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Especially as he's married to Sarah. You would have thought he would keep such opinions quiet... Or...get this idea. He might have been talking about a type of man....not himself.
Imagine looking at people who thought David Bowie was hot in Labrynth and coming to ANY OTHER CONCLUSION than people think David Bowie was hot in Labrynth.
Not to mention thinking that the appeal of bad boys started only after Labyrinth. Even if he’s never read Jane Austen, who certainly peppered her work with obvious warnings about falling for them, and often some nice wish-fulfilment with them getting their comeuppance, there are decades of pre-Labyrinth movies, books, and songs on the theme.
@@barbararowley6077 Also, often the appeal of bad boys is not that they are necessarily bad and more that they are "prohibited" and you can become the special person to whom he is good, also this not seem to be confined to heterosexuality, because I exclusively read lesbian books and the ice queens and the bad girls are everywhere.
Ikr? Even as someone who - in hindsight - doesn't even like that movie, can appreciate how he looked. Without it getting any more complicated than that.
also with labyrinth fully NOT being a romance movie but a movie about growing up he just...assumed that because women thought David Bowie looked hot that those women were also viewing/treating it as a romance or whatever
This guy has never seen Labyrinth, just the bulge and got a bit of envy going on. If he had he would have realised that the film is a feminist text. You beat the Goblin King by seeing through all his glamour and realising just what a piece of crap he really is. You beat him literally with the words "For my will is as strong as yours, and my kindom is as great. You have no power over me." You beat him by knowing you are his equal and just as powerful in your own right. As soon as that happens he has to bow to you and let you go home. She saved her brother, not through conflict, but by learning her true self-worth. Not that I'm knocking the bulge. Gay guy here who grew up with that movie and, yeah, he was one of my awakenings as well.
seems to me like rothfuss thinks women who watched the movie were too stupid to understand the message of the film, if he’s saying it contributed to a generation of women who chose to date “bad boys” instead of so-called “good guys” like him.
This has nothing to do with the feminist aspect of the conversation but I saw Labyrinth in a movie theater over the summer and there were times when the audience was straight-up laughing at just how prominent that codpiece is on a thirty-foot-high screen. Like it's almost morally questionable to have that codpiece on the same set as a sixteen-year-old actress.
It's also worth noting Jennifer Connelly was 14 when cast into the role and so Labyrinth, while not perfect, does have the undertones of fairy tales like Red Riding Hood of minors/girls encountering predatorial men who promise them things that are too good to be true. That is a narrative that I think Coraline does perhaps better than most other pieces for children imo.
Patrick's takeaway should've been that women think men with dramatic eyeshadow, fantastical hair and cunty clothes is hot, not that women want a Goblin King that doubles as a kiddie snatcher.
Whenever a man makes incel declarations about women, and throws LABRYNTH in somehow factual is mind blowing. Loved Labrynth, didn't marry a baby stealing goblin king...
@singingman2025 I'm also willing to bet that people are attracted to bad boys/girls/enbys not because of their abusiveness it's can be other traits, charisma, looks, intelligence, tenderness or how they act around other characters that make them shine like a crazy diamond. I do love Harrow from Gideon the ninth because she is a bitch to everyone.
I have seen so many bad takes about Labyrinth from dudes who have no idea what a metaphor is. They didn't make the Goblin King sexy by accident, wtf. It's a movie about growing up. The character represents a teenage girl's desires and fears about the adult world, including adult sexuality. The film isn't subtle about this at all, the Goblin King is a literal fantasy created by the protagonist that she eventually realizes she has control over. There's something just incredibly irritating about taking a story literally ABOUT a female protagonist realizing she has agency in her life and being like "women who watched this movie were hypnotized by David Bowie's tight pants into dating bad boys instead of nice guys like me".
That's a weird take. That is the same idea of subtext telling people things but most people don't realize subtext is not as complex as they give it credit for. Once you involve people in subtext is very quickly loses the power that subtext actually has because subtext does not communicate complex ideas well and humans are by definition complex. I think you are spot on with the breakdown of what the movie was actually about.
It's WILD. Like her interactions with Jar are so limited because the movie is not about him or even Them, it is of Her & her relationship to herself. Like "how he treats her" & im like. "You could delete Jareth from the movie & it still works"
When my younger sister was a bookseller in high school, this guy was going to do a signing at her store. The store manager (an older woman) took all of the younger girls aside and told them not only that they wouldn't be working the event, but she strongly warned them not to attend. She didn't clarify when they asked why, but it has always stuck with me and made me wonder.
