Game of Thrones - Latest Report

About three-quarters in, and I've had to eat my words with one of my friends who likes giving me crap.  I like this damn book.  I don't know why.  No, I do know - Tyrion.  And Daenaerys.  I still don't like Bran.  DON'T GIVE ME THAT.  Yeah, he's paralyzed.  You think he wants your pity?  He doesn't have mine.  He's not going to die.  You can practically see the plot armor.  He's probably touched by the gods, too.  My hypothesis is that he is the seven-year-old kid that seven-year-old Martin wished he had been - bold and adventurous, staying strong through heavy burdens, chosen for a special destiny.

Samwise Gamgee Samwell Tarly, on the other hand, is Martin's author avatar, where he admits "This is what would really happen if I were in one of my own stories."  To be fair, that is what would happen to most of us.  I mean, I fence, but I know modern Olympic-style sport fencing.  I'd get slaughtered.

Speaking of being slaughtered, I know Martin has a reputation for killing popular characters, but so far the only characters to die have just made me think "expendable tourist." (OMT)

I just know he's going to kill Tyrion.  Tyrion is the only character who is not boring or a complete asshole.  Tyrion has his own priorities, and isn't wrapped up in being noble and saving the realm.  And he's a badass dwarf.  How many fantasy stories - any stories - have a badass dwarf that that isn't from a dwarf-people?

I just realized that Martin was having a joke in that one scene where Tyrion was forced to fight with an axe...

Tyrion looks out for Tyrion, and Tyrion keeps himself to his standards.  He's not bad.  He's not good.  He's just himself, and I think it is more important (and interesting) to be yourself than to try to be what you're supposed to be.

Dany has that going for her too.  She's supposed to be the meek, submissive child-bride, but then she decides she's taken enough crap, and she's going to take over the kingdoms.

Arya is not this type of character.  Sure she learns to use a sword and defies her role as a gentle lady, but she is still concerned with being noble and good and whatever.

Still, I haven't been swearing at the book much at all anymore.

Just a few more little complaints.

1.  The f'ing "Common Tongue."  There is no language in the history of language that has ever been called the "Common Tongue."  If one particular country that speaks one particular language becomes a really big trade powerhouse, then that language becomes dominant in the world and people learn it as a second language to communicate with many cultures, rather than trying to learn three or four languages.  Even Esperanto had a proper name - and look how many people speak it now, anyway.  But somehow, fantasy writers are too lazy to come up with an ethnic name for language, so they call the language of the patriarchal white pseudo-Europeans the "Common Tongue."

2.  The king is never evil.  Seriously.  When a kingdom goes to shit, it's always the evil queen, or the evil minister, but evil kings are fought in battle - they don't actually run kingdoms. Kings can be weak or misled, but never evil.

It doesn't sound like I'm actually enjoying the book much, does it?  I'm not.  I just can't stop reading it anymore.  And I was sad when Lady died.  Then I was pissed because Arya had to lose Nymeria, and it was like "Oh, right, none of the girls get to be followed around by a big badass wolf, even though the three-year-old boy gets one."

And then Tyrion got thrown in a dungeon, and I was quite distressed about that, because shoot, Tyrion's the best part of this book.  And I've been catching myself having "What's going to happen next?" moments, like after Robert dies.

Maybe a final post on this once I finish the book.  Or maybe I'll find something new and interesting to blab about.

The Trouble with Tomboys

Eleven chapters into Game of Thrones now.  It's actually turning out to be quite tolerable.  I've only cursed at it twice since my last rant.

I did get to Arya, though.  The tomboy princess.  Which has sparked another rant.

Arya, you see, is terrible at embroidery, and all girly things. She is not conventionally pretty.  She is good at riding and math, and wants to learn to use a sword. 

Arya is a strongfemalecharacter written by a straightwhiteman.

I am not saying that straight white men cannot write strong female characters - case in point Joss Whedon.  But there are a few things to keep in mind when writing them.

