Anyone here seen the "Requires... Hate" Blog

[SerScot]

Here's the link:

requireshate.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/joe-abercrombies-the-last-argument-of-kings-and-the-rape-of-lesbians/

This blogger appears to be on a crusade against most Genre Literature on the basis that she believes it is homophobic, sexist, and racist.

Take a look.

[I'm Murrin]

I stopped reading it when it became clear just how strongly biased her position is and that she has no qualms about editing comments on her blog and replacing them with insults to the commenter if she disagrees with them.

[SerScot]

Murrin,

Yeah, I'm not going to comment there. The blogger makes some good points but is so vitriolic. Good lord.

[I'm Murrin]

At first I liked it as it seemed it was making some good points with ironic, if extreme, snark. But after a while you realise she's not really being all that ironic.

[stonemaybe]

Serscot wrote:

The blogger makes some good points but is so vitriolic. Good lord.

OK must check this out - if, as the link suggests, she is talking about Joe Abercrombie, I can't imagine anything to be vitriolic enough!

Edit - total respect to blogger, she seems to have read at least 4 Abercrombie books (*shudder*) before going off on her rant.

[Orlion]

Ok, I skimmed a passage and I have a question: is this just another one of those PC-wannabes that ignore the point of everything (aka, that the reader isn't suppose to sympathize with the gang rapists) and merely chooses popular authors to try and get their brand of feminazism out there?

edit: I haven't read any Joe Ambercrombie and Finch, so maybe you are suppose to sympathize with them, I don't bloody know...

[I'm Murrin]

Judging from the posts I've read I kept up with the blog for a month or so and read some archive stuff) she actually does believe what she says, she's not just trying to be controversial for attention (or should that be "she's not just trying to be controversial for attention"?). She also doesn't target just popular authors, she tends to read pulp and shared world stuff mostly, deliberately gonig for the stuff considered bad, but also likes to go after "grimdark" stuff (ie, the sorts of rape, violence, etc that appears in modern epic fantasy that's trying to be gritty and realistic).

[SerScot]

Murrin,

I also think she is sincere. What I find troubling is the way that she chooses to mock those who disagree with her rather than actually addressing their concerns. That has to be a magnet for trolls.

[Shaun das Schaf]

Yes SerScot, her manner is a shame. It seems a couple of posters tried to have respectful and reasonable conversations but were not rewarded with the same courtesy from her. I say it's a shame, because I actually think the area up for discussion is interesting and worthy of some balanced critical discourse.

[SerScot]

SdS,

Perhaps the blogger takes the view that getting the discussion started is what matters and being vitriolic gets people to talk about the concerns she raises.

[Shaun das Schaf]

Yeah I dunno, maybe? Certainly creates a big enough flame for the smoke to be seen from vast distances.

I'm just worried that kind of, pardon-the-pun, inflammatory style, automatically alienates people who might otherwise give some thought to the issues she's obviously passionate about. I'm guessing readers, at least new ones, are more likely to solidify existing (and opposite) positions or adopt counter positions simply because she's so angrily attached to hers. (Even though I can understand where that anger might be coming from.)

[I'm Murrin]

Her tendency to immediately vilify anyone who disagrees simply because they disagree (regardless of the extent or their reasoning) kind of runs counter to any intention of provoking discussion. She's not really interested in discussion, just promoting her entrenched point of view. Even if she's often right, that's not a good position to start from.

[stonemaybe]

She got me thinking alot. Her 'mansplaining' criticism bugged me to begin with but I ended up agreeing with her in the long run.

[SerScot]

Stonemaybe,

Oh, the Blogger got me thinking too. What I find very frustrating is that unless you agree with the Blogger the reaction the posters on ROTYH get from the Blogger is one of vitrolic derision. Why "flame on" from the get go when someone is simply trying to engage in discussion of the ideas presented?

[Zarathustra]

You don't need to read works of fiction to see female stereotypes on display there. She rants against the "man-hating lesbian" stereotype, but insults a thoughtful, respectful reply by calling it "mansplaining." She doesn't like Abercrombie's use of the decription "shrill" for describing women, but then becomes the very embodiment of "shrill" as she screeches her feminist rage through the keyboard. She sounds more like a shrill, man-hating lesbian than the characters she's criticizing.

