Wheel of Time -- Crown of Thorns
Jul. 23rd, 2010 12:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackMorgase
I just read the passage where Morgase is tortured, and the whitecloak's fortress is captured by the Seanchan. It's incredibly painful; Leigh Butler compared Morgase's story arc to something by Stephen Donaldson. I remember the first time I read it (not just that scene, but everything since she left Caemlyn), it was often very aggravating, just because just when you hoped something might be ok, something even more terrible would happen. But that's not because it's badly written, just because it's soul-wrenching.
Now, when I know roughly where her journey ended up, I feel a lot less wrenched and a lot more tired by it: very much fewer scenes, even really strong scenes, have as much tension when you know what's going to happen, and I'm no longer praying for her escape, because the plot obviously requires her to "have 50,000 bad things happen, escape, abdicate" so there's nothing to hope for.
The first time, the one thing that did massively stick in my craw was the abdication message. The first time I don't think I got everything that happened, but suicide actually really makes sense there. And whether they were well intentioned or not, I wanted to kill Breane for criticising her. But I was just irate that this abdication oath -- which nobody hears all of -- is apparently arbitrarily binding from then on. It just rang false to me.
There ARE oaths people take that seriously, but there's normally a good reason for them. Why would abdicating the throne of Andor be common enough to have set traditions so ingrained in people? There's not even any plot reason for it -- it would imho be much more natural and also more moving for Morgase to just choose to give up a claim to the throne gradually (since she's disappeared anyway) since (a) everyone unfortunately hates her because of Gaebril (b) everyone thinks she's dead (c) she's in a horrible position and might not WANT to wrestle the throne back, if Elayne is ready to take it. And if Elayne settles in as queen, and then Morgase turns up and doesn't want any of it, who is going to quibble about the details?
Rand and Perrin's fake falling-out
So many books have a "we fake falling out" bit. It's not an inherently bad idea, but it almost always goes horribly, horribly wrong when one of them is prevented from revealing the subterfuge at the right moment and someone not in on the plot does something horrible to the other one.
In fact, as far as I can remember, this plot DOESN'T go horribly wrong.[1] It's somewhat moving to see Rand's and Perrin's reactions.
The problem is just that keeping the connection between "Rand: you do this plan thing mkay" and "Rand: hateyouwithfire" implicit is that not knowing for sure if the falling out is real is supposed to keep the reader's tension up, but almost always has exactly the opposite effect, because trying to hold both the possible interpretations "they're pretending" and "they actually fell out" and the two different emotional reactions in their head means they don't emotionally react properly to either of them, or at least I don't.
It may just be me, but I don't think so. Sometimes reading a supposedly emotional scene and not knowing if it's real can still have a big impact, but normally I just feel cheated and refuse to engage. And it's also not helped that most authors don't set up the cause of the quarrel very realistically. It's normally something that OUGHT to be plausible, but actually, NORMALLY, that sort of gigantic personality changing event has a lot of textual baggage round it, so if it happens briefly at the bottom of page 317, the reader just doesn't take it seriously even if they should.
There's a similar problem with "oh no character X died, oh look, they're alright after all." Normally authors can't bear to kill of characters casually, which means that 95% of the time a casually killed character isn't actually dead, which ruins the emotional impact. Which is especially unfortunate when they actually ARE, and I have to turn back 20 pages and read it again and try to take it seriously, because it OUGHT to be really moving, but I just glossed over it going "blah, obvious emotional manipulation blah" because NORMALLY everyone is alive again by the end of the episode.
Footnote [1]
Although I still can't remember what it's for. Apparently Rand has some good reason for trying to outmanouver Sammael. Which results in about five books of plotting, avoiding Illian, setting up feints, etc. Which is very cool in principle, but to me falls very, very flat, because I still can't see why they don't go with plan A of:
(1) Teleport to where he is
(2) KILL HIM WITH FIRE
(3) Win.
Which worked amazingly well on Ishamael (three times), Be'lal and Rahvin (once each), and Asmodeon (more or less). The ability to travel and use balefire instead of stabbity, and have a few hundred Asha'man watching your back ought to make #1 and #2 even easier.
