems with this scene but from my point of view at least it would be much improved.
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May 26, 2013 17:00
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Ornamented Death posted:I don't think Joe was apologizing for what he did so much as how he went about it. Even in a perfect world he would have still had Terez used as a bargaining chip and raped and all that, he just would have made her a better character so the reader would better understand why that's so horrible. To wit, Yeah - his apology specifically addresses the issue of Terez as a prop piece, which still leaves the other issue unanswered for. It's not great, but at least it's a start.
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May 27, 2013 00:02
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Lemon Curdistan posted:and to do so by having rape as a plot device I don't get why you're treating this as inherently bad. Is The Kite Runner a bad book because a character is raped, and the rape is used as a plot device to drive the main character's guilt and self-loathing over not stopping it? Saying that rape can't be used to drive a plot ever is some pretty bleeding-heart bullshit. The worst part about the whole Terez situation for me isn't so much the rape (though it is definitely written poorly and should have weighed way more heavily on Glokta's mind) but the whole "she's a lesbian" thing, that just felt like trying to shoehorn in cheap drama. Just having Terez not like the dude and detest being used as a tool by her father would have worked just as well and felt less gratuitous. Sex Beef 2.0 fucked around with this message at 00:39 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 00:31
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^^^Agree entirely. Terez as a lesbian was sort of a lame way to handle her disinterest in Jezal which could have easily been done through jingoism, her frigidity, or easiest of all simple disinterest in Jezal. Yes, Terez was a static character but she didn't have enough to contribute to the on-going storylines to be otherwise. If the full range of humanity was expressed in each character then the book would be a chaotic jumble 50,000 pages in length. Lemon Curdistan posted:It's a characterisation issue, yes. The fact that the characterisation issue in question happens to be using a lesbian woman's rape as a plot device is symptomatic of a culture that systemically allows this type of thing. You do realize that no actual people were raped right? The First Law series builds a world of brutality where death and heinous acts are somewhat commonplace. Is it good that people are tortured? Is it good that people are raped? Is it good the Nation's wage war for small reasons? No but this is a world in which these things occur to create an interesting story and explore the effects of such violence on human nature. If it upsets you that violent things happen in a violent book then perhaps this just isn't a subject matter for you.
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May 27, 2013 05:50
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TheWorldIsSquare posted:The worst part about the whole Terez situation for me isn't so much the rape (though it is definitely written poorly and should have weighed way more heavily on Glokta's mind) Heh, I doubt if anything can weigh on Glokta's mind after the Gurkish prisons.
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May 27, 2013 07:20
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Rurik posted:Heh, I doubt if anything can weigh on Glokta's mind after the Gurkish prisons. Or the Gurkhish prisoners.
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May 27, 2013 14:24
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Lemon Curdistan posted:That is exactly the point; it's considered okay to make Terez a prop piece who is only there to highlight other (male) characters' personality traits, and to do so by having rape as a plot device (and to make things even worse, she is also in a situation where her sexual orientation is being forcefully repressed by others). But if you want to be weird and get personal, you can look over my posts in this thread to see that I'm not attached to defending this author.
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May 27, 2013 21:27
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My original comment was indeed pointing out thisLemon Curdistan posted:I'm not Zeitguesit but I am fairly sure he's talking about rape culture (which, yeah, is doubtless why anyone would have considered that an acceptable plot device at all - I mean, the failure here is systemic since neither the author, the proofreaders or the editors stopped long enough to go "this is lovely, we should probably not do this"). It's pretty par for the course in fantasy to have 1D characters that don't even come within laughing distance of the Bechdel test, and indeed it got by editors no problem. However Joe is also one of the only authors who has admitted to doing this, and actively worked to correct it, so I have some respect for him because of that. The larger rape culture in fiction issue isn't that Rape is especially bad in a book where a main character is a torturer who knowingly works on innocents, another a monster wizard dictator, and another an insane murderer...it's the context of rape as it's used in a lot of speculative fiction. Rape almost always happens to women in these types of books, as a plot devise. That's very much a rape culture problem. Oddly enough, the Malazan series, for all it's problems, actually has male rape victims.
