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nomattertheoceans · 4 years

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I feel like I picked up on most of the racist tropes in Maas’ books but I’d love to hear your thoughts on the homophobia in them

Hi Non!! Thanks for the ask :)

Just an fyi if people didn’t see it, Anon is referring to my tags on this post about death of the author and the importance of criticizing media without taking into account the creator’s intent.

So yeah, regarding Maas. There’s a lot of ways in which I find her writing homophobic, I’ll divide them in different categories to try and make it clearer because my mind works in twisted ways x)

You should also know that I haven’t read Crescent City past the first few chapters so I can’t talk about this book (what I heard isn’t great regarding this issue but I haven’t read it so I won’t comment on it)

(this got long so I’m gonna use a read more)

worldbuilding

I think her worldbuilding tends to reflect a homophobia that she might not be aware of. Her entire world is built on heteronormative ... norms (lmao sorry I don’t have a better word I haven’t slept in more than 20 hours) that don’t leave any space for queer people to thrive in.

Throne of Glass actually got the less awful bit on this one, we’re shown that Hasar’s girlfriend Renia would become Empress if Hasar was crowned, and Aelin’s uncle was openly gay, so I guess compared to ACOTAR it’s better.

ACOTAR gets the worst of this: The fae society is painfully mysoginistic and by extend, homophobic. Mor is basically sold into marriage at sixteen, to a man, without regards of how she feels about it, because women are considered a breeding stock. The Illyrian women are viewed in the same light. Even Feyre is expected to be making heirs when she’s about to marry Tamlin. Yes, all these examples are painted as bad things in the books, but it doesn’t take away the fact that there are also considered normal within the society we are presented with. When the entire world is built around cishet dynamics (whether good or bad), it shows us that queer relationships are not the norm here, they’re outsiders from their own society (btw considering women as ‘baby makers’ is also transphobic but I’m not gonna open that can of worms).

The mating bond in itself is the biggest heteronormative concept in her books. As Rhys explains it in ACOMAF, it is literally intended for couples to make the strongest babies. It doesn’t care about love between partners, its primary goal is to perpetuate the species. It’s a natural instinct that we’re shown is basically impossible (or at least very difficult) to fight against. We’re shown that the woman has to make the man a meal to “seal the deal”, we’re shown that men become extremely violent towards other men they consider a threat when they’re influenced by the bond (by the way that’s toxic masculinity but it’s not what this post is about).

I believe that Maas didn’t intend for the mating bond to be a possibility between mlm or wlw couples, but that she retconned it in ACOWAR. Which in a sense is good, I’m all for queer soulmates! But the concept she invented here doesn’t have much room for non heteronormative relationships, and it becomes painfully obvious when you try to apply the mating bond logic to wlw/mlm couples. It brings many questions to mind: if it’s intended to make babies, does it mean that the mated mlm couple has one of the men be a trans man? If that’s the case, why didn’t she tell us? Why didn’t she spend more time on telling us their story? If they’re both cis men, then why would they have a mating bond, something specifically designed to help with species continuity by making babies? To me, it’s proof that she didn’t think it through, she thought it was cute to have two men be mates just like our main couple was, and didn’t stop to consider how the mating bond didn’t allow for this to happen organically because it exists in a vaccum of cishet privilege where she didn’t think about the consequences of including it in her books without elaborating on it.

We can also see that queer people aren’t expected to be the norm in that society. Feyre is genuinely surprised when Mor tells her that she likes women, as if it was this groundbreaking thing she never even considered. I’m not going to get into details as to why I hate Mor’s coming out (I love Mor being a wlw but really, really, hate that scene), but the fact that she hasn’t felt comfortable enough to come out in five centuries is very telling of how unaccepting the fae society is of queer people. So yeah, there’s a queer bar where she hangs out but like... that doesn’t mean it’s accepted. One of the main reasons why queer bars started existing in the first place was to become a safe space for people to be themselves, so you know, I kinda take it as another proof of how unopen-minded the fae society actually is.

lack of queer characters

Overall, we don’t have a lot of confirmed queer characters. Off the top of my head, I can think about (of course I might forget some so that might not be 100% accurate, I haven’t read the books in a long while):

TOG: Hasar and Renia, Aedion, Orlon and Darrow

ACOTAR: Mor, Helion, Thesan, Andromache, Nephelle

Note that I’m not counting unnamed characters. I don’t consider “x’s lover” as a developped enough character to count as representation, come on.

