Women in Coldfire

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

I was amazed at the amount of misogyny in these books. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't really affect how much I enjoy the books or whether I'd rec them to anyone. Still, it was surprisingly .. thorough?

First, I couldn't find one good, strong female character who wasn't quickly struck down.

Ciani - only had about ten pages before she was turned first: weepy, weak and selfish and finally: corrupted and amoral. She had an Eve feel to her - a woman corrupted by her desire for knowledge - she ate of the tree of knowledge and so fell.

Jenseny - a child, not an actual woman, and too powerful and so had to be sacrificed. Also, Jenseny's mother - weak, delicate, dead.

Hesseth - not human. Also, these strong, practical Rakh females totally pandered to their silly macho males. Their lust (depiction of female in heat, Hesseth's indication that males had one good use) ruled them. And then of course she took on a maternal role and died.

Crazy Sorceress - was crazy. Also, the Undying Prince pointed to her as an example of why he'd never inhabit another female body - they just can't take it. Mentally weak.

Rasya - here we had a good strong woman with interests beyond the maternal - so of course she had to be severely limited in her emotional impact (Damien's musing about how they're good together because they each have more important things) and then torn apart by a mob.

Narilka - aieeeeeee! This one had a chance! She was feminine as all hell and yet sort of was a person with a career and an art and opinions. She even had power - an immunity from the Hunter and the Forest - she could have done great things - and tried to! But instead she had to fall back into being the archetypal fragile victim and be saved by her man.

I *think* she had no choice - none of them did. All the women on this planet have to be weak victims, empty vessels that served their men and children or morally weak women who fell to sin - sins of lust or desire for knowledge. This state of affairs was created by the human psyche, yes? Some kind of interaction with the fae drawn out of deep-rooted human misogyny? (Though I wonder why we didn't see deep divisions based on xenophobia as well - between ethnic groups). Anyway, that's my explanation.

I mean, look at Gerald's psyche, the man has issues with women!

- 900 years of hunting, terrifying and killing the most fragile, beautiful women he could find. Um, there's gotta be a story behind that! And how does Almea fit into it? It's strange that this fetish of his is never addressed - no one questions the naturalness of it. I mean, men fear as badly as women - why not so tasty?

- and then there's his hell. It's not thousands of women bloody and standing there angry at him - it's a grotesque pile of naked bodies - mounds and mounds of bloodied female flesh detached from any intelligence at all grasping and trying to share their agony.

More:

- The Matrias. ::shudder:: There's even a conversation about how unnatural it is for humans to accept a martiarchy as opposed to a patriarchy. And then of course they turn out to be evil mutated aliens. There is supposedly one good, wise, strong woman in a position of authority - the Matriarch. We never get to meet her though and her only effect on the book is releasing big macho Damien into the world.

- As far as I could see all the background women were either dull, emotional mothers, infantile waifs, or buxom greedy sluts. I'm pretty sure those weren't the women from the ship 1300 years before - the fae did that to them, right?

- The mothering-image was always negative from what I could see. It culminated in the alien-thing blindly, mindlessly, endlessly breeding. *That* was a horror image.

Am I wrong? Are women and the feminine treated badly as a rule in these books? Is it a deliberate depiction of the human psyche? (I'm not so sure - but could be.)

Comments

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

There's one thing I agree with you on: Gerald is a sexist and misogynist jerk with some massive issues with women especially, and there could have been more addressing of that fact.

Err I'm actually pretty fond of all female characters though, and think of them positively, although, yes, Jenseny and Hessieth die, and I'm not happy about it. But I think all four main female characters, Ciani, Jenseny, Narilka and Hessieth are strong female characters and positive.

The crazy sorceress is crazy in a disturbing way, yes. But the mother of the Iezu is ambiguous, neither good nor bad, alien but not horrific as such. Hessieth's a mother figure to Jenseny and a very positive one.
And there's the Matriarch.... and Damien is many things. Macho he isn't. Damien is quite obviously attracted to strong, powerful and intelligent women.

ETA: oh, and Narilka. Narilka saves Andrys. Not the other way around.

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

ETA: oh, and Narilka. Narilka saves Andrys. Not the other way around.

She does? oops. That's what I get for rushing through the not-Damien-or-Gerald bits. : / I'm going to have to go back and look at that part again.

[blackletter]

Some of it I think comes out of the book's alignment with the old genre of the gothic novel (in which women are either virginal damsels in distress or wicked harlots or virginal damsels in distress being corrupted into wicked harlots). Ciani in particular is turned into a "gothic heroine". Sort of a Mina to Gerald's Dracula.

