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I really need to get back to reading the White-Luck Warrior... I actually really liked Judging Eye unlike a lot of people apparently? But when my usual bookstore finally got the next one in and I got it... it was the day my brand-new Kindle arrived, so... I never got much further than the bus trip home got me.
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Oct 17, 2011 19:09
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Geez, really? It didn't used to be like that. It used to be a decent forum. I'm sad now. 
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Nov 7, 2011 03:09
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Mr.48 posted:As far as I remember there was a problem with infertility for several decades after the final battle, so it definitely wasnt something the no-god was actively doing, more like it brought something into the world that persisted after the no-god itself was gone. Clearly, the no-god is a radioactive helicopter AI.
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Nov 9, 2011 07:39
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TouretteDog posted:That said, Bakker isn't doing himself any favors as he insists that none of his writing should (or even can) be read as mysogynist just because he didn't mean it to and thought really hard about it, all while blowing off specific textual references people give him with what boils down to "you just didn't get it" or occasionally "the next book will make everything clear". I dunno, it seems more to me that he's saying not that the misogynistic reading isn't there, but rather that it is, and there are textual reasons for it being so. I don't think the text itself makes this perfectly obvious, and he seems to acknowledge that too, flipping through these comments. I mean I can appreciate being frustrated at just how common the jump from 'the text is misogynistic' to 'the author is misogynistic' but the troll-feeding doesn't help either.
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Feb 8, 2012 00:40
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TouretteDog posted:Maybe I'm remembering selectively, but even when he acknowledges a "misogynistic misreading" he seems to imply that people aren't reading it closely enough, or are reading it with an axe to grind, or shouldn't pass judgement on any of the books until the series is finished. He's really resistant (understandably so, I suppose, given the places people have gone with it) to the idea that people can honestly, intelligently, and in good faith read chunks of PoN as being misogynist without having it turn into an in-group versus out-group issue. Honestly having just read over one of the most recent flame-outs in its entirety (well, I skimmed a lot), I kind of have to say... no, not really. I saw people insisting that very thing over and over through those comments, but it didn't really seem to hold up when looking at his responses. I can't speak for earlier debates on the subject but he seemed really very clear in acknowledging that the misogynist reading is very much a valid one, and that he really hasn't done a bang-up job of making it clear that there are reasons that a reader is intended to be thinking about for it to be this way. What seems to get his hackles up is when it's put forth that it's the only possible reading of his work. Then he has to have a bad habit of tangenting off to muse about why people do that. And that's pretty much a terrible way to go about it because the internet just does not react well to such things. But the claims that he denies all validity to the misogynist reading seem largely fabricated.
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Feb 8, 2012 05:15
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TouretteDog posted:Did he ever say what those reasons were? I like the series and I'd like to read them as charitably as possible, but I don't remember him providing an alternate reading, only saying that one was there (and sort of implying if we didn't see it we weren't looking hard enough). He didn't say what they were in the overall sense, no, and I'd be surprised if he did say so outright right now. He didn't really seem to be saying that it was possible to get the full picture of why as yet, either, but that it's quite central to what is yet to come. 'It's something you should be thinking about' right now, rather than 'it's something you should be able to figure out', more or less, I think. Either way it's not very helpful a position to be in during these kinds of discussions/debates/flame-outs since now the state of it pretty much is 'there's good reasons but I can't tell you what they are yet'. I think he kind of went into it trusting that people would expect there to be reasons for it that would come out eventually (and frankly outright calling women spiritually inferior in the text is the sort of thing that screams to me that there is more coming on the subject) and not to have so many people going for the the-writer-must-be-a-misogynist throat. I mean obviously part of it is related to how the story is a direct takeoff of Tolkien, who in vast part didn't even acknolwedge women at all but that's not terribly helpful to this kind of discussion either.
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Feb 8, 2012 19:02
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Maytag posted:As for the "you should be thinking about it right now" thing, I don't think he owes an explanation to anyone. Yeah I don't think he does either, especially if it's something that's there to be thought about and is as central to the world setup as he says. Honestly much as it is a truly terribly idea to mix it up with people who have no interest besides pushing the misogyny angle on him, I can't reallllly blame him for it if only because I'm the sort of person who would do the same loving thing. He really ought to chill though. Talking about other people's arguments is weird. neongrey fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Feb 9, 2012 |
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Feb 9, 2012 02:22
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Yeah, I'll give him that much, he just does not write women all that well (I know other people I recommended the series too, while they weren't bothered by textual misogyny, just could not stand how the women in it were written). I think if he were better at it, a lot of the so-called misogyny in the text would be seriously mitigated, because it seriously does not help.
