Content Note: Medicine, Doctors, Pain, Infertility, Falling, Fainting, PovertyTwilight
Recap: Bella is being carried by Edward to the nurse's office after nearly fainting in Biology class. Twilight, Chapter 5: Blood Type
I was still so dizzy. I slumped over on my side, putting my cheek against the freezing, damp cement of the sidewalk, closing my eyes. That seemed to help a little.
[...]
"I'll take her," Edward said. I could hear the smile still in his voice. "You can go back to class."
"No," Mike protested. "I'm supposed to do it."
Suddenly the sidewalk disappeared from beneath me. My eyes flew open in shock. Edward had scooped me up in his arms, as easily as if I weighed ten pounds instead of a hundred and ten.
"Put me down!" Please, please let me not vomit on him. He was walking before I was finished talking.
"Hey!" Mike called, already ten paces behind us.
I don't know a lot about Medicine.
That seems like a weird thing for me to say, now that I look at it. I've been in and out of several hospitals for multiple infertility treatments, at least one major surgery, numerous follow-up tests and exams (most of them fairly invasive), and have at some point or another been prescribed every possible pain-killer and/or anti-depressant (because when confronted with a patient who is sad about being in pain, many doctors will try to fix the sad before the pain) on the market before I said sod this and chucked the lot in the bin. And I'll probably be going back in for the same major surgery in either 2012 or 2013, in the hopes that my body responds correctly this time. *sardonic fist shake* So I actually know quite a lot about Medicine in the sense that I know what experiencing it is like and I know what does and doesn't work on my body.
But my point is that I'm not a formally trained doctor. Edward Cullen is.
No, really. I don't mean that in the sense that Carlisle Cullen is a doctor and he and Edward have been chilling out together for 100 years and surely Edward would have picked up a few things in that time. That is not what I mean. I mean that Edward Cullen has A Graduate Degree In Medicine.
Two of them, in fact.
One of which is from Harvard Medical School.*
* Harvard claims Edward 'attended but did not graduate'. Who are you going to believe, Harvard or Edward?**
** One hypothesis is that Edward has two graduate degrees in medicine and attended-but-did-not-graduate Harvard.***
*** This would make him medically trained three times over.****
**** Assuming each training period lasted 8 years, Edward has devoted one quarter of his life to medical training.*****
***** The probability that your doctor has devoted one-quarter of their life to formal scholastic medical training is low.******
****** Unless your doctor is Edward Cullen.
So when Edward quickly scoops up a girl who is in a half-faint and additionally very likely has a serious inner ear problem and immediately starts walking so fast that he outpaces his romantic rival, it is important to remember that he is not an ignorant 17-year-old boy who doesn't know any better. No, he is a trained professional who has been through the rigorous scholastic training necessary to know that picking Bella up and keeping her head elevated above her heart is much safer than letting her lie on her side with her chin up slightly so that she can breathe easily.
Also known as the "recovery position".
Because it's up to doctors like Edward Cullen to recover us from doing that. True fax.
"Put me back on the sidewalk," I moaned. The rocking movement of his walk was not helping. He held me away from his body, gingerly, supporting all my weight with just his arms -- it didn't seem to bother him.
[...skipping ahead a bit...]
I don't know how he opened the door while carrying me, but it was suddenly warm, so I knew we were inside.
For all his Medical Fail, Edward does at least get the shivering girl off the cold, wet cement and into a warm nurse's office, so there's that. Now I ask that you please forgive me while I ramble.
We talked a little bit recently about fantasy characters who are meant to be appealing specifically because they don't take "no" for an answer. That is to say, they can (theoretically) intuitively distinguish between a genuine "no" and a "no" that the protagonist doesn't mean because they are cranky, or don't really know what's best for them, or are only saying "no" because they feel like they have to for socialization reasons. The character who runs roughshod over the fake "no" is a character who can't and won't be put off by depression or anxiety or personality flaws or social muckery. However, this fantasy character is intensely problematic.
In all fairness, in most cases the Won't Take No character probably stems from a genuine desire on the part of the author to be overridden. There's a fantasy that many people have of being able to give up control, give up worrying, give up thinking so much about a lot of painful things. Heck, I have that fantasy. And it's a fantasy that I think is directly tied into issues of ability: most of us -- even the able-bodied and neuro-typical among us -- simply do not have the physical abilities nor the mental bandwidth to manage every little thing that needs doing. Add any kind of disability onto that, and you multiply the problems ten- or a hundred-fold.
In his book "Getting Things Done", David Allen writes:
Almost everyone I encounter these days feels he or she has too much to handle and not enough time to get it all done. In the course of a single recent week, I consulted with a partner in a major global investment firm who was concerned that the new corporate-management responsibilities he was being offered would stress his family commitments beyond the limits; and with a midlevel human-resources manager trying to stay on top of her 150-plus e-mail requests per day fueled by the goal of doubling the company's regional office staff from eleven hundred to two thousand people in one year, all as she tried to protect a social life for herself on the weekends. [...]
Now, for many of us, there are no edges to most of our projects. Most people I know have at least half a dozen things they’re trying to achieve right now, and even if they had the rest of their lives to try, they wouldn’t be able to finish these to perfection. [...]
What you've probably discovered, at least at some level, is that a calendar, though important, can really effectively manage only a small portion of what you need to organize. And daily to-do lists and simplified priority coding have proven inadequate to deal with the volume and variable nature of the average professional’s workload. More and more people's jobs are made up of dozens or even hundreds of e-mails a day, with no latitude left to ignore a single request, complaint, or order. There are few people who can (or even should) expect to code everything an "A," a "B," or a "C" priority, or who can maintain some predetermined list of to-dos that the first telephone call or interruption from their boss won’t totally undo.
So what does that have to do with Bella and Twilight? is what you are probably asking right now. I'm not sure myself, but I'll try to work out why my brain is going to this place.
Bella has medical problems. We don't really know what they are, but we know they exist. She feels faint (sometimes) at the sight, smell, and even mention of blood. Fainting that often is unusual, and could be representative of a life-threatening illness. She falls down a lot, on what seems to be a near-daily basis. Falling that often is unusual, and could also be representative of a serious illness, in addition to being painful, limiting, and inconvenient. Bella's medical problems necessarily limit her life and her social movement. She can't go ice skating or roller blading or play sports or go hiking or ride bicycles or be anywhere where someone might reasonably be expected to bleed.
Bella is (relatively) poor. We don't know what Renee does, but we know that Bella and Renee had "pooled [their] resources to supplement [Bella's] winter wardrobe, but it was still scanty." We know that price was a big sticking point with her over her car. We know that -- lavish two-week trips to California notwithstanding -- Charlie is working on on a cop's salary which is very likely below the median household income in the United States. Bella's (relative) poverty necessarily limits her ability to seek out solutions to her medical problems. She can't go in for dozens of tests to find out why she falls and faints, especially not when those are "female problems" and least likely to be taken seriously by either her parents or medical personnel.
Enter Edward Cullen. He's so rich his family owns their own island. His father is a doctor and he himself has received two (or more!) graduate degrees in medicine. His very blood -- or, I suppose, his saliva-venom -- holds the key to making Bella strong, immortal, and healthy. Once Bella is a vampire, she will never fall and never faint again. (I'm assuming.)
