The Second Apocalypse

Earwa => General Earwa => Topic started by: The Sharmat on August 04, 2017, 04:24:27 pm

Title: Bakker and Women
Post by: The Sharmat on August 04, 2017, 04:24:27 pm
I promise this isn't gonna be a discussion of feminism and misogyny and all that stuff. Just a simple question: Has anyone here actually known a woman that read this series and liked it?
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: Woden on August 04, 2017, 04:52:12 pm
Not me. But I only know two friends that have read the first three books - the main problem here in Spain is that only the first trilogy is published in spanish.
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: Baztek on August 04, 2017, 05:34:45 pm
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Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: Wilshire on August 04, 2017, 07:05:55 pm
My wife disliked TDTCB, too dark for her taste.
I have only had 3 people read and enjoy TSA that I have recommended it too, out of about 10-12, probably 8ish were male and 3 female. All those that enjoyed it were male.
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: MSJ on August 04, 2017, 07:14:20 pm
As i said, my wife liked it and never got any of the mysogenic critics. She just though of it as the dark ages. Its co.plete now and she has picked the books back up. Reading TTT at the mmoment. She wants to know whats so good about these books that consume so much of my time and my fascination with them.
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: H on August 04, 2017, 07:24:44 pm
My wife read Darkness and liked it.  With more free time she'd alkready have read TWP.
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: Wilshire on August 04, 2017, 07:25:20 pm
She wants to know whats so good about these books that consume so much of my time and my fascination with them.
If you figure out how to answer that question effectively, please let me know. My loved ones ask this all the time ;).
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: MSJ on August 04, 2017, 07:31:32 pm
Quote from:  Wilshire
If you figure out how to answer that question effectively, please let me know. My loved ones ask this all the time ;).

The meat? The logos? My want to reach the Absolute? I have no answer. But, ill tell you i have curbed when and where i do this forum thing at. Tired of the arguing. ;)
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: ThoughtsOfThelli on August 04, 2017, 08:20:07 pm
I promise this isn't gonna be a discussion of feminism and misogyny and all that stuff. Just a simple question: Has anyone here actually known a woman that read this series and liked it?

I am a woman who has read this series and likes it. ;)

Don't personally know any others, but then again, I don't know anyone in real life that has read these books.

When it comes to the books themselves, when reading, I tend not to mind too much if the setting is misogynistic, and/or only a few of the important characters are women if I really like the story overall. Of course, most works of literature will be problematic in certain ways if you look deeper, but like you said, this is not a thread for that conversation. :) I personally don't feel that this series is misogynistic beyond the setting itself, and I like most of the female characters we get in the story (but that's just my opinion).
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: solipsisticurge on August 04, 2017, 09:27:16 pm
Unfortunately, no.

My mother gave me the great gift of introducing me to Dune when I was fourteen, so I tried to return the favor by introducing her to Bakker a few years back. She read TDTCB and gave up there. She's an old-school feminist, but found no fault with the "misogynistic" elements (figuring it was probably a fairly realistic take for the time period being mimicked)... though she did hazard a guess that Bakker probably got laid a little bit less than he'd have liked when he was fifteen or sixteen, and it still casts a shadow on his psyche now.

All in all, she liked some of the philosophical elements and some of Bakker's writing style, but fantasy in general just isn't her cup of tea. (The only fantasy I've known her to read is Pratchett.) The convoluted character names and Earwan lore (rampant in all fantasy, but taken up to twelve by Bakker), along with the unapologetic dark tone prevented her from enjoying it. She also wanted someone to root for, and of course couldn't find anyone. (To paraphrase a quote from her conversational review... "so the sociopathic Ubermensch, rapist Conan, drunk pretentious wizard and the Mormon fundamentalist have forged an alliance to seize the Crusades, and I don't think I want anyone to survive.") Dark, misanthropic series is dark and misanthropic.
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: The Sharmat on August 04, 2017, 09:55:53 pm
I probably tainted this by mentioning feminism and misogyny in the first place since I'm not sure varying perspectives on those are remotely the only barrier to most women getting into the series.

I am a woman who has read this series and likes it. ;)

Don't personally know any others, but then again, I don't know anyone in real life that has read these books.

