How the mighty might fall...
Jun. 12th, 2006 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wiseheartBehind the tag, because this is a long and rant-y entry.
As you probably know, I've been labelled by the homophobic prudes of various fandoms (including the Tolkien and the Star Trek ones) as Teh Evil Slasher (TM). For a very long time, I've rejected that title, because I write a great deal of stuff that is not slash, which doesn't even have any sexual content, but it didn't help. Once you are labelled suchly, you can never wash it off.
Today, I admit it freely and am content with it.
Also, having spent almost seven years in the gutter that is the smut fiction of my various fandoms, my squick factor is fairly high. I've come to believe that - by carefully avoiding such genres as RPS, rapefic and kiddie pr0n - within my own parameters nothing can really upset me anymore.
Boy, was I wrong!
I lived happily and safely within said parameters where reading is considered. But then I found Brother Cadfael slash, while googling for some Cadfael fanfic.
Two pieces of fanfic, to be accurate. The first one was actually a beautiful vignette, set shortly after "The Pilgrim of Hate" and describing the hidden attraction between Hugh Beringar and Olivier de Bretagne, of which neither of them speaks and upon which neither of them acts. I was quite pleased with that one, to be honest. It was in-character and it matched the original settings beautifully.
Then I risked a glimpse into the other one. Man, have I regretted it!
It was a poorly written Cadfael/Hugh Beringar piece, I didn't even managed to read it to the end. One of those 'find a nonexistent reason to make two characters who'd never do it have gratuitous, graphic sex. I left the crime scene before they'd actually come to the thrust-and-grunt part.
Now, my true problem isn't even that someone tried their hand on an unlikely pairing again. My problem was that the author, and I'm using the word very loosely, apparently didn't understand a word about what the whole situation in the Cadfael chronicles is about.
There is a man, well over sixty at that time, mind you, who's chosen the cloistered life after forty frigging years in the world, after fifteen years in the Crusade and after at least five women in his life. This man should be so horny, after two decades in the cloister, that he'd need to boink his best friend, just because his superiors were "mean" to him?
Oh, please. If anything at all has been adamantly clear in those twenty-some novels, it is Cadfael's vocation. He's seen everything. He's tried almost everything. He's not easily shaken, and when he is shaken, it isn't because of the acts of his prior against him. That much we could see in "Monk's Hood".
And here we come to the other misinterpretation of the "author" of this story. Prior Robert and Brother Jerome aren't "evil". Sure, they are ambitious, sometimes brick-headed people, but they don't pass their time with trying to destroy their brethren. Sure, Prior Robert wants to become abbot very badly, and they are both concerned about the good reputation of their abbey, and for that, they may be a bit overzealous in pursuing real or imaginary sins, but they aren't mean and aren't evil. And Cadfael knows that and accept them as the fallible men they are. Besides, he has Abbot Radulfus' trust, who wouldn't send him into exile just like that. We were shown Abbot Radulfus as a very shrewd but very just man, whose stern hand actually serves the good of the abbey but who's never cruel.
And now to Hugh Beringar. He's a good friend of Cadfael, and they are close, that's true. And let's just leave out of the equation the fact that Cadfael has practically helped Hugh to marry Aline and that he's the godfather of their son. What they have is mutual respect and appreciation for each other's integrity - but Cadfael is twice Hugh's age, which would count even in our present times, but it certainly counted a great deal more in the 12th century. In their friendship, there is an undertone of a father/son relationship, too, and IMO that alone would keep them to have TEH HOTT BUTTSEX with each other, although the most important factors are Cadfael's vocation and Hugh's love for his wife.
In "An Excellent Mystery" Ellis Peters fleetingly touches the topic of same-gender relationship within the cloister. She shows us one of the brothers, a poor, tormenting man who's taken the vows for the wrong reason, lusting after a young brother. Luckily for them both, it never gets any further, but that's not the point. The point is, that for someone to have such urges - and even act upon them - in the given context (we're in a time when faith was a relatively simple thing and the big heresies haven't reared their head yet) must have been something wrong with the vocation of the monk in question.
Yet Peters never gives us any reason to doubt the firmness of Cadfael's vocation. He hasn't chosen the cloister as his second-best... the choice came to him naturally, after a life lived in full outside of its walls.
