Getting to know you weirdos meme

[attackfish]

Ganked without attribution from people on other people's f-lists

I know very little about some of the people on my friends list. Some people I know relatively well. But here's a thought: why not take this opportunity to tell me a little something about yourself. Any old thing at all. Just so the next time I see your name I can say: "Ah, there's Parker ...she likes money and cereal." I'd love it if everyone who's friended me did this. (Yes, even you people who I know really well.) Then post this in your own journal [only if you feel inclined]. In return, ask me anything you'd like to know about me and I'll give you an answer*.

*Providing it's answerable/suitable for public posting.

Comments

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

In fact the whole Abhorsen series is an intriguing example of power conferred by bloodline, a major theme in fantasy, which brings up larger issues of what heroism means in terms of privilege. Thanks to this discussion an essay is percolating in my brain examining the meaning of heroism.

This is something else I'm playing with in the same story. At the end of the first book, My main character wins back the country that she is the Rightful Ruler of. Things get interesting from there.

I wonder if that's a function of the stories we choose to tell rather than the relationship between motherhood and heroism. Is it better to have adventures than to raise kids?

This is part of it, but to an extent, it's a natural divide. Domesticity rarely has a beginning and an end the way stories usually do. "A woman's work is never done," as it were. Also, heroism is often pretty reluctant in a story. Yes, I'm going to fight you, but only because you attacked my family or kidnapped my child. That seems like a perfectly legitimate reason for a mother to go charging off to fight the enemy, yet the heroes in those stories are usually the fathers. The hero or heroine in such a story could easily be the kind of person who usually spends their time with the kids changing diapers and helping with homework.

My mother got a lot of crap for working when she had to disabled kids, even though she was working so she could get us health insurance. It also, and she does not deny this, gave her a break from us, and since we really put her through the ringer... Dad, who spent a lot of time with us, since he worked days and Mom worked nights, was treated as an unacceptable substitute by a lot of people. "Yeah, their dad's home, but he's not a mom. For some reason, he was seen as some kind of adjunct to the family instead of part of it, because he was a man.

What happens after the accolades fade if he's alone without emotional support, especially since realistically he's likely to be traumatized from the brutal action he's seen?

Along with not wanting to deal with domesticity, we don't like to look much at the after affects of war, which extends to real life, at least in The States. Those 300 thousand vets aren't real heroes, you see. If they were, they wouldn't need help. They're just malingerers. It's definitely a case of patriarchy hurting men too. Real men don't get traumatized.