When it comes to the books themselves, when reading, I tend not to mind too much if the setting is misogynistic, and/or only a few of the important characters are women if I really like the story overall. Of course, most works of literature will be problematic in certain ways if you look deeper, but like you said, this is not a thread for that conversation. :) I personally don't feel that this series is misogynistic beyond the setting itself, and I like most of the female characters we get in the story (but that's just my opinion).
So you actually liked the characters?
Title: Bakker and Women
Post by: locke on August 04, 2017, 10:02:48 pm
She wants to know whats so good about these books that consume so much of my time and my fascination with them.
If you figure out how to answer that question effectively, please let me know. My loved ones ask this all the time ;).
I tell them that my brain is hard wired with circuits to detect meaning (scripture) and that like game of thrones or lord of the rings, the inherently meaningful nature of the Mileau activates those brain circuits.

You're not one bit different from an evangelical Christian actually, just different scripture sets about meaningful worlds activating identical brain modules in both yourself and the evangelical.

Science has rendered our real world mileau to no longer possess meaning (scriptural) and my brain rebels against that reality by seeking out mileaus that satisfy my brains profound desire for meaning.
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: The Sharmat on August 04, 2017, 10:21:12 pm
I just like the worldbuilding, the angst, and the prose. My needs are simple.
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: ThoughtsOfThelli on August 04, 2017, 11:21:59 pm
So you actually liked the characters?

I did, I'm not sure I can explain exactly why I liked/disliked these characters, but I'll try:
-Esmenet: From the very beginning, I found her to be quite likeable: she's a sympathetic character, she's clever, she's a survivor and always tries to make the most of her circumstances no matter what happens. And despite romantic relationships being far from something I tend to be invested on when reading (rather than the characters themselves), I liked hers and Achamian's, their whole dynamic and how she dealt with his worries about the Consult resurfacing (that "I was his morning" line gets me every time...). And in TAE, she's dealing with dire circumstances once more even if she's starting out in a position of power this time - I know some people think her POVs in TAE are boring, but I disagree. How can you not feel for her, having to deal with the collapse of the Empire and all of Kelmomas' machinations, her feelings over being overshadowed and overwhelmed by all the Dûnyain and half-Dûnyain in her extended family? It's no wonder she was unable to see anything was wrong with Kelmomas, she needed to believe he was a normal, loving boy so much just to have something to keep her sane in her increasingly insane life.
-Mimara: I think this is a character we're already supposed to feel some sympathy for going into TAE given her backstory. This was true for me, but I also found myself liking her as a character despite that. We get to see the contrast between her self-hatred, conflicting feelings for her mother and need to find something to define herself (via learning sorcery) and what she saw with the Judging Eye and how it affected the rest. And even if Bakker has said he deliberately picked specific character archetypes for his female characters (can't remember if it was just for PON, though), a female true prophet in this kind of setting is not something you'd expect, and is definitely a good addition.
-Serwë: I admit that, while I don't dislike her, her character is not among my favourites either. I feel sorry for what she's endured in her backstory. I feel sad for her for the way she dies after being manipulated by Kellhus. Yet that's pretty much all there is, unlike with Esmenet and Mimara. Serwë doesn't feel that interesting as a character. (Why does it work for some and not for others? Maybe it's just a matter of opinion, different people will like different characters.)
-Istriya: Should I even count her? It's likely that we never meet the real Istriya in the series, but then again, the skin-spy was (mostly) behaving like she would have. Here I think that the "archetype" doesn't really go beyond that, but that might be because the character, skin-spy or not, doesn't get the same prominence in PON that Esmenet and Serwë do.
-Theliopa: I actually have her name as part of my username, but when reading TJE, I didn't like her much - can't really explain why either. Then I started paying more attention to her appearances in TWLW and TGO (and what others thought of her), and realized she was not just an emotionless automation, there was more to her than that. Suddenly, I found myself really liking her, how she was the "Eärwa wiki" for Esmenet et al., how she put this insane amount of work in her gowns and didn't care about what fashion dictated, how she kept watching Kelmomas and figuring out what he was up to while he had no clue, how she had give ruthless advice to Esmenet regarding Naree because an Empress can't show weakness. And then there was that whole situation with Inrilatas that is revealed only after his death, and not only did she leave tracks on the snow, she possibly mentioned he could read Maithanet's face to Esmenet as a means to get him killed (granted, this might be highly speculative on my part, but I got that feeling after rereading TAE). By the time she died in TGO, I was quite sad over it, and hated Kelmomas so much for getting away with all of it.
-Serwa: (You know what? I have a small criticism to make - it's not (just) that Bakker doesn't have many important female characters in this series, but most of them are related to Esmenet. It would have been nice if he had introduced some others at some point.) Like what happened with Thelli, I didn't care much for Serwa at first. I tended to agree with Mimara's view of her as cold and arrogant, and thought she was sort of boring in the same way as Kayûtas - Anasûrimbor Lite (just with sorcery in her case). I had this same opinion throughout TJE, TWLW and TGO, and it was only TUC that made me think "maybe there's more depth to this character than I thought". With the help of a reread, I realized there was indeed more to her character (like Thelli...but in a different way in Serwa's case). (TUC spoilers:)
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I'm not even going to go into any detail about Psatma Nannaferi, she, even more than Istriya, is practically an archetypal crone/mother character. Makes sense in the story, of course, but there's not much to add to that.

