This was going to be a post about books
but that's going to come later, because my brain is ridiculous (and not always in the good way)
Mostly because I was thinking abuot one of the books that I've read recently, and how there's a character that I want to like. She's (relatively) competent and gets on with it.
But she's an alcoholic and it's getting in the way.
It's not played for laughs. It's not played so her drinking makes her sympathetic or pathetic and to be pitied. It just exists.
The couple of times that she comes close to sobriety (through circumstance removing her source of alcohol), she becomes so much more of a character that I can like, and then she'll find her way back to drink, and I just can't. I just want to shake her, or other characters, and make them see (which is daft, because, y'know, book). They know what's going on; they know that she's got problems, but they've got their own to deal with it, and while some despair and think it's someone elses resposibility, others just think it's a joke.
There's a bit near the end of the book, where she's on a ship involved in a blockade of a port (that's the simplest way of putting it) and she's got some alcohol, but it's not what she wants, and despite orders to remain on ship, she jumps, still in armour, into the harbour and heads for shore, where, conveniently, she ends up finding the man she's been hunting for the entirety of the book.
It's probably the closest it comes to playing it for laughs, but I couldn't, because it was real enough that I could easily see it happening.
I read a lot, and I knew this character was coming, so it wasn't gut punchy or off putting or anything like that. In fact it's probably one of the better representations of alcoholism I've seen, especially in fantasy writing where drinking is perfectly normal and never seen as any kind of problem (even when the author is signposting the fact that it is).
This character is perfectly real, the rationalisation for why she is how she is works perfectly well, and how other people react to her is perfectly real. And thankfully for me, that's a hundred times better than it being played for a joke, or all the stereotypes being pulled out and used.
I've read books where alcoholism is a major plot point, but the author apparently has no idea what causes it, what makes alcoholics tick, how it affects other people or anything. Other than to play on all the worst of the stereotypes out there, normally pitching towards the violent side rather than the waster side (especially if it involves a family situation, apparently a violent alcoholic in a family situation is far more interesting than one who just gets drunk and is pathetic all the time). They're drunk, they're promiscuous, they're violent and ragey, but that's all they are. Their family try interventions and make them go cold turkey and it either works miraculously or it fails miserably. There are no months of therapy, medical treatments, no medical consequences (unless the author needs some kind of life transforming thing to make them see sense, and then it's always fucking liver failure) and no real impact for the family and friends around them. Everyone just carries on as they always have with the alcoholic providing colour for them.
And I know I can't speak for every family member of every person with a drink problem ever. But that's not what I went through. That's not what I saw other people go through when mum was in rehab. Yes, some of those people had been violent to their partners, yes, some of them had ruined their marriages by sleeping around when they were drunk. But also, nearly all of them had serious health problems from their addiction, and it wasn't just liver problems. There were all sorts of different triggers that had sent them down that road, and there were all sorts of different factors that had landed them at the point that they were at.
Alcoholics aren't just stereotypes that authors and tv writers and film writers can use when they need to shove a bit of angst into something. They're people too, not cardboard cut outs.
I've put books down and walked away from them for good because of things like this. I've refused to watch films and tv shows because of it.
And I would like to say to Mr Erikson's credit, while what he wrote isn't easy to read (in so many ways, his books hurt, he hasn't gone the easy route and made her a stereotype (too much. There's a bit of it there, but only a bit), and that's awesome.
I have no idea where that came from, or why. This is one of those posts that I'm sure would have made the gobshites I used to live have a screaming fit and tell me that it's not all about me. I know it's not all about me, but these things still hurt sometimes, and still make me feel fucking weird.
Book post shortly. I'm fine, book did not break me (at least not with this character) but I am still going slowly insane from being stuck in the sticks on my own.
Mostly because I was thinking abuot one of the books that I've read recently, and how there's a character that I want to like. She's (relatively) competent and gets on with it.
But she's an alcoholic and it's getting in the way.
It's not played for laughs. It's not played so her drinking makes her sympathetic or pathetic and to be pitied. It just exists.
The couple of times that she comes close to sobriety (through circumstance removing her source of alcohol), she becomes so much more of a character that I can like, and then she'll find her way back to drink, and I just can't. I just want to shake her, or other characters, and make them see (which is daft, because, y'know, book). They know what's going on; they know that she's got problems, but they've got their own to deal with it, and while some despair and think it's someone elses resposibility, others just think it's a joke.
There's a bit near the end of the book, where she's on a ship involved in a blockade of a port (that's the simplest way of putting it) and she's got some alcohol, but it's not what she wants, and despite orders to remain on ship, she jumps, still in armour, into the harbour and heads for shore, where, conveniently, she ends up finding the man she's been hunting for the entirety of the book.
It's probably the closest it comes to playing it for laughs, but I couldn't, because it was real enough that I could easily see it happening.
I read a lot, and I knew this character was coming, so it wasn't gut punchy or off putting or anything like that. In fact it's probably one of the better representations of alcoholism I've seen, especially in fantasy writing where drinking is perfectly normal and never seen as any kind of problem (even when the author is signposting the fact that it is).
This character is perfectly real, the rationalisation for why she is how she is works perfectly well, and how other people react to her is perfectly real. And thankfully for me, that's a hundred times better than it being played for a joke, or all the stereotypes being pulled out and used.
I've read books where alcoholism is a major plot point, but the author apparently has no idea what causes it, what makes alcoholics tick, how it affects other people or anything. Other than to play on all the worst of the stereotypes out there, normally pitching towards the violent side rather than the waster side (especially if it involves a family situation, apparently a violent alcoholic in a family situation is far more interesting than one who just gets drunk and is pathetic all the time). They're drunk, they're promiscuous, they're violent and ragey, but that's all they are. Their family try interventions and make them go cold turkey and it either works miraculously or it fails miserably. There are no months of therapy, medical treatments, no medical consequences (unless the author needs some kind of life transforming thing to make them see sense, and then it's always fucking liver failure) and no real impact for the family and friends around them. Everyone just carries on as they always have with the alcoholic providing colour for them.
And I know I can't speak for every family member of every person with a drink problem ever. But that's not what I went through. That's not what I saw other people go through when mum was in rehab. Yes, some of those people had been violent to their partners, yes, some of them had ruined their marriages by sleeping around when they were drunk. But also, nearly all of them had serious health problems from their addiction, and it wasn't just liver problems. There were all sorts of different triggers that had sent them down that road, and there were all sorts of different factors that had landed them at the point that they were at.
Alcoholics aren't just stereotypes that authors and tv writers and film writers can use when they need to shove a bit of angst into something. They're people too, not cardboard cut outs.
I've put books down and walked away from them for good because of things like this. I've refused to watch films and tv shows because of it.
And I would like to say to Mr Erikson's credit, while what he wrote isn't easy to read (in so many ways, his books hurt, he hasn't gone the easy route and made her a stereotype (too much. There's a bit of it there, but only a bit), and that's awesome.
I have no idea where that came from, or why. This is one of those posts that I'm sure would have made the gobshites I used to live have a screaming fit and tell me that it's not all about me. I know it's not all about me, but these things still hurt sometimes, and still make me feel fucking weird.
Book post shortly. I'm fine, book did not break me (at least not with this character) but I am still going slowly insane from being stuck in the sticks on my own.