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May 28, 2013 23:20
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Am I the only one who came away from these books without the feeling that Glokta was evil? Glokta does what good he can within the constraints of his role.
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May 29, 2013 17:10
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Suxpool posted:Am I the only one who came away from these books without the feeling that Glokta was evil? Glokta does what good he can within the constraints of his role. Glokta is a favorite of many readers but he's still quite an evil person. I mean, he's a torturer, one who knows what he does is pointless, and who also threatens a woman with the gang rape of a loved one if she won't consent to years of her own rape and pretend to enjoy it. I'm not sure how you could possibly come away with him not being evil, even if you enjoy the character. Of course he has reasons for being the way he is, so does every other evil person who's ever lived. Nobody is born with a mustache that they twirl from birth.
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May 29, 2013 18:08
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I think the point Abercrombie is trying to make is that those characters aren't good or evil. They're just people in really difficult situations who sometimes manage to act a bit selflessly and a lot more often not. I sympathize with Glokta (his injuries are really awful) as well as with his victims.
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May 29, 2013 19:08
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Rurik posted:I think the point Abercrombie is trying to make is that those characters aren't good or evil. They're just people in really difficult situations who sometimes manage to act a bit selflessly and a lot more often not. I don't actually care if Abercrombie doesn't want his characters to be good or evil, though I'm not sure if there is a blog post/comment either way. The fact is they do evil, by most people's definitions. You can still sympathize with people who have done evil things...nobody is without reasons. Having a person being sympathetic does not excuse the offenses they commit.
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May 29, 2013 19:33
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They're books that excuse evil in that the perpetrator's never really have a choice but to do evil. Even Bethod at the end of the third one was basically getting pushed one way by Logen then another by Caurib. It's a pretty accurate portrayal of a medieval world in that you either join the inquisition or get treated to a spiky seat. I guess Bayaz/Khalul/Caurib could be said to be evil, but we never really get a look into their heads so who knows.
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May 29, 2013 19:52
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Glokta is sympathetic but not likable, in the end he's pretty good for a torturer but he's still a torturer.
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May 29, 2013 20:23
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Bayaz is definitely evil as hell.
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May 29, 2013 20:33
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DarkCrawler posted:Bayaz is definitely evil as hell. Yeah, Bayaz is the exception to the rule of characters being forced to do evil by circumstances. Mostly because he is the one who created said circumstances in the first place. That being said, he is not a comic-book villain who does evil for the sake of doing evil. He is merely a very selfish man who happens to have the power to bend the world around him to his will without a care for anyone else.
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May 29, 2013 23:58
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Evfedu posted:They're books that excuse evil in that the perpetrator's never really have a choice but to do evil. If you think the book is making excuses for these acts, I think you're misjudging them. I think the only commentary Abercrombie is making is that people aren't ever completely good or evil, but it's not like Ender's Game where the narrative always forces the heroes to commit atrocities.
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May 30, 2013 00:20
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Above Our Own posted:Glokta enjoys inflicting suffering and goes out of his way to do so. Not really, the only time he enjoys torturing is at the end with Arch Lector Sult, and he did show Carlot mercy which of course came to bite him. Of course that doesn't excuse his actions but he's far from a sadistic torturer (on a scale of torturers that is). Sex Beef 2.0 fucked around with this message at 01:03 on May 30, 2013 |
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May 30, 2013 01:00
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TheWorldIsSquare posted:Not really, the only time he enjoys torturing is at the end with Arch Lector Sult, and he did show Carlot mercy which of course came to bite him. One overlooked aspect of Glokta is how good he is at figuring things out and how dogged his investigations are. Glokta himself is too busy feeling sorry for (and loathing) himself to notice just how much of the plot he manages to unentangle all by himself.
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May 30, 2013 05:31
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TheWorldIsSquare posted:Not really, the only time he enjoys torturing is at the end with Arch Lector Sult, and he did show Carlot mercy which of course came to bite him.
