EP383: The First Book of Flaccid Swords

[matweller]

QFT:

I'm a bit confused about everyone worrying about the female victim trope here.  As has been pointed out (sometimes by the same people complaining about the victimization of the woman) it is obviously meant satirically.  She complains about it in-story and she is the one that really solves the problem.  She strikes me as an empowered female character, and not in the condescending way where all women must suddenly be badass in order to overcorrect for centuries of damsels in distress.  He has dreams where she is tied up and helpless and she has a problem with this, I'm not sure how that is remotely sexist.

I quite liked this story.  I loved the narration, and yeah I listened to it with my girlfriend who thought it was hilarious.

Exactly. If anything, the trope here is the "dude too stupid to realize how well his wife manipulates him." I have more right to be offended than anyone else...

[FireTurtle]

To clarify my own point from earlier- I GET that is was satire of the bound/rescued female trope. My reaction to that particular trope is just so reflexively negative -that even though it was poking fun- I couldn't help but have that instinctual "ick" at the first mention of a bound and nearly naked woman. That's the risk with playing tropes, some people are just sick of them, period. I'm pretty sure there's quite a few slush readers out there now that don't even want to hear the word "zombie" even if its a funny zombie.

And honestly, if that's the best this main character can come up with to help his marriage, I'm really not gonna cry a river of pity for him.

[Leslianne]

Remember, ladies, the key to a happy relationship is to repeatedly lie to your partner by pretending to be helpless, because his fragile masculine ego cannot handle anything less. Lie to him about your competence as often as necessary, just whenever he looks like he's feeling down: for example find a pickle jar and pretend you can't open it. And remember, guys, nothing makes a woman feel appreciated like knowing how great you think she looks as she's bound naked to an altar being savaged by tentacles.

There's nothing technically wrong with the story, but I wish the author had spent a little more time developing the couple as individual people who had their problems and particular fantasies for reasons- even if nothing else about them changes. Otherwise it feels to me like it's pointing to some kind of universal norm that's so far from my own experience it's hard to enjoy the story.

[Umbrageofsnow]

There's nothing technically wrong with the story, but I wish the author had spent a little more time developing the couple as individual people who had their problems and particular fantasies for reasons- even if nothing else about them changes. Otherwise it feels to me like it's pointing to some kind of universal norm that's so far from my own experience it's hard to enjoy the story.

Fair enough, but why make the first half of your post a ridiculous straw-man argument instead of just saying this?  While I am responding to this, I'm realizing I basically agree with you, although I got more character development out of the couple than you did, I'm guessing it might have been better received with even more, but the whole reason I started typing this is you had me so flipping angry at the dismissive strawman part of your post.

I've not typed my response to that upon realizing you had interesting things to say about the story, but why so confrontational?

[Leslianne]

I do get grouchy because I see advice very much like that given seriously and it bugs me, and to the extent that the story relies on a similar received wisdom, the story bugs me as well. It's not really the story's fault per se, but I ended the episode pretty unhappy (apologies to Mr. Cowan).

[hardware]

Ha, I'm with Leslianne here, although the author tries to poke fun of the sexual stereotypes he ends up with confirming and even celebrating them. Not cool.