fpb | As I told Ashfae...

Current Mood: committed
Current Music: Schubert, V Symphony

Entry tags:

As I told Ashfae...

...I wanted to put the following review somewhere, just in case Amazon forget to post it or lose it. It is for Michael Moorcock's Gloriana

THIS SINISTER APOLOGY FOR POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND RAPE

I apologize for not being interested in the literary subtleties of this clever piece of writing. I regret that my unsophisticated mind does not take all the refined (as a sledgehammer) allusions to Spenser, Gormenghast, the Edda and so on. But you see, I have this bizarre notion that the climax and conclusion of a story are something to do with its point; and the climax of this story has a thief and murderer - oh, yes, sorry, a *romantic* thief and murderer, that makes *so* much difference to his victims - raping a woman who happens to be the Queen of England (again, that makes *so* much difference to the rape!); which she enjoys so much that she makes him king consort, with a certain amount of diplomatic lies to smooth his path. Translation: "being raped did the bitch good, and besides she enjoyed it". Gloriana can easily be defined as a bitch, in case you were wondering, and the fact that the loathsome Quire managed to give her an orgasm is the sure token that he is a suitable sovereign for an empire, which can now look forwards to all the wise subtleties of rule which he learned as a murderous street thief. Sorry, I forgot: a *romantic* murderous street thief. If I ever read a more thorough-going, false-faced, revolting apology for evil in every form, I have, luckily, forgotten it. But then Moorcock never had much time for morality, or what he called "pooh fantasy".

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I once saw a hardback copy of GLORIANA, *signed by the author*, going for £2 in a charity shop. The dust-jacket was damaged and Moorcock's fantasy (the Swords of Corum, etc.) has always struck me as nothing special so I passed on it, and when I returned again the next day it was gone. Always felt rather annoyed about that - until this review, of course! Hurrah! I saved two pounds!

That said, what do you think of the rape scene in OotP? Because it IS a rape scene, and what Rowling is suggesting is that such an utter bitch deserved to be raped. She had it coming to her. Might knock some sense into her!

Is this the sort of message we should allow our children to grow up with, that an unpleasant woman can be put "in her place" with a bit of rape?

Do you refer to Bellatrix abused by Voldemort, or to Umbridge abused by the Centaurs?

Umbridge by the centaurs! Her shocked silent trauma in the bed afterwards, and those tell-tale leaves in her hair, all point to those "beasts" having raped her.

And we're expected to approve?

Dunno...
Personally, I don't think she was. The leaves doesn't tell us anything other than that she was on the ground at least once during this time, and the trauma can be a result of many things. I'm sure the centaurs have some nasty magic to use on someone they don't like. In my head, JKR's centaurs doesn't come off as being sexually agressive that way.

Then again, what do I know. My knowledge of centaurs can be written on a stamp--

I have to leave now. I will answer Three Oranges this evening. Meanwhile, of course, Bruno or anyone else who feels like posting is very welcome to do so.

Put the words "centaurs" "rape" into Google.com and have a look at the results you get. This page is particularly useful:

http://www.theoi.com/Okeanos/Kentauroi.htm

And now the wedding hymn was sung, the fires smoked in the royal hall, in came the bride with wives and matrons walking at her side, supreme in beauty. Blessed indeed we called Pirithous with such a bride – and brought, nearly, thereby their wedded bliss to naught! For Eurytus, the fiercest of the fierce Centauri, was fired by wine and by the sight of that fair girl, and drink was in command, double by lust. Tables were overturned, the banquet in confusion, and the bride, held by her hair, was seized and carried off. Hippodame was seized by Eurytus; the others seized what girl each would or could. The scene was like a city sacked; the house echoed with women’s screams. At once we all sprang to our feet and Theseus shouted first ‘What madness, Eurytus, possesses you to provoke Pirithous while I’m alive – two men, you fool, in one!’ To back his words the great-souled prince, thrusting the throng aside, rescued the ravished girl from their wild rage. [Taken from the Metamorphoses]

SEIZED AND CARRIED OFF. And when we see her later, she's described as "ravished", which is the euphemistic version of "raped". And what about the other girls who got "seized" at the wedding hall, what happened to them?

I think if Umbridge had been merely blasted by nasty magic, we'd KNOW about it. Rape, however, is the crime so terrible that a silence gathers at its appearance.

