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Sep. 11th, 2007 03:53 pmI'm reading through the Malloreon, the sequels to the Belgariad, which wound me up so much.
Reading slowly. With many breaks for headdesk. Mostly I just need something to read when I'm too tired to brain.
I'm finding things that annoyed me already I can just ignore as having been complained about already. Mostly. Pretty much.
The thing where 16 = old enough to marry and be Queen kind of bugs me. I mean I know 16 year olds are having sex, and I even can see how having it with 39 year olds could work out, from the 16 year old perspective. And if you're going to be stuck in an oppressive patriarchy where your worth is defined by who you shag then shagging a king works out best of available options. But... marriage? At that age? I'm not saying it's impossible to work, but... eeew.
Mind you, the local magic apparently extends to making sure 16 year old new Queens don't actually get pregnant until they're in their 20s, so that's one set of objections ignored.
Anyway, the bit that's actually bugging me enough to mention again is the casual racism of the setup. Murgos have angular eyes and are Evil. We've been told this a lot. Their eyes get mentioned a lot. And their hair. I think skin is mostly avoided, but that doesn't make it less of a race thing, really. They are the Murgo race, and therefore they are Evil.
But look! Their King is Not Evil! Wow!
... and how does he manage this, growing up surrounded by pain and fear and casual murder?
Well he got lucky in his parentage - turns out he's only half Murgo, on his mother's side!
See, this is the way to improve the lives of all them benighted foreigners - sneak in, shag their womens, and then their half-Alorn children will be less evil because they're mixed race.
*feels ill*
Oh, and how does he demonstrate the being less evil? Why he gets along on friendly terms with the heroes. The casual assassinations and how he murdered all his siblings are a tragic necessity of circumstance, obviously. Because he gets drunk with his newly discovered Alorn family, he's an okay guy.
So maybe he's not actually less evil at all. *shrugs*
I just... I realise there's usually good guys and bad guys, but why *races*? I think this is why I gave up on the orcs and elves setup, because really, biology is not the be all and end all of anything, let alone morality. Thinking beings get to think up being different.
If they'd just had some random Murgo who turned out to be funny and interesting and not a bad guy, the whole thing would become a story of Alorn misperceptions and realising you're a bit racist. Fair enough. But making the guy be an okay guy and then, like an explanation, turn out to be only half... Well, it's creepy, seriously it is.
Plus the whole thing where each nation is divided up into traits like 'stupid' because their ancestors were worker caste is a whole deeply fucked up thing of itself. Racist from a different angle, saying the different castes (merchant, warrior, worker) would turn out to make nations full of people with no variation.
But then the Arends are all supposed to be stupid too. And in perpetual civil war for thousands of years. So it's not just the angular-eyes people. But that doesn't actually make it better when, without describing the traits that make it so, every racial group (every country!) can be identified just by looking at them. And then you can know if they're smart or stupid or cowardly or whatever.
Really, really uncool.
I mean I know the fantasy idea of people who worship an evil god is pretty damn nasty if you try and map it onto RL anyway, but further reducing it to a visual thing?
My irritations loop together. Ungood.
Reading slowly. With many breaks for headdesk. Mostly I just need something to read when I'm too tired to brain.
I'm finding things that annoyed me already I can just ignore as having been complained about already. Mostly. Pretty much.
The thing where 16 = old enough to marry and be Queen kind of bugs me. I mean I know 16 year olds are having sex, and I even can see how having it with 39 year olds could work out, from the 16 year old perspective. And if you're going to be stuck in an oppressive patriarchy where your worth is defined by who you shag then shagging a king works out best of available options. But... marriage? At that age? I'm not saying it's impossible to work, but... eeew.
Mind you, the local magic apparently extends to making sure 16 year old new Queens don't actually get pregnant until they're in their 20s, so that's one set of objections ignored.
Anyway, the bit that's actually bugging me enough to mention again is the casual racism of the setup. Murgos have angular eyes and are Evil. We've been told this a lot. Their eyes get mentioned a lot. And their hair. I think skin is mostly avoided, but that doesn't make it less of a race thing, really. They are the Murgo race, and therefore they are Evil.
But look! Their King is Not Evil! Wow!
... and how does he manage this, growing up surrounded by pain and fear and casual murder?
Well he got lucky in his parentage - turns out he's only half Murgo, on his mother's side!
See, this is the way to improve the lives of all them benighted foreigners - sneak in, shag their womens, and then their half-Alorn children will be less evil because they're mixed race.
*feels ill*
Oh, and how does he demonstrate the being less evil? Why he gets along on friendly terms with the heroes. The casual assassinations and how he murdered all his siblings are a tragic necessity of circumstance, obviously. Because he gets drunk with his newly discovered Alorn family, he's an okay guy.
So maybe he's not actually less evil at all. *shrugs*
I just... I realise there's usually good guys and bad guys, but why *races*? I think this is why I gave up on the orcs and elves setup, because really, biology is not the be all and end all of anything, let alone morality. Thinking beings get to think up being different.
If they'd just had some random Murgo who turned out to be funny and interesting and not a bad guy, the whole thing would become a story of Alorn misperceptions and realising you're a bit racist. Fair enough. But making the guy be an okay guy and then, like an explanation, turn out to be only half... Well, it's creepy, seriously it is.
Plus the whole thing where each nation is divided up into traits like 'stupid' because their ancestors were worker caste is a whole deeply fucked up thing of itself. Racist from a different angle, saying the different castes (merchant, warrior, worker) would turn out to make nations full of people with no variation.
But then the Arends are all supposed to be stupid too. And in perpetual civil war for thousands of years. So it's not just the angular-eyes people. But that doesn't actually make it better when, without describing the traits that make it so, every racial group (every country!) can be identified just by looking at them. And then you can know if they're smart or stupid or cowardly or whatever.
Really, really uncool.
I mean I know the fantasy idea of people who worship an evil god is pretty damn nasty if you try and map it onto RL anyway, but further reducing it to a visual thing?
My irritations loop together. Ungood.