Tooth & Claw question for the flist

[ginny_t]

Can anyone give me a reason to get past the severe irritation of the males' reaction to the incident in the tunnel and continue reading?

Spoilerdragons (oblique to explicit) welcome. "He raped her so she has to marry him" dragons can fuck right off.

(Fair warning: considering how ireful and vexed I am right now "it turns out all right because she meets some enlightened male who'll take her anyway" is not reason enough. I'm looking for "they tell the whole society to fuck off and then proceed to turn it on its ear".)

Comments

[lordshipmayhem.livejournal.com]

Spoilerdragon: You are being even more than your usual delightfully cryptic self. I is confuzed. WTF are you talking about? What incident in what tunnel? And is this related to the incident of the dog in the night?

Sincerely,
Puzzled.

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

I was asking about the book Tooth & Claw, which is giving me great trouble with the reading.

[lordshipmayhem.livejournal.com]

I just finished getting somewhat up-to-speed on the subject of Victorian English dragons and have to say...

...I don't know their morality. Maybe it's considered the honourable thing for a dragon to do after he rapes a lady dragon? (It's all right now, I married her, now she can push ME around!) Maybe it's part of their standard courtship methods? (I married him because he was stronger than the others, therefore ensuring that our dragonlets would be stronger than the other dragonlets?)

Maybe the author is just trying to play games with your mind?

[springgreen.livejournal.com]

Hrm. It's been a long time since I've read it, so this may be really off. I think the behavior continues, but I also think the book is Jo Walton's critique of that social norm, and of Victorian morality. Then again, part of that may be from outside sources and not from the text itself, so YMMV. From what I remember, I didn't have giant gender bells going off, but I think I was also reading from the POV that the book was a critique.

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

I read reviews & spoilers, including yours & Rilina's. I've decided to continue to try with the book. I don't know why it's making me so twitchy when it didn't seem to do so to either of you. It's a really nifty concept, a Victorian society with dragons (I don't think this is a Victorian novel, although the distinction is splitting hairs), but something about the females' colour is sounding biologically off to me. I'll have to think on it further before I explain.

Also, for a critique, I'll get myself through the irritation of the boys deciding the "ruined" girl's fate.