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Sep. 6th, 2007 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI've almost finished reading the Belgariad.
... I'm sure you're all greatly relieved.
I find something new to complain of:
One of the key points through the books is that the evil god Torak wants to marry Polgara, and she doesn't want to marry him. Part of the big finale, the final confrontation, has him telling her to come marry him and her telling him no.
So far, so good.
But.
They couldn't just leave it at that. They had to go and embellish.
Despite being thousands of years old, and thousands of years single as far as we know, she clearly couldn't just choose to remain single at the end. Oh no. Then there's be a powerful woman running around loose, and where would they be then? No, the final choice wasn't "Submit to a man or stay free" it was "Submit to Torak or choose this other guy instead".
*massively headdesk*
And it wasn't even choosing. It was like realising, like finally noticing she's all in love with him. It's all tragic because he just died, see, and she was about to yield to Torak but the boy she raised reminds her of the man she just lost and she remembers to be all loyal to the corpse instead.
She couldn't have just said "No thanks, I'll stick with the free will" ?
No. Her memories of him are what save the day. In a peculiar way, despite the fact he's lying there all corpsey and deaded, it's not even her that wins that confrontation - it's him.
I just don't get it. Why decide that's a better story?
Well because by the end everyone's coupled off and reproducing, because clearly this is the reward everyone's looking for.
Oh for just one queer character. One! There's a cast suitable to an epic, it wouldn't be too hard to find room for them.
Or not even queer. Just single. Because sometimes? That's a choice.
Gah.
So anyway, they just had a big swordfight powered by hate, and Garion won by persuading Torak nobody ever loved him.
This is the good guy approach?
Granted Torak has his followers literally give him their hearts, on a little fire, but they also keep calling him insane, so once again it's the pointy-end therapy for mental illness. I wish they'd either just stick to calling him evil or come up with an alternative involving healing. But nooooooo.
Sometimes I don't like the standard story.
Actually, most times lately.
Blah.
... oh it gets worse. Now there's a whole bit with Polgara asking for the dead guy to get alive again so he can be her husband. And her god is going on about how marriage must be a joining between equals, and he hasn't got any sorcery so it ain't equal. I'm like, hello? There's two equal thrones on the whole continent, and one of those hasn't even got around to the marriage yet. If it's supposed to be between equals, a *hell* of a lot of men in this story need telling. But no, Polgara has to choose. And in order to prove her love she must choose to give up her power.
I don't care that it turns out to be some kind of cosmic practical joke, the concept is sickening. And, okay, it's cool that the good and decent and practical man who followed her all over the continent gets to have sorcery too. That's just nifty. But it's bloody stupid to ever suggest she should lose hers, and it's plain *wrong* that she should choose to diminish herself so to get a man.
This book is going on the inaccessible shelf up top of the room, and it's bloody lucky not to go in the for-sale box.
... also, and I realise I'm being slightly contradictory here, it's wrong to say that her sorcery is so central to her she'd be nothing without it. The woman does politics and medecine and cooking and a bunch of other clever things, not being able to change people into snakes with her mind isn't so much the end of her. Of course it's only Garion who thinks it would be, and Belgarath tells him he's wrong, but I still manage to get annoyed at the suggestion.
I'm sure there's a way that makes perfect sense in logic world, to get annoyed at both things.
I think it goes along with the disability issues. Losing one part isn't losing self.
... it gets worse, it gets worser than that:
Belgarath says "Polgara's been almost like a son to me, but perhaps it's time that I let her be a woman. I've denied her that for too long."
*sputters incoherently*
Because clearly, it takes marrying a man to make you a woman.
Gah!
Book about to reach launch velocity, and I've only ever done that to one other book!
Dammit, there's about 30 pages left to go, I can avoid throwing the book until I've finished it... surely...
PS am remembering the other reasons I like Silk - and where the secretly-queer character is in the first set of books. Everyone else is getting married - Silk goes off to 'form a partnership' with a guy. A guy who has previously stuck his neck out to save Silk's life repeatedly. It's, well, promising, with a certain set of filters on.
... I'm sure you're all greatly relieved.
I find something new to complain of:
One of the key points through the books is that the evil god Torak wants to marry Polgara, and she doesn't want to marry him. Part of the big finale, the final confrontation, has him telling her to come marry him and her telling him no.
