Recently I've been getting into a bit of fantasy/sci fi reading. I've just finished reading Betrayal, Book One of the Trinity series, by Fiona McIntosh.
I loved the book. I literally couldn't put it down. It was entertaining, fast-paced, it had characters I liked, and some I really hated, I constantly felt that I just had to know what happened next. I enjoyed the casual dialogue and the occasional humor, and I liked the concept of the paladin and the intrigue of the half finished stories. I even got the second book out from the library before I had even finished this one, so I wouldn't have to wait.
So I liked it.
That said, my feminist sense was tingling while reading it, and on reflection, I have some issues with Betrayal.
As is my way, I'd like to illustrate my concerns with subheadings.
****SPOILER ALERT****
IF YOU PLAN ON READING THE BOOK, STOP READING THIS REVIEW NOW
Woman characters, boldly following their men
There are plenty of women populating the main cast of this novel. In terms of numbers, I can't fault it. I am however annoyed at who they are. We have a mother/wife, who cooks for everyone; a pretty girl who is powerful, but not as powerful as the main character; a herb lore expert who follows the orders of her husband; a Queen who is beautiful, and follows the orders of her husband; a great number of sex-workers; a woman who is chased by potential rapists, then sleeps with her savior; the widow of a circus performer who feeds everyone, is looked after by her brother in-law, and jealous of the pretty girl; a whole convent of 'untouchable' sexless women, one of whom is pretty, obsessed with the dark-arts, and (wait for it) jealous of the pretty girl; a hermit-priestess; a benevolent spirit; and some midwives and pregnant women.
Hmm. So women are either sexual objects bought for money, 'maternal' types who feed everyone, healers, or powerful individuals who won't use their power without the help/advice/direction of a man.
They aren't entirely passive, thankfully. Queen Nyria disagrees with the King, although she doesn't follow through with any consequences, and Alyssa shows disdain and hatred for the King, although she similarly doesn't follow through, on the advice of another man.
With the exception of the spirit/god Lys, who appears to be an actor in her own right, all the women characters on the side of good have little say in the direction of their lives, and willingly or unwillingly, follow the wishes of the men in their lives.
Xantia, the one woman on the side of evil (in this, the first book of the series), is the only woman character who acts of her own free will. This plays to one of the oldest anti-woman myths: women who act of their own accord, without deference to their men-folk are bad. This usually plays out in the reverse, as it has here: bad women act without deference to men. In the end, even Xantia does not act alone, as she teams up with one of the bad-guys.
In addition, even though she acts of her own will, Xantia is motivated by jealousy of another woman, over a man. So even her autonomous decisions are based on her relationships to men, and we have yet another example of women acting against each other, if they act at all.
Violence against women is (almost) always sexual
The entire book is punctuated with acts of violence, against both genders, although committed only by men.
The violence committed against men does occur- soldiers are drugged, some are slain; a crippled man is tortured; two boys are killed; one man is beaten and crippled; a man is stoned to death- but with one exception made for a rapist, who is castrated, none of this violence is sexual, committed due to their gender, or focused on their sexual organs.
Violence against women is a different story. It is always either sexually motivated or involves harm to their sexual organs.
The first person in the story to be victimised is a young woman, who was publicly stripped, and had her genitals and breasts maimed during a 'bridling'. This process is said to occur for those of either gender, however it isn't a man, or even an older woman (often portrayed as sexless) who was picked by McIntosh to illustrate the practice, but a young woman.
Another bit-part character is chased by gypsies, who intend to rape her.
And of course, their is the main female character, Alyssa, who is abused and neglected by her drunk father, raped, and chased around with the intent of rape on more than on occasion.
Perhaps I can understand why there are so few (none) rape victims in the book- they don't feature quite so often in real-life, either, and we certainly don't discuss rape of men and boys as openly as we discuss the rape of women and girls. What bugs me is that a woman was chosen to be the victim of bridling, that the woman running through the forest was running from rapists, not robbers, and that the only woman who suffers any non-sexual violence is a child, not a soldier, or some other active character.
The frailties of woman
The thing that bugs me most is the life-story of the main female character. She grows up motherless, with an abusive father. Then her boyfriend skips town, so she runs away with a herb woman. She is pursued and raped (and saved by a man), so she runs away again and joins a convent, and shuns the thought of all men.
She reunites with her boyfriend, gets pregnant, only to almost die in childbirth. Her now husband dies, and at the beginning of the second book, she becomes a midwife, then a primary school teacher.
Blech! Of all the characters, Alyssa has actual reasons to become some sort of active resistance, yet instead she passively falls into careers centered around pious virginity, then birth, then children.
I'm not dissing mid-wifery, herb lore (also known as medicine), or teaching. It just shits me that a woman character chooses all these, and never something non-traditional.
I also object to Alyssa being constantly thrown violent, gender based life challenges. To be a hero, all Tor (the male lead character) needs is to be told he is special. He is given confusing information and a magical friend, and then sets off into the wilderness actively seeking his destiny.
Alyssa doesn't do anything until her boyfriend leaves and her dad hits her. She doesn't have any plan of her own, and after she is raped, she passively excepts life in a convent. She never goes actively in search of her destiny, although she has inklings of what it may be, and is eventually given information such as that Tor was given.
Apparently, women characters aren't interesting or sympathetic without a dark past, while male characters just need to be made told that they're the hero in order to play the hero.
She's also slim, blond and beautiful, and everyone lusts after her (boyfriend, rapist, teenage boys, village men/boys, the King etc). Because, you know, that's important to a main female character.
Yes, the main male character is frequently described as being attractive, and a womaniser, but its different. He actively charms women, pursues women, and initiates sex with women. Alyssa has boys follow her against her will (then they die), a man rape her, and then a husband re-initiate their relationship (then he dies). He uses his beauty, while she is beautiful but she can't use it. She is the phallus, he has the phallus. (Thanks, Lacan.)
The same old patriarchal world
Most of the issues above stem from this one, central problem: of all the possible universes in the human imagination, Fiona McIntosh chose (like the vast majority of authors) to set her story in a patriarchal society.
Women are mothers or sex workers, healers or whores. Men are soldiers, women are not. Men make the decisions, women follow.
Why is it that time and again, fantasy/sci-fi authors chose to set their stories in the same old almost-medieval-but-in-another-world-with-kingdoms-and-spirits-and-magic place?
In Summary
In all, I still enjoyed the book, for all the reasons I claimed a the beginning of this post. I hold out some hope that the issues I have mentioned will be addressed in the next two books. Maybe Alyssa becomes actively powerful (I've got a suspicion that she and a certain other character are actually the same, but we'll see)? Maybe Nyria turns into someone a little more interesting (although I'm hoping she's had an affair herself, not that she gets jealous, cos that would just bug me even more)? Maybe Xantia finds another motivation, or at least acts as an independent baddie? And maybe, fingers crossed, one of the paladin could be a woman who gets into a little more rough and tumble than healing or marrying.
Lets hope.
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