1.  Don't define them solely by their femininity

Arya's main defining characteristic is that she is a girl who likes boy things.  This is the same problem I have with crossdressing - the strongfemalecharacter is strong because she takes on a masculine role.  That is not feminism.  All that does is reinforce gender binaries and male supremacy.

2.  Don't ignore her femininity

The fact that Arya has to be bad at embroidery to be good with a sword (presumeably) bothers me.  I crochet.  I also fence.  You can have both!  This goes back to the binary - because Arya likes boy things, she can't like girl things.  I am also irked by the fact that no writer has ever had the balls to go ahead and make the princess a transman.  Or at least a dyke.  Something other than falling prey to compulsory heterosexuality.

Okay, yes, Arya lives in a patriarchal medieval society, and I think she ends up in an arranged marriage later, so I'm going to set her aside for a moment and look at other tomboy princesses.

1.  Eilonwy, from the Prydain Chronicles, by Lloyd Alexander

Eilonwy is also better at swordplay than embroidery - at least, she has more fun with it.  She is not played off as a master swordswoman, though; she just likes adventuring.  And she's fun.  She's the sharp-tongued, practical wit, who comes up with weird analogies for everything.  Arya is a girl who likes boy things.  See the difference? 

In the end, though, Eilonwy marries Taran out of literary convention. 

2.  Suzy Turquoise Blue, from The Keys to the Kingdom, by Garth Nix

Suzy's also kind of an Eilonwy.  Not a princess, though.  More practical than witty, and wonderfully irreverent.  She is not girly, but not because she is masculine.  She just is.

And actually, she doesn't hook up with anyone.  Then again, she's like ten, and it's a kids book.

3.  Elayne, from The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan

I could also have gone with Egwene, but I'm trying to stick with the princess theme.  She becomes a badass mother (no, literally), queen, and mage.  All perfectly within her reach as a princess, without crossdressing or being "masculine."  Though she does start swearing like a soldier to get man-cred.

Sort averts CH?  There's some polyamory going on.

4.  Isodel, from Year of the Griffin, by Diana Wynne Jones

I'm reaching a little with this one.  Isodel is conventionally pretty and unconventionally badass.  I mean, she rides a dragon.  Not as part of a scheme to save the world, he just kind of fell platonically in love with her.  Everyone kind of falls in love with her.

She falls in love at first sight with Emperor Titus.  It's Jones, so it's sort of a parody. All of her romantic subplots go like, pretty much.  No fuss, no bother.

5.  Millie, from The Lives of Christopher Chant, by Diana Wynne Jones

Technically a priestess/goddess rather than a princess.  Very powerful enchantress.  Decides to escape oppressive temple life to become a British schoolgirl. Can you get much girlier than that?

Marries Christopher when they are much older.

6.  Everyone with a vagina (and then some!) in The Last Rune, by Mark Anthony

Seriously.  There are two queens in book one, neither of which rule over a matriarchy (I think it's insulting to say that the only way a woman can rule is if the ruler has to be a woman).  Plus, the main female lead gets mistaken for a duchess, and is bad at embroidery because she is from the modern world where people don't do that anymore, not because she rejects feminine things; and her best friend is a baroness who practically runs a castle as part of her gender role, helps the heros save the world a million times, and eventually becomes a queen in her own right.  Not to mention that there are female VILLAINS.  I mean, how awesome is it that you have so many strong female characters that you don't worry that having female villains is going to put a negative portrayal of women in your book?

Aryn, the baroness, has to marry a prince to become queen, but it is also clear that he had to marry her for the populace to accept him as king, and the Final Battle is coming so they need a strong leader NOW.  They don't love each other, but it's implied they learn to like each other.

7.  Rapunzel from Tangled

Yeah, it's a movie.  It's also past midnight and I did not start out intending to make a top ten list.  I think I'll cut it at eight.  But she's a flippin' Disney princess - girly girl icon.  But she has personality beyond her gender, and she is interesting and fun.  Also, remember what I said about female villains?

