I don't want to debate ethics with you, - Edit 2
Before modification by CatherineSedai at 21/07/2011 04:01:52 AM
and I dislike that this is dancing along the edge of becoming a blog argument (ridiculous) and I'm shocked, because everything I read from you on the WoT boards makes perfect sense to me.
Firstly though, I think you misunderstand my example about American's. Imagine if George Washington and that lot had decided "Hey, instead of writing them a letter telling them we're done with them and we're staying right here on the other side of the world, what if we all get back in the boats, go home, and kill off that horrible ruling family and free all our kith and kin, reclaim our homeland, and bring a new age of prosperity and peace to our people". Daenerys' and all the exiles coming to Westeros is the American Revolution in reverse.
But, I honestly didn't see any pimps in the story, in Westeros it seems more like the woman decides to sell herself. A woman or man may own a brothel, but the brothel pays the women minus room and board. A pimp would pay the whore minus a "just because" pimp tax. Being sold into slavery and being forced to whore yourself is disgusting. Choosing to let men pay you to shove their pricks in you is disgusting too, but it isn't rape. If a woman makes a living selling her privates, and she chose to do it, and she willingly accepts your coin, it is no rape. The Ladies of the Seven Kingdoms are all whores, because once they are assigned a man, they open their legs so they can live in a nice castle and hand down lands and titles to their children. The Bedding of a Westerosi woman is way closer to rape than Tyrion Lannister's wayward couplings.
I think we all agree that medieval morality, practices, and sexuality is barbaric and disgusting, but when you read a story like this don't you adapt your mindset to think like the people in the world you're reading? Don't you rationalize right and wrong within the moral confines of the time and place you are reading about? If you don't I'm not sure why you read medieval fantasy at all, unless it's just so you can be pissed off.
I read books to live a thousand lives in one and have experiences I can never truly have, travel through time to live the lives of others, become someone else and try to think like them. I'm afraid you read so you can try to apply your "very firm and certain principles of power and governance and jurisprudence" to every situation in history or every person in every walk of life, and denounce them as lesser than yourself.
Firstly though, I think you misunderstand my example about American's. Imagine if George Washington and that lot had decided "Hey, instead of writing them a letter telling them we're done with them and we're staying right here on the other side of the world, what if we all get back in the boats, go home, and kill off that horrible ruling family and free all our kith and kin, reclaim our homeland, and bring a new age of prosperity and peace to our people". Daenerys' and all the exiles coming to Westeros is the American Revolution in reverse.
But, I honestly didn't see any pimps in the story, in Westeros it seems more like the woman decides to sell herself. A woman or man may own a brothel, but the brothel pays the women minus room and board. A pimp would pay the whore minus a "just because" pimp tax. Being sold into slavery and being forced to whore yourself is disgusting. Choosing to let men pay you to shove their pricks in you is disgusting too, but it isn't rape. If a woman makes a living selling her privates, and she chose to do it, and she willingly accepts your coin, it is no rape. The Ladies of the Seven Kingdoms are all whores, because once they are assigned a man, they open their legs so they can live in a nice castle and hand down lands and titles to their children. The Bedding of a Westerosi woman is way closer to rape than Tyrion Lannister's wayward couplings.
I think we all agree that medieval morality, practices, and sexuality is barbaric and disgusting, but when you read a story like this don't you adapt your mindset to think like the people in the world you're reading? Don't you rationalize right and wrong within the moral confines of the time and place you are reading about? If you don't I'm not sure why you read medieval fantasy at all, unless it's just so you can be pissed off.
I read books to live a thousand lives in one and have experiences I can never truly have, travel through time to live the lives of others, become someone else and try to think like them. I'm afraid you read so you can try to apply your "very firm and certain principles of power and governance and jurisprudence" to every situation in history or every person in every walk of life, and denounce them as lesser than yourself.