Oh, Kristin. I am disappoint.

[mothwing]

In Cashore's Fire, everything alive is spellbound by the sight of Monsters, creatures of astonishing beauty and the ability to control minds. Human monster Fire finds it difficult to live in a world in which everybody is spellbound by her beauty and/or wants to kill her and has to learn to come to terms with that as well as face a powerful enemy threatening those she loves. And according to Cashore, women are only ever jealous of her beauty, because:
 

 

"There is something consoling in the regard of a woman. Roen never desires me, or if she does, it's not the same."

 

Uh-hu. You do realise that there are women who look at other women that way, right...?

Ugh.

Comments

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if that's before or after Fire's bisexuality is noted in passing, but Fire is certainly aware that women can desire her sexually and v.v.

I think Cashore (or at least Fire--I wouldn't necessarily equate author with character, especially since Fire starts out with a lot of toxic beliefs about sexuality) is positing female sexuality as less likely to lead to rape. Which is I think is not inaccurate--men are, in a male-dominated society, more likely to think desire (or anger, or anything) entitles them to someone else's body than women are.

I read that as being Fire objecting to, not so much desire, as that sense of ownership/entitlement to another person's body (consent not required), which might be more likely from men who are taught that they are entitled than women who aren't.

(Fire's perception of how people desire her and other monsters, and where blame lies, shifts quite a bit by the end of the book.)

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Oh! Must be before, I'm not far into it yet, and so far she's only ever described men as desiring of her and women as jealous, and after that statement I was getting bothered by this.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

I cringed at that, too. Actually, I cringed at a lot of things, but by the end many of those had turned out to be unreliable-narrator viewpoint things. I'm not entirely sure it succeeded in conveying what Cashore seems to have been trying to convey; some parts of the story undermine other parts.

I am not sure I want to say more at this point if you plan to finish the book (don't want you to interpret it through my interpretation), but I would love to chat about what you thought she was trying to get at.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Ok, I finished it, though I'm not quite sure about what I think Cashore's trying to do, probably because I speed read because I wanted to see how it ended on the train. First of all: being a rather butch, short-haired, fat woman of the homely persuasion superhuman feminine beauty is a really sore spot for me, so I'm not sure I went into this open-minded enough.

Obviously we're shown the price beautiful people are made to pay for being beautiful and how others use or try to (ab-)use them. Fire also obviously wants to gain control over her situation and does that by... using her powers to do what is asked of her, even though it goes against her morals (questioning prisoners). Instead of hiding her beauty, she comes to use it for purposes others had in mind for her herself. So she's in control, but only so long as she makes the decisions that the powers that be around her want her to make? Huh.

I'm also not sure about who is ultimately responsible for wanting to do horrible things to her because of her beauty. On the one hand, I thought the attackers were clearly meant to learn how to control themselves and that it was very well possible to guard one's self against the effects of her beauty, judging by how the people dealing with her on a daily basis react to her - it seems that those who see her only rarely or for the first time, even, are most strongly affected because they can more comfortably objectify her.

On the other hand I'm not convinced because this is after all unearthly superhuman beauty and the magical component thereof seems to "make" people want to do horrible things to her. I wondered briefly whether this is really magic at all or just explained as part of her powahz by Fire, who does not understand objectification. I'd dislike it if monsters were only truly irresistible due to the way they affect the minds of those around them due to magic. There is no need to bring magic into this, as this happens IRL just fine, and adding a magic component just seems like a cheap excuse. I'd love it if this was only Fire's perception and her explanation for other's behaviour, because she tends to attribute negative reactions people she does not know have towards her to her monster side.

I'm not sure what to make of the Cansrel subplot and many other parts. Also ughhh, mutual hair braiding? Really? She happily goes to bed with several men and goes to... braid her hair with another woman? Ughhh. Also, Archer, I was not sad when you died, you manipulative controlling irresponsible little rat bastard.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

I thought the beauty thing was a not-entirely-thought-out metaphor for the way women get blamed for rape ("She was asking for it by wearing that short skirt/being attractive/not wearing a burlap sack over her head/flirting/drinking/not being protected by a male owner at all times!" "Men just can't control themselves, you know."), and that it started out with Fire buying into that and ended with her realizing that other people's lack of ability to keep themselves from attacking her was not her fault.

But I think the choice of unearthly superhuman beauty as this metaphor loaded it down with a whole lot of other potential problems, that I am not convinced Cashore addressed very well.

I'd love it if this was only Fire's perception and her explanation for other's behaviour, because she tends to attribute negative reactions people she does not know have towards her to her monster side.

That might have been the case, and it occurs to me that the only solid evidence I had against that was the Cansrel subplot, and Fire's interpretation of those events may well have been ENTIRELY unreliable. Huh.

I thought Archer was a horrible person.

I think I will have to reread with some more of this in mind. I thought it was a pretty ambitious book in a lot of ways, and original, but there were definitely still...problems.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Yes, I liked what I think she was trying to do, but I'm as unconvinced it actually worked.

thought the beauty thing was a not-entirely-thought-out metaphor for the way women get blamed for rape
Er, yes, that was what I was trying to say though my words got in the way. Assuming combined speech I don't think that the Cansrel subplot speak against it, because we'd only ever get her view of things.

Archer - were we meant to like him? I couldn't shake off the feeling that we were meant to see him as good, but flawed, and I simply hated his guts. Did I miss something?

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I have no idea whether we were supposed to like Archer or not.