So on the one hand, I see Edward Cullen as a very specific type of ability fantasy that, to a certain extent, could appeal to pretty much anyone. By which I mean, I don't think he's a universal fantasy that YOU MUST HAVE OR YOU ARE STRANGE, but rather that probably every person on earth has, at one point or another, felt mentally or physically overwhelmed by life or finances or family or health problems or something. And that it's possible to step from there into a fantasy where someone with money and knowledge and health and power and the willingness to completely take care of all life's problems for you could potentially be appealing to a lot of people. Who am I to say that's wrong?
And from there it ties back into the Won't Take No fantasy. Because the Won't Take No character knows what you need, even if you don't or if you refuse to admit the truth to yourself. The Won't Take No character is what my Husband was, momentarily, when we were in Hawaii and I wanted to try the Bodyzorb and Husband wouldn't "let" me. I am a grown woman. I could have walked right up to the Bodyzorb guy and said "here is my money" and gotten in. Husband could not have picked me up off the ground and carried me away. But Husband did say, "No, you are not doing that, no matter how many times you say you will not get hurt because you will get hurt." And I listened because I love and respect Husband, and because deep down inside I knew he was right.
But I told him he was wrong, because I wanted him to be wrong. Because I wanted the body that would let me play in the Bodyzorb. And because acknowledging right there and then that I didn't have that body would have made me cry in public and I didn't want to do that. And Husband knows and understands that, despite not being a fictional character of myth. But... that also basically makes me Bella Swan because as childish as it was, I had to say, "Fine, I won't do it, but you are wrong." And I'm feeling pretty conflicted about that right now.
There is a part of me -- a big part of me -- that intellectually understands the appeal of Edward Cullen and what he represents, despite utterly detesting the personality that Edward brings along to the table. There is a part of me that feels... kind of bad criticizing the fantasy of someone taking care of all life's problems, if only because I have that fantasy. A lot.
And yet as much as I understand the fantasy of the Won't Take No character, I still think it's something that we should deliberately try to phase out of our fiction. Not because it's automatically a wrong thing to want someone to take care of our problems for us. And not because I think it necessarily comes from a bad place where authors and artists assume that women are all childish and unable to know or express what they really want. I think it's more complicated than that. I think the problem with the Won't Take No character is that it reinforces -- however unintentionally -- the very same culture that tells women in the first place that they're not allowed to express their wishes or their wants or their unhappiness with things like poverty and pain and marginalization.
Whenever a woman feels like she has to have a Won't Take No character to come along and override her in order to get what she really needs, then the creation of that fantasy and the insertion of that fantasy into mainstream literature reinforces that women aren't supposed to state what they need out loud. The whole process becomes an echo chamber of powerlessness and enforced silence. If Bella or Stephenie Meyer or whoever is controlling this scene wants Bella to be picked up and carried by Edward, there should be a way to own that without cultural blow-back. Bella should be allowed to just say, "I think I probably should get to the nurse, but I cannot walk. Are you capable of carrying me?" Or Edward should be willing to just offer, "I know from my father's medical teachings that it's imperative to get you to a professional. May I carry you there?" and Bella should be able to say, "yes".
Bella should be able to say "yes" without feeling like she's weak, or slutty, or like she owes Edward for the favor. She should live in a culture where "weakness" is considered totally normal, and not something to be ashamed of. She should live in a culture where pain, and falling, and fainting should be treated like serious conditions and not like something that she's faking for attention or being overly whiny about. She should live in a culture where anyone who says that serious pain is analogous to a "fender bender" should be immediately pointed out as dangerously callous and cruel.
She should live in a culture where a girl accepting physical help from a boy shouldn't be considered inappropriate by her peers or as a prelude to her owing something for the boy's help. She should live in a world where people who saying things like "conquering an unwilling sex partner" is so fun and exciting and dramatic should be ostracized with extreme prejudice. She should live in a world where accepting help from Mike and Edward not only shouldn't carry an expectation of sex, but should not even carry an expectation of cookies. She should live in a culture where people are raised from day one how to be Good Samaritans instead of, well, people like Mike and Edward.
Bella doesn't live in that culture. She lives in our world. She lives in a culture where physical weakness is treated as shameful and embarrassing. She lives in a culture where most boys aren't taught from day one that helping a girl in order to get your mack on makes you a crappy, mercenarial person.
Bella lives in a culture where Edward is a desirable escapist fantasy.
I would never blame anyone for reading or writing a Won't Take No character as an escapist fantasy. I genuinely, honestly believe that Won't Take No characters have been around for as long as sexism and in many cases have been intended as a fictional escape from sexism. I also believe that some authors have been able to work those characters into deliberately feminist messages. (More on that at a later date.) And I think there's a very good reason why the Won't Take No character appeals to so many people -- the character is a literal escape clause from the very serious burdens that a lot of us live with, and the one escape clause that many of us have been socialized to accept. Too many young women can't slip into a fantasy of being taken seriously because it's too unreal, but they can slip into a fantasy where a man fixes everything and everyone listens to him and everything is lovely forever.
BUT. I think that as long as our media is flooded with Won't Take No characters -- even when the intent is a good one -- we'll see the bigger problems of being unable to express our discontent continue.
So it's the chicken-and-the-egg problem: Do we get rid of Won't Take No characters first, or change society radically for the better and expect them to die out on their own?
Final note: Absolutely none of the above means that I don't still find Edward distressingly creepy. This is a multi-year deconstruction, and sometimes I want to complain about society rather than Edward Cullen. I promise to gripe about Edward Cullen creepiness next week, but this post got away from me a bit.
68 comments:
My feeling is that trying to get rid of Won't-Take-No characters is like trying to stop the usage of words that refer to mental disabilities as insults. They're both symptoms of society's underlying views on certain groups, and until those underlying views change the symptoms are just going to keep popping up.
I am not sickened by the smell of blood, so I can't exactly map my experience onto Bella's here, but I do know that when I'm worried I'm feeling like vomiting might be a problem (which is pretty rare for me) cold helps. If you wanted me to throw up you probably couldn't do more wrong than shake me up and bring me into a warm place, which is what Edward did to Bella.
If there was a worry about her being sick for other reasons that would be one thing, but Bella was set off not by something she ate, or anything like that, but by senses. Edward doesn't know the whole truth but he does know that this is because of stimulus of some kind, so I don't think (though I haven't studied medicine) that getting her to the nurse quickly is all that important.
Getting her off the ground is probably a good idea, but as Bella points, out, "The rocking movement of his walk was not helping." It's like, "She's been sickened by seeing and smelling something, lets see if we can make her motion sick too." Of course Edward doesn't know about the smell component yet, but still.
If it is an attempt to make her motion sick, Bella played into his hands by closing her eyes.
From a writing perspective, a writer can't really change the culture by themselves, so they'll just have to do their best.
I have a slightly different take on why we should go easy on the solves-everything character...
People who object to 'political correctness' in fiction tend to assume that the reason an editor or critic is saying, 'Hey, not all people of X race fit into X stereotype' is that they're trying to fit in with an artificially-constructed ideology. To my mind, there are two reasons not to be racist in fiction (or sexist, or heteronormative, or whatever). The first is that it's morally wrong, but the second is that it's artistically wrong. Because real people aren't like that. Bad Writing is bad writing: portray a stereotype and you're portraying a cliche. Your portrayals of people aren't just mean. They're inaccurate and lazy and just plain badly-done.