So she marries a prince in the end.  It's a Disney movie.  And they actually had good chemistry, as opposed to, say, Arial, who never actually talked to her prince. 

8.  Tek, from the Firebringer Trilogy, by Meredith Ann Pierce

Yeah, I'm really tired now.  Tek's a unicorn princess.  Actually, she's not actually a princess, but she marries a prince.  And then she finds out she's actually the king's daughter, and they have an incest scare, but then it turns out the prince isn't the king's son (sorry, spoiler).  She's a badass warrior, kind of Nala-like in that she can kick the prince's ass (hmm, Nala's another good one), but unicorn society doesn't exactly have gender roles, so in-universe, her warrior skills have nothing to do with her female-ness.  Out of 'verse, however, they give her traditionally masculine characteristics, while the prince is the more "feminine" sensitive peacemaker type.  But it's not over-the-top, and I like her.

Like I said, marries the prince.  CompHet.  It's not a married-ever-after, though; it happens at the beginning of book 2.  So they have an actual relationship as a married couple.

I need to stop now before I stop making sense.  Basically, Arya bugs me because she is flat, and Martin doesn't know how to write women.  The End.

Queering Epic Fantasy - Anthony vs. Martin, Part 2

I didn't even get to the queer stuff yesterday, did I?  I probably won't get to it today either.

I'm going to talk about food.

I am also going to cheat on my five-chapter limit, but it's for good reason.

Here is Martin's description of a feast:

"The Great Hall of Winterfell was hazy with smoke and heavy with the smell of roasted meat and fresh-baked bread.  Its grey stone walls were draped with banners.  White, gold, crimson:  the direwolf of Stark, Baratheon's crowned stag, the lion of Lannister.  A singer was playing the high harp and reciting a ballad, but down at this end of the hall his voice could scarcely be heard above the roar of the fire, the clangor of pewter plates and cups, and the low mutter of a hundred drunken conversations."

Here is Anthony's description of a feast:


"The great hall of Calavere had been decorated to resemble a winter forest.  Boughs of evergreen and holly hung from soot-blackened beams high above, and more had been heaped along the base of the walls.  Their icy scent mingled with the smoke of torches.  Leafless saplings stood in the corners of the hall, to suggest the edges of a sylvan glade, and even the tapestries on the walls added to the illusion with their scenes of stag hunts and forest revels, woven in colors made dim and rich with time."

What I'm getting from this is:  If you are going to write epic fantasy, and you have to describe a feast, you must always start with "The great hall of X..."

But seriously.  Where would you rather be?  Winterfell or Calavere?  My take on Martin - and one of the reasons I don't like him - is that his fantasyland is very generic.  Who is the singer and how did he get there?  What is he singing about?  Who cares?  It's a medieval feast, and they have bards and shit there, don't they?

It looks like I am going to get to queer stuff today after all.

One of the reasons Anthony is much more detailed in his description of castle life is because he has quite a few female characters.  The king's ward practically runs the castle - including preparations for feasts.  Who put together the Winterfell feast?  The wife, whatsername, Catelyn?  She doesn't seem to have much imagination.  Or maybe it was planned out by a man.  That would explain a lot.

Martin's female characters are annoying me five chapters (and one episode of the show) in.  We have the supportive wife, the victimized child-bride, and the tomboy princess (though I have heard that the child-bride takes a level in badass later, so I promise I'll read a few more chapters after this rant).  So - we have one woman whose strength is being married to a strong man and making him stronger, we have one woman who is completely dominated by the heteropatriarchy, and we have one who takes on a male role in order to gain power.

Anthony's world is also quite male-dominated, but he uses the patriarchy to ask questions about power and gender relations.  He has not one but two queens, neither of which rule over a matriarchy.  He has no crossdressers.  And yes, the Witches are a big equalizing factor in his world, but it is not so much a matter of giving women power as giving women space.  Martin has yet to pass the Bechdel test.  Okay, so Anthony takes until chapter 9, and then it's a cryptic warning and not really a conversation, but once you get more than one female character, he really takes off.

