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For sure, don't skip it. She's one of the better commentators in the thread.
http://io9.com/5985959/mississippi-officially-bans-slavery-at-last
Here's a bit of Bakkerian feminism for you:"Cursed be the false -- the deceivers of men! Cursed be the Aspect-Emperor!"There are pitches of passion that are holy simply for the intensity of their expression. There is worship beyond the caged world of words. Psatma Nannaferi's hatred had long burned away the impurities, the pathetic pageant of rancour and resentment that so often make fools of the great. Hers was the grinding hatred, the homicidal outrage of the betrayed, the unwavering fury of the degraded and the dispossessed. The hatred that draws tendons sharp, that cleanses only the way murder and fire can cleanse....And as youth washed through her, drawing a thousand thousand wrinkles into smooth swales of skin, the mad faces encircling her surged forward, clutching at the sodden floor beneath their feet...Beaten and battered she had been tipped in libation. And now the dread Goddess raised her, a bowl cast of gold.A vessel. A grail. A cup filled with the Waters-Most-Holy. The Blood and the Seed."Cursed!" she shrieked in a singer's heart-cutting voice, high and pure, yet warmed by the memory of her authoritarian rasp. She watched as the Blood of her Fertility was passed among the throngs, a never-diminishing pool that was passed from palm to palm. She watched the Ur-Mother's children mark their cheeks with the red line of hatred..."Cursed be he who misleads the blind man on the road!" (TJE, p226-229)I don't want to type up that whole section, but Nannaferi definitely was speaking for slaves as well.Just imagine this. Darkness. Flickering torchlight. Sex. Blood. Dread miracle. Roaring hate. Curse after shrieking curse... It's as fine a piece of writing, in terms of intensity and drama, as anything else in all five novels.Those who cringed at the portrayal of Serwe, here's the answer, in a howl.p.s.: I perfectly understand why these books will never be turned into movies (I think I read somewhere that Bakker said Hollywood took one look at the Srancs and just ran the other way), but there are moments I really regret this. Like here. What an extraordinary scene this would be!
she's also exactly right in her assessment of Kellhus. He thinks of himself as a man possessing sight where others are blind and he certainly misleads people lacking in his sight along the road the world travels.Another bit I found interesting in light of how Psatma calls the seed and blood holy, that's not the view of the whores of sumna:QuoteShe remembered Pirasha, the old harlot she had befriended and lost years ago. Between the tyranny of many and the tyranny of one, Pirasha used to say, harlots chose the many. “That’s why we’re more,” she would spit. “More than concubines, more than priestesses, more than wives, more even than some queens. We may be oppressed, Esmi, but remember, always remember, sweet girl, we’re never owned.” Her bleary eyes would grow sharp with a savagery that seemed too violent for her ancient frame. “We spit their seed back at them! We never, never bear its weight!”Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (pp. 560-561). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.One interesting thing is that Esmenet exists as an independent entity. she is not beholden to a brothel nor to a pimp. Intriguing.
She remembered Pirasha, the old harlot she had befriended and lost years ago. Between the tyranny of many and the tyranny of one, Pirasha used to say, harlots chose the many. “That’s why we’re more,” she would spit. “More than concubines, more than priestesses, more than wives, more even than some queens. We may be oppressed, Esmi, but remember, always remember, sweet girl, we’re never owned.” Her bleary eyes would grow sharp with a savagery that seemed too violent for her ancient frame. “We spit their seed back at them! We never, never bear its weight!”Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (pp. 560-561). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
Quote from: lockesnowAnother bit I found interesting in light of how Psatma calls the seed and blood holy, that's not the view of the whores of sumna:Heh. I'll let Psatma answer that one:"Cursed be whore!"... "Cursed be she who lies with men for gold over seed, for power over obedience, for lust over love!"None of that "sex worker" stuff, please! She's kind of old-fashioned.
Another bit I found interesting in light of how Psatma calls the seed and blood holy, that's not the view of the whores of sumna:
so is Psatma owned by the gods, or owned by men. because the implication is that only whores are free...Bakker certainly seems to look upon the burden of childbearing as an unconscionable weight in the Esmenet quote, an infliction men curse women with.
