Peasant rant

[limyaael]

Right. So. The peasant rant.

Comments

[yesthatnagia]

Wonderful, as usual.

God, I hate open-minded peasants. Only Monty Python ever did it even remotely right, and that was to be funny. And they weren't all that open-minded, either.

"I'm being oppresed! I'm being oppressed!" (or was he saying "repressed"? Either way, VERY funny).

And the cleanliness! It drives me up walls!

[sabotabby]

I think it's repressed.

And that's one of my favourite scenes in cinematic history. "We don't have a king! We are an anarcho-syndicalist commune!"

Sometimes I think I'm one of the only speculative fiction writers who actually does throw anarcho-syndicalist communes into stories.

[limyaael]

The cleanliness is probably the worst for me, because authors can talk in all seriousness about mud and muddy hovels and muddy clothes and muck and more muck, then turn around and proclaim that the peasant girl who works and sleeps in such mud and muck is spotless and shining. Do they never notice?

[yesthatnagia]

probably not.

Have you read A Song For Arbonne, by Guy Kay? I just read it yesterday/the day before yesterday, and I'm not realy sure how I feel about it. It was good, and I think I liked it, but I'm not sure I have an opinion yet.

hey, by the way, I sent the prologue and first three chapters of that novella to you a few days ago. did you get them, and just not have had time to edit, or did you not get them and I should resend them from another address, or...?

[kleenexwoman]

Thank you. I've been writing a story with a peasant heroine, and this has made me think quite a lot about the basic mistakes I've been making. (I usually hate rewriting, so it's a good thing the story isn't, technically, written down yet.)

[kdorian]

I don't know what set him off, but I remember very well the day my father got on a tear about how peasants are depicted in modern stories. Consider the following points he brought up:

1) There isn't enough food. The people who get priority at the table are the people who have to work, not the children who are more likely to die anyway. When you don't have good quality food, and kids don't get much of what's available, what you end up with are short, scrawny kids who may have brain damage from malnutrition.

2) Women worked just as hard as men, frequently on the same job. They did not sit home and take care of the children. In fact, any child old enough to do so also worked. So who took care of the kids

[sabotabby]

Completely off-topic, but I love your icon.

[kdorian]

Thanks! I've forgotten who I got it from. :(

[tasllyn]

i've hear of situations where kids who weren't quite old enough to work took care of their younger/infant siblings...i can't remember where i read that, though, so i'm not sure how much truth is in that...

[limyaael]

I'm not surprised. The sheer weight of the work, and the fact that it wouldn't really stop except during some times of winter, would wear just about anybody down. Reading what peasants in, say, medieval France suffered, and then looking at fantasy, makes me wonder if writers deliberately skip over a lot of peasant problems in order to have people who have any sort of spirit left.

[criada]

On the other hand, it makes for a great reason to hide the baby princess with peasants. No one would recognize her!
"Look! It's the princess, let's get her!"
"Nah, that's an old woman. Princesses are young and beautiful, didn't you know that?"

[anonymous]

Some of the Horrible Histories are quite useful for a fun and not too optimistic view on life in the Middle Ages. They focus mainly on English and Scottish history, though.

inge

[melarin]

I loved those when I was little! That's what got me into history, the reasoning and stuff.