#i wont sit here and say that a character isnt racist if a poc thinks they are

[emzular]

jason vs billy, some thoughts.

tldr: jason wanted to kill eddie in cold blood, vs billy who was only violent because violence and abuse are all he's ever known.

i'll start by saying that when it comes to 80s tropey high school bullies, jason fits the bill perfectly. he's the jock, the cool rich guy. he's what steve was meant to be in season one. jason is your basic, white, rich school jock bully.

billy's different. he's a metal head and he doesn't conform to the sleepy town aesthetic of hawkins at all. he struts in, double denim, thick boots, curly long hair, rock music blaring loud as fuck. billy hargrove instantly doesn't look like the jock bully stereotype. he's the metalhead outsider, the new kid. but he tries to fit into the jock mould all the same. he plays basketball, he goes to the parties, he flirts with all the women, he fights king steve to be the top dog. because that's how he survives. his dad abuses him, we know that, but if billy has 'friends' and sports and parties and a reputation as the popular guy to uphold, maybe his dad won't end him. so billy plays the bully. and it's easy because he was raised by one. it's easy to play that role.

then again, it's likely easy for jason to play his role too. his dad was probably the popular guy at school, and he grew up rich. well off. of course jason's going to be popular, of course he's going to be a jock. but where billy's trying to fit the mould, jason is the mould. you can see that billy's trying to fit in by the way he practises his smiles, and his lines in the mirror. he's trying to be this perfect image. whereas jason already is.

anyway, jason goes on a rampage across hawkins, starts accusing literal children of satanism and accuses eddie of being a cult leader, all because his girlfriend died. and while that's heartbreaking as fuck for jason, his girlfriend died and he went crazy. jason wanted to kill eddie and the hellfire club. the worst thing in jason's life is that his girlfriend was hanging around with a potential satanist, and he decided he wanted to commit murder.

the worst thing in billy's life? pick one. he's abused by his dad, controlled by his dad, forced to live under his dad's strict rules; and then he's captured by the mind flayer, abused and used and controlled by the mind flayer until billy literally kills himself because it's the only way out. billy never wanted to kill anyone - yes in season 2 he makes comments, says he'll kill them, but he wouldn't. he's a seventeen year old angry hurt boy, and he's lashing out. he wanted to hurt, but that's because he was being hurt. he wanted the easy life he thought king steve had, he wanted the friends that max had, he wanted what everyone else had. but he never wanted to kill anyone, even if he said it. you can see his threats were just an excuse to throw fists (because fists is all he knows, from his father). he never started a witch hunt:

that was jason.

so tell me how the rich, easy life jock boy jason is better than the poor abused and tortured new kid? tell me why billy deserves to be vilified and called the worst villain in the show, when all of his actions stem to the fact that his father beats him up? jason became unhinged so fucking fast, because his perfect life and his perfect girlfriend was taken from him.

jason fought lucas in the end, literally encouraged the witch hunt of a group of kids. he was not going to stop. he did to lucas exactly what billy did in season two. but where jason is somehow "understandable" in his actions because his girlfriend died, billy isn't? billy found his thirteen year old sister in a strangers house with a bunch of boys, one of them being his own age; tell me he's not got a reason to be angry.

and hey: jason wanted eddie to die. he wanted to fight him and to kill him. jason wound up the entire town, and got a bunch of his friends together, convinced them to tag along in his murderous quest. jason was willing to commit murder.

billy never would've taken it that far. he got close, in season 2 with the fight at the end, but he's not a murderer. he didn't go there intending to kill steve, or lucas. he went there (weaponless) to get his kid sister back home. unlike jason, who went to the house in season 4 with the intention to kill.

billy was just looking for his sister, and found steve, an eighteen year old guy, with his thirteen year old sister. of course he fought. but jason? jason went after eddie with the intention to harm.

look at jason and his gang in season 4, vs billy and his in season 3.

jason rounded up a gang, got weapons, and was ready to kill eddie. billy was being mind controlled and abused the entire time. he didn't have any part to play in the villainy of season 3. but jason? in season 4? that was all him.

it reeks of classism, you know? going crazy/bloodthirsty for love vs finding your kid sister in the middle of the night with an adult male is not the same motive: one has privilege, the other does not. and also, jason does what he does by choice. billy never had a choice, he’s abused and mind controlled. jason chose and had the freedom to turn on eddie and to spread hate against him. billy was being told what to do by his father and then the mind flayer. billy was not acting of his own wishes. but jason was.

at the root of jason, is someone willing to kill.

at the root of billy, is someone willing to be killed.

and saying billy is worse than jason, saying billy is worse than someone who wanted to kill someone is saying that anyone who's trauma comes out in a way that isn't deemed "perfect" or "normal" is a villain. anyone who doesn't "fit the mould" of society like jason does, is a monster, and deserves to die.

[kingjasnah]

actually. actually let’s talk about diversity in fantasy let’s give that a go. im mad and im gonna be that way for a while

don’t want to read all this? fair. tldr: fantasy writers who rely not only on the medieval europe model but also hide behind historical accuracy in 2020 (fuck it, from ‘95 onwards) are lazy and unimaginative and should be held accountable no matter how many white 20 year old dudes jerk off to whatever power fantasy is embedded in the plot. so lets chat about that lads. (slightly) drunk rant under the cut

now prelim shit: we know fantasy is used both as escapism and as a way to deal with various traumas via magical metaphor. staples of the genre. even if jk rowling busted out the laziest and at times offensive metaphor for ww2 and racism ive ever seen, she still adhered to time and true tropes. whatever.

