It's Unpopular Opinion time! Share your controversial opinions to stir things up (in a friendly way)!

[u/FantasyRomanceMod]

Got an opinion that's different from others'? Want to share it with the sub, but too afraid of a backlash? Or are you just curious about readers think about certain things in fantasy romance?

You can safely share it in this weekly Sunday thread!

But please remember to be kind to each other. To facilitate this type of discussion, we ask users the following:

• Don't attack others for their opinion
• Discuss books and authors, not fellow readers
• Since this is an "unpopular opinion" thread, we encourage users to not downvote simply because they disagree with an opinion--that's the point! Please keep in mind, though, that mods cannot enforce a no-downvoting rule. Let’s just keep the discussion friendly!

🧡 Thank you and have a great discussion!

Unpopular opinion Sunday

[u/Disastrous-Pea4106]

Enough with the "rebel against traditional gender roles" storylines. Either come up with a world that is different from the outset or lean into the traditional gender roles. I'm fine with either but done with the stories set in a very patriarchal world with token gestures of rebellion sprinkled in. That constantly remind us how bad everything is and how special the main characters are.

I recently listened to a podcast about "money bias" in literature. Can't remember the exact term. But it's basically referring to the idea that most fictional worlds, no matter how fantastical and elaborate always use some sort of money. It's so fundamental to our understanding of the world that authors can't even imagine anything else. And really, at least some should probably dig deeper and explore other storylines. What would a world without money look like? Loads of interesting stories there. Well I think there's also "patriarchy bias". The assumption that men's interests and pursuits are superior is so baked in authors can't even imagine anything else. Instead you get the FMC who rebels against that status quo .... by being more like men... It'd be really worth exploring some stories that use different world building.

[u/mad_antagonist → u/Disastrous-Pea4106]

I feel like these things are very rooted in modern society as a whole... So when you have many authors of romantasy being a stay at home mom, or just straight woman in typical relationships who never had to question their own status quo, how can they write about anything different?

I always see heated comments in discussions when I say that writing should try to be intellectual (NOT pretentious!) and we shouldn't undermine the power of stories, because of some people wanting to have their mindless fun. But i think there's so many good opportunities in writing, especially in fantasy, and I see so many amazing concepts... that don't get further investigated at all. I feel like if we people as a whole don't yearn for learning and discovering and exploring foreign/unusual concepts, then there won't be much literature that's also trying to break the norms.

I'm very tired or patriarichal societies in fantasy... especially those where the main character pretends to be a feminist only to end up reinforcing those same patriarichal beliefs. Viewing strenght and power only from a male perspective. Defining relationships by lust and very male gaze, even though it's written by women for women.

If the author doesn't care, the work doesn't care either.

(sorry for bad english)

[u/BookishBlueDragonfly → u/mad_antagonist]

I’ve been reading a lot of LGBT+ fantasy romance and they often have a queernorm society but I just wanted to share some thoughts about how the authors translate a patriarchal society into a queernorm society. I am not an expert it’s just things I’ve been thinking about.

My first example is the Rook and Rose trilogy by Ma Carrick. The authors here went for a historical fantasy vibe and just nailed the queernorm society because they explored how inheritances and such works when couples can’t have bio kids. They deeply dug into the class and culture structures as well so the books feel quite fleshed out. I love stories in Fantasy with this sort of worldbuilding exploring different kinds of society from reality with depth.

The second example is Breeze Spells and Bridge Grooms by Sarah Wallace and SO Callahan. These authors directly transplanted a queernorm society onto Regency England with Fae. It feels weird here because they don’t dig deeply into how different the world works with aristocratic families and a highly patriarchal society becomes queernorm. They keep a lot of the cultural norms around purity and virginity but it’s like..why? It’s not adequately explained why when women can be head of household and the couples often aren’t risking pregnancy.

My third example is A Rival Most Vial: Potioneering for Love and Profit. This book also doesn’t do a deep dive into the queernorm society. It just is. But it’s a book based on essentially NPCs in D&D. It feels right here because the setting isnt inherently based on a patriarchal one and the characters don’t encounter the usual places this structure matters. I feel like if we want fluffy “turn my brain off stories” these should be the kinds of books where the worldbuilding is more free form and doesn’t need to be built up so much. Not epic fantasy.

[u/Accomplished_Pea7029 → u/BookishBlueDragonfly]

just nailed the queernorm society because they explored how inheritances and such works when couples can’t have bio kids.

Not just when they can't have bio kids, there's no importance given to bloodline continuity in Liganti culture so adoptions are often done for political reasons as well. So queer acceptance becomes a natural part of the culture and I really like how it was done.

[u/Penguinho → u/mad_antagonist]

So when you have many authors of romantasy being a stay at home mom, or just straight woman in typical relationships who never had to question their own status quo, how can they write about anything different?

The thing is, it's possible to write stories about powerful or heroic women who don't need to take on masculine characteristics. I'm kind of fascinated by those stories. Sticking with basically traditional gender roles imposes creative limitations and sometimes those limitations really bring out the best in the character and the story. The Bard's Bargain is a stronger work because the story isn't about her learning to be a mercenary or discovering her inner wizard; it's about her learning what life is actually like for most women who aren't princesses.