JOE ABERCROMBIE YOU PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING

YOU FUCKING WASTE OF OXYGEN

Nothing shrill or man-hating about that!

Worthless.

She actually makes me want to read this guy's writing. If he can evoke that much rage with little black shapes on a pieces of paper, the guy must be doing something right.

But then again, something tells me it doesn't take much to make this living, breathing stereotype fly into a rage, so maybe that impression is incorrect. I wonder if she ever stops to read her own verbal defecation with an eye for how she embodies the very thing she (mistakenly) sees in others' writing? She is doing more to inspire disrespect and dislike for women's issues with her rhetoric than any fantasy author I've read. Even if she had a point, calling other humans a "waste of oxygen" because they make up something she doesn't like goes well beyond defending anyone's rights or anyone's humanity. It's hatred. It's Despite. It's the very emotion which causes things like subjugation of women ... and all its other guises.

[Edited to say "hi" to all the angry man-haters who might drop by. There also love in the world, a man who writes quite a few rape scenes once said ... ]

[SerScot]

This is Joe Abercrombie's reaponse to the discussion from over at Westeros.org:

Interesting stuff.

People may well not be particularly interested in my take on this – death of the author and all that. But some of the discussion goes to authorial intent so I thought I might venture my perception of what fails hard in this scene and what perhaps not-so-fails, then folks can do with it as they will. I daresay anyone who hates my stuff and this scene in particular won’t hate it any less as a result of my feeble self-justifications, but bear with me. Or stick your fingers in your ears and go NAH-NEE-NAH-NEE-NAH until I’ve shut my face.

It’s always a little difficult after the fact to effectively untangle what you had in mind and how you came to write something the way you did. What I was ham-fistedly trying to investigate was that fantasy stalwart of the promised couple, you know the hidden prince with his promised princess, who are forced together by prophecy and strike bitchy sparks from each other until the tinder of lurve takes light. They often turn out to be perfect affairs and so I wanted to look at the opposite possibility, as I did with some other things in these books, as it seemed to me that arranged political marriages might just as easily be extremely unpleasant affairs. I’m slightly uncomfortable with having to have a 'reason' for a given character to be gay, but in this case the thinking was that if the promised princess is a lesbian then this particular promised couple can never, ever work out to be the glorious romantic union of myth. It was also in the back of my mind that historically a lot of gay people must have been forced into arranged marriages (and indeed still are). As with anything there were other ways of doing this scenario and this scene but I’m not sure I necessarily see any of the suggestions we've had as a meaningful improvement without the key improvement I suggest below. Some specifics, if I may:

On Terez’ isolated position in the Union – I’d say she’s very isolated. She’s been given away by her father to cement a vital alliance so he’s not going to be interested in listening to any complaints, and she’s hundreds of miles from friends and allies. The Inquisition are in the ascendant in the Union. We don’t really know whether Shalere has a family but are either Orso or the Union authorities going to give too much of a toss about their complaints? If they even find out enough to complain? Or care themselves? The problem, of course, is that unless Terez is a complete idiot or, you know, a stuffed manikin behaving in whatever way suits the author’s short term goals (ahem) she’s going to be well aware of that and doing her best to tread carefully and cultivate alliances.

On her improbable iciness – yeah, pretty improbable, and one of several things that make her a rather shitly written character (see below), but, in moderation, she may have been prepared to be sold off in a Styrian political marriage (where she might have had much more freedom to openly keep a lover of either gender) but that’s very different from what she sees as exile to a backward, cultureless country and an utterly demeaning marriage to a bastard she sees as vastly her social inferior. This seemed fitting within the relationship, since Jezal is himself an utter snob who treats others like shit because they are his social inferior (Ardee in particular).

On this scene being titillating – Read on its own, just about maybe, but it comes just after the – surely highly unpleasant – scene in which Glokta has forced Terez into it so the audience can be in no doubt what is really going on. Jezal thinks it’s the promised princess coming round, we know it’s a revolting violation. Surely the least titillating thing rather than the most is that she breathes in his ear exactly the words Glokta has told her to use. Eugh. Anecdotally I’ve read and listened to a lot of opinion about these books, as you can imagine, and I’ve heard people disgusted by this scene a few times but never someone titillated by it. Doesn’t mean they aren’t out there, I guess, furiously wanking...

