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avevale_intelligencerI have been listening to Gail Carriger's "steampunk"-horror-comedy-romance novels, clearly done from the US editions but read in a British accent, which sounds very strange. I can say that they do indeed contain all the above elements and are very good. I have only one problem.
The heroine of one of the series, Alexia Tarabotti, whom my brain keeps trying to turn into Aphasia Tararaboomdeay, is a "preternatural," who, when she touches a vampire or a werewolf (a "supernatural"), turns them human for the duration of the touch. The explanation for this, in her world's terms, is that she has no "soul" and therefore sucks "soul" out of her victims when she touches them. Presumably when she lets go it springs back like elastic; she doesn't get to keep it, and they return to normal (for them) instantly.
Naturally, Alexia has absorbed all the baggage that comes along with being thought "soulless"; she believes, without question, that she has no creativity, no moral sense, and, unlike ordinary "mortals," will simply snuff out when she dies, with no hope of heaven (or, presumably, fear of hell: that perhaps simply hasn't occurred to her). So she goes through life, thinking herself less than human and trying harder as a consequence, and so far it's quite a nice metaphor for the position of women in a patriarchal society.
But hang on, you may be saying, how come supernaturals have "soul" to suck? Well, apparently people who can become vampires, werewolves, or ghosts (more on them later) can do so because they are born with excess "soul." So, when fatally bitten by a vampire or a werewolf, or when they die violently or unexpectedly, not all their "soul" leaves their body, and what remains animates the corpse and gives it its supernatural abilities. So supernaturals only have a "remnant" of "soul."
Which, you would think, would mean that when that remnant got sucked out they would die, not become mortal. If the presence of soul equates to mortal life, then its absence must mean death. Except of course for Alexia herself, who is definitely alive despite allegedly having a sucking void where her "soul" should be.
Her touch also exorcises ghosts. If she touches their dead bodies, the ghosts disappear. Where do they go? Nobody knows. Nobody knows, because, as is clearly and categorically stated by an American scientist in the very first book, nobody in this world has yet succeeded in measuring, quantifying, or even identifying, what "soul" might be.
In other words, all the aforegoing is pure dogma and guesswork. One might as well say that what Alexia has is too much "soul" herself, more than supernaturals have, so that when she touches a vampire or a werewolf she shares with them enough "soul" to fill out their remnants to the full quantity required for mortality. When she touches a ghost's body, she lends it enough "soul" to move on to whatever awaits it. That would make far more sense. And what's bugging me is that, as with Buffy and the damned humbugging Watchers' Council, I can't tell whether we're supposed to infer this alternative explanation from the gaping holes in the one provided, or whether we're supposed to take the dogma and guesswork at face value despite its staggering inconsistency.
I've just started the fourth book, which has introduced the possibility that Alexia's offsprog is going to be a "soulstealer" or possibly a "skinstalker," and in the previous one we got some handwaviness linking "soul" to "aetheric particles," which went frankly past my ear. So we'll see. And yes, they're just stories and I should get out more and Ed Ceddera, but you know what a bear I am for internal logic.
If that kind of thing doesn't bother you, and you like this kind of story, then I recommend Ms Carriger's work. It's funny and touching and exciting, and there are some eminently murderable stepsisters. Her other series, Finishing School, is also good, and doesn't have any of the "soul" business complicating things. And there are airships. You really can't go wrong with airships.
The heroine of one of the series, Alexia Tarabotti, whom my brain keeps trying to turn into Aphasia Tararaboomdeay, is a "preternatural," who, when she touches a vampire or a werewolf (a "supernatural"), turns them human for the duration of the touch. The explanation for this, in her world's terms, is that she has no "soul" and therefore sucks "soul" out of her victims when she touches them. Presumably when she lets go it springs back like elastic; she doesn't get to keep it, and they return to normal (for them) instantly.
Naturally, Alexia has absorbed all the baggage that comes along with being thought "soulless"; she believes, without question, that she has no creativity, no moral sense, and, unlike ordinary "mortals," will simply snuff out when she dies, with no hope of heaven (or, presumably, fear of hell: that perhaps simply hasn't occurred to her). So she goes through life, thinking herself less than human and trying harder as a consequence, and so far it's quite a nice metaphor for the position of women in a patriarchal society.