Out of all these characters, only two of them are in the main cast of their respective series (Aedion and Mor). The others go from “mentioned” to “secondary character” at best. I’m not saying that all of her characters have to be queer, but out of such a big cast of mains, one in each series seems very little.

construction of these characters

On top of not having many characters that aren’t cishet, the characters we do have aren’t very well handled by the story.

Hasar is repeatedly described as being ugly, despite most of the other characters being described over and over as breathtakingly beautiful.

Aedion compares bisexuality to forced prostitution.

Helion is basically shown as sleeping around with everybody.

Mor’s sexuality is kept so ambiguous that there’s debate as to whether she’s actually bi, or rather a closeted lesbian.

Renia barely talks, Darrow is a jerk. Orlon, Andromache and Nephelle are figures of the past that we never meet

This is a problem mainly because of how small in numbers the queer characters are. The more diverse cast you create, the easiest it gets to avoid hurtful tropes. I wouldn’t mind Helion being a bi man sleeping around all the time if he wasn’t the only bi man in ACOTAR. Nor would I mind Mor’s tragic backstory if we had other wlw characters. By reducing her cast to such little numbers, she’s creating problems in her writing. She’s telling us that bi men sleep around and never settle down, she’s telling us that sapphic women will only get tragic stories and never find love again.

In the end, the combination of a heteronormative worldbuilding and the lack of work put into the queer characters we are given makes it impossible for me to not consider her books homophobic.

To be clear,

I don’t think Maas does this out of malice. I don’t think she’s a homophobe who hates queer people or anything. I also don’t dislike her books. They’re a fun read, and there’s a reason why ACOMAF is one of only two audiobooks I always have on my phone! Hell, I even write fanfic with her characters. But I think it’s important to be critical of her books, particularly in regards to issues such as racism, mysoginy, or homophobia.

To go back to the original post from yesterday, this is why ‘death of the author’ is an important point here. I’m not saying that Maas intended to be homophobic or that she built her world expressedly to exclude queer people. But in the end, that’s what happened, and we can’t brush off the critics of queer people and people of color just by saying “well, the author didn’t mean it that way.”

I do think that she includes queer representation only as an afterthought in her books, and it shows. Mor’s coming out was poorly handled because she didn’t consider the ramifications of it, just like the mating bond suddenly applying to queer relationships. Her societies are based on cishet white upper class America and that leaves little to no place for queer people (and people of color) to thrive in her stories. From what I see, she doesn’t seem interested in consulting with sensitivity readers over these issues, and as long as she doesn’t swallow her pride and listen to the people that are affected by it, she’s not going to get better on these points.

#Anonymous #Asks #anti sjm #I guess?#I don't consider this to be anti it's just a discussion #but I get people not wanting to see negativity so I'll tag it #I'm not dwelling on the racism because that's not what anon asked #and also as a white woman I don't feel like it's my place to dwell on this #there are other bloggers that addressed it much better than I ever could #I hope this post is clear omg I rambled on for so long lmaoooo #I'm always opened to discussion by the way!! as long as you stay civil I'm willing to listen to any point of view #pinned post #sjm critical

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bichhebetalkin · 6 years

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I’d like to talk about Nathan Drake and how I think he’s gay (and other things)

I will preface this with the fact that I have not yet played Lost legacy (and I’m not likely to play golden abyss...), and I also have not interacted much with interviews/fan theories/fan analyzations or anything like that. I’m kinda just typing my opinions out. I’ve just played the four games and thought about it a lot.

I would love it for people to interact and respond-- I’d love some second opinions on anything I post. This post won’t get graphic, but it will mention inner turmoil and canon-typical violence. (and like, I’m talking about the marriage a bit too)

1823 words

“I learned the past is not the past, a lump of time you can quarantine and forget about, but a reel of film in your brain that keeps rolling, spooling and unspooling itself regardless of whether or not you are watching it.”

