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Yeah. I'm not completely ruling out the possibility of going back eventually, because who knows. I just know that if we keep going straight through without stopping the quality of the discussion would suffer a lot, especially due to the repetition that you mentioned. Would you believe it if I said there were another 20 minutes of that argument throughout the last episode that I cut out?
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Mar 3, 2016 20:56
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 Reminder that the English translation of the first novel, Dawn, is going to be released March 8th. http://www.viz.com/books/print/legend-of-the-galactic-heroes-volume-1/12161 Looks like both Amazon and B&N have it for $10.66 if you pre-order, instead of $15.99.
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Mar 6, 2016 06:15
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For what it's worth, I could barely tolerate the most recent episode of the podcast even though I liked the previous ones, partially because I really like the slice of life episodes like 13-14 where you're just following a low-level Imperial officer following some heart-wrenching orders and then the well-meaning low-level Alliance soldiers dealing with the horrible repercussions, but you guys couldn't stand those episodes. Taste varies, and LOGH might just not be for you. I do hope that even if you guys give up the show, for AP to keep watching it and eventually post point by point how his predictions turned out and his thoughts about them. I think he's enjoying and getting into the show much more than the other two of you. On a semi-related note I'm actually very concerned as well as excited about the new LOGH TV show. Legend of Galactic Heroes is so very...different...from everything else. A bit of me's concerned that the past quarter-century's changes in tastes will dramatically alter LOGH and will do so for the worse and not the better. Part of me worries that the amazing soundtrack will be almost completely replaced by anime background music, for example.
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Mar 7, 2016 03:39
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On another note, drat this review of the book is brutal:quote:Publishers Weekly I know we discuss LOGH's sausage-fest status every few pages, but I seriously don't mind it. It's a military story featuring a deeply reactionary and hierarchical society on one side and an almost hilariously macho and chauvinist force on the other, and I felt the story did a reasonably good job of showing that the consequences of characters' attitudes towards women can and does bite them in the rear end repeatedly. Basically, I don't think LOGH is misogynist, I think it is a story that depicts a misogynistic and paternalistic culture.
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Mar 7, 2016 03:45
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That means it is misogynist.
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Mar 7, 2016 22:28
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Most 35yr old s/f has aged badly in that regard. Didn't the anime actually add some female characters?
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Mar 7, 2016 22:36
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mikeycp posted:Hello logh thread. By all means, if you wish, continue. SHISHKABOB posted:That means it is misogynist.
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Mar 8, 2016 15:53
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If you do a thing then you are that thing.
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Mar 8, 2016 17:16
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SHISHKABOB posted:If you do a thing then you are that thing. Okay, son.
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Mar 8, 2016 17:22
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THIS BOOK DOESN'T EVEN HAVE CHICKS
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Mar 8, 2016 17:24
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SHISHKABOB posted:If you do a thing then you are that thing. Showing people doing a thing =\= doing a thing
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Mar 8, 2016 17:31
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Eh, it's misogynistic, but it's also something written in 80s Japan with a militaristic thematic, and it doesn't actively push negative stereotypes, so I'm willing to give it a pass for its lackluster depiction of women. I don't think it warrants an asterisk when recommending it, but I understand why people would be bothered by it.
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Mar 8, 2016 17:37
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Bad Seafood posted:This thread is one of the oldest threads still active on SA. In fact I think it might actually be the oldest. Almost everyone who posts regularly here has already seen the show through to the end, possibly more than once, and discussed it several times over. The thread's over a decade old, and the show's even older. Your podcast built specifically around discussing LOGH is not derailing the thread, nor consuming it, nor making it your own, nor infringing upon other competing discussions; rather, it is generating discussion and bolstering participation in an otherwise somewhat sleepy (these days) thread. Ok. Once we can actually record again and start down the home stretch I'll definitely post the last few episodes in there, then.
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Mar 8, 2016 18:08
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I'm reading the book.