OK, there are obvious problems with teleporting in if he's ready for you. But the whole plot would be so much cooler if they'd TRIED that, and found out WHY it was impossible, and brainstormed lots of other approaches, and generally established it was a rather insoluble problem, and THEN Rand pulls this great plan out, and we all go "woo, good idea" rather than "dude, why are you dragging this out again?"
Matt and Tylin (Warning: discussion of painful subject
This is a very very fraught subject amongst many Wheel of Time fans, amongst many other gender-problematic-relationships in the books. Matt is something of a (non-obnoxious) womaniser. In Crowd of Swords, he is pursued and brow-beaten and physically coerced into having sex with Tylin.
From what I can tell the intended reading from the author is that it's supposed to be (a) funny at first, because of the tables being turned on Matt so much but (b) gradually realised as unacceptable as the situation goes on. Of course, some people found it funny and some people found it horrifying, which made life very uncomfortable.
The first time I read it I was mostly annoyed on Matt's behalf, but not really squicked. Now I've both a better appreciation of what is funny about it, because I've a greater empathy with the woman Matt has been chasing off-screen, but also a greater appreciation of why it's a really squicky horrible bad idea to portray someone being physically coerced in the proximity of humour, whatever the reasons for doing so are, because it WILL come across unforgiveably badly to so many people.
I think, even in less fraught but equally serious moral questions of fictional portrayals, like of murder, there's an inherent tension between (a) showing something that's not acceptable in the real world but is justified in this case, as a wish-fulfilment and (b) showing something that unjustifiable because even if it's justified in this PARTICULAR case, it's still not, because the characters only have the information that's it's justified by authorial fiat, not any actual knowledge, so could not act that way under any other circumstances, because even if it LOOKED justified, the chance that they're wrong makes it unethical to consider.
The key observations here seem to be that:
(i) The Wheel of Time in general, and Ebour Dar in particular, have different cultural expectations of morality, but are intended to be read by people with contemporary western morality.
(ii) Matt's greater physical strength, acquiescence, physical arousal, and general peevedness-rather-than-trauma do NOT in any way justify Tylin's actions (whether or not the blame would be on her personally or on her culture), and even though that looks like a plausible argument, it's incredibly offensive to both men and women, real and fictional, who ARE abused DESPITE those things.
(iii) Even if this is a bad thing, many people experience MUCH WORSE things, so rushing to condemn this to stand up for all people's personal rights, while good, may seriously upset other people who feel a much worse experience is being trivialised by being compared with this one, which whether or not it is morally acceptable, generally turns out fine for Matt.
(iv) I think the intended morality of the situation is that Matt, while horrified that Tylin is pursuing him rather than the other way round, actually likes her and is ok with the sex aspect, only troubled by some OTHER things. Which makes this situation questionable, but not necessarily actually abhorrent, rather than interesting. There's a strong implication that Matt has done similar (if not as physically coercing) things, and so basically deserves it, so long as he doesn't really object. However, this is only ok because the author said it was. So although it's SUPPOSEDLY ok, it's actually not, because Tylin doesn't have any way of knowing this, so although it's understandable (especially if, in Wheel of Time, men are often in a typically medieval portrayal stronger position than women), but what she actually did was WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG because Matt is just very frustrated, but the same actions could have been EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL to someone else, and she made no effort to find out if Matt was (a) peeved or (b) crying every night at her intrusion, which while possibly unlikely, she has no way of knowing!
I just read the passage where Morgase is tortured, and the whitecloak's fortress is captured by the Seanchan. It's incredibly painful; Leigh Butler compared Morgase's story arc to something by Stephen Donaldson. I remember the first time I read it (not just that scene, but everything since she left Caemlyn), it was often very aggravating, just because just when you hoped something might be ok, something even more terrible would happen. But that's not because it's badly written, just because it's soul-wrenching.
