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.

Compulsory Heterosexulity in Fiddler on the Roof

It shows how much queer theory has been stuffed into my brain when I can’t even watch a musical without analyzing it.  That being said, the Rosetown cast did a fantastic job, as always.

The first thing to do with any feminist critique is to measure female presence using the Bechdel test.  “Fiddler,” despite having many important female characters, only barely passes.  At the very end, during the exodus from Anatevka, the Matchmaker stops by Tevye’s house to tell Golde that she is moving to Jerusalem.  Other than that, every single conversation is either with a man or about a man.  Heck, there’s even a musical number about men.

Now let’s go through the daughters, because I’m not quite hard-core enough to go through the entire cast.

At first glance, the play seems pretty feminist-friendly.  After all, the women are defying their father’s wishes in order to do what they want with their lives…regarding the man they marry.  In other words, the women defy a male object by seeking another.

Tzeitel

Tzeitel’s act of defiance is to choose her own lover, the poor tailor, rather than marry the rich butcher her father picked out for her.  How does she go about this?  First she pressures Motel into telling her father.  She can’t do it herself, obviously.  Then, when her father announces her engagement to the butcher, she begs him not to force her, and he, being the benevolent patriarch, gives in.  One has to wonder, though, what would have happened if he had not been so benevolent.  Obviously, it is Tevye’s story of transformation, but if you change the perspective, it becomes a lot darker.
Tzeitel finally convinces her father to let her marry Motel, when Motel finally stands up to Tevye.  His winning line is “Even a poor tailor deserves some happiness,” a line that was fed to him by Tzeitel.  Does she get any credit for it?  Of course not.  A woman’s job is to stand behind her man, to support him in everything he does and do nothing for herself.  But Motel’s so adorkable, we can forgive him.

Hodel

Hodel has a love at first fight kind of relationship with Perchik.  She is certainly witty and clever enough to keep up with him.  No one ever wonders if she could be a student, however.  She can only marry one.  She follows Perchik to Siberia to help him in his work with the Communist party, and this perhaps is a matter that is progressive for the times; she can only leave her hometown with/for a man, but she is leaving town, and of her own free will. 

Perchik proposes in the most awkward manner possible, posing an abstract question about the economics of marriage, listing the benefits and bases thereof, to which Hodel keeps adding “And affection.”  Because women are emotional and men are logical. 

When it comes time to break the news to Tevye, who is initially against it, Hodel’s argument is “Papa, please!”  Perchik’s argument is “We’re not asking for your permission.  But we would like your blessing.”  Hodel just goes with it.  If her husband-to-be wants to ditch tradition completely, then so does she.

Chavaleh

Chavaleh commits the greatest transgression of all, running off with a gentile bookworm.  I do like their courtship the best:  “You like books.  I like books.  Here’s a book.  You should read it, and then we can talk about it.”  I feel like that’s going to be me someday.  Anyway.

Chavaleh leaves behind her family, her culture, everything she has ever known, for a man.  Granted, she’s supposed to be like, fifteen. So I’m sure it all makes perfect sense in her mind.  Also, for having maybe five minutes of dialogue, Fyedka has more personality than Edward Cullen.

I should clarify that “compulsory heterosexuality” in Adrienne Rich’s sense is not just a lack of gay characters.  Compulsory heterosexuality is the fairy tale ending, where the men and women are all paired off neatly and no one is supposed to want anything different.  There are no widows, or spinsters, or lesbians.  A woman’s primary relationship is with a man and not a woman  - not her best girl friend or group of friends, not her sister or her mother or what have you.

In “Fiddler,” the one character who escapes compulsory heterosexuality is the matchmaker, ironically, whose function in society is to uphold compulsory heterosexuality.  But I was going to focus on the daughters.

Tevye has five daughters (seven in Rosetown).  Two have fates that are left unknown.  All that we do know is that they move to America, and if Tevye thought he had a hard time holding onto tradition in Anatevka… 

Now, following the logical progression of his daughters’ lives, I have predictions for the last two.  One will remain single.  She’ll go to college and become a lawyer or a business professional.  Or she'll be a crazy artist hippie bum (or whatever the 1905 equivalent is); she’ll do something fulfilling with her life.  And she might go on dates, or have sexual encounters with men, but she won’t settle down and marry one.