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Mar 8, 2016 18:21
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It's set in a universe where a reactionary bigoted monster seized control of galactic society 400 years ago, reintroduced aristocratic rule, murdered/sterilized those he considered unfit to live, imposed mass agricultural life of serfdom on the overwhelming share of the galactic population, and set his country on a reactionary track it's only starting to drift away from at the time the series starts (see Oberstein's bitterness at the Imperial attitude towards the disabled and awareness that he was only a few generations removed from being euthanized at birth for his defective eyesight). It'd be jarring and shocking if the role of women in the Empire in such a universe wasn't restricted to ambitious noblewomen either playing the court game like Annerose and her friends or one-off ambitious geniuses like Hildegard who want to play the boys' game by their rules. The Alliance is obviously a different story, but the Alliance has a constant narrative theme of the contrast between ideals and reality. The Alliance is allegedly democratic and yet is ruled by a corrupt oligarchy using paramilitaries to enforce its rule. The Alliance is allegedly egalitarian and yet the ruling cohort has absolutely no concern with common folk. The Alliance is, at the start of the series, run by hawkish warmongers who want to keep the war going in order to artificially increase their own popularity even if it means bankrupting the country and sending millions to die pointlessly. Is adding "is nominally supporting gender equality and yet is crudely misogynistic" really that far out of line? And I do stand firm with my thoughts that the show's message condemns the attitudes of Poplan and Schoenkopf towards women, especially in Schoenkopf's case. Long story short, I don't feel that an author needs to be misogynistic to portray a military setting with few women and those that are there subjected to harassment and discrimination...just pessimistic.
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Mar 8, 2016 21:22
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How does the show condemn Poplan or Schenkop at all? Ruenthal, I'll give you, maybe. In any case, your arguement would be more convincing if we saw any demographic differences in the military forces of the post-Reinhard Empire or the Yang Fleet. Like, I love the series, but I'm not going to pretend it's not a product of its times with all the flaws that it will entail.
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Mar 8, 2016 21:35
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Superstring posted:How does the show condemn Poplan or Schenkop at all? Ruenthal, I'll give you, maybe. In any case, your arguement would be more convincing if we saw any demographic differences in the military forces of the post-Reinhard Empire or the Yang Fleet. Schenkop's daughter hating his guts for a long time doesn't count as condemnation?
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Mar 8, 2016 22:17
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TheKingofSprings posted:Schenkop's daughter hating his guts for a long time doesn't count as condemnation? This. Schoenkopf has a (season 3 spoiler) long-lost illegitimate daughter whom he never recognized who absolutely despises him. Most of Schoenkopf's arc in the last two seasons deals with his slow realization that loving women across the entire galaxy has consequences and trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to mend his relationship with his own flesh and blood. Also, Katerose's very persistence in the fighter corps under the hilariously chauvinistic Poplan and her advancement under those circumstances is by itself a story you wouldn't get if Poplan were less of a douchebag.
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Mar 8, 2016 23:06
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TheKingofSprings posted:Schenkop's daughter hating his guts for a long time doesn't count as condemnation? Not really, considering he doesn't really care overmuch and she pretty much comes around on him in the end.
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Mar 8, 2016 23:06
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All of what I've said isn't to downplay that LOGH is occasionally pretty bad with gender stuff...but if you look at the characters most out of whack, whether Oskar von Reuenthal's outspoken and extreme misogyny (and his sex slave) or Schoenkopf's blatant womanizing, or whatever the gently caress Freudian stuff Rubinsky and his son are up to in Season 2, they're not especially happy or well-adjusted characters. Contrast to Cazellnu or Mittermeyer, who are in healthy, loving relationships and are stable and well-adjusted characters, or how Julian, who is pretty clearly supposed to be the moral compass of the show, explicitly rejects behaving like Poplan towards women.
