[ SECRET POST #2216 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2216 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 120 secrets from Secret Submission Post #317.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - personal attack ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

05. http://i50.tinypic.com/nf5r2u.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

I still think Wheel of Time doesn't belong in that list. I know no one here agrees with me, though.

Although, saying that, even if you do think it's bad, it's still not as bad as Terry Goodkind. Nothing is.

[(Anonymous)]

All three of them are bad in different ways. I would say that many individual female characters in Wheel of Time are pretty good characters by themselves, but when you look at the work as a whole the characterization trends are not so good. Eddings... honestly, I think all the characters have about the same half-inch depth (maybe an inch for Belgarath and Polgara) and the gender duality presented is bizarre and not at all compatible with my own view of the world, but not the worst I've seen. Goodkind... well. What can you say about Goodkind. I'd classify Eddings as clueless, Jordan as off, and Goodkind as off and malicious.

[something_greater]

I agree with you! I'm in the middle of The Dragon Reborn right now on my roughly 8th re-read of the first 6 books in the series (working my way to AMoL! I am so excited!) and I have to say that 1. anyone who disses Jordan's handling of female characters had better be taking a LOT of YA and fantasy written by women to task with just as much vigor and 2. it's nowhere near as bad as I remember thinking it was when I was a teenager.

Strangely enough, no longer being 14 has done wonders for my appreciation for how nuanced his grasp of female characters are, especially the adults. They're characters with motivations and politics and allegiances of their own first, and women second. Not because they aren't women, but because what they do is more important than what gender they are. Which is kind of what equality is about, theoretically?

[(Anonymous)]

I wish someone had taken the copy of Ayn Rand's biography away from Goodkind about four books ago. He was almost readable until he went on that Tea-Party manifesto kick.

[(Anonymous)]

Eddings always puzzled me because it didn't seem like he didn't like women or thought women were inferior, it seemed like he thought women were a different species, and men and women were destined to always have wacky hilarious battle-of-the-sexes domestic conflicts. It puzzled me even more when his wife was added to the books as a co-author. It could be her name's tacked on there so she'll retain the copyright after he dies, which is a classy thing to do. But if not, there's a woman involved in writing those books who apparently does not find it unreasonable to portray men and women as being so utterly alien.

[(Anonymous)]

From what I'm given to understand, Eddings' wife was always very involved in writing the books, to the point where she really should have had a co-writing credit on all of them. Something similar is the case in WoT, Jordan's wife was very heavily involved in editing the books (I believe she was pretty much the only editor for several of the books in the middle of the series). Just one of those things.

[ariakas]

Lol he also thinks men and women have different elbows. I still remember one of his characters telling a fully robed and cloaked person was a woman when she raised her arms because of her elbows.

Dude can't into physiology? I get that that's a common myth - like the people who think women have more ribs, or fewer teeth - but it could be dispelled with even the slightest amount of research. And it wasn't like he was trying to portray the character as believing a myth, either - the character was correct, and was portrayed as being very clever and observant.

I don't even know, dude. But then again Aristotle himself couldn't be assed to look into a woman's mouth and just blindly believed the teeth thing, too. And I mean, those are demonstrable untruths. For the Mars/Venus sociological stuff, there's all kinds of dumb horseshit people believe are just factual differences between the sexes.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know if the man himself thinks that or that he's having his characters think like that to deliberately spoof what he calls 'fantasy that doesn't acknowledge that women exist below the neck'. I haven't read anything of his in a long time but I always figured 1) the thought of a fantasy world with more balanced gender roles hadn't occurred to him and 2) he was a fucking prankster. Either way, beats Goodkind by miles. That guy are sick.

[ariakas]

Yeah, that was the 80s/90s though. I remember reading Feist's books and hoping like hell he never had a daughter. There's a lot of shit with good female characters in it now. Try Kristen Britain or NK Jemisin. (Or I'd argue GRRM, because he never portrays the misogyny in his book as a good thing, or "this is just how you ladies are, sorry", etc., but people have understandable problems with it.)

[(Anonymous)]

Additional recs: Lois McMaster Bujold (*love* her Chalion series, esp. Paladin of Souls) or Catherine Valente.

[(Anonymous)]

Kristen Britain, yes. Just yes.

(I've been on an Anne McCaffrey kick lately, and while that woman's writing and worlds will always be an influence on me, there's still the 'older and dearly beloved relative you've given up hoping they'll ever know any better' element with her.)

[(Anonymous)]

I've had the first volume of Goodkind's books for years and kept meaning to read it but never found the time. The more I know about it, the less I want to read it.