From previous exchanges as well as this one, I am beginning to feel that rape is a particularly sensitive subject with Threeoranges; by which I do not mean that she overrates it, though we have had a private disagreement about matter of fact in a couple of cases, so much as that she reacts more strongly to it than to crimes which she would admit, in cold blood, are equally loathsome. If I were to say, for instance, that the centaurs have tortured, rather than raped, Umbridge - which is the impression I got from the episode myself - I suspect you would feel this as something of a cop-out, even though rape and torture (in so far as they can be separated at all) are equally hideous in their intrusion upon the person, in their abuse of natural relationships, in their infliction of power in its most extreme form.

I do not feel, in fact, that the pointers to Umbridge being raped rather than tortured are very strong; I feel that JKR left it deliberately vague. We know that whatever it was that was done to her was horrible beyond comprehension, horrible, I would say, even beyond the Cruciatus. Her shock is deeper than anything either Harry or Peter suffered; both of them recovered swiftly as soon as Voldemort let go, but Umbridge is still unable to control her terror days after the experience. (And the difference has nothing to do with Harry's heroic temper, either, since the effect was the same on Peter, and he is the least heroic individual conceivable.)

In point of fact, the Centaurs of JKR's world are quite unlike those of Greek legend, especially the legend of the Lapiths. The Centaurs of Greek legend are closely connected with the adolescent stage of male human life; they are, in effect, a mythical archetype for an initiatic society of boys. This is why they appear in the two apparently contradictory role of teachers (the wise Cheiron, who taught the hero of heroes, Achilles, everything he knew, and gave him his mighty spear) and of beast-like rapists. The one aspect represents the Centaur stage of life as seen, shall we say, from below, implying all the good things it will do for a boy to be socialized and initiated - schooled, one might say; the other sees male adolescence as it were from above. Marriage is opposed to the wild, animal and violent lusts of adolescence; as I said somewhere else, in mythology a violent clash symbolizes a fundamental opposition between two principles, with victory being granted to the principle which the ideology regards as superior. (These facts are established by important Indo-European parallels in India, the Celtic world, and Rome, which are too long to go into here.) If you go on reading, Threeoranges, you will find that the Centaurs were wholly and entirely defeated by the Lapiths, so that the abducted young women were, you may be sure, rescued; and, in the ideological sense, the superiority of ordered, social marriage over wild sexuality with no control was established. It is not strange that a great Greek sculptors connected this legend to the god of order and holiness, Apollo (Mary Renault has written some splendid and unusually perceptive lines on this image - The mask of Apollo, chapter 1, page 20 of the British paperback edition): the defeat of unrestrained, violent sexuality is his victory, even though he does not take part in the battle. Incidentally, the two sides of the Centaur nature are show, as so often in Greek myth, by two separate origin legends: the wild, violent, rapist centaurs are the result of a mortal (Ixion) raping the shadow of the goddess Hera, while the initiatic, calm, noble teacher Cheiron is a half-brother of Zeus, being the son of Kronos by the ocean-spirit Phillyra.

However, JKR's Centaurs are plainly very little to do with this. Following C.S.Lewis, who developped a hint in what might be called the Cheiron side of the Centaurs, she has made them figures of alien and dangerous wisdom, connected to a lore of astrological doom and destiny that even Cheiron did not really possess. (It was not from Cheiron that Achilles learned of his destiny of glory and early death.) It is not at all clear to me that the legend of the Lapiths should be used to interpret what she has done with the men-horses here; Lewis would be more to the point.

At the same time, Threeoranges' question is serious. Whether we regard it as sexual or as any other kind of assault, what is done to Umbridge is terrible. We have to look at its moral status with some care.

My point of view is that, while Moorcock uses an elaborate and (I must admit) very attractive literary manner to convey a simple and brutalizing anti-moral message, JKR uses an extraordinarily simple writing style to convey a strongly and increasingly complex moral picture. In the case of Umbridge, it is not a case of "she deserved it and it will do her good". Our first reaction, true, is Ron's - delighted pleasure that the most odious character in the whole saga (for my money, Umbridge is a more successful artistic achievement than Voldemort) has got what was coming to her. But I think that the picture of this wrecked woman, hospitalized like the heroes themselves, with something broken inside her, the prey to night-terrors that will not go away, has a more subterraneous effect: making her, in effect, a victim, JKR draws some sneaking compassion towards her, such as can never altogether be denied to someone who has suffered. She also does not give us, unlike for instance Bellatrix, any impression that the catastrophic experience she suffered has left her unchanged, obstinate in her evil and in her love of pain; she may be, but at that moment, and until at least the next book, all we know is that she is a victim. Here JKR's legend-making intelligence may have asserted itself even against her own conscious desire to make Umbridge utterly unforgiveable; certainly, there is a certain element of come-down, from that haunting vision in the hospital ward, to the scene of Peeves beating her out of Hogwarts (which, on the other hand, does serve to remind us that, however much she may have suffered, her crimes were indeed many and atrocious).