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May 30, 2013 05:37
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DarkCrawler posted:Bayaz is definitely evil as hell. I think evil is a stretch. He's definitely an rear end in a top hat, but his over-arching goal of creating a massive stable empire is far more enlightened then the rest of the Magi. He's pretty bad with his methods but he's making things better for most of humanity. It's been a while since the read the books but when he reveals he founded the major banking consortium or whatever doesn't he say that money is a far greater power then magic or making and while his rivals kept encouraging cannibalism and living in the past he's building an economic force unrivaled in its influence and power. pentyne fucked around with this message at 06:14 on May 30, 2013 |
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May 30, 2013 06:09
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pentyne posted:I think evil is a stretch. He's definitely an rear end in a top hat, but his over-arching goal of creating a massive stable empire is far more enlightened then the rest of the Magi. He's pretty bad with his methods but he's making things better for most of humanity. No, it's not and he's not. His goal is to prove he has a bigger dick than Khalul, and that's where that begins and ends. He flatout does not give a single poo poo about anyone but himself.
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May 30, 2013 06:13
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In the author's own words, "good and evil are a matter of where you stand, just like in the real world." So whether you agree with the sentiment or not, I think it's pretty clear that none of the characters are designed to be morally simple.Oh Snapple! posted:No, it's not and he's not. His goal is to prove he has a bigger dick than Khalul, and that's where that begins and ends. He flatout does not give a single poo poo about anyone but himself.
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May 30, 2013 06:14
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pentyne posted:I think evil is a stretch. He's definitely an rear end in a top hat, but his over-arching goal of creating a massive stable empire is far more enlightened then the rest of the Magi. He's pretty bad with his methods but he's making things better for most of humanity. The fact that the Union has less cannibal sorcerers than Gurkhul is a secondary concern to Bayaz at best. The Union is technologically and economically progressive because that's what benefits Bayaz most. If he had an easy way to add an army of cannibal sorcerers to his arsenal, he'd do it in a heartbeat.
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May 30, 2013 06:17
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Above Our Own posted:
Oh I agree on that front, Khalul just happens to be a convenient rival that does his more questionable poo poo up front compared to Bayaz loving the Union citizens over from the background (and it's been a while since I've read the trilogy, didn't Khalul actually start up his empire as a direct response to Bayaz's murdering bullshit?). The point remains, though, that Bayaz is just a huge self-serving rear end in a top hat who has no qualms with murdering innocent people to further himself with no noble goals behind anything he does.
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May 30, 2013 06:24
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I don't remember too much about the First Law trilogy but the TV tropes page and the First Law wiki are pretty consistent that Bayaz was a total rear end in a top hat who doesn't give a poo poo who dies as long as he rules over the Union. I read the books really quickly back to back and maybe missed it but I took away Bayaz as the same as Khalul but having far better long term plans for his future the ended up benefiting the people of the Union as a side effect.
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May 30, 2013 12:36
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Down With People posted:The fact that the Union has less cannibal sorcerers than Gurkhul is a secondary concern to Bayaz at best. The Union is technologically and economically progressive because that's what benefits Bayaz most. If he had an easy way to add an army of cannibal sorcerers to his arsenal, he'd do it in a heartbeat. I suspect that the only reason Bayaz doesn't use more eaters is that after Shenkt rebelled he doesn't trust people with that level of power.
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May 30, 2013 14:53
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Hallucinogenic Toreador posted:I suspect that the only reason Bayaz doesn't use more eaters is that after Shenkt rebelled he doesn't trust people with that level of power. He was also, for a while, hopeful of getting the support of the other remaining Magi, and most of them wouldn't be on-side with having Eaters on the payroll at all. (I don't think Yoru Sulfur's nature is very widely advertised.)
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May 30, 2013 15:02
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Oh Snapple! posted:(and it's been a while since I've read the trilogy, didn't Khalul actually start up his empire as a direct response to Bayaz's murdering bullshit?) Yes, as far as we know Khaluls reason for stirring up the Ghurkish was that he wanted to bring Bayaz to justice for the murder of Juvens.
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May 30, 2013 15:53
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Yeah, Bayaz is the only character that really can't be defended. Even Khalul can have some benefit of doubt for now, but not Bayaz.
