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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   32942 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 2025

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My read is that Aella’s problems are a combination of:

A: Pretend Patriachal Upbringing

I. Her father wants to fulfill his role as leader of the family. This social technology has basically been lost by the 80’s and 90’s, so he fills the gap with a untested hypothesis.

II. But he’s not actually the leader of the family, the government is, and deep down, everyone knows this. It’s why the image of the father subtly threatening his daughter’s garbage boyfriend is an image of hilarity in the modern era. Everyone knows Dad is completely emasculated.

III. He can try to raise her right (and be bad at it, possibly, but directionally correct.) Also, being blunt, he seems ignorant of certain commonsense items, such as paying to send his daughter to a college in line with his ideals, whether he thinks he’s the perfect daughter or not. Better to send your “troublesome” daughter to Pensacola Christian where she can meet a good man, than throw her to the world’s lions.

IV. But once she’s 18, at the latest, she is free to do anything she wants, and as a young attractive woman, in a world where women are wonderful, she discovers she can wrap a lot of people around her finger and potentially is naive to the fact that they may very much not have her best interests in mind.

B: Women are Human Beings

I. As was alluded to elsewhere in the thread, it’s not surprising that Aella wants to be valued primarily for her innate characteristics. She’s a woman, that’s par for the course. Hence the joke about battle writing in women’s fantasy novels vs. men’s fantasy novels.

II. Aella eventually and unsurprisingly discovered that her most marketable asset is her sexuality. This has been common knowledge, although not phrased that same way, for all of human history prior to the last 100 years or so. 

III. As I previously mentioned, at this point no one in her family has any capability whatsoever to pull her back from the brink, either by force or by reason. For example, we would have much less of a drug problem if parents could bring their children of any age back into the family home, legally and by force, to separate the kid from the drugs. A good, or even mediocre, father is very likely to think the same way about his daughter and prostitution, but is in the same fashion stymied to prevent it.

IV. Aella, at the center of a number of failures and bad incentives, turns to sex work because then she doesn’t actually have to accomplish anything to earn her money, and can receive market value for her innate characteristics. 

V. One of her innate characteristics is being an undeniably smart wordcel, so she is able to justify all this by making it sound cool and empowering, and she is in the Bay Area sphere where lots of excellent rationalizers both live and want to fuck her.

VI. *Et voila*, here we are talking about her.

To summarize, mostly I just feel bad for her. If she converts to traditionalist Catholicism in her 60’s, it won’t surprise me at all. I think she is papering over many terrible things with her mental firepower, eventually it will all catch up to her, it will turn out the money and the fame were fleeting, and she will turn that high IQ to higher things at last.

Additionally, as a father myself, I think fathers should be very aware of the very real limits placed on our ability to lead our families. I don’t know what the best solution is, but cosplaying as Abraham ain’t it. Be as unemasculated as possible, without going to jail, I guess.

Hence the joke about battle writing in women’s fantasy novels vs. men’s fantasy novels.

I'm curious, what's the joke?

Wish I could find the original example, but nevertheless, here is the gist:

At its shortest, sum it up as “There’s a reason there’s such a demographic split between readers of mil sci-fi and readers of romantasy.”

I find the common disconnect between this obvious statement, and the equally obvious corollary that it indicates real differences between women and men that play themselves out in the real world, to be humorous. Maybe I’m the only one!

A longer description:

In general, male writers writing for a predominantly male audience write battle scenes that focus heavily on externals. The protagonist, in some fashion, displays earned talent in both personal combat and, if he is the leader of some force, overall tactical acumen. There will be descriptions, good or bad, of actual battle tactics such as flanking, ambush, etc. There is often a pre-battle planning scene that mostly focuses on nuts and bolts, maybe some political wrangling. If the protagonist’s friends or loved ones are involved, the primary concern is that they be best positioned to aid the chances of victory, despite the protagonist’s personal feelings towards them. The battle will be won or lost on the basis of plausible military outcomes. Overall, while the scene includes interior glimpses of the protagonist, the topic is the battle and its aftermath.

In general, female writers writing for a predominantly female audience write battle scenes that focus heavily on internals. The protagonist, in some fashion, displays innate, generally effortless or nearly so, talents that she naturally possesses. That is, if she is a great swordswoman or brilliant tactician, it is not generally a result of a training period of grueling effort. If she does engage in training, it simply improves her already significant natural gifts. In general, her talents will not be shown, but merely told. Because of this, there will not be any significant emphasis on the actual cut and thrust of the battle itself. The scenes involving the battle will primarily focus on the protagonist’s interiority, frequently including thoughts about whether she prefers the handsome and powerful general or the handsome and powerful mercenary captain. The battle will be won off camera, and the aftermath will again, mostly feature the protagonist’s emotional state. Overall, while the scene includes glimpses of the battle and its aftermath, the topic is the interior state of the protagonist.

It's amazing how much this bleeds into other genres as well.

I have a penchant for Noir/Neo-noir novels. Think The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley. The story is full of anti-heroes. The whole point of the protagonist is that he's a beat-up, broke private eye who mostly lives to drink and works to support that habit. But there's still a ton of hints at his Vietnam service which gave him the skills to be a decent private eye. His skills were earned through a crucible in the jungle.

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