so why have we, in this post game of thrones era, become insanely obsessed with realism? i can hear sixty 20-something year old men crying at me rn like oh ohh oh its based off the war of roses oh wahh all medieval fantasy fiction is based off england and the crusades anyway so women should get raped and people of color should be demonized its not racism its xenophobia and also gay people dont exist and disabled people are systematically killed off and if we stretch the magic fixes mental illness thing a LITTLE further we have straight up eugenics.

we all know where the england but myth thing came from. now the thing about tolkien is that while i will always absolutely love lotr, looking at the LAZY state of fantasy? damn i kinda wish he hadn’t revolutionized the genre. the bitch was still racist. he still didnt give a shit abt women (eowyn was just a vehicle to show how much he fucking hated macbeth anyone holding jrrt up as a feminist icon for that needs to sit the fuck down and explain to me why i can count the woman speaking roles in lotr, a story with a name and fleshed out backstory for every minor character, on one hand but thats! another post). he had something to say abt class with sam i’ll give him that but he is still 100% NOT what we need to hold our standards to in 2020. 

i dont want to talk about old school fantasy, like 80s early 90s cause theres literally no point. its sexist, racist, ableist for sure, this we know. david eddings (not even that old school tbh) can rise from the grave and explain himself to me personally and i still wont forgive him for ehlana. 

so let’s talk historical accuracy. quick question. who the FUCK gives a shit? WHO is this elusive got fan who’s out here like blehh actually??? this method of iron production is TOTALLY anachronistic of the time. ummm these vegetables in this fictional world were NOT native to english soil so how are they here? cause i know this is the classic argument but ive never actually met someone who cared about the lack of dysentery as much as they care abt the women getting raped on screen/page. 

god forbid you have to worldbuild for a second god forbid you can’t rely on the idea of fantasy readers already have in their head god forbid you have an original idea god forbid you spend more than two seconds thinking about ur setting (oh i should mention i dont....really blame GoT for its setting cause of how long ago it was og written but trust me i sure as hell blame grrm for writing a 13 yr old giving ‘consent’ to sex with a grown man within the first couple of chapters) 

If we accept the basic premise of fantasy as escapism, and i AM drunk so i will NOT be finding fuckin. quotes and shit for this but come on tolkien said it himself and as much as i’ll drag him he crafted the simplest and most powerful fantasy metaphors on the board rn. But if we know its escapism. If we know. then who is it escapism for? certainly not for me, the gay brown woman who busted through all of GoT in 10th grade. 

modern fantasy lit used as an excuse for that white male power fantasy is literally disgusting. calling historical accuracy is so fucking dumb ESPECIALLY cause we, as ppl in the 21st  century, KNOW women have been consistently written out of the story. poc ppl, gay and trans ppl, anyone with a god forbid disability has been WRITTEN out of history as we know it, INCLUDING the fucking war of the roses so HOW can we hold up testimony we know is flawed to support our FICTIONAL. STORY. just to??? support the white power fantasy?? literally noah fence but if you are a white guy who felt really empowered by every time jim butcher described a woman tell me: how do you think that’ll hold up in classic HisToRiCaL fantasy. you think thats a fucking noble pursuit? or are you grima wormtongue out here. 

(side note: jim butcher stop writing challenge i dont need to know abt every woman on page’s nipples. anyone who hides behind subgenre like that? ‘ohhh its a noir story thats why hes sexualizing everyone’ shut the fuck up an author isnt possessed by a fuckin muse and compelled to bust out 500k they have agency and they have choice and they MADE the choice to reserve said will for none of their female characters)

which brings me to point 2: target audience and BOY is the alcohol hitting me rn but WHO is this for? this isnt the fucking 80s we know poc and other marginalized folk read fantasy FOR the escapism. on god ive had a cosmere focused blog for nearly three years and. im just gonna say it im interacted with A LOT of yall and ive managed to talk to VERY few white straight ppl as compared to everyone else. 

like....who deserves to see the metaphor on homophobia or racism. joanne rowling? the bitch who literally tried to sell us happy slaves and the disgusting aids metaphor and the worst case of antisemitic stereotypes i ever saw in an nyt bestseller? yall think that was for US? or was it for the white guilt crowd. 

literally white people can find any book about them that they can relate to. but hmmm maybe theres a reason gay women care so much about stormlight archive’s jasnah kholin, a brown woman who’s heavily coded as wlw. or kaladin, the FIRST fantasy protag ive ever seen with clinical depression. hmm i wonder why a bunch of millennials are vibing all of a sudden. im not saying sanderson is perfect--but its the best ive seen from a white author tbh

maybe theres a reason a lot of poc vibe with a literary way to express trauma, and maybe thats why i specifically get so pissed when its not done well. theres a REASON books about outcasts pushing through and claiming their own lives are popular with people who arent white and straight and able bodied. Junot Diaz had a point. maybe lets STOP catering to those assholes who think theyre joseph campbell’s wet dream personified. ive lost respect SO many authors who are objectively talented. pat rothfuss can write so beautifully that ive cried to bits of name of the wind but literally i will never pick that series up again (not just because of the felurian. women in general tbh. mostly the felurian ngl) cause 1) i personally KNEW men whod jerk off to that shit and 2) there was no need for it there was no plot reason for ANY of that shit 

so like obviously thers an issue with authors of color specifically not getting recognized for fantasy and genre work but on god??????? im still mostly mad at the legions of white authors churning out the same medieval england chosen one books year after fucking year. have an original thought maybe. also im sorry that you as an author lack the basic empathy needed to examine the way that women? or any group of people that youre explicitly writing about see the world and would specifically see YOUR made up world. 

yes your fantasy should be diverse, but more than that it should be kind. if you as a writer cant respect groups of people who deserve it....what the hell are you doing in a genre that traditionally is about finding ways to express injustice through metaphor? tolkien’s hero was sam. fantasy was NEVER about the privileged. yall know who you are so stop acting so fucking entitled. peace out.