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Xotl posted:But the overall complaint about the gender issues is spot-on. Everyone, regardless of age, acts like a baffled teenager when it comes to the unfathomable mystery that is the other sex. It's like a horrific medievalesque mashup of Home Improvement and Degrassi Jr. High. The tagline for the series is Men Are From M'ars, Women Are From V'en'us. I will say though that I was amused by the repeated internal complaints from each of the three main teenage boy characters that they, personally, were poo poo at talking to girls and the other two were so smooth at it.
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Nov 19, 2019 20:47
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wizzardstaff posted:I will say though that I was amused by the repeated internal complaints from each of the three main teenage boy characters that they, personally, were poo poo at talking to girls and the other two were so smooth at it. Yeah, I chuckled at that too, even as it reinforced the idea that this was some sort of awful teen drama. A related recurring issue that only angered me more as the series went on was the complete refusal of anyone to actually talk to anyone regarding interpersonal problems. It (again) reminded me of bad gender comedy and the like, idiotic and even petty issues that could have been sorted out in no time had only someone taken the time to actually bring up the issue. I know this is an issue in real life often enough that I couldn't entirely hold it against the characters (though there didn't seem to be a capable one in the pack in this regard), but it really just added to the general frustration. I started the series in high school when doorstopper fantasy was perfect for me. By the end I just wanted to see how it was going to end, how Sanderson was going to pull this mess of divergent plot points together without making a total garbage fire, and the moment I finished the last page I packed up all but two autographed volumes and took the mountain of hardcovers to the local used book store.
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Nov 19, 2019 20:56
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Xotl posted:Also, "the act of making men and women equal is literally only achieved by the power of Satan" is out there because they were equal already: they both had separate sources but pretty much the same capability. It's going after what they think is a new power source that destroys this equality. This is a pretty common sexist trope, though: "women have their sphere of influence (the home), men have theirs (everything else), so they're already equal, and women wanting anything more will cause chaos and destruction." It could only be more on the nose if it were about the women stealing the men's magical power and the rise of uppity women!! who can wield Masculine Blastology or whatever.
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Nov 19, 2019 21:56
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Antivehicular posted:This is a pretty common sexist trope, though: "women have their sphere of influence (the home), men have theirs (everything else), so they're already equal, and women wanting anything more will cause chaos and destruction." It could only be more on the nose if it were about the women stealing the men's magical power and the rise of uppity women!! who can wield Masculine Blastology or whatever. It's been a long time since I've read the chapter where they show you the breaching of the Dark One's prison, but both genders of magic users seem to have equal authority and power at that time, from what the narrative shows us of the past: there's no divide like you're painting. The whole thing is painted as a science experiment by a pair of researchers attempting to get past the inefficiencies of having two separate sources of power that can't always be combined, not a swipe at "the system".
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Nov 19, 2019 22:12
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Xotl posted:It's been a long time since I've read the chapter where they show you the breaching of the Dark One's prison, but both genders of magic users seem to have equal authority and power at that time, from what the narrative shows us of the past: there's no divide like you're painting. The whole thing is painted as a science experiment by a pair of researchers attempting to get past the inefficiencies of having two separate sources of power that can't always be combined, not a swipe at "the system". The counterpoint to that is where Rand beats Egwene and Elayne in a straight fight easily and we discuss the caveat that "Men are stronger." It's not hard to see why the ladies would chafe at that.
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Nov 19, 2019 22:35
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wait so who's the real enemy besides satan. gonna be honest my eyes kind of glazed over. is it women
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Nov 19, 2019 22:47
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chernobyl kinsman posted:wait so who's the real enemy besides satan. gonna be honest my eyes kind of glazed over. is it women The enemy is men who don't trust women, and also women who don't trust men. The final victory comes from a bait-and-switch on the interactions between male and female magic, where the Chosen Ones female companions totally dunk on Satan's right hand man in a way the Chosen One can't. So it's technically doing a gender essentialism thing where men and women are different, but two halves of the same whole (Jordan was devoutly Episcopalian) and the constant squabbling between men and women is presented as definitely a Bad Thing. But its buried under hundreds of thousands of words of "women be crazy huh?" and "men are dumb and break things" and nearly all the relationships are extremely hostile and unhealthy. Also loads of unexamined BDSM imagery, literal slave women (that are too dangerous to go unleashed you see!). And Mat gets raped by the queen of the slave empire and coerced into marrying her, and it's all played for laughs. It's really gross.
