Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

This really is a full service blog.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Let there be snark.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

Bark louder, little dog.

I really should read my own blog.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

No one could have predicted…

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Late Night Open Thread: JD Vance Works Hard for Peter Thiel’s Money

Late Night Open Thread: JD Vance Works Hard for Peter Thiel’s Money

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Vance is no longer running for office; his full-time job is performative outrage against the people Peter Thiel dislikes. (Which, I’m sure some misfortunate Ohio residents would warn me, doesn’t mean he won’t end up in office… )

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63Comments

  2. 2.

    RaflW

    I don’t have any children, but I’d still like for there to be a fkking habitable planet after I’m gone. Hell, I pay my hefty property taxes because I’d like kids to have schools to attend this coming autumn.

    Fuckers like Vance just make me so g-d damned mad.

  4. 4.

    Chetan Murthy

    @RaflW: Amen.  I’m single and childless.  And I thank my friends who have kids, and thank their kids, b/c somebody’s gotta pay for my upkeep when I’m old and infirm and “living on my retirement savings”.  You can’t eat money: you eat the labor product of other people, and those people need to be raised, educated, fed, clothed, housed, until they can become productive members of society.

    You can’t eat money.

  5. 5.

    Captain C

    In that photo from the NY Post, he looks like the before photo to Donald Jr.’s after.

  6. 6.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Reposting from below:

    Totally OT, but moar Game of Thrones:

    I actually did some reading about the ASOIAF series and I gotta be honest, I’ve got no interest in reading it:

    I mean, “fat pink mast”? “The more she drank, the more she shat”? That’s right up there with the show’s “You want a good girl, but what you need is bad pussy” from the 5th season. Ugggh!

    Apparently, GRRM is kind of a perverted creep too

    Exhibit A

    In a 2010 post for his “Not a Blog” on LiveJournal about the casting on the HBO show in, he talks about reviewing the tapes of 12 young actresses reading for the role of Shae. He then says, “Excuse me, I need to take a cold shower now.” His status “mood” is horny

    ?

    Another thing. His female characters are often praised for being “strong”, but in reality many of them are subjected to gratuitous violence, rape, and miscarriage, and it’s portrayed that this trauma made them “stronger”. This kind of trauma never happens to male characters, and if it does (rape) it happens “off-screen”. The rape scenes are also written to be titillating.  Daenerys Targaryen was only 13 years old IIRC when she was married off and raped by her husband. And people actually named their kids “Khalessi”! GRRM has tried to claim that this is all historically accurate, but that’s bullshit. When most of these assaults take place, there’s no war going on. Compared to what we know Medieval Europe was like, the amount of miscarriages, rapes, etc, just didn’t happen nearly as much as ASOIAF makes it seem. There were no cultures to my knowledge where rape was widely seen as this honorable thing, as in the Dothraki. Rape was always seen as a terrible, horrible thing. As bad as the middle ages were, they weren’t nearly as bad as Westeros. Plus, dragons and all that too.

    GRRM also has a problem with the Malw Gaze as well. Female characters are also often described more vividly then men are, often talking about their breasts. Including Danys, who I remind you, is an underage girl.

    It all just seems pretty suspect imo.

    Finally, the guy also sold some old calendars and water damaged RPG books from his basement that originally retailed for $99.99 for like $199.99 on NaB with his autograph (I think). Basically, it was a digital garage sale!

  8. 8.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Major Major Major Major:

    This motherfucker tweeted out on the day Chauvin was sentenced to the effect of, “Well, I guess the degenerate left is celebrating today.” He’s a fucking Nazi full stop. I mean, forget about the “degenerate” nonsense for a second. George Floyd was clearly murdered on video by Chauvin and this POS says that shit?

  9. 9.

    craigie

    …does it maybe tell you something that the ADL has so many conservatives to criticize?

    This. Do these people not have mirrors?

  11. 11.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): ​
      You are getting into “The food is terrible. And such small portions” territory here. And, fwiw, I suspect that you greatly underestimate the amount of rape and pillaging that medieval armies and medieval noblemen committed on a regular basis.

