SGA: Legacy Book Series - metapost "No Damsels"

[tielan]

So, jo_graham has put up another set of character thoughts up for the SGA Legacy book series - this time about John.

I recommend reading it, even if you don't plan to read the books. It's just such a complex character profile of John, an indication of how much care Jo, Melissa, and Amy have taken with these characters and how their story arcs work, the things they face, the parts that make up the whole.

The previous character studies are Radek, Teyla, Todd, and Sam (who seems to have very few supporters in SGA fandom, which is a real pity, because she has some really good storylines in Legacy - as a big Sam-fan, I'm really happy with where the storyline takes her and with the stuff that Jo discusses in the post: her vocation and her choices).

One thing that really hit me while I was reading the drafts of these novels was just how feminist the Legacy series is. How they showcase female strength, power, and choice. Yes, the guys are part and parcel of the action, but the female characters have agency and purpose as well. They cause the action to happen just as much as the men, they take action to interrupt and shape events as the male characters usually do in the show, they move and shake and take control and use hard and soft power in differing measures.

In the Legacy series, Teyla and Sam and Jennifer Keller, Laura Cadman, Eva Robinson (OFC), Miko - and even Elizabeth where she appears - are not damsels. In all the books I've read so far (up through Avengers), they're never damsels - even when injured, hurt, exhausted, or without exits. No damsels in these novels. At all. They're the princesses throwing out the golden apples, and the warrior-queens swinging their swords into battle; they're the women wielding scythes when the raiders come for their farms and families, the quiet ones with a bite worse than their bark when provoked; they're the ones learning who they are, who they could be, who they should be.

Even the primary antagonist of the series - a Wraith Queen who calls herself 'Death' (a kind of Boudicca legend of the Wraith) - commands her males, makes decisions, shows daring and cunning and intelligence. She's not just the "magical women are evil" bitch of the series but a terrifying and terrible opponent.

And yes, the men have their day, of course. But the women are given the opportunities to shine and they take them and it's a thing of great beauty to see.

I'm sure this won't appeal to some readers: the folks who think that women should be seen but not heard - on TV and in fanfic and in stories.

But I know a bunch of people off my f-list who will love this series if they only give it a chance.

Incidentally: Death Game by Jo Graham is out sometime in the next couple of weeks. I can't remember if I've got it pre-ordered on Amazon. The ridiculous thing with me and Amazon is that I usually end up paying $50 in books and $95 in postage. Which is just sad and painful on top of 'expensive' and 'almost more trouble than it's worth'. Unfortunately, it's really the only way I'm going to get a whole lot of these books since they're only sold at Galaxy bookshop in the city...

*grumps at ridiculous postage prices from the US*

Comments

[ladyjax]

Would it help if someone on this end bought the books here then sent them on to you? I'd be willing to help with that effort because, dude, that's way too much money to be spending.

[chalcopyrite]

Have you tried Book Depository? They don't charge for shipping. To anywhere.

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781905586479/Stargate-Atlantis-Death-Game

(dropped in via network, hi)

[tielan]

*waves*

Always good to see network surfers! :D

And no, I hadn't tried it, but I shall in future!

[tielan]

If you're willing, I'd definitely accept! (I might see how much the BookRepository site below charges for its books and how it feels about the kinds of book orders I put through!

It does become a little clearer as to why books in Australia are in the $15-20 range, even for paperbacks...

[ladyjax]

Sure, let's see what we can work out.

Also, definitely check out Book Depository. They don't have everything and shipping can be a hot minute but hey, when the book you want is $5.00 and the shipping is free? You can't beat that.

[sholio]

I must admit that the John meta (I read it a couple days ago) kinda broke my wee fan-heart, especially "John has nothing, no family, no kin". *wibbles* "The team is not nothing!" I wanted to say. "John does have a family! The team is his family!"

... but once I had time to think about it and look at it from a less fannishly partisan perspective, she's absolutely right - the show left him bereft of any of the usual trappings of family and future: a spouse and kids, brothers and sisters (that he's not estranged from, anyway), parents. As a fan, I like to romanticize John's "surrogate family", but substitute family is not the same as real family (and IIRC it's pure fanon, anyway, that John thinks of the team as family at all). It's hard for me to bring myself to agree that John is just as alone at the end of five years on Atlantis as he was at the beginning, but I think I can come around on it, because she does make good and convincing points; it's just not what I, as a fan, really wanted to hear ... (Sometimes I think I'm much happier not knowing the Word of God on this stuff, rather than being able to read my own interpretation into the books. Having read the author's thoughts on John + team, I'm realizing now just how much I'd been viewing Legacy through my own fannish lens. Literary interpretation: I fail it! *g*)

Female characters - yes! :D And yay! I'm with you on wishing that SGA fandom wasn't so hard on Sam - I know at least one fan who left SGA fandom because of the Sam-hate, actually. And that's utterly ridiculous about the shipping on Amazon - can you maybe order the books directly from Fandy for more reasonable prices? Or do any of your local bookstores do special ordering if you want a book they don't carry?