So the reason I like Anthony and not Martin is that Anthony's writing is queer.  I'm not talking about his order of gay knights, or his gay protagonist, or his representation of every letter in the LGBTQetc. acronym.  Anthony is queer because he gives attention to issues of power and privilege, so that his almost stereotypical quest arc becomes fresh and exciting because it is seen through a different lens.

Now it's time for five more chapters of Martin.  Maybe I'll have another rant by then.

Queering Epic Fantasy: A critical comparison between "Game of Thrones" and "Beyond the Pale." Part One.

If you're read any of my other posts on this blog, you know that I am obsessed with this obscure fantasy series by a guy named Mark Anthony (not the singer) called "The Last Rune."  I am not unbiased.

But I can't stand Game of Thrones.

I don't know why.  Sure, he has a massive cast, and I can't seem to care about any of them, and everyone in the prologue dies, and it's very hetero-European-centric.  And it doesn't have a Dark Lord, while Anthony does, and there are certain storytelling conventions that make me think that Anthony was in some ways influenced by Martin (it's plausible - Thrones came out in 1996 and Pale was published in 1998).  And we certainly cannot disregard the effect of nostalgia goggles.

So what is so different about the two books?

I have only read the first five chapters of Thrones, so I will limit my text citations of Anthony to the first five chapters of Beyond the Pale.

Let's start with the first line of the prologue.

Thrones:  "We should start back," Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them.  "The wildlings are dead."

Pale:  The derelict school bus blew into town with the last midnight gale of October.

What can we deduce from this?  Well, Thrones tells us immediately that there are going to be weird names of pseudo-European fantasyland tradition.  Seriously, have you noticed that nearly every fantasy novel has a character named "Gareth"?  "Gared" tells me that he is going to do a lot of re-spelling, which is possibly even more annoying than scrabble-bag names.

What else?  Starting the story at dusk gives a sense of darkness and foreboding and spooky things; like the start of a horror movie.  But WTF is a wildling?  That's not explained until the next chapter; instead, the author spends a great deal of time describing the characters' clothes.

Now in Pale, we see we are in the real world with school buses and Octobers.  We can see the scene, instead of trying to imagine some dude named Gared in some kind of wood with some other people.  The question that keeps you reading, then, is not "What is going on?" but "Why is the school bus blowing into town at midnight?"  Obviously, Martin does not have that luxury, but half the time I feel like he does not explain things enough, and the other half I am frustrated by him giving too much detail and name-dropping.

The rest of the prologues are as follows:  In Thrones, the viewpoint is actually held by Will, but they all get killed by spooky zombie-things so it doesn't really matter; you never really get a sense of the characters, so you don't really care that they're dead.  In Pale, a creepy preacher-like figure oversees a troupe of faerie-like beings raise a tent (for some reason my mental image always looks like that one scene in Dumbo) to host "Brother Cy's Travelling Salvation Show."  You can tell no one here is a real viewpoint character; they are kept distant, mysterious, not someone you connect to but someone you wonder at.  The prologue is quite different from the rest of the chapters; which is why it is a prologue and not a first chapter where everyone dies.  Also, the preacher reappears in chapter two, so he isn't completely forgotten.  He's relevant, just not a viewpoint character.

Now for the first line of Chapter One.

Thrones:  The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer.

Pale:  Sometimes the wind blowing down from the mountains made Travis Wilder feel like anything could happen.

There's no contest here - a description of the weather, or an introduction into the main character's soul.  Ugh,  okay, I'll try for less bias.  Autumn signifies dying things, and adds to the foreboding of the prologue.  The chapter also details a seven year old boy witnessing his first execution, and so it can also signify and end to childhood innocence.  But that's a cheap metaphor.  Wind as a vehicle for infinite possibilities is not something you see every day.

Now, in the first five chapters of Thrones, there are five different viewpoint characters; I believe there are a total of seven in the book.  In the first five of Pale, there is one, with a total of two main ones and a few glimpses of others in the climax toward the end.