  13. 13.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Major Major Major Major:

    LOL, well kind of. He comes across as this creep in his writing as well as that LJ post. It’s unprofessional, weird, and creepy. Imagine how those actresses might have felt if they saw this. Like, why couldn’t he have kept that to himself? I mean JFC, 2010 wasn’t that long ago. There’s no way he could get away with saying that now. I’m honestly surprised he’s never had any accusations against him, unless his writing is his outlet for that. I just think when you’re writing for a mainstream audience, maybe don’t sexualize rape?

    I think the underage rape of Dany gets to me the most, honestly. Why would he describe something like that in such graphic, titillating detail, from the rapist’s POV (IIRC)? It’s very strange.

    Plus, all his hucksterism. Come on, selling outdated calendars and waterlogged books? There’s no way to justify that. He’s a charming man by all accounts, but he’s typically come across as a super defensive dick, with sycophants banning any kind of criticism of him on his blog as well as other forums

  15. 15.

    Gvg

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): um, I think all arranged marriages were what I would consider society sanctioned rape. Which was most marriages. Women were basically family property in the Middle Ages and nearly all were married at what modern society considers under age. Torture was valid for judicial confessions. No, from my point of view, a woman’s, the whole Middle Ages was pretty much as bad as Martin pictured it, and frankly women were not usually made stronger by it. That part of his stories was unrealistic. There is no era of the past that I consider better than modern times for a woman. It’s all pretty bad and didn’t get legally somewhat better till the 60’s.
    Killing whole groups of rival families openly wasn’t common or a successful tactic though.
    I read a good part of a different series he did and I have to say, he is a bit weird. Also that series petered out and he didn’t really seem to know what to do after awhile…

  16. 16.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You might find this interesting.  A passage from Mary Beard’s _SPQR_, her history of Rome.  Unlike other histories of Rome, this focuses on the Roman *people*, and not merely the 1% (so to speak).  It’s an excellent book, that tries not to take at face value the writings of the “usual suspects” like Livy, Tacitus, and all the rest, instead looking to actual archeology — things like statistical analyses of gravestone rubbings in graveyards for different classes of Romans.  Anyway, here’s a passage about women’s lives — that stresses just how much of their lives was spent in pregnancy (and for the non-wealthy, breast-feeding).  The only thing I’ll add to this, is the saying (learned via Brad Delong): “bear a child, lose a tooth”.

    The relevance I see to GRRM’s (and the series’) take on women: they make it all seem so glamourous, when it was in fact grubby and brutal and ugly and dirty and, for any but the youngest women, a progressive path of degrading health as pregnancy-after-pregnancy sapped their bodies.  I remember seeing my grandmother (the wife of a doctor) in her 70s, after bearing 10-some children in India (I don’t remember anymore, but half of them died in infancy, IIRC).  I remember seeing my great-grandmother at that same age.  Both were in dire physical condition from osteoporosis, and had been getting worse for years and years.

    Pregnancy and childbirth must have dominated most women’s lives,
    including those whom Roman writers chose to present as carefree
    libertines. [….] The majority of women, however, faced decades
    of pregnancies without any reliable way, except abstinence, of
    preventing them. [….] Those babies that were reared were still
    in danger. The best estimate – based largely on figures from
    comparable later populations – is that half the children born
    would have died by the age of ten, from all kinds of sickness and
    infection, including the common childhood diseases that are no
    longer fatal. [….] Simply to maintain the existing population,
    each woman on average would have needed to bear five or six
    children. In practice, that rises to something closer to nine
    when other factors, such as sterility and widowhood, are taken
    into account. It was hardly a recipe for widespread women’s
    liberation.

  17. 17.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I mean, I don’t know, Ursula K Le Guin was a product of the same environment and she didn’t write about graphic underage rape AFAIK. Speaking of King, don’t forget about that scene in IT. Also too, Robert Jordan of WoT fame was apparently weird too. There was a race in one of the books where the women left the house to work on the sea, but were always topless. Was never explained why it was apart of their culture….

    I guess it bothers me, having learned these distasteful things about him, that he has tens of millions of dollars from ASOIAF and it has pretty problematic depictions of women in it. And so many people praise it for being feminist!