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Mar 8, 2016 23:14
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SHISHKABOB posted:If you do a thing then you are that thing. If I wrote a book about a fictitious society in which drug use was legal, accepted, and common, that would not necessitate me being a drug user, nor would it require me to approve of drugs, nor would it require my writing to implicitly approve of them by virtue of their mere inclusion within the setting. Claiming the world of LOGH is sexist is different than claiming LOGH itself is a sexist work.
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Mar 9, 2016 00:13
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TheKingofSprings posted:Showing people doing a thing =\= doing a thing Look it's like how tolkien is a highly classist and racist story. I'm not calling tolkien a loving nazi, bu that's just what happens in the story. I think you guys are taking this too hard. I'm not condeming LOGH, the show is good. I'm just saying face the facts.
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Mar 9, 2016 00:24
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What's got people isn't whether or not you think the work is sexist or racist or whatever, but that your argument appears to boil down to "If a work depicts problematic elements then it is implicitly in favor of/empowering/forwarding those elements," which often doesn't pan out, nor does it really tell the whole story. Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn concerns a Southern U.S. slave-holding society in which racism is deeply entrenched and ever-present in the novel, yet one of the major themes in the book is the idea that black slaves are people too, that they're human beings with worth and dignity who should not remain shackled and deserve better treatment than what they've been afforded.
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Mar 9, 2016 01:03
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Bad Seafood posted:What's got people isn't whether or not you think the work is sexist or racist or whatever, but that your argument appears to boil down to "If a work depicts problematic elements then it is implicitly in favor of/empowering/forwarding those elements," which often doesn't pan out, nor does it really tell the whole story. Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn concerns a Southern U.S. slave-holding society in which racism is deeply entrenched and ever-present in the novel, yet one of the major themes in the book is the idea that black slaves are people too, that they're human beings with worth and dignity who should not remain shackled and deserve better treatment than what they've been afforded. Also, that attitude implies that it is impossible to write a story that critiques racism or sexism. It's good to have stories that depict how society should be, but it's equally necessary to depict how society is and why that needs to change. I cannot show you why sexism is a bad thing if I cannot show you sexism. Unrelated: apparently my copy arrived so I'll read it when I get home.
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Mar 9, 2016 01:21
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Bad Seafood posted:What's got people isn't whether or not you think the work is sexist or racist or whatever, but that your argument appears to boil down to "If a work depicts problematic elements then it is implicitly in favor of/empowering/forwarding those elements," which often doesn't pan out, nor does it really tell the whole story. Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn concerns a Southern U.S. slave-holding society in which racism is deeply entrenched and ever-present in the novel, yet one of the major themes in the book is the idea that black slaves are people too, that they're human beings with worth and dignity who should not remain shackled and deserve better treatment than what they've been afforded. You're making the "in favor" thing appear out of nowhere. A person immersed within an ideology will produce ideas that align with that ideology, therefore the ideas are a part of that ideology. Like you're just totally missing the point and instead are squirming all over the place about "oh but my FEELINGS please don't HURT MY FEELINGS by pointing out that hurtful and problematic things exist within the work that I adore". Being an ally of oppressed and marginalized groups of society means giving up caring about your petty feelings or saying "but wait, let's not go so far as to say that my favorite author was passively misogynistic". It's ok man, everyone is a part of society, we are all engulfed in pretty much the same ideology. You aren't condemned to hell for that fact. It's when you try and defend bullshit ideas like by saying stuff like "LOGH isnt actually advocating sexism, it's just uh portraying it in a highly realistic way that conforms to the patriarchal mainstream power structure's idea of what should be". VostokProgram posted:Also, that attitude implies that it is impossible to write a story that critiques racism or sexism. It's good to have stories that depict how society should be, but it's equally necessary to depict how society is and why that needs to change. I cannot show you why sexism is a bad thing if I cannot show you sexism. ugh that's totally missing the point too Like I mean jeez, there's stories all the time where they criticize violence and war and murder and the whole goddamn story is about murder. Do you see maybe what I'm saying now? The movies that are against war are about war. They are war movies. They have to be war movies in order to be against war. I think for some reason if something gets called misogynistic people instead read "this thing is EVIL and must be BURNED AT THE STAKE". SHISHKABOB fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Mar 9, 2016 |
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Mar 9, 2016 22:27
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Well, it's unclear whether by giving a negative review to a problematic thing the reviewer is actually saying that its problems make it unworthy, which would make it genuinely in need (though not for that reason deserving) of defense against ideology. This and many other exciting confusions arise when we conflate the interpretation of art with the passing of moral and aesthetic verdicts upon it.
