I've enjoyed seeing gender role tension done well in your Sun Sword series. Did you start out intending to explore the issues of gender role and social identity, or was that more or less accidental (a function of the plot shaping itself)?
This is sort of an interesting question because one of the things that I did get criticism for -- especially with Broken Crown -- was the gender roles I'd chosen. But in that case, they were the natural fallout of what I think of as a quasi-medieval attitude. The culture itself defined the roles of women in it.
I didn't so much intend it to be an exploration, though -- it grew organically out of the constraints I'd placed on the culture itself. In Annagar, women have very constrained lives -- but so do almost all of the people who live there. In the Empire, those constraints don't exist in the same way, and I did consciously set out to contrast the two societies. The only reason there are Kings, as opposed to Queens, in the Empire is because the Kings are always god-born, and without a more incestuous interaction, if the children were women, they'd have more difficulty bearing the children; if the children are sons, they can choose wives who will bear their fathers' children.
This probably isn't much of an answer; I'm happy to hone it, but I'd need more specific examples to which to reply.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2004-11-30 10:54 pm (UTC)This is sort of an interesting question because one of the things that I did get criticism for -- especially with Broken Crown -- was the gender roles I'd chosen. But in that case, they were the natural fallout of what I think of as a quasi-medieval attitude. The culture itself defined the roles of women in it.
I didn't so much intend it to be an exploration, though -- it grew organically out of the constraints I'd placed on the culture itself. In Annagar, women have very constrained lives -- but so do almost all of the people who live there. In the Empire, those constraints don't exist in the same way, and I did consciously set out to contrast the two societies. The only reason there are Kings, as opposed to Queens, in the Empire is because the Kings are always god-born, and without a more incestuous interaction, if the children were women, they'd have more difficulty bearing the children; if the children are sons, they can choose wives who will bear their fathers' children.
This probably isn't much of an answer; I'm happy to hone it, but I'd need more specific examples to which to reply.