I liked Hesseth and Jenseny and thought they were positive figures, and was angry when they died. (The death count in general is pretty high in these books, I've noticed.)

Yes, Narilka started out cool. But I had serious troubles with the romance plot. "You look just like someone who once tried to kill me, I love you!" just didn't work for me in terms of emotional development. I'll grant that she was fascinated by Gerald, but fascination does not equal love. Her feelings for Andrys seemed forced by the author. Like the author was trying to give Narilka a Gerald-substitute who could love her, but I never felt like there was enough justification for Narilka liking Andrys as a person in his own right (beyond the fact that he looked like someone wouldn't once almost killed her).

You're right on about Gerald's women issues. And I really wish the book had explored this more. (My personal fanon on the matter is that it's an unconscious self-hate of his own effeminacy. He bolsters his own sense of masculinity by killing women. Because even before he became the Hunter he was psychologically messed-up. The references to his nasty family, references to adepts tending to go insane... I think Gerald is a brilliant, high-functioning wacko.)

The mothering-image was always negative from what I could see. It culminated in the alien-thing blindly, mindlessly, endlessly breeding. *That* was a horror image.

I read the Iezu mother in a totally different way. I don't think she was mindlessly breeding at all. It was all planned and to a purpose in which child = connection to the world. I saw it as tragic rather than horrific.

There is a serious lack of women in power who aren't evil.

And I'm of two minds about Almea. I can't decide whether Almea's ghost is romantic, or if it's an *extreme* version of abused women defending her abuser because even though he treats her like shit, she loves him. Probably the latter.

[silver-ariane.livejournal.com]

My personal fanon on the matter is that it's an unconscious self-hate of his own effeminacy.

Excellent point. I hadn't even thought about this, but I think it might become my personal fanon, too.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

My personal fanon on the matter is that it's an unconscious self-hate of his own effeminacy. He bolsters his own sense of masculinity by killing women
So much agreement there. It's what makes the most sense with his past history.

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

I actually saw Almea as a positive figure. Her bit in the prologue not so much, but her still loving and wanting to save Gerald from evil even as he's murdering her I took as unconditional love and I don't have a problem with that. I mean, an abused woman can still love her abuser - she still needs to leave but that doesn't mean she has to stop loving him. Almea didn't need to accept her fate but she didn't need to stop loving Gerald either.

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

By the way, your comments on Gerald here are brilliant and are now my personal fanon too.

Remind me again where there are references to adepts tending to go insane? That sounds interesting but I don't remember it. Also, I remember the bit about his nasty family but not where it was ...

[blackletter]

The nasty family bit was at the end of book 1, when he was talking about understanding the the psychology of the Master of Lema. Damien says something like, "How can *you* know what it feels like to be powerless?" And Gerald replies something like, "I had my mother's delicacy and didn't grow into my height until late in life. My father and brothers were all brutes, now think of that and the brutality of my era in general..." And Damien remembers, "All the Prophet's brother were killed in horrible ways just after he vanished." And Gerald replied, "The most satisfying murders of my unlife."

The bit about adepts going crazy as infants was in book 2, I think. I *think* there were two moments. One of them when he was asking Damien to consider where all the adepts were in this land. And Gerald says that at first he explained it away because adepts were always rare and often go crazy, but on further reflection this explanation didn't hold water. The other one was some discussion of Jenseny and how it was miraculous she was as sane as she was given that she was an adept and had experienced such trauma.

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

ah, now I remember the nasty family. Also, the adepts - for some reason I read that as apprentices and was confused. I think I need a nap.

Thanks. : )

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

I keep looking at that first book because I want to reread but I am having troubles making myself do it because it all feels so doomed. I really need to get over this. : )

[blackletter]

After I wrote the first half of my comment, I had a brief moment of "Wow, I practically have that *memorized* I've reread that book so much."

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

The adepts going crazy was first mentioned by Ciani, when she and Damien butted heads over understanding Tarrant. I think that was when she was trying to talk him into saving Tarrant from the Fire.

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

But I had serious troubles with the romance plot. "You look just like someone who once tried to kill me, I love you!" just didn't work for me in terms of emotional development. I'll grant that she was fascinated by Gerald, but fascination does not equal love. Her feelings for Andrys seemed forced by the author

This is one thing that disturbed me, because I can see how that could work in a person's head, but it's not healthy. She could turn it into more, of course--and I like to assume she did, since I like Narilka--but to begin with it's sort of creepy.

