[ SECRET POST #1670 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1670 ⌋


Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Going to be short posts this week, LJ being down half the week means less secrets total, sorry about that.

Secrets Left to Post: 09 pages, 204 secrets from Secret Submission Post #239.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - hit/ship/spiration ], [ 0 - omgiknowthem ], [ 0 - take it to comments ], [ 1 - repeats ]
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

You have to remember the time period's very conservative attitude, though. The very few women they have in the fleet are treated with shock and disgust by the general public, and yes it's comparable to the "rum, sodomy, and the lash" Navy but I think putting slash in there would feel token or fan-pandering. As for the whiteness, yes, the MC is white, because the POV corps is British. There are plenty of characters from other countries/ethnicities later in the series, one who becomes a major character is Chinese.

[(Anonymous)]

i know the time period and setting, ty. maybe adding dragons AND more equality/representation would be too much, but she chose to write a time period and setting that was straight male-dominated. and whatever, that's an author's right, but it's still a choice.

[(Anonymous)]

And she chose to showcase how one man who is very much a product of his time is slowly stripped from his prejudice and misconceptions.

yes, it's the author's choice to write the story she wants. It's a bit entitled to think otherwise no? The criticism is basically "well, I think she should've written a different story".

You can't really fault an author for setting their story in a time that interests her. It's how she treats it that matters and in this case the era's problems are not only shown, they're also discussed by the main characters who try to be vehicles of change.

+1

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for explaining it better than I could word it.

[darlas-mom.livejournal.com]

I think there's kind of a flaw in this argument, anon. There aren't real dragons, so it's not a real time period. When you choose the when/where setting of your FANTASY books with FANTASY creatures, it's pretty much for the aesthetics (e.g, the clothing and decor and landscapes you want to invoke in people's minds when they're reading your story). Adding in the gender/racial/sexual/whatever politics that reflect "back then" (even though the dragons pretty much mean there's not a real "then" for it to "back" to) is also a choice the author is making (though perhaps not a conscious one). That's what's being complained about, I think, and I think it's a valid criticism.

[(Anonymous)]

but that's not the point. the point isn't to just take the aesthetic and then write a completely fictional world. the point is to take one single difference and say what if.

Under your reasoning every single piece of fiction has to be set in a world that's egalitarian and inclusive and multicoloured (though I doubt you'd ever dare criticise a work where all the characters were black or east-asian).

Even though she is using the era as a setting for raising a multitude of social issues that's not good enough because her main character is a white male?

Sorry, I don't count that as valid criticism

[darlas-mom.livejournal.com]

Actually, by my standard, the author's still making a choice.

Seriously, that's all.

If she wants to make a point, whatever. I don't care. But that's never the justification I hear. The justification everyone throws around is "but that's how it was back then," and the fact of the matter is, a fantasy world only needs as much verisimilitude as the author wants it to need.
I practically never hear anyone complain that the people in medieval/feudal European settings are too well-fed, healthy or hygienic (even though in most movie adaptations of same, they usually are). And when an author chooses not to have any rape in their stories, I never hear anyone complain that that's unrealistic for the time period (even though it's technically unrealistic for just about every damn time period you have available to you, save for maybe the distant future). People can choose to gloss over any unpleasantness in their fantasy settings they want, and most audiences will go ahead and roll with it.

The author made a choice. Maybe she had good reasons, maybe she didn't; I haven't read it personally (hence my not really directly criticizing the work in question, so much as the "that's how it was back then" defense, which is my major pet peeve in fantasy).

I have no argument for "using the era as a setting for raising a multitude of social issues," especially for a work I haven't read. But "that's how it was back then" is a downright willfully stupid defense.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I haven't read it personally (hence my not really directly criticizing the work in question, so much as the "that's how it was back then" defense, which is my major pet peeve in fantasy).

Well, there's your problem. It's not a 'fantasy world' in the sense that she just made it up and took inspiration from the era. It's period-accurate Napoleonic War era, but with dragons dropped into it. Dragons are the only concession to fantasy (and firebreathing/poison-spitting/divine wind stuff, but that's still dragon related). Novik works hard to make it as period-accurate as possible, including the ideals of the time and how those would relate to talking sentient dragons used as an airforce. Lawrence himself is actually fairly liberal for his time, and the dragon abolition ideas that Temeraire puts together are considered ridiculously radical.

'That's how it was back then' is entirely the point of the series. Besides the Temeraire/Lawrence epic bromance.