>> Another story about Ursula! One of the things I'm asking myself about this series is, "what makes this different from just slapping different names and pronouns on Arthurian stories?" The first answer that came to mind was "pregnancy and childbirth." <<
That is a great question to ask. You're right, the genderswap has a huge impact there, because a bunch of the Arthurian characters have kids, and it's quite different when women do that than when men do it. So that impacts the storylines a lot.
Among the divergence points that caught my eye were character changes, like Morgan not being interested in magic, which throws the magical rivalry to Kate and Falcon. Similarly, the sword Excalibur is a major part of Arthur's character, but here Ursula has the shield Prydwen while Caliburn goes to Sir Gwanwyn.
We should definitely watch for more points of divergence. Of course the politics will be affected, because Uthyr started the ball rolling by attracting women who didn't fit conventional gender roles, and Ursula is going to do more of that. When you have to fight your way through a glass ceiling just to BE a knight, that's going to impact your personality. When men are arguing that you shouldn't be involved in government because you have boobs, that makes it harder to do your job. *chuckle* I suspect somebody at the Round Table is going to solve those problems at swordpoint -- Sir Lillian is a possibility.
>> “Damn it, Mother,” she said, which was an odd thing to say, since their mother was not in their room with them. She looked back down at Ursula. “I knew we shouldn’t have been keeping you so sheltered. But you lay with that boy, didn’t you? The May King?” <<
I love this nod to how keeping young people ignorant does NOT prevent them from humping each other. It just means they don't know how to prevent babies from coming out of that.
>> “My mother will help me,” he said confidently. “Oh, I want a baby so much. Of course I’ll take it. When will it be born?” <<
I think it's adorable that Morgan fell all over himself to take the baby. Teen fathers are so often portrayed as shiftless, I'm delighted to see somebody else writing a responsible one. It makes me like Morgan.
*ponder* And that makes me think of a classic problem in literature, where if you make all the characters too likable, then the audience feels frustrated because they don't know how to root for and hate when anyone loses. But in a shared world, especially with a big cast list like this, I think that might be okay -- because different audience members may decide to root for different characters and drive their stories that way. We've seen a little of this in Torn World, but I think the Ursulan Cycle is really set up well for it.
>> Ursula shook her head again. “Where’s the wet-nurse? Let the wet-nurse have her. I…” She took a deep breath, but Kate could hardly blame her for being scattered. “I don’t want her. She’s not really mine.” <<
This is terrific too. You did a wonderful job conveying the ambiguity and confusion that a teen mother can experience, especially when she plans to give the baby to someone else. I think this makes a great demonstration of Ursula's personality: she is unsettled by what happened, but she's a decisive young woman with sturdy life plans, so she makes a decision and sticks with it. That's not easy but she doesn't dither over it.
I also liked all the little hints about Ursula's real identity and how that subtly impacts her life even before she or most other people know about it.
This is just a fabulous story all around. I've linked it on the series page, and I'll boost signal shortly.
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branchandroot
Wow!
Date: 2014-08-11 08:50 am (UTC)>> Another story about Ursula! One of the things I'm asking myself about this series is, "what makes this different from just slapping different names and pronouns on Arthurian stories?" The first answer that came to mind was "pregnancy and childbirth." <<
That is a great question to ask. You're right, the genderswap has a huge impact there, because a bunch of the Arthurian characters have kids, and it's quite different when women do that than when men do it. So that impacts the storylines a lot.
Among the divergence points that caught my eye were character changes, like Morgan not being interested in magic, which throws the magical rivalry to Kate and Falcon. Similarly, the sword Excalibur is a major part of Arthur's character, but here Ursula has the shield Prydwen while Caliburn goes to Sir Gwanwyn.
We should definitely watch for more points of divergence. Of course the politics will be affected, because Uthyr started the ball rolling by attracting women who didn't fit conventional gender roles, and Ursula is going to do more of that. When you have to fight your way through a glass ceiling just to BE a knight, that's going to impact your personality. When men are arguing that you shouldn't be involved in government because you have boobs, that makes it harder to do your job. *chuckle* I suspect somebody at the Round Table is going to solve those problems at swordpoint -- Sir Lillian is a possibility.
>> “Damn it, Mother,” she said, which was an odd thing to say, since their mother was not in their room with them. She looked back down at Ursula. “I knew we shouldn’t have been keeping you so sheltered. But you lay with that boy, didn’t you? The May King?” <<
I love this nod to how keeping young people ignorant does NOT prevent them from humping each other. It just means they don't know how to prevent babies from coming out of that.
>> “My mother will help me,” he said confidently. “Oh, I want a baby so much. Of course I’ll take it. When will it be born?” <<
I think it's adorable that Morgan fell all over himself to take the baby. Teen fathers are so often portrayed as shiftless, I'm delighted to see somebody else writing a responsible one. It makes me like Morgan.
*ponder* And that makes me think of a classic problem in literature, where if you make all the characters too likable, then the audience feels frustrated because they don't know how to root for and hate when anyone loses. But in a shared world, especially with a big cast list like this, I think that might be okay -- because different audience members may decide to root for different characters and drive their stories that way. We've seen a little of this in Torn World, but I think the Ursulan Cycle is really set up well for it.
>> Ursula shook her head again. “Where’s the wet-nurse? Let the wet-nurse have her. I…” She took a deep breath, but Kate could hardly blame her for being scattered. “I don’t want her. She’s not really mine.” <<
This is terrific too. You did a wonderful job conveying the ambiguity and confusion that a teen mother can experience, especially when she plans to give the baby to someone else. I think this makes a great demonstration of Ursula's personality: she is unsettled by what happened, but she's a decisive young woman with sturdy life plans, so she makes a decision and sticks with it. That's not easy but she doesn't dither over it.
I also liked all the little hints about Ursula's real identity and how that subtly impacts her life even before she or most other people know about it.
This is just a fabulous story all around. I've linked it on the series page, and I'll boost signal shortly.