Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Books => Topic started by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on December 03, 2004, 08:07:43 AM
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reference: http://www.timewastersguide.com/view.php?id=917
EUOL's response to the Nerdery #2 (http://www.timewastersguide.com/view.php?id=911&dep=6)
I have something to add to the discussion of both, but I want to try and find a quote.
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Hey SE -- fix the italics from your editor's note.
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I'll do what I want.
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THe quote I mentioned doesn't appear to be online anymore. Anyway, recently Avalanche Press sold a "sexy girls" set or something. Just a bundle of some of their RPGs with the chix on the cover. The press release spoke about how their covers went in the face of what people were telling them: that the sex angle wasn't flying with RPGers anymore. Their stuff sold, and they were proud of the half-naked covers.
anyway, this kind of says two things: one, that the rpg industry, at least in the eyes of many publishers, is already forsaking the sex on the cover approach. two, that there are parties vehemently resisting this change. I'm not sure what that says about what will happen in the future, however.
The other thing I wanted to say was about violence. Which is a worse sin? Murder or adultery? I'd have to say Murder. Yet sex is a much more avoided problem than violence is. Why is this?
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I agree with EUOL on how fantasy books have really matured in their depiction of women, both artistically and linguistically. Also, at least in children's books, mainstream, big-5 and mid-range publishers have really been jumping on the fantasy bandwagon. I think this has been both affected by and has effected changes in the genre. The quality of production of these books is amazing. Because publishers are finally realizing that kids really will read a 500 page book if the story is good (duh), they've increased the leading and font sizes of slight stories to make them look like huge tomes, and the paper has a higher opacity, and the art departments are simply paying much more attention to the design of the books. Like EUOL mentioned, cover art is better, too--in children's, of course, it never had the problem of near-naked people, but it did have what I call the Tuck Everlasting "ugliest cover ever" syndrome.
So there is some hope, yes. But you go to things like WorldCon, and some (not all) of the stuff being sold in the merchant's room... it was really offensive to me, both as a woman and as a religious conservative type who would never expose my kids to that if I had any.
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P.S. SE, not sure what the problem was with your italics, but I was just in editing it, so if you went in and fixed something, I'm afraid I would have saved over it.
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Quick opinion on murder vs. sex question. Murder is so far out that no one really considers doing it and thus it is safe to joke around with. Adultery happens a lot more often and is far more accepted thus no one knows if you're joking around and moral people have the urge to push the whole topic back out to where it should be.
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Hey SE, there's no link to the forum in the Eulogy.
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Stacer, my italics were as I corrected them after HoM's warning. You may want to check to make sure I didn't save over YOUR changes.
Anyway, I really apologize for the half-arsed job I did blurbing and approving that article this morning. I thought I could quickly get it done before I left for work, and I left a lot of stuff out, like the link, the bio, and a closing <I> tag. I am lame. I'll just wait till I have more than 5 minutes to take care of it next time.
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Skar,
I like your answer to SE. I hadn't thought of that, but it is very rational. In addition, here's another thought on the matter.
How often, really, do these books encourage murder? I have violence in my books, but I sincerely don't see myself as encouraging murder.
Violence CAN represent senseless brutality. However, it can also be a powerful metaphor for the struggles we all must make--struggles of control, and battles of good vs. evil. So, when the hero fights off the evil doers, protecting the innocent, then goes and sleeps with his sexy sidekick, I find the second far worse. In the first case, I think he's done what he was supposed to--he may have had to kill, but few heroes are presented as LIKING that part of their job. The immorality, however, is presented as equally cool, but without the situational justification.
That's why I'm perfectly alright with video games that have an 'M' rating because you have to fight off an alien invasion, while disgusted by games with the same rating that have you carjacking, whoring, and creating general mayhem.
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I don't know about "most heroes" i'd have to see some numbers. There are a LOT of characters that are portrayed as loving the violence and the fight. Especially recently.
But what you say makes sense.
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Yup, EUOL, I agree with you and feel much the same way. I see rated R movies (I know some on the forum don't) but I'll walk out of one if it sprays me with gratuitous sex. Gratuitous violence I'm OK with. Even beyond the violence that is justified by the situation.
My favorite justification for violence that would not be justified were the situations in the movie to happen in real life is that it's fake. Sex or nudity on screen is not fake.
One of my biggest pet peeves concerning movies is when everything about a movie is great, but then the main character goes and has casual sex. Stupid.
We've got to somehow let the industry know that it hurts their sales.
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Well, I don't know if it has hurt their sales yet.
Comparing justified killing with adultery seems a bit unfair. What about unjustified murder and adultery? I read a book recently where the main character is told that if she wants to prove herself to her brother she had to kill a character the reader knows to be good. She does it, and that killed the book for me because I no longer wanted to read about this person. Her actions were just as offensive if not more so than scenes of casual sex.
Whether people are more offended by sex or violence has a lot to do with culture. Cultures with extremely loose morality often have no trouble with nudity and sexual intercourse. Watch Monty Python, if you don't believe me. Our culture seems to have a much easier time with violence. We're exposed to it more so it isn't usually as offensive.
