likehephaestion

Make Rock Polyneasian 2k20 I guess.

I remember walking into the fantasy aisle of a Hastings to get somewhere else, probably classics, and I saw this huge book with beautiful art work on it. Well I'd just finished Les Misérables and fancied myself a reader of giant novels and picked up Way of Kings. Prior to this I had read one fantasy novel, The Sword of Shannara. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into, but man did I make a great choice. I read the book and fell in love, I don't remember if WoR was out yet or not but it spurred me to read all the other fantasy I could get my hands on (finally buckling down and reading LoTR, starting ASoIaF among others) And then I was back in that same Hastings and saw there was the next book!! I didn't read it and brought both books with me to university telling myself I'd find time to read it, I didn't until my final semester (say what you want about it but season 8 of GoT got me back into reading) I binge read just about every fantasy book I owned and, lucky me, not only did I fall back in love with Stormlight Archive but the third book had come out by now! (I'd waited so long it was out in paper back) But even when I was not invested in reading Way of Kings came with me whereever I went. Back and forth from College, summers spent as a camp Lifeguard. The poor book is falling apart. (though I blame its size more than anything, it's only been read eight or so times by now) I'm usually a stickler for my books matching. And I prefer MMPBs. But my Stormlight books don't match, the first two are MMPBs the third is a Paperback but it's giant and RoW is hardback (I hate hardback books). This should infuriate me, I've got quite a few other series I'm waiting on the MMPB to come out before I read the next book. But I don't actually mind, in this case the different books tell the story of my love for the series and my relationship with reading for pleasure (which is very much entangled with my relationship with these books) I've finally started chipping away at the rest of the cosmere, and it's all brilliant but, man, Stormlight holds such a special place in my heart.

I did I caught the tail end of the livestream and I'm so glad I did! And in fact the last sentence of the very paragraph you quoted addresses why I am sticking to "there are no gay main characters." I am so incredibly excited for Renarin to be queer. I cried about it to my friends forEVER. Not only do we get a queer character but we get an autistic queer character. But it doesn't count until its in the text, if we let Word of God additions count we'll get more "oh actually that character was gay" and authors won't have to do the actual work of writing marginalized characters. And that's not real representation.

I know Rock has red hair, I know he does. But also I literally can not picture anything but Jason Momoa. I do not know where this came from because if I remember correctly we are not introduced to Rock though the Horneater culture (which does read, to me at least, very polynesian, particularly the language) also on the topic of names I will not budge on Ad-o-lin rather than Ay-do-lin. (I hope that makes sense I'm really bad with phonetic representation)

My whole problem is that people are a bit more protective or Renarin despite the fact that he's perfectly capable of handling himself. It plays into the infantilization of autistic people. Some parents absolutely are very protective. Dalinar is not uniformly protective of his children. He does not have any worries about Adolin in the way he does about Renarin. And if you include his niece and nephew who he does think of as his children in some sense. He beat up his nephew and absolutely would not ever try to be protective over his niece. So Dalinar's protectiveness exists only to protect Renarin and while you could argue it's because he's the child the fact that others are uniquely protective of Renarin exists to prove my point. People are protective of Renarin because they are infantalizing someone with Autism. I'm fine with people being protective over their children but when people are only protective over their autistic children that's a red flag for me. And like I and GroundPetrel said, there's lots of room for Dalinar to realize he doesn't need to be protective of Renarin. I think that Dalinar realizing that would help him and Renarin grow closer. This is anicdotal, but I find it harder to connect with people who infantalize me as an autistic person, people who think they have to protect me, or that I won't understand some things. When they realize that is not the case our relationship grows stronger because I'm able to tell them what I need rather than then assuming. I would love to see this happen with Renarin and Dalinar. If Dalinar were to realize "Oh my kid doesn't need or what that." and then Ren telling him what he does need and what, * chef's kiss * that would be brilliant. Is Sanderson writing this because he thinks autistic people should be infantalized I am almost certain that is not the case, However, the world we live in inftanlizes Autistic people in a ways I think a lots of non-autistic people don't realize and we all live in that world (as much as we might try to live in our books.) This is an example of what I'm talking about. Intentionally or not (and again I think not) Sanderson has kinda infantilized Renarin particularly in his and Dalinar's relationship BUT I think this would be a perfect way to remedy that. This is not an attack on Sanderson (whom I think is a brilliant author), or Renarin, I love Renarin before Stormlight Archive I'd never ever ever seen an autistic character in a book before, I will go to bat for Ren every day. I just also have criticism.

