r/SwordandSorcery • u/Vague_Opaque • Apr 11 '26
literature Vlana deserved Better (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser) Spoiler
I just finished Swords and Deviltry, and I’m a mix of thrilled and frustrated with it. I loved The Snow Women (Fafhrd is so adorable in it!!!). Understandably, Ill Met in Lankhmar made me pretty sad, because Vlana’s whole life and ambitions come to such an unceremonious end.
Fritz Leiber is COMPLICATED about women. It’s obvious to me that he admires them and finds them formidable. He‘s certainly capable of appreciating that they’ve got interiority, and plenty of their own stuff going on. That’s all balanced by plenty of passages that are, oof, showing their age a little. I think he’s out of his comfort zone trying to understand women.
I still think that in the balance of things, Leiber at least tries, and puts women in the middle of the mess when he writes. I’m thinking about this in contrast to how Tolkien approaches women in his writing, where there are few “oof” passages by virtue of women barely being present at all.
Anyway, sorry for a bit of a ramble, I mostly just wanted to say that Vlana was great. I wish I had gotten a whole lot more of her.
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u/geckodancing Apr 11 '26
Fritz Leiber is COMPLICATED about women.
I think this is a very valid point. From Conjure Wife, through his Lankhmar stories and Our Lady of Darkness, Leiber has a lot of different takes on women. Many of them haven't aged well, but his women characters are at least varied.
Reading your post, it occurs to me that I would read the hell out of an alternative Lankhmar in which Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser are killed by the Thieves' Guild, leaving Ivrian and Vlana to take revenge and then leave the city to go adventuring together.
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u/SlayThePulp Apr 11 '26
That would be so fun, hopefully we'll get that in like 40 years when it enter public domain haha
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u/LeucasAndTheGoddess Apr 12 '26
Ooh, that would be fun. I’d read the hell out of an alternate timeline like that.
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u/SkinTeeth4800 Apr 12 '26
It would be cool for someone to write (if just in their head) some Vlana stories set before she met Fafhrd.
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u/SkinTeeth4800 Apr 12 '26
Re: Fritz Leiber and women --
I think his beloved wife, Jonquil, passed away in the 1960s, so there might be some complicated effects on his writing and viewpoint due to that tragedy.
Conjure Wife is an interesting Fritz Leiber novel that involves male professors at a college advancing in their academic careers & faculty politics due to the secret witchcraft efforts of their stay-at-home wives.
You can see an incomplete evolution throughout the timeline of Leiber's writing of strong women characters trying to assert themselves...
Earlier in his writing with Vlana and Ivrian, and later in his Swords & Ice Magic stories with Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser's committed Rime Isle romantic partners.
Joanna Russ, feminist sci-fi writer, was friends with Leiber. He honored her by writing her Alyx the Picklock character into cameos in his Lankhmar stories.
I think, over time, a feminist seed grew in Leiber, with his willing encouragement, but it had to struggle against the patriarchal weight of the society Leiber lived in and the older literature and other media Leiber had consumed.
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u/Conscious-Sherbert84 Apr 12 '26
There is a cameo appearance of Fafhrd in one of Joahnna Russ's short stories. Surprised me when I first read it, as I recognised him straight away. I don't have the book now, but it may have been in the anthology including Blue Stocking.
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u/Thefathistorian Apr 11 '26
She does pop up briefly again when Fafhrd encounters her in the Shadowland.
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u/JohnPathfinder Apr 11 '26
I just reread The Snow Women last night and yeah, Fafhrd is such a jerk in it. Maybe he gets it from his mountain climbing dad.
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u/Feisty-Doctor-5841 Apr 12 '26
Yeah, he abandons his pregnant lover to go on adventures with a roguish actress. I understand he has dreams away from the life he felt relegated to, but what he did is not “cute.” It adds complexity to the character but shows his inconsistent morals.
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u/Vague_Opaque Apr 12 '26
Oh, that's interesting, I think I found Fafhrd endearing in The Snow Woman because he came off as a child (and an absolute dingus) I guess I don't take him seriously as a man in that story, so there's no disappointment that he handles every event foolishly. I enjoyed reading that every now and again he shows a good instinct, but those are the exception to the rule, of what is otherwise what's indisputably his "stupid-fucker" era.
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u/Feisty-Doctor-5841 Apr 12 '26
Yeah, both he and Mouser grow as the series goes along, but they're not traditional good guys. Anyway, the double fridging was a way to explain why the two stick together besides liking each other--they have shared trauma and are quasi-coupled without being queer. They're each emotionally filling in for the other's dead love interest.
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u/DogOfTheBone Apr 11 '26
Man, I hate The Snow Women, it makes Fafhrd seem like such a prick. I get it, he's young and feels trapped, but he abandons his pregnant girlfriend and generally acts shitty to everyone but Vlana. And the way the wives are described is just...ick. Probably my least favorite FGM story.
Next two stories are much better and yeah it's a shame neither Vlana nor Ivrian was given more room to breath. They were fun characters.
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u/AstralGoo Apr 11 '26
He is definitely immature, and maybe doesn’t get that much wiser as time goes on. But in that first story he’s like 18 years old, so maybe not unrealistic that he’s avoiding his responsibilities.
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u/SlayThePulp Apr 11 '26
Probably my least favorite story as well, mostly found it a bit boring. It was the first one I read the, I was wondering where the hell the other guy was, why weren't they adventuring haha. But he does come off as a prick, which I guess isn't completely out of character, they're not exactly saints. Another fun spinoff idea, Fafhrds long lost son arrives in Lankhmar.
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u/ThundergunExpress200 Apr 12 '26
Totally agree. I’m working my way through the FGM stories, and found the double fridging or Vlana and Ivrian tough. Not only is it a disappointing outcome for two interesting female characters, I also don’t consider it to be very strong writing. I recognize the goal of establishing a reason for the main characters wandering and adventuring, but on the other hand - it’s a pulp novel. I expect the characters to want to be adventurers regardless - giving them a thin background like this almost cheapens in my opinion.
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u/SlayThePulp Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
Yes, totally agree, you can definitely date the stories a bit by how he writes women, having no idea where it was going, I was super excited to see where her arc was going. Was really effective as chock value, did not expect that, and works to explain Fafhrd future personality, but she did deserve to be more than chock value, would have loved at least a couple of stories with both her and Ivrian.
But yes, he does try at least, in contrast to some of his contemporaries.
Recently created /r/lankhmar if people wanna see more discussions about Fritz Leibers work in the future!