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juushikaI make a fair bit of noise about my hatred of series both because I feel as if they've become as much a financial decision as a creative one, and because I often dislike them as a creative decision: I have no desire for sprawling, near-endless epics, but I can appreciate scope, depth, or story more than a single volume can contain. As such, I tend towards two sorts of series: limited runs, often duologies or trilogies (see His Dark Materials, The Orphan's Tales), that are essentially a single story; and series in which each book is complete unto itself, i.e. has an ending, regardless of whether the books must be read in order (see: Harry Potter), or more or less can be read in any order although their effects may be cumulative (see: Redwall, The Chronicles of Narnia).
I like endings, and generally I like them best in a single book. But I can appreciate the role of a series: sometimes in creating in a larger, more complex, more meaningful ending than a single volume can muster, sometimes in the additions, in layers and references and growth, that wouldn't be achievable in a single volume.
I've been thinking a lot about Elizabeth A. Lynn's social justice and The Chronicles of Tornor.
Watchtower is full of sexism, with appearances from its cousin homophobia: In the protagonist's native environment, male and female social roles are entire divided; his female companions present as male/neuter in order to escape the restrictions of their gender. Male gaze is pervasive, female sexuality is commoditized, rape is common, and the protagonist views this as natural and his companion's rejection of it confuses him. He is natively homophobic, and attempts to repress and sublimate his own homosexual desires. And all of this is explicitly cultural, not moral: there are other cultures making progress against sexism, and the female companions are in normal, multifaceted romantic lesbian relationship. The book ends with a female attaining a leadership position in the protagonist's native land, a controversial appointment that promises to have a large impact on the future.
The Dancers of Arun is largely concerned with a number of relationships which are taboo by our standards: homosexuality, incest, polyamory. The protagonist has initial prejudices against polyamory, but swiftly accepts and internalizes it; the other relationship types strike him as normal. In my review, I wrote that the relationships are significantly fraught with plot-related difficulties that they don't feel entirely like wish-fulfillment, and that's true—but it's still obvious wishful thinking on Lynn's part (she herself a lesbian): a society that poses absolutely no artificial limits on romantic and sexual relationships. The fact that that reads as wish-fulfillment indicates a flaw in our society, not hers.
By The Northern Girl, the default/neutral pronoun is "she." Dancers has men and women on equal social footing, but it's constantly obvious in Northern Girl in a number of small and disorientating ways. All the protagonists are female; one is head of the house (and a political figure), and one is head of the guard. There's a number of female guards, and there's never a fuss made about male strength vs. female strength, the implication being that guard training trumps a biological advantage. Individuals presenting as gender neutral still encounter bigotry and there's a fair bit of male gaze/commodified female sexuality/sexual assault; sexism still exists. But it is absent from the narrative voice, and increasingly absent in the society.
When I call it disorientating, it's because every time a character uses "she" as a default and neutral pronoun, every time a character passes a female guard on the street and doesn't do a double-take and/or fetishize her bravery at trespassing into a male realm, I notice—more than anything about that society—the limits of my own. In many ways, by Northern Girl Lynn has created a social justice fantasy: multiple female protagonist eating the Bechdel test for breakfast, a multicultural/majority POC setting and cast (somewhat complicated by the fact that the protagonist in each books in white), and a society much more progressive and less sexist than both its predecessors and our own. Nor does it seem artificial—it's not a leap but a journey, a slow progress conveyed in multiple novels; nor is it conscious banner-waving self-aggrandizing: this isn't about Lynn and how we should applaud her open-mindedness; it's about what should be the progression of things. Our world may be moving in that direction, too—but our pronoun is still "he," and so there is a constant reminder of how far we have not come.
The series was published in 1979/1980.
I like endings, and generally I like them best in a single book. But I can appreciate the role of a series: sometimes in creating in a larger, more complex, more meaningful ending than a single volume can muster, sometimes in the additions, in layers and references and growth, that wouldn't be achievable in a single volume.
I've been thinking a lot about Elizabeth A. Lynn's social justice and The Chronicles of Tornor.
Watchtower is full of sexism, with appearances from its cousin homophobia: In the protagonist's native environment, male and female social roles are entire divided; his female companions present as male/neuter in order to escape the restrictions of their gender. Male gaze is pervasive, female sexuality is commoditized, rape is common, and the protagonist views this as natural and his companion's rejection of it confuses him. He is natively homophobic, and attempts to repress and sublimate his own homosexual desires. And all of this is explicitly cultural, not moral: there are other cultures making progress against sexism, and the female companions are in normal, multifaceted romantic lesbian relationship. The book ends with a female attaining a leadership position in the protagonist's native land, a controversial appointment that promises to have a large impact on the future.
The Dancers of Arun is largely concerned with a number of relationships which are taboo by our standards: homosexuality, incest, polyamory. The protagonist has initial prejudices against polyamory, but swiftly accepts and internalizes it; the other relationship types strike him as normal. In my review, I wrote that the relationships are significantly fraught with plot-related difficulties that they don't feel entirely like wish-fulfillment, and that's true—but it's still obvious wishful thinking on Lynn's part (she herself a lesbian): a society that poses absolutely no artificial limits on romantic and sexual relationships. The fact that that reads as wish-fulfillment indicates a flaw in our society, not hers.
By The Northern Girl, the default/neutral pronoun is "she." Dancers has men and women on equal social footing, but it's constantly obvious in Northern Girl in a number of small and disorientating ways. All the protagonists are female; one is head of the house (and a political figure), and one is head of the guard. There's a number of female guards, and there's never a fuss made about male strength vs. female strength, the implication being that guard training trumps a biological advantage. Individuals presenting as gender neutral still encounter bigotry and there's a fair bit of male gaze/commodified female sexuality/sexual assault; sexism still exists. But it is absent from the narrative voice, and increasingly absent in the society.
When I call it disorientating, it's because every time a character uses "she" as a default and neutral pronoun, every time a character passes a female guard on the street and doesn't do a double-take and/or fetishize her bravery at trespassing into a male realm, I notice—more than anything about that society—the limits of my own. In many ways, by Northern Girl Lynn has created a social justice fantasy: multiple female protagonist eating the Bechdel test for breakfast, a multicultural/majority POC setting and cast (somewhat complicated by the fact that the protagonist in each books in white), and a society much more progressive and less sexist than both its predecessors and our own. Nor does it seem artificial—it's not a leap but a journey, a slow progress conveyed in multiple novels; nor is it conscious banner-waving self-aggrandizing: this isn't about Lynn and how we should applaud her open-mindedness; it's about what should be the progression of things. Our world may be moving in that direction, too—but our pronoun is still "he," and so there is a constant reminder of how far we have not come.
The series was published in 1979/1980.