So I hope this comment made some sense. I might not be looking at these characters from a feminist perspective, but that was not the point anyway - this is how I feel about them, and at the end of the day these are just the opinions of one person. :)
Sorry if it's not too detailed either, I often have a hard time articulating even to myself why precisely do I like or dislike character X, most of the time it's sort of instinctive.
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: Madness on August 04, 2017, 11:35:29 pm
An ex of mine for the same reasons as SO mentioned above. She read all the way through to WLW and still follows the series, as far as I know. She loved Kelmomas and hated Mimara for *reasons.*

Another very good friend of mine growing up thinks Neuropath is one of the most amazing books ever... but she very well might be the Female Neil so there's that.

Not that the thread's gone there yet but I really hope this community can conduct itself without gender identifications making a difference...
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: ThoughtsOfThelli on August 04, 2017, 11:42:36 pm
Not that the thread's gone there yet but I really hope this community can conduct itself without gender identifications making a difference...

That's why I added that little bit at the end of my last reply. But like you said, nothing of the sort has been said in this thread and hopefully the discussion will keep going well. :)
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: The Sharmat on August 04, 2017, 11:46:27 pm
So I hope this comment made some sense. I might not be looking at these characters from a feminist perspective, but that was not the point anyway - this is how I feel about them, and at the end of the day these are just the opinions of one person. :)
Sorry if it's not too detailed either, I often have a hard time articulating even to myself why precisely do I like or dislike character X, most of the time it's sort of instinctive.
That was very helpful, thank you.

I'd kind of suspected that stuff about Serwa myself but I can't say why. Might have just been blind faith that Bakker wouldn't make a boring "Dunyain-lite" character. Still, didn't like her all that much initially until re-reading Aspect Emperor and the first time reading TGO. Now she's one of my favorites of this cycle. Unholy Consult Spoilers:
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I'd never considered what you said about Thelli. Speculation sure, but I rather like the idea.

Edit: Slightly off topic, but is it just me or is it much easier to articulate why one dislikes something than why one would like it?
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: MSJ on August 04, 2017, 11:53:02 pm
Great post, ThoughtsofThelli! I feel alot of the same ways you do about the same characters.

ETA- had to correct where credit was due! Sorry, ToT. :)
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: TLEILAXU on August 05, 2017, 01:57:33 am
Theliopa is actually a pretty cool character. I kind of identified with many of her quirks...
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: themerchant on August 05, 2017, 03:20:49 am
I promise this isn't gonna be a discussion of feminism and misogyny and all that stuff. Just a simple question: Has anyone here actually known a woman that read this series and liked it?

Yes, some are on this site.

This seems a weird question to me, the sort of question born out an echo chamber, or an outlier experience of some such. What sort of input was given where you might think not a single female has read and liked the book?



Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: The Sharmat on August 05, 2017, 03:23:22 am
Is it really that hard to imagine what could give an impression like that or what kind of feedback I might have received? I thought that whole online spat a few years ago was pretty big on this forum.
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: themerchant on August 05, 2017, 03:34:42 am
Is it really that hard to imagine what could give an impression like that or what kind of feedback I might have received? I thought that whole online spat a few years ago was pretty big on this forum.

The online spat was created by a troll pretending to be someone they weren't. Who had read 5 pages of the book.

I hadn't realised it still carried weight.
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: Chrysaora on August 05, 2017, 07:14:01 am
First time poster, long time lurker:
I'm a woman and I love the books, it was me (I? I'm not a native speaker, logically it should be "I" but that sounds so wrong?)   who got my husband into the series not the other way around.
I can see where the question is coming from, a lot of stuff going on in the books would put off most of my female friends from reading it plus the sometimes "dry" philosophical parts... yes, probably not as many female readers as male ones.

But I honestly don't think the books are really that misogynistic, it's a medieval, patriarchal world with it's inhabitants behaving accordingly.

