SCSF: That was in part 11 of the StarMan spork, I see. Come to that, let me show a picture from 2018, so anyone can judge for themself:
(My own opinion is mostly "looks alright", for the record.)
For the beauty standards... I am reasonably sure that is Douglass projecting her own tastes on the characters, which I do not care for all that much; just let the characters have different tastes than your own, Douglass!
Even Shra, who comes from a race of darker-skinned people, is as an adult noted to be "unusually tall and fair-skinned", which just adds some really racist subtext on top of everything else.
Indeed, and I want to highlight her being tall, since we are specifically told that the Avar women are generally short. I doubt that Douglass meant this, but she does end up showing Shra as beautiful because she is not like the Avar, and that is certainly racist.
Oh yes, he would be better represented by a cartoon demon.
Yeah, it's incredibly obvious that Douglass completely lost interest in Faraday and her entire storyline, because Faraday gets completely sidelined in book two so Azhure, the new favourite doll, can get all the attention. Which means that we barely see Timozel either, since he's always with Faraday. And when we are with Faraday it's all just vague mentions of crap like him having "dark thoughts".
And him having the same visions we have already seen, of course... From what I have seen, Faraday just gets stuck with the evil Borneheld, until he dies, and then she gets to planting? At least Wayfarer Redemption will make her an actual main character...
What makes it even worse is that the Azhure who is stealing the show is nothing like the Azhure we see now; Axis, for all that he is a Stu, follows a somewhat logical progression. If you told me that Azhure was swapped for someone else partway through Enchanter and swapped back for Sinner, I would certainly believe it! Something else that ties into this is how badly she fits with the setting; she might do well as the protagonist of a more whimsical, fairytale-like story (if she was not so incredibly awful, at least), but that does not fit at all with the quite grounded setting of Tencendor (which shows very much in her being able to work certain magic, like destroying Smyrton... just because, I guess). That tone conflict will also be one of the bigger problems with the series going forward, I am sure.
Logic and consistency go straight out the window and the entire story and its setting implode.
(nods) That they do, and this is the worst case I have seen of it. And I note that Douglass pulled off such an "implosion", or at least a drastic change from the previous logic, quite a bit better in Pilgrim and Crusader. I am not sure how well she did it, but I am at least sure that she meant to do it.
Oh, I am sure she did not mean it, I just meant that she did write (probably) gay characters, because she did not think through the implications of the tropes she used. For subtext, it took me a while to train myself to do that, so I can see that, though I think I might expect the best-selling author to be able to know about it and be able to apply it. Oh well, at least it gives us some delightful unintentional stuff...
I did not expect anything else, frankly, and I am not surprised Douglass ended up putting that same attitude in her supposedly "feminist" books, given how utterly superficial the feminism is. I do not like it at all, though it gives us an opportunity to cut into it, at least.
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SCSF: That was in part 11 of the StarMan spork, I see. Come to that, let me show a picture from 2018, so anyone can judge for themself:
(My own opinion is mostly "looks alright", for the record.)
For the beauty standards... I am reasonably sure that is Douglass projecting her own tastes on the characters, which I do not care for all that much; just let the characters have different tastes than your own, Douglass!
Even Shra, who comes from a race of darker-skinned people, is as an adult noted to be "unusually tall and fair-skinned", which just adds some really racist subtext on top of everything else.
Indeed, and I want to highlight her being tall, since we are specifically told that the Avar women are generally short. I doubt that Douglass meant this, but she does end up showing Shra as beautiful because she is not like the Avar, and that is certainly racist.
Oh yes, he would be better represented by a cartoon demon.
Yeah, it's incredibly obvious that Douglass completely lost interest in Faraday and her entire storyline, because Faraday gets completely sidelined in book two so Azhure, the new favourite doll, can get all the attention. Which means that we barely see Timozel either, since he's always with Faraday. And when we are with Faraday it's all just vague mentions of crap like him having "dark thoughts".
And him having the same visions we have already seen, of course... From what I have seen, Faraday just gets stuck with the evil Borneheld, until he dies, and then she gets to planting? At least Wayfarer Redemption will make her an actual main character...
What makes it even worse is that the Azhure who is stealing the show is nothing like the Azhure we see now; Axis, for all that he is a Stu, follows a somewhat logical progression. If you told me that Azhure was swapped for someone else partway through Enchanter and swapped back for Sinner, I would certainly believe it! Something else that ties into this is how badly she fits with the setting; she might do well as the protagonist of a more whimsical, fairytale-like story (if she was not so incredibly awful, at least), but that does not fit at all with the quite grounded setting of Tencendor (which shows very much in her being able to work certain magic, like destroying Smyrton... just because, I guess). That tone conflict will also be one of the bigger problems with the series going forward, I am sure.
Logic and consistency go straight out the window and the entire story and its setting implode.
(nods) That they do, and this is the worst case I have seen of it. And I note that Douglass pulled off such an "implosion", or at least a drastic change from the previous logic, quite a bit better in Pilgrim and Crusader. I am not sure how well she did it, but I am at least sure that she meant to do it.
Oh, I am sure she did not mean it, I just meant that she did write (probably) gay characters, because she did not think through the implications of the tropes she used. For subtext, it took me a while to train myself to do that, so I can see that, though I think I might expect the best-selling author to be able to know about it and be able to apply it. Oh well, at least it gives us some delightful unintentional stuff...
I did not expect anything else, frankly, and I am not surprised Douglass ended up putting that same attitude in her supposedly "feminist" books, given how utterly superficial the feminism is. I do not like it at all, though it gives us an opportunity to cut into it, at least.