On page one of Thrones, we are introduced to six characters:  Bran, Robb, Mance Rayder, Old Nan, Jon, the man that gets killed.  On page two we get Eddard Stark, Theon Greyjoy, Jory Cassel, and Robert.  Also, I can't find anywhere that explicitly says that Robb is Bran's brother.  Yes, there is a character list in the back, but I'm trying to get into the story, and I'm trying to focus on Bran, and there are all these names distracting me.

Pale does not introduce anyone besides Travis until three pages in, for a total of three:  Travis, Moira Larsen, who is not important, and Max, who is.  Moira Larsen is introduced as Travis, a saloonkeeper, is worried about being late for work and having to face irate patrons.  Max is his one employee.  I'm still fuzzy on who half the names in Thrones are.

I think the fundamental difference in the structure of the two books is that Martin takes a broad sweep of his story, introducing the setting and the people, and telling the story after the stage has been set.  Anthony introduces Travis, and pulls him into the story once we know him.

Anthony is also quicker on the action.  By the end of chapter five, we have already had our first incident, complete with fire and danger and strange beings.  Prologue of Thrones does not count as an incident because it doesn't connect to a recurring character.  Five chapters in, it looks like some kind of fantasyland family drama.  It's a soap opera.  The characters are shallow enough.

I have so much more to say on these books.  So much that I think I'm going to break it up into multiple posts.  Tomorrow:  Feasts and castles!  After that, I might actually get to the queer theory component.

Why America is Number One

Disclaimer:  The title is sarcastic.

I've been watching a lot of Olympics lately - that's the only sort of sports this hipster will watch.  And yeah, the idea that if we all get together and play sports every four/two years, we'll get rid of war and all live together in peace is stupid and naive.  But I like that (for the most part), the Olympics are a time when the world can gather together and celebrate our common humanity by kicking each other's asses at sports.

Watching the Olympics, it's hard not to notice that America always gets the most medals (unless China beats us).  It's great for our national pride and convincing us that we are simply better than other countries.  Obviously, that's not true, but it still begs the question, why does America win at everything (except table tennis and handball)?

1.  Size

First of all, America is a big country.  Note that our main rival in the medal count is China.  If, say, 1% of the world's population is a potential Olympic athlete, then there are going to be a lot more in the USA than say, Grenada (who just won their first Olympic medal thanks to runner Kirani James).

So then why is India not up there in the medal count, while countries like Germany, Japan, and of course Great Britain, are?  The answer, with my new background in queer theory and attention to marginalization issues, is simple.

2.  Economics

Now, hold on a second, my patriotic fellow citizens object.  Money can't buy talent!  Well, no...but it takes money to foster talent.  It takes money to be able to have the leisure time to practice a sport, rather than try to eke out a living.  It takes money to buy equipment, and it takes money to hire a coach.  It takes more money to hire a better coach.  The American runner with no legs?  A wonderful success story, but what do those prosthetics cost in a country that until recently had no federal healthcare?

[Edit:  I'm stupid.  He's from South Africa.  A white man from South Africa.  So concepts of racial and economic privilege still apply; just ignore what I said about healthcare.]
3.  The Land of Opportunity?

American also attracts athletes and coaches from other countries.  Did you hear about the Cameroonians who went missing?  Cameroon has an estimated 30% unemployment rate.  Can you blame them for wanting to get the hell out?  Also, there is a recurring story of "This athlete trains in the US, but competes with her/his home country for the Olympics."  I believe that is the case with Kirani James.  I wonder, though, how many athletes don't go back to their home country?  How many coaches take jobs in America because that is where they can get the best facilities and the most economic support?