Now, when I know roughly where her journey ended up, I feel a lot less wrenched and a lot more tired by it: very much fewer scenes, even really strong scenes, have as much tension when you know what's going to happen, and I'm no longer praying for her escape, because the plot obviously requires her to "have 50,000 bad things happen, escape, abdicate" so there's nothing to hope for.
The first time, the one thing that did massively stick in my craw was the abdication message. The first time I don't think I got everything that happened, but suicide actually really makes sense there. And whether they were well intentioned or not, I wanted to kill Breane for criticising her. But I was just irate that this abdication oath -- which nobody hears all of -- is apparently arbitrarily binding from then on. It just rang false to me.
There ARE oaths people take that seriously, but there's normally a good reason for them. Why would abdicating the throne of Andor be common enough to have set traditions so ingrained in people? There's not even any plot reason for it -- it would imho be much more natural and also more moving for Morgase to just choose to give up a claim to the throne gradually (since she's disappeared anyway) since (a) everyone unfortunately hates her because of Gaebril (b) everyone thinks she's dead (c) she's in a horrible position and might not WANT to wrestle the throne back, if Elayne is ready to take it. And if Elayne settles in as queen, and then Morgase turns up and doesn't want any of it, who is going to quibble about the details?
Rand and Perrin's fake falling-out
So many books have a "we fake falling out" bit. It's not an inherently bad idea, but it almost always goes horribly, horribly wrong when one of them is prevented from revealing the subterfuge at the right moment and someone not in on the plot does something horrible to the other one.
In fact, as far as I can remember, this plot DOESN'T go horribly wrong.[1] It's somewhat moving to see Rand's and Perrin's reactions.
The problem is just that keeping the connection between "Rand: you do this plan thing mkay" and "Rand: hateyouwithfire" implicit is that not knowing for sure if the falling out is real is supposed to keep the reader's tension up, but almost always has exactly the opposite effect, because trying to hold both the possible interpretations "they're pretending" and "they actually fell out" and the two different emotional reactions in their head means they don't emotionally react properly to either of them, or at least I don't.
It may just be me, but I don't think so. Sometimes reading a supposedly emotional scene and not knowing if it's real can still have a big impact, but normally I just feel cheated and refuse to engage. And it's also not helped that most authors don't set up the cause of the quarrel very realistically. It's normally something that OUGHT to be plausible, but actually, NORMALLY, that sort of gigantic personality changing event has a lot of textual baggage round it, so if it happens briefly at the bottom of page 317, the reader just doesn't take it seriously even if they should.
There's a similar problem with "oh no character X died, oh look, they're alright after all." Normally authors can't bear to kill of characters casually, which means that 95% of the time a casually killed character isn't actually dead, which ruins the emotional impact. Which is especially unfortunate when they actually ARE, and I have to turn back 20 pages and read it again and try to take it seriously, because it OUGHT to be really moving, but I just glossed over it going "blah, obvious emotional manipulation blah" because NORMALLY everyone is alive again by the end of the episode.
Footnote [1]
Although I still can't remember what it's for. Apparently Rand has some good reason for trying to outmanouver Sammael. Which results in about five books of plotting, avoiding Illian, setting up feints, etc. Which is very cool in principle, but to me falls very, very flat, because I still can't see why they don't go with plan A of:
(1) Teleport to where he is
(2) KILL HIM WITH FIRE
(3) Win.
Which worked amazingly well on Ishamael (three times), Be'lal and Rahvin (once each), and Asmodeon (more or less). The ability to travel and use balefire instead of stabbity, and have a few hundred Asha'man watching your back ought to make #1 and #2 even easier.
OK, there are obvious problems with teleporting in if he's ready for you. But the whole plot would be so much cooler if they'd TRIED that, and found out WHY it was impossible, and brainstormed lots of other approaches, and generally established it was a rather insoluble problem, and THEN Rand pulls this great plan out, and we all go "woo, good idea" rather than "dude, why are you dragging this out again?"
Matt and Tylin (Warning: discussion of painful subject
This is a very very fraught subject amongst many Wheel of Time fans, amongst many other gender-problematic-relationships in the books. Matt is something of a (non-obnoxious) womaniser. In Crowd of Swords, he is pursued and brow-beaten and physically coerced into having sex with Tylin.