On the other hand, if what she found fascinating about Tarrant to begin with was mainly that he was beautiful and so was what he showed her (and Narilka does seem to have an aesthetic to rival Tarrant's)...then maybe an initial attraction to the guy who looks like him isn't so freaky. I like to think.

[silver-ariane.livejournal.com]

This is an issue I feel quite strongly on (and obviously can go on and on about!), so let it be known that I don't mean to offend anyone.

I think most of it is a CS Friedman thing, as I've seen misogyny/gender issues (depending on how you see it) addressed in her other books, and quite honestly, it's why I'm not reading her new series. I've disliked most of what I've read of her writing from female characters' POV (In Conquest Born's Anzha excepted), simply because I disagree with their views. She seems to like to use gender significantly in her stories, which I personally don't care for, and honestly I don't think it's necessary to the books, or adds to them at all.

I actually thought Coldfire was fairly positive compared to some of the others like, say, The Wilding, where the little social progress its prequel made was erased by female characters accepting and revering their planet's sexism, and the male protagonist being so despicable as to threaten rape to coerce women to do things. (Granted, In Conquest Born is no feminist beacon, either, though its female protagonist is interesting and unique, and towards the end several female characters start subverting their horribly misogynistic society and gaining power in it.)

Gerald is definitely a misogynist jerk, and that's one of my main issues with him. I rationalized always hunting women to myself by saying that he's basing his Hunter persona off vampire legends from Earth, but I admit that's a very thin reason. It becomes much harder to ignore when he talks like he does about the Master of Lema, and the disgusting line in WTNF when he argues there are inherent sociobiological differences between men and women. One could argue that he's from a different and less enlightened time, but I don't see nearly as much of a historical precedent for that on Erna like there is on Earth, and it's no excuse even if there were. He is a villain, yes, but he's also an antihero, and some of his lines challenged my sympathy to him. I would've liked if this were addressed more, especially if it became yet another way Damien could rub off on Gerald.

I liked the rest of the characters, on the other hand. Ciani was a victim of circumstance, and Jenseny died a somewhat stereotypical sacrificial death, but Hesseth very much lived and died a warrior, and I still liked them all for what they were. I liked Rasya for not falling into any kind of true-love cliche -- she doesn't love Damien, and she doesn't need to. I agree that her death was unnecessary. And finally, I think Damien respects women deeply, and for me, he provided a lot of the antivenom to the other goings on.

Also, the alien mother was horrific, I'll agree, though I've never been able to tell if that's because she was defined solely as a breeding mother, or if it's my residual childhood phobia of aliens. Go figure.

The short version? I agree that there are some uncomfortable gender issues/misogynist themes here, and I think they have no place in these books, but I can and do enjoy the stories despite them.

[ladyphoenix9]

Agreed it's a Friedman issue. I think she was trying to keep it positive in this series, but her others are cringeworthy. This Alien Shore made me want to pitch it out the window when I got to the end. The Wilding and In Conquest Born are absolutely dreadful.

[silver-ariane.livejournal.com]

I actually did throw In Conquest Born across the room while reading it(!), and while I liked it in the end, there's some absolutely awful things in there. I couldn't even read The Wilding through, and have only ever skimmed it.

If it were another author, I'd think a lot less about the issues raised in this post.

[masteroftrouble.livejournal.com]

I suppose that totally answers my question on whether or not I should check into her other books. :) Coldfire was a long read as it was for me because of some of the issues within it (yay for reading slower to get everything).

[ladyphoenix9]

It's hard for me to recommend those books I mentioned above -- I liked parts of them, but it's almost like...the parts I liked were all the more bittersweet for the other issues. I've noticed she has a bad habit of making the female characters mentally unstable, which wouldn't be bad once or twice, but every book? Come on!

I'm still on the fence about her new Magister trilogy. It's closer to Coldfire than the others, but it's still darker, and the premise for one certain thing makes me grit my teeth every time I think about it.

[masteroftrouble.livejournal.com]

The friend who recommended me the Coldfire Trilogy told me that her new series wasn't as good. Maybe some day I'll read them just to see, but today isn't that day.

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

My guess is it was Friedman but I haven't read any of her other books and probably won't. Still, it's possible to stretch it all into an effect of the fae drawn from the human psyche. However, if so, there should be other human biases/instincts reflected in their society too - like xenophobia.

