Are You a Closet Sexist?

I read what I enjoy. Books like Wheel of Time. Bonding with the characters—Rand, Perrin, Mat, and the women, Egwene, Min, Nynaeve—tied me forever to them and the story.

The Game of Thrones books/TV show keeps me up at night. I wonder at the depravity and violence. And bonding with a character usually is a sure-sign their death is on the next page.

Deadpool...ho, man, I can’t wait for it to come out on video so I can watch it again.

All the above and more pull me into a story, but...

...it turns out I am a closet sexist, promoting sexism, violence toward women.

According to some in the publishing community, sexism abounds in literature, GoT promotes the rape culture, and strong women are threatening.

The Five Signs Your Story is Sexist is an article by Chris Winkle detailing her opinion on this matter, an opinion I mostly disagree with. In her first example, she postulates the women in WoT and Dune are strong with lesbian tendencies which is threatening to men and therefore sexist. Whaaaa...?

I didn’t get that from the books at all. The genders took turns being all kinds of bad. No need to single out one. And as far as being, lesbian...if so, it did a fly-by on me.

GoT shows warfare and the aftermath in a rainbow of colors. It isn’t exactly my cuppa but IMO it does depict real war, the conquered and the victors. Check out documentaries about WWII or ISIS today. All the gore in GoT and more. Much more. Real battles aren’t unicorns and fluffy bunnies.

The TV program is violent. I can’t watch it because it reaches my limit of depravity in the first ten minutes. But still, I can admit it takes stories out of history and today’s headlines.

You wanna know real sexism? Try this: the studios almost didn’t make Deadpool because the Suits in the Head Office didn’t think it would appeal to women. Yes, it is profane. A lot of nakedness. Blush-worthy sex scenes. Violence. But this woman loved it.

Think of all the good movies not made due to this ‘tude.

Honestly, a person can find offense in anything if they look hard enough. 

So are you a sexist? Do you depict stereotypical characters? Do you care? Or is all this mostly irritating hogwash?

Cephalopod Coffeehouse Book Chat – Game of Thrones, etc., a Negative Review

From the ArmChair Squid:
“The idea is simple: on the last Friday of each month, post about the best book you've finished over the past month while visiting other bloggers doing the same. In this way, we'll all have the opportunity to share our thoughts with other enthusiastic readers.”

Sometimes I get a hold of a certain type of book that, while interesting, makes me skim words, sentences, and then paragraphs. Ultimately, plowing through the wordiness frustrates me to the point of skipping whole pages. In the category of Skippy books, I place the following:

The Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) – George RR Martin. At some point, do we really need to know what they are eating at every meal? I want the tale to advance and not hang up in too many storylines. Plus, his penchant for killing off characters is wearing thin. If the initial hook is in the characters, I tend to lose interest if they are killed off. I mean, why invest my time and enjoyment in (insert name here) if he is going to die later?

The Wheel of Time – Robert Jordan. All started so well, so interesting. But, after a point, I groaned, “Just get on with it. Don’t bring in more characters, darn it. No more inane conversations. Move along. Gaaaah! Not another plot twist.”

I bought every WOT book and would again. At least he and co-author Brandon Sanderson, who picked up the reins after Mr. Jordan passed away, made the first five and the last two books amazing. The ones in-between, not so much. 

And I never liked the book covers. Too amateurish, IMHO. Though not as bad as anime, a style of art that I intensely dislike. Hate actually.

But Martin’s books...eh, I don’t know if I care enough at this point to continue the series. 

Recently I read One Second After by Willaim Forstchen and it quickly turned into a skipper. The reviews were wall-to-wall 5-stars but I didn’t buy it until the price dropped to $2.99. Glad I didn’t pay the full price now. It turned into a version of Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank complete with a death of a secondary character by the same disease. Too much “Bob” dialogue, the method of delivering info the author wants you to know via Y.T.M. aka Yapping Too Much. No strong females. All are wimpy and whinny. Bleh.

Mr. Frank's book is the one to read but it is dated and reading it makes me very uncomfortable. 

Do you have a famous Skimmer book? 

I Forgot That Happens

Last week The Onion published an article by George R.R. Martin, author of the Game of Thrones series. 

To read, go here. The title is Oh Shit, I Totally Forgot That Happens.

(Now yes, this is The Onion and I know they are wall-to-wall satire sometimes. I mean, they even duped the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un into thinking he was the “sexist man alive.” Yeah, I know. I was shocked the article was satire also.)

In the article, Mr. Martin speaks about the TV series and his books. He was shocked when certain main characters took a turn for the worse last week. He’d forgotten that he wrote these scenes in his book.

So how can this happen? How can an author forget their own world?

I've gone back and read things I wrote several years ago, fell into the story and wondered the same thing. Like where did this come from. And how does it end?

Wouldn't you think, as the author, that I'd remember?

Well apparently, if the article in The Onion only a little bit true, I am not the only one.

Have you written scenes that surprised the heck out of you later?