Lol. Psatma's an old soul, after all, Truth Shines .I think childbirth is definitely a, if not the, crux motif here, lockesnow.Interesting correspondence of cause between the biblical and the evolutionary - both seek to propagate "the children."
Quote"Cursed be whore!"... "Cursed be she who lies with men for gold over seed, for power over obedience, for lust over love!"The power part of that directly references Pirasha's explanation of power, it seems.Quotep.s.: I perfectly understand why these books will never be turned into movies (I think I read somewhere that Bakker said Hollywood took one look at the Srancs and just ran the other way), but there are moments I really regret this. Like here. What an extraordinary scene this would be!As far as I understand 'blood of her fertility', were talking a gushing amount of menstral blood from her loins! I'm not sure hollywood would rush to take that up either!Though it makes a sort of ground breaking contrast to male blood rituals we see in alot of media. Because it's more like the true source. While mens blood rituals mearly paddle in the outlying pools.
"Cursed be whore!"... "Cursed be she who lies with men for gold over seed, for power over obedience, for lust over love!"
p.s.: I perfectly understand why these books will never be turned into movies (I think I read somewhere that Bakker said Hollywood took one look at the Srancs and just ran the other way), but there are moments I really regret this. Like here. What an extraordinary scene this would be!
It seems like the narrative is highlighting childbearing/childbirth.After having now dabbled in one Westeros' Bakker and Woman threads, albeit, a neutered episode, and the limited research I did for that - great quotes in that file, if I still have it - I would suggest that Bakker's onto problematizing motherhood, sex and its evolutionary purpose for progeny, and its debased value in society.It's a complicated world and I would never force a child on a woman in any age - that's a decision for her and her partner to make together - but I definitely appreciate my existence and continuing as a species and that, should I have a child, my engagement with life and the changes it makes upon my brain might possibly be passed onto my progeny by means of RNA/DNA replication and women are the holy gatekeepers responsible for that - at this point in our evolutionary history, anyhow; however that is evolutionarily derived or humanly augmented in the future... Ex Nihilo...
We think in terms of love. Dunyain think in terms of eugenics.
I'm not so sure what you mean, Callan, but I'd hazard it can't be explained as concisely.I'd be ecstatic if Bakker turned Motherhood into an aspect of this story - as it very much is already. It's not exactly a worn trope in fantasy, is it?
Ported these from Westeros for the Almanac but they have a place here too:Quote from: Cu'jara Cinmoi (Piere Inverarity)One of the reasons I was dissapointed with the PW review with it's concluding comment regarding the 'conspicuous lack' of secondary and nonsexualized female characters, was that it smelled of someone with an agenda.SPOILER: Minor spoiler for The Judging EyeIn The Judging Eye, Esmenet has become Theodora. Her daughter Theliopa has an important role, and her other daughter, Serwa, is introduced. Mimara is as much a principle character as Achamian - albeit one scarred by childhood prostitution.In other words, I actually have a number of important female characters who have overcome abjection in a fiercely patriarchal world, in what I would argue is a thoroughly believable fashion (within the constraints of generic epic fantasy).(Since I think bootstrapping is largely an ideological myth, I'm generally disinclined to represent 'triumphs of the human spirit.' I think contemporary culture is already awash in that status quo reinforcing dreck. I am, and likely always will be, a 'complexity of the human condition' writer. Everywhere you turn you're told to 'take charge of your future' as way of training you to own your inevitable failure to fully live up to your aspirations. "It's not because the game is rigged; it's because you just didn't try hard enough.")Quote from: Cu'jara Cinmoi (Pierce Inverarity)I can go on and on about my reasons for choosing the female types I did. So for instance, I wanted to exploit the ironic parallels between 'Men' and their dastardly 'antithesis,' the Sranc. I wanted to explore the nihilistic implications that underwrite social functionalist accounts of our present day gender egalitarianism - the suggestion that the now-sacred values so many have espoused here are actually secondary, ways to rationalize the more efficient utilization of labour given our new technologies of production and reproduction (something which is part and parcel of the way I use Kellhus