--Nick White How to Survive a Summer

First of all

This is just my homely opinion, but in the first Uncharted game, Nathan Drake is some kind of a douche. Uncharted 2 is such an upgrade in several ways, and that includes an upgrade in Nathan’s character. I won’t rant too long, but I am certainly glad they fixed all that. Drake was an asshole who only cared for treasure, and he barely even flinched at Sully’s death and was ready to “beat sully’s ass” upon rescuing him. But whatevs, I won’t criticize too much since it was the first game and they might not have had the characters pinned down yet. A rough start to one of my favorite game series, and one that I will pretty much disregard in this post. If this seems harsh... I’m sorry.

The Marriage between Elena and Nathan

We should all rename Uncharted Everyone is a dick to Nathan and Nathan is sometimes a dick to Elena

If you’re into mystic messenger and you read my only other post on this blog, you’ll know that I have... a couple thoughts on love and what it all means anyway. I want to start this off by saying I love both Nathan and Elena very much! They are truly great characters that I admire and adore. Despite this, their relationship just isn’t something I can believe in. A lot of their relationship progress is done in between games, which kinda makes the audience a little unable to gauge like, what the fuck is going on.

somewhere between Game one and two, the pair is dating. By the time we get to Uncharted 2, though, it’s clearly and on-again-off-again kinda thing. We also meet Chloe, Nathan’s.... pal from the past (?). He risks a lot to save her, but I get the impression that the feelings he had for her were not as serious as the ones he has for Elena. I know it was supposed to be presented as a love triangle, but it just didn’t feel like it. Nathan and Chloe both kinda seemed like they weren’t at all interested in pursuing each other seriously. I honestly kind of appreciated this; Instead of the cliche fight between the women, Elena and Chloe seemed to get along in the end, despite some tension.

Between the second game and the third game Elena and Nathan got married (1)(wait what?) and split up again. I don’t know if they were actually divorced or just separated, but the point is that they aren’t together by the time the third game begins. Finally, between the third game and the fourth game, They are living the domestic lifestyle. They both have legal jobs where they don’t have to kill anyone and they can make it home for dinner. Seems perfect.

Or at least, it would seem perfect if I thought it would last at all. Nathan hasn’t really had a significant relationship with any woman like. ever? (2). On-again-off-again means that they have to go off again at some point. If you pay some attention to dialogue it’s obvious that it’s Nate that breaks it off each time, or he at least he initiates it. When he lies to Elena in the fourth game, she admits that she almost didn’t come to save him. I have a shit ton of empathy and let me tell you that dynamic drove me buckwild I almost couldn't stand it. When Elena confronts Nathan in the hotel room and Nathan sent both Elena and sully away, I wanted to scream. (3) (what are you doing Nate these people love you)

It is also in this scene that we are reminded that Elena doesn’t know about Sam-- at all. That is... an insanely huge part of Nathan’s past, and he just never brought it up? Do they talk about anything at all? For many of Nathan’s formative years, he had to lie about his identity (and likely other things), so I get why Lying would be a tough-to-break habit for him, but Elena is his wife. Just how well do they know each other?

The on-again-off-again dynamic is not stable enough for a serious relationship, and certainly not a marriage (4). And like I said earlier, Nathan is the initiator in the break offs each time. What is he running from? A very supportive wife? I think it’s more than that. From an outside viewpoint, Elena seems like... the perfect wife for Nate. She is supportive and she’s pretty much ready for action. But for some reason, Nate wants to leave her out of his adventures (5). I don’t think Nathan dislikes Elena; I think Nathan just isn’t romantically interested in her. Trying to force himself into a marriage because he knows that’s what charming guys such as himself are supposed to do, right? (6) Him forcing himself into a relationship he doesn’t want would make sense for him to feel a lot of disconnect. He spends a lot of time trying to get away, not because he truly dislikes Elena as a person, but because he doesn’t understand why he doesn’t feel as into her as he thinks he should (that sentence was a mouthful).

I will say that, as a story, uncharted has been pretty mean to Elena. It is a story so thats not problematic or anything, but I do hope she can find what she needs. She needs someone to support her as much as she will support them, and she needs someone who will offer some stability. She likes Nathan, but he isn’t very suited to the life she wants/

Nathan Drake a Psychopath?

