(no subject)
Feb. 7th, 2011 04:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winneganfakeThis is posted to cap off something from a year ago.
By "cap off" I mean "get my two fucking cents in the goddamn door, because at the time, I was injured, couldn't, and then left the damn thing aside, but it's honestly stupid and I need to deal with it. "
So, let's get to it.
For those who want to see the original clusterfuck, it broke up primarily into two posts. This right here being the first one, in which I posted a silly cartoon about the recent volume in a series of books I'm rather addicted to, and wherein which I got much amazed about the level of reactions that were generated by said post. Right here is the fucking follow-up, in which my sense of male privilege is much-debated, along with sexism, grammar, and quite a few other things, in short it's the comments field of an LJ post that has gone completely off the fucking rails to some degree.
So, you ask yourself- why the fuck is Winnegan reposting this shit now, damn near a year after the fact?
Because it's been bugging me, the whole fucking time, and because I feel I need to put some goddamn pointers on things at this point, so I can finally bury this in full and move on to other things, that's why. BEcause I want to re-summarize the arguments. Because I do still partly want to talk about this subject some, and because, well, it's my fucking journal- I don't need to justify all my reasons for doing so if I don't bloody well want to.
So, in short, let us summarize.
Meet Harry fucking Dresden. Wizard, sometimes hero, and generally all around decent chap.
Dresden lives in a universe created by author Jim Butcher, otherwise known as "The Dresden Files."
And while he's a protagonist in a novel, and should be the embodiment of all that is Good and Right in the universe, Harry is at times, a bit of a sexist. He's a human being- ergo, he will have flaws, going on that "nobody's perfect" rule of life (Yes, Christ, I'm looking at you- you couldn't even stay dead properly, so can it.) The point is not that he has flaws and is lauded for them. In fact his sexism regularly gets him into far too much trouble, and is a constant thing that his nose gets rubbed in. And let me clarify slightly- we're not talking wife-abusing sexism, or ignoring the capabilities of any female around him- no, it's more the "trying to be chivalrous and failing" type. Critiques that blame the series for failing miserably because Harry's a sexist are pretty much missing the point of the fucking books.
Now, that said, I realize- I'm male. The fact that I have a penis may somehow mysteriously be affecting my judgment in that I may somehow be marginalizing Harry's sexism in a series that focuses not on his sexism but on adventures, magic, dark sorcery, demons attempting to commit mass slaughter, and the occasional zombie Tyrranosaur. Be that as it may, I stand by my earlier judgment: these books are full of win and awesome, and I heartily recommend them to just about any reader.
Anything I'm missing that needs coverage from the original arguments? New points anyone wants to add into this? Bring it on, please.
By "cap off" I mean "get my two fucking cents in the goddamn door, because at the time, I was injured, couldn't, and then left the damn thing aside, but it's honestly stupid and I need to deal with it. "
So, let's get to it.
For those who want to see the original clusterfuck, it broke up primarily into two posts. This right here being the first one, in which I posted a silly cartoon about the recent volume in a series of books I'm rather addicted to, and wherein which I got much amazed about the level of reactions that were generated by said post. Right here is the fucking follow-up, in which my sense of male privilege is much-debated, along with sexism, grammar, and quite a few other things, in short it's the comments field of an LJ post that has gone completely off the fucking rails to some degree.
So, you ask yourself- why the fuck is Winnegan reposting this shit now, damn near a year after the fact?
Because it's been bugging me, the whole fucking time, and because I feel I need to put some goddamn pointers on things at this point, so I can finally bury this in full and move on to other things, that's why. BEcause I want to re-summarize the arguments. Because I do still partly want to talk about this subject some, and because, well, it's my fucking journal- I don't need to justify all my reasons for doing so if I don't bloody well want to.
So, in short, let us summarize.
Meet Harry fucking Dresden. Wizard, sometimes hero, and generally all around decent chap.
Dresden lives in a universe created by author Jim Butcher, otherwise known as "The Dresden Files."
And while he's a protagonist in a novel, and should be the embodiment of all that is Good and Right in the universe, Harry is at times, a bit of a sexist. He's a human being- ergo, he will have flaws, going on that "nobody's perfect" rule of life (Yes, Christ, I'm looking at you- you couldn't even stay dead properly, so can it.) The point is not that he has flaws and is lauded for them. In fact his sexism regularly gets him into far too much trouble, and is a constant thing that his nose gets rubbed in. And let me clarify slightly- we're not talking wife-abusing sexism, or ignoring the capabilities of any female around him- no, it's more the "trying to be chivalrous and failing" type. Critiques that blame the series for failing miserably because Harry's a sexist are pretty much missing the point of the fucking books.
Now, that said, I realize- I'm male. The fact that I have a penis may somehow mysteriously be affecting my judgment in that I may somehow be marginalizing Harry's sexism in a series that focuses not on his sexism but on adventures, magic, dark sorcery, demons attempting to commit mass slaughter, and the occasional zombie Tyrranosaur. Be that as it may, I stand by my earlier judgment: these books are full of win and awesome, and I heartily recommend them to just about any reader.
Anything I'm missing that needs coverage from the original arguments? New points anyone wants to add into this? Bring it on, please.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-08 06:28 pm (UTC)Seriously. It's gotten beyond ridicuolus, people finding amy little thing to blow out of proportion. And IU'm not talking about the Dresden Files books- which, hello, female not quite geek here, and I enjoy them for the fictional fluff they are, despite their inherant 'issues'.
Every time I turm around, someone else is throwing a fit over a perceived or not 'slight', a perceived 'slur', a percieved 'racist image/remark/statement/whathaveyou'. Some are deperately reaching, others are legitimate but blown way out of scale.
That initial thread of yours- yes, I can see why some people would have issues with the books. But, you can get a feel for them within the FIRST book, so why, if you find them triggery, would you bother to keep reading them, when you KNOW the entire series is based around on spectacularly flawed charactor?
This may sound cold and callous, but sometimes, I think people deliberately go out of their way to find things that are trggery just to bitch about them.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-08 06:29 pm (UTC)