And I think the same thing applies to the solves-everything character: it's not an accurate portrait of how real relationships work, and that's a problem.
On the other hand ... well, I'm not sure about writers wanting to take things out of their fiction because they don't want to reinforce stereotypes. That strikes me as actually being what Mr Political Correctness Gone Mad accuses people of: changing fiction to fit in with an ideology rather than because it's what's best for the story. Now, I don't believe that it's an artificial and false ideology to say that people of different genders and races are equal people, but I don't think it's the best reason to leave out harmful portraits of things. I think the best reason is just that it's untruthful, and that's reason enough.
I've been spending a lot of time ruining the Mona Lisa today and only read this post in fragments, I don't have a lot more to add now than when I was partway through.
I do question the way that won't take no people is presented as a specifically female fantasy. I have many and varied things that make me a very bad person to go to for information on the male experience, so I could be wrong here, but I think that it's a fantasy that spans the various flavors of gender.
The other thing that I have to contribute is that I'm not a big fan of trying to get rid of problematic fantasies in fiction, I'd much rather that they somehow be demainstreamed. I don't know exactly how to make something like that work, but I feel like there's a big span between, "We shouldn't be normalizing X," and, "We should get rid of X."
I'm trying to find the right way to say this, and failing repeatedly. With problematic fantasies in general I don't think the problem is that there's fiction that caters to them, I think such fiction should exist for those who seek it, I think the problem is when it stops being, "You happen to have this fantasy, you can indulge it here," and starts being, "Here's how it is." Then it starts to push the fantasy onto the reader rather than being a resource for readers who have that fantasy.
None of which to say that there isn't a problem because it definitely seems like the fantasy is being pushed.
" . . . the willingness to completely take care of all life's problems . . . " It occurs to me that, while they're a little hit-and-miss on the rest of your list, this is what underlines all those sensible, practical, takes-care-of-the-paperwork-while-the-genius-is off-fixing-things characters in fiction. House can save the patient because everyone else is handling all the other things that need doing, Monk can figure out the case because he has his down-to-earth assistant keeping him from going off the rails, Tony Stark has Pepper Potts.
And while the fantasy is no more inherently masculine than won't-take-no fantasies are feminine (I've wanted both, at various times), the geniuses do tend to be male and their assistants (particularly lately) female.
The fantasy in question is dangerous on both sides of the coin as well, in that it encourages men to be Edward and Mike and Won't Take No people and Nice Guys(TM), because no does not mean no in that fantasy world (at least, not until it's too late). There's also something intertwined there with how the same fantasy plays out with men (sometimes to the tune of $200 / $300 per hour if one goes to a professional to set aside the expectation of being in control all the time) to very different Expectations and results, but my wisdom side is saying that's best explored at another time, another place, or in a different deconstruction.
If Bella weren't feeling so puke-y right now, I'd like to know what's going on in her head, considering that Mike has run over her boundaries already, and Edward, who is supposed to be saving her from this, has taken Mike's disrespect up an order of magnitude with how he treats her, and without any reason for us, the reader, to believe he's doing it because there's a need for him to do it that's acceptable. Or, at least, the Bella that's assertive about her preferences, even if she gets walked on because the society around her insists that women can't be taken seriously.
Something else strikes me here. Of the women we have met so far in Forks, how many of them have actually expressed a serious thought to the men of Forks? We get the feeling that Jessica talks a lot to her girl friends, but we only hear secondhand about her response to Mike's suit. There are other women in Forks High School, certainly, but they don't get names or descriptions of what they're doing or talking about. And Renee is off with Baseball Phil.
I think we're dealing with this particular "fantasy" with one extra order of magnitude, actually, as none of the women have, that I can tell, actually even expressed something to the men of Forks (and how convenient that Charlie or Billy Black don't have wives or girlfriends or other adult female figures that would be great to see whether or not Forks is Stepford West) that was taken seriously and respected. It's not just that every time they Won't Take No, but I don't see anyone really getting into situations where they have the ability to say no and have it stick. With Bella, there's usually something bodily that's over-riding her, and we don't see other women around to provide other examples.
I don't know if it gets better in this book or not...hell, I don't know if it gets better through the series or not.
I'm trying to find the right way to say this, and failing repeatedly. With problematic fantasies in general I don't think the problem is that there's fiction that caters to them, I think such fiction should exist for those who seek it, I think the problem is when it stops being, "You happen to have this fantasy, you can indulge it here," and starts being, "Here's how it is." Then it starts to push the fantasy onto the reader rather than being a resource for readers who have that fantasy.
I'm failing at it too. We can fail together! :D
It's hard for me to codify in my writing the difference between "Edward! Fantasy! Enjoy him!" and "Edward! Problems! Probably best that society not normalize him based on the popularity of Twilight!"
It's important, I think, to reiterate that I would never tell an author what to write. When I say maybe we should write fewer of these characters, I mean that from the same place when I say, for example, maybe we need more non-heterosexual characters. You're not bad if you don't include them or can't work them in -- I never could work out a way to state in-text clearly that my lesbian character is a lesbian, so I'll just keep that in mind for next time.
And I've still yet to write a disabled character and I *should* do that, but as Kit says, you go where the writing takes you. So it's less a "DO IT" post and more a "maybe think about it, or not, i dunno" post. If that makes sense? :/
I think we're dealing with this particular "fantasy" with one extra order of magnitude, actually, as none of the women have, that I can tell, actually even expressed something to the men of Forks (and how convenient that Charlie or Billy Black don't have wives or girlfriends or other adult female figures that would be great to see whether or not Forks is Stepford West) that was taken seriously and respected.
I'll need Amarie or someone else who's read the sequels to confirm, but I think there's a Quileute woman who has been facially scarred by her werewolf S.O. I am anxious to see if she'll be given much of an in-text voice. And, of course, Leah.
Very interesting post, as usual. Going as high above the details as possible, i will mention that me and the Waifu have had a Won't Take No moment at her behest. It's rough when you're expected to just kind of telepathically sense over Skype when 'no' means 'yes' and when it means, well, 'no'. I happened to guess right on that occasion, but... I'm still not sure how I feel over it.
I'm also not sure how you'd go about attacking a problem like this because it, like all fantasies, is a legitimate fantasy to have.
(TLDR: 'Here's my perspective. i don't know.')
If I was into the whole rotating taglines thing*, this would be top of my list.
TLDR: 'Here's my perspective. i don't know.'
:D
* I'm not, because I get intensely anxious when things change. That is why this site will probably always look like peanut butter.
When I first read this scene, I approached it from an entirely different direction. Americans are all supposed to the Marlboro Man--No, no, it doesn't hurt, I'm sure the rattlesnake bite will heal up just fine with some 'baccer juice. We're supposed to be above petty cooperation and self-sufficient from the time we can toddle. Of course, that trope only works for boys, so Bella has to fail when she attempts to be independent, but not making at least a token protest would be... Un-American? Not to be considered?