On ‘she need only witness the mighty cock to be cured of that silly lesbianism nonsense’ well, that may be an absurd porno trope but I don’t see any evidence in the text for it here. There’s no indication at all that she ‘gets to like it.’ Later on Jezal laments to Glokta that he hears Terez weeping at night. He diagnoses homesickness and prescribes some landscaping of the gardens.

On writing from Terez’ point of view – I made a conscious decision to stick to six viewpoints and everything in the trilogy is from one of those six. I felt I had to exert some discipline and not lose focus, as it’s easy to just endlessly use more points of view and I chose six to stick with. It may be Terez would have been a better one to pick than some of the others, particularly in writing this scene, but ultimately you have to decide what story you’re telling and place the limits somewhere. Some characters will be central and intimately known, others will be less central and defined partly through their relationships with the primaries. Is it better to handle a rape from the point of view of the victim? It may well be. I’m sure it’s possible to do a disgraceful job from the victim’s point of view and to do a good job without the victim’s POV. Did I do a good job here? Clearly it worked in the intended way for some readers but overall I'd have to say no, not really, largely because:

Where I think I failed pretty badly is that Terez is really not a good character. She’s one-noted, shrill, icy, bitchy, and just doesn’t come across as a particularly convincing or well-rounded real person. It stretches credibility that she wouldn’t behave more cannily and carefully in this situation. That’s shoddy writing by any standard, but worse yet it plays into a really ugly stereotype of shrill man-hating (possibly quite thick) lesbian, and that badly undermines any attempt to do something interesting with this situation. If Terez is a much more convincing, multi-faceted, less stereotyped character with an authentic voice and a more believable motivation I’m sure many people would still have their problems with this scene but from my point of view at least it would be much improved. The Wire I think is a very good example because the reason it (for me at least) succeeds so well in its depiction of black criminals is that it makes each individual a powerful portrayal with their own voices and motivations. It doesn’t help at all that the female characters in the First Law ain’t that great across the board, really. Ferro is the only female point of view and for various reasons probably outside the scope of this particular thread I think I could have done a whole lot better with her too. I actually think the other (almost) rape in the series, in the second book, is worse, because it’s handled more or less completely disposably and the female character in that case, Cathil, is still more absent of personality than Terez and pretty much exists to elicit certain responses in the men. Which is kind of sexist writing 101, sadly. There’s also a rather ugly pattern, so obvious to me now that I can hardly believe I failed to notice it at the time, of pretty much all the central female characters having been the victims of abuse of one kind or another. I suppose you could say a fair few of the central male characters have been as well but that’s pretty weak sauce as a defence.

Still, it’s my belief that as a writer you really have to let it all hang out, write from the gut and so on and accept you’ll make mistakes and piss people off. Far better to write something bitter and flawed that some love (or at least like) and others hate (or at least viscerally despise) than to turn out some bland crud that no one cares about. Or indeed buys. Then when you get pasted you take your lumps, let the criticisms sink in, laugh off the silliness of some and wince at the perceptiveness of others and hope that you absorb some good sense and sensitivity so that next time you let it all hang out you do it somewhat better than before.

So in conclusion I’d say rape shouldn’t be off limits, lesbians shouldn’t be off limits, but shitty, lazy, ham-fisted writing is never a good idea. Especially in dealing with a rightly sensitive issue like rape. You might think the avoiding of shitty writing should be an obvious lesson for a writer. All I can say is, you’d be surprised how difficult it is in practice…

[Zarathustra]

Sounds like a reasonable, self-reflective chap. I like him immediately.

His take is something I thought about emphasizing, but didn't want to give this more time than it deserved. The worst "sins" committed here seemed to have been poor writing. Definitely not enough to deprive the man of oxygen.

[SerScot]

Zarathustra,

The blogger has linked to your post. Look all the way at the bottom of the comment section of this link:

requireshate.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/ewwww-neckbeard-cooties-the-fanboy-fallacies/#comments

This is getting weirdly circular.

[Orlion]

I just think it's funny how he/she keeps claiming that Tyrion participated in a gang rape of his wife. Now, correct me if I'm wrong,

Spoiler

but his 'first wife' was a prostitute and was paid by Tyrion's father to do a group of men.

Not really happy stuff, but it doesn't seem like rape to me.

[I'm Murrin]

No, she wasn't.