MERCEDES-LACKEY Digest 1993 Topics covered in this issue include: 1) Companion/Herald relationship by dennis-+AT+-jmf.org.ph 2) Braid [i think] Companions and Oscar Wilde by "The Dragon's Lair" 3) SciFi Homosexuality by "freddiek" 4) Re: SciFi Homosexuality by Jim Gray 5) Lifebonds/Kory, Eric, Beth/stuff by Sorana Stargem ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 12 Jun 1999 01:46:38 +0000 From: dennis-+AT+-jmf.org.ph To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Companion/Herald relationship Message-ID: Hi there, Something struck me upon the rereading of the Arrows series, and having not had the opportunity to read anything else set in Valdemar, I am curious to know if it holds true in the other series. The heralds don't really seem to take the sentience of the Companions seriously. Yes, there are occasions where they think of them and treat them like equals. But most of the time it seems that they are just glorified horses. This is supposed to be the closest bond in the Heralds' life, and yet they communicate less with them about problems then one does with work associates or school mates. I realize that you don't take every single problem to your best friend, but you usually at least talk about the things that are bothering you. I found myself several times almost yellling at them to talk to their Companions; I talk to my cats more! < deeeep breath> Sorry! I'm recovering from a migraine and I'm a tad bit grumpy. But seriously. Are the Companions given any more recognition from their Heralds in the other books? Sara, Cat Curious ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Jun 1999 08:13:49 -0500 From: "The Dragon's Lair" To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Braid [i think] Companions and Oscar Wilde Message-ID: <199906121314.IAA24920-+AT+-ares.flash.net> *Karistan stumbles into the Hall of Mist and looks at all the people* Wow. i'm delurking. Write this down on your calendar [g] *end fluff* paige wrote: >Homosexuality in Lit. How about Oscar Wilde. I haven't read his >work, but from everything I've heard, he was probably homosexual. > Oh it's quite well documented that Oscar Wilde was homosexual. During the late 1800's [i don't remember the year unfortunately] he was tried and sentenced for the crime of homosexualuty by the British courts. He spent several years at the Reading Prison at hard labor for the 'crime'. I do strongly recommend reading some of his works. He's done everything from plays to fairy tales. He was quite brilliant IMSNHO [g] His book 'A Picture of Dorian Grey' has homo- sexuality as an undertheme. Quite Good. Also, his fairy tale collection 'The Happy Prince and Other Tales' has my favorite fairy tale of all time, 'The Selfish Giant'. If you want to know what the prison sentence was like for him, read his poem 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol'. Brilliant. Go on.. check them out. Gee.. looks like writing a research paper on him came in handy, after all ;) paige also wrote: >Something struck me upon the rereading of the Arrows series, and >Valdemar, I am curious to know if it holds true in the other series. >The heralds don't really seem to take the sentience of the Companions >seriously. Yes, there are occasions where they think of them and >treat them like equals. But most of the time it seems that they are just glorified horses. This is supposed to be the closest bond in >the Heralds' life, and yet they communicate less with them about >problems then one does with work associates or school mates. I >realize that you don't take every single problem to your best friend, >but you usually at least talk about the things that are bothering >you. Yes. i noticed that, too. It drove me crazy, too. I'm of the opinion that Misty did that because she wasn't sure what she wanted to do with the companions at the time. Since AotQ was one of her first series', and the fact that she was still working out some plot details [this is my opinion, Capitol P. Capitol O. Personal Opinion] and wasn't sure of what she was going to *DO* with the companions at that point. Sure, they're big and have mind-speech, but Companions have come a long way since their humble beginning. The difference between the way they are portrayed in the most recent books [the Mage Storms] and in the earliest, you can tell that they've changed. i promise no spoilers, so i'll shush now. *Karistan decides she's rambled enough and jumps back into lurkdom* Blessed Be.. and Sheep shaped chocolate custards for everyone! =) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Jun 1999 18:02:03 -0500 From: "freddiek" To: Subject: SciFi Homosexuality Message-ID: <002b01beb528$246264e0$6ff72dce-+AT+-default> I agree that the realm of Science Fiction and Fantasy does seem more open to the inclusion of gay, lesbian and bisexual characters. Some series and books that i have found to portray such characters are: Anne McCaffrey: Pern Books: especially Moreta's Ride and Dragonseye; gay dragonriders Lynn Flewelling :Nightrunners series ;bisexual spies are the main characters, become lovers Fiona Patton: Stone prince, painters knight, granite shield; bisexuality seems to be the norm Elizabeth Lynn: Chronicles of tornor David Feintuch: The Still prince cannot have sex with a female or will lose magic,therefore sleeps with male friend Tanya Huff: bisexual vampire in her Victoria Nelson books, as well as her Quarters series has bisexual characters, Fire's stone Catherine Cooke: The winged assasin, realm of the gods, the crimson goddess, another bisexual thief/assasin Diane Duane's Door into .. series I hope that helps. As for mainstream Timothy Findley the Wars has some homosexuality in it. Fred ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Jun 1999 20:38:13 -0400 From: Jim Gray To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: SciFi Homosexuality Message-ID: <3762FD75.F2F15296-+AT+-altoona.com> freddiek wrote: > > I agree that the realm of Science Fiction and Fantasy does seem more open to > the inclusion of gay, lesbian and bisexual characters. Some series and books > that i have found to portray such characters are: > Anne McCaffrey: Pern Books: especially Moreta's Ride and Dragonseye; gay > dragonriders Note: POSSIBLE DRAGON-BOOKS SPOILERS