I started out with a very pessimistic intent to claim that America was buying Olympic gold, and that the world has been corrupted by unchecked capitalism (don't get me wrong, I love capitalism, but no system is perfect).  But it occurred to me that yes, we have better economic opportunities for athletes than other countries - and is that really so terrible?  I'm fully cynical when it comes to the American dream, but we have created a country where it is relatively easy to become an Olympic athlete, as long as you have the talent and the drive.  And certainly we have people held back by economic circumstances even within this country (again, cynical of American dream), but the fact that we have as much space as we do to create Olympic athletes...it really doesn't seem so terrible, from that angle.

So what am I to do?  I suppose that if warring countries can compete side-by-side peacefully, I can let my cynicism and idealism coexist peacefully.

Now it's time to go back to watching the Games.  And the Croatian water polo team.  (Yes, I'm a lesbian, but those speedos...LOL.)

History Project - 1979: Tales of Neveryon

I need to come up for a more concise name for what I'm doing that "Queer Fantasy History Project."
"Tales of Neveryon" is a book by Samuel R. Delany that consists of five tales and an appendix (it's one of those books where the appendix is part of the story).  The tales all take place in the same fictional kingdom of Neveryon, a proto-civilization, pseudo-Mesopotamian sword-and-soceryland.  The tales share a few characters and in the last tale pulls all the plots together in complicated and interesting ways.

The story behind the story:  Neveryon was on my list for vintage queer fantasy I needed to read, and I finally tracked it down at a used bookstore.  On that same trip I bought "Nocturne," partly because I have been trying to finish the Indigo books, and partly because I did not want to buy only that book with that cover.

I.  The Tale of Gorgik

Gorgik is a slave, who finds favor with a noblewoman (yes, I do mean sex) and ends up not only freed but becomes very successful in the military.  Right away you can tell this is not your typical post-Tolkien sword-and-sorcery. There is a lot of class commentary and power relations.  Oh, and Delany is African-American.  Matters of race and slavery come up a lot in his books.  Just saying.

He's also gay, and I heard that there is quite a bit of queer content in the Neveryon books (which is why I tracked it down for the history project).  All that I could find from Gorgik was mention of male prostitutes in the scenery, implication that the eunuch servant has sex with men, and implication that Gorgik has sex with a guy, or at least that a guy approached him for sexual favors.

II.  The Tale of Old Venn

This is the tale which blew my mind a little.  I mean, to all appearances (namely, the scantily clad people on the cover) it's a tpyical 70's sword-and-sorcery book.  Then it starts to ask quesions about gender roles and the origin of prejudice and Freudian theory and the effect money has on society.  Somehow, it does not come off as didactic, even though the format is mostly an old woman giving lessons to a group of children.

This story is not queer in the sense of homosexuality, but Old Venn does have some stories of her time as a wife in a not-your-typical-polygamist-society.  Instead of the women being property of the men, the man is the property of the women; until that sociey was introduced to money, which skewed things into a patriarchy, by ways that really do make sense but are a bit complicated for a blog post.

III.  The Tale of Small Sarg

Now it gets gay.  Sarg is a barbarian prince, "which meant that his mother's brother wore women's jewelry and was consulted about animals and sickness."  Sarg himself also has the opportunity to assume such an office (the barbarians seem to be some sort of matriarchy), but prefers not to.

Then Sarg is captured and sold as a slave to Gorgik.  After the sale, Sarg says to his new master "You should have take [sic] the woman.  You get her work in the day, her body at night." To which Gorgik replies "You think I'll get any less from you?"

Yep.

Apparently the reason Gorgik bought a slave is because he physically cannot have sex unless one partner is wearing a slave collar.  This toes the line between implying that gay sex is really messed up, and bringing up issues of the psychology of power relations. 

That's all I have to say on that, except that people who claim that speculative fiction is more homophobic than other genres obviously are not reading the right books.  This was not a bromance, or homoerotic undertones.  There was very unambiguously sex.

IV.  The Tale of Dragons and Potters

I have to bring up an interesting coincidence on this for people who have read The Wheel of Time.  There is a character named Bayle who has "an inch of yellow beard, mostly beneath his chin - no real mustache."  Granted, he's eighteen.  No he does not have a funny accent.  Still.