But the basic point is that Umbridge has not fallen victim to anything morally justifiable. Moorcock justifies Quire; JKR does anything but justify the Centaurs. From long before Umbridge was introduced, we were shown that the morally aware Firenze was the exception and not the rule: the other Centaurs, in obedience to their inhuman vanity as "interpreters of destiny", do not care whether what is coming is good or bad, so long as they raise their status by being able to interpret it. Their vanity turns to violence and hatred. If their role as interpreters of the stars has to do with C.S.Lewis' Centaurs, their moral position seems closer to another of Lewis' non-human races - the Dwarves, and specifically those among them who repeat that "the Dwarves are for the Dwarves", cutting themselves off from any decent relationship with other intelligent beings in this world and from God in the next. JKR has placed in her Centaurs, with a blazing evidence at least equal to Lewis' memorable picture, the image of a group pride so vast and unmanageable as to become inhuman, brutal, animal.

That being the case, I do not think you can say that JKR has justified the rape or torture of Umbridge. She has placed two kinds of evil in collision, and watched the stronger evil torment and punish the weaker. She has allowed herself and us a certain amount of gloating, but not without the sense that a victim is someone to feel sorry for, whoever they are.

When you say I react strongly to cases of rape, I do indeed, but I do recognize that there are worse crimes out there - like, say, the removal of a limb without anaesthetic. As you say, rape is a form of torture. What annoys me about Umbridge's rape in OotP (because I do believe it's a rape, for reasons I will go into later) is that it's a woman who's writing it. A woman, who presumably like every other woman I've ever met who would think it a particularly degrading, sexist form of punishment, thinks it's a good fun way to destroy her most hated female character. For that reason it grates on me: it's a woman aligning herself with the sort of men who think a little rape is the best way to stop a woman getting any ideas above herself. A rapist reduces a woman to her sexual organs alone, and then makes that source of pleasure a source of traumatic pain. That a woman would write this sort of thing as a just and fitting punishment for a female character she despises is a thought I find revolting.

But never mind this Betrayal-of-Her-Own-Gender rant, what concerns me is the portrayal of the centaurs. I think the clues are there to suggest their libidinous nature. Consider Umbridge's accusations: "Filthy half-breeds! Beasts! Uncontrolled animals!" Uncontrolled. Notice also her next cry, "Unhand me, you animals!" "Unhand me" isn't an unconsidered phrase: it is, in fact, the sort of phrase a young Victorian maiden uses to a man taking what she considers to be too much of a sexual liberty. After she is seized, borne aloft and carried away into the forest, Hermione makes the mistake of thanking the centaurs for their help and nearly calls down similar treatment upon herself and Harry: "They can join the woman!" Notice the reduction of Umbridge to "woman" here. Finally, consider Umbridge's appearance in the bed: "her normally neat mousy hair was very untidy and there were still bits of leaves and twigs in it". Untidy. Suggests the back of her head's been scraped against the forest floor repeatedly, does it not?

So please don't say that it's merely "torture" to which Umbridge has been subjected. The centaurs carry no wands, so Cruciatus cannot have been used, and had they caused her serious physical pain with blunt or sharp objects Pomfrey would doubtless have bandaged up the affected parts. But no, all Umbridge is suffering is "shock". What punishment inflicts few outward marks on the female body beyond bruising, and yet leaves the victim in a near-catatonic state of shock? There's only one answer, isn't there.

However, the centaurs are not going to be tried, much less punished, for what they have done. Buckbeak lashed out in anger in the face of a few insults, and the Ministry sentenced him to death: the centaurs gang-raped Umbridge in the face of a few insults, and Umbridge will never get the satisfaction of a trial, much less justice. (But then rapists hardly ever face justice, do they? In that sense, the scene is realistic.)

All in all, what I see is the woman being victimized for doing the nasty job her boss - a man - sent her to do. Umbridge is the sort of lackey who toes the line and would never exceed her remit (hence her fear of, and disgust towards, those who break the rules). If she was told by her superior to use any means to prevent Potter from spreading "lies" and discord in the school, then she will follow orders. Yet when it comes down to it, the servant is punished far in excess of her actual crimes and the master who told her to do such things - Fudge - escapes scot-free.

Blame the woman. It's a common refrain in real-life, but I just wish a woman writer had not seen fit to replicate this message in her work.

