shuyung wrote:
Khross wrote:
David Weber's ideal feminine has yang; his Ariadne has yang because he's a guy. That's basic feminist theory. Removing all masculinity from Honor Harrington would be impossible and detrimental. She's the Lady on a pedestal: forever perfect and never obtainable. If you do have her, you die (death is not necessarily death ... all sorts of deaths that are not death ... just blame the crazy French). That's just kind of how it works.
No, no, no, no, no ... just no. If you have to use feminist theory to support something you're saying, I'm pretty sure that means you don't have a leg to stand on. Further, are we talking about "the" male projection of the feminine ideal, or "a" male projection of the feminine ideal? Because Ariadne, "the" male projection of the feminine ideal, only possesses yang by injection, and Weber can't create his own Ariadne, else Ariadne ceases to have identity. Now, there is an available figure to which we can compare Honor Harrington, and that is Athena. Especially until her first schtupping. Of course, I don't know how anyone can figure Athena was a virgin goddess, she sho' nuff got nekkid for Paris, so I figure Honor is still staying in line with Athena.
Athena is a good comparison, but Athena was too masculine by the standards of her compatriots. She was, indeed, the Masculine made Feminine. Athena is the Castrated Man. She was born solely of Zeus's pain.
That said, you can tell the difference between a Mary Sue and Ariadne in the writing and plot structures. Structural and mechanical differences exist in the language and exposition. Ariadne is ultimately a projection of the Feminine Ideal, regardless of her author. She exists to represent a state of perfection; a Platonic value that's only approachable asymptotically by real people. Ariadne is an approximation of a perfect state. She's a sign that indicates a signified object (the Platonic value of perfection) and a signifier (the word we use to invoke that relational construct). (de Saussure helps here). Ariadne is deliberate. Mind you, the signified object (the Feminine Ideal) is a variable: the American F.I. is not the Roman F.I. is not the Grecian F.I. ... yada yada yada. These values may be related; they may even be part of some connected set, but they are not transitive identities.
Mary Sue is emergent. Mary Sue starts out perfect or good or better than average or whatever at
some task. She exists to fill that function. As the need to make Mary Sue more engaging and broad emerges (evolves, develops, is required by profit motive, whatever) ... Mary Sue acquires new abilities and perfects and qualities she previously had no need to display or possess: think Rogue of the X-Men only by non-conscious osmosis at the level of plot actor.
Also, don't take my observational comments about the morphological considerations of characters and their respective genesis as opinion of those characters, their authors, or the books. It's entirely likely I've not read more than 500 words by David Weber in my life. That doesn't discount my knowledge of fabula and literary schema. It also means I have little or no opinion on their enjoyability. So, please don't take any of these comments as insult to the author or works or yourself. If you like reading this stuff, that's groovy.
_________________
Corolinth wrote:
Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