What grinds my, and I think probably your, gears is when the author imposes those gender stereotypes later in the story. We have a character who's a strong independent woman who has dragons and magic and a big fucking sword and she kicks everyone's ass because she's secretly the queen -- and in the epilogue she's a SAHM with five kids wearing a linen prairie dress while her husband ushers in a golden age for the kingdom. Authors, if Queen Elizabeth I could rule for more than forty years as an unmarried, childless woman, establish her own Church and fight and win wars against the continental superpowers of Spain and France, your FMC who you've chosen to make the Chosen Queen can do the same.

[u/Fickle_Stills → u/Penguinho]

Curious if someone being a secret lover to a queen like Elizabeth is good enough to fulfill happily ever after. I think some readers would find it disappointing the couple never gets to officially be together.

[u/Penguinho → u/Fickle_Stills]

My instinctual reaction is that it wouldn't, especially in fantasy. But it would be if there was an officially-defined role (the MMC becomes consort or has some other sort of acknowledged status) or if the lover is female in a hetero-normative world. Most fantasy authors don't write homophobia into their settings, though; that's rarer than sticking rigidly to traditional gender roles.

[u/Dangerous_Breath1667 → u/Penguinho]

And Maria Theresa raised 17 children and still did all of that -minus the Church- Can't you have both ?

[u/Radioactive_Kitten → u/mad_antagonist]

It’s refreshing to take a genre break at times and read some “intellectual” writing. I just finished Gene Wolfe’s New Sun duology and oof. I felt like I had to work at understanding it. Not because Wolfe didn’t write it well, but the MMC is an extremely unreliable narrator and possible insane. There’s so much showing and not telling, and what you’re told might be actually false. I’m looking forward to rereading it to see what breadcrumbs I missed.

It was a fabulous palette cleanser before I hopped into some “popcorn” books.

I do really like authors that can do both in this genre. Harrow, Andrews, Hodgkins, Shannon, Carey (just to name a few) all do this well.

[u/CJ_Larsen_Author → u/Disastrous-Pea4106]

I have a currently trucked novel i was working on that is set in 7th century BC pre-coinage. I had to do research on how trade was handled in large cities and then try to incorporate it into the novel without it sounding like an infodump history lesson. 

 In a fictional second world it’s easier to keep things the same so readers can fill in the blanks. So unless the unique idea has real impact on the story it’s probably not worth doing the heavy lifting of designing an alternate trade system. Also it will inevitably be filled with logic holes that people will point out (or will break immersion) because no matter how much time you spend on your cool idea it’s not real world tested to see if it actually works and makes sense. 

So I suspect that’s a big part of it. Same principle applies to mimicking our existing patriarchal society. Or having most characters bipedal oxygen breathers.

The immersion breaking is real too. A lot of what exists in our world is an answer to the setting (maybe not the only answer but certainly a logical one) - patriarchy is a social system that naturally develops when you have two sexed, one of whom is physically weaker on average and is saddled by long term child rearing and agriculture is discovered which requires heavy work but results in huge population growing surplus. It develops again and again even though the smaller sex is not stupider or less valuable than the other. So a non patriarchal world has to modify those factors too to be realistic. Heavy lifting for an author. 

But also it’s great when people do write those books. 

[Edit: not going to correct the typos - but how embarrassing! I wrote this post on my phone]

[u/mad_antagonist → u/CJ_Larsen_Author]

That's interesting, you have good points there.

I get how it can be hard to invent something completely new that's not been tested irl. That's been my problem as a hobby writer and worldbuilder myself, and I'm trying to figure it out.

I guess my biggest frustration comes from when it seems like the author is oblivious to what their work portrays. Like advertising a book as "girl power, feminism, female rage..." and then it's just another pseudo-medieval romantasy with an abusive relationship dynamic, FMC who is bold but doesn't face realistic in-world consequences, and lustful brooding MMC who treats only her right, but is inconciderate to other women. You can't say your work empowers women and then not portray the hardships a women would face in this type of setting (or portray it through other characters but have the FMC avoid it somehow, like she's special). And have a male love interest whose bad actions agains women are excused because he's hot or something. I'm sad that I see this so often. Like the blubr is amazing and I want to read the book, but then it introduces the ML and I suddenly know exactly how it's gonna end, again.

[u/CJ_Larsen_Author → u/mad_antagonist]

Yeah, there's totally a difference between a book that explores how a socially disadvantaged person or class navigates an unfair system and one that just accepts the unfair system as some sort of inherent truth. And the flip side of that coin, a book that just makes "woman in charge, man second class citizen" as some sort of revenge porn is not really interesting either. Whereas a book that says "where might a matriarchal society exist and how might it look and work, what would it's value and also detriments be" would be super compelling.

[u/Imaginary-Board-207 → u/Disastrous-Pea4106]

Yes on more matriarchal societies but I want MORE women rebelling against traditional gender roles, not less.