Personal and Political Boundaries
Aw man, I wish teenage boys didn't eat so damn much. I spend half of my free time either shopping for them, or preparing something to eat. It would be nice if I could starve them to death, but I've put in so much work already to quit now, and they complain a lot. Hence why their squeaky wheel gets the grease. Still no print book, although happily,
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I liked Martin. I was heartbroken when he died. But I don't think it's important to have less characters to juggle. And I think perhaps that maybe Aurora wouldn't be able to take solace in Robin if Martin hadn't died. I think his matching calm lifestyle was something that she decided to actually look for. And the thing is, if Martin had lived, I don't know that Aurora would be able to have the freedom she had after he died. She'd still need guards.
I'm working mistress! Working!
Problem is if I find an author whose style I like. And then even if I'm not in the middle of a series, it's still sad as hell when they die. If I liked Stephen King, I'd have a billion books to read and doubtless more to come, but James Herbert died, and now I have a finite number left. Oh, and to add to the list, Richard Laymon died like 2 years after I discovered his books. Goddamn.
I'm obsessed with how things are going to work out. I go over it in my head all the time. I like to just know and then be able to put it aside.
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Robin was a cardboard character to me. I never understood who he was. I liked him in the first book at then he disappeared between two books and when he came back he was not really the same. Martin is the kind of person I would avoid in real life. I do not go for the mystery men and I hate secrets. But Aurora is not me and I saw her love for him and thought it was fine. It was never front and center of the series anyway - not until Martin died, anyway.
I`m not against Sookie ditching Eric or Martin dying, as such (though I do think she could have done both things earlier in the respective series). It`s knowing that CH doesn`t trust her readers to see that Eric and Martin have major flaws, I dislike. I feel like she`s pushing them off the pages because she`s afraid we would all run out and try and find a Martin or an Eric if she didn`t. It`s the patronizing part of it I dislike, not the fact that it happened. I`d accepted both endings just fine until I read about her motivations. That got my blood steaming.
Phew. Train your kids to shop, cook and clean and you`ll do fine ;-)
My luck is that I haven`t run across many authors whose style I like. CH is one of the closest and you can see how much I whine about her. I do like the style of a couple of authors who are long dead and it`s a bit sad to know that I can never have more from them but you know that when you start reading. Heinrich Böll will never write another book (and he`s written so many anyway that I haven`t read half of them yet). Same goes with Thomas Mann, Aldous Huxley and Hans Scherfig. Even Jane Austen won`t write another book, though you wouldn`t think it for all the "inspired by Jane" books out there.
LOL. I think of book characters like family members. I`ll never know what auntie Agatha (if I had an aunt by that name) is going to do tomorrow. Will she remarry? Will she go senile? Will she adopt five kids and start a new religion? The possibilities are endless.
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In fairness, CH just hasn't had it in her to write more Aurora. The series isn't finished, so I think we would see that over time.
I don't think it's that she doesn't trust her readers at all. I think the problem is that some readers like a character and refuse absolutely to accept that he actually *has* faults. Seriously - I've read Eric getting praise for helping out Tara, despite the fact that he did it only because it would get him something, and previously considered her a cow for Mickey's slaughter.
As far as her pushing them off the page to save us all? That doesn't make a lot of sense, really. I think in this particular case, saying for example that Martin is not a good guy, and he wouldn't last with Aurora, or that Eric is not someone who is a romance cover model with a heart of gold is not about what she wants to control in reader's lives, but rather, how do you tell someone that truly believes Eric is fucking hero for saving Tara, that in fact, he's not all that and a bag of chips without being cruel or dismissive? She doesn't have the luxury of being as blunt as I am, and pointing out the bad stuff. In truth, I think that *would* actually make her moralise for the reader, by reinforcing something over and over. Like you can't personally tell that calling a human being "meat on the hoof" is not actually a good thing. I think it's the very opposite of moralising. As far as her pushing them off the page, well, that's the limitation of first person POV and their characters. Eric isn't going to be good with a benign friendship, and nor would Martin.