So far, so good.
But.
They couldn't just leave it at that. They had to go and embellish.
Despite being thousands of years old, and thousands of years single as far as we know, she clearly couldn't just choose to remain single at the end. Oh no. Then there's be a powerful woman running around loose, and where would they be then? No, the final choice wasn't "Submit to a man or stay free" it was "Submit to Torak or choose this other guy instead".
*massively headdesk*
And it wasn't even choosing. It was like realising, like finally noticing she's all in love with him. It's all tragic because he just died, see, and she was about to yield to Torak but the boy she raised reminds her of the man she just lost and she remembers to be all loyal to the corpse instead.
She couldn't have just said "No thanks, I'll stick with the free will" ?
No. Her memories of him are what save the day. In a peculiar way, despite the fact he's lying there all corpsey and deaded, it's not even her that wins that confrontation - it's him.
I just don't get it. Why decide that's a better story?
Well because by the end everyone's coupled off and reproducing, because clearly this is the reward everyone's looking for.
Oh for just one queer character. One! There's a cast suitable to an epic, it wouldn't be too hard to find room for them.
Or not even queer. Just single. Because sometimes? That's a choice.
Gah.
So anyway, they just had a big swordfight powered by hate, and Garion won by persuading Torak nobody ever loved him.
This is the good guy approach?
Granted Torak has his followers literally give him their hearts, on a little fire, but they also keep calling him insane, so once again it's the pointy-end therapy for mental illness. I wish they'd either just stick to calling him evil or come up with an alternative involving healing. But nooooooo.
Sometimes I don't like the standard story.
Actually, most times lately.
Blah.
... oh it gets worse. Now there's a whole bit with Polgara asking for the dead guy to get alive again so he can be her husband. And her god is going on about how marriage must be a joining between equals, and he hasn't got any sorcery so it ain't equal. I'm like, hello? There's two equal thrones on the whole continent, and one of those hasn't even got around to the marriage yet. If it's supposed to be between equals, a *hell* of a lot of men in this story need telling. But no, Polgara has to choose. And in order to prove her love she must choose to give up her power.
I don't care that it turns out to be some kind of cosmic practical joke, the concept is sickening. And, okay, it's cool that the good and decent and practical man who followed her all over the continent gets to have sorcery too. That's just nifty. But it's bloody stupid to ever suggest she should lose hers, and it's plain *wrong* that she should choose to diminish herself so to get a man.
This book is going on the inaccessible shelf up top of the room, and it's bloody lucky not to go in the for-sale box.
... also, and I realise I'm being slightly contradictory here, it's wrong to say that her sorcery is so central to her she'd be nothing without it. The woman does politics and medecine and cooking and a bunch of other clever things, not being able to change people into snakes with her mind isn't so much the end of her. Of course it's only Garion who thinks it would be, and Belgarath tells him he's wrong, but I still manage to get annoyed at the suggestion.
I'm sure there's a way that makes perfect sense in logic world, to get annoyed at both things.
I think it goes along with the disability issues. Losing one part isn't losing self.
... it gets worse, it gets worser than that:
Belgarath says "Polgara's been almost like a son to me, but perhaps it's time that I let her be a woman. I've denied her that for too long."
*sputters incoherently*
Because clearly, it takes marrying a man to make you a woman.
Gah!
Book about to reach launch velocity, and I've only ever done that to one other book!
Dammit, there's about 30 pages left to go, I can avoid throwing the book until I've finished it... surely...
PS am remembering the other reasons I like Silk - and where the secretly-queer character is in the first set of books. Everyone else is getting married - Silk goes off to 'form a partnership' with a guy. A guy who has previously stuck his neck out to save Silk's life repeatedly. It's, well, promising, with a certain set of filters on.
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-07 07:38 pm (UTC)I've read that. Eddings' books seem have a lot of, "And they got married! Yays!" as the happy ending... Do you think it's because he and his wife co-wrote them? (Genuine question, here, I'd love to see what you think...)
no subject
Date: 2007-09-13 04:04 pm (UTC)That said, could be. Or it could be part of the wider pattern where fairytales end with a wedding. *shrugs*