    I mean, good God, how bad must have 80s fantasy have been for the ASOIAF books to have turned out they way they did? I read he wrote them in reaction to 80s fantasy, which was seen as “cozy”

  18. 18.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Gvg:

    Well, yeah, but grown men usually waited until the girls were for more older to consummate the marriage, like 17-18. Not 13, like Dany.

    I read a good part of a different series he did and I have to say, he is a bit weird. Also that series petered out and he didn’t really seem to know what to do after awhile…

    Huh, seems like a recurring theme lol

  19. 19.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    good God, how bad must have 80s fantasy have been

    well, y’know, you asked …. I read a -ton- of SF&F back in the 70s and 80s. I mean a -ton-.  And it was all wish-fulfillment fantasy for horny teenage boys [like me].  that’s *it*.  I mean, except for a few female authors.  Rape was common.  Women were either NPCs[1], or, when they were protagonists, were a combination of boys-with-breasts and sex kittens when they found their man.

    [1] The male characters had motives, complexity, backstories, all that.  The female characters were candy to drape over the arms of the male characters.

    One of the things I see today, is writers who take a story with a male character, gender-swap it, and call it a day.  it’s pretty dire stuff.  Weak, I mean.  I don’t read as much SF&F, so I don’t want to say it’s mostly male writers who do it, but ….. gosh …..  Luckily there are a lot more excellent female writers these days, and they don’t write from the male POV.

  20. 20.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): well le Guin is noteworthy for having elevated sf/f beyond such things.

    Lots of stuff is weird though. “Literature” is weird too. Novels can be very revealing.

    I like Peter Hamilton but he has got to be the horniest non-porn SF author around right now. I love the first two Commonwealth books but also YIKES

  21. 21.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Gvg: I wondered about this.  Partially b/c young girls aren’t really physically ready to give birth (it’s a big problem in some parts of Africa, IIUC).

    https://womenofhistory.blogspot.com/2007/08/medieval-marriage-childbirth.html

    So, the most common age for a young woman of middle or low status to marry was from the age of 22 years old. Thus we can conclude that this young woman would have given birth to her first child before she was 25 years old.

    ETA: From the same post, noble women were married earlier and apparently gave birth earlier.

    So, at what age did a young noblewoman enter into marriage.

    It is more common for a young woman to have been married early, though not to have had her first child until she was much older. It is agreed that the most common age for a young woman to have given birth to her first child is from 16yo.

  22. 22.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Chetan Murthy:

    I remember reading once that during the late Republican and entire Empire periods, the fertility rate declined as contraception became common among the upper class abd trickled down to the lower classes, so that the Roman population slowly declined. To combat this, Augustus passed marriage laws that required pretty much everybody to be married (sounds like an incel’s dream) to increase the fertility rate, but it didn’t work out

  23. 23.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Apropos of, from Beard again:

    Oddly, women had much less freedom when it came to the act of marriage itself. For a start, they had no real option whether to marry or not. The basic rule was that all freeborn women were to be married. There were no maiden aunts, and it was only special groups, such as the Vestal Virgins, who opted, or were compelled, to remain single.

  24. 24.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think you would do well to read some European history of the period that Martin used as his base for the Game of Thrones books – the English War of the Roses.  And check out some of the other famous people of that era.  The Borgias in Italy, the completion of the Spanish Reconquista, Ivan the Terrible, Vlad the Impaler, etc.  It wasn’t a nice era.  OTOH, it was the beginning of the Renaissance.

  25. 25.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Yeah, I had remembered reading that somewhere. Basically, child marriage (like a grown man marrying a 12 y/o) just didn’t happen in medieval Europe, not even really in nobility. The marriage wasn’t consummated until the girl was older. People back then generally knew young pregnancies were bad for the women

  26. 26.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Omnes Omnibus: I remember reading _The Three Musketeers_ in my late 20s, and thinking “these guys, they’re in gangs, and they’ll throw down at the slightest provocation.”  It reminded me a lot of Boys in the Hood, and other movies of the time about poor Black youth in street gangs.