Okay, it seems I still can be grossed out by fanfic. Even if it isn't a genre that I won't read on principle.
As you probably know, I've been labelled by the homophobic prudes of various fandoms (including the Tolkien and the Star Trek ones) as Teh Evil Slasher (TM). For a very long time, I've rejected that title, because I write a great deal of stuff that is not slash, which doesn't even have any sexual content, but it didn't help. Once you are labelled suchly, you can never wash it off.
Today, I admit it freely and am content with it.
Also, having spent almost seven years in the gutter that is the smut fiction of my various fandoms, my squick factor is fairly high. I've come to believe that - by carefully avoiding such genres as RPS, rapefic and kiddie pr0n - within my own parameters nothing can really upset me anymore.
Boy, was I wrong!
I lived happily and safely within said parameters where reading is considered. But then I found Brother Cadfael slash, while googling for some Cadfael fanfic.
Two pieces of fanfic, to be accurate. The first one was actually a beautiful vignette, set shortly after "The Pilgrim of Hate" and describing the hidden attraction between Hugh Beringar and Olivier de Bretagne, of which neither of them speaks and upon which neither of them acts. I was quite pleased with that one, to be honest. It was in-character and it matched the original settings beautifully.
Then I risked a glimpse into the other one. Man, have I regretted it!
It was a poorly written Cadfael/Hugh Beringar piece, I didn't even managed to read it to the end. One of those 'find a nonexistent reason to make two characters who'd never do it have gratuitous, graphic sex. I left the crime scene before they'd actually come to the thrust-and-grunt part.
Now, my true problem isn't even that someone tried their hand on an unlikely pairing again. My problem was that the author, and I'm using the word very loosely, apparently didn't understand a word about what the whole situation in the Cadfael chronicles is about.
There is a man, well over sixty at that time, mind you, who's chosen the cloistered life after forty frigging years in the world, after fifteen years in the Crusade and after at least five women in his life. This man should be so horny, after two decades in the cloister, that he'd need to boink his best friend, just because his superiors were "mean" to him?
Oh, please. If anything at all has been adamantly clear in those twenty-some novels, it is Cadfael's vocation. He's seen everything. He's tried almost everything. He's not easily shaken, and when he is shaken, it isn't because of the acts of his prior against him. That much we could see in "Monk's Hood".
And here we come to the other misinterpretation of the "author" of this story. Prior Robert and Brother Jerome aren't "evil". Sure, they are ambitious, sometimes brick-headed people, but they don't pass their time with trying to destroy their brethren. Sure, Prior Robert wants to become abbot very badly, and they are both concerned about the good reputation of their abbey, and for that, they may be a bit overzealous in pursuing real or imaginary sins, but they aren't mean and aren't evil. And Cadfael knows that and accept them as the fallible men they are. Besides, he has Abbot Radulfus' trust, who wouldn't send him into exile just like that. We were shown Abbot Radulfus as a very shrewd but very just man, whose stern hand actually serves the good of the abbey but who's never cruel.
And now to Hugh Beringar. He's a good friend of Cadfael, and they are close, that's true. And let's just leave out of the equation the fact that Cadfael has practically helped Hugh to marry Aline and that he's the godfather of their son. What they have is mutual respect and appreciation for each other's integrity - but Cadfael is twice Hugh's age, which would count even in our present times, but it certainly counted a great deal more in the 12th century. In their friendship, there is an undertone of a father/son relationship, too, and IMO that alone would keep them to have TEH HOTT BUTTSEX with each other, although the most important factors are Cadfael's vocation and Hugh's love for his wife.
In "An Excellent Mystery" Ellis Peters fleetingly touches the topic of same-gender relationship within the cloister. She shows us one of the brothers, a poor, tormenting man who's taken the vows for the wrong reason, lusting after a young brother. Luckily for them both, it never gets any further, but that's not the point. The point is, that for someone to have such urges - and even act upon them - in the given context (we're in a time when faith was a relatively simple thing and the big heresies haven't reared their head yet) must have been something wrong with the vocation of the monk in question.
Yet Peters never gives us any reason to doubt the firmness of Cadfael's vocation. He hasn't chosen the cloister as his second-best... the choice came to him naturally, after a life lived in full outside of its walls.
Okay, it seems I still can be grossed out by fanfic. Even if it isn't a genre that I won't read on principle.
