[LMB] Elli, was Winterfair Gifts

[Azalais Aranxta]

On Sat, 8 Dec 2007, Meg Justus wrote:

> > It's the way she treated Ethan.  If the genders and situations
> > had been reversed, anyone could see it as harassing.  But as a
> > society it's difficult for us to see that women can be sexually
> > threatening, although they certainly can, and all the more so to
> > a happily gay man from a planet where there are no women.
>
> Thank you!  A real, concrete example!  That didn't have
> anything to do with who was supposed to give up what for who.

I also agree with AJ Hall that she's consistently less bothered
and more callous about situations where she has to choose who
gets to live and who doesn't, and that while such decisions are
sometimes necessary, it's hard to like someone who seems so
*undisturbed* by it.  Which dovetails with Elizabeth's point
about her lack of inner life generally.

I've never liked her.  But I've never had a problem with her
decision not to marry Miles.

> Okay, I can see where that's coming from.  I always sort of took a Doylist
> POV on that one, since Lois handles that sort of thing much better in her
> later books.  Yeah, that's not fair on my part.  Shoot me <g>.

I'm not good at that.  If I were I'd like Rowling better.

> Sometimes the characters get caught up in all the fun authorial
> plot and theme ideas.  I can forgive them for that <g>.

Yes, but then follow it up with her behaviour in Winterfair Gifts
with the cat-blanket, and it looks like a definite pattern of
being inappropriate, lacking boundaries and generally not getting
that there are times when even people who have actually had sex
with you personally don't need to be reminded of the fact that
you've got gonads and you know how to use them.

I'm not keen on this notion of giving up what you love to be in a
relationship. It invariably ends in tears, particularly when it
comes with political and social obligations which complicate the
inevitable.  I can think of many good reasons why someone might
want Miles as a lover but not as a husband.  I also don't have a
problem with the idea of wanting someone as a lover but not as a
spouse, provided you are up front about it with that person and
it's not, "because you're good enough to XXXX but not to be seen
with in public."

~malfoy :)

****************************************************************
Azalais Aranxta (~malfoy)
ataniell93 on LiveJournal and Vox
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/malfoymadness

"I know the true world, and you know I do. But we needn't let it
think we all bow down." --Christopher Fry