[blackletter]

I think most of it is a CS Friedman thing, as I've seen misogyny/gender issues (depending on how you see it) addressed in her other books

Interesting. I've never read any of her other books, so I didn't have that context to draw on. Thank you for the heads up!

[eveningfire.livejournal.com]

I actually thought completely differently of most of the women in the book, so it was very interesting to read your post. I guess it shows that there are two sides to just about everything.

Ciani - only had about ten pages before she was turned first: weepy, weak and selfish and finally: corrupted and amoral. She had an Eve feel to her - a woman corrupted by her desire for knowledge - she ate of the tree of knowledge and so fell.

I agree with one thing about her: she does get whiny, and I wish CS Friedman would have cut back on that. But she wasn't like that before the accident, so I'm willing to cut her some slack and blame it on her condition. Regarding her love of knowledge: I actually really liked that part about her! She's like a scientist and wants to observe everything; there's nothing wrong with that. She's not heartless either: remember how she wouldn't have wanted to share Gerald's memories from after he changed, even though that would have been more knowledge she could have gained. I think Damien seems childish and unrealistic in comparison to her, and he becomes a better character by the time he takes off his rosy glasses in the third book.

Jenseny - I'm surprised you think she's weak, because I saw her as a really strong character. She's really mature for her age, and does an insanely brave thing to save everybody involved. Oh, and let's not forget she kicks GT's ass as a sorceress, which is something. I don't know how she could have been made more powerful without making her seem unrealistic. Yes, she might have been made into a grown woman; but I don't think it's sexist per se to choose to have a child as a character. She fits well into the story the way she is.

Hesseth - I think she's one of the strongest characters in the books, as strong as Gerald or Damien. The depiction of the rahk is much more unflattering to their males than to their females. And Hesseth is what a strong female character should be like if she is accompanying males on a fighting mission. She has to know how to use weapons and hold her own in a fight and make herself useful without complaining, and without the posing that a lot of other female characters do, including sometimes Narilka and Ciani (you know, in the kind of Sailor Moon scenes that seem to make you go "Ah, she did one brave thing! Amazing! And she's beautiful! Let's sit around a bit more and see how beautiful she is"). Hesseth just does her thing without getting in the way, like any normal member of a team of warriors would do.

Rasya - I like to imagine that she's not dead, because we don't actually know at all what happened to her. Damien is just imagining that she was killed, but we all know that characters in books and movies don't die just because they're likely to :-) And CS Friedman had to get her out of the way somehow. I mean, would you have really wanted her hanging out with Damien and GT the whole third book and ruining the nice dynamic?

As for GT, I don't think he's sexist. The only thing that rubbed me the wrong way is his comment that there are differences between genders that can (but don't have to) lead to a certain social order. But the truth is, now that I thought about it, I think he's right -- and even if he's wrong, he's not holding a completely unreasonable view. My evolutionary biology professor from college would have agreed with him.

As for the fact that he hunts women -- he needs to kill to feed, so the hunt doesn't seem sexist to me unless desiring women is in itself sexist. And yes, he likes them pretty, young and delicate. And I like tall, slender men. Having a preference for certain physical characteristics is not in itself sexist. As ideal as it would be to be attracted to people purely based on their personalities, I doubt many of us are that perfect.

[fallintosanity.livejournal.com]

I had a lot of the same interpretations of the characters that you did, eveningfire. :) Ciani could be whiny and annoying, yes, but let's see anyone get all their memories sucked out of them twice, and then set out on a crazy journey with their almost-boyfriend, their best friend, and the mad demon sorcerer of legend, and not be whiny and annoying at times.

Jenseny was interesting, but suffered from the same problem that most overpowered characters do: needing a massive weakness of some sort to make her viable as a character. Jenseny's tidal adeptitude makes her far more powerful than Tarrant in many ways, but in order to have a story that isn't Jenseny seeing her father killed and heading straight to the Undying Prince's castle and slaughtering him outright, she needed to be a child with extreme emotional problems. Consider Jean Grey in the third X-Men movie, or Tarrant himself - Jean is completely non-functional for most of the movie due to the conflicting Phoenix/Jean personalities, while Tarrant has all those weaknesses against fire, light, and healing. Arisilde Damal from Martha Wells' Ile-Rien books is another good example - he's the most powerful sorcerer in the world, but he self-destructs with opium. Without weaknesses, extremely powerful characters absolutely destroy the potential for conflict, and therefore, story. (You'll notice they all sacrifice themselves at the end of the story, too. Not coincidence.)