  27. 27.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Chetan Murthy: Margaret Beaufort was thirteen when she gave birth to the future Henry VII, having married the twenty-four YO Edmund Tudor at age twelve. She went on to have three more husbands, but no more children, and it’s thought her health never recovered from the trauma of that birth.

  28. 28.

    NotMax

    Practicing his pronunciation of “lebensborn” daily in the bathroom mirror, no doubt.

  30. 30.

    NotMax

    re: many above

    Oh those wacky Tudor times.

    The church had such strict rules about when, where and how people could have sex that, at first glance, it appears sexual activity was almost totally forbidden. Sex was not allowed on Wednesdays, Fridays or Sundays; throughout Lent, Advent and Pentecost; before major holy days; when a woman was menstruating, confined before pregnancy, for a month after childbirth and while she was breast-feeding; three days before taking communion; during daylight hours; naked; or in any position other than missionary. Source

  32. 32.

    Chetan Murthy

    @NotMax: I’ve read that periodic menstruation is an artifact of modernity for most women.  Because before modernity, most women spent their lives from (say) age 20 until menopause either pregnant or nursing, with brief intervals when they were menstruating.  Infant mortality was high, and women basically bore children until they no longer could, for the various reasons we all know.

    it all sounds horrific.

  33. 33.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Eww. But then, that makes sense. 80s teen comedies were pretty rapey and sexist too. Revenge of the Nerds, anyone?

    @Major Major Major Major:

    To tell you the truth, that’s what’s made me apprehensive to write fiction. It’s hard to do, but I’ve always been worried I’d write something problematic (like stereotypes) and I’d be savaged for it

    Also, found this hilarious IsWinterComing.com, a “detractor” site. They wrote a collaborative story where they took the piss out of GRRM, his entourage (Elio & Linda from Westeros.org, Ty Franck of The Expanse fame, etc) and even themselves.

    Here’s some of my favorite passages from A Feast for Trolls:

    He strode across the rain-slicked causeway towards the Tower of the Hand. He’d studied and won his apprentice’s commendation at the Terry Brooks forums and forged his maester’s chain link by link beneath the shadow of that hallowed tower. After twelve years of faithful service, he knew well the austere granite path and rugged stone stairs that led to the maesters’ solar.

    Inside the solar, the others had already been assembled. Ser Elio, newly styling himself as Lord Ran, and his companion Lady Linda of Westeros. Werthead the Vigilant, and many other familiar faces. And yes – his former apprentice – Shawn of House Speakman, newly styling himself as overlord of Suduvu and a published author. Roland made a note to remind Shawn that there were still five publishing houses who hadn’t yet rejected The Dark Thorn. Lastly, a dark lithe man whom he did not recognize – British by the look – greeted him with a wry smirk.

    Oh, but this is more than odd. The counsel’s summons isn’t until fifth bell, and yet they’ve gathered here without me.

    Werthead rose from his mahogany throne at the head of the table. “Roland of Gilead.”

    Phrased as a greeting, but spoken as an accusation. Ah, so this is the game. Undeterred, he spread his arms wide and spoke the customary greeting.

    ”In the name of the British and American Tolkiens, I greet the council and am privileged to share in their wisdom and that which has come before. I am Roland of Gilead and I bear the moderator’s seal.”

    ”That,” purred Speakman “remains to be seen.”

    ”Ah yes”, Werthead looked uncomfortable. “It has come to light that you’ve publicly questioned if Ser Martin will be able to complete A Dance With Dragons on time.”

    ”Yes, well… in light of George R…”

    ”Ser Martin,” corrected Linda.

    ”In light of Ser Martin’s latest proclamation that he hopes to have Dance complete within the next fortnight, how can this be done when he’s also announced plans to visit C2E2 next week to treat with the smallfolk?”

    ”It is said that A Dance With Dragons will be done when it is done and promises to be the most sacred text ever to grace Westeros.org.” smiled Ran.

    ”It is known”, chanted the rest of the table.

    ”Yes, yes,” protested Roland. “It is eagerly anticipated by all of us. Which make it all the more…”

    The dark British stranger rose. “You’ve been asking a lot of questions, ser. Too many questions, all with one answer. George R. R. Martin is not your bitch.”