I both love and hate the idea of super protective Dalinar. Like we don't need to further the infantilization of autistic people and being worried about your very independent autistic kid dating is.....kinda yucky, he's a whole adult. HOWEVER, Dalinar being a dad and, like you said, having to overcome that yucky-ness bc your baby is a whole adult (has been probably for a lot longer than he's been an adult age wise, and it aboslutly is Dalinar's fault) would be something to see. I do think he might have a problem with Rlain being a singer but not because he wants to have a problem with it I just think he seems stuck between "he have to do things the right way" and "the the right way is changing and maybe never existed." (We see this already with Dalinar supporting Renarin when it comes to his academic persuits) And I (personally) think that would be a better plot line to see develop and resolve than Dalinar being over protective but uhhh Dalinar already is over protective so maybe we'll get both!! I think you're spot on about Navani though and I want that even more than Dalinar's reaction. Ren and Rlain deserve that sort of absolute, love and acceptance. They've both been though it when it comes to a lack of acceptance. I think Renarin getting to see Rlain being accepted would do wonders for Renarin (I have no a single clue how I think Rlain would take it though) [just as a note I don't think you are infantilizing Renarin in anyway and particularly not by suggesting this it's just a thing that happens yknow?]

yeah see "appreciating the female body" does not count as being queer because TONS of people read that and did not think "oh that's queer" and like.....I'm one of those people and I'm one of the first people to jump on "OH THAT'S QUEER." So if that IS representation it's bad representation. But why is it safe to assume it would be less on Roshar? if bridge four was super accepting and they were, that's better than any coming out I have been part of, either coming out or someone else coming out while I was around. You seem to be either arguing I'm wrong and that is the main goal OR you keep jumping from "Roshar is more accepting" to "Roshar is less accepting" and I don't know why. It might be devils advocate or I'm just reading wrong. But you brought up ancient Greece as an example of how a culture can have a norm of cishet and still be accepting. I guess my question is which is it? Do you think Roshar is more or less accepting (specifically Alethkar) because you keep going back and forth and I don't know where you stand.

Mostly I was talking about the way you corrected me when I misspelt Eland's name. but also the way you said "I must have forgot" no I did not ask next time. I stand by Eland was boring and it's because he was privileged, Elhohkor also boring because of his privilege. I am however done with this conversation.

Okay so you've walked right into my point though. If he is trying to write a world similar to ancient Greece then he's done it wrong because we should know of more gay men then. The construct was different in ancient Greece than it is now (I mean, it was hardly okay for a man to marry another man for love or even to spend a lot of time as gay men in what we would recognize as a relationship, ancient Greek philosophers had whole conversations about Achilles and Patroclus's relationship because men weren't supposed to fall in love like that) And if he wants to write a world where there is a different social construct that doesn't care too much then he's failed. If you want a world where people don't care about weather or not someone is queer then there will be more queer people and you've pointed out why. When people care less it's less dangerous and fewer people have to say in the closet. There is a reason it feels like there are more queer people now and there used to be, and it's because we are chaning the social construct. It's more okay to be queer now than it was 20 years ago so it seems like there are more queer people. I had just assumed, until the conversation bridge four had, that it was an incredibly homophobic society...because there were no queer people. What produces a world without queer people? A world that does not accept Queer people. (of course even in a world that does not accept queer people there will be queer people but they will not be visible.)

No, I meant are, there ARE people who will scrutinize overly privileged characters. I am one of those people and I just happened to use Elend as an example, I could have used Elhokar, but I thought Elend was a better example. Please do stop trying to correct me though it's annoying and a little rude. If you can understand what I mean it's not a big deal.

No not every gay character needs attention. But like the problem is we only know gay minor characters. There are no gay main characters at the moment. "People want equal representation but-" okay stop because there is not equal representation. You can't say that like "you have to be okay with non focus gay characters" when those are the only queer characters there are. (and like I love WoB stuff but also Word of God does not count as actual representation. so until it's shown/told in the books it doesn't count) Gay characters who are the only queer character in a story but is not focused on or developed ARE bad representation. Drehy is bad representation and until its in the books In my opinion he is the only gay character. And yeah people are gonna ask about the gay characters, if you only have one. Partiuclarly if the only "gay" thing about that character is a conversation about "oh yeah he's gay" and that's the end of it, the last time it's brought up. And that's where the bad representation comes in. Drehy is the only gay character but like....what's gay about him? (and again i'm not asking for graphic sex) but a queer person's queer-ness doesn't end at their coming out. They're queer before, and after that as well and the problem with Drehy is....we know he's gay but that seems to mean absolutely nothing and yeah we do want to know about him because uhhh until recently that was the only character we for sure knew we had and even now again until it's in the books it doesn't count as representation. But like if you want to write a world where being queer doesn't marginalize someone (which I think is what Sanderson is going for here) you can not just have one queer character it makes no sense because, and not to drag queer theory into this conversation, if being queer doesn't marginalize someone then there would be MORE queer people not less. If there is no stigma to being queer, if being queer doesn't exist then being queer loses its meaning and so everyone can be queer. This would lead to more experimentation which would lead to more people realizing their queer rather than spending their life in the closet married to someone they don't love. If being queer isn't stigmatized then teenagers would treat gender like hair color, or perhaps more adeptly for this specific discussion, eye color. You have a preference but why wouldn't you step out of that preference? Sexuality is a social construct, if a society did not construct it then that society would not live by the same rules. There would be TONS of "queer" people because no one ever had to wonder or worry. So like not only is Drehy being the only queer character bad representation it's also just not even close to realistic if Sanderson really is trying to write a world where being queer isn't a marginalization.