So Bella is trying, and failing, to be independent, but by protesting is allowed to save face. Which turns it neatly into another trope, wherein the Prideful Loner Learns (S)He Needs People, because American culture seems to hate loners as much as it loves them. Bella tries to be independent and fails, so she needs to be humbled even more--and who can humble her more than Edward, who is perfect from his sparkly little toes to his reddish hair? And who is also an example of the successful loner. He could leave his family and be fine--he's done it before. Bella? Left to her own devices, she wouldn't last five minutes, no matter how much she wants to embody the loner trope. And, of course, we couldn't see her learning how to manage on her own, or even how to enter into equal adult relationships with others. This is a ~romance~, after all.
I'm not a bitter INTP woman, really.
Well, as someone who had fainting issues as a teen and young adult (it came with puberty and didn't go until I was in my late 20s), I've got to say, I'd rather lie on the damp cool concrete than be carried around. I've thrown up after fainting before, too, so Bella's worry about puking on Edward seems very valid. (And it would have been far more entertaining - to me - if she had.) I still think the most sensible thing for Mr. Banner to have done would have been to send Bella out to the hall (or door step, if there's no hall) with a female friend and send Mike or someone off to go get the nurse. Then the nurse could determine if Bella just needed a bit of a lie down or if they should have Charlie come get her and take her to a doctor.
I'm not sure about the Won't Take No fantasy, as it's not mine. I want the Here, You Deal With It person, instead. (As in, the fantasy is to have someone who'll happily take care of the shit you don't want to deal with or can't deal with right now, at your request. "Hey, Tom, would you take care of X for me, please." "Sure thing!") I'm afraid anything I had to say about how to handle that fantasy would be colored by the fact that I don't want people taking away my control. Big helping of "can't relate, sorry" there. I mean, I can, in the very abstract, but only then. Though, as with most things, I feel pretty safe saying that if you present a wide range of characters, problems tend to be reduced. (Even otherwise problematic stereotypes. I mean, if you've got ten major women in your work and one is a bit of a ditz, that says something very different than if you've only got two major women and one's a bit of a ditz.)
As for the Bodyzorb, um, well. It looks really fun, until I imagine actually being in one. Then the claustrophobia kicks in. TRAPPED!!!!! TRAPPED!!!!! AEEEEEE!!!!
I think that's different. In fact, I'm not sure if I'd call that a won't take no character, it seems like more of a won't say yes character.
It would be like Bella saying, "Carry me!" and Edward saying, "No." There are times and places where this would be a problem (it could turn into a completely inappropriate "by your bootstraps" thing, for example) but I don't think it has the same problem in general as what Ana is talking about. I think it depends much more on the individual circumstances.
I think... if I understand correctly... there's maybe a difference between a Person who says "I won't help you because YOU need to do this" and "I won't help you because I can't/won't/don't want to do this"?
Trying to work this out... We had the conversation this year about Christmas lights. I said to Husband that he "should" hang lights. I said that because the MAN! of the house always did that when I was a kid + I lack the physical ability to. Husband said No. I asked why not. He said he didn't want to.
That's -- I think -- the character who Won't Say Yes? And that was fine. I mean, he didn't want to. I should have asked, I just assumed he would want to because I wasn't thinking. Different backgrounds.
Now, if he'd been all "it would be a good experience for you to get on the ladder and do it yourself and won't that be empowering assuming you don't fall and hurt yourself", that would have been a different story and I would have felt like he was using me as an excuse instead of just owning, "no, I don't feel like it and why do I care what the neighborhood wants." That's the Bootstraps! part, I think?
Also, this is really hard for me to unsee now that you've said it. Twilight is so Rorschach-y.
TW: Men who don't take no for an answer/abuse
FYI, on Emily the Scarred Imprintee: no, she's not given any significant voice. She doesn't even get to tell her own story so we can see if she really believes those things - we get it from others. Jacob has Werewolf Hivemind with Sam, and therefore can tell his side of the story. Emily never tells hers.
And any elaboration from Meyer has been in the 'digging yourself deeper' camp; the reason Sam got angry was because Emily reacted badly to finding out. It wasn't even just 'oh, she stood too close when he wolfed out'; no, he wolfed out because she was going to turn him down.
Wow. Yeah. That is definitely digging a deep hole so much deeper. o.O
Now, if he'd been all "it would be a good experience for you to get on the ladder and do it yourself and won't that be empowering assuming you don't fall and hurt yourself", that would have been a different story and I would have felt like he was using me as an excuse instead of just owning, "no, I don't feel like it and why do I care what the neighborhood wants." That's the Bootstraps! part, I think?
I don't know your good husband, but I assume this is because you have a history of him reckoning you can decide for yourself what a good experience would be. My husband and I will sometimes insist the other does something because we think it'd be good for them - but when I say 'insist', I mean 'Make a very strong case, and then the other one goes, "Oh, all right then. Bah."' I don't think either of us would insist part the point of persuasion.
That makes sense. I tend to flare up a bit, personally, when someone tells me what would be good for me to do, so he knows to avoid that. Too much backlash on my part from a conservative up-bringing -- "this will be good for you" is now code in my head that it very much will not be. :P
And I think as a reader, this comes back to the "wait, HOW well do Bella and Edward know each other??" As you've pointed out (I think? Wasn't that you?), the relationship seems to happen very immediately over the next few pages. I would have fewer problems with some of the upcoming text if this was an established relationship and I thought this was just what worked for them, as opposed to some kind of Perfect Courtship. If that makes sense.
As you've pointed out (I think? Wasn't that you?), the relationship seems to happen very immediately over the next few pages.
Yes, that was me, with the added thought that most of the relationship seems to be built in the phase where they wonder and fantasise about each other, and the 'perfection' is that when they actually start talking to each other, nothing really disturbs the fantasy they've built up.
But if the ideal of the relationship is that it doesn't disturb the fantasy, and Edward's been dictatorial during the fantasy phase, presumably it's not that much of a shock.
(Is it inappropriate to say I'm happy to be chatting friendly to you again?)
You have expressed in this post pretty much the exact reason I find Twilight so intensely troublesome. Thank you.
I look forward to heading back to our two minutes of Edward hate.
(Is it inappropriate to say I'm happy to be chatting friendly to you again?)
I'm happy too. :)
I look forward to heading back to our two minutes of Edward hate.
LOL. Should I put up a picture and we can shout at it? (I love 1984.)
Hey, everyone! Happy New Years to you!!! :D
Ana, Ember is right about Emily’s scarring. Over and over again, we hear about how bad *Sam* feels and how *Sam* doesn’t like it when people stare at Emily and how terrible *Sam* feels for breaking all of his promises to Leah after imprinting on Emily. And so on and so forth. The *only* verb that’s attached to Emily is this:
*Emily* was standing too close too Sam. I repeat: *Emily* was standing too close to Sam.
And now Sam feels bad.
And now Amarie has little to say for the fact that vomit may rise.
but I think that it's a fantasy that spans the various flavors of gender.
Now I'm wondering if the smart, competent wives of idiot husbands on sitcoms are a gender-flipped relative of this fantasy?
(Edward doesn't even give Bella an opportunity to say no. He doesn't ask. So the following isn't fully pertinent, but is still relevant.)
My head keeps going back to another man who wouldn't take no for an answer: Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice. And I'm thinking that if you've been caricatured and mocked almost 200 years ago, by a brilliant author, it's time to rethink your plot.
