Questions for Volume V: A Game of You
****Here are questions and topics to keep in mind before reading Vol. V: A Game of You. No spoilers please! And keep this to questions/topics to consider, not discussion or reflection. That will begin on March 22nd.***
I have a lot of questions about this volume, it's good, but it's also problematic in a lot of ways -- gender, race, class, religion, sex, identity, theft, and extremely graphic horror -- there's nothing Gaiman doesn't wade right into in this book. I'm looking forward to the discussion but I also feel like we're in the wildlands here. Probably exactly where Gaiman would want us.
One thing I'm thinking about -- without going ito details, this book has individual characters who represent significant and oppressed minorities. They're the opposite of privileged. And Gaiman is not always kind to them. So -- what is an author's obligation when writing a character who in some ways cannot help signifying a larger group of people? How do you balance the need to be responsible for a character's context -- for the fact that when you write a minority they inevitably represent more than just themselves -- how do you balance that with the need to create an individual character who has individual experiences?
It's robbing a character to make them a symbol of an entire people. But it's also not right to take them entirely out of the context of the way they are represented in story. I think Gaiman does an amazing job of making me think about this and gives me very few answers.
That's what I wrestle with in this book.
I have a lot of questions about this volume, it's good, but it's also problematic in a lot of ways -- gender, race, class, religion, sex, identity, theft, and extremely graphic horror -- there's nothing Gaiman doesn't wade right into in this book. I'm looking forward to the discussion but I also feel like we're in the wildlands here. Probably exactly where Gaiman would want us.
One thing I'm thinking about -- without going ito details, this book has individual characters who represent significant and oppressed minorities. They're the opposite of privileged. And Gaiman is not always kind to them. So -- what is an author's obligation when writing a character who in some ways cannot help signifying a larger group of people? How do you balance the need to be responsible for a character's context -- for the fact that when you write a minority they inevitably represent more than just themselves -- how do you balance that with the need to create an individual character who has individual experiences?
It's robbing a character to make them a symbol of an entire people. But it's also not right to take them entirely out of the context of the way they are represented in story. I think Gaiman does an amazing job of making me think about this and gives me very few answers.
That's what I wrestle with in this book.
Comments
Jon.
(Not white-texting spoilers, since I'm posting this after the discussion on the volume has already started.) Barbie’s rich dreamworld is largely informed by
her childhood toy and make-believe. Yet, she is their princess, and seems to
owe them her presence and guidance in the story. If authors have
responsibilities to their characters, what of the characters and stories we
create as children? Do we owe those characters, so often incarnated in our
toys, anything? Most of us seem to hang on to a few of our most cherished toys
long into adulthood. Do we feel responsible for them? For what we’ve done to
them?