Dragonsex

[klwilliams]

I spent most of the weekend hanging around the house reading The White Dragon, which I consider the third book of two trilogies, that of Dragonflight/Dragonquest, and that of the Menolly books. F'lar and Lessa have become the oldsters, and Jaxom, Menolly, and Piemur (and Ruth) are the main characters. I like this book quite a bit, though it doesn't speak to me the way it did when I first read it, since I'm now the same age as Lessa, not Jaxom. One thing that I had forgotten was the sub-theme of Ruth's sexual immaturity, and why Jaxom was relieved. Or maybe that just went over my head the first time. I'm charmed by the thought of a roomful of randy dragonriders having their way with each other while blues and browns try to mate with a green. I also suspect there are scores of fanfics titled "Ruth's First 'Flight'".

Comments

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Oh, my! Besides, if Jaxom starts walking on the other side of the street, he won't be fathering any micro-lords. Tch, tch.

And I'd like to know are there any earth species which fly really high to mate and then plummet meanwhiles? It seems like a really unlikely evolutionary gambit.

[larryhammer]

Swallows?

---L.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Truly? Interesting. I did some websearches but only found courtship dance descriptions that involved falling next to each other.

[larryhammer]

Ah, you try to ignore Dragondrums too.

---L.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

Yup. It wasn't too bad, just kind of pedestrian. I liked Piemur quite a bit in the Menolly books, but I, along with Jaxom, found him annoying after that.

[larryhammer]

The annoying thing, though, is that a fair amount of The White Dragon doesn't make sense without it. I was very confused when I first read it without Dragondrums first.

---L.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, I'd read Dragondrums before hand the first time, and could remember enough of it this time so it wasn't a problem.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I like it too-- well, I did when I was younger, anyway-- but even then it annoyed the heck out me that Mirrim was such a bitch. I really liked her in Dragonsong and was thrilled that she impressed a fighting dragon, but I think that was, in retrospect, too much feminism for McCaffrey and her brain overloaded or something, because once Mirrim gets a fighting dragon, she becomes completely hateful and everyone else starts saying "Yeah, she really needs to get laid and then she'll be a good little girl again."

I also recall a bit in some book where the Weyrleader is looking for "boys with homosexual tendencies" to impress green dragons. Uh, so who are the blue and brown dragonriders having sex with, if not the green riders? Since the green dragons are female, does that mean that their riders are all bottoming, and so only the bottoms are actually being gay when everyone is having gay sex? Does being a top mean that it counts as heterosexual even if it's two men? Inquiring minds want to know.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

"Does being a top mean that it counts as heterosexual"

Oh, definitely! It's fairly clear that it's not nearly as perverse to be a gay man if you're never the one who is penetrated. I mean, western-hetero- societally-speaking, here. There are oodles of allegedly scholarly analysis (snort) about this.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I was disappointed with Mirrim, too. I thought it was incredibly cool that she Impressed a dragon, and was hoping that that would start a trend, but apparently not. Also, she was portrayed as a real bitch even after Path flew the first time. Personally, I think that if my first time was going to be with one of my co-workers chosen at random in a room full of men having sex with each other, I'd be in a particularly bad mood, too.

Personally, I think Ruth is gay.

Caesar had sex with a man when he was away with the Legions, and the big complaint in the rumor mill wasn't that he'd had sex with a man but that he'd been the one penetrated, so he was like a woman. I guess it's a terrible thing to be a woman. Funny I hadn't really noticed.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I think all the support staff women end up with dragonrider lovers, if they want them, so it's not all gay sex.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

McCaffrey made a point of this, several times. The Weyr people were much more casual about sex (I guess they'd have to be), and of course F'nor and F'lar were excellent lovers.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Never mind that F'nor nearly raped Brekke the first time. But she changed her mind partway through so that it must be ok.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

That really bothered me, though it's not that much different than what would have happened when her queen flew.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I wish that the stories were of one opinion on this issue. Some of them say that those with the successful dragons get swept up in the moment, blowing all other considerations away, and others say that it's not like that at all. And some say that the unsuccessful dragonriders go find other women, and some seem to imply them, um, helping each other out.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

Though, like in real life, it's probably different for different individuals.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

That would be ok, if it were presented as an individual difference.

I expect what I'm being grumpy about is a changing intepretation by the author over a long period of time, or maybe she just forgot. But I think it's an important part of the human-dragon interface, and she should have kept it in mind better.

[theodosia.livejournal.com]

Damn you! () If you keep this up, I'll have to reread them myself....

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

They're worth rereading!