It's trusting them to get it right and not be slackers that does me in. Plus, I just don't want to eat what men would be happy to eat - which is probably a big pot of stew, or a fancy Thai curry which takes 4 hours to make and has about 6 ingredients we don't normally have in the house (actual dinner one night that Son1 made).
Lol - you do still whine! I've found a few authors around the place that I like. I found a woman a couple of years older than me, lives here in Brisbane that I like. But I can usually read anything and everything.
That's where your ability to creatively write does you in. I'm safe, because I don't have that bone in my head. :D
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Right. I hope there will be more so that Martin wasn`t killed just before the curtains went down.
But that is not trusting her readers. They may not deserve any trust if they paint Martin/Eric in too pink colors but that`s their problem, not CH`s. I don`t think CH should fix fangirls`problem with seeing men as they are by making a huge point out of letting her heroines fall in love with them and then kill them off/remove them. It would be much better to not have the heroine fall in love with them at all. There`s the message she should be sending instead, if messages are so important to her.
Yeah, but she is letting her heroines fall in love with these guys. So there are double standards here. They can fall in love with the guys but not have them. She might have considered letting her heroines have sex with them and then realizing they weren`t really good people. Letting them fall in love with the guys is already doing the damage - killing Martin and creating a plot where Eric "has to" leave (I put that in "" because it`s questionable how much he had to do anything - but the plot was really there to make it impossible for Sookie to do anything but wave Eric goodbye - it wasn`t a real choice on her part) is an easy way out IMO. I think she could have chosen three other ways that would have worked as less insulting (given that we now know it was done on purpose - I wouldn`t have been insulted if I hadn`t known):
* Not let the heroine fall for guys who are that inappropriate - or letting them fall out of love the moment they realize what he really is (in Sookie`s case that would be before she fell in love)
* Let the heroine fall in love and then make a conscious and open choice about breaking up with them because they don`t like what they are seeing. In the SVM that would mean Eric staying but Sookie not choosing him. In AT Martin would not die but Aurora would divorce him when the number of secrets got one too many
* Let the heroine stay with the hero but be clear about what she likes and, especially, what she dislikes about him.
The solution CH made makes the heroines look weak and without the ability to make sane choices - but CH makes the choices for them because they are the "right" choices.
I`m probably not making a lot of sense here but, as you can probably tell :-D, I`m provoked by this. I do feel like a little girl after reading CH`s comment. She is not my mother and I don`t like feeling that way.
LOL. We have a deal in this house: Kids look up recipes on Saturday morning and join us in the shopping. They pull out the things they need for their dinners and they each make one dinner each. They find out who makes dinner on Saturday and who makes it on Sunday. Hubby and I eat it and praise them no matter how it tastes (it usually tastes quite well). And we clean up after them. I`m so lazy that I will easily let them do things wrong and be slackers just to be free of making dinner in the weekend.
I can read anything and everything too but I usually end up thinking it`s shit I`ve just read. My whining about CH`s comment is NOthing compared to what I think of most of what I read. But when I love something, I`ll be over the moon because it happens so rarely. My husband has never read the SVM series but he probably knows every scene by heart because I`ve told him about them.
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She hasn't got any ideas at the moment for more books. Who knows if that'll change.
But she's answering the persistent questions she got. I found three different instances of someone asking about Martin. What's she supposed to say that isn't rude or blunt? Again, this is a POV. Eric is not "pushed off the page" - Sookie just doesn't want to be with him and he's in Oklahoma.
But that's the thing. At no point did either Aurora or Sookie think they were perfect men. In fact, Sookie says long before the break-up that "Unfortunately for me, I love Eric". This is not something where she has to blacken a character - the women were never fooled.
And in striving for realism, is there *really* only ever one man that you love? I'm pretty sure that I was in love with another one of my boyfriends, but does that mean that you can't possibly write about that? He was wrong for me too, so why should we hide what happens to women? As for "forcing" them out of that relationship, then so too I was forced out of my relationship with that guy by his behaviour. And I don't see him any more. This seems to me to be arguing for a romance standard - there is only one soul mate, and you shall find happiness and love only with them. Once you pick one, that's it. And are you also angry about the way things happened with Bill, in that case? That was again, "forcing" Sookie out of a relationship, but in my experience, that's how things happen. Behaviour "forces" you out of the relationship with them.No one gives it 30 days to renew a contract - one or the other is "forced" out of the relationship by the behaviour of the other.