But hang on, you may be saying, how come supernaturals have "soul" to suck? Well, apparently people who can become vampires, werewolves, or ghosts (more on them later) can do so because they are born with excess "soul." So, when fatally bitten by a vampire or a werewolf, or when they die violently or unexpectedly, not all their "soul" leaves their body, and what remains animates the corpse and gives it its supernatural abilities. So supernaturals only have a "remnant" of "soul."
Which, you would think, would mean that when that remnant got sucked out they would die, not become mortal. If the presence of soul equates to mortal life, then its absence must mean death. Except of course for Alexia herself, who is definitely alive despite allegedly having a sucking void where her "soul" should be.
Her touch also exorcises ghosts. If she touches their dead bodies, the ghosts disappear. Where do they go? Nobody knows. Nobody knows, because, as is clearly and categorically stated by an American scientist in the very first book, nobody in this world has yet succeeded in measuring, quantifying, or even identifying, what "soul" might be.
In other words, all the aforegoing is pure dogma and guesswork. One might as well say that what Alexia has is too much "soul" herself, more than supernaturals have, so that when she touches a vampire or a werewolf she shares with them enough "soul" to fill out their remnants to the full quantity required for mortality. When she touches a ghost's body, she lends it enough "soul" to move on to whatever awaits it. That would make far more sense. And what's bugging me is that, as with Buffy and the damned humbugging Watchers' Council, I can't tell whether we're supposed to infer this alternative explanation from the gaping holes in the one provided, or whether we're supposed to take the dogma and guesswork at face value despite its staggering inconsistency.
I've just started the fourth book, which has introduced the possibility that Alexia's offsprog is going to be a "soulstealer" or possibly a "skinstalker," and in the previous one we got some handwaviness linking "soul" to "aetheric particles," which went frankly past my ear. So we'll see. And yes, they're just stories and I should get out more and Ed Ceddera, but you know what a bear I am for internal logic.
If that kind of thing doesn't bother you, and you like this kind of story, then I recommend Ms Carriger's work. It's funny and touching and exciting, and there are some eminently murderable stepsisters. Her other series, Finishing School, is also good, and doesn't have any of the "soul" business complicating things. And there are airships. You really can't go wrong with airships.
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Date: 2015-07-26 10:58 am (UTC)As for the "confusing" theoretical explanation, it could be part of the metaphor for women in a patriarchal world. Let's be honest, the main reason why women are (according to the religious) inferior to men is because the deity told a (male) prophet they were (sometimes blaming it on something like the Affair of the Apple). And that's pretty much the total sum the reasons.
Come to that, the imposition of dubious assumptions to define women as somehow inferior, or otherwise blameworthy, is definitely not limited to the religious. According to many (older, thankfully) schools of though in psychology, I am homosexual because of my mother. They are unsure whether it is because she was too passive, too aggressive, too masculine, too feminine, too distant, too clinging, ... You get the picture. As I say, these are older trends, but they are still around.
And psychology is not the only "science" to throw up such ideas, tragically.
And yes, you can go wrong with airships. Ask the crew of the Hindenburg, if you don't believe me.
no subject
Date: 2015-07-27 09:16 am (UTC)As you know, I regard the Apple Affair as a metaphor for the origin of what we call "free will," and therefore as a good thing if anything, though it must have been about as painful in reality as it was in the story, and it's interesting to see how the battle against that concept has continued into the post-religious sphere, from Original Sin through Calvinist determinism into the scientific variety, which has been expressed to me as "we don't actually have free will, but we have to act as if we believe we have." Kind of the worst of both worlds, responsibility without control. I could never get my head round that idea. But something there is in us that definitely does not love free will, or the idea that we do what we do because we are who we are and want what we want.
I hope you enjoy the books as much as I do.
no subject
Date: 2015-07-27 11:02 am (UTC)Chapter 1 says that on the sixth day God made two humans, one male and one female, then (in Chapter 2), after talking about the seventh day, it than starts telling the story of Eden, with Adam being alone in the Garden.
At no subsequent point in the Bible is there any reference to the woman created on the sixth day, nor does it, as far as I can see, explicitly state that Adam was the man created on the sixth day. (Read the article in Wikipedia on Lilith for how the rabbis, and subsequently the Church, explained this inconsistency, if you are unfamiliar with the story. It, as far as I know, sums it up quite well.)
The long and the short of the BIBLICAL account is that "Lilith", whoever she actually was, sinned against God in some unspecified way, and was exiled from Eden for it, and Adam didn't, and wasn't.