I would suggest not telling strangers on the internet you're going to "hunt them down to the ends of the earth" but uhh don't bother I'm not that pressed about it. I was just suggesting that there very much are people who will go though and scrutinize overly priviledged characters the way people do with margonizlied characters.

Okay so i've not read though everything so I might be rehashing things that have already been said or saying things no one cares about anymore but like as a queer person I absolutely remember Drehy as "the gay one." And sure after the first read I know to look out for him because he was THE gay one. I'm notoriously horrible at keeping trititary charterers straight. I'm looking at a list of members of bridge four right now and I promise the only reason I know any of the not main or secondary characters is because Drehy is gay. And....that's the problem. And like you can argue he has some plot significance saving the Elhokar's son but to reiterate my point I know that there was another bridgeman with him, who was he? I don't know not the gay one. Just, why do I have to learn to love and care about characters I would not otherwise love or care about? I would not care about Drehy if he were not "the gay one" Moreover like they talked about how he has a boyfriend but like, he's not done anything queer and I don't mean I expect (or want) there to be graphic sex. I very much do not want that. But we've not met his boyfriend (that I remember I could be wrong and I'll be glad to be) but like, what's the point? when you make super minor characters "the gay one" it's almost not worth it because it's literally just a label. If you want to be upset about authors trying to "tick off woke boxes" or something that's when that is happening. Not when main characters are being "turned" gay particularly if the character in question never said anything contrary to that.

I mean I would love to talk about how Eland had absolutely not personality and was literally just a white cis het man. And how in comparison to Renarin/Ralin Eland/Vin makes so little sense. And like maybe there is a joke to be made about "oh I don't get cishet relationships" but also, what did Eland bring to the table? Money? He had no personality he was bland. Renarin and Ralin have things in common (the very things people are complaining about "taking away personality" give them reason to be together) but no one ever wants to talk about how cishet couples feel forced bc, I don't know, that's the way it's supposed to be or something idk.

So, lots of people have pointed out that gay autistic people do actually exist (some of us are even trans on top of all of that. I can confirm I am incredibly boring I have no personality I am simply here for the woke points) I just have two questions for you. First: We see that Kaladin has depression and has since he was a young boy, He's also got PTSD that obviously developed later in his life. Is there room for his "actually personality?" Even if it is a facet of his PTSD was there room for Teft to have a personality between his PTSD and addiction? What about when Renarin was Autistic and also had epilepsy did he have an "actual personality" then? Second: Sanderson said he already has laid the groundwork for this relationship, that he wants it to be obvious to us now that Renarin has a crush on Rlain. This means that Renarin is already queer, it's not "coming later" he already has the crush. So, when did he lose his personality? if you are so sure that a character can not be both autistic and queer with out loseing room for their actual personalities when did Renarin lose his? He's been Autistic and Queer for the last two books, at what point did those things become so cumbersome that there was no room left for him to have an "Actual personlity?" Being autistic is part of who Renarin is, that IS part of his personality. Being shy, not being able to say the right thing, being interested in "feminine" things, those are all part of his personality, AND they are part of his autism. Similarly Rlain's personality is dependent on the things that make him an "outcast" if he were not a listener he would not be who he is. That's the whole point, who you are and how society sees you shapes your personality, it shapes who you are. Renarin isn't just gonna stop being Renarin and start, idk, dressing in drag or whatever gay men on Roshar do. Why? Because that's not who he is, that's not part of his personality. At any rate I'm incredibly excited, my poor friends, most of whom have never read these books, have had to deal with me talking about this all day because I didn't think I was going to ever see an autistic queer man in something that wasn't YA. I really did not think I would get to see an autistic queer man in an adult fantasy series. But here we are. Depressed, hetero, AND has PTSD, there's just too much going on in his character there's no room for him to have a personality now :((((