IntenseDebate - JuniperElaine

7 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Maskerade'... · 0 replies · +5 points

That's an interesting point. Not to make it WHAT ABOUT CHRISTINE, but she would be getting pushed into a role that was wrong for her too. Christine in the chorus line, Agnes as prima donna, Nanny Ogg in a character role (the "side" character who's actually pulling strings) would be a great production.

8 years ago @ The Toast - 42 Steps to Conquering... · 0 replies · +13 points

So I've been staying up too late because I'm looking for the point when I'm too tired to do anything but work? Also too tired to feel guilty for not doing it perfectly? Help?

8 years ago @ The Toast - Reasons I Would Not Ha... · 0 replies · +29 points

Depends on your social standing, religion, family. With just the right combination of older family-name-bearing siblings and personal property to donate to the Church you could have been an anchoress. Although that still counts as being shuttered away, even if by choice.

8 years ago @ The Toast - Reasons I Would Not Ha... · 0 replies · +19 points

The changeling stuff was often used against neurodivergent children, I think :(

8 years ago @ The Toast - Reasons I Would Not Ha... · 0 replies · +17 points

Yes. Or take Jane Austen - everyone, ladies and gentlemen included, should get jobs. Dependence is the enemy...trains for everyone?

8 years ago @ The Toast - Reasons I Would Not Ha... · 1 reply · +14 points

! I've said these exact things so many times...hazardous lack of vision, LASIK and NASA (there's this character in Krakauer's INTO THIN AIR whose LASIK fails on Everest). Why are all of you me???

8 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'The Will o... · 0 replies · +5 points

Yes, Berenene is definitely more like Catherine the Great. Even the cold, harsh, enormous Namornese empire sounds like Catherine's Russia. I don't think Berenene is a direct expy of anyone, though.

8 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'The Will o... · 4 replies · +5 points

There is no direct historical parallel to Namorn, because of magic introducing additional social classes and technological abilities. Also, it seems that in Namorn, romantic relationships of any gender combination are often totally divorced :) from financial/reproductive relationships. There was no Beauty and the Beast demand for Gudruny to *love* her husband, just to serve him faithfully.
Berenene seems to be only a slight exaggeration of Elizabeth I's public, politically advantageous flirtations and private relationships, in which Berenene's political flirtations and personal relationships are both public. She still uses the tools of patriarchy (inheritance, monarchy, court control of nobles) and selectively applies traditions (bride kidnapping, demanding tribute from Sandry's lands) where they support her own pragmatic ends. And although I call Berenene pragmatic, since no one is without cultural influence, Berenene probably does justify every action through interpreting societal roles (strong Namornese person, ruler's duty to people, daughter's duty to uphold family power).

8 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'The Will o... · 6 replies · +9 points

There are many different ways for an oppressive patriarchal society to appear! Relationships in ancient Greece and Rome were treated very differently than in Elizabethan England, yet neither society was a pleasant place to be female, landless, and/or harassed, etc. And as WanderingUndine points out, the only viewpoints we've seen are from childhood world traveler Sandry and pragmatic Berenene. Berenene's views on other subjects (allowing bride kidnapping despite surviving multiple attempts) seem contradictory to modern readers, but make perfect sense to Berenene (all women should be strong like me). Here rationale for same-sex relationships is probably similarly twisted. Evmh'f fbpvrgny fgnaqvat jvyy or nqqerffrq yngre

8 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Finishes \'The Ci... · 0 replies · +2 points

I'll second Zenadia, because she had the most resources at her disposal.
Actually, all the villians had complex social/gender factors (Alzena's family, Eseban), and they couldn't have been the only ones in their situations - that's what's frightening, banality.

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