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rthstewart) wrote2010-06-24 08:20 pm
To "E" & Edwardswifey
Thank you for going back and reviewing BRD. It's been a nice lift in a less than stellar week. I don't know if you will check over here, but thanks and I thought I would go ahead and comment. The whole of that story was a triumph of inspiration of the moment over planning. Big chunks (of which you have noticed some already) were reactions to fandom convention. The guards were there because only stupid monarchs would not have personal body guards. The "learning the business of governance" line was actually taken from some fan fic. The only reason why I invented Morgan was because I had written those lines Edmund delivers about his names and titles and he needed someone to say them to. The line about "so long as it isn't brother, father, or Peter" was there as another fandom spoof of the incest and love triangle stories. There was a long bit eventually cut where Morgan explains that she is actually in Narnia for management training because she is such rubbish with people for yes, I very much saw Peter as CEO. I was playing with management styles and, in another fandom reaction, DID NOT want to show Susan as list making and throwing parties.
As for the morality issues, which are danced around throughout the story (they aren't just Dancing with the dryads), and the chapter 4 depiction, well, I had no idea this would cause the kerfuffle that it did. I had looked around and seen that it was practically canon that Edmund was raped by Jadis and Rilian by the LOTGK, and then there with all those stories with angsty Suspian, girl falls into Narnia, love triangles, and Susan raped for her apostasy. I naively concluded that showing adults in humorous and consensual conduct that was actually FUN would be pretty unremarkable. Heh.
I was playing with several ideas as well: importance of succession; the mythological and biological proclivities of plants; culture clashes; imperialism; the historical escapades of the British monarchy; and equalization of power in an intimate relationship when one party is a ruling monarch. A line I remember (it might have been from Edward VII) was that if a King expressed an interest in a man's wife, the husband kept his mouth shut and accepted the compliment. I learned as well that the War really played havoc on the sexual contentment of the British, with a survey conducted in 1948 documenting rampant homosexuality and lesbianism, pre-marital sex and extra-marital relationships. The results were so shocking, they were suppressed for 50 years. The influx of American GIs in advance of D Day was another important factor, though of course that came later.
Anyway, thank you for reading.
To Edwardswifey: Thank you for sharing your thoughts on Chapter 22 of TQSiT. I understand you didn't like the swearing. In this case it was an English RAF pilot swearing, and after seeing a murder. There are no Americans in the scene at all. Also, I was concerned about what swear words to use to assure they were appropriate to 1942 and found the text of the speech that General Patton gave to the American troops in advance of D Day 2 years later. Patton was, of course, an American and very profane. The link is here and the words I put in Tebbitt's mouth in that scene are a heavily sanitized version of what Patton actually said.
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(Hey, do you have recommended sources for postwar England sexy times? Specifically teenage rebellion, premarital sex and out-of-wedlock pregnancy? I've got a book (whee!) but it's about Americans, and I have to start googling, but I thought I would ask just in case you'd come across something.)
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Also, there is a lot of information on the impact on England of the Americans coming over for the D Day build up. George Orwell said to the effect: Americans are over paid, over fed, over sexed and over here. To the Americans, the British were underpaid, underfed, under sexed and under Eisenhower. The impact of the American GIs was huge, with their better uniforms, more money, chocolate, stockings, and access to condoms. Prevention of SDTs was a priority for Roosevelt when he was under scretary of the navy and so he assured distribution of condoms to sailors. Every soldier at D Day had condoms in his pack (I saw the packs at the New Orleans WW2 museum). I've not really focused on this, but I think if you start looking, you'll find a lot. Also, this is right after the abdication crisis and the very popular King "Bertie" died in 1910. I think there is plenty to work with if you want to go there.
I actually come at it all from a different angle which is that culturally Narnia was a very, very different place than England and it created a certain tolerance for differentness. I don't assume that trees or solitary Cats, or songbirds mate for life when that's not what they do in nature and so it required a far more flexible view of things. Species differences in bonding and reproductive behavior is a sort of shorthand for exploring cultural difference and tolerance.
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Therefore, it is clearly my duty to not read your stories - oh, wait, I've already read them all? What? Oh, guess I'm a bad person. Shucks.
I'll bring the marshmallows for toasting.
I was playing with management styles and, in another fandom reaction, DID NOT want to show Susan as list making and throwing parties.
This, once again, just - AMEN.
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If god had not meant us to have sex, she would have made it less fun.
