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beccaelizabethSo I wrote down on my to-do list that I should write about the Whore Goddess in a couple fantasy books I read recently.
... the W word is not polite but it's the one both books used.
I'm not sure I've got actual meta about it left but okay to do list, shall write:
In the first one the Whore was one of the dark side aspects to the Goddess, being the dark mirror of some Maiden sort, and she was a goddess of ill repute. Nobody liked her except maybe by mistake. She was for drunkards and ill gotten gains. Basically they'd written her as an aspect of femininity that was at once divine and reviled.
And I just thought, that's stupid.
A whore goddess is a goddess of negotiable affection. She's a goddess that likes you as long as the offerings keep flowing. She doesn't care what you've done. You don't have to be loyal, or pure, or (ridiculous) chaste. She's there for you - if you meet her price. And sure, tomorrow, if you're flat broke, she's out of there, but so it goes. She don't care about your track record one way or the other, and she's fine with short notice. And this is a fantasy goddess, with actual magic. Actual magic which you only need money for.
Probably different amounts of money for a different class of magic, but so it goes.
She's still going to be very, very popular indeed.
Also? Goddess. With the worship and divinity and so forth. You don't get reviled goddesses of one's own religion. They're all awesome, as in standing in awe.
So the second book I read actually had that kind of goddess, with the lady of negotiable affection being goddess of whores and mercs. And she was indeed popular. But I kind of wondered if they wrote it that way mostly because of the mercs part? But then there was a lot of sex so they followed up on both sides of the premise. Either way, she's a goddess who turns up and probably even helps when you pay her, so she's fine by most regular people.
It's like most goddesses want a lifelong and intimate relationship where they get to judge all the corners of your soul, and some people want a more businesslike transactional religion.
Their souls might be in some difficulty come the judgement, but in the meantime, they're getting along fine.
And that's committing to your premise. Fantasy books that just can't make the shift out of their usual frame kind of frustrate me. If religion works different in the new worlds, mindset has to work different too. Or you end up with the here now with funny names on and it's all very much more boring than it could be.
... the W word is not polite but it's the one both books used.
I'm not sure I've got actual meta about it left but okay to do list, shall write:
In the first one the Whore was one of the dark side aspects to the Goddess, being the dark mirror of some Maiden sort, and she was a goddess of ill repute. Nobody liked her except maybe by mistake. She was for drunkards and ill gotten gains. Basically they'd written her as an aspect of femininity that was at once divine and reviled.
And I just thought, that's stupid.
A whore goddess is a goddess of negotiable affection. She's a goddess that likes you as long as the offerings keep flowing. She doesn't care what you've done. You don't have to be loyal, or pure, or (ridiculous) chaste. She's there for you - if you meet her price. And sure, tomorrow, if you're flat broke, she's out of there, but so it goes. She don't care about your track record one way or the other, and she's fine with short notice. And this is a fantasy goddess, with actual magic. Actual magic which you only need money for.
Probably different amounts of money for a different class of magic, but so it goes.
She's still going to be very, very popular indeed.
Also? Goddess. With the worship and divinity and so forth. You don't get reviled goddesses of one's own religion. They're all awesome, as in standing in awe.
So the second book I read actually had that kind of goddess, with the lady of negotiable affection being goddess of whores and mercs. And she was indeed popular. But I kind of wondered if they wrote it that way mostly because of the mercs part? But then there was a lot of sex so they followed up on both sides of the premise. Either way, she's a goddess who turns up and probably even helps when you pay her, so she's fine by most regular people.
It's like most goddesses want a lifelong and intimate relationship where they get to judge all the corners of your soul, and some people want a more businesslike transactional religion.
Their souls might be in some difficulty come the judgement, but in the meantime, they're getting along fine.
And that's committing to your premise. Fantasy books that just can't make the shift out of their usual frame kind of frustrate me. If religion works different in the new worlds, mindset has to work different too. Or you end up with the here now with funny names on and it's all very much more boring than it could be.
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Date: 2015-10-08 12:37 pm (UTC)