Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2012-07-10 06:14 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2012-07-10 06:14 pm
[ SECRET POST #2016 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2016 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 065 secrets from Secret Submission Post #288.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
no subject
It's a Zuko-centric fic that begins with a very intriguing premise. The author admits up front that the story got away from her, and she did not intend for it to be as AU as it has become. There is some major world-building with interesting ideas and a lot of research behind it, and a cast of OCs that are generally well-developed. The writing is of high quality for fanfiction.
The cons are that it has become highly AU, and some of the characters are seen as being OOC in order to fit the world-twist. (YMMV on which ones and how much; I'm very bothered by one particular Katara scene, but don't find others commonly pointed to annoying.) The author is frequently accused of redeeming/exalting Zuko at the expense of nearly every other main character. Personally I don't find her sins in that area as egregious as others do; again, YMMV. Zuko is unquestionably the main character of the story and a lot of it is from his POV; it's natural for writing from his POV to exalt his, well, point of view. One thing that does bug me immensely is that, while she has put a tremendous amount of research behind her world-building, she has a tendency to assume a position and go after support for it, and then defend them in author's notes. I'm thinking of two particular things that set my teeth on edge, one raised in the notes from Ch 24 and one which I'm not sure was ever explicitly discussed in a note but keeps coming up in the story (and she discussed in a review reply to me when I mentioned it). (I'm trying to avoid spoilers, let me know if you don't care. )
I agree with the OP to some extent -- the last few chapters have been getting choppy and keep time-and-place jumping without telling us where they've jumped TO for several paragraphs. It's confusing unless you're willing to reread the chapter after you figure out what part of the world you've just been dropped on.
All that said, long, plotty, well-written (technical sense), regularly updated fic is a rarity in any fandom, and Embers is that if nothing else.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-07-11 01:12 am (UTC)(link)spoil me away, what were those positions the author defended?
SPOILERS AHOY
- the analysis of Azula's character. Specifically the reference to setting the doll Iroh sent her on fire indicating she has a sociopathic personality, "because children see dolls as mini people." Uhm, no. Favored dolls/stuffed animals, maybe. But dolls they don't want/care about? Those are science experiments. If melting, dismembering, or slicing up dolls indicates sociopathic tendencies, then I, all the friends I had as a child, and all the young girls I've ever baby-sat for are secretly sociopaths.
- the insistence that making airbenders give up their children is Bad and Just Plain Wrong. This annoyed me to the point where, as I say, I mentioned it in a review, because most other cultural points we got two sides of yet this one was simply being treated with horror and revulsion by all and sundry. I suggested maybe having Aang or Ty Lee or someone talk about it from a positive perspective. In response, I was told that "human nature doesn't work that way" and removing babies from mothers right after weaning traumatized both. Which... No. Just, no. On so many levels.
teal deer on soapboxes:
Firstly, it'd be normal for the Air Nomads. Social norms play a huge role in what you find upsetting. For instance, historically the upper classes in a great many cultures had little to do with their kids until such time as the kids could behave like civilized human beings. Handing babies off to wet-nurses and governesses and tutors didn't traumatize a whole lot of people -- it was just what you DID, if you were of that social class. Yes, there are modern studies on psychological damage caused to mother and child by adoption, but most of those findings point to it being the stigma laid on adoption by our society that causes the harm. That is to say, it's the mother's feeling of failure and the child's feeling of abandonment/defect that are the primary issues, and both of those are tracable to our social norms that say mothers ought to love and care for their children themselves.
Secondly, we've been given this portrait of a culture in which attachment is seen as a bad thing -- why would a woman nurse her own child? If, as we're told, the monks are "visiting" twice a year, there's a lot of nuns giving birth all around the same time. Either the babies might get swapped around, or -- I think more likely, given what we otherwise see of this culture -- there'd be a communal nursery and any woman with milk would feed any hungry baby. Which, again, would be normal for them, and probably the young girls would help out and see this growing up, so they wouldn't think anything of it when it was their turn.
tl;dr:
Who needs to worry about social conditioning and psychology when apparently "biochemical bonding" trumps all and no mother would give up her baby unless she'd been brainwashed? /sarcasm
Re: SPOILERS AHOY
(Anonymous) 2012-07-11 06:00 am (UTC)(link)oh wow
that...
is a huge lack of research of different points of view, yeah
thanks for the recap and explanations!
Re: SPOILERS AHOY
(Anonymous) 2012-07-12 04:45 am (UTC)(link)Also, author opinion or not, she wrote those chapters from the POV of very family-oriented characters, so those statements are perfectly valid in context.