    Roland regarded the stranger with narrowed eye. “I’ve not had the privilege, ser.”

    ”Ser Neil of Gaiman, and I’m your replacement on the council.”

    ”Then, if that is how it is to be, Ser Neil, I wish you good fortune in explaining to the smallfolk what Ser Martin’s been up to these past five…”

    ”George R. R. Martin is not your bitch.”

    ”And,” Roland continued, undeterred,” then you can also explain why Ser Martin’s increased tariffs on Wild Car..”

    ”George R. R. Martin is not your bitch.” Speakman this time.

    ”And lastly,” protested Roland “why have we not heard from Ser Martin these past…”

    This time the whole table stood as one, a unified cacophony that drowned out his pleas for reason.

    ”George R. R. Martin is not your bitch!”

    ”George R. R. Martin is not your bitch!”

     

    The celebrated knight Ser Neil of Gaiman stepped out of the darkness of the keep’s main building into the sun dappled courtyard. Neil still had a pleasant afterglow from what he and the other members of the GRRMsguard had done to Roland of Gilead. How had that knave had the temerity to question the Lord of all he surveyed, George of Martin? They certainly put him in his place. George is not your bitch thundered through Neil’s head. He was quite proud of being the man who had created that line from which there was no defense. Truth be told the GRRMsguard should have known that Roland was a traitor, even his name bespoke of an allegiance to another King. One from the faraway Kingdom of Maine, he was a hack who the small people liked and was incredibly wealthy, but unlike Ser Neil he had not been the champion of San Jose and Montreal and come away with the glittering prize of the Hugo. A shadow crossed the handsome knight’s face as he remembered that his own Lord, George of Martin had also not won a Hugo for his long fiction, but it was not something that any of the GRRMsguard dared mention in front of him. He became enraged and started shouting for the head of Queen Jo of Hogswart.

    It had been a good day, Neil’s work here was down and he was about to break his contract with the GRRMsguard and go home. He really wanted to paint his house. He was about to order two of his lackeys to run and get him a color card and some paint pots, he had to get the shade in his library just right, when a cloud scudded across the sun and darkness settled over the courtyard.

    Ser Neil looked up and striding towards him was a knight all armored in black. His helm was fashioned to resemble a snarling dog. How had he even gotten into the Keep of Broken Promises? Never mind that, he the great Ser Neil of Gaiman would handle the black knight. Before he could challenge the newcomer a gravelly voice issued from behind that fearsome helm “Where’s that fat sack of suet you call a Lord?”

    The arrogance of the man! Neil was taken aback for a moment, but then he rallied and boldly replied “I’m not your bitch!” While Neil was still congratulating himself on his unmatchable wit the black armored knight’s shield smashed into his face, breaking his nose and shattering his teeth. Neil fell to the flagstones of the courtyard and stared up at the fearsome knight looming over him. “Tell your obese, lazy master that the Brave Companions are coming.” the black knight growled.

    ”Who are you?” Neil whimpered through a mouthful of broken teeth.

    ”The name is Iblis…bitch.”

    Not too fond of the fat jokes, but pretty funny otherwise

  34. 34.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    BTW, the 3-part series The Private Lives of the Tudors is available on Prime, and doesn’t shy from going into intimate detail.

  35. 35.

    Origuy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):  There was a race in one of the books where the women left the house to work on the sea, but were always topless. Was never explained why it was apart of their culture….

    Women working topless is part of a lot of cultures, especially in the tropics. It was also an occurrence, although not common in Europe, especially where women worked in the mines.
    https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/the-scandal-of-female-miners-in-19th-century-britain/

  38. 38.

    Chetan Murthy

    @NotMax: A-yup.  As I wrote: “until they no longer could”.

    Someplace I remember reading that one of the attractions of early Christianity for upper-class Roman matrons, was that it called for denial of the flesh, hence less fucking, hence less chance of, y’know, pregnancy and dying in childbed.

  40. 40.

    kcinthedmv

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I can’t disagree to much with the sexism of asofai. But that reddit you linked to has quite a few holes in it. While its obviously influenced by the accursed kings. Events, characters, and settings are influenced by various historical events. I could give a lot of examples but enough words have been given to breaking down asofai.

