Help me out here, internets
Oct. 21st, 2012 12:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettSo I have finally got around to reading the Song of the Lioness quartet by Tamora Pierce - and, um, I am kind of horrified?
Like, I kept seeing it recced places because the protagonist is a woman who fights damn well, and who wants sex and who has it and who isn't shamed for it, and as far as it goes that's true, BUT.
... pretty much the entirety of the first book is a trans* narrative, and it barely touches at all on the dysphoria that induces (there are many things wrong with Self-Made Man but it does give some insight).
... the relationships between Alanna and George and Jonathan are REALLY SKEEVY AND COERCIVE AND PRESSURE-Y.
... I am part-way through the third book, and I am not off the top of my head recalling any convincing Bechdel passes. Maybe there have been some in the third book. Maybe.
...
... and that is before we get onto the racism. I mean, wow, these books are racist. Holy (literally) Magical Negro [TVtropes], my word. There is an entire race (yep!) who live as tribes (yep!) in the desert (yep!) and have no written history until whitey asks for it whereupon they deliver (yep!) and are described in character voice with the phrase "Your people seem to be wise and old" (!!!) and by the narrative as ~proud~ and as being ~walnut-brown~ and they have clearly Arabic-coded names (UNLIKE WHITEY WHO HAS ~FANTASY NAME~) and are explicitly identified as being distinctly in awe of at least one god who is explicitly described as having SPARKLING WHITE SKIN. In the book I am currently part-way through, colonial whitey prince is about to become the Voice of the Tribes - a kind of spiritual leader - having had approximately no contact with them... apart from when he & whitey protagonist ~fulfilled a prophecy~ in book 1 and delivered the Bazhir from an ~evil curse upon their lands~.
...
So now you know, and I hope never again to see an uncritical review of those books, because WOW I was not expecting any of that going in. Like, I'd be kind of fascinated to know what explanation people have for the uncritical recs apart from "BUT IT'S NOT RACIIIIIIIIIIST", but I sort of suspect there isn't one.
Like, I kept seeing it recced places because the protagonist is a woman who fights damn well, and who wants sex and who has it and who isn't shamed for it, and as far as it goes that's true, BUT.
... pretty much the entirety of the first book is a trans* narrative, and it barely touches at all on the dysphoria that induces (there are many things wrong with Self-Made Man but it does give some insight).
... the relationships between Alanna and George and Jonathan are REALLY SKEEVY AND COERCIVE AND PRESSURE-Y.
... I am part-way through the third book, and I am not off the top of my head recalling any convincing Bechdel passes. Maybe there have been some in the third book. Maybe.
...
... and that is before we get onto the racism. I mean, wow, these books are racist. Holy (literally) Magical Negro [TVtropes], my word. There is an entire race (yep!) who live as tribes (yep!) in the desert (yep!) and have no written history until whitey asks for it whereupon they deliver (yep!) and are described in character voice with the phrase "Your people seem to be wise and old" (!!!) and by the narrative as ~proud~ and as being ~walnut-brown~ and they have clearly Arabic-coded names (UNLIKE WHITEY WHO HAS ~FANTASY NAME~) and are explicitly identified as being distinctly in awe of at least one god who is explicitly described as having SPARKLING WHITE SKIN. In the book I am currently part-way through, colonial whitey prince is about to become the Voice of the Tribes - a kind of spiritual leader - having had approximately no contact with them... apart from when he & whitey protagonist ~fulfilled a prophecy~ in book 1 and delivered the Bazhir from an ~evil curse upon their lands~.
...
So now you know, and I hope never again to see an uncritical review of those books, because WOW I was not expecting any of that going in. Like, I'd be kind of fascinated to know what explanation people have for the uncritical recs apart from "BUT IT'S NOT RACIIIIIIIIIIST", but I sort of suspect there isn't one.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-21 01:09 am (UTC)I quite like the Wild Magic quartet but The Emperor Mage takes it to Not Egypt and while she does do reasonably good things with the university and centre of learning bit, it's still something I wince at. Also another relationship with a big age difference, hurrah.
The Protector of the Small quartet does much more interesting things about the process of rebuilding a kingdom, the various alliances that have to be built and maintained and the main character is a girl training to be a knight as a girl, so experiences much more sexism. However, it's also the quartet where Pierce Discovers Japan and...yeah. Not good.
I tend to read Alanna as a straightforward, pragmatic character not really given to introspection. She wants to be a knight and the only way to do that is to be a boy, so she'll live as a boy then. She's not doing it as a meditation on gender - it's because she wants something and it's the only way she can get it.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-21 01:16 am (UTC)