The White Council

Re: Tolkien, the WWW, and gender

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: : : Older than what? I'm only 37 years young.

: LOL! Younger than me, by a year it seems. I meant older than the typically anything is possible sort of idealistic young adult. But all generalizations have exceptions, as apparently you are! :-)

: :Peculiarly I seem to be getting more idealistic as I get older.

: Well, it's different, but kind of lucky.

: :I went through a phase of cynicism when I was younger, only natural when they tell you the world is your oyster but in fact its a clam, but to be frank I just got bored with it. I wasn't enjoying it and I deeply, truly believe that we are here to be as happy as we can. So I just stopped doing the things that were expected of me by society (bearing in mind the responsiblities of life), you know, having to pretend to be who you are not and started trying to do what I wanted to do, trying to be being the person I wanted to be. It is an effort admittedly but a heroic one and the great thing about heroic efforts is that they make stuff like getting up in the morning, commuting, bad days at the office, rows with partners etc seem easy by comparison :-)

: That's the truth. For me, when I was younger, the world was full of possibilities. Today might be awful, but tomorrow could be different. It's only as I'm entering middle age that I have begun to be plagued by doubts, wondering if anything at all can make a difference and why try. While you've concluded that life is for us to enjoy, that was my starting point, from which I've moved to wondering if we aren't already dead and this is purgatory where we are to suffer. Probably you and I have had very different experiences.

It is my choice to enjoy my existence, it is a perverse act of defiance which flies in the face of all my experience.

"Hark! I hear them in the hall chanting: stern words they sing with strong voices. 'Heart shall be bolder, harder be purpose, more proud the spirit as our power lessens! Mind shall not falter nor mood waver, though doom shall come and dark conquer'" (The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth)

Besides, was it not the phrase 'Nil Carborundrum Illegitimus' that you yourself were looking for recently?

: : Traditionally, I suppose, fantasy has been seen to be focussed on male preoccupations (I am only expressing what I feel to be the common perception of fantasy, not my own). Conan gets (and forgets) the girl, Elric actually makes a habbit of killing them. There are swords and battles. Good magic is generally performed by males, bad by females (very, very old distinction). Women are chattles, shield maidens or occasionally the evil witch of the north (or somesuch). And then a girl comes across a book with the blurb - "The greatest fantasy novel ever", well who could blame her for putting it back on the shelf?

: Yes, I can see this, and truthfully it was difficult for me when I was younger. Somehow in my daydreams and nightdreams I started perceiving myself as a male, although I can't remember choosing to do so. Nor am I gay or transexual. Actually I tend to bug my feminist friends by being so extremely feminine, and I love being a woman. But there was certainly a period of confusion when I went through puberty and wondered, well, what are women supposed to do?

: It's been an important advance for women authors to enter the Fantasy/SciFi genre. Ursula LeGuin has been wonderful, especially her novel Tehanu.

: It's apparent to me that women have been cast in the "witch" role so often because women of power have been and still are highly threatening to men in general. I've met men who are okay with it, to their credit, but they've been exceptional. A really, truly, incredibly beautiful rendition of woman's magic, in its incredibly feminine power, including the fear it inspires in men who cry "witch", is Rudolfo Anaya's "Bless Me, Ultima", the story of a boy mentored by a Curandera (Mexican Folk Healer). Also excellent is "Tales of Goletha": a group of true stories of rememberence about a stuttering boy who is mentored by a highly unusual and wise Goat Lady.

: : Sometimes it is difficult to give a true answer to some of these questions, especially when you only have two options and feel as though you really fall somewhere between. Under these situations I tend to plump for the answer that I find least offensive to my own personal self worth, thus my concerns about emotional state.

: Yes, most of us have been frustrated at one or more points when taking the test. There is a new version of it where you are presented with more than an either/or answer. For example, you can answer "either equally" or "just barely prefer" as well as "completely" and stuff in between.

: : : You never know, someday you might achieve escape velocity. Fly so high, you cannot come down.

: Here's to the possibility of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. :-)

: Blessings,

: Lady Galadriel