(urth) BSG Spoiler vs Wolfe

John Watkins john.watkins04 at gmail.com
Wed Mar 25 10:02:54 PDT 2009


On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 12:51 PM, Thomas Bitterman <tom at bitterman.net>wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 5:00 PM, John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>  On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 4:51 PM, Thomas Bitterman <tom at bitterman.net>wrote:
>>
>>>  On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 10:10 AM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Enamel: In BSG people have (and don't have) sex for
>>>>>
>>>>  But your original statement that "In Wolfe people apparently have sex
>>>> to show what bad people they are, and suffer for it later" is simply not
>>>> based on...well, anything that I can see..
>>>
>>>
>>> Severian/Jolenta - Sev as date-rapist
>>> Silk/Hyacinth - Silk loves unworthy woman, kills self over it
>>> Baldanders/little boy - homosexual child molestation
>>> Severian/Dorcas - it's his grandmother!
>>> Able/Dsiri - romantic love points in the wrong direction, and he is less
>>> for having it
>>> There are Doors - have sex and die
>>> Latro - he may have sex, but can never really have a relationship
>>> Horn/Seawrack - she's a giant prawn!
>>>
>>> There may be a pattern here.
>>>
>>
>>
>> That's not how I read Silk/Hyacinth, Severian/Dorcas, Able/Dsiri or There
>> Are Doors (although to be honest I have no clue what was going on in that
>> one.
>>
>
> I must admit I felt that way through large chunks of Long/Short Sun.
>
>
>>  Silk makes a Christlike action chasing after Hyacinth instead of going
>> to the lander,
>>
>
> Silk/Hyacinth is Hosea/Gomer retold.  I think the desire to retell this
> story outweighed any consideration of characterization.
>
>
>>  and Able's relationship with Dsiri is redeemed and transfigured by his
>> gift of blood.
>>
>
> Thereby implying that this relationship needed to be redeemed and
> transfigured.  In a "standard" chivalric story the romantic/courtly love of
> a woman transforms and refines the brutish warrior into the gentlemanly
> knight.  Wolfe inverts this idea - his hero is in a base relationship with a
> base creature.  The only hope comes from a one-sided act of charity.  This
> is not a complex relationship - it is Dsiri sleeping with Able to get
> citizenship.
>
>

Well, Wolfe is a Christian, so I think he thinks that most human things need
to be redeemed and transfigured.  I don't think Wolfe inverts the idea at
all--Able's love for Dsiri *does *refine him into a better knight.



>    The idea of a male priestly or godly figure sacrificing himself for a
>> less worthy female figure may be misogynist in the sense that Wolfe is
>> repeatedly chosing it to symbolize the relationship between Christ and
>> humanity when other symbols are available,
>>
>
> Very nearly my point.  Wolfe always seems to choose to portray romantic
> relationships that are unhealthy, destructive or otherwise just awful.  He
> is capable of deep, interesting character development in so many other areas
> but romantic entanglements leave his characters flat.
>
> Enamel
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20090325/8206c63d/attachment-0004.htm>


More information about the Urth mailing list