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Nov 19, 2019 23:02
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Xotl posted:There's like two lines in the whole eleventy jillion-word series about current Earth, and that's one of them. Of all the things to care about in this trainwreck of a series, an obsession with current-day linkages is not one of them. I should be clear that I am objecting to it as part of the broader point where the work is a mishmash of random poo poo that sounds cool but combines into thematic incoherence. Each of the four subjects could actually stand in for something, but it all blends with the magic horn that summons St Patrick and King Arthur, King Arthur's descendants returning as a bunch of slave masters who exist for the sole purpose of perpetuating pointless subplots, etc. Those are all symbols that could mean something but mean nothing because there is so much pointless poo poo.
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Nov 19, 2019 23:16
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I dunno, I thought it was pretty clear: the books all start with that "The Wheel turns and ages come and go" monologue. The whole point is that these are all reincarnations of reincarnations and everything loops around and the same general people do the same general thing in the same great battle against evil before they all become myth and then are forgotten as the next batch comes about after the next apocalypse. It's not particularly original, but it's hardly incoherent. There will always be an Arthur, and he will always fail, and the Dark One will always come back, and the Creator is apparently a lazy idiot who likes suffering.
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Nov 19, 2019 23:32
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Xotl posted:I dunno, I thought it was pretty clear: the books all start with that "The Wheel turns and ages come and go" monologue. The whole point is that these are all reincarnations of reincarnations and everything loops around and the same general people do the same general thing in the same great battle against evil before they all become myth and then are forgotten as the next batch comes about after the next apocalypse. It's not particularly original, but it's hardly incoherent. There will always be an Arthur, and he will always fail, and the Dark One will always come back, and the Creator is apparently a lazy idiot who likes suffering. Right, but why does that matter? How does it make the story any different than it'd be if this were all new and fresh, aside from increasing the fatalism and tedium of it all (since we know how this goes and that nothing really changes)? This is cliche, clumsy set dressing that sounds like it doesn't add up to anything.
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Nov 19, 2019 23:43
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Antivehicular posted:Right, but why does that matter? How does it make the story any different than it'd be if this were all new and fresh, aside from increasing the fatalism and tedium of it all (since we know how this goes and that nothing really changes)? This is cliche, clumsy set dressing that sounds like it doesn't add up to anything. It's the central cosmology, a sort of funhouse mirror Buddhism in which not-Jesus is obligated to keep the wheel of suffering moving forever and oppose the attempts of not-Satan to break the cycle. You can say it's dumb cause it is, but it's central to the series' thesis.
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Nov 19, 2019 23:54
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Thranguy posted:You can say it's dumb cause it is, but it's central to the series' thesis. Alright. I'll bite. What is the series' thesis?
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Nov 20, 2019 00:03
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Alright. I'll bite. What is the series' thesis? That oblivion is worse than any possible state of affairs, I mean, I wasn't trying to make it a mystery. It's underlined by the vision of the future of the not-Fremen, where they are admonished against attempting to keep fighting the slaver not-nazis because they'll eventually lose and opt instead for instant moral compromise and some vague hope of attenuated, assimilated survival.
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Nov 20, 2019 00:15
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boys and girls are different, but they ar eboth important. in this fantasy series i will,
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Nov 20, 2019 00:17
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I'm going to buy the books and read through them all to finally settle this matter of why they're bad.