BELOW... Well, I think it could be and it's better to waste some bandwidth than end up a Kentucky-fried fanboy... That should be sufficient...unless you have some weird vertical-aligned screen or something... Actually, the social situation in the Weyrs encourages gay relationships. Consider that the only female dragons are the gold and the green. Consider also that before Dragon? (quest? flight?) there were very few, if any, female non-Queen riders. Consider that during matings (and greens _do_ fly matings) the dragons' mating instinct overrides their riders' personalities. Consider that this means that there were (and still are, considering that female non-gold riders are still rare) an awful lot of homosexual encounters between green riders and the other colors. This wasn't a matter of choice, agreed, but it does foster a certain amount of an "inevitable" attitude about those sorts of relationships. And while there's no evidence for the conclusion, there's plenty of material available in the DragonBooks to suggest that the greens _try_ to impress those boys who have the most potential to enjoy that type of relationship...y'know, the "the dragon is never wrong about its Impression" thing... The proof that this is a Weyr-specific sociological issue is that the Holders are almost always much more conservative than the Weyrfolk about gender and sexual issues (as witness Menolly's situation at Half-Circle Sea Hold). Just mho... -- Jim Gray "People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people." -Terry Pratchett, "Maskerade" ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Jun 1999 21:22:50 PDT From: Sorana Stargem To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Lifebonds/Kory, Eric, Beth/stuff Message-ID: <19990613042253.45853.qmail-+AT+-hotmail.com> Heyla all! Adrianne wrote: >gee, this is great! when i first mentioned van/rand i saw lots of >parallels, >then when i had to explain what i meant i wasn't so sure, but now ... >thanks >guys! until it was pointed out, i didn't see the parallels in love lives. Well, if it hadn't been for you and the other list-sibs explaining some of it, I wouldn't've seen it either. I'm just glad that I made sense. :) >lifebonds -- are these instantaneous (sp?) or gradual? w/ daren & selenay >it >seemed instan .. insta.. right that moment. van & tylendel / van & stef -- >were these gradual or were they (esp. van) denying it? what about >moondance >& starwind? thoughts? Let's see...Daren and Selenay's Lifebond was instantaneous from what I could tell. With Van and 'Lendel neither of them noticed any sort of bond like that until after 'Lendel 'woke-up' after Staven's murder. Maybe they had the Lifebond before that, but 'Lendel didn't notice until his bond with Staven was gone? That bond with Staven almost seemed to be stronger than his bond with Gala...Or maybe he just considered it more important? There's that one part in MPawn after the mud wrestling where Van and 'Lendel are worried about the physical hurts they accidentally inflicted on each other and Mardic or Donni (I forget which) say something like, "Havens, Teacher, were we that bad?" and Savil says something about them being just as sentimental and just as cloying etc. That could be an indication of Vanyel and Tylendel being lifebonded at that early date. Or it could just be them being in love. Van and Stef could have Lifebonded that first night when they accidentally got drunk. It's particularly hard to tell when they Lifebonded since Van was denying the Lifebond and we didn't really see Stef reacting to it until an unspecified amount of time later in the book. We never really found out about Moondance and Starwind's Lifebonding, just that it happened. I would think that it happened before Savil left the Vale though. Talia and Dirk supposedly Lifebonded the moment they set eyes on each other. That's what Roland (It was Roland wasn't it?) thought anyway. Neither of them noticed anything for several years though. I'm not even going to think about the Ylsa/Keren/Sherril thing at the moment. I can't remember enough to make it make any sense. Raven Darkblade wrote: >Sorana heckled: ><would've >been worried if they were. ;)>> > >Gah. You know what I meant. :P Yeah, I did. I was only intending to tease you, which is a different thing than heckling. However, I have just looked up the definition of tease and it wasn't as ummm...harmless/innocent/nice as I thought, so maybe I should've resisted the 'irresistable' urge to say that. I'm sorry. Elsa wrote: >Seuroqi wrote: ><man >and an elf? Sorry, Misty, you've overreached yourself this >time.>> > Don't worry, it's just Beth and her 2 boyfriends-who-are-best-friends in >the next book. *glower* But Kory's really funny at the start, so I forgive >them. I was disappointed by that too. I have some thoughts on that though. 1) Maybe Misty decided to gloss over the bi, bi, in-love-with-man-and-elf thing. 2) Maybe Misty decided to take the 'just because two people love each other it doesn't mean they have to have a sexual relationship' path. I have a third thought, but I can't quite get it to form into a sentance. Darn. Of the two I did manage to form into sentaces, I prefer the first. I'm rereading Oathbound right now, while I still have spare time. Has anyone else caught that Kethry was 19 at the beginning of the book? Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll sign off. I've sent enough ideas out into the void for one night (And I always have this irrational fear that they're all completely stupid). Besides, I hear a bowl of ice cream calling my name, and I want to go ask my mom if she'll drop me off at the movies tomorrow so I can go see Star Wars again. Ice cream sundae sheep to all. Stars light your path, Sorana S. Stargem Herald-trainee, %-+AT+-"So free for a moment High Priestess to the Goddess%-+AT+-Lost somewhere between the earth and of Unicorns, %-+AT+-the sky Goddess of Flions, %-+AT+-So free for a moment Knight of Amber and Marigold,%-+AT+-Lost because I want to be lost Knight of the OOUH %-+AT+-Don't try to find me" --The Martinis http://www.angelfire.com/wa/mylagoon/index.html _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ------------------------------ End of MERCEDES-LACKEY Digest 1993 **********************************