The Things, They Change…

[ursulav]

So Andre Norton’s back catalog seems to be mostly out in digital form these days-really out, and not in the shady iBook editions that had me going “I kinda wonder what’s up with that.” And while I re-read The Crystal Gryphon approximately eleventy million times as a pre-teen, I had not read most of the other Witch World books. (I think I remember “

Comments

[fadethecat]

My stab in the dark would be that they are the socially acceptable intersection of rape fantasies and true luuuuv and since most of us haven’t got the sense god gave an avocado at that point, it hits a whole lot of buttons.

I think there's a certain amount of that in there, and also a certain amount of wish fulfillment in that preteens have a whole lot of their social lives constrained already, and there's something very dramatic and exciting about the idea of being locked into a Grand Permanent Important Thing and then making it work and be awesome anyway. (God knows most of my embarrassing elementary school writings are full of things like Bravely Standing Tall Despite Being Seized Into Horrible Slavery, and those stories started including a lot of sex around the time my hormones turned on.)

And then there's the simple fact that it's a way to take a romantic relationship and make it exciting and fraught without an easy resolution. "Boy and girl meet and fall in love and get along fine" isn't much of a story, and "Boy and girl meet and don't fall in love and so go their separate ways" isn't either, but "Boy and girl are FORCED into an arranged marriage and they HATE each other but there is NO WAY OUT and yet the other person is ACTUALLY FAIRLY SEXY" is sort of...conflict-y and unsubtle, in a way that ends up focusing very much on the romance.

[copperwolf]

I tend to agree with this. I would let my grade school-era diary become a historical object for my progeny, except for a few entries from my junior high days rather like the creative writings you mention.

[rallamajoop]

Dropping in to second your whole last paragraph. Not that I disagree with any part of the more obvious wish fullfillment aspects everyone else has brought up, but when it comes to tropes like rape fantasies and arranged marriages, I think people often look straight past what a great tool they are for generating plain old-fashioned conflict - and without conflict you don't even have a story. Skeezy or otherwise, few things generate more instant romantic conflict than getting the natural progression out of order, so that sex (ahem) has happened before you even know whether the attraction's ever going to be mutual, or your couple is married before they've even decided if they like each other.

[fadethecat]

Yes! And I think some of it is similar to how fantasy novels so often focus on Kings and Queens instead of, say, millers and the head of the local chapter of the salt guild. It feels more grand and epic (and thus easier to make interesting) than the "mundane" conflicts and people that are closer to home. (And there's some element of comfortable safety in exploring the idea while knowing it isn't actually going to happen to you.)