TRiG.
IDK. I think this is something where I just want to draw a really clear line between porn (even if it's not necessarily sexual porn, if that makes sense) and everything else. Because this is one of the things that bothers me when it comes up in a story that's supposed to be some kind of reflection of a real world, but doesn't bother me when it's packaged as explicitly fantasy. Just like how if you make a movie about physicists saving the world from an asteroid and falling in love, and your physicists are both twenty-something and conventionally gorgeous, I will be annoyed, but if someone wrote erotica about the same basic subject, labeled as erotica, I would expect the writer to describe the characters as looking like whatever he/she found attractive, because that's kind of the point.
And I guess why I say that is because, while I think your analysis is a really good description of the message that comes across when someone writes that kind of Won't Take No character, I have to admit that I find that kind of character sexy, but I don't think it's for the same reasons that you describe -- I'm certainly not uncomfortable asking for what I want. I think it's more about tension and conflict being inherently hot to me. But as a story mechanic in a story that isn't *about* kink, that doesn't really work.
I don't know about phasing out the Won't Take No character completely, but I'd like to see way less of Won't Take No And Is Always Right. It's so paternalistic and icky otherwise.
I've got a Won't Take No character. But the thing he won't take "no" to is his absolute refusal to fix things for the heroine, repeatedly insisting "You've got the skills, the tools, and the opportunity. I'll help, but this is YOUR responsibility."
Yeah. I'm on board with Guy Who Does Not Automatically Fix Things, but I think I would have a hard time reading this, because it still projects a whole bunch of paternalistic "I know your limits better than you do" which really pushes a whole bunch of NO buttons with me. I can imagine it working, but I also think that tendency in men is a problem. I can imagine it being helpful on occasion, and even supportive under the right circumstances, and I support others drawing boundaries as to what they can do, but . . . yeah. I guess I feel like I hear over and over from women in my life that they're being pushed past their boundaries by bosses and spouses and boyfriends who "know" they have resources to do more and more, when actually they don't have the mental/physical reserves necessary to continue to do more.
I guess I feel like I hear over and over from women in my life that they're being pushed past their boundaries by bosses and spouses and boyfriends who "know" they have resources to do more and more, when actually they don't have the mental/physical reserves necessary to continue to do more.
Yeah, this is a major reason why I flare up if someone tells me X would be "good for me" to do. It's Perfect Mother/Wife/Daughter/Etc. but being pushed on my from another direction, more often than not. I know what's good for me, kthxbye. :)
(Obviously, mileage varies depending on who is doing the talking and when and how and about what, etc. But in a RomCom when it's a near-complete-stranger telling someone that she should bake!! like in Bridesmaids, eh, no.)
(Not that that has anything to do with hapax's character, because I can well imagine she's already aware of that common trope. That was just a comment in general. :))
Right, and I often find that descriptions of characters are very different from actually reading characters. Many of my favorite characters are ones that I could come up with pretty awful descriptions for. So I just meant that to apply to the general trope. (And a few men I know. [Hi, boss!])
the reason Sam got angry was because Emily reacted badly to finding out. It wasn't even just 'oh, she stood too close when he wolfed out'; no, he wolfed out because she was going to turn him down.
That's horrifying on a relationship level, but am I right in saying it sounds like it's got racial problems as well? However controlling the white men are, they're pretty much all about protecting women from their animal instincts - that's pretty much Edward's whole schtick. The one time he physically hurts Bella on their honeymoon, he reacts by withdrawing completely. (Over and above her objections.) He's controlling of her, but he's also all about controlling himself.
It seems that if you have brown skin, though, you can't control yourself. You can't control who you fall for, and you can't control how you react to them. The woman just has to accept it and make the best of it because you're too animalistic to do what, in white/Cullen terms, is the right thing and withdraw.
Brown-man-as-sexual-animal has a long and ugly history. I have the sad feeling that in Twilight, it loses even the supposedly complimentary 'but they're more virile' counterpart and white men are considered both more controlled and more virile.
In many ways I think of Twilight as a book that, for all its problems, has a kind of fundamental innocence. But when it comes to race, I just can't say that.
Argh. It gets worse. I only just realized that Emily was an imprint.
http://twilightsaga.wikia.com/wiki/Emily_Young
And she rejected Sam multiple times, apparently, before he wolfed out and in the process accidentally hurt her.
So apparently "imprinting" DOESN'T mean that they'll be whatever the imprintee needs them to be (father, brother, friend), but rather it actually means that they'll push themselves romantically on the imprintee until she gives in or the imprinted commits suicide. HOW VERY LOVELY. *headdesk*
I'm coming late to this party, but I was reading this thread while the execrable film *Pretty Woman* was on tv (and on "Family Channel" programming, to compound the irony). I loathe that film with the passion of a thousand wombats, but got sucked into watching in a "I've forgotten just how vile this movie is" way. Then I tried to put a Mardollesque distance between my gut reaction and, as Ana has been arguing, appreciating/understanding the fantasy. For the film is strongly marked AS fantasy: all the Cinderella talk and Vivienne's "there was a little girl who dreamed of a prince on a white horse" monologue.
The relationship is very Cullen/Swanesque. He has all the privilege and control and power, sweeping her from her squalid troubles into a dimension of beautiful and wealthy people spending money glamorously and breaking all the rules. I tuned in about the time he was putting jewels around her neck and whisking her off in limos and private jets to go to the opera. It reminded me very much of Bella's fascination with the Cullens and her hunger for their insanely expensive cars, endless ability to bribe or charm the service class, their knowledge of "old-timey" class signifiers (classical music, Ivy League degrees), and private islands.
There's even an utterly gratuitous rape attempt for the hero to rescue her from!
This is an excellent comment that deserves a far better answer than the one I am about to give, which is largely composed of an excited *squee* that I have an "-esque" on my name now, and it's attached to the literary criticism school of thought that "I find this execrable, but I will try to neutrally identify the elements of fantasy". I couldn't start the day better. :D
So, *SQUEEEEEEE*.
I have never been able to get through that movie. I've tried twice, for the sake of friends, but I've always left the room early in frustration. So you are more Mardollesque than I in this case! But I think a major issue I always had with it was... well, I felt like it really trivialized the dangers and complications of sex work. Or, at least, what I envision when I think sex work. Maybe it really is like the Julia Roberts movie portrays it! But I kind of think it's probably not.
I love that it's a Cullen fantasy, though. I am seeing it EVERYWHERE now lately, so either it really is very closely caught up in our media or I'm now a hammer seeing a world full of nails.
And suddenly I find myself wondering how often Twilight werewolves imprint on women from outside werewolf culture, and how often such women either call the cops or commit suicide or murder in response. I can very easily see a woman in Emily's position deciding that this werewolf is clearly going down the "if I can't have you, no one can" road, so she'd better buy a gun and some silver bullets, or find someone violent who already owns some.
I've seen this done in fanfiction occasionally, and it's usually wildly better than the source material. Imagine someone who happens to be driving through Forks on her way to college -- she sure isn't planning on staying in town to please her scary new stalker.
On further reflection, I think that a lot of it depends on the meaning behind, "this is YOUR responsibility."
If it means, "So you have to do this," then it is the Won't Take No thing being discussed because it's a demand on the other person and it's being insisted on in spite of being refused.