Yeah, I get it. Nathan kills hundreds or thousands of people and he doesn’t even feel bad about it, which might make him a psychopath which might explain his behavior. I have some groundbreaking information to explain how he kills so many people without the guilt crushing him and that is that... this is a bideo game. bidya games be like “kill people” and you just do it. Nathan Drake could certainly have some mental health issues, but I don’t think the combat portion of the games should be considered when evaluating his health. His character as it is written has empathy, even going as far as attempting to save Marlowe in the third game. Combat is just expected in games. Although it might have been neato dorito if the game got into how Nate was coping with all that killing, I think we can just say “its bidya games” and move on.

Dad? Papa? Father??

I already hate this section of the post, but If I was (shitty bitch) Freud I would point out the fact that Nathan uh Defo has some mom/dad issues, and suddenly the Beautiful, capable, caring, morally gray Victor Sullivan swoops in to be Nate’s New Dad ™ and it would be normal for Nathan to have some weird feelings for Sully. But whatever that’s just Freud's take on the matter (although I won’t deny that the Drake’s prolly got parent issues). moving on.

Internal Turmoil

Nathan Drake throws himself in fatal danger and puts himself in incredibly difficult situations that have a tendency to just get worse. And he keeps doing this. This alone looks like a man just wracked with internal conflict. It would make sense for him to go on these physically taxing expeditions for treasure if he was insecure in his sexuality. Why would Nathan Drake be insecure though? He’s charming, smart, strong, handsome, and funny. It’s not like he has to beg to get laid. He has no reason to feel this insecurity-- unless it was men he was interested in, not women.

I don’t think It would be a stretch to suggest that Nathan “I never had any parents, really” Drake would have some troubles with learning how to navigate his own emotions. By the time he meets Dad Replacement 6000 (aka Sully), Nathan is already like, 15. That boy needed a parent years ago.

When Uncharted introduces Chloe to us in the second game, Nathan really just doesn’t seem to be into her. The scene in the hotel-- he was just kinda going along with it. He “kinda goes along with” a lot of stuff. To me, he seems like someone insecure, not only in his sexuality but also his ability to make choices for himself. When a woman makes a move on him, he just kinda... goes with it. Elena comes back for him even though he breaks it off repeatedly. I’m sure to him this is the support he desperately needs. So logically he should reward her with uhhhhhh marriage?

Harry Flynn

yeah he’s a bastard but don't even act like this scene didn’t have some gay subtext “buy me a drink, sailor!” that's flirting babes. Nathan was so happy to see Flynn.

Cassie Drake

whether Nathan is gay or not-- I still don’t believe in his marriage to Elena. I really love that Naughty Dog stuffed uncharted 4 with as many ladies as possible-- all the way down to Nathan’s sweet daughter. But seriously I hope Cassie’s upbringing is as cushy as it seems. Like I hope her parents are stable enough.

But also like I have so many mixed feelings about her existence. Kids aren’t relationship bandaids (... or at least they shouldn’t be).

I still have a lot I want to say about Nathan Drake (esp when thinking about Sam). The Uncharted Series has really done a lot to subvert some tropes in the adventure-type genre (imo anyway). And I’m not gonna scream and yell. I just think there's a lot of evidence to support Gay Nathan Drake. Of course, This could legitimately all be projecting. I love Nathan’s Character a ton!

I wrote this all in one setting, so if it’s badly written or repetitive or.... whatever, please forgive me. I’d love some interaction! tell me what you’re thinking!

1) are they married or engaged? I can’t remember....

2)that we know of blah blah

3) I might be being a bit too impassioned

4) I’ve been rewatching Bojack so I am reminded of the bojack/pc dynamic (although its not a perfect parallel by any means), and in the show it’s clear to anyone that while bj and pc depend on each other, the game they are playing isn’t good for either of them (esp not for pc). Elena and Nathan can harbor affection for each other all they want-- but Elena can’t do this anymore.

5) “wuh wuh he’s protecting her” im sorry but that’s bullshit-- she can hold her own, and he’s pretty quick to come to terms with her tagging along when she pops up each game.

6)IT’S POSSIBLE that i’m just projecting and i just wish he was gay, but like, seriousliy? sersreoopsily? I have at least SOME support for my claims.

#nathan drake #elena fisher #uncharted #analysis

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