CH makes all choices for all the characters. She "forced" Eric to initiate the breakup. She "forced" Martin to go to the meeting. To say that she undercuts her heroines and makes them look weak - does it make the males look weak when they are "forced"? I really passionately disagree with the idea that any hint of realism undercuts the female heroine - because almost everyone has to deal with a break-up at some stage.
I make them wash up. I fucking hate washing up. I did it last night for the first time in months (because they all got home late) and I shuddered about 10 times. Hate wet, cold food on my hands. Blech.
Now force him to read the sex scene! If you think he's horrified at wearing undies with lace, wait for that challenge to the masculine viewpoint. Mr. Minty struggles through every time!
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She could say that this was how the books worked for her - end of story. Generally speaking I don`t think authors should interpret their stories. I remember back in high school when we had story interpretation. It always bugged me when the author was used as part of that interpretation. It ruins the free interpretation and it ruins the fantasies one can have. I don`t want an interpretation with two lines under it. I want to be able to let my own brain have fun with what I read.
Yes, and I liked that. Sometimes we do fall in love with men that aren`t perfect or even good for us. What do we do? Do we swallow the bad to get the good or do we throw the love away because the bad is too high a price to pay? I find that an incredibly interesting storyline - and a storyline with only one answer in most romances: one always ends up with the one one loves. It`s not so in real life. If I`d been with the first guy I loved, I probably would`t have been alive today because he was not good for me. He wasn`t a bad guy - only brought out the bad sides of me. So I would have LOVED storylines where Aurora and Sookie had sat down and said "enough is enough". Not being forced to let go because their guy died/chose someone else. I would have wanted the women to have made the choices.
Yes, I would have preferred for Sookie to stop seeing Bill - not because he raped her but because she found that he was not good for her.
I make my kids empty the dishwasher because I fucking hate that. Whoever decided to put dishwashers on the floor is not 6 feet tall.
Hah! He is horrified every time he peaks over my shoulder (he does that a lot - or he lies on my shoulder while I read) and sees some kind of sex scene in any book. What pisses him off extra is when the guy mentions his dick stiffening just by looking at the girl. He claims that romance/erotica guys are wearing too tight pants because they always have problems with their erections.
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She has a site for a reason though - and if people ask questions there, I don't think it's unreasonable to answer them as she saw it. It'd be different if she was going out and finding readers and telling them, but she's not.
But they did make choices. It's just that sometimes, there's enough love to say "You know, I love him but he can be a real shit" but not enough to actually leave. If the woman then gets just that little extra push to get it over the edge, then I don't see that as a problem. As for Martin, he just had to die - even if they were broken up by Aurora, she wouldn't have been safe at all. As long as Martin loved Aurora, she was in danger. Her breaking up with him wouldn't have changed it all.
She told him heaps of times to leave her alone, and he didn't. I think it would be a fundamental mistake for CH to take a character like Bill, Eric or Martin, who didn't respect boundaries *before* the relationship, and then change their outlook after a break-up.
Ha! I have the opposite issues. Whoever decided to make windows that open wide over the sink was not 5'5". They laugh at me all the time.
Lol - it's more horrifying for them to read it from first person - because these are ideas that never come out of their mouths. Like "he slid inside and I'd never felt anything so good" - men don't say that stuff, or think that way. :D
Actually, when I was going around misogynistic sites, I saw a guy say he had *30* erections a day looking at girls (and was raging that he was "shamed" for his sexuality, and how women are terrible for judging him for his raging boner despite the fact that it seemed to be his own feelings) so I think there might be one or two. But it's not normal behaviour by a long shot.
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I`d rather not know. I think her reply is maternalistic (can`t be paternalistic, can it?) so I would rather not know what went through her brain. I mean, it`s fine for her to explain things people haven`t noticed or point out things people should have seen but to tell us her values behind her writing - it`s just bound to go wrong. And it ruins the imagination when authors do that.
I just don´t see why he had to die? Why couldn`t she just have left him? Or at least left him and then he died. I wanted her to have the choice. To take it.