as a contradictory figure of modernity). What does justice mean when it comes about for all the wrong reasons? I can go on and on, about the ways in which I parallel Serwe and Earwa, and so on.Quote from: Cu'jara Cinmoi (Pierce Inverarity)Regarding (2), I'm saying that, although Three Seas society is thoroughly patriarchal, it is the story that largely determines the relative paucity of female characters. Just because you don't see many powerful female characters, doesn't mean they aren't there. The assumption frankly perplexes me. My general dislike of quota characterization, or the fact that the world was originally born in the mind of a naive 17 year old, may have led me to go overboard, but I'm not really convinced this is the case. Otherwise I think my choices are pretty much as thematically justified as they could be.The reason my female characters are defined by male desire is simply because critiquing male desire is one of my primary thematic axes - building up, in the case of Esmenet, to Kellhus's use of contemporary egalitarian rationales to 'liberate' her into his unique brand of slavery, and in the case of Serwe (whose naivete and compliance to desire was meant to parallel that of fantasy worlds in general), her death in the course of Kellhus's Circumfixion, which is to say, his rise to absolute power in the Holy War. This was one of the things I buried because it struck me as too allegorical, too obvious and one to one: the figure of the scriptural world (where reality is abject before desire), bound as a corpse to the figure of modernity (where desire is held abject before reality - and so goes instrumental).(But of course, Serwe comes back...)Another backfire, I suppose. But still, pretty interesting I think, the suggestion that the reader actually has Serwe's corpse in their hands because they have Kellhus in their heads!Otherwise (and you're getting me to do something I despise doing, which is giving spoilers) the idea was to have female characters rise to power in believeable ways - this is what I meant when I said I wanted to tell a rags-to-riches story with Esmenet.As for the 'numbing' repetition of harlot, womanish, and so on, I meant this as a blur on the numbing repetition of 'bitch,' 'pussy,' and so on in contemporary Anglo culture. Even after all this time, men continue to define themselves and their virtues against women - to the point where the greatest male sin - homosexuality - seems to come down to playing woman to another man. This is where the themes surrounding Cnaiur directly link up with those underwriting Esmenet. Sadly, this is another instance where I thought I was being too overtly feminist (really!) and actually ended up provoking the opposite response in probably too many readers.
One of the reasons I was dissapointed with the PW review with it's concluding comment regarding the 'conspicuous lack' of secondary and nonsexualized female characters, was that it smelled of someone with an agenda.SPOILER: Minor spoiler for The Judging EyeIn The Judging Eye, Esmenet has become Theodora. Her daughter Theliopa has an important role, and her other daughter, Serwa, is introduced. Mimara is as much a principle character as Achamian - albeit one scarred by childhood prostitution.In other words, I actually have a number of important female characters who have overcome abjection in a fiercely patriarchal world, in what I would argue is a thoroughly believable fashion (within the constraints of generic epic fantasy).(Since I think bootstrapping is largely an ideological myth, I'm generally disinclined to represent 'triumphs of the human spirit.' I think contemporary culture is already awash in that status quo reinforcing dreck. I am, and likely always will be, a 'complexity of the human condition' writer. Everywhere you turn you're told to 'take charge of your future' as way of training you to own your inevitable failure to fully live up to your aspirations. "It's not because the game is rigged; it's because you just didn't try hard enough.")
I can go on and on about my reasons for choosing the female types I did. So for instance, I wanted to exploit the ironic parallels between 'Men' and their dastardly 'antithesis,' the Sranc. I wanted to explore the nihilistic implications that underwrite social functionalist accounts of our present day gender egalitarianism - the suggestion that the now-sacred values so many have espoused here are actually secondary, ways to rationalize the more efficient utilization of labour given our new technologies of production and reproduction (something which is part and parcel of the way I use Kellhus as a contradictory figure of modernity). What does justice mean when it comes about for all the wrong reasons? I can go on and on, about the ways in which I parallel Serwe and Earwa, and so on.