    The reason I have delurked to write this is because I’m of course a fan of the series. However I’ve never been a fan of folks critiquing works of fiction that they haven’t read or seen. The greatest works of all time, when viewed from an obstructed view.

    Tldr: I’ve never read a Harry Potter book or seen the movie, and I wouldn’t have a informed opinion about that series by reading the reddit.

  41. 41.

    CaseyL

    @NotMax:

    Combining the thread themes of late medieval history and alternate history, Laura Andersen has written two trilogies of alt.history novels based on Anne Boleyn not miscarrying her last child, giving birth to a son. The first one in the series is The Boleyn King.  

    They’re all rather good.  A bit too much romance for my taste (the main character is a woman who is Anne’s BFF, who gets involved in a very dangerous love triangle), but the history and alt.history are very well done.

  42. 42.

    Brachiator

    Coming a little late to the party.

    Interesting speech. Vance praised a policy by Viktor Orban that pays parents who have multiple children – “why can’t we do that here?”

    Isn’t Orban offering this only to mothers of the “correct” ethnicity?

    Did Vance drop that shoe?

  43. 43.

    Adrian Lesher

    Does Ron Howard support this bullshit? If not, isn’t it time he spoke up?

  44. 44.

    Brachiator

    @CaseyL:

    Laura Andersen has written two trilogies of alt.history novels based on Anne Boleyn not miscarrying her last child, giving birth to a son. The first one in the series is The Boleyn King.  

    What? Elizabeth gets cast aside?

  46. 46.

    Darkrose

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: If you read contemporaneous writings, even at the time Margaret Beaufort’s marriage was unusual and considered hinky by other nobles. It was one thing to marry a 12-year-old, but she was supposed to live with her parents until she was around 16 at least. You definitely weren’t supposed to consumate the marriage while your bride was that young.

  47. 47.

    Darkrose

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    To tell you the truth, that’s what’s made me apprehensive to write fiction. It’s hard to do, but I’ve always been worried I’d write something problematic (like stereotypes) and I’d be savaged for it

    That’s why you do research. Not, perhaps, to the extent that I do where I spend so much time doing research and worldbuilding that I never get any actual story written, but still. It’s also why it’s good to have beta readers, or really anyone you can go to and say (for example), “Hey, would you mind taking a quick look at this? This character I’m writing is Jewish and I’m not; I want to make sure I didn’t get something wrong.”

  48. 48.

    Darkrose

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I wish I’d come to that conclusion before book 4, which is when I finally gave up. Part of it was because I realized I was skipping everything but the Arya chapters because she was the only character I actually cared about. But even more than that was the way he wrote all of the other female characters (except Arya, who is Not Like Other Girls), and how heavily he relied on rape for character development. Need to show how gritty and realistic this world is? Have random poor women get raped. Need to show how awful a male character is? He’s a rapist, or he arranges to have someone raped. Need to give a noblewoman hardship. Have someone rape her.

    I don’t buy the “medieval times were like that” argument, because GRRM is not writing historical fiction. He could have, but instead of writing about the War of the Roses he chose to create his own world. He made the conscious choice to use rape as shorthand for a grimdark setting.

    What annoys me most is that way too many writers read or watched ASoIaF and Game of Thrones and came away with the idea that the rape as backstory trope is a great way to show how grittty and edgy and dark your fantasy setting is. I’m especially looking at you, Bioware, and the Dragon Age series, where you could almost guarantee that any female city elf NPC had been raped at some point in her life. The “we’re just being realistic” argument holds no water with me in a world with functional magic and dragons: that’s a choice you as a writer made. It’s lazy.

  49. 49.

    germy

    Edroso on Vance:

    Between this and the extra-votes-for-breeders thing I'm starting to think the Ohio race is just a front to raise this overfed neo-Nazi's national profile for Der Tag.

    — Roy Edroso (@edroso) July 26, 2021

  50. 50.

    Technocrat

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I mean, good God, how bad must have 80s fantasy have been for the ASOIAF books to have turned out they way they did? I read he wrote them in reaction to 80s fantasy, which was seen as “cozy”.