If it means, "It isn't my responsibility so I'm not going to be the one to do this," that's different. Depending on circumstances it could be callous, or even evil, or it could be a perfectly reasonable thing to say.
I don't think there's a problem in the opening, "You've got the skills, the tools, and the opportunity," provided the one saying it actually has reason to know these things, but I do see how very similar things could be very, very wrong.
Skills can get rusty, but if someone is working on recent observations it's reasonable for one person to have knowledge of another's skills. Tools can be observed, and opportunity is an external thing. So it's not saying, "I know you better than you know yourself," as written.
But one can easily imagine something like that that was all kinds of wrong, because whether or not someone can do something depends a lot on stuff that the other person doesn't have claim to knowing. Nobody knows how many spoons someone else has, for example.
So my position hasn't really changed, I still think it depends a great deal on individual circumstances. But now I have more words with which to express that.
Parenthetical -- I asked, because I wanted to hear the answers. It really was a sudden lightbulb going on in my head, saying, "Hmm. This thing that I thought was important and positive? Maybe it's actually a Problem."
Now I'm getting outside confirmation that yep, Houston, we have a problem. This is helpful and good information. I've never been able to fathom the thinking of the sort of person who asks "Please tell me, am I doing something wrong here?" and then gets all offended when told, "Well, actually, yes; for this and that reason." To me, it seems akin to going to the doctor with a description of your symptoms and then getting angry if zie tells you, "Looks to me like you're sick."
Now, as to how I'm going to "cure" this particular one... I don't know. In context, the exchange isn't about "empowerment" at all, but a fine point of literary theory (okay, I have a weird sense of what makes for a good plot conflict), so it never occurred to me to look at in terms of gender dynamics. I think the Unfortunate Implications only occur because of the genders of the particular characters involved, but on the other hand their genders are important parts of who they are.
Maybe I won't change the major point at all, but try to edit with a more sensitive eye. But at least I won't be able to pretend that I'm not AWARE of the possible interpretations.
There's so much awesome here that I'm not sure where to start. +1? :D
*MEGA BLUSH*
Are you sure you're not...mad...? Or offended...? D:
*still very insecure when it comes to talking about race*
I can't really add to that word wall of awesomeness, except to say that the Pretty Missing Blond Woman phenomenon has always been a big tell when it comes to the "color blindness" of our media. And their audience.
Ana, I think we’re both seeing little bits of a bigger picture.
I couldn’t figure out why Mike was in this scene anyway. We’ve already established why he shouldn’t be, but it feels cheap just to say this is another instance of bad writing. Maybe it is, but maybe the author had a reason to put him in despite everything else. We already know Everybody Wants Bella—we’ve been told, and told, and then told again. Did the author really think that needed more underlining? If not, why is Mike here and Jessica isn’t? Why does the fantasy need his presence at this point in the narrative?
I think we’re supposed to be explicitly comparing Mike to Edward here.
Mike is the closest Edward has to a romantic rival in this novel. If Edward wasn’t here, Mike would be the best Bella could hope for if her goal was social-climbing in Forks.
In this scene, what do we see? Mike is a boy—he is really about Bella’s age. He does what others tell him to, even if he does it with ill grace—he follows Mr. Banner’s direction and he allows Bella to rest even though he apparently resents it. He doesn’t have all the answers—or the belief he has them, anyway—so he lacks the arrogance to step in and do things his way. He is, in short, a modern teenage boy who doesn’t know what he’s doing any more than anybody else does and is willing to be directed until he does know. He is even willing to treat others as equals (at least within certain narrow boundaries—he may think Bella “needed” him to tell her to ask him to the dance, but he believes her about her own bodily processes).
Edward, though, he’s all ~man~... for a certain value of “man”. He knows exactly what to do. He doesn’t follow anybody else’s orders or requests because he knows better. He’s wise—he doesn’t need to take orders from anbody. He’s strong enough to carry Bella around like a doll. He knows he is head and shoulders over all the people around him, because he is secretly old, physically powerful, and rich—but with the added bonus of looking like a teenage hearthrob, instead of a real grown up.
A girl with Edward will never have to worry her pretty little head over anything. Edward will never put a foot wrong: Mike, being human, and a kid who is learning (hopefully) will inevitably do the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Someone who believes things were better in the old days, when men were men and women were women, and nobody ever even wanted to step out of their gender-defined box, will inevitably see Edward as the rightful victor here. He is literally carrying Bella off right now: the rest of this book, and the others, is just filler.
You didn't offend me. You wowed me. So much to think about here.
I will toss into the mix something a German professor pointed out once. English, like many languages, has (at least) two words for the same activity or personal characteristic, depending on whether one is talking about humans or animals: Humans "eat"; animals "feed." Humans have "noses"; animals have "snouts." Humans "dwell" or "live" (in a place); animals "den" or "nest" or "burrow." Humans have "families"; animals have "packs" or "herds." Humans have "hair"; animals have "fur." And naturally, humans "fall in love" and "marry"; animals "take mates" and "breed."
Her main point (which I don't think really stands up) was that the English word for a human possession / activity would usually derive from a Latinate source, while the animal version was more often Germanic-derived. But what is relevant is the offhand way she tossed off (this was in the '80s!) that the second category of words applied to animals "or, of course, primitive peoples." (And we all know of course what THAT means.)
Now that I think of it, Edwards instantaneous, sense-based, almost instinctive desire for Bella (and hers for him) is never described in animalistic terms, despite the fact that I cannot think of single difference between it and the werewolf "imprinting" -- except that both Edward and Bella fight their attraction as something "wrong" until they find a more "spiritual" basis for the romance.
Well, now moth Hapax AND Amarie have blown my mind. My mind has been blown twice. I must pick up the little pieces now and ruminate on all this.
My understanding is that the Latin based terms, mostly coming by way of French (though given that Rome owned everything south of the wall at one point, I would guess that some of it comes straight from Latin) tended to be more upper-class speak, the stuff with Germanic roots from more lower class sources.
It wasn't about people and animals though. It might have been about food. If you've got a meat that has names with Germanic and Latin roots, the name with the Latin root is what rich people ate, the name with the Germanic root was what the poor people ate.
But this is based on an offhand comment in a high school class years ago.
-
Completely beside the point, but as far as I'm concerned horses have hair and fur. The mane is the hair, the rest is the fur. Also I would think that while pack might be family, herd sounds more like a tribe or a nation or something.
At Nathaniel:
Oh, thank goodness! Thank you! And, if I may…writing all that out forced me to come to a very unfortunate conclusion. By which I mean…I’m *kind* of SOL if I ever go missing, get killed, raped, etc…
Or, at the very least, there’s a very slim, slim chance that I wouldn’t become a national story stretched over months/years because my appearance is not Ideal. v.v
At Hapax:
Oh…wow. I never thought of that before. Your German teacher *did* have a good point in that vein. It never ceases to amaze me how one simple choice of word can have a million Unfortunate Implications. And I’m glad I didn’t offend you!
I agree with you on the portrayal of Edward and Bella’s love vs. Sam and Emily’s love. It only adds to the racism and divide in Twilight.