Regarding (2), I'm saying that, although Three Seas society is thoroughly patriarchal, it is the story that largely determines the relative paucity of female characters. Just because you don't see many powerful female characters, doesn't mean they aren't there. The assumption frankly perplexes me. My general dislike of quota characterization, or the fact that the world was originally born in the mind of a naive 17 year old, may have led me to go overboard, but I'm not really convinced this is the case. Otherwise I think my choices are pretty much as thematically justified as they could be.The reason my female characters are defined by male desire is simply because critiquing male desire is one of my primary thematic axes - building up, in the case of Esmenet, to Kellhus's use of contemporary egalitarian rationales to 'liberate' her into his unique brand of slavery, and in the case of Serwe (whose naivete and compliance to desire was meant to parallel that of fantasy worlds in general), her death in the course of Kellhus's Circumfixion, which is to say, his rise to absolute power in the Holy War. This was one of the things I buried because it struck me as too allegorical, too obvious and one to one: the figure of the scriptural world (where reality is abject before desire), bound as a corpse to the figure of modernity (where desire is held abject before reality - and so goes instrumental).(But of course, Serwe comes back...)Another backfire, I suppose. But still, pretty interesting I think, the suggestion that the reader actually has Serwe's corpse in their hands because they have Kellhus in their heads!Otherwise (and you're getting me to do something I despise doing, which is giving spoilers) the idea was to have female characters rise to power in believeable ways - this is what I meant when I said I wanted to tell a rags-to-riches story with Esmenet.As for the 'numbing' repetition of harlot, womanish, and so on, I meant this as a blur on the numbing repetition of 'bitch,' 'pussy,' and so on in contemporary Anglo culture. Even after all this time, men continue to define themselves and their virtues against women - to the point where the greatest male sin - homosexuality - seems to come down to playing woman to another man. This is where the themes surrounding Cnaiur directly link up with those underwriting Esmenet. Sadly, this is another instance where I thought I was being too overtly feminist (really!) and actually ended up provoking the opposite response in probably too many readers.
"I don't like spoilers - oh, btw, you know the tusk..."Quotethe suggestion that the now-sacred values so many have espoused here are actually secondary, ways to rationalize the more efficient utilization of labour given our new technologies of production and reproduction (something which is part and parcel of the way I use Kellhus as a contradictory figure of modernity). What does justice mean when it comes about for all the wrong reasons?I'd think that's more 'what does justice mean when it justifies other acts near it, in some kind of weird osmosis?'. I mean, the equality is being hijacked, while the notion it's good is actually true, but like some sort of paint gun, the paintballs of good splatter all over any amount of labour mongering there.Oh yeah, used a paintball analogy...I iz hardcore!But really, it almost seems a justice is for it's own sake sort of argument.QuoteWe think in terms of love. Dunyain think in terms of eugenics.How I'd put it is that there's a kind of hazy overlay to the world, like being inside the petals of a closed and semi transparent rose. No transaction is directly with the world. With Dunyain, there is no rose. However, at the same time, why live, why breed, for a world without roses? The Dunyain are on the knife edge of contradiction. Maybe, anyway.
the suggestion that the now-sacred values so many have espoused here are actually secondary, ways to rationalize the more efficient utilization of labour given our new technologies of production and reproduction (something which is part and parcel of the way I use Kellhus as a contradictory figure of modernity). What does justice mean when it comes about for all the wrong reasons?
But the Dunyain sort of do have a rose, don't they? I'm assuming by rose you mean a way of viewing the world, a thing that makes life enjoyable or worth having?For the Dunyain, the mission itself seems to be enough. I mean, they wouldn't view it in such terms, but attaining the absolute, or at least striving for it, seems to occupy the role of giving their lives... purpose, I guess?
how can you prove we think in terms of love? What if we all think in terms of eugenics first and then rationalize after the fact that we were thinking in terms of love? Are we blind to our own thoughts about love?