The other daughter is going to be a lesbian.

[I checked all the spellings of names on Wikipedia; if I got any wrong I apologize.]

Slytherin Syndrome

Slytherin Syndrome:  1.  The process of overtly villfying a group of people without explicitly saying they're all evil; we just know they are because there is no evidence to the contrary.  2.  Claiming the moral high ground on arbitrary personality characteristics while villifying others.

This is not a jab at Harry Potter.  Disney is also to blame.  All the hyenas are evil, after all.

But first let's look at Harry Potter.  Slytherins are evil.  All of them. Name me one good one.  Snape.  Okay, name me two.  In any case, we spend the first six books thinking he is evil, and his revelation does not really call into question previous assumptions about other Slytherins.

But what is a Slytherin?  That is easier to answer than what is a Hufflepuff.  Slytherins are ambitious.  Ergo, they are all cowardly cruel bullies.  Because that's what ambition means, right? 

What an impressionable child understands of this dynamic is that being brave is good, and being ambitious is bad.  Being intelligent or diligent (I think that's what Hufflepuff is; we're just going to go with that) is not bad, but it is not particularly good either.  Nothing to be proud of. 

Let's look at ambition first.  Ambition to take over the world and make all Muggles your slaves, bad.  Ambition to find a magical cure for cancer, good.  Ambition to invent a flying machine/win the Olympics/bring peace to a war-torn nation:  you get put on a motivational poster.

So really, there is nothing wrong with being ambitious.  There is nothing wrong with aspiring to greatness.  And they wonder why kids these days aren't performing up to par academically, why they don't aspire the way they used to, what happened to the enterpreneurial spirit of America, why they're all so damn apathetic.  Well, who wants to be ambitious?  Be brave (and reckless), be smart (and arrogant), or be diligent (and humorless).  Just don't be ambitious.

It's not just a Harry Potter problem.  In children's books or shitty fantasy with a teenage protagonist, the hero always whines about "Why do I get stuck with the magic powers?  Why do I have to be king?  Why can't I just live on the farm and have people tell me what to do?"  Not that the hero isn't constantly being told what to do by helpful wizards and deities that all secretly wish the Chosen One wasn't such a whiny bitch.  Frodo did not whine.  Frodo volunteered.  Did we forget that after Eddings?  I think we did.

In contrast, the villain is the one who is trying to get magic powers or become king.  In fact, the villain is the only one that shows any gumption.  See, it's more morally right to have life give you power than to seek it, which is why we have a democracy where people run for office instead of a monarchy where they are born into it.  The reason villains are always more interesting is because villains have plans and goals, and don't just go where the plot takes them.  Which makes them bad people.

They have ambition.

Look at Disney.  Scar saw what he wanted and took action to get it.  Simba dodges responsibility until he gives into peer pressure.  Ursula was a shrewd businesswoman.  Ariel was just...Ariel.  Why shouldn't Jafar be sultan?  Jasmine's father is kind of a dope - and is that really who you want leading the nation?  Didn't we try that in America?  How did that go?

Harry just wants to goof off with his buddies.  BORING!  Voldemort wants to change the world.

What really set me off on this, though, was realizing that I am a lot more interested in analyzing literature than writing it.  I'm a critic.  The bitchcritic.  Which, if you have seen Ratatouille, makes me the bad guy.  But really, is not the highest honor a rat could receive the approval of the bitchcritic?  It's not that he hates everything, he just has high standards, and doesn't it make you proud to know that you are awesome enough to meet those standards?

You know, this only happens because all our creative writers and filmmakers see themselves as intrepid inventors that the world cannot do without, and anyone who criticizes them as evil.

So I'm evil.  Fine.  Actually, no not fine.  I'm not okay with being evil.  They tell the hero that they can be whatever they want, be it chef, warrior, prince, princess, human, king.  But no one tells that to the villain.

Because we're ambitious.

I am the bitchcritic and proud.  And to everyone out there who has an ambition (and just how different is that from a dream, Ms. Disney Princess?) - go for it.  As long as you have the intelligence to come up with a plan, the diligence to follow through, and the courage to risk it.