frozenmask
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Commented on Warlords and eunuchs and slaves, oh my! Picking the problematic for The Aldabreshin Compass
Juliet, you talk about many books borrowing historical slavery and putting it in their stories inaccurately. Could you share where writers tend to mistep in that area?...
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icehawk commented on
Warlords and eunuchs and slaves, oh my! Picking the problematic for The Aldabreshin Compass
"There needs to be a high fantasy epic written entirely from the point of view of a peasant." Aren't most of them? I thought that was Tolkien's great insight: the storyline of the Hobbit was "the lost prince goes to slay the Dragon and reclaim his lost kingdom". Which was not interesting or new. Tolkien's big twist on that storyline was not making Thorin the main character, but instead introducing an "everyman" in the form of Bilbo. But in modern fantasy epics having the hero be a humble peasant is so standard as to be formulaic. Belgariad, Shanarra, Paksenarrion, Wheel...
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icehawk commented on
Warlords and eunuchs and slaves, oh my! Picking the problematic for The Aldabreshin Compass
"It is instructive to compare pre-18th century English employment practices with what is now considered slavery." I do wonder when it became, in practice, a prosecutable crime to beat one's employees in England. Obviously it depends on the status of employee, and of the employer. I'm fairly sure that in Dickensian times, slapping the maid if she broke some crockery may have been considered harsh but not criminal. I'm also fairly sure that by the 1950s it would have been unacceptable. What I don't know is when it changed. (It's an interesting trend, given current debates about how acceptable it...
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Hadil Benu commented on
Warlords and eunuchs and slaves, oh my! Picking the problematic for The Aldabreshin Compass
Wrong direction entirely. You need some Foucault in your lives. ~ Anglo-Saxon Law is based on reparations (even for murder). i.e. social / economic cost. It was much better than the honour based societies it replaced. It's not until much later that Social / Personal / Character / Soul cost replaces it via Christianity. ~ Grr. This is basic stuff....
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JamesPadraicR commented on
Warlords and eunuchs and slaves, oh my! Picking the problematic for The Aldabreshin Compass
...introducing an "everyman" in the form of Bilbo. Bilbo, and Frodo, may have been 'Everyman' characters, but they were deifinitely not Peasants. I don't remember any reference to how Bilbo made a living, but I think it's safe to say he was not a poor, lowly farmer. See my comments @28 & 39, along with Ms. McKenna's replies....
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Peter Erwin commented on
Warlords and eunuchs and slaves, oh my! Picking the problematic for The Aldabreshin Compass
Historically castration - and worse - has been used in various cultures to solve one of the other big problems of feudal rule. If the succession's been successfully passed on to the first born heir, what do you do with the spares? I'm struggling to think of historical cultures where this was actually a routine practice. Can you provide any examples? (I don't mean societies with eunuchs, I mean societies where the king/sultan/emperor's brothers were routinely castrated when he became king.) For one thing, if it's known that the reward for having your elder brother become king is to be...
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