So, the thought crosses my mind, why did Adam eat of the apple when, in all probability, he knew what would happen? Though by no means a super educated genius, there is no evidence he was an idiot either. My guess is he did so because he knew it would mean he was exiled with her, and that he chose to do so deliberately.
I assume, rightly or wrongly, that if he did chose to do so, it was to avoid being left alone again, and there is an argument about whether acting out of such a motive is an act of true (as opposed to constrained) free-will, but either way, he chose his exile, chose human companionship (maybe even love?) over obedience to God. (in which case, whose was the greater sin? Eve for allowing herself to be talked into eating the apple, or Adam for rejected God to stay with Eve? Interesting question. Not sure of the answer though. Or the implications.)
I am sure it is an extremely horrendous heresy I have expounded, one so heinous that it is unnamed, less someone might learn of it through following up on what the name meant. At least, according to most Christians (and Jews too, no doubt). :) And one day I will (yeah, right) write it up as a short story (right after the one about Joseph attending the stoning of his mother and the murder of the babies by King Arthur).
Whatever the truth the Apple Affair alludes to, I suspect it was a lot more painful than the story we have implies.
no subject
Date: 2015-07-27 01:58 pm (UTC)"Okay, here's what happened globally. Gods made the light and the earth and the plants and the animals and then men and women, and then they rested.
Now, in local news: our particular god, around this time, created our particular batch of men and women here, and this is how he did it..."
As I say, I have no scholarly basis for this interpretation, and no intention of arguing with several thousand years of rabbinical discussion, but that's how it feels to me as a teller of stories. It knocks Lilith out of the equation a bit, but it explains Cain and Abel finding wives, and the existence of multiple gods (Baal, etc.) is part of later stories. There's a subtle difference (that I don't think is often remarked upon) between "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" and "There are no other gods."
no subject
Date: 2015-07-27 11:04 am (UTC)Outside of the "science" of psychology, as far as I can see, Newtonian physics, which treats the universe as one giant game of billiards, precludes free-will, because the game happens inside our heads as well. ("Any sufficiently intelligent being can determine the whole history of the universe from a single object." No idea who originally said that, but it sums up Newtonian physics neatly.) Our ancestors didn't realise that the brain was a chemical factory and therefore that physics/chemistry (at least partially, and probably totally) determines thought processes. (A philosophy teacher - and newly minted father - I knew once said "How anyone who has shared a house with a pregnant women for nine months can believe that the mind and body are independent of each other is now beyond me.") Of course, quantum mechanics with its (apparently) genuine randomness allows free-will, of a sort, back in. Or so I think, at any rate.
It is obvious, to me, at any rate, that certain things are physically possible but psychologically impossible for me. Habit, personality, beliefs about how I should act towards others (human and otherwise) all constrain my range of choices. As do events, of course. And all the evidence I see is that (almost) everyone else has similar (though wildly differing) limitations of the same sort on their actions.
Interestingly Buddhism, if I understand it correctly, claims that our free-will is constrained by our past (including past lives), though that may be a misunderstanding by one of my sources and/or a belief amongst some (but not all) branches of that faith.
I chose not to believe in absolute free-will, but in constrained free-will.
Or maybe it is predetermined that I will believe in that. :) Either way, I have no way of truly knowing which is true, so I go with the flow.
Damn, this has gone on. And apparently there is a 4300 character limit on the size of replies, so I had to split it into two and did so at the logical place. Sorry 'bout that. Hope it isn't too boring, or offensive to any of your readers religious sensibilities.
no subject
Date: 2015-07-27 02:07 pm (UTC)This to me is howling lunacy. I'd almost rather believe in the fundamentalists' vengeful O.T. God than in that. (I did say almost. I'm not a masochist, or a sadist.) I could not live if I believed that. There would be no point. Either I have free will to choose to act in this universe, or if not then all things are at least happening for a reason and tending towards a goal, or both, but not, never conceivably, neither.
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Date: 2015-07-27 02:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-27 05:51 pm (UTC)I am on (reading not listening to ) the third series. In my opinion Finishing School outdoes Parasol Protectorate, and so far The Custard Protocol is poorer again. Also the kindle version has been appallingly proof-read and copy-edited, possibly not at all. My eye stutters every time I come across "floatillah" for example.
For all that, I have been recommending the books to anyone who fancies a bit of a light and farcical read. I thoroughly enjoyed them, with the reread potential of Finishing School being that bit greater.