Any reviews? Especially on the misogyny part.

[(Anonymous)]

Do not read it. Seriously, it is so bad. Not even just on the misogyny part, but in every way.

This is a pretty good repository of quotes that points out certain elements of the series that are not so good: http://sandstormreviews.blogspot.com/2006/08/goodkind-parodies.html

There's spoilers, but, I mean, seriously. Don't miss the evil chicken and the peace protestors.

[ariakas]

How to do you feel about rape, constant rape? Whole cities of rape? Demon rape? Lesbian rape? Prison rape?

How do you feel about Objectivism?

If your answer isn't FUCK YEAH I LOVE THOSE THINGS!!!!.... DO NOT READ HIS BOOKS.

[elaminator]

The only series here I wanted to read was The Sword of Truth (after watching Legend of the Seeker), but once I got online and started seeing people in the fandom talk about how many 'issues' the books had, I decided against it.

Good decision, apparently.

[(Anonymous)]

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who dares to admit that she likes Eddings and her female characters. No, I didn't like the constant bathing and motherhood for all either. On the other hand, come one, Polgara was badass. Ce'Nedra getting her very special armor for sensible reasons and then stealing the Tolnedra army was awesome. Velvet keeping a snake in her bodice and being an awesome spy was awesome. Taiba was strong and and awesome despite all she'd gone through. Mirtai was so awesome I still kind of want to be an Atan woman. Ehlana and Melidere were shrewd, intelligent and awesome. Etc.

It's like half the internet is saying that it's sexist to only like warrior type of female character. That not all women have to be physically badass to be strong and interesting. Then, when there are other types (mothers, spies, princessess and so on), you can't like them either because they're ~so stereotypically feminine~.

For a change

[(Anonymous)]

If you want a decent rec for a fantasy series with a decent female lead and proper storylines which don't continually demand she be a damsel in distress, try Louise Cooper's "Indigo" series. A heroine who actually experiences growth throughout the series to go from bratty-princess to female Obi-Wan.

It is heartbreaking it isn't as well known as the examples up there. Trouble is the series came out just after the 80s fantasy boom died and before the post-potter fantasy boomed started so it gets all ignored.

[(Anonymous)]

The only series I've read that's mentioned in this secret is the Wheel of Time. I absolutely recognize its flaws; Jordan had very strange notions about the differences between men and women, and apparently his wife shared them, given that she was his editor.

However, by the end of the series, the main female characters had blossomed into amazing people. In particular, I would like to put forth the example of Egwene, who became my favorite character and who kicked all kinds of motherfucking ass in the last three books (grant you, those were written by a different author. However, they were crafted after the notes and outlines that Jordan left behind). She knew that she was being manipulated, so she manipulated her manipulators right the fuck back, and transformed herself from a puppet to an actual authority through strength and cunning and sheer force of will. She stood firm for what she believed in; she spat in the eye of those who would hold her down and bested them. She saved the White Tower, and had she turned the tide of battle on the Fields of Merrilor. She alone elevates WoT, as far as I am concerned.

As for the other series...the one book of Eddings that I read did not catch my interest to where I felt like reading any of his other words, and while I've not read Goodkind, what I've heard about his works makes me want to keep far away. So, uh...yeah.

[isa_lyxces]

I would say try reading Brandon Sanderson, Mercedes Lackey, and Patricia Briggs, if you really like female characters. All three of them are very well thought of fantasy writers. Brandon Sanderson in particular has the traditional 'high fantasy' feel with a twist.

On the other hand, I do really like David Eddings. Admittedly, he's been writing the same characters over and over again with different backgrounds, but the banter in his books is just awesome.

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[(Anonymous)]

What's it say? :/

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know about the others, but if it makes you feel any better, I love reading Terry Goodkind, but there's PLENTY wrong with his books. He's kind of a self-important, overrated jack-off from what I understand by reading his books and reading what he has to say about them.

But he had me at evil chicken.

[velvet_mace]

David Eddings books were written in the mid 80's. They fit the attitudes about female characters for the time.

[(Anonymous)]

The fuck are those? I've never heard of any of those books.

Go read Terry Pratchett's stuff if you want good fantasy.

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

As a fan of Eddings' work, I mostly accept that it was written by a man, from the POV of male characters.

Of course there's a good few other faults to Eddings' writing besides that. It still has a great deal of sentimental value to me, because The Diamond Throne was like, the 4th serious novel I ever read (two of the books before it were a duology, and the first one was the same author as the duology), and was a big influence in my becoming an obsessive reader.

That obsessive reading is what got me into online fandom (fanfic, I loves it).