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I'm not sure that it does Skar. Remember the whole common denominator thing.
This has been noted before, that violence is tolerated a lot more than sex. In continental Europe the opposite is true; they have a great deal of random nudity in adverts. I'm not sure about the violence thing, someone go watch some French films and let me know.
Interestingly enough, i've been reading the Tamuli (by David Eddings, SE) and the casual attitude towards random killings and the like that the characters have expressed has been making me slightly uncomfortable. Whereas I happily play an Euthanatos, essentially a mage who believes that murder can and should be used to remove people who impede, either through actions or refusal to adapt, the turning of the great wheel, in a Mage: The Ascension game. So I guess Its the fact they don't have a real reason past 'it's easier and quicker than talking him down' thats troubling me - if they had a better reason I'm fine with anything. I'm just wierd.
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Cultures with extremely loose morality often have no trouble with nudity and sexual intercourse. Watch Monty Python, if you don't believe me.
Hm? I'm not certain I like the phrasing of that sentence.
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I read a book recently where the main character is told that if she wants to prove herself to her brother she had to kill a character the reader knows to be good. She does it, and that killed the book for me because I no longer wanted to read about this person.
First of all, did she know this character that she killed?
Second of all, I dont think that you can hold that against the girl too much if she is obsessed with being accepted by her brother. It all depends on her psychology. If she is not of strong character and needs someone to accept her, then it is very easy to see how she would kill to gain that reassurance. The action remains immoral, but the person may not be.
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Nope. Not buying it. There's a difference between being psychotic and not responsible for your actions and needy. Just because she wants her brother to accept her doesn't take away her culpability.
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Not if she fully knew what she was doing. But my first question to Sigyn was did the girl know the character she killed. And even if she did, it is quite possible to become so focused on the acceptance of her brother that nothing else seems important. If someone is obsessed, with a person especially, the object of their obsession has enough of their focus to shunt things like morality out of their mind. If something can make their dream come true, that is all that matters. I don't know enough about the book to know whether or not she has crossed that line, but it is certainly possible.
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either way, the killing is reprehensible.
The focus on the violence is the justification. But the definition of murder is pretty much that it's not justified. there are a number of successful stories in various formats right now that feature murder, not defending oneself or going to war or that sort of thing.
And my note is that we have much less problem with that sort of thing, at least in the US, than we do with random adultery.
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I would agree with that Saint, but surely if she is that obsessed, it doesnt make the character so bad that it ruins the book. It is much easier to relate to someone like that, in my opinion, and to see that it is not that hard of a trap to fall into.
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you think murder isn't a hard trap to fall into?
and define obsession? are we talking something on the level with my predilication for Ninja Monkeys? or are we talking psychosis? Because it's just as hard for me to make the connection to one so insane that she can't identify right from wrong as it is to identify with someone who willingly commits wrong.
which, again, is all beside the point of my original question. If she's insane enough to be unaccountable, than it's not murder. Why is MURDER so glossed in our society?
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Anyone else ever read the Death Dealer series?
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Thanks for the kind words in the article EUOL.
And the piece was great. Always good to see things from another viewpoint.
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Why is MURDER so glossed in our society?
Maybe because long ago, and still today, killing for a (good) cause can be shown as a good thing. Killing makes a big influence, for good or for evil, therefore, many times, the killers are the ones who make the most difference. I am not saying that there aren't people who are equally as effective peacefully, but killing works more often, simply because for peaceful resistance to work, you have to be remembered and supported by a large mass of people, and you can be repressed. Killing someone in power is impossible to cover up, therefore you can't help but be remembered, or at least your actions can't. If someone were to assassinate Hitler, they would be considered a huge hero, because although the means is still evil, it would have an enormous positive effect. The assassin could still be considered wicked, but not many would call him that, considering the circumstances. Therefore, since killers are often celebrated, their actions may have inherited some of their reverence.
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Okay, the girl in the story knows the guy she is supposed to kill. She is told he is a bad person, but she knows he is at least a kind person. In fact, he and his girlfriend are two of the only people who are nice to her. She also knows that by killing the guy she will be ruining the life of his girlfriend, who she thinks is a good person. She is told she must kill him to "prove" herself. I didn't buy when I was reading it that this was enough motivation for her character to do what she was doing.
I think our society accepts murder more easily because of our folk history. We have the whole genre of the wild west and taking justice into your own hands and kill or be killed. Even if those aren't necessarily the motivations in books or games (though they often are), I think we often shunt those actions off into those terms so that we don't have as much trouble dealing with it.
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Im not so sure that the sex is going either... It may be off the covers, but its definately between the pages. Guy Guirival Kays Tigana for instance has a graphic sex scene a few pages in and blatant x rated bondage later. I was more than a little surprised. Joan D Vinges The Summer Queen is filled with sex. In fact when I see a love scene in a fantasy novel these days chances are its going to be hardcore. I didnt expect it with Kay, even though his opus the Finovar Tapestry had a little sex it had been tame compared to Tigana.