Yeah, but Eric could have left Sookie after she`d left him. After she`d made it perfectly clear she didn´t want him. Maybe she could`ve consciously used the CD on Sam--not forced because Sam would die. She could have had the option of sitting down and thinking about which guy she would like to save of the two, and chosen Sam. I feel that any choice was taken away from her when Eric came to her and asked her to be his mistress. I was fine with it until I saw CH`s comment. Now I wanted Sookie to have made the choice more "freely".
Hahaha. I always buy whatever is on the top shelves of the supermarket. I don`t even care what they sell on the bottom shelves.
I don`t know that men never think that way. My husband is always more annoyed with how male characters think during the sex scenes, than how female characters think. I probably should read more quality stuff ;-)
I did have a boyfriend once who would get a boner just from seeing me and would come in his pants from kissing (he would also come two or three times during sex). So yes, they are out there. I think what my husband hates is how that is a measure of the guy`s feelings. Why can`t he just be turned on - or have some other kind of reaction?
Of course, you have the same with women. Women in certain romances have real nipple problems and are constantly wet in their panties.
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I don't agree that she should have to keep silent when asked questions, when in truth, I've read the exact same thing you have, and it didn't upset me at all.
If he hadn't, then he would have had to die immediately after so that Aurora would be free of the bodyguards. Then there would be complaints that that was malicious and vindictive. Honestly, I don't see any way for this to be a win for CH. She did what she thought was right - and I agree with her that Martin was wrong for Aurora, but would never have left of his own accord. Would I want Martin to act out of character just so some arbitrary thing could happen to make a small subset happy? And then there'd be a whole heap of people who didn't like that either.
Look, how is in Sookie's character to wait 2 months for a relationship talk in DAG, but give Eric a week and then break up with him on the outlier that he may be leaving her for another woman? That would be pretty fucking stupid. Sookie has always done this - driven a relationship into the ground. She didn't leave Bill when he left for "Seattle", she didn't leave Quinn when he was gone and out of contact for weeks. Same with Eric. That's in her character. To want her to be different is to read someone else completely. As for the CD? If she had to sit down and think about it, she wouldn't have done it, I don't think. She would have let her conscience get in the road. After all, Sam *did* give her a serve for interfering in Bill's death by silver poisoning.
It's all very well to have all the choices in a book, but that's not realistic. CH sticks to realism, and sometimes when there is a character who behaves a certain way, they don't effectively change. Sookie didn't break up with anyone until she was sure they'd abandoned her, and Eric would never willingly give up trying to keep her exclusive, then it's just how it has to go. The final choice of when to say "Enough" was taken by Sookie in the end - for all three breakups. Why should Eric be any different?
Lol - I have to get tall things off the top shelf sometimes by trying to push them from the bottom and have them fall where I can reach. Or ask for help in my shame. :D
I mean straight men rarely think about getting penetrated and liking it.
Well that's something that should enrage your son when he's older - that men are their libido - that is the ending of their feelings. Libido turns into love. Otherwise, you got anger, the only other "legitimate" male emotion.
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Well, she should be considerate as to what would upset me ;-)
(but honestly, I just don`t understand how you can not be the least bit upset. Don`t you feel matronized?)
To be honest? I think most of CH`s characters fall for the wrong guys. Lily`s boyfriend wasn`t exactly perfect, to say the least. It`s only my heroine Harper who knows how to pick the right man :-D
No, she should have broken up with him for a different reason and she would have had a thousand to pick from. Like him leaving her to stew for 2 months.
And I don`t like this driving a relationship to the ground. It`s just not healthy.
Well, none of CH`s female characters really break up with anyone. As a person who`s broken up with plenty of people, I find that very strange.
I *can* bend down to the lower shelves. I just can`t be bothered to do so. I once had a nice clerk show me some weird Turkish tomato-relish I needed for a recipe. It was on the bottom shelf. I was about to get tomato ketchup instead but he was nice and picked it up for me before I embarrassed myself with my laziness.