    I’ve always wondered about this take. 80’s fantasy was certainly formulaic, but you could make that argument about any media that achieves pop-culture status. There’s always going to be an opening for someone to subvert expectations, but that’s not necessarily a valid critique of the dominant medium as much as a matter of taste.

    I think you could make the argument that Marvel Comics subverted the expectations of DC Comics readers, and more recently that the Dark Souls series of video games subverted the expectations of people used to consuming the standard “You’re the hero who can’t lose” type of role playing game.

  51. 51.

    Technocrat

    @Chetan Murthy:

    One of the things I see today, is writers who take a story with a male character, gender-swap it, and call it a day.

    This describes the Honor Harrington series to a T.

    I’ve also read that the lead in Aliens was written for a man, and left unchanged when Sigourney Weaver filled the role.

  52. 52.

    satby

    @Baud: it’s only a good discussion to people interested in GoT. Took the boy a couple tries, but finally he got his thread.

    As to Vance, fuck him. He’s increasingly frantic on the cray-cray because he’s not getting the traction from it he needs.

  54. 54.

    Anya

    How many children does Vance have (I don’t want to google the fucker)? Unless he has 8+ children, he should STFU about the issue. Great parts of our country are such weird places that politicians are appealing to them with open racism, antisemitism and a whole lot of nonsense. I wonder if we as a country will get over this?

  55. 55.

    Anya

    @germy: The other guy is Jewish and he’s campaigning on “Judeo-Christian revolution”. Someone should give this man a history book.

  56. 56.

    SFAW

    I gotta say, when I saw that picture of him haranguing whomever, for a brief second, I thought he was Ewick plus a beard and minus a few pounds. Not sure why, because they don’t resemble each other that much.

    But either way, he’s still an asshole.

  57. 57.

    JML

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    A lot 80’s fantasy is very much that: fantasy. Not deeply grounded, no focus on “making things realistic”, very little sex (or such things happened off-screen on the page), etc. You had more character development than the previous generation (in many of those books there was little care paid to anyone other than the protagonist) and series weren’t collections of serialized work, but actually planned as multi-volume books. Definitely an age of “high fantasy” where the focus was on the quest and the party.

    So sure, ASOIAF was a reaction to that kind of work. It’s dirtier, nastier, much more sexed up and almost wholly uninterested in quest-based plotting. Doesn’t mean there wasn’t some excellent work in the 80’s, though. Some of it has aged better than others, but it’s been highly influential on today’s writers, much the same way Tolkien, Moorcock, and Lieber were on them.

  58. 58.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Technocrat: This describes the Honor Harrington series to a T.

    Ah, let’s not forget Webber’s  Atlas Shrugs level of lectures of Libertarianism in those books.  Or chapter long descriptions of a day at the gun range and other such excitements.

  59. 59.

    H.E.Wolf

    One of the interesting aspects of sexism in SF/F (and of sexism in general) is the invisibility of women.

    Many women wrote SF/F in the 1980s, and in the decades before and after it. They won prestigious awards. Some of the women writers of the 1980s are continuing to write in the 2020s. And yet, Ursula Le Guin is usually the only woman mentioned in discussions of SF/F – which would not have pleased her.

    If anyone would like the names and books of women SF/F authors: Google the topic, peruse the wealth of options, and happy reading!

  60. 60.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Darkrose:I don’t buy the “medieval times were like that” argument, because GRRM is not writing historical fiction

    Sounds like more people need to read “The Last Duel”  and stop with the “Dudebros of Gor”  if they think the Medieval period was just endless rape.

  61. 61.

    J R in WV

    @NotMax: ​

    …dunno if you’re aware of some multi-volume series written by Harry Turtledove:

    Harry Turtledove is another author who has a lot of trouble finding his way to the conclusion of a novel, as opposed to just stopping writing the thing. I guess if you stop, it’s done, right?

  62. 62.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Technocrat:

    the Dark Souls series of video games subverted the expectations of people used to consuming the standard “You’re the hero who can’t lose” type of role playing game.

    You still have infinite lives! It’s just difficult!

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