Jo Walton on Tor did/is doing several years of intense, highly interesting rereads of those Patrick Rothfuss novels I like a lot. There's a lot of very good commentary on the books, covering a wide range of plot points and continually examining every single thing in the novel to an almost absurd level of detail that I find very heartening.
After two years of taking apart almost every word, often to reveal a great deal of additional detail and hidden points inserted in most every line and demonstrating the great deal of careful work that was put in every decision, and how intentional all his choices were.. someone points out to Jo Walton that the small handful of regular characters in the framing story are all male.
Now, instead of taking this as another intentional choice to be examined with a fine-toothed comb like every single other part of the novel, it's taken as a reinforcing of stereotypes that is necessarily bad, and since it deals with a sensitive issue, it cannot be examined for what it is.
That pisses me off, both in the 'it's a stereotype, you should never write it' bit and the magical ability of an issue being sensitive to prevent logical examination of a subject. I enjoy stereotypical entertainment, and work a job that's sterotypical for people like me. I do it to avoid the immense amount of stress that breaking out of it would cause me, the nightmares at night, the diarherroa, the endless march of self-examination and worry that would fill my waking hours.
I am a person beyond what I do that's stereotypical, and I can do something stereotypical while remaining my own person. Being told that I can't, and should not, ever expect to see a minor character like myself, because such a character would be stereotypical, is every bit as insulting and bigoted as the opposite.
To be honest, Jo has a reasonable view of it, and although I disagree strongly with her opinion, she doesn't let it dominate her enjoyment of the work, or her ability to examine things other than the one issue. I don't begrudge her for that. What I do get angry at is how such a concern manages to bypass a serious examination of the actual situation. Upon such an examination, I can think of one good reason and several potential reasons for the frame characters being male. Does that matter? No. It must be bad because it's a sterotype, and stereotypes are baaaad.
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Topic: Things that made you RRRRRRAAAAGGGGEEEE today: Trust-o-nomics Edition (Read 3770190 times)