There is also a character named Raven who is...you know your friend whose a rabid man-hating feminist?  That's her.  She's from an oppressive matriarchy, and at one point tells her people's creation story, which parallels Christianity in odd ways, except that Adam and Eve are both women, and Adam's punishment for original sin is to be turned into " 'man, which means broken woman." 

Interestingly, not only are the male characters uncomfortable with this story, but the female as well.  A sign of feminism gone too far?  Or internalized oppression?  Though this is the girl (now grown-up) who listened to Old Venn's stories.

This is also the story where it is revealed that there is no birth-control herb (Tamora Pierce won't be part of the scene for a while).

V.  The Tale of Dragons and Dreamers

Most of these issues are brought up in Sarg, but there's not too much to say about this one, so I'm going to talk about the dragons.  Dragons in Neveryon are vicious, impractical creatures, tamed only because some lord way back when decided they were pretty.  Their riders (yes, they have riders, this is post-McCaffery) are girls - young girls - because they are smaller and therefor lighter.  It is also a very high-risk and undesireable job, so the riders are also the delinquent "bad girls" who don't have a choice.

The last tale has Gorgik and Sarg on a violent campaign to end slavery.  There is an interesting debate between Sarg and a slave, who explains that their methods are actually counterproductive.  Sarg kills him.  The slave had a point.  But Sarg's rage, his desire to make a change now - that also is understandable.

Also, upon their meeting with Norema and Raven, Gorgik introduces himself and Sarg as lovers.  No one really bats an eye at the gender relations.

Appendix:  Some Informal Remarks Toward the Modular Calculus, Part Three

The title of this scared me too.  In fact, it details the discovery of an ancient text telling the oldest story known to mankind, and the difficulties in translating this.  I'm pretty sure it's all made up, but it's very plausible sounding.  But when you google "Culhar text," the only links that show up are related to Delany.

Essentially, the point of the appendix is that Delany took inspiration from this story for Neveryon.  Or that someone did; I think it might be a story-within-a-story, and that the appendix relates to one of his other books.  It's so brilliant, though, because some of the passages from the alleged text have translations that run thus:

Either

1) "the love of the small barbarian slave for the tall man from Culhare."

Or

2)  "the love of the tall slave from Culhare for the small barbarian."

Or even

3)  "the small love of the barbarian and the tall man for slavery."

Or...all three at once.

So by this point I am quite determined to become a Delany fangirl, because that man is brilliant.  He asks so many questions, and doesn't answer a single one, instead forcing you to think about it.  In a 1970's sword-and-sorcery novel.  This is pre-Brooks/Eddings fantasy at its finest, before the Star-Wars-with-dragons plot became standard and everyone had to invent their own world, and the world you invented explored possibilities and questions that could not be explored in our own world.

Feminist Fantasy: Alanna vs. Indigo

The other day I was in a used bookstore and I ran into Nocturne: Book Four of Indigo, by Louise Cooper (1990).  Now, I've been spending the past several years off and on perusing secondhand bookstores for the Indigo series - I've only been able to get book 3 at a library.  I picked the first one up on a whim at a used book store, and took about a year to get around to reading it.  It was kind of like what happened a couple weeks ago when I woke up in the middle of the night needing to read some trashy B-fantasy.  And I had Indigo on hand.  And about a chapter in, I realized my mistake.  This was not trashy at all.

The story starts with a princess who pulls a Pandora ("What's in this box that no one's ever, ever supposed to open?") and releases seven demons into the world, and condemns her boyfriend to eternal torment (or until the demons are destroyed) in the process.  She is given one chance to redeem herself - the goddess grants her immortality, so she has all the time in the world to destroy the demons. 

What I really love about the series is that it flips the traditional fairy-tale narrative on its head - the princess goes out and has adventures while the prince just sits in his tower.  It's one of the few books I know of that has a strong female protagonist who is not involved in a love triangle.  And the mutant wolf.  Gotta love the mutant wolf.