Also we have lots of marshmallows, but we're light on hotdog rolls. (Yes, I do know people organizing the afterlife BBQ. What?)
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(And I'll bring the hotdog rolls if someone brings the picnic blanket)
Afterlife Picnic
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In this case, I'm delighted that E responded to BRD. And I've got a picnic blanket and will bring some wine and maybe Bacchus will show up.
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And, y'know, I'm pretty sure you make it fairly clear at the beginning of each story about the appropriate age groups and some general warnings about things like SexyTeimz, and really, why do people feel the need to read an entire story before complaining to the author about how they don't like said story? If you don't like a story, or what the author is saying in her story, then--gasp, novel concept!--stop reading it!
If I ever managed to write a Narnia story that was more than a one-shot, I would totally follow your lead, rth, and make all of the characters something more than saints and apostles and eunuchs.
(And wouldn't that be an interesting accusation for someone like, I don't know, Rabastan maybe, to make towards Peter? *grins innocently*)
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In the case of the recent TQSiT reviewer who objected, her statements were in the nature of what I have heard and received before. I do empathize with these readers in that that they perceive their morality as constantly under attack by modern secular society and they view this fandom proprietorially as a safe and sacred place. Work such as mine is highly disrespectful to Lewis and inconsistent with canon, Christian allegory and the medieval ethos of the story. Oddly, I came to understand that view after traveling in the Islamic world and having Muslim family members and so see better the perspective that American-style cultural, religious, and commercial dominance was threatening and disturbing to some Muslims. Lady_Songsmith pointed out that at least in this fandom, readers are fortunate that there is a lot of high quality gen fic to chose from. I am always sorry to alienate readers over this because I just hear them thinking, "WHY did Rth have to go that far? I was with her to that point." And it is a fair criticism.
This is one of the points that I am pondering in the TQSiT decline.
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Except that it isn't, because Lewis was fully conversant with the seedier side of life, and even hinted about it in the Narnia books (and need I point out that he put in Bacchus?), and the 'medieval ethos' is a Victorian pastiche picked up by Hollywood. Medieval folk were horny, bawdy bastards. Shakespeare is relatively clean compared to some of the earlier stuff, and we all know what he put in his plays. Heck, just the existence of the pages and pages of Church rulings against a variety of sexual sins tells us that we're not getting up to anything these days that our ancestors weren't. You don't legislate against things that aren't happening, and you don't repeatedly legislate against things unless you were ignored the first umpty-ump times. (Really, the Church's medieval rulings on sexual practices convey the sense of someone flailing their arms and shouting, "STOP IGNORING ME!" into a gale-force wind.)
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Right, going to climb down off the soapbox now. Rant over : )
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Oh, and btw, I realized that my previous post could be construed as me saying that I find your stories morally ambiguous. Point of clarification - NOT my view at all
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The thing is though? You don't go that far. In fact, there's less actual sex in your stories than in some so called "gen fics". Which, by the by, there aren't that many well written gen fics in this fandom. At least in my opinion.
And having the characters engaging in healthy, consensual relationships is so much better than some of the things the authors have them doing. And, yeah, personal squick here (that I know most people share), incest, eww.
And if you feel your morality is being threatened by something like this, you must be living under a rock in regards to every other aspect of life, because you can't pick up a book or the newspaper or turn on the tv or the radio without being inundated with more sex than you show.
Don't mind me getting huffy over other people trying to nay-say your writing. Some of us enjoy it quite a bit and would be sad to ever see it go away. Because honestly? What you write isn't romance, precisely--there's romance involved, but it's not the focus of the story (except maybe in H&M and even that's arguable). Rather like life, that, and that's what's so damn refreshing about your writing.
And hey, I've read some of Lewis' other works, and you've certainly not been any more or less graphic than he ever was.
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: )
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I was ranting to myself in the car after dropping kids off at a sleepover. I had been developing this idea more fully in the later chapters of TQSiT and I wonder if this is one of the things that caused the drop in readership because I went too far. I attempted to show Susan as a young woman who is aware of her own desires and wants but who also makes wise choices to not act upon them. I expressly state that it is not the desires that are wrong, it is that the immediate circumstances make it unwise for her to act on them at this moment. Susan desires someone who is not her brother, Rabadash or Caspian (or her husband). It is an inherently deceptive relationship (not good) but I did also try to provide an equalization of power and respect which are good. Yeah, Tebbitt isn't as awesome as she is, but who is? And I wonder if this is one place where I did go too far and some readers finally didn't want to go there.
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And when you are down, remember that