The only hunting women thing made sense to me, too - Tarrant makes a really good point when he gives that speech to Damien about physical power in BSR. Women are raised from birth to fear the night, the dark, the muggers and rapists, but men aren't taught to worry about any of that. It's natural that a fear demon like Tarrant would tap into that, to an extent. Although I never could reconcile the fact that the women he hunts are complete physical opposites to Almea (she's tawny and golden-haired, but he hunts pale, dark-haired women?). Maybe on some subconscious level, he can't stand the thought of killing Almea again...? But yes, Tarrant is a sexist bastard in some ways, and it would also make sense that he might try to exorcise his childhood demons by killing women.

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

Ciani stood there in the Rakhlands and argued that her desire to get her memories back was more important than five rakh lives (the simulacra). There is nothing admirable in that.

Damien finally agreeing to this was the most corrupt thing I can remember him ever doing actually. After that his missions were all more important than any single life but Ciani's memories? Not worth even one life.

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

I took on Damien's morality through most of my reading and so his disappointment seeing her tainted by Gerald and finally understanding her loremaster amorality. Loving knowledge doesn't mean you have to be amoral. That's a choice where you're willing to torture and murder just to see the effect (or to watch people do the same).

Jenseny IS strong but she's contained - she's a child and she's sacrificed. Only the men in these books are survivors.

Hessieth I agree is strong but she's an alien. No human woman gets this role. When she does start to be human - loving a human child - she gets killed.

I agree with you though - having different intepretations is what makes the discussion interesting. : )

[dawrei.livejournal.com]

Narilka - aieeeeeee! This one had a chance! She was feminine as all hell and yet sort of was a person with a career and an art and opinions. She even had power - an immunity from the Hunter and the Forest - she could have done great things - and tried to! But instead she had to fall back into being the archetypal fragile victim and be saved by her man.

I think I mostly agree on this one...I always felt that Narilka managed to be strong in her own frailty...I think this is something Gerald also mentioned sometime.
She never mindlessly succumbed to her fears, but instead lived with them and even managed to overcome some of them when she stood face to face to the Hunter, after days of being Hunted. At this point, I think Gerald might not even have managed to feed on her, even if he had not given her his word previously.
I also think that, by the end of book 3, she had gained a pretty good understanding of what the Hunter was, what that made Andrys and how both men affected her – both in a girls-like-the-badguys and a girls-like-the-sad-guys sort of way XD
And I really liked how she actually marched off into the Forest herself…The only thing I regret is that she had to fail RIGHT THERE and could not give Amoril a good kick in the nuts instead.
I do agree with Etrangere that she saved Andrys instead of the other way around though ^^

Don’t get me started on Ciani…I really cannot stand that woman. Not because she went all weepy (although that was pretty annoying...I felt more sorry for Damien than for her) but because, by the time she’s back to her Knowledgeable Old Self she simply waves goodbye and leaves for the Rakhlands. I hold it half a sin to break the heart of a man like Damien. Really. Tsk.

Hesseth, I always loved. I don’t think that this maternal role made her less powerful. Also, why is the “maternal role” considered “weak” at all? She was female, was she not, with female instincts? Have you ever heard of a woman whose children were harmed? Run and hide, I don’t think there’s anything misogynistic about having a warrior-character who also happens to have a maternal side. Her death was very sudden at the very least, more like an afterthought of the fight. I was shocked XD

About Tarrant’s psyche…well, obviously there was something thoroughly wrong with that XD I think Blackletter pretty much sums it up in saying that he was a brilliant, high-functioning wacko. And I think his intelligence stretched so far that he probably even realized what was wrong with him, why and how. Isn’t that what Damien tells him, after he’s been rejected by his own God? Damien says that Gerald is victim of his own intelligence, and Gerald agrees.
But is he a misogynist? I don’t know. I have to agree with him when he comments that different genders can – but don’t have to – lead to a certain social order. Take a look at our own world’s history, and it cannot be missed. Not to say that this is desirable (although I think one should be careful not to equalize just about everything) but then, Gerald never did the Good things…he rather did the things that were good for him.

So what Fallintosanity writes:
The only hunting women thing made sense to me, too - Tarrant makes a really good point when he gives that speech to Damien about physical power in BSR. Women are raised from birth to fear the night, the dark, the muggers and rapists, but men aren't taught to worry about any of that. It's natural that a fear demon like Tarrant would tap into that, to an extent.

makes much sense for me, too. I always felt that Gerald did not so much judge any particular gender; rather, he conveniently used the common opinions, prejudices and whatnot.
That being said, Gerald being a women-hunting, fear-devouring self-made-demon still makes him a psycho with massive issues, a lot of them being female-related. Let’s not forget that XD

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

I thought the bit about women being raised from birth to fear the night was in response to The Hunter. I think he created that by hunting women.