From what I can tell the intended reading from the author is that it's supposed to be (a) funny at first, because of the tables being turned on Matt so much but (b) gradually realised as unacceptable as the situation goes on. Of course, some people found it funny and some people found it horrifying, which made life very uncomfortable.
The first time I read it I was mostly annoyed on Matt's behalf, but not really squicked. Now I've both a better appreciation of what is funny about it, because I've a greater empathy with the woman Matt has been chasing off-screen, but also a greater appreciation of why it's a really squicky horrible bad idea to portray someone being physically coerced in the proximity of humour, whatever the reasons for doing so are, because it WILL come across unforgiveably badly to so many people.
I think, even in less fraught but equally serious moral questions of fictional portrayals, like of murder, there's an inherent tension between (a) showing something that's not acceptable in the real world but is justified in this case, as a wish-fulfilment and (b) showing something that unjustifiable because even if it's justified in this PARTICULAR case, it's still not, because the characters only have the information that's it's justified by authorial fiat, not any actual knowledge, so could not act that way under any other circumstances, because even if it LOOKED justified, the chance that they're wrong makes it unethical to consider.
The key observations here seem to be that:
(i) The Wheel of Time in general, and Ebour Dar in particular, have different cultural expectations of morality, but are intended to be read by people with contemporary western morality.
(ii) Matt's greater physical strength, acquiescence, physical arousal, and general peevedness-rather-than-trauma do NOT in any way justify Tylin's actions (whether or not the blame would be on her personally or on her culture), and even though that looks like a plausible argument, it's incredibly offensive to both men and women, real and fictional, who ARE abused DESPITE those things.
(iii) Even if this is a bad thing, many people experience MUCH WORSE things, so rushing to condemn this to stand up for all people's personal rights, while good, may seriously upset other people who feel a much worse experience is being trivialised by being compared with this one, which whether or not it is morally acceptable, generally turns out fine for Matt.
(iv) I think the intended morality of the situation is that Matt, while horrified that Tylin is pursuing him rather than the other way round, actually likes her and is ok with the sex aspect, only troubled by some OTHER things. Which makes this situation questionable, but not necessarily actually abhorrent, rather than interesting. There's a strong implication that Matt has done similar (if not as physically coercing) things, and so basically deserves it, so long as he doesn't really object. However, this is only ok because the author said it was. So although it's SUPPOSEDLY ok, it's actually not, because Tylin doesn't have any way of knowing this, so although it's understandable (especially if, in Wheel of Time, men are often in a typically medieval portrayal stronger position than women), but what she actually did was WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG because Matt is just very frustrated, but the same actions could have been EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL to someone else, and she made no effort to find out if Matt was (a) peeved or (b) crying every night at her intrusion, which while possibly unlikely, she has no way of knowing!
no subject
Date: 2010-07-23 10:35 am (UTC)I know some people are stung by the trauma of it to the extent that the "this is bad" message isn't clear/is overwhelmed; and also that some people apparent just think it's written for teh LULZ though so maybe my reading is strange?
Matt supposedly doesn't pursue women who tell him to fuck off (he says so himself) although I'm not sure we ever see him actually respecting a woman telling him to (and thus I don't know to what extent he thinks "fuck off" means "try harder").
I think the fake falling out thing was to conceal that Perrin is doing Rand's bidding vis Massema from, er, everyone (except Massema) including (I assume) such people as Taim who might otherwise be clued-up on Rand's plans. I'm not sure this is confined to the situation with Sammael, which eventually is resolved with KILL HIM WITH FIRE anyway in a totally boring sort of way.
The Morgase/White Cloaks/Seanchan stuff was, indeed, more nail-biting the first time through. I think the oath is really for herself, so that she cements in her mind the decision to not try to get the thrown back (it's certainly not been at all relevant to Elayne yet!). Morgase's story is something of an interesting foil to Rand's; it frustrates me how little we see of her (and her pov) from now on.