Lessons from Nimue Alban
Reminder: Tomorrow's guest blog is Alayna Williams, who will have a contest along with her post. Pop back by!
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David Weber (who I've mentioned here before) writes the "Safehold" series, a really excellent set of books (if the first is a representative example) that poses all sorts of questions about religion, faith, gender identity, technology, politics, and the nature of men and kings. It's science fiction, but it feels like high fantasy, in no small part due to the Arthuriana that gets wrapped in. There's a lot to talk about in Off Armageddon Reef, the first novel, alone, and I have a feeling if I were still in college, I'd probably try to see how the book could get worked into a paper. But as I'm a blogger, my musings here are pretty off-the-cuff, far less formal, and deal with just one aspect of the book (until something else comes up that sparks my bloggerly interest).
So I've picked just one thing I've been thinking about as we've been reading the novel (as I mentioned, this is our current family read-aloud at Casa Abbott) to discuss in this entry. The main character of the novel is, arguably, Merlin Athrawes. To give a brief explanation (instead of the detailed one), Merlin is effectively a robot in the pass-for-a-human style who contains the personality and memories of a now-deceased biological human. That human was Nimue Alban. Nimue, as the name would imply, is a female, and in order to be able to accomplish her mission on Safehold, Nimue-as-a-robot took on the role of Merlin, a male (whose form the robot's hardware does, in fact, make anatomically accurate). In many ways, Merlin and Nimue are the same - only Merlin can't think of himself as Nimue (despite remembering to be her, and having her sexual preference, for example). In order to believe that he is who he says he is - who he's become - he has to think of himself as Merlin.
And yet, Nimue is still relevant to the story, because it's Nimue's mission that Merlin is enacting. The circle this forms in the narrative is brilliantly done, and the gender work is really interesting. Nimue was a soldier - a tactics officer - and someone who studied military history and kendo. She has a lot of knowledge that might be considered traditionally in the masculine interest range - and those references crop up in the way she thinks, both as herself and as Merlin. Nimue was also a woman of faith, and that aspect of her personality - and her seeking to redeem the truth - provides as much frame of reference as her military background. As Merlin, she's emotionally attached to the people she's become friends with, even as she knows she has to use them to accomplish her own mission - which she believes is to their betterment as well. So, even while she's Merlin, thinking of herself as male and interacting with the world as a male character, her frame of reference is from her former, female personality.
We talk a lot about "men with boobs" as a female archetype in a lot of SF/F, and I think Nimue is a brilliant example of how not to write a man with boobs type character. Even while she's interacting with the world as her male persona - and sometimes it's easy to just think of Merlin as Merlin, without thinking of him as Nimue - that female identity is providing the framework within which the male persona works. But there's also a potentially interesting comment lurking here - one that got covered in real life by Norah Vincent in her research for her book Self Made Man, and is a trope of those great hero journeys I grew up with in Tamora Pierce's "Song of the Lioness" books. Nimue Alban is easily able to pass for male. Granted, she has what are considered a male skill set and knowledge, in the world of the novel, and she has the advantage of being able to actually have a male body, courtesy of the robot's hardware. But there's never any question, from any of the characters (who do question other aspects of her abilities and knowledge) that she's a man. To me, that says something very interesting about assigned gender identity - that it's more a way of interacting with the world, and of the role that other people expect you to take on, than it is about anatomy, or even personality.
I don't know if I think that's true, but I do think it's an interesting way to present the idea, and I'm having fun pondering it.
--
David Weber (who I've mentioned here before) writes the "Safehold" series, a really excellent set of books (if the first is a representative example) that poses all sorts of questions about religion, faith, gender identity, technology, politics, and the nature of men and kings. It's science fiction, but it feels like high fantasy, in no small part due to the Arthuriana that gets wrapped in. There's a lot to talk about in Off Armageddon Reef, the first novel, alone, and I have a feeling if I were still in college, I'd probably try to see how the book could get worked into a paper. But as I'm a blogger, my musings here are pretty off-the-cuff, far less formal, and deal with just one aspect of the book (until something else comes up that sparks my bloggerly interest).
So I've picked just one thing I've been thinking about as we've been reading the novel (as I mentioned, this is our current family read-aloud at Casa Abbott) to discuss in this entry. The main character of the novel is, arguably, Merlin Athrawes. To give a brief explanation (instead of the detailed one), Merlin is effectively a robot in the pass-for-a-human style who contains the personality and memories of a now-deceased biological human. That human was Nimue Alban. Nimue, as the name would imply, is a female, and in order to be able to accomplish her mission on Safehold, Nimue-as-a-robot took on the role of Merlin, a male (whose form the robot's hardware does, in fact, make anatomically accurate). In many ways, Merlin and Nimue are the same - only Merlin can't think of himself as Nimue (despite remembering to be her, and having her sexual preference, for example). In order to believe that he is who he says he is - who he's become - he has to think of himself as Merlin.
And yet, Nimue is still relevant to the story, because it's Nimue's mission that Merlin is enacting. The circle this forms in the narrative is brilliantly done, and the gender work is really interesting. Nimue was a soldier - a tactics officer - and someone who studied military history and kendo. She has a lot of knowledge that might be considered traditionally in the masculine interest range - and those references crop up in the way she thinks, both as herself and as Merlin. Nimue was also a woman of faith, and that aspect of her personality - and her seeking to redeem the truth - provides as much frame of reference as her military background. As Merlin, she's emotionally attached to the people she's become friends with, even as she knows she has to use them to accomplish her own mission - which she believes is to their betterment as well. So, even while she's Merlin, thinking of herself as male and interacting with the world as a male character, her frame of reference is from her former, female personality.
We talk a lot about "men with boobs" as a female archetype in a lot of SF/F, and I think Nimue is a brilliant example of how not to write a man with boobs type character. Even while she's interacting with the world as her male persona - and sometimes it's easy to just think of Merlin as Merlin, without thinking of him as Nimue - that female identity is providing the framework within which the male persona works. But there's also a potentially interesting comment lurking here - one that got covered in real life by Norah Vincent in her research for her book Self Made Man, and is a trope of those great hero journeys I grew up with in Tamora Pierce's "Song of the Lioness" books. Nimue Alban is easily able to pass for male. Granted, she has what are considered a male skill set and knowledge, in the world of the novel, and she has the advantage of being able to actually have a male body, courtesy of the robot's hardware. But there's never any question, from any of the characters (who do question other aspects of her abilities and knowledge) that she's a man. To me, that says something very interesting about assigned gender identity - that it's more a way of interacting with the world, and of the role that other people expect you to take on, than it is about anatomy, or even personality.
I don't know if I think that's true, but I do think it's an interesting way to present the idea, and I'm having fun pondering it.