[fallintosanity.livejournal.com]

The extremes of the fear, such as not even permitting women out after dark, came about partially in response to the Hunter, yes. But look at our own world - women are taught to fear going to parties or clubs (date-rape drugs), to fear going into certain neighborhoods alone and/or at night, etc. That's a situation and an experience that will exist for as long as there are men who prey on women (or demons who feed on those fears). Whereas men are expected to be macho and brave, so even if there is male-against-male crime, men are taught to not fear it, but to rise to the challenge.

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

Maybe but I was looking back to those first colonists - who presumably came from a society advanced from ours. When that first sacrifice was made, wasn't one of the outlying guards a woman? Out in the dark at night? From that I had an image of a society progressed from ours - the men and women equally trained for the colonizing of a strange planet.

You're right though that by the time of the Revivalist times women had been put back in a supportive, protected role. So, I see your point that The Hunter probably picked up on that. Though I wonder how much of the Revivalist tradition *he* created.

[fallintosanity.livejournal.com]

I don't know, really - I took the presence of a female guard in stride, since we here have women security guards, police officers, military personnel, etc, but we still teach our women to fear the dark and its predators. *shrug* IMO, our society isn't nearly as advanced toward equality as we'd like to think, anyway.

And in actuality, I don't think we ever will be at a point of true equality. Tarrant's right when he says that women and men are different. Women have evolved one set of skills over the years; men another. The result is that no matter how hard we try to be "equal," we will never be completely rid of perceived or stereotyped differences between the sexes. Look at women in the media now - if a woman is strong and powerful in the fashion of men (belligerent, aggressive, confident), she's considered rebellious or bitchy or overbearing. If she's strong and powerful in any other way, such as through manipulation, or quiet influence, or something similar, she's considered evil, weak, or "womanish," where womanish means lesser, weaker, wimpier.

For example, look at the massive fan hatred of strong women in many fandoms, including our own: Ciani seems to get a disproportionate amount of hate, considering she's very similar in terms of personality to the (male) fan favorite Tarrant. Things that the reader will accept from Tarrant while still liking him as a character, including the mass slaughter of innocents, immediately turn many readers off when they appear in a female character. Fans often complain that strong women are "unrealistic", appearing too perfect or outright unlikeable if they display typically male protagonist characteristics (*coughAnitaBlakecough*). But those same fans will often turn around and complain about the lack of "good" female characters in fiction. I know this because I do it, and I also worry about doing it myself, or having it done to my characters, in my own writing. *>.<* I don't know why I do it - I just know that I almost never like female characters in media because they are either unrealistically strong and perfect, or weak and flawed victimized and therefore unlikeable.

It's a weird phenomenon, and it shows up in real life, too. An astute reporter wrote an article (http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1846832,00.html) during the American election run-up about how many women were turned away from Clinton and Palin simply because they were women. That is, instead of gaining the votes of women, these female candidates actually turned off voters - not because of politics, or party affiliation, or personal beliefs or scandals or anything - but because they are pretty, confident, and female.

This same hatred seems to come out against female characters who share similar traits, which leaves authors kind of stuck: do they create stereotypical weak, helpless, victimized virgins, or warm, matronly mothers whose only purpose is to produce and tend children, and who are both appalling to modern women's sensibilities? Or do they create strong and powerful women characters and risk triggering that unfettered and irrational hatred that women have for other women who are prettier, more confident, or more powerful than themselves?

NOTE: No, these are NOT intended to be blanket statements. There are many female characters in fiction who have found the balance between appealing and realistic, or whose appealing traits at least outweigh their annoying ones. There are many women who DON'T have that instant, automatic hatred for powerful women. And so on. I'm not trying to be inflammatory or anything - I'm just saying what I've observed over the years in many different fandoms as well as real life. I think it's absolutely fascinating to see how some of us read these books and have little or no complaint about how the women are portrayed, while others of us think the depiction is terrible and unflattering, and I'm really enjoying this discussion. Thanks! :)

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree with anything you say here. : )

And I will say that while it seems to me that Coldfire author has a problem with women (and has written Gerald to have *big* gender issues), I myself have similar biases - I love my fictional heroes to be strong and in control, and it's really hard for someone to write a female character I like. I am a product of my society. I try to be conscious of these biases even while I indulge them though - hence this post.