Ah, I think straight men are curious as to what their girlfriends are thinking when they penetrate them ;-)
Right now I`m trying to make him understand that women have grown up in the same culture as men so if a woman says something utterly anti-feminist (he was shocked when he heard it) it only means she`s a representative of the same culture many men are. There are stupid and smart people in both genders.
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Thyra10
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Lol - you just forgot to drive up to the first order window. :D Nope - don't feel that way. I see it as there's a way to work out how to give your character the most chance at happiness, but there might need to be lessons along the way. And that lesson might not always be fun.
But so do women, ya? I've had guys that I look back and think "WTF were you thinking?" but it helps me understand what I *do* want. They're all a progression to my perfect choice of Mr. Minty. And lies! Lily picked best! :D
But Sookie doesn't automatically become healthy - that would make her a Mary Sue if she did. She was abandoned by her parents and shunned by her community. She had every reason to cling on for a long time.
Yes, but you (and I who has never actually been broken up *with*) are rare. Most women try to make it work into perpetuity. They have whole shows about how to make a job out of your marriage - Dr. Phil, Oprah - to the point of insanity.
Lol - that's pretty fucking lazy. You're hilarious. :D
Mr. Minty can't seem to grasp the concept of actually liking it.
Poor little guy - you spoiled him by thinking about things.
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Oh, darn it. Let me spam her website then ;-)
To me it`s either or. Either Sookie throws out Eric without having to do it or she stays with him. Right now, and knowing CH`s motivations, it`s all just a message. Sookie can not break up with anyone because of her past but let me do it for her because there`s no way she can stay with that guy. And yes, it pisses me off just writing this. I feel manipulated and I hate that.
I`m not for breaking up because he forgot to put down the toilet seat and squeezed the tooth paste from the wrong end but I`m a strong believer in being happy with whatever is good in your life and changing whatever is bad. If you can, that is. This is why I struggled so much with my health issues because I couldn`t change them. But it`s (almost) always possible to break up with someone.
Do you know how far down the bottom shelf is? I feel like a giraffe trying to drink water. If they wanted tall people to buy something they should put it up high. Low shelves are for kids.
Really? I don`t understand how you can not be curious. I mean, I would like to try and have a dick for a while, just to know how it feels.
He`s a philosopher and one who gets easily agitated (I wonder where he got that from ;-D) at that. He`ll come home from school, shocked to his core and tell me about something he read. We have LONG discussion and I love it :-D
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She likes it when you spam her. :P But ultimately, she did throw him out - Eric would have sooner or later, asked for something onerous from Sookie. He's already asked her to go to Mississippi, asked her to go on a roadtrip with Pam that had a potential beating, asked her to go to Victor's club which was dangerous. Sookie would have put her foot down (or died her way out) so it's better to have something that doesn't involve any beatings - that step too far that would have had Sookie draw a line in the sand. How is it not better for CH to push the end time up on her? Because man, I woulda left after the first one but Sookie needed something extreme. I would have come sooner or later, she just made it sooner.
But there's a clear theme that you don't change who you fundamentally are throughout the books. I'm inclined to believe that that's the right way of thinking - we can modify behaviour, but we can't change who we are.
Lol - while I feel like a monkey snatching the forbidden fruit that is couscous on the topmost shelf.
I think most women are curious, but not many men. We see a lot of porn from men's point of view, so it's not a foreign thing from our viewpoint.
That's good - and good on you for keeping that vibe going. :D
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*Iz spamming*
She didn`t have much choice. And she didn`t really throw him out because he went all by himself. What she did was refuse to go with him.
And I was (sort of) fine with CH doing this if it hadn`t been because she thought I was too stupid to realize that Eric had flaws.
I don`t agree. We change a lot through our lives. We all have different sides and some are enhanced and some are drowned.
I`ve just hired a person I`d studied with 25 years ago. We haven`t been in touch since then and I`m amazed with how she`s changed and vice versa. She`s been through a tough divorce and I`ve lived my HEA - it forms you. It really does.
You`re not supposed to eat couscous. Couscous is clearly for tall people ;-)
That might be but I have had several friends ask me what penetration feels like so there`s definitely some curiosity out there.
I`m trying to walk the fine line between not wanting him to grow up being a male chauvinist and brain washing him.
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