At Ana:
Noooooooooooooooo!!!!! D:
I didn’t mean to blow your mind apart!!! I talk too much!!!! *scrambles to help you pick up the pieces, hoping they’re not like a Rorschach puzzle*
Help me put it back together!! And then you have to tell me what you really think, or else I’m throwing another Build-A-Bear at your head!!! >.<
Ha, it's a good blown. Helps me think when I stop and rearrange all the pieces. :)
*beams happily* YAY!!! :D
My mind is always blown in a bad way after exams AND hours of tutoring....x.X
*wouldn't become a math teacher if her life depended on it*
Wow. Amarie, that's brilliant. Hapax, that's brilliant.
Reminds me of an anecdote I heard by way of somewhere, so veracity sketchy, but it mentioned that during the aftermath of the Second Great War, when the Japanese were counting survivors, they counted them the same way that one would count objects, rather than counting them as people. This was illustrated as just how much the fallout from nuclear weapons affected them, but I think it's another of those situations where choice of language creates images and context.
Oh, and maths teaching requires not just talent with maths, but the ability to make maths make sense to young children. Those who succeed I envy greatly.
Whoa, Amarie. That's seven kinds of awesome. With awesome-sauce on top.
Amarie, that post is made of brilliant and awesome. I would suggest you guest post something like it at The Slacktiverse, except...the last time you did that there wasn't a ton of discussion, so I don't know if you were happy with that, or what? I know I kept meaning to say something and then feeling like all my brain cells were used up and I had nothing meaningful to contribute. Sorry.
I feel like almost the only time we get works where dark-skinned women can damsels in distress of symbols of purity and goodness or heroic martyrs in a way that's not just "minor character dies to advance the plot" is when all of the characters are POC. And I am reading several works that fit that description right now, and they are fantastic to quite good, but the phenomenon still sucks.
(...Ok, maybe the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms/The Broken Kingdoms...definitely a subversion of sorts, though I haven't read the last one yet...)
Ohhh, interesting Silver Adept. I know different ways of counting/measuring in Thai and Mandarin, not sure if Japanese is similar...that could be a reflection of trying to create manageable distance, or...I don't know, it's just interesting.
I've always wondered if maybe we have things backwards when it comes to teaching.
Most teachers are, I think, people who have natural talent in the subject they're teaching. Of all of the people who we could possibly get to teach a subject, aren't they the ones least likely to understand the needs of their students? Sure, they'd be able to relate to students who had natural talent in the subject, but if someone is struggling with the basics then they've got no frame of reference, wouldn't it be better if we had a teacher who had kind of sucked at that stage and worked through it so they could say, "Yeah, I had a lot of trouble understanding that too, this is what worked for me." If it doesn't work for the student and they have to try other things, at least they're coming from a position of having been where the student is.
I am someone with talent in math, but I question whether that would honestly make me a better teacher than someone who struggled with math but was determined to somehow make sense out of it. Actually, now that I think of it, I think that was how the best math teacher I ever had described his experience with math.
I never really paid attention to the houses in Harry Potter, but based on what I've heard Will Wildman say about the houses I'm guessing the best teachers come out of Hufflepuff.
I'll go with that about the Houses of Hogwarts.
And you're probably right about teachers - at least, for the basics, it probably is better to have someone who struggled with maths, language, or sciences and persevered so that they can teach with the methods that help the struggling (and provide new ways for the talented to do their work). Those with natural talents for the subjects are probably better-employed in advanced coursework where they can teach those who have aptitude for the subject and interest in it. (Then again, I had aptitude for maths and I still had trouble with integral calculus...)
I never really paid attention to the houses in Harry Potter, but based on what I've heard Will Wildman say about the houses I'm guessing the best teachers come out of Hufflepuff.
As far as I can find, the only canonical Hufflepuff is Professor Sprout (head of house). In fact, other than current and former Heads, I think the only professor whose house is stated is Remus Lupin (Gryffindor).
Then again, with teachers like Binns, Trelawney, Lockhart, Umbridge, and Snape, that just may prove your point...
I'm curious where you get that impression of teachers from...I dont' know that it's wrong, exactly, but what's it based on? My experience growing up in the US in public school (in a well-off community with decent-but-not-great schools) was along the lines of... a large percentage of the best and the brightest went into things other than teaching because teaching pays a lot less. Most teachers I had were good at teaching, and a few were great. Whether they had an excellent grasp of the particular subject varied a lot. I had three or four memorably awful experiences in that regard. One was with a wrestling coach who taught literature because somebody had to, who was clearly phoning it in...
In college my impression was that the best teachers were the ones who 1. Loved the subject and 2. Had some skill and talent for teaching. My husband is good at teaching stuff to other people, I think in part because of the particular way he learns, always breaking down and contextualizing things. He has a really hard time memorizing, but once he learns something he remembers it and can use it in a way few people do.
@Amarie
Big Hulk Smash on that one. Although, by university, a lot of minority and female students have been subjected to several years of underfunded public schooling, instructors that may or may not be enthusiastic about their work (and may not have been tops of their ed classes, either), and an environment around them that makes it damn hard for anyone to be able to succeed academically.
We have things like WISE (Women In Science and Engineering) because even in good schools, women get steered away from maths and sciences (the classic Barbie-attributed line "Math is hard. Let's go shopping!"), and told that they'd do better looking for an em-ar-ess degree at university.
(And then there's Danica McKellar, who successfully was a heartthrob on the Wonder Years, graduated with highest honors in maths from college, co-published at least one mathematical theory, and has written three books, "Math Doesn't Suck", "Kiss My Math", and "Hot X: Algebra Exposed" that are all intended to teach the concepts of maths in the same style as, say, a gossip magazine. But she's the exception to navigating the roles of being both beautiful and brainy)
Anyway, speaking of anecdotes of good math teachers, a friend of mine refers admirably to what he called "Bunk-Math", after the name of the teacher - he was an athletic coach, shop teacher, and otherwise involved a lot in teaching athletes maths. According to my friend, who thinks he's pretty dumb (he's not - last I had contact with him, he'd either made Sergeant or was on track to make Sergeant in the Marine Corps, and was bugler for his company/regiment), "Bunk-Math" turned Algebra into elementary math - when it came time to talk about variables, he said, "Remember when you used to do those problems where you filled in the box with the number? Just replace the x with the box, and it's the same thing."
I try to be able to explain things at "Bunk-Math" level when I help people in my profession. A lot of the time, it works, thankfully.
Re: Teaching: One of the things that was stressed as I began the process of becoming a teacher for one of those companies that helps people improve their standardized test scores was that perfect knowledge of the subject matter was less essential than the ability to express onesself, and something that'd be taken care off during the training period. I liked that. The actual training pretty much consisted of taking the class we'd been given, which gave us an opportunity to ask about the material we weren't so sure about and learning about how to explain it, which I felt was especially helpful. I don't know if it's something that could be brought to broader educations systems--particularly since those don't insist on a uniform teaching method--but it could be something to consider.
I never really paid attention to the houses in Harry Potter, but based on what I've heard Will Wildman say about the houses I'm guessing the best teachers come out of Hufflepuff.
As far as I can find, the only canonical Hufflepuff is Professor Sprout (head of house). In fact, other than current and former Heads, I think the only professor whose house is stated is Remus Lupin (Gryffindor).
