[LMB] OT: Slash Bujold Romance/Slash Meta

[Paula Lieberman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Elizabeth Holden" <azurite at rogers.com>


> Interesting discussion.
>
> I have yet to be convinced by arguments about
> Appollonian/Dionysian modes of thought or culture; and
> I'm not sure whether it's that I have generally found
> most discussions of the matter unconvincing as they
> stand, or whether I simply don't understand them
> fully.
>
>> Lois remarks at the ***...
>>
>> *** They could, but then it would be genfic.  Of
>> which there are also tons out there.
>
> Yes. The existence of one genre does not make another
> genre mutually exclusive.
>
> LMB again:
>> There's a definitional thing going on, here.  Don't
>> miss that turn, or you'll be unnecessarily
>> confused.  Genfic, hetfic, slash, three
>> different things.  There may be yet more categories
>> that have escaped my attention.  ***
>
> There are subcategories, and sometimes alternate names
> for them.  It can be confusing but I also think it's a
> good thing - the anarchic nature of it all is very
> liberating from a creative point of view.
>
> Kirsten said:
>> To which I reply (as she no doubt expects me to)
>> that we live in a Dionysian age, those of us
>> in the West (the rest of you can pipe up
>> with your local zietgeist, of course) and hence have
>> rather more use for Apollonian correctives.
>
> Er wot?  This is where I get confused, and running to
> Wikipedia for clarification didn't help.  (at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysian, if anyone is
> interested.) How are we a Dionysian age?  Any more or
> less than any other age? (If this can be briefly
> summed up....)  Who should I be reading to get more
> info on this - Camille Paglia?  Neitszche?  Ayn Rand?
> (I thought I'd read all her books...)

I finally went to that link, and skimming it, find the concepts failing to 
pass my filters for reasonableness/credibility.  I don;t find the concepts 
in positive resonance with my views/analysis/perceptions, the 
Dionysian/Apollonian dynamic proposed, aren't reasonable ways of dividing 
things up to me.  Nietzsche's failure to comprehend Euripides is 
particularly telling....  talk about denial of the concept that women are 
people!  And it;s not surprising that Paglia wouldn't get that, either.... 
[miaow....]  depraved sorts!

[snippage]


> LMB:
>> And yet, why slash and not Mary Sue?
>
> All fiction reflects the mind of the author of that
> fiction. (This is true also in things written by a
> group of people, like television of comics, but in a
> different way.)  Those who enjoy fiction of a certain
> genre will seek out that genre, whatever it is.
>
> Mary Sues are particuarly blatant and clumsy examples
> of writing - stories that don't work because the
> imagination of the author has hindered the plot by
> connecting it to the self-image of the writer, rather
> than enhancing it by transcending the self-image of
> the writer.
>
> LMB:
>> What does slash do that a Mary Sue story does not
>> do?
>
> Nothing intellectual, I think.  This is where I argue
> it's sexual brain chemistry.  The reader looks for two
> related kinds of emotional pay-off in slash: one
> relating to the emotional or intellection concerns of
> the reader as expressed through the minds and actions
> of the characters; one relating specifically to the
> homoerotic content.  The second aspect intesifies the
> first.

I think that there's more "quality" in slash than in a MarySue--there's a 
requirement for suppressing the -blatant- narcissium that a MarySue has, for 
one thing, and there's setting up some dynamic between the slashed 
characters, that ought to require the writer to pull out of the writer's own 
identfication of making a wishfulfillment addendum to the cast acting as the 
author's alterego playing story psychic vampire, and instead focus on the 
slashed characters and their -relationship- and why it is out of keeping 
with convention  (MarySues I think are -conventional- in the sense that they 
seem to represent conventional values of success, beauty, intelligence, 
attractiveness, egocentricity, etc....)