Comments | miss_morland: À la volonté du peuple

miss_morland

À la volonté du peuple

Aug 14, 2009 20:51

Thanks to a recent post over at linguaphiles, I was reminded of how awesome this is:

Oh, and since I'm in the mood for a meme -- here's the one that was going around a couple of months ago:

Name a fandom, and I'll give you the scoop on at least three of my unpopular opinions related to that fandom.

recs, meme, les miserables

Comments 26

redsnake05 August 14 2009, 20:55:36 UTC

Oooh, tell me your unpopular Narnia opinions! Also, you can ask me for a fandom and I'll explain in the comments

Don't know how unpopular they are overall, but... miss_morland August 14 2009, 21:05:41 UTC

1. Pevensiecest is not hot/fun/something that fits well with canon, no matter how pretty the actors are in the movies.

2. C.S. Lewis is not particularly sexist -- to the contrary, I think he does a great job of portraying both male and female characters as people, and heroines such as Lucy and Aravis can kick most modern-day fantasy characters' butts any day.

3. Marsh-wiggles are awesome and should have a lot more fic.

Re: Don't know how unpopular they are overall, but... redsnake05 August 14 2009, 21:58:50 UTC

2. Hmmmm. I think it would be fair to say that he was not particularly sexist for his time. A few things in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe really grate on me, but I find the other books much less problematic - does that say something about me or something about the books and the author? Or both.

3. Agreed.

1. The jury is out on this one. I think they must have had a closer relationship that most siblings would, particularly when they first arrived, but I am not sure that would ever have spilled over into any kind of sexual relationship.

Re: Don't know how unpopular they are overall, but... miss_morland August 15 2009, 07:01:35 UTC

2. I assume you mean Father Christmas's assertion in LWW that women shouldn't fight? I don't like that either, but I'm not sure if he's really speaking for the author there, considering that Lucy does become a warrior later (and is never condemned/punished for it).

Basically, I'm just annoyed with some of the arguments people make, such as the claim that Susan's 'lipstick and nylon stockings' means that Lewis had a problem with female sexuality, when I think it's fairly obvious that it was worldly vanity he had a problem with. (Lipstick and nylon stockings =/= female sexuality, for the love of Aslan!)

I have more of a problem with the gender roles in HP (especially considering they were written in the '90's and '00's, and so one might expect them to be more progressive), but that's a whole other discussion...

3. Aren't they just! I'm still hoping someone will write me Puddleglum fic for the narnia_exchange1. Oh, I don't doubt they were close; it's the sex thing I can't agree with. Then again, I'm not really interested in reading incest in the ( ... )

Thread 9

espresso_addict August 14 2009, 21:51:49 UTC

I'm not sure Earthsea is sufficiently large to have popular and unpopular opinions, but surprise me...

miss_morland August 15 2009, 15:50:22 UTC

1. I'm actually not all that crazy about Ged/Tenar. It has nothing to do with dislike of the individual characters, because I love them both -- rather, it's the feeling that the pairing is too obvious, if you know what I mean. Besides, there's the difference in age and experience, which makes me fear that there will always be an inequality in their relationship, even if Ged has lost his powers.

2. Slash is not out of place in the Earthsea verse -- Arren's boy crush on Ged is pretty canon, isn't it? (Don't know how unpopular this opinion is, though.)

3. Jasper is awesome and should have a lot more fic.

espresso_addict August 15 2009, 18:53:22 UTC

Hmm... I suspect (1) is indeed unpopular; the stories that get the most feedback at Yuletide (and can we tempt you to join this year?) are consistently Ged/Tenar. I don't dislike the pairing, though I take your point about the inherent inequality, but I do think Le Guin wrote it perfectly and fanfiction often doesn't add very much.

(2) Arren's crush on Ged is canonical, and expressed surprisingly physically. Also, the 'heart's brothers' comment about Erreth-Akbe & Maharion in ADoE suggests that they were lovers. There again, some folks just dislike slash and use the wizardly celibacy clause to insist that Le Guin agrees with them.

(3) is definitely not unpopular -- though I wish more people would comply and write him :)

miss_morland August 16 2009, 10:23:16 UTC

I agree that Ged/Tenar is beautifully written, and I like the fact that they came together when they're both middle-aged and tired, as opposed to young and good-looking. I also agree that G/T fanfic doesn't always add anything -- to me, a great part of the appeal of fanfiction is the possibility to explore characters and relationships that aren't extrapolated upon in canon, and I don't think G/T leaves all that much to be explored.

There again, some folks just dislike slash and use the wizardly celibacy clause to insist that Le Guin agrees with them.

Because the celibacy clause was obviously invented to prevent people from writing canon-compliant stories about the wizards of Roke getting it on with each other ( ... )

Thread 6

oddsbobs August 15 2009, 02:49:48 UTC

I'll be predictable and go with Harry Potter. If you want unpredictable, how about House?

(Re-posted for clarification) miss_morland August 15 2009, 15:35:10 UTC

I'll be predictable too, as I don't know enough about House fandom.

1. Fred and George Weasley are annoying brats who deserve to get called out on their shit, but never are. To the contrary, they get away with being bullies because they are 'cool', and anyone who doesn't agree with this is condemned by the narrative either for being prissy (Percy) or evil (Umbridge).

2. I know 99 % of the fandom vehemently disagrees on this one -- but I don't think Dumbledore/Grindelwald is canon. For me, canon = books, and while I definitely saw AD/GG while reading DH, it was never explicitly stated. Besides, it was always the things in the story (teenage romance (or friendship, if you don't go with the slash interpretation) with tragic ending, lovers (or friends) who later become enemies, etc.) which made me like the pairing, not Rowling's interview. I mean, even if she were to give an interview in which she talked about Snape's undying love for Harry, I still wouldn't want to ship HP/SS.

That said, I was rather gleeful after the 'outing'... ( ... )

(The comment has been removed)

miss_morland August 16 2009, 10:45:27 UTC

1. Clive is not a terrible person. He's unsympathetic, of course, and narrow-minded, but most of all he's good at lying to himself, and for this I think he should be pitied.

2. Alec is not much younger than Maurice. I don't think the book ever says anything about his age, but some fanfics I've read refer to him as 'the boy', which baffles me somewhat, as the novel normally refer to him as 'the man'. (And while we're at it, why do so many fans call him by his surname? It's as if they never made the transition Maurice himself made from seeing Alec as a servant to seeing him as an equal.)

3. Maurice is not blond! OK, I know this has to do with the film, and I also know that most people who write blond!Maurice know that he's dark-haired in the novel, but I still can't help thinking, 'But-but-but...' whenever I see it...

(The comment has been removed)

miss_morland August 16 2009, 17:58:42 UTC

1. Agreed.

2. Really? I can't remember anything about his age, but maybe I just overlooked it. Do you remember where in the novel this is stated? *is curious*

3. I don't get why the film-makers changed the name of the estate in the first place; you'd think 'Penge' would be just as good as 'Pendersleigh'. Hm.

Thread 16