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Discussions following on from these posts have been interesting. In some cases, educational. A lot of it is really beside the point of what actually matters about the problems revealed regarding Wrede and Bujold, but that's also why I'm writing these. Derailment is endemic to these discussions - people try to redefine the terms of the discussion so the important points don't have to be answered, because people are talking about something else instead.
My answer to so what do we do about it, which I can't guarantee will work but it's worth a try, is this: writing posts which address the issues people are bringing up, in detail. Not necessarily 100% correctly. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif) antarticlust brings up interesting points on megafauna extinction here, that shows I'm less right than I thought I was.
However, as antarcticlust points out, that doesn't mean the premise of The Thirteenth Child is not obscene.
On more than one occasion, already, I've been able to reply to attempts at derailment with a link to a post I've already made. This, for me, is handy. "This has already been covered. *link*" and I'm done. (I encourage others to do this, with my posts or those made by others: no need to engage with derailments over and over again. Toss them a link where it's covered, it's more than they deserve.)
But new derailments keep cropping up, so... my work is not yet completed. I'm waiting for my ADHD meds to kick in before I really get into it, because the alternative is made of fail.
... speaking of derailing comments, while I'm writing this (am currently reviewing stuff I want to cover, etc) on my TV an American baseball game is playing. It was what was on when I turned it on. Chicago Sox (I thought they were called the White Sox, but the dude whose socks were visible, they were BLACK) versus Cleveland Indians. I'm trying to learn more about baseball but every time I glance up I see their hats and seriously what the hell how are they allowed to have that logo. And they're playing at "Progressive Field". The irony, it burns.
Anyway, back to Wredefail 13: The 09th Race. Or, you know, however to identify this particular discussion without slamming one's head into a wall to dull the pain.
First: According to Lois Bujold, only since the Internet have non-white fans of genre fiction existed. I am not a non-white fan of genre fiction, so this isn't my territory to argue: to pick one link on this out of many, the wild unicorns are doing a herd check here.
Second. The argument that, so far, will not die: but you haven't read the book! So you can't judge it.
This? This is my territory. (Not just mine. But I have a share in it.)
See, here's the thing.
We're not really talking about the details of The Thirteenth Child. The plot, the characters - they're irrelevant to this discussion. Inasmuch as the subject is still The Thirteenth Child (as it has expanded somewhat, to include things like the existence of non-white genre fans) it's about the underlying premises and assumptions, and for that, you don't need to read the book. The points under discussion are not in question. It's not that we're all jumping in on the basis of hostile reviews - the positive reviews agree about these points. And in any case, you can get all you need from the author's description of the premise and her motivation for it.
Blatantly stealing from a comment I made elsewhere:
The *plan* is for it to be a "settling the frontier" book, only without Indians (because I really hate both the older Indians-as-savages viewpoint that was common in that sort of book, *and* the modern Indians-as-gentle-ecologists viewpoint that seems to be so popular lately, and this seems the best way of eliminating the problem, plus it'll let me play with all sorts of cool megafauna). I'm not looking for wildly divergent history, because if it goes too far afield I won't get the right feel. (emphasis added)
If - and I would argue that this is the case - the major problem is that Wrede felt:
a) writing an America "without Indians" was just the easiest way to go, rather than, say, writing them as a real, non-caricatured people (which makes her intellectually lazy)
b) that the extinction of the megafauna is entirely due to the native American population, and this not-actually-supported-by-evidence view was totally unproblematic
c) the possibility that real people would be upset to find their own history wiped away was unimportant
d) that doing this was "eliminating the problem", and it was totally okay to say that when there is a strong history of attempted genocide as a means of "eliminating the problem" when the "problem" was defined as "the existence of Native Americans"
and
e) that doing this would not be "wildly divergent" history, thereby displaying the assumption that the Native American contribution to American history is trivial at best
then as a matter of fact, stipulating that these points are in fact contained within the book (which is uncontested by anyone who's read it, whether they're in favour or opposed - and many people have read it), further verification isn't really needed, because you can get it from Wrede's own statement.
Expecting people to read the book before they can have an opinion on it is unreasonable. People do not have infinite time, certainly not infinite leisure, and expecting people to read a book they have substantial, credible reason to think will be hurtful to them is unsupportable.
This discussion is not about whether The Thirteenth Child is worth reading. Not really. Everyone already has enough information to make that call, and that one is subjective. It's about why the things that are wrong here are wrong, so that perhaps this crap won't keep happening, and so that this kind of offensive, hurtful material isn't being left unchallenged.
What's the quotation I'm thinking of? Something about how the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
The Thirteenth Child has already failed, on ethical and moral grounds, on - by my subjective standards - literary grounds, and very much on historical grounds. However, in challenging that, the rest of us can try to contain that failure to just Wrede (and Bujold, sadly). The idiocy underlying this, the inconsiderate attitude towards real people, the unconscionable assumptions... Those don't get to stand.
It doesn't undo what Wrede did. She's wrong. She hurt people. Lois Bujold is hurting people. But they don't get a free pass on that.Current Mood: falling in love with Bo Jackson Current Music: 雅-miyavi- - 君に願いを
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