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Mar 9, 2016 23:16
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Atleast LoGH ends with a female character as arguably the single most powerful political figure in the galaxy. A female character that caused one of the biggest and most important plot twists by going against the wishes of her male peers. Just thinking about this makes me hate women.
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Mar 9, 2016 23:29
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Bongo Bill posted:Well, it's unclear whether by giving a negative review to a problematic thing the reviewer is actually saying that its problems make it unworthy, which would make it genuinely in need (though not for that reason deserving) of defense against ideology. This and many other exciting confusions arise when we conflate the interpretation of art with the passing of moral and aesthetic verdicts upon it. Yeah see for some reason stating that what happens in logh is misogynist gives people the idea that logh is bad and evil Infected posted:Atleast LoGH ends with a female character as arguably the single most powerful political figure in the galaxy. A female character that caused one of the biggest and most important plot twists by going against the wishes of her male peers. Just thinking about this makes me hate women. Like this guy. Wtf.
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Mar 10, 2016 00:13
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Is it surprising that one-line "it is this" responses get defensive answers, because it shouldn't be.
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Mar 10, 2016 00:21
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Yeah nerds are terrible at accepting criticism of what they like, unless you pander really hard. Even if it's rather benign.
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Mar 10, 2016 00:27
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The book was a rather light experience considering the body count. It treated is story distantly and impersonally, as befits a work of false history, and it seemed to spend as much time digressing suddenly into its fictional past (oftentimes in the middle of a scene) as into the private thoughts of its characters. It isn't quite a matter of depicting only that which could maintain the premise of being empirically documented, and I'm not sure if that stylistic compromise makes the whole work less interesting (by backing away from the historical aesthetic) or more (by bringing the reader closer to the characters' motivations). Having seen the adaptation first may have tainted my impressions. The animation has far better means to distinguish the enormous supporting cast, but the fact that I had a ready-made image of all of them definitely made such a difference that I can't guess at what it would be like for someone without that exposure. I'm not equipped to comment on the quality of the translation save that the prose was clear and plain throughout, and this plainness worked to its advantage. The few idiomatically Japanese rhetorical constructs that remained may only have stood out to me because I already knew to recognize them, and they certainly didn't detract. If you get it as an ebook, be aware that the default starting location is set after the lengthy expository prologue.
