{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1358",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1358,
    "subject": "Bad Horn and Rape",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-04-16T16:35:36+00:00",
    "last": "2001-04-16T16:35:36+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0012-0614@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "James Jordan",
        "address": "jbjordan4 at home.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-04-16T16:35:36+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Bad Horn and Rape",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "At 09:37 AM 4/16/2001 -0400, Allan Lloyd wrote:>"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "(As an aside, I know that Wolfe's attitude to women has been\ncriticised\nbefore, but these books do seem to bring out the worst in him. Women\nseem to be inconvenient accessories, to be picked up or dumped at the\nhero's convenience."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "         For some reason I did not get the original of this post, and this \nis from Alga's reply to it.\n         I think you've made a good case for seeing Horn as Bad Horn, and \nthis adds a lot to reading the trilogy in terms of progressive \ntransformation of the character. At the same time, the harsh treatment of \nthe inhumi at the end seems (emphasis on seems) to be by the emerging Silk, \nas I pointed out the other day.\n         Women to be picked up and dumped at will. Well, we all know that \nthe Odyssey is partly behind this narrative, and Odysseus was hardly a \nmodel of faithfulness to his wife. What is of note, though I don't know how \nmuch Wolfe has thought about this, is that pre-Christian heroes like \nOdysseus don't really undergo the kind of moral transformation we have come \nto expect in literature of the Christian (and \"post-Christian\") era. \nOdysseus does not change as a result of his descent into Hades; no \"death \nand moral resurrection\" here; and he's about as vicious at the end as he \nhas been all along. But both Horn and Severian are becoming better people, \nthough not very dramatically. They make a little progress, not great \nprogress. In the case of Horn, it's Silk's influence, in various ways.\n         Rape? Hey, what else are women for? Sure, MY WIFE is to be \nprotected (and maybe yours also, if you're my equal), but the rest are fair \ngame, to be used at will. That's the \"ancient heroic\" attitude, pretty \nmuch. (Though Homer was not totally blind to the problem, as the first book \nof the Iliad shows.)\n         Shellac mentioned rape in Wolfe. Well, rape is about as common as \noxygen in most of the world in most of history. Our sensibilities about \nequal treatment have been formed by the Bible, gradually, over centuries of \nits influence -- whether we personally accept the Bible or not. \"Democracy\" \nin Greece means male citizens only, not women and not the many slaves. The \nHebrew scriptures required slaves be freed after a few years, required \nmasters be punished if they abused their bondservants, and punished rape \nwith death. Israelites were forbidden to have sex when the Ark of the \ncovenant was in the field, i.e., in the context of battle; thus, no rape of \nthe enemy women. (Setting the special provision to wipe out all the \nCanaanites; I'm speaking of \"normal war,\" not \"holy war.\") St. Paul says \nmen and women have different roles, but are fundamentally equal before God \nand in Christ. Parts of the Bible were written by women (Songs of Deborah, \nHannah, Mary). 1500 years of this stuff being read, studied, preached, in \nchurches all over Europe had a effect on culture -- though the effect has \nnot been as great as it should be, IMO. In a broad way, femin-ISM is as \nmuch as anything else a \"Christian heresy.\"\n         Wolfe, I'm sure, is quite sympathetic to some of the concerns of \nfeminism. Men have very often treated women very badly, historically, and \nWolfe wants us to think about this fact.\n         Rape and also the sexual abuse of children is pretty damn common, \nand he's trying to deal with it. It's clear that HE does not approve of it. \nWhere traditional epics like the Odyssey might find Odysseus' adulteries \n\"good stuff,\" and the Kalevala presents Lemmenkainen's fornications as \nhumorous, it's pretty clear that Horn's and Severian's follies are not held \nup for our amusement. Even in Jack Vance, though Cugel gets his \ncomeuppance, his dalliances are presented as light humor. I don't think \nWolfe ever presents adultery or fornication that way. Wolfe's \"realism\" is \ndesigned to make us uncomfortable, but I don't think his own moral \nperspective is hard to discern.\n\nNutria\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}