I'm looking forward to Homecoming being out! I want to discuss it with my flist! *bounces*

[tielan]

I'm thinking of starting up a discussion comm around the Legacy series on LJ/DW. Perhaps somewhere to do a read-through, ask questions, throw out theories, link related fanfic and fanart.

Would you have any interest in co-modding?

[sholio]

Heh, I had actually been idly tossing around the idea of starting such a comm myself, when the books are out. :D I would love to co-mod! (And maybe that would draw in some of my flist as well.)

[tielan]

I'm pretty sure my f-list is mostly sold on Legacy. XD

And yes, I was thinking of going with the name sga_legacy or something - and then...I don't know. It could get interesting, depending on how people take the books and what they like or don't like!

I doubt there'll be too many trolls (although we might get that Elizabeth fan who can't get her head around the 'No Elizabeth' signs that MGM put up) but you never know. There's probably going to be at least a couple of disgruntled fans about something.

[sholio]

I haven't talked about it much at all, but plan on doing so after the first book is out.

sga_legacy sounds good ...

We would definitely need to figure out ground rules ahead of time. I wouldn't want to stifle discussion, but on the other hand, no ship/character/pairing bashing (and no author bashing, obvs.) seem like a necessarily baseline for discussions. (Of course, at some point we'll almost certainly have to figure out the boundaries of "bashing" ...) And we'd need a set of rules for handling spoilers for future books, especially since there are quite a lot of spoilers and sneak peeks available from official sources.

[tielan]

I was thinking of setting up now, and then announcing when Homecoming ships. Then people can hover around, announce they've got it, discuss immediately, etc.

I'm not sure I've seen any models for discussion that are the golden standard. If someone wants to be an asshole, chances are, they're going to be an asshole no matter what rules are in place...

[sholio]

I was thinking of setting up now, and then announcing when Homecoming ships. Then people can hover around, announce they've got it, discuss immediately, etc.

Sure! Sounds like a good plan.

[sholio]

Regarding ground rules - I think you're right that rules aren't going to stop assholes from disrupting things. Do you think it would be a good idea to start out with some formal guidelines (no char bashing, etc) or deal with issues and maybe set some rules if problems arise?

[tielan]

I think the "no character bashing, no pairing bashing, no actor bashing, no author bashing, no fellow-fan bashing" rule should be the baseline and we can add to it if some issues start getting heated.

Watchword: 'RESPECT'. You don't have to like them, but you do have to be polite to them.

I feel like putting together a "fannish reaction BINGO" card for Legacy, actually...

[tielan]

Okay, created a basic LJ comm: sga_legacy

[sholio]

Whee! \o/

It should probably have a presence on both LJ and DW, since many people seem to have a clear preference for one or the other. Apparently you can't automatically crosspost to comms, so it would be necessary to mirror important posts by hand, and otherwise I guess just let people post wherever they are most comfortable. Or do you want to keep it all in one place?

[tielan]

No, both would be a good idea. Do you know anything about creating a comm on DW? I've never done it before...

[sholio]

I don't know; I've never done it. I assume it works similarly to LJ, since they use the same code, except you probably need an invite code (but I think everyone who has an account on DW probably has oodles of spare codes lying around by now - and I know I do, if you don't have any at the moment).

[tielan]

Okay, well, I'm frantically working on my Atlantis BB trying to get the DAMN THING FINISHED ALREADY, but I might have a skerrick of time to do it on Monday morning (your Sunday night) if we can wait for that.

In the meantime, there's icons and banners and headers and whatnot. I was going to make some banners for 'Homecoming' - with some little visual hints and tidbits in there just to be tricksy...

[sholio]

I could create the comm itself, if you want. I'm going to be utterly useless for anything of a graphical nature until at least the end of next week, though, because I'm staying with my grandmother right now to help her out after surgery, which means no graphics programs that work properly, and no fast Internet. After that, I could futz around with some banner images or icons or whatnot ...

[tielan]

If you could create the DW comm and link it to the LJ comm. I think I've invited you to the comm already. Will do some fiddling tomorrow.

[sholio]

I didn't get an invite? But I added myself as a member when you commented with the link to the community. (You can add me as a maintainer now if you want to.)

I just created sga_legacy and copied your userinfo from the other comm. I don't think there's any way to specifically link them beyond just manually linking from one to the other and vice versa, but I'll poke around a bit and see.