Book Review: Frostflower and Thorn
Nov. 11th, 2024 04:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerIn my youth I was an avid reader of children’s fantasy, and I fully intended to segue into adult fantasy as I grew older. However, somewhere along the way I stumbled off the path, and every once in a while I stop and wonder why.
Then I read an adult fantasy book and I remember: it’s all the rape.
Now obviously there are contemporary adult fantasies where no one gets raped at all, but still, I’ll pick up a perfectly pleasant-looking book and be reading along happily and then WHAMMO, we’ve hit rapetown.
Case in point: Phyllis Ann Karr’s Frostflower and Thorn
Frostflower and Thorn kicks off with warrior Thorn realizing that she is pregnant and too broke to pay a borter. (Abortionist, presumably.) (Also, all the warriors in this world are female. Why? Because.) Fortunately, she runs into the sorceress Frostflower, who offers to speed the baby’s growth so it will hurry up and be born in a couple of days, if only Thorn will give the child to her. This is the only way that sorceri can have children, as they lose their powers if they have potentially generative sex.
This is the moment when I should have gone “Ah, we’re going to have a rape.” Reader, I did not make the obvious inference that this piece of worldbuilding suggests.
Sorceri have terrible reputations, but Thorn wants to get over being pregnant pronto, so she agrees. Frostflower magics the baby out, they are on their way to the sorceri’s hideout, when they run into some farmer-priests who assume that Frostflower stole the baby.
And she can’t tell them she magicked it out, because if she does, they’ll kill it for being an unnatural baby.
So of course they decide that it is their duty to get the baby back, which of course means that they have to strip Frostflower of her powers, which involves kidnapping some luckless merchant and forcing him to force himself upon her while he begs her not to steal fifty years of his life because he would really rather not be doing this, actually! Literally being forced to it at swordpoint! So actually he’s being raped too which is quite impressive.
Anyway later on it turns out that actually being raped does NOT rob you of your powers, at which point Frostflower loses faith in her entire belief system because if that’s not true, then what else have they been lying about? Which actually I thought was a nice touch.
But also just why. Why is fantasy like this?
On a different note, I remember that someone (troisoiseaux?) mentioned that one of Karr’s other books has a big theme about forgiveness, and that is definitely something that shows up here. Frostflower also is forgiving people right and left, and I felt like, you know, it’s nice not to have to carry the anger around I guess, but also maybe occasionally it’s fine to stay mad for a bit?
Then I read an adult fantasy book and I remember: it’s all the rape.
Now obviously there are contemporary adult fantasies where no one gets raped at all, but still, I’ll pick up a perfectly pleasant-looking book and be reading along happily and then WHAMMO, we’ve hit rapetown.
Case in point: Phyllis Ann Karr’s Frostflower and Thorn
Frostflower and Thorn kicks off with warrior Thorn realizing that she is pregnant and too broke to pay a borter. (Abortionist, presumably.) (Also, all the warriors in this world are female. Why? Because.) Fortunately, she runs into the sorceress Frostflower, who offers to speed the baby’s growth so it will hurry up and be born in a couple of days, if only Thorn will give the child to her. This is the only way that sorceri can have children, as they lose their powers if they have potentially generative sex.
This is the moment when I should have gone “Ah, we’re going to have a rape.” Reader, I did not make the obvious inference that this piece of worldbuilding suggests.
Sorceri have terrible reputations, but Thorn wants to get over being pregnant pronto, so she agrees. Frostflower magics the baby out, they are on their way to the sorceri’s hideout, when they run into some farmer-priests who assume that Frostflower stole the baby.
And she can’t tell them she magicked it out, because if she does, they’ll kill it for being an unnatural baby.
So of course they decide that it is their duty to get the baby back, which of course means that they have to strip Frostflower of her powers, which involves kidnapping some luckless merchant and forcing him to force himself upon her while he begs her not to steal fifty years of his life because he would really rather not be doing this, actually! Literally being forced to it at swordpoint! So actually he’s being raped too which is quite impressive.
Anyway later on it turns out that actually being raped does NOT rob you of your powers, at which point Frostflower loses faith in her entire belief system because if that’s not true, then what else have they been lying about? Which actually I thought was a nice touch.
But also just why. Why is fantasy like this?
On a different note, I remember that someone (
troisoiseaux?) mentioned that one of Karr’s other books has a big theme about forgiveness, and that is definitely something that shows up here. Frostflower also is forgiving people right and left, and I felt like, you know, it’s nice not to have to carry the anger around I guess, but also maybe occasionally it’s fine to stay mad for a bit?