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Nov 20, 2019 00:32
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Antivehicular posted:Right, but why does that matter? How does it make the story any different than it'd be if this were all new and fresh, aside from increasing the fatalism and tedium of it all (since we know how this goes and that nothing really changes)? This is cliche, clumsy set dressing that sounds like it doesn't add up to anything. It's the story's central premise, for better or worse: it's literally called "The Wheel of Time". The series starts with it, and ends with it. It comes up again and again, and two of the three central characters eventually come to be shaped around it (Rand--the Dragon Reborn--most of all, later Mat with his host of reincarnation memories). It's clumsy, like most things in the series, but it's not just set dressing: you'd have to rewrite large portions of the series if you wanted to take it out. Xotl fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Nov 20, 2019 |
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Nov 20, 2019 00:48
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Also there are no dragons, just the title The Dragon Reborn and all his surrounding eschatology. Mel Mudkiper would be pleased.
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Nov 20, 2019 00:51
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i defeated robert jordan in a wizard battle
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Nov 20, 2019 02:35
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fauna posted:i defeated robert jordan in a wizard battle Did you overwhelm him with your separate but totes equal woman magic, by which I mean your junk
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Nov 20, 2019 03:01
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I'm just reminded how the first book has the Shire with two councils. The Men's Council that does everything and makes all the decisions, and the 'equally important' Women's Council where they can make suggestions that the Men's Council laughs off.
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Nov 20, 2019 03:32
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Kchama posted:I'm just reminded how the first book has the Shire with two councils. The Men's Council that does everything and makes all the decisions, and the 'equally important' Women's Council where they can make suggestions that the Men's Council laughs off. That is pretty much the opposite of how it's portrayed in the book though? The women's group lets the men bluster around the mayor's office and then convinces their husbands of the "right" way to do things when they're back at home. Don't get me wrong, this is certainly not a shining beacon of feminist literature or anything, but "the women's group is nominally equal but actually impotent" is not really supported by the text.
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Nov 20, 2019 04:01
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wizzardstaff posted:That is pretty much the opposite of how it's portrayed in the book though? The women's group lets the men bluster around the mayor's office and then convinces their husbands of the "right" way to do things when they're back at home. "Women have equal power to men because they have ~soft power~, i.e. they convince their husbands and male family members to do what they want" is also a hoary ancient sexist trope. "Soft power" that is entirely at the mercy of other people to actually act and make decisions is not power, and it emphasizes the idea that women are only organs of the patriarchal marriage/family unit, not independent human beings.
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Nov 20, 2019 04:11
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Antivehicular posted:"Women have equal power to men because they have ~soft power~, i.e. they convince their husbands and male family members to do what they want" is also a hoary ancient sexist trope. "Soft power" that is entirely at the mercy of other people to actually act and make decisions is not power, and it emphasizes the idea that women are only organs of the patriarchal marriage/family unit, not independent human beings. It's a bit different here because, as a fantasy novel, it's the way things "actually" work. I.e. it's not a bad TV sitcom thing made by guys to feel like poor put-upon husbands and excuse the fact that they run things without input from women, but the way the WoT world actually operates: we see it again and again, across its cultures, because that's the way Jordan believed the real world functions. I saw him at a talk once where he said that people who believed this wasn't reality were just deluding themselves, so naturally his world duplicated this, only minus the "actually has little to no effect" part. While "women seek to get the power of Satan to equal themselves out" isn't accurate, I'm looking into these again after years and the "men are stronger than women" bit is completely right. I'd also forgotten about the "men handle fire and earth and women air and water" setup as well. Also, the man-hating Red Ajah that magically castrates men was full of lesbians, IIRC. Also also, apparently the official support materials went completely DragonBall Z-over-9000 after Jordan died: https://www.tor.com/2015/10/27/the-wheel-of-time-companion-strength-chart-of-major-channelers/ Now you can measure how the strongest woman is .52 less power than Rand, and there's a helpful formula now to chart saidin channeller life expectancy: f(x) = -0.000369429x^3 + 0.0989288x^2 – 14.5901x + 814.491 Xotl fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Nov 20, 2019 |
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Nov 20, 2019 04:22
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Antivehicular posted:"Women have equal power to men because they have ~soft power~, i.e. they convince their husbands and male family members to do what they want" is also a hoary ancient sexist trope. "Soft power" that is entirely at the mercy of other people to actually act and make decisions is not power, and it emphasizes the idea that women are only organs of the patriarchal marriage/family unit, not independent human beings. I agree with this, but in the case of this particular book they do actually have power and are respected as such. There is a lot of ill-thought-out "men and women are different! but what if everything was topsy-turvy!" in the series, where women explicitly have more authority and respect except all basic gender stereotypes (which in the real world are a result of the power imbalance) remain unchanged. Edit: parentheses wizzardstaff fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Nov 20, 2019 |
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Nov 20, 2019 04:30
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wizzardstaff posted:That is pretty much the opposite of how it's portrayed in the book though? The women's group lets the men bluster around the mayor's office and then convinces their husbands of the "right" way to do things when they're back at home. I mean, that's not actually the opposite of how I said. You don't disagree that the men have the de jure power and that the women only can 'make suggestions'. The idea that this gives the women equal power because 'men listen to them' is dumb.