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May 30, 2013 15:58
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pentyne posted:I don't remember too much about the First Law trilogy but the TV tropes page and the First Law wiki are pretty consistent that Bayaz was a total rear end in a top hat who doesn't give a poo poo who dies as long as he rules over the Union.
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May 30, 2013 19:50
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pentyne posted:I think evil is a stretch. He's definitely an rear end in a top hat, but his over-arching goal of creating a massive stable empire is far more enlightened then the rest of the Magi. He's pretty bad with his methods but he's making things better for most of humanity. You're projecting his making things better for most of humanity, based on some sort of capitalist "rising tide lifts all boats" ideology. He considers the Union his personal playground in his war with other megalomaniacal wizards. He regularly fucks up society royally with his personal wars and whims, killing tens of thousands.. He's likely completely depressing the economy that he controls for his own gain. The only minor progress I can see is weaponry which again isn't really great for anyone but him. I'd bet the entire world would have been far better off without him loving things up.
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May 30, 2013 19:53
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Above Our Own posted:He chose inquisition work specifically so he could inflict pain on others like was done to him, he comes out and says so. And yet I don't remember him torturing anyone he didn't need to except Sult at the end, disapproves of that torturer in Dagoska who tortured basically anyone that could be remotely connected to the conspiracy, and he shows mercy to women fairly often. Say what you want about his motives but, like I said, he isn't sadistic as far as torturers go.
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May 30, 2013 20:19
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Bayaz set off the magical equivalent of the Little Boy atomic bomb in a crowded city, and laughed about how totally awesome he was for having pulled that off. He systematically murders any politician who looks like they might think for themselves or put the welfare of the people of the Union ahead of Bayaz's plans. He infiltrates and subverts any democratic or peasant rebellion. He almost certainly killed his mentor, his other mentor, and his other mentor's daughter (who was also his girlfriend) in pursuit of unlimited power. He admits that the people of the Union - of the world, really - are just cattle to be herded in ways that forward his plans. He asserts that he holds to no ethical system, and that the only Law he obeys is "whatever you can get away with". Can you think of any line he wouldn't cross, any sacrifice he wouldn't make, any deal with Ruinous Powers that he wouldn't take in order to hold onto or expand his power? He's a monster. He's functionally indistinguishable from a standard Dark Evil Fantasy Overlord. He just works through cut-outs and manages better PR for himself.
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May 30, 2013 20:21
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FMguru posted:Bayaz set off the magical equivalent of the Little Boy atomic bomb in a crowded city, and laughed about how totally awesome he was for having pulled that off. He systematically murders any politician who looks like they might think for themselves or put the welfare of the people of the Union ahead of Bayaz's plans. He infiltrates and subverts any democratic or peasant rebellion. He almost certainly killed his mentor, his other mentor, and his other mentor's daughter (who was also his girlfriend) in pursuit of unlimited power. He admits that the people of the Union - of the world, really - are just cattle to be herded in ways that forward his plans. He asserts that he holds to no ethical system, and that the only Law he obeys is "whatever you can get away with". Don't forget spreading Fantasy Cancer to like half of a huge, populated city and basically laughing it off.
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May 30, 2013 20:26
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TheWorldIsSquare posted:Don't forget spreading Fantasy Cancer to like half of a huge, populated city and basically laughing it off. And basically laughing at Jezal for wanting to build a hospital for those effected by it before telling him he'll kill him if he even thinks of telling him to gently caress off. There's plenty of grey characters in the series, but there's nothing about Bayaz that isn't pretty much Completely Evil.
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May 30, 2013 20:28
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Oh Snapple! posted:And basically laughing at Jezal for wanting to build a hospital for those effected by it before telling him he'll kill him if he even thinks of telling him to gently caress off. I think that stuff like this serves as good reason for a critical examination of popular art like fantasy novels and the like, because it shows that no matter how evil the character may be, people will still find ways to try and justify the actions based on the fact that they are a major character and not explicitly stated to be evil.
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May 30, 2013 21:07
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