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Emotional shift
Jun. 15th, 2015 10:12 amI'm reading a multi book series that keeps baffling me in its basic assumptions about human nature. Granted, some of the beings think they're not human, but since they can have kids with humans I'd say close enough.
Part of the problem is how all the main characters are of the same generation and vaguely matching inclinations, old enough to have sex but not having children yet. And they rule their people. They don't have elders to answer to or be advised by, they don't have children around to actually actively look after, they just have the plot (mostly shagging, some politics. I've got a shelf full.)
But a lot is that the author doesn't seem to buy their own premise. They've said that this society is matrifocal, that the men go visiting other clans to have sex and make babies, but then come home and help raise their female relatives kids. But they haven't really followed through on it. Every single thing they write is about how these guys are rubbish fathers who abandon their children. There's nothing at all about female relatives or their descendants. They've not made the emotional shift in their own heads.
So okay, set sex aside. This is difficult in our society and in this subgenre of writing, but seriously, stop thinking about sex.
In our society men are expected to make their wife their primary emotional attachment, ( Read more... )
There's still a book left to go, maybe somebody somewhere is doing the thing where brothers help raise nephews in the society that is said to consider that standard.
But at the moment it just seems like the writer failed their imagination save and couldn't do that first thing, separate out the sex and love, and shift their emotional perspective so other forms of love are just as important.
... it's a romance and shagging series, of course they can't.
*sigh*
Part of the problem is how all the main characters are of the same generation and vaguely matching inclinations, old enough to have sex but not having children yet. And they rule their people. They don't have elders to answer to or be advised by, they don't have children around to actually actively look after, they just have the plot (mostly shagging, some politics. I've got a shelf full.)
But a lot is that the author doesn't seem to buy their own premise. They've said that this society is matrifocal, that the men go visiting other clans to have sex and make babies, but then come home and help raise their female relatives kids. But they haven't really followed through on it. Every single thing they write is about how these guys are rubbish fathers who abandon their children. There's nothing at all about female relatives or their descendants. They've not made the emotional shift in their own heads.
So okay, set sex aside. This is difficult in our society and in this subgenre of writing, but seriously, stop thinking about sex.
In our society men are expected to make their wife their primary emotional attachment, ( Read more... )
There's still a book left to go, maybe somebody somewhere is doing the thing where brothers help raise nephews in the society that is said to consider that standard.
But at the moment it just seems like the writer failed their imagination save and couldn't do that first thing, separate out the sex and love, and shift their emotional perspective so other forms of love are just as important.
... it's a romance and shagging series, of course they can't.
*sigh*