Hagrid's house (pre-expulsion) is stated as Hufflepuff in the first book; in book three he becomes a Hogwarts teacher. Of course, he's shown as being a poor teacher, because he puts his love of dangerous creatures before any understanding of his pupils' needs. I still agree with Chris that the traditional Hufflepuff qualities of patience and willingness to work had ought to be helpful in the teaching profession, but these things alone don't automatically make a good teacher, as Hagrid proves.
Huh, I just checked the books, and you're right. Harry and Hagrid talk about Hufflepuff and Slytherin when they're in Diagon Alley, and I would have sworn that Hagrid says he was a Hufflepuff in the course of that conversation, but apparently he doesn't. My brain must have filled in that part erroneously* - I apologise for making misleading statements about Hogwarts Houses, and agree it's a shame that Gryffindor is the default house for all major protagonists.
*He says "everyone says Hufflepuff are a lot o' duffers, but -" before being interrupted by Harry. In my brain, that sentence ought to finish with something along the lines of, "but I'm proud of having been one".
We have things like WISE (Women In Science and Engineering) because even in good schools, women get steered away from maths and sciences (the classic Barbie-attributed line "Math is hard. Let's go shopping!"), and told that they'd do better looking for an em-ar-ess degree at university.
My mother has great (if hulksmashy) stories about the efforts she had to go through to become a chemist. In high school she had to fight to be allowed to teach herself science courses and audit the tests. In their career counselling session, after mom adamantly refused to be coerced away from 'research scientist', the counsellor eventually wrote down 'lab technician'. She did get married to someone she met at university, but bigods she is Doctor, not Missus.
---
Hagrid's fundamentally uncunning, so there was no chance he'd be Slytherin, and puts little stock in booksmarts, so Ravenclaw is a no-go. He does kind of value practical experience (Hufflepuff) but to a much greater degree it's obvious that he thinks the most important thing is to charge in head first and damn the consequences (keeping untameable animals, riding a hippogryph thirty seconds after meeting it). Gryffindor is the natural conclusion.
I do, however, entirely agree that it's a bit infuriating that Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw get pushed aside so much. The best thing anyone seems to say about Hufflepuff is that it's not as bad as Slytherin, which is... a whole other thing.
I've always figured Hagrid was a Gryff, due to his heavy bias towards that house when taking Harry shopping, but as you said, it's not stated in the text.
Yeah, Rowling is pretty heavily biased, and it is very annoying.
At Silver:
Thank you!!! I hoped soemoene else would "HULK SMASH!!!" with me on that racist/sexist stereotype. And you're right about the other factors such as money, resources, teaching quality, etc. All of it augments the problems and it's just sad...:(
But congratulations to your mother for her persistence in getting into a field that she wanted! Strong woman right there! I commend her! :D
At Mime Paradox:
You know, I heard the same thing. My health teacher always said "It doesn't matter if I can do this subject upwards, downwards, backwards and forwards. If I can't open up my brain and pour what I know into your's, then none of that matters."
And, err...I like Hagrid. He's the Ultimate Teddy Bear. v.v
"Now that I think of it, Edwards instantaneous, sense-based, almost instinctive desire for Bella (and hers for him) is never described in animalistic terms, despite the fact that I cannot think of single difference between it and the werewolf "imprinting" -- except that both Edward and Bella fight their attraction as something "wrong" until they find a more 'spiritual' basis for the romance."
That's because Edward has transcended animalism by becoming an object. I want/intend to write more about this tomorrow as I don't have enough time today.
Bekabot, I loved your post! Sorry that I’m responding to this while being brain-dead from a long day at school and work, haha.
When I said Emily was ugly, I meant in a rhetorical sense. That is, she’s ugly because she’s *dark-skinned*; she, and just about every other dark-skinned female in Twilight is the yin to Bella’s yang. What I was trying to say was that a part of the many reasons why we’re not told to be outraged/bewildered at Emily’s scarring is because, well…there was nothing there to begin with as far as the text is concerned. At least, not in comparison to Bella and *certainly* not in comparison to another character like Rosalie.
*Or*, if we *do* want to call Emily beautiful, then she’s still not beautiful according to mainstream culture. She’s ‘ethnically’ beautiful or ‘other’ beautiful, as I’ve heard people say. Either way, she doesn’t really count to most because she’s still not ‘ideal’. Thus, she looses either way. And the text still doesn’t really care too much about her pain.
Bella, on the other hand, (as a human) is *constantly* called ‘beautiful’ in terms of her pale and ‘translucent’ skin. Both [inadvertently] by herself and by the other characters in the book. What’s more is that she becomes even *more* beautiful by, well…becoming even more pale, among other things.
To top it off, I wouldn’t be so irked about the treatment and portrayal of women (in this case, Emily) if I thought or even cared if she was physically ugly to begin with. :P
That’s all I meant and I apologize for offending you. ^ ^
Today at workies we got "Twilight and Philosophy" and "Twilight and History." The second one looked mildly interesting, it seems to be about the time periods the vampires would have lived through, manners when Carlisle was human, and whether the Volturi were anything like real Italian nobles. (my guess: probably not.) It also might be a book that hopes to use Twilight as a hook to teach real history, or simply a book written in hopes of cashing in on the phenomenon. Alas, I cannot shop at work so I can't investigate further.
@Amarie: That's Will Wildman's mom who became Doctor. In mine, it's an aunt who's the chemist, and she's happily single.
@Cupcakedoll: Depending on what time period they're talking about, not freaking likely. Italy, after all, spends a large amount of time as warring city-states with their own nobilities, intrigues, and merchants buying their way in and out of the nobility frequently. (Said merchants eventually end up being the real power there and everywhere.) So hereditary aristocracy, like the Volturi present as, probably didn't survive in Italy all that easily. Being vampires, of course, they're exempt from normal rules, but I'll bet they did some version of the Flaming Bunny Hop across lots of identites in that time.
As for Hagrid, I do believe he becomes Head of House for Godric's descendants when Minerva gets pormoted to Headmistress after the Voldemort Incident. (Assuming that I'm remembering right.) He'd have to be a Gryffindor, then, yes?
Hagrid's house (pre-expulsion) is stated as Hufflepuff in the first book
No, it's not. I'm not sure what you're thinking of here, but his House is never stated in the books.
In an interview, Rowling said Hagrid was in the same House as all the other major good characters who don't have a specific reason to be in a different House.
(And no, she didn't use all those words, she said, "Gryffindor, naturally!" Do I sound annoyed? I hope I sound annoyed. Ah, with Rowling, not with Anna.)
And yet as much as I understand the fantasy of the Won't Take No character, I still think it's something that we should deliberately try to phase out of our fiction. Not because it's automatically a wrong thing to want someone to take care of our problems for us
Well, here's a thing.
I've got a Won't Take No character. But the thing he won't take "no" to is his absolute refusal to fix things for the heroine, repeatedly insisting "You've got the skills, the tools, and the opportunity. I'll help, but this is YOUR responsibility."
Which is definitely what I would like my True Love to say to me (in my better moments.) But it is in definite contradiction to what the heroine thinks (and says) she feels and wants -- to be helpless and fragile and looked after and dictated to.
Except [of course!] it turns out that he *does* Know Better.
So... hmm.
Problematic? Yeah, I'm seeing it. But a PROBLEM? I'm not sure.
Thoughts?
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