Sheherazades

[coffeeandink]

I just read two YA novels retelling the story of the Arabian Nights. The biggest problem with a modern version of this story, at least for a YA audience, turns out to be rehabilitation * of Shahrayar, the Sultan who is betrayed by his wife, kills her, and decides to marry a virgin a day, killing each new wife at sunrise so she can't betray him. (

Comments

[ex_truepenn]

(* And it suddenly occurs to me that we discuss Buffy in incorrect and unhelpful terms when we talk of "redemption"; redemption comes from the outside and can be a single act, and Buffy's more concerned with rehabilitation, which is tougher and not nearly as sexy.)

YES!

Ahem. Sorry. But I've been thinking about a post (for which read: mini-essay) on rehabilitation and recuperation and why both are so devastatingly important and impossible to write. And this is one bit of it.

[minim_calibre]

I'm not sure I'd say it's more concerned with rehabilitation.

(But that could be because I associate rehabilitation with my stint working in social services, and the feeling I get from BtVS is not at all the same sort of thing.)

If anything, reformation seems closest.

[coffeeandink]

What do you see as the difference between reform and rehabilitation?

Re:

[minim_calibre]

Reformation seems more guided by an internal desire to change, where I see rehabilitation as something that is done to/for someone with external help

[coffeeandink]

The only reason I get so snarky about EL is that I still own half a boxful of her books. And don't plan on letting them go, dodgy gender politics or not.

Her sf as Ann Maxwell is much better, and much less sexist; I don't understand why she couldn't reliably carry that over to the romances.

[coffeeandink]

The science fiction is much, much, MUCH better. Wonderfully colorful space opera with much saner gender relations. They were originally published as straight science fiction, not futuristic romances, and they're very good sf. My best ones are the later ones: the Fire Dancer books, A Dead God Dancing, Name of a Shadow, The Jaws of Menx, and Timeshadow Rider.

Change and The Singer Enigma are earlier and sketchier; Change in particular relies more on romance tropes and less on sf tropes than the rest. I like it, but it's not as good.

[musesfool]

And it suddenly occurs to me that we discuss Buffy in incorrect and unhelpful terms when we talk of "redemption"; redemption comes from the outside and can be a single act, and Buffy's more concerned with rehabilitation, which is tougher and not nearly as sexy

Hmmm... I'm not quite sure about that.

You (generic) can't be redeemed without desiring it, so it has to start inside, and it has to be worked toward. I think maybe redemption is the goal, and rehabilitation the process.

Redemption, like forgiveness, is granted by another, but unlike forgiveness, it's more for the receiver than the giver, and is useless unless it's wanted and accepted.

[coffeeandink]

I don't think forgiveness is more for the giver than the receiver, or useless unless it's wanted or accepted; I think the difference between forgiveness and redemption is that forgiveness is for the past and it's performed by the offended-against, and redemption is for the future and earned by the offender. It's also a state, rather than any concrete action, which is why people in the Jossverse desire it ("If I can just do this one thing, I'll be permanently good") and never receive it (because the Jossverse, like the real world, just doesn't work that way).