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. There are definitely elements of sexism in the books, I cannot disagree with that. And Gerald, whether he's got issues or has simply chosen to exploit the issues of others, definitely is an example of a problem, and is absolutely a sexual predator.

Would it be worse if he's screwed up, or if he became what he is through pure conscious choice?

I think it's worth mentioning that Friedman seems to write gothic as a genre choice. And in the gothic, gender roles and the consequences for flouting them play a significant part. Compared to the traditional gothic, Friedman's quite subversive...but the element is still there.

Also, I think it needs to be noted that the story was about Damien and Gerald. There are places where there's no room for anybody else, and thus sometimes other characters have to go. It's as unfair to judge such a death differently for it being a female character as it is to kill off female character extraneously just because they're female.

All of which creates a very tangled web, I admit. There are, I believe, valid objections to sexism in these books...but also sometimes what seems like sexism might just be the demands of the story.

Now, I like a lot of things about most of the women in the books. They do almost universally die, yes--which disappoints me (and yes, I found killing Rasya to be gratuitous, so there's a point for the sexism side)--but on the other hand, most of the men involved die, too. Poor Senzei dies uglier than anybody. So I try to take the women as I find them, and I find them to be more complexly written individuals than the women in a lot of other stories.

I consider Rasya's disinterest in deep emotional involvement with Damien to be a positive and the exact opposite of what we get in most stories. She's a strong, independent woman who doesn't fall at the feet of the male protagonist. It's a sign that she's got her own life and is self-aware about its shape and destination. In fact, her only flaw is being (presumably) gratuitously ripped apart by a mob.

Jenseny, I initially hated, not for her role as a female, but because up till the point I read these books I had seldom come across a child character that wasn't viciously annoying. But she grew on me, till I was sad to see her die. As an example of children/females in books, I find her death heroic. As an individual...well, I wonder who she would've grown up to be. Her death, I consider a story element. I really don't know how they would've gotten out of that otherwise, and there's honestly no room in the rest of the tale for her. Damien would've had to leave her with somebody, and there's nobody on that continent he could've reasonably left her with.

Hesseth I count, because regardless of being an alien, she still takes on a female role in the books. She kicks ass, takes names, and is a tender mother. Again, her only flaw is in dying...but again, the story runs out of room for her. The best Friedman could've done was have her and Jenseny return to some form of civilization and live quietly as a family. But Hesseth doesn't quite belong anywhere after what Tarrant did to her, and would she have left the quest early at any rate?

Narilka's weird. She's as feminine a character as I've ever seen, but she's not the fluttering, helpless damsel in distress. She reminds me of Christine, from Phantom of the Opera, and of something I once read about Russian fairy tales: that in traditional societies, there are roles for women and roles for men, so fairy tales about woman heroes are a different kind of story than tales about male heroes. They're likely to start a quest for different reasons than men, and they undertake it differently. The writer carried this on to modern fantasy, where we're largely inundated with the coming-of-age hero tale or the male quest, and wondered what a modern story about a woman hero (rather than a woman taking a male hero role) would be like. I think Narilka might be an example...but you know what? She plays a very similar role for Andrys as Damien does for Tarrant. She just doesn't have to go as far, because Andrys needs a lot less redeeming.

And I suspect I'm running out of room, so I'll continue this in another comment...

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

Ciani...is both admirable and a bitch, a victim and, well, not. She is victimized, but she isn't a victim. She fights back, even though she's miserable and battered. I give her points for being her own person, a unique woman who has a good idea of who she is and doesn't care what others think. I actually almost see the first book as her story, intersecting by chance with Tarrant's and Damien's to lead them both to their own tale by the end of it. She leaves when her story is done. That's cold of her, though on the other hand she's been through enough. She's selfish and amoral, but not entirely. She can be compassionate and warm. She's brilliant, maybe as brilliant as Gerald. She can take care of herself, at least physically, even after her adeptitude is stripped. When I find myself playing that kind of bad point/good point game, I generally give it up and concede that the character is realistic and individual, because it's clear to me the author wasn't writing them to be either perfect or despicable.