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Mar 10, 2016 01:34
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Bongo Bill posted:Well, it's unclear whether by giving a negative review to a problematic thing the reviewer is actually saying that its problems make it unworthy, which would make it genuinely in need (though not for that reason deserving) of defense against ideology. This and many other exciting confusions arise when we conflate the interpretation of art with the passing of moral and aesthetic verdicts upon it. The societies depicted in LOGH are indeed deeply sexist, but I feel as though calling it specifically a sexist narrative rather openly implies that the narrative acts in affirmation of the societies being presented, which - and this is where conflicting interpretations come to bear - doesn't gel with my own reading of the story. Which may be (and clearly is, in this case) different from someone else's reading of the story. This conversation has less to do with the fear of slanderous labels and more to do with a disagreement over defining terms. Even accepting (which I do, actually) that LOGH is a product of its own age and culture, and thus influenced by it in a number of subtle ways (as are all artistic works), I still feel like it comes out ahead on this front. I'd still like it even if it didn't though, and will continue to like it even if my interpretation is eventually disproven. That said, I don't really feel like sexual politics were a significant focus for the writers where LOGH is concerned. I don't think they were necessarily trying to say anything profound or meaningful on the subject, just that I feel the narrative tips (if ever so slighly) in favor of one side over the other. That said, SHISHKABOB posted:It's when you try and defend bullshit ideas like by saying stuff like "LOGH isnt actually advocating sexism, it's just uh portraying it in a highly realistic way that conforms to the patriarchal mainstream power structure's idea of what should be". Bad Seafood fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Mar 10, 2016 |
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Mar 10, 2016 01:48
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Yes I'm not in contention with most of those points. But I do not find that the female characters in logh serve to subvert patriarchal ideas either diegetically or from an allegorical perspective. None of the main female characters do anything but what you'd expect from a male-perspective story. Even in the Iserlohn democratic state, they do not stray far from the culture of the FPA. Nor does Reinhards new empire strive for significant changes in the way women are treated. Greenleaf and Hilden...dorf? (Whatever their names are) are both extremely intelligent women who could achieve power in their own right. But in the world of logh this is not so for women. Logh is a great fun show and I loved it as I watched it. But it is rather shallow in many regards.
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Mar 10, 2016 07:15
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SHISHKABOB posted:That means it is misogynist. SHISHKABOB posted:
I would find it very misleading if somebody referred to Threads as a "jingoist" movie. Likewise, To Kill a Mockingbird as "racist". I agree with your point though.
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Mar 10, 2016 07:58
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SHISHKABOB posted:You're making the "in favor" thing appear out of nowhere. I think the problem is of interpretation of what exactly you mean by misogynistic. If one refers to a person as misogynistic, then one is generally implying that they behave in a manner which suggests they hold (and behave in a manner which implies they advocate) misogynist beliefs, but it sounds to me as though in this context when you refer to a work of fiction as being misogynistic, you literally just mean "it contains misogyny in some form", which as you said is almost inevitable in a work produced in a culture where such beliefs are both explicitly and implicitly commonplace. But the point that Slim Jim makes is I think the most cogent: if you treat some other descriptors in the same way, then you're going to seriously mislead anyone to whom you are speaking; I'd argue that unless you would in all seriousness call "Schindler's List" an anti-Semitic movie, then your use of "misogynistic" in this manner is inconsistent.
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Mar 10, 2016 08:32
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However I say it, logh treats women like crap relative to men. It's sexist. And unlike schindlers list, for example, it does not make its sexism into a major issue at any given time (unless I'm remembering wrong). I'm pretty sure it never goes "hey the way these future space people treat women is like identical to the way our culture does". Logh is great for a lot of reasons. But it fails terribly at being progressive.
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Mar 10, 2016 09:09
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If you recall, LoGH's thesis is "history shows us that people do the same poo poo at all times and places, enlightenment ideals of Progress are at best a delusion subject to historical contingency". It's kind of a frequently repeated idea throughout the show.
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Mar 10, 2016 13:33
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LoGH goes at length to depict the problems of dictatorships and democracies both and its primary way of criticism is showing rather than telling. Thing is, it does a fair bit of telling too! The characters talk about it, the in-setting documentaries talk about it, even the narrator talks about it. I could be wrong but I don't recall a single point in the whole of LoGH where it does the same thing for sexism that it does to politics, war, etc. Is LoGH regressive? Absolutely not. But it is not progressive either, and I don't think it is wrong to give it a pass if you're tired of fiction where it is all men doing man things.
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Mar 10, 2016 15:32
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I saw a headline the other day saying that Syria used to be a much more progressive place, hundreds of years ago. It's kind of an odd assumption to conclude society and history are moving toward some ultimate progressive end point (not that I disagree with those philosophies as a whole). Similarly, America is seeing the rise of authoritarian leaders on the right. Things don't always get better!
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Mar 10, 2016 15:34
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^^^uh duh? I don't see the relevance Yeah see I'm not "giving it a pass".
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Mar 10, 2016 15:34
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