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

[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.)

[archangelbeth]

Year of the Unicorn was the first Witch World book I recall reading. I liked it even though there were no unicorns in it. I don't think there's a sequel about the rest of the brides? ...at least they seem to be happy? >_>

I think arranged marriages are also one of those "skip the hard stuff of meeting someone and get to the dating part" things. (Also, power dynamics. >_> I know my catnip!) Also, the guy can't just dump you when he discovers you're a bookworm thesaurus girl. >_> So it's got a certain "captive audience" kind of feel, too.

[melannen]

+1 For me, it was always the "get someone to love you forever without the stress of having to date etc." that made me like arranged marriages. You two have to make it work, so there's a lot more room for messing up.

(...of course that was also related to the rape fantasy thing when I was young. Sex without having to worry about whether you're doing it wrong or not making it good enough for him! ...possibly I had issues.)

[archangelbeth]

(Without issues, what would become of our subscription to Life? Or, well, something like that. >_> )

[keleri]

re: arranged marriages, for me it was the opposite; they (and pretty much any other romance) always left me feeling squicky and gross while anything involving monster battles completely took over my life. The, perhaps, source of this preference has become a little more obvious in recent years; I disliked the borderline rape fantasy tropes of Pern and the like, but I loved the dominance/power fantasy of controlling a host of powerful elementals in, say, pokemon or playing a warlock in WoW.

I sort of wish there was a beloved fantasy series that let young proto-tops/dommes know that that sort of thing was an option. (cough)

Random passer-by

[dogmatix_san]

*files under 'Idea-components'*

[dogmatix_san]

I almost didn't even register the proto-arranged marriages in Pern, outside of a vague idea that that couldn't possibly be that easy. XD;;;; But then, I've always tended more towards loyalty and xeno as kinks rather than romance/marriage. *coff*

Also I completely agree with you on the whole language-dating. There are some books that I remember loving, but couldn't make myself go back and read now, for at least partly that reason.

[heron61]

It's been a decade or so since I reread Year of the Unicorn, but IIRC, most of the were-riders were depicted as jerks (if not as creepy as they should have been). However, the arranged marriage stuff in Crystal Gryphon was (to me at least) considerably less troubling. Also, I agree that the writing in Year of the Unicorn was seriously non-modern, especially the bizaree A. Merritt-esque section on the border between Arvon and High Hallack. The writing in Warlock of the Witchworld was equally odd, especially in the section involving Kemoc and the dark tower. OTOH, I remember the writing in The Crystal Gryphon as considerably more modern - it was published 7 years after Year of the Unicorn, but (at least to me) Norton's work became somewhat less Weird Tales-derived in those years.