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Feb 9, 2012 17:55
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Darth Walrus posted:a white man calling a Thai woman a 'rabid animal'. The thing is, I'm not doubting the veracity, but the only context in which I'm hearing that this person is a Thai woman is either a) Bakker is calling her 'the dude' and b) this 'rabid animal' business. A person's nationality is not often something that comes up in something like, say, a scathing book review (and I admit, I haven't done more than glance at her site), and their gender is often not going to be a part of it either. Did either of these guys actually know they were calling a Thai woman a dude or a rabid animal before they did either?
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Feb 21, 2012 08:13
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Darth Walrus posted:No, but as mentioned above, Watts's response when called out implied he didn't quite get it, whilst Bakker insisted on calling her 'the Dude' after his calling-out for reasons that make sense only to him (and have some rather disquieting context, given his 'women are sweet and nice and wonderful compared to us horrible men' posts). Yeah, I'm not calling either of them in the right at present as far as that goes, but the tenor of a lot of the initial calling-out seems to have been suggesting they should have based what they said on things they just would not know.
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Feb 21, 2012 13:42
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No, see, calling a woman a dude. That's terrible. The rabid animal thing, whatever, I can at least see people getting their backs up about it. I think any sane person there's no racial aspect to it but how the situation was handled was dumb. The 'dude' thing? Dude is not exactly an insult, and I know I use the word generically enough that the fact that the word is gendered would need to be pointed out to me, too. It's stupid. It's all just loving stupid.
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Feb 21, 2012 20:03
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For god's sake. This again? Nobody's even talking about misogyny in the books anymore, you are literally arguing about an argument other people had on the internet. No matter who is right, everyone loses. How about those jizz-aliens, guys?
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May 29, 2012 07:38
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tatankatonk posted:But...this is the forum for talking about...books? I just feel like at this point the argument has very little to do with the books at all anymore, and is just a slapfight about a slapfight. The first time the argument came up it was barely about the books, and now I just don't see that it's about anything other than the argument anymore. Misogyny or not in the books is one thing, but the minute the Bakker/ACM flamewars get brought up, any chance of any meaningful discussion just feels like it's out the window.
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May 29, 2012 07:52
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And yet, that's probably the only appropriate artist... drat, I really need to finish reading white-luck warrior.
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Oct 15, 2012 23:54
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Brodie posted:Ok just finally finished "darkness that comes before" I definitely had to force myself through to the end. I usually can't wait to start the next book in a series but I don't think I'm gonna bother with this one. I'm going to at least take a break and read something else in between. I still barely understand anyone's motivation or even really why any of what's going on even matters. I don't really like the characters except maybe Achamian and I only kinda like him based off how awful everyone else in the book is. But even still he never even really did anything interesting to make me wanna read more about him. And it just seems like the women in this story are just there to be raped and lack any kind of personality. And I'm not one to get upset at stuff like that at all, it just seemed gratuitous. Well, it's definitely the weakest book but if you have no interest at all there's no real reason to continue. And the story's handling of women... yeah, it's poo poo. It's poo poo beyond presenting their struggles within a misogynistic world. He says it's leading to a specific, non-misogynistic message but it's been five loving books of rape and the threat of rape looming over every female character's head. And frankly, while I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for a long time, and while I don't believe depiction, even really constant depiction, constitutes endorsement-- I think he's pretty cognizant of how lovely what he's depicting is-- he seems to buy into some really wacky evopsych and biotruths poo poo and claims to be writing this stuff with males with misogynistic tendencies in mind. So I feel like if that aspect is going anywhere it's going to a really lousy GOTCHA EVOLUTION HAS PROGRAMMED YOU TO BE A RAPIST DON'T YOU FEEL LIKE A JERK NOW place. Like if the story interests you, it's interesting-- but if you don't want to continue and you're being significantly bothered by the depictions of women now, don't walk, run. Run far far away. And never read his blog. Regardless of if you continue or not.
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Jun 20, 2014 10:10
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Yeah, like... ugh, this is one of those series I enjoy but just don't in any way feel compelled to defend. The interestingness, and density of the text improve as you go, I think, but boy howdy the skeeze does not. And I am like confident enough to lay down money on the supposition that the claimed payoff for all of that skeeze is going to be some serious  poo poo.
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Jun 20, 2014 19:35
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