![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Help me out here, internets
So 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
George... Yeah, I can see the stalkerish tendencies, but IDK, it's never felt blatant enough, or at all intending harm, that it ever pinged anything for me? And I know people have problems with the age difference, but that has, literally, never been a problem for me. Anyway, I've never gotten the impression that it was more than 12 years at the max, and Daine and Numair (The Immortals quartet)? Easily at least 16 years difference, PLUS teacher-student. I don't mind it, in fact it makes me squee more (yes I am weird, which you knew ♥), but I do know people twitch over it.
The Immortals is, hands down, my favourite quartet. I'm a sucker for all things Daine and Numair, and Kitten, and the Not Egypt (I am forgiving. Or possibly just someone that loves Ancient Egypt enough to cheerfully gloss; slight differences, eh? xD), and, well. Favourite. I AM BIASED AND ADMIT IT.
I detest Protector of the Small because Kel never felt rounded to me, while also, in some ways, being very Sue-ish, IDK. I've never managed to re-read Protector of the Small, because it just never sat right. *shrug*
I think, though, that you might enjoy the Beka Cooper books; they're much more recent than any other Tortall book, and are generally tightly written and Conscious Of Issues. I do have to say that the genderqueer drag performer (...am honestly not sure what gender they prefer although they answer readily enough to "female" onstage and "male but very effeminate" offstage) feels handled a little ishly but I'm not sure if that was me reading with too much expectation or what. (The sole plothole I noticed on my readthrough was that the dog was mentioned to be spayed in book 2, but was magically NOT spayed in book 3.)
(The book covers having some interesting anatomical issues are not plot holes, sadly. >_>)
ANYWAY lots of pointless TL;DR rambling, sorry!
I am sorry that SOTL is making you D:-face a lot! *offers hugs and ♥*