The women themselves are written quite well, they feel real and are quite different from each other, not like in WoT where I wished death and disease on every single female character by book 4 because they were mostly just annoying clones.
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: ThoughtsOfThelli on August 05, 2017, 03:16:57 pm
That was very helpful, thank you.

I'd kind of suspected that stuff about Serwa myself but I can't say why. Might have just been blind faith that Bakker wouldn't make a boring "Dunyain-lite" character. Still, didn't like her all that much initially until re-reading Aspect Emperor and the first time reading TGO. Now she's one of my favorites of this cycle. Unholy Consult Spoilers:
(click to show/hide)

I'd never considered what you said about Thelli. Speculation sure, but I rather like the idea.

Edit: Slightly off topic, but is it just me or is it much easier to articulate why one dislikes something than why one would like it?

I'm glad I could get my point across clearly enough. :)
Well, the "Dûnyain-lite" characters might have their fans too. I think Bakker wanted to show how Kellhus and Esmenet's children were affected by the combination of their parents' traits, and it makes sense one or more would fall in the more stable side of the half-Dûnyain spectrum. With their variety of personalities, opinions will vary as well.
On Serwa:
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We may never know for sure, but after rereading and seeing how upset Thelli was with the mention of her trauma at the hands of Inrilatas, it seems likely she could have planned for him to die. It's plausible she would figure that Maithanet confronting Inrilatas (with Kelmomas being there too) had a high enough chance to result in Inrilatas' death. Thus, revenge by proxy - there were even more tracks in the snow than Kelmomas considered...

It does seem easier to detail the reasons for disliking characters than for liking them. No idea why, though. There might be some scientific explanation for this, but I'm not aware of it.


Great post, ThoughtsofThelli! I feel alot of the same ways you do about the same characters.

ETA- had to correct where credit was due! Sorry, ToT. :)

Thanks. :)


Theliopa is actually a pretty cool character. I kind of identified with many of her quirks...

She is great, her quirks just make her a more rounded character (unlike that first impression I got when reading). I really wish she could have stuck around for more books, but such are the dangers of liking characters. :(


First time poster, long time lurker:
I'm a woman and I love the books, it was me (I? I'm not a native speaker, logically it should be "I" but that sounds so wrong?)   who got my husband into the series not the other way around.
I can see where the question is coming from, a lot of stuff going on in the books would put off most of my female friends from reading it plus the sometimes "dry" philosophical parts... yes, probably not as many female readers as male ones.

But I honestly don't think the books are really that misogynistic, it's a medieval, patriarchal world with it's inhabitants behaving accordingly.

The women themselves are written quite well, they feel real and are quite different from each other, not like in WoT where I wished death and disease on every single female character by book 4 because they were mostly just annoying clones.

First of all, welcome! :)

I feel much the same, you can have series with a more misogynistic setting such as this and still have compelling female characters that manage to have their own arcs and a fair amount of agency (well, as much as their particular circumstances allow).

I only managed to read through 3 books of WoT before I had to stop, those were definitely characters I could not care about either (it probably got worse later on, but that series wasn't working for me anyway).
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: Wilshire on August 05, 2017, 03:58:22 pm
She wants to know whats so good about these books that consume so much of my time and my fascination with them.
If you figure out how to answer that question effectively, please let me know. My loved ones ask this all the time ;).
I tell them that my brain is hard wired with circuits to detect meaning (scripture) and that like game of thrones or lord of the rings, the inherently meaningful nature of the Mileau activates those brain circuits.

You're not one bit different from an evangelical Christian actually, just different. Scripture sets about meaningful worlds activating identical brain modules in both yourself and the evangelical.

Science has rendered our real world mileau to no longer possess meaning (scriptural) and my brain rebels against that reality by seeking out mileaus that satisfy my brains profound desire for meaning.
If nothing else they won't ask any follow up questions.
After I look up several of those words I might use this
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: The Sharmat on August 05, 2017, 05:00:07 pm
First time poster, long time lurker:
I'm a woman and I love the books, it was me (I? I'm not a native speaker, logically it should be "I" but that sounds so wrong?)
"I" would be technically proper English but the English language in many places is changing such that it can sound stilted and stuck-up to use it that way. "Me" would sound more natural to most of us.

I can see where the question is coming from, a lot of stuff going on in the books would put off most of my female friends from reading it plus the sometimes "dry" philosophical parts... yes, probably not as many female readers as male ones.

But I honestly don't think the books are really that misogynistic, it's a medieval, patriarchal world with it's inhabitants behaving accordingly.

