In which I briefly voice very unpopular opinions, and then hope people stay to read the last bits

[meganbmoore]

I do not like Rochester.

Or Heathcliff.

Or Lovelace.

Lets see...wannabe bigamist who keeps his wife locked in the attic.  Man who gets so pissy about getting dumped that he devotes his life to destroying her family.  Man so bent on conquering a woman that when he can't, he sets out to destroy her, eventually raping her so he can "win."

I get the interest in the character, and the less evil/bastardy character types they spawned, but the adoration for the characters themselves, and wanting the women who should just run while the running's good to end up with them, weirds me out.

And now that that's off my chest...

I have Girl Scout cookies.  At some point today, I shall let you know if the new low-calorie Cinna Spin things are any good.

I also picked up an interesting looking manga called Purgatory Kabuki.  There is no proper descriptiob of it on the back, but flipping through it and reading the translation notes, it seems to be based on the legend of Benkei and the Gojou Bridge, only set in the underworld where the swods have spirits.  (Benkei was a warrior monk who posted himself at the Gojou Bridge in Kyoto and challenged every swordsman who passed and took their swords.  He had collected 999 swords when some punk named Minamoto no Yoshitsune came along and beat him.  So he became Yoshitsune's righthand man.)  The art kinda makes me think of Mononoke if it as designed by Amano.  Looking at the inside, though, I can't help but think someone was a little too fond of the shading tool.  I may read it after I read everything else I brought.

In other queries...has anyone read Jennifer Roberson's Tiger and Del books?  I keep seeing them around, but can't remember anyone ever mentioning them.

I will now read volume 2 of Hikkatsu! Strike a Blow to Vivify.  For anyone who has forgotten, it features a girl who was raised by pigeons who falls in love with an emotastic boy who lived in a Snowy Cabin of Emo Solitude atop Mt. Fuji...before he blew it up.  They now travel the world together, bsttling evil appliances as he struggles to perfect the appliance repairing One Shot No Fail Repair Blow.

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...yeah, I think the fact that they're viewed as romantic characters by the readers is a lot of my problem. Liking a less bastardly version of the character who isn't effectively centered around destroying women in one way or another? I'm good with that. I LIKE the character types they've spawned. But the actual characters, and wanting any woman to end up with them, gives me the squick.

Which is why I will never be able to accept the end of Jane Eyre...

[madame-manga.livejournal.com]

Interesting! I see that almost the other way around: that Rochester ought to stay where he was put, and ESPECIALLY Heathcliff. :D They have their natural environments and their natural partners; Jane's got the ascendancy handed to her at the end of her book and I'm not worried about her. It's when those characters' edges are smoothed over so that their inhumane elements are better disguised that I get squicky. :D