celestialchild

bad-direwolf-in-the-black-tower:

I don’t know if any other WoT fans who also happen to watch TVD have noticed this but, the way Caroline and Bonnie (well not Bonnie too much anymore) treat Damon is kinda like how Egwene, Elayne, and Nynaeve treat Mat. Caroline has every reason to hate Damon due to how he treated her when she was human, but Egwene, Elayne, and Nynaeve don’t have any reason to hate Mat. He’s never harmed them in any way. Why do they treat him that way, just ‘cause he’s a goofball with what they would consider questionable morals (what with the gambling, and drinking, and chasing girls) Cause they don’t treat Perrin and Rand like that. I just re-read the part when Mat is explaining to Elayne that he’s been basically been getting raped by Tylin, and she laughs it off like it’s some big joke. something about “getting a taste of his own medicine”. Okay, now I know you don’t approve of Mat’s womanizing Elayne, but that should not be okay in any situation. You wouldn’t be laughing it off if it had happened to Rand. I know it majorly has to do with Mat’s personality, but still.

I’m not caught up on TVD, but everything I’ve seen - the treatment Damon receives from Bonnie and Caroline is a consequence of his behavior towards them and their loved ones throughout the series. It is absolutely sensible.

What goes on with Mat is not. Frankly, I’ve always just chalked it up to poor writing on Jordan’s part. He created some really amazing female characters, and sends them on more than a few awesome adventures the likes of which most women in fantasy never see, but whenever he has men and women interacting he reduces all the women to OOC idiots based on some notion of pseudo-biology that apparently controls the way women interact with men. It made no sense whatsoever that they were snootish and horrible to Mat back when he first rescued them in Tear - pride be damned, he is their friend, and he came to them in a time of crisis, and it was completely unbelievable that each of them, without exception, acted the way they did, just because they are “women being women”.

There were so many other unbelievable instances, that by the time we got to Elayne laughing off the fact that Mat was being raped, I interpreted it to mean that Jordan had bought in to rape culture and the myth that men can’t be raped. Say what you will about flawed heroes, no hero of any book should be laughing about rape. Not to mention Tuon calling Mat “Toy”.

So basically even though it’s canon, it’s really bad Canon that doesn’t make sense in the context of the story, or in the context of the female characters who are supposed to be such good friends and heroes. I try to pretend that senseless BS never happened, wherever possible. If he really wanted me to treat it as canon, he should have done a better job convincing me they would act that way.