She's a wish fulfilment character

[purplecat]

Author Scott Lynch responds to a critic of the character Zamira Drakasha, a black woman pirate in his fantasy book Red Seas Under Red Skies, the second novel of the Gentleman Bastard series.

I'm always little uncomfortable with responses to critiques of women in fantasy which run

critique: Female warriors/whatever in a pseudo-medieval setting are unrealistic
response: So the dragons are fine, but you are worried about the female warrior?

Because even though at one level it makes sense, at another the existence of dragons in fantasy clearly requires a different kind of suspension of disbelief to the existence of emancipated women. It's a really complicated discussion which impinges on an equally complicated discussion about when one is, and isn't able to suspend disbelief which doesn't just apply to gender roles but also to abuses of science and (on one notable occasion) the precise presentation of the minarets in Jerusalem.

So it's really feel refreshing to see a response to this kind of critique which isn't "hey! look! dragons!" but is instead yes of course she's fantasy wish fulfilment. AND WHY NOT?.

I've only read the first of the Gentleman Bastards series which I thought was a truly excellent novel. I haven't read the rest because I heard somewhere that they dropped in quality and I didn't really want to spoil how much I had enjoyed the first. But the above response makes me think I should re-evaluate that decision.

Comments

[purplecat]

What's believable and what isn't is fascinating, I think. I'm surprised there isn't more discussion of it really but I don't think I've ever come across anything that tries to really analyse what works and what doesn't.

[a-cubed.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of discussion of this in writers' group and workshops like Clarion and less well-known ones. It's one of the things that distinguishes SFF writers groups from other genres or literary writers groups. Detective fiction writers groups have their own genre-specific things they talk about of course, but one of them in SFF groups is the "suspension of disbelief" line and how to try to avoid crossing it with your readers. One problem of course is that trying to be too authentic with things can break down because the majority of readers aren't expert in the field and some true things are counter-intuitive or go against popular stereotypes.

[purplecat]

And, of course, I imagine, that a lot depends upon the degree of familiarity your audience has with a subject. Specialists tend to be a lot less tolerant than the man in the street, and judging the expertise level of your average audience member may be non-trivial.

[a-cubed.livejournal.com]

For fiction, one usually aims at a broad market. The trick, I've been told, in written fiction at least is to try and avoid describing things that might cause either group to drop their willing suspension of disbelief. It can be harder in visual arts since things you can fail to describe in written work, e.g. whether helmets have bull's horns, are a decision that has to be made for the visual designs. Of course the cover artist can then screw you - see Charlie Stross' "The Family Trade" for an example of that.

[purplecat]

I'm sort of interested in the fact that this is all happening on, apparently, the advice to writers side of things rather than on the critical and fandom commentary side of things.

[a-cubed.livejournal.com]

Well, it's part of the broader discussions of writing craft, from basics like "says is invisible - only use other words for occasional emphasis" to discussions of points of view (universal omniscient third persona narrator, over-the-shoulder narration versus eye-in-the-sky narration) and how to present truly alien points of view without losing the sympathy/understanding of the reader. Some of these are identical/very similar to other genres and others are particular to SFF. I've heard these discussed by critics, fans and writers at "preocess" oriented panels at conventions, too, though most of the fan audience for those kinds of panels are aspiring writers, too. Hell, large parts of (lit SF) fandom have some vague dream of writing at some point, though most never do the serious work required - I have both the vague desire and the lack of time (or committment, perhaps) to follow through, for example.