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Nov 20, 2019 04:40
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Xotl posted:It's a bit different here because, as a fantasy novel, it's the way things "actually" work. I.e. it's not a bad TV sitcom thing made by guys to feel like poor put-upon husbands and excuse the fact that they run things without input from women, but the way the WoT world actually operates: we see it again and again, across its cultures, because that's the way Jordan believed the real world functions. I saw him at a talk once where he said that people who believed this wasn't reality were just deluding themselves, so naturally his world duplicated this, only minus the "actually has little to no effect" part. Plenty of people argue that this is how the real world works, or should work if women would just stay in their lane. They are rear end in a top hat misogynists, and writing a fantasy world where it actually does work doesn't make it not an rear end in a top hat misogynist idea.
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Nov 20, 2019 04:44
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Antivehicular posted:Plenty of people argue that this is how the real world works, or should work if women would just stay in their lane. They are rear end in a top hat misogynists, and writing a fantasy world where it actually does work doesn't make it not an rear end in a top hat misogynist idea. No one said it wasn't such an idea, just that women in the world had more power than what people thought if you were using real-world analogues. It's bad fantasy for a reason.
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Nov 20, 2019 04:49
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Thranguy posted:That oblivion is worse than any possible state of affairs, I mean, I wasn't trying to make it a mystery. I can't say I agree. Ultimately the problem facing the world is the Dark One and trying to come to terms with his continued existence. There's nominally some poo poo about Mierin/Lanfear muttering vague bullshit about becoming God and gluing her lips to whoever's rear end she thinks will grant her the most power. Is the Dark One associated with oblivion? A Memory of Light posted:YOU REALLY ARE NOTHING, Rand said, knowing the Dark One's secrets completely. YOU WOULD HAVE NEVER GIVE ME REST AS YOU PROMISED, FATHER OF LIES. YOU WOULD HAVE ENSLAVED ME AS YOU WOULD HAVE ENSLAVED THE OTHERS. YOU CANNOT GIVE OBLIVION. REST IS NOT YOURS. ONLY TORMENT. As far as I know, the only way to be free of the Wheel is to die in the Apostrophe Dreamworld, which as far as the Jesus-Shai'tan battle goes is just another battleground. The other thing re women and men being equal: The Fires of Heaven posted:"Earth, Fire, Air, Water, and Spirit," Natael strummed a chord for each. "They are equal, true, and it is also true that what a man can do with one, a woman can also. In kind, at least. But that has nothing to do with men being stronger. What Moiraine believes to be true, she tells as truth whether or not it is; one of a thousand weaknesses in those fool Oaths." He played a bit of something that did indeed sound foolish. "Some women have stronger arms than some men, but in general it is the other way around. The same holds with strength in the Power, and in about the same proportion." So, yea. Thirteen women can jump any man, but men are stronger then women. Equality! Lastly I'm just gonna address the window dressing. Rand is Jesus who is reborn to save the world from Satan. He is also King Arthur, who draws the sword from the stone. Now you may notice that these two characters don't really go well in the same person, as Jesus was a man of peace while King Arthur was a man of war who continually strove - and failed - to live by Jesus' teachings, but it gets better! Rand is also Lancelot who had a romantic relationship with Guinevere (Egwene al'Vere) and is then picked up by Elayne - but doesn't have Lancelot's struggle to balance his spirituality and holiness with his love for Guinevere. There's a lot of history for all these characters that gets evoked and then ignored to create a monster mash of boring and sexism, and that's terrible.