I don't think you are being quite fair. For a start, there is no evidence that whatever has been done to Umbridge has not been or will not be punished. Second, I find it very strange that you should consider that JKR approves of anything the Centaurs do - considering that, by the time Grawp blunders onto them, they seem about to murder Harry, Ron and Hermione. That they are as plainly in the wrong as is possible to be, and that not by chance but because of their arrogant and obstinate natures, seems to me obvious; and that being the case, how can you say that JKR implies that whatever they did to Umbridge was "deserved"? Would you say the same if she had been eaten by a dragon? That is what we are talking about here.

And JKR makes it perfectly clear that Umbridge has gone well beyond her orders - unless you are saying that Fudge gave her secret orders to torture Harry till he bled. She sent the Dementors to murder him off her own bat, and she has done it because she is that kind of person - a kind, alas, that flourishes in bureaucracies. And it has nothing to do with her being a woman. It seems to me that you are coming dangerously close to saying that, because she is a woman, she should not be blamed for her crimes - that they should all be imputed to Fudge, even those he had neither approved nor known about. And I do not think such a position would do women much honour.

For a start, there is no evidence that whatever has been done to Umbridge has not been or will not be punished.

No promise of restitution is made to her, and far from being allowed to stay in a hospital bed and recover she's kicked out in a way which encourages the reader to laugh at her. Raped and pelted out of the school by a poltergeist! Somehow I really can't see this as a victory for the victim.

That they are as plainly in the wrong as is possible to be, and that not by chance but because of their arrogant and obstinate natures, seems to me obvious; and that being the case, how can you say that JKR implies that whatever they did to Umbridge was "deserved"?

I believe the implication that the punishment was "deserved" lies in the fact that Umbridge attempted to crush Harry's will using the vampire pen: some might call that an attempt at mind-rape and respond that it's fitting that she was punished with a literal physical rape. Add to this the sense that Umbridge deserves Something Bad to happen to her and people are likely to respond with "There's her punishment, great, our sense of justice is satisfied!" But, as I've said before, using rape as a punishment is indicative of a thoroughly sexist mindset. (I would say the same of a woman who decided the best way to punish a male was to wound his genitalia.) For that reason I would much, much, much rather have had her being eaten by a dragon.

And JKR makes it perfectly clear that Umbridge has gone well beyond her orders

You're absiolutely right here, she didn't send the Dementor on his explicit orders. That said, I think it perfectly possible that she picked up a subtle hint given by Fudge himself: "Somebody had to act... They were all bleating about silencing you somehow - discrediting you - but I was the one who actually did something about it..." When I couple that with her earlier statement that Fudge was delighted to have an excuse to prosecute Harry in a Wizengamot, what I am reminded of is Henry II muttering to his knights, "Will no-one rid me of this turbulent priest?" Or in Fudge's case, will no-one rid him of this teenage nuisance. Fudge's subsequent eagerness to prosecute fifteen-year-old Harry Potter as a fully-grown adult must have confirmed in Umbridge's mind that she'd done the right thing, and that it would be equally correct to carry on "silencing" Potter and everyone else who spread the "lies". She did not defy the orders of her superiors, she merely took their wishes and translated them into deeds. It's not that she shouldn't be punished - she should be - but Fudge and the others who wanted Potter "silenced" should be investigated and put on trial themselves. (Remember Fudge still hasn't faced any kind of enquiry for bringing a Dementor in and wiping Barty Jr's soul and spoken evidence - again, far more harmful than anything Umbridge managed to do.)

It seems to me that you are coming dangerously close to saying that, because she is a woman, she should not be blamed for her crimes - that they should all be imputed to Fudge, even those he had neither approved nor known about. And I do not think such a position would do women much honour.

Agreed, it wouldn't. But the sources of my unease are threefold: firstly, that her punishment was far in excess of what she inflicted; secondly, that a woman writer approves of rape as a punishment for an unpleasant character; and, thirdly, that there is no sense of the "buck stopping" with Fudge himself. He sent her there with some idea of her capabilities and personality; he made no attempt to check up on what she was doing; he can't be held entirely unaccountable for this lapse of judgement on his part. My theory is that Umbridge sent in reports of what she was doing, to which he replied approvingly. Why else did Fudge sign the parchment allowing her complete power as "High Inquisitor" at Hogwarts? Don't tell me he didn't know what was going on there; I actually credit him with more intelligence than that.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

As I told Ashfae...

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

following on from the previous comment

I still disagree...

Re: I still disagree...

Re: I still disagree...