There is more than one kind of feminist literature, however.  When most people think of feminist fantasy, they think of Tamora Pierce (Actually, they probably think Katniss or Hermione, but for now we're going to pretend I'm right, 'kay?).  Pierce's characters are always defying the patriarchy and breaking gender roles and confusing misogynists and saving the world blah blah blah.

I was big into Tamora Pierce back in middle school/high school, having started with the Circle of Magic quartet in elementary school from the book orders, moving on to The Immortals because the first book had ponies on the cover (Yeah.  So?) and deciding to round out my repertoire with the author's first work, the Alanna books (Song of the Lioness, whatever).

Alanna is a princess (well, the daughter of a duke or a lord or something) who decides to switch places with her twin brother, disguising herself as a boy to go to knight school while he goes to magic school and becomes evil and gay. 

Contrasting approaches to feminism in the abovementioned works:

1.  The Strong Female Protagonist
Crossdressing.  Girl dressing as boy still gives power to masculinity.  Granted, she "comes out" as a woman in later books, and Pierce has a later series of an openly female knight, but crossdressing princesses still sends the message of "How does a woman get power in society?  Become a man!" 

Second point on the crossdressing note...it's just too damn convenient that she has a twin brother that she can switch places with.  Too-convenient things in novels just bug me.  And attributing it to divine intervention is cheating.

Indigo is a woman and it's not a big deal.  It's fantasy, after all, so the pseudo-medieval world does not have to be a rabid patriarchy if you don't want it to be.  Her gender is very rarely brought up.  She becomes a strong female character by being strong and female, rather than strong despite being female.  And yes, this route completely ignore relevant questions of gender roles, but it is still refreshing to have a woman character who is not defined by her woman-ness.

2.  Relationship with men
Tamora Pierce may have invented magical birth control.  The purpose of this was so that her characters could experience the sexual liberation that America was having by the 80's.  The books make a big fuss over Alanna's sex life and the double standard regarding women and sexuality.  And there's the love triangle with the prince and the rogue and blah blah blah.

Indigo has a boyfriend in hell. And she's a bit gloomy over missing him, and the fact that he's suffering - who wouldn't be? - but she spends remarkably little time brooding on it.  And she doesn't get tempted into a love triangle with another man (and the fact that she's immortal would make temptation awkward, I imagine).  There's a guy in book 3 who has a thing for her, but she's like "Uhh...no.  It's complicated."  Her love life is so much less important than slaying the demons.

3.  Relationship with gods.
Okay, done with the hard-core feministy stuff.  Moving on to the fantasy stuff. 

Pierce's pantheon are all just so meddlesome.  With Indigo, the god's function is to say "You fucked up.  Go be immortal and fix it."  And that's it.  She's done her part, and stays out of it.  With Alanna, the gods are constantly "Oh hey, go do this."  "Why?"  "I'm a god, don't argue.  Here's a thing to help you." "What's this do?"  "This gets you out of a situation later that the writer can't think of a proper resolution for."

4.  Animal companions
Alanna has a stupid cat that does what now?   It's basically just a mouthpiece for the gods; it's like that owl in the Legend of Zelda games, that shows up and tells you "Don't go to Kakariko village yet.  You have to go to the castle first," even if you know perfectly well you can't move on in the game until you go the castle and get the ocarina, but maybe you just feel like completing the cucco quest to get a bottle first and you don't need a stupid owl telling you not to.  Indigo has a freaking mutant telepathic wolf who has her own tragic backstory, and even though she falls a little flat as a character because she's just the supportive sidekick, she still has more motivation and personality than the stupid kitten who bullies the protagonist with plot advice.

So which do you prefer?  Female protagonists that actively subvert the patriarchy?  Or strong protagonists that just happen to be female?

I apologize if any of the information I gave on any of the books here is inaccurate.  I haven't read Alanna or the early Indigo books in a few years.

I will say I honestly like the later Pierce books a lot more than the early ones.  Maybe I'll do a post on that so you don't think I hate her.  I really don't.