The women themselves are written quite well, they feel real and are quite different from each other, not like in WoT where I wished death and disease on every single female character by book 4 because they were mostly just annoying clones.
So you don't feel that the emotional core of the characters is kind of missing or anything like that? These are criticisms I've seen and didn't personally understand but then it is a matter of perspective I suppose.

Wheel of Time's female characters...ugh. One horrible petty abusive person in 500 bodies. I feel sorry for James Rigney if that was his experience with people.

I'm glad I could get my point across clearly enough. :)
Well, the "Dûnyain-lite" characters might have their fans too. I think Bakker wanted to show how Kellhus and Esmenet's children were affected by the combination of their parents' traits, and it makes sense one or more would fall in the more stable side of the half-Dûnyain spectrum. With their variety of personalities, opinions will vary as well.
On Serwa:
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We may never know for sure, but after rereading and seeing how upset Thelli was with the mention of her trauma at the hands of Inrilatas, it seems likely she could have planned for him to die. It's plausible she would figure that Maithanet confronting Inrilatas (with Kelmomas being there too) had a high enough chance to result in Inrilatas' death. Thus, revenge by proxy - there were even more tracks in the snow than Kelmomas considered...
Sounds very plausible. I quite liked the revelation that she wasn't just a computer as Esmi seemed to think. Her lack of affect was mostly just a matter of appearance. Although it seems to have fooled even her siblings, except for Inrilatas.
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: Madness on August 06, 2017, 02:31:19 pm
Is it really that hard to imagine what could give an impression like that or what kind of feedback I might have received? I thought that whole online spat a few years ago was pretty big on this forum.

Lol, not this forum, friend. That'd be Westeros.

First time poster, long time lurker:

Welcome to the Second Apocalypse, Chrysaora!
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: ThoughtsOfThelli on August 06, 2017, 08:10:37 pm
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Sounds very plausible. I quite liked the revelation that she wasn't just a computer as Esmi seemed to think. Her lack of affect was mostly just a matter of appearance. Although it seems to have fooled even her siblings, except for Inrilatas.

It was a good reveal, it gave more depth to her character and to her relationship with several other characters.
While Kelmomas seems to have been definitely fooled (even if he figured it out eventually), I'd think that Kayûtas and Serwa were aware of Thelli's hidden depths (after all, from what both of them say in TGO and TUC, it seems they - and Moënghus - were fairly close when younger).
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: Redeagl on August 12, 2017, 03:45:09 pm
An ex of mine for the same reasons as SO mentioned above. She read all the way through to WLW and still follows the series, as far as I know. She loved Kelmomas and hated Mimara for *reasons.*

Another very good friend of mine growing up thinks Neuropath is one of the most amazing books ever... but she very well might be the Female Neil so there's that.

Not that the thread's gone there yet but I really hope this community can conduct itself without gender identifications making a difference...
An ex??!!!!  You left a girlfriend who was a Bakker fan!!!  God.... You are truly Mad :P
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: The Sharmat on August 13, 2017, 08:44:35 am
I refuse to date any woman that would find me an acceptable significant other.
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: Madness on August 15, 2017, 03:11:51 pm
An ex of mine for the same reasons as SO mentioned above. She read all the way through to WLW and still follows the series, as far as I know. She loved Kelmomas and hated Mimara for *reasons.*

Another very good friend of mine growing up thinks Neuropath is one of the most amazing books ever... but she very well might be the Female Neil so there's that.

Not that the thread's gone there yet but I really hope this community can conduct itself without gender identifications making a difference...
An ex??!!!!  You left a girlfriend who was a Bakker fan!!!  God.... You are truly Mad :P

Lol, you assume incorrectly that I left her. In fact, Wilshire and GJ used to joke that the forum is less my social experiment, more a rebound girlfriend ;).

I refuse to date any woman that would find me an acceptable significant other.

Lol.
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: Wilshire on August 17, 2017, 04:58:17 pm
I refuse to date any woman that would find me an acceptable significant other.
There's a couple out there that'll force you to be better for seeing something that perhaps only they can see. Good luck :) .
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: The Sharmat on August 24, 2017, 06:48:56 pm
I also refuse to date any woman with the Judging Eye.
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: solipsisticurge on August 30, 2017, 06:52:17 am
I also refuse to date any woman with the Judging Eye.

As this seems to be exclusively my "type", good. Always nice to have less competition in the marketplace.
Title: Re: Bakker and Women
Post by: Madness on August 30, 2017, 04:59:57 pm
I locked the topic. This was a conversation I didn't feel great about to begin with and now it's just going nowhere. If there's something worth continuing from this thread make a new topic.