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Dec. 28th, 2005 07:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmThat random cat is still out there howling. Mrowrrrr mrowrrr mrowrrr.
I'm amusing myself looking at online discussions of HDM, 99.9% of which frustrate me not just because of the abominable standards of literacy and discourse on the Internet (and this is better than most), but because I can't find where the grownups are -- and I don't mean chronologically, I just mean someone who can read something and do some decent analysis. I suppose this is what you all, and my gf, are for. But argh. The HP fandom, for all its many woes is full of good, serious literary thinking -- and while lots of that is wanky crap in its own right there's tons of casual but deeply intelligent conversation. All the HDM discussion I can find strikes me as people asking relevant questions for irrelevant reasons and then not looking at the text with anything resembling a keen eye.
Aside from that though, I'm getting hung up on the stuff I usually do, which is culture building. Like, here's this world with daemons -- now tell me what a wedding looks like, or social dancing. More precisely, as regards the social dancing, how do you not trip on the little fuckers? Because the books' women are exceptional in most cases, what is the general state of women in Lyra's world? Is Mrs. Coulter an exception? Does she get more freedom to do as she pleases because she's a widow? because she's conniving? or are women seen as perfectly equal (other than that original sin problem)? Yes, I'm pondering a fic, and yes, it requires the answering of the social dance question.
I'm amusing myself looking at online discussions of HDM, 99.9% of which frustrate me not just because of the abominable standards of literacy and discourse on the Internet (and this is better than most), but because I can't find where the grownups are -- and I don't mean chronologically, I just mean someone who can read something and do some decent analysis. I suppose this is what you all, and my gf, are for. But argh. The HP fandom, for all its many woes is full of good, serious literary thinking -- and while lots of that is wanky crap in its own right there's tons of casual but deeply intelligent conversation. All the HDM discussion I can find strikes me as people asking relevant questions for irrelevant reasons and then not looking at the text with anything resembling a keen eye.
Aside from that though, I'm getting hung up on the stuff I usually do, which is culture building. Like, here's this world with daemons -- now tell me what a wedding looks like, or social dancing. More precisely, as regards the social dancing, how do you not trip on the little fuckers? Because the books' women are exceptional in most cases, what is the general state of women in Lyra's world? Is Mrs. Coulter an exception? Does she get more freedom to do as she pleases because she's a widow? because she's conniving? or are women seen as perfectly equal (other than that original sin problem)? Yes, I'm pondering a fic, and yes, it requires the answering of the social dance question.
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Date: 2005-12-29 04:09 am (UTC)As to that seduction scene (*shudder*), you have a point, but I would still argue there's a significant different between a money daemon messing about with a snake daemon in a seduction, and a monkey and a snake dancing -- more accurately, I think that while dancing, in any world, can involve the implication of sex, I don't think in a world that would probably involve somewhat formal social dancing that the daemons would touch (I mean, unless someone was up to something, which of course is what I'm pondering here -- specifically, Asrael and Marisa's first meeting).
More on the genre question in a moment.