Still, there's sexism in these books, even if it isn't mainly in the women characters themselves. Gerald is one example, and a very conscious problem. In fact, like others've said, Friedman addresses the problem of gender roles and exploitation in her stories a lot, and this is actually one of the tamer ones. But here's the thing: it's not just women. We see the female problem, because the women in those stories are being visibly victimized and oppressed and we're primed to notice the female plight, but it's easy to miss how fucked-up the men get when they have to play to tightly constrained roles, too. It's also oppression, but of a more insidious, invisible kind. (In her In Conquest Born 'verse, this is deliberate and even explicit. It's not just about abusing women; it's the wreckage that oppressive gender roles can make of everybody, and all the ways it can happen.)

Damien's not tightly constrained. Tarrant might be, with his "strict Revivalist sensibilities." We naturally map them to, say, the Middle Ages or maybe Victorian obsession with oppressive societal roles and restrictions. But we're just guessing about that.

As to the fae, your theory about it influencing gender roles is a great one. It hadn't occurred to me. I don't know whether it's that direct, but at least in an indirect sense, I'm sure you're right. It's the victimization meme again, I think. After all, what monsters do we hear a lot about? Vampires and seductive demons. We see doppelgangers that play the helpless woman to lure her male protectors close. They're things that can prey on men, too, but they play so much on the older ideas of feminine vulnerability...and the fact that the Hunter found a niche there too, through reasoning it out quite coldly (whether he had previous issues pulling him there or not, his logic is, as usual, flawless), tells us that it's a meme that's alive and well on Erna. And if that's true, then there'll be good old social pressures trying to push women into it. Only, in Coldfire, we get no real evidence that this is a theme of the books, that sexual oppression or gender roles are something we're supposed to be thinking about--and it's when it's being taken for granted that it becomes truly problematic.

On the other hand, she might've included it as a factor inherent in the setting. It's sci-fi with classic fantasy mapped to it, and in classic fantasy (and gothic horror) you get damsels in distress. "Everybody knows that," and on Erna, what "everybody knows" is how it goes down.

[fragorl.livejournal.com]

This has been a really interesting post. Firstly I thought the comments about sexism other than as a plot device seem mostly to be pretty much unfounded. The reference to ICB and Anza in particularly as I have recently reread and found myself really drawn to and liking her character - the violence of her past is dealt with despite the negative influence of others seeking to control her, and in many ways it is her strength as a character that sets her up as entirely alone. It seemed to me she was almost realistic in her weaknesses, and the way she is several times compared to the shem'ar (the idea of a powerful woman being fascinating and dangerous) was really inspired, particularly in contrast to the inherent sexism of her enemies - the ending confused me a little but it seemed to me that the reason he is in that position is because he would not find another with HER strengths and similarities...

With Coldfire, I must admit Narilka is one of my favourite characters. I would say that while possibly unhealthy her infatuation/ fascination with Tarrant was entirely predictable. He is described as beautiful, with charisma, and clearly intelligent, and attention from him had clearly flattered her. He showed her something precious and set her apart from thousands of other women by then not harming her; speaking as a reader who is ENTIRELY in love with Gerald I think I would have responded in entirely the same way... For me the weak point was settling for Andrys BECAUSE he was the closest she could come, and perhaps the only way she could be close to his ancestor. I gather I am unusual in this fandom in wishing to see an ending where she could have ended up with Gerald.

Likewise with Almea - firstly - the illusion with the mirror was not real it was created by Calesta. The fact that this particular image was used to inspire horror (and it did inspire horror) indicates that he is yet to get over the implications of that first sacrifice. He had loved her and killed her, and I think that he held her in a sort of reverence, and was in a way afraid of her image. I do not think he could have hunted a woman like her and I dont think its necessarily because he couldnt live with the guilt. I think he was somewhere afraid that there would be retaliation for that first worst betrayal.

Almea loving him, I think here people have missed out much by just looking at the short part of their history that is actually shown in the novels - her death. It is mentioned she is a victim, and perhaps defending her abuser in a sort of twisted love. But that is not really so, is it. He is described as 'ever the dutiful husband' and I cannot see him as ever having mistreated her BEFORE this madness that overcame him... She had been in love with him for many (presumably) happy years before all this, and even as an evil moralless psychopath he seems to be a character that inspires fascination - I imagine as a figure of good this was probably even more so.... It is not so strange then, that she tried to save him.

Women might be portrayed as having weaknessess but they are certainly not alone - with Senzei's addiction, the Patriarch's denial, Damiens inability to actually live a life that is his own and Tarrants... (well probably safer not even to go there its quite a long list...) I would say the scales were pretty damn even. I wish we could have learnt more about the undying prince...