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Nov 20, 2019 04:55
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This series has power levels and calculation formulas as if that wasn't a damning indictment all by itself
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Nov 20, 2019 05:05
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There's a sort of brilliant idiocy in combining Arthur and Lancelot into one character in your Arthurian pastiche so that one of the most iconic romantic conflicts in literature becomes... "boy likes girl but feels weird about it, I guess?"
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Nov 20, 2019 05:18
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Lan is Lancelot. Rand is a harem anime protagonist. (And while the Guinivere character was his childhood sweetheart, she's not in the harem or really seriously on his mind once the story starts. Which sort of misses the point of him being Arthur...) Edit: wait, Lan winds up with Nyneave, which is even weirder. It's basically name salad. Thranguy fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Nov 20, 2019 |
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Nov 20, 2019 05:25
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Sham bam bamina! posted:I'm going to buy the books and read through them all to finally settle this matter of why they're bad. thank you, and be sure to write 40 gazillion tedious posts about how stupid the themes are in this thread.
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Nov 20, 2019 05:31
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Yeah, this thread is nice and all, but you know what it really needs? Less content.
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Nov 20, 2019 12:56
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Bear Sleuth posted:This series has power levels and calculation formulas as if that wasn't a damning indictment all by itself To be fair, I think, that stuff was not literally spelled out in the books with power levels. But it makes sense for the author to have kept track of it because characters were in setting fully capable of peering at another magic person and gauging if they could do more or less magic. Which is something people would pay attention to for both entirely practical reasons (Can I safely engage in a fireball duel with this person or will they fireball me to death?) as well as it being used by one of the big societies of magic people to establish social pecking order.
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Nov 20, 2019 13:13
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Lastly I'm just gonna address the window dressing. Rand is Jesus who is reborn to save the world from Satan. He is also King Arthur, who draws the sword from the stone. Now you may notice that these two characters don't really go well in the same person, as Jesus was a man of peace while King Arthur was a man of war who continually strove - and failed - to live by Jesus' teachings, but it gets better! Rand is also Lancelot who had a romantic relationship with Guinevere (Egwene al'Vere) and is then picked up by Elayne - but doesn't have Lancelot's struggle to balance his spirituality and holiness with his love for Guinevere. This wrong and backwards. Rand is the real deal, the rest are twisted legends vaguely based on him, confused with the names and deeds of his companions, and then subjected to the motivated artistic gloss of those in our era who are currently interpreting them. Rand’s big, it’s the legends that got small.
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Nov 20, 2019 14:21
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Apparatchik Magnet posted:Yes. And? "easter eggs in video games are 100% analogous to text within a novel" is a take either so disingenuous and bad-faith that it converted the entirety of the vatican into atheism or so legitimately stupid that it lowered the average grades of whatever nation you live in
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Nov 20, 2019 14:57
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Apparatchik Magnet posted:This wrong and backwards. Rand is the real deal, the rest are twisted legends vaguely based on him, confused with the names and deeds of his companions, and then subjected to the motivated artistic gloss of those in our era who are currently interpreting them. then why are all the legends way better
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Nov 20, 2019 14:57
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Antivehicular posted:Did you overwhelm him with your separate but totes equal woman magic, by which I mean your junk
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Nov 20, 2019 15:46
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Apparatchik Magnet posted:This wrong and backwards. Rand is the real deal, the rest are twisted legends vaguely based on him, confused with the names and deeds of his companions, and then subjected to the motivated artistic gloss of those in our era who are currently interpreting them.
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Nov 20, 2019 15:48
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AFancyQuestionMark posted:Yeah, this thread is nice and all, but you know what it really needs? Less content.
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Nov 20, 2019 15:53
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