I find it weird when the author tries to say Labyrinth 'teaches' women to want bad boys... Like, did we watch the same movie? David Bowie even drugs Sarah with that peach and by the end of the movie is gaslighting her about how much he did for her and she should be grateful for his mercy, but she looks him dead in the eye and says, "You have no power over me." The magic is shattered and she goes home. She's still allowed to fantasize for comfort as the other characters from the fantasy world are in her room and say, "Should you ever need us, for any reason at all." She's allowed to fantasize and the movie even says as much, but again, it's HER fantasy and she has all the power. Once she decided she was done, it was over. At least, it's how I read the movie. Also I'm asexual as hell and didn't end up looking for 'bad boys' IRL, just in fantasy! XD Cause again, perfectly safe, and I choose when it ends.
Honestly the healthiest take I've read on the whole "women want bad boys/villains" argument. Don't get me wrong, I do think there are some pieces of media that try to pass off abuse as romance (50 Shades is just one example) and that can be dangerous for young people who don't know any better, but healthily daydreaming about fictional men (especially villains) is just that: it's healthy and you're in control of it. Also whattup fellow Ace 🖤🩶🤍💜
Giving Patrick Ruffuss more fairness that he desserves, he did say the moral of _Laberinth_ was that girls should reject guys like Jareth, he just accused a big porcentage of the women of his generation of getting the wrong message from the movie 🙄
Whew. I'm a survivor of abusive relationships at a young age and can identify a few pieces of media that did contribute to me not being able to recognize/even romanticizing red flags, but Labyrinth (one of my favorite movies growing up) is 100% not one of them. And even if it was, it's so fucking weird and gross for him to see women going through toxic relationships mainly as a frustrating obstacle for him, rather than having any empathy for what they went through. Also, most traumatized women don't just eliminate all men as options even though it's "not their fault." If they don't want to be with you because of things they've been through in their past, they usually 1. just aren't ready for a relationship yet and need to heal more, and/or 2. you're displaying red flags that they've seen before. Even if you're not "as bad as her ex," you should still do some introspection into how you treated her, whether you respected her boundaries, and why she may not feel safe with you.
And to clarify - definitely not saying any media CAUSED me to get into abusive relationships, just that if you're already vulnerable like I was (young, insecure, depressed, socially isolated, etc), being exposed to media that depicts abusive behavior as romantic/acceptable - ie. Colleen Hoover - definitely doesn't help you recognize possibly abusive situations.
I just think is weird, not in that situation. And while yes david bowie singing is sexy, like she does take her brother and does leave. Because him kidnapping her brother is bad. The only weird song might be him having fun with the baby?! But thats with the baby. And a movie having him being hot and tempting but her choosing responsibility is, , like not bad in representation?! Also people sexualize the weirdest characters. Like makima from chainsawman is by some apeatently, and she is in story, its a point she is bad. Dunno maybe they need a domme? And thats fantasy. Even if she is red flag incarnate in story. I also think eople didnt like draco, or snape, in leatherpants, but alan rickman and tom felton, two wholesome actors. So fantasies have layers too and , its really condecending blaming david bowie for playing a how tempting goblin?!
@@marocat4749 I totally agree! Just because people find a character attractive, doesn't mean that the media itself is portraying that character in a favorable way. He's just a villain who happens to be sexy/seductive lol. Imo, nothing about Labyrinth would influence young people to seek out partners who treat them badly. There is the scene of him dancing with Sarah, but that just feels like her being drawn in by his charm while also finding him frightening. It's aesthetically really cool, but you still obviously root for Sarah to save her brother and get home. And like you said, that's literally the main point of the movie.
I think the reasons women found David Bowie's character in Labyrinth attractive are simple and twofold. 1. He's just a good looking guy. But most importantly 2. We all have a fascination with villains. Take a look at all the classic fairy tales we grew up with, it's traditional and expected for the swooning damsel to be swept up and rescued by the dashing, do-gooder prince or the brave knight from the evil wizard or dragon's lair. Traditional, and boring. Let's be honest, no one is interested in the dashing prince/knight, because he's exactly what you'd expect him to be. He's chivalrous, handsome, and clean, but he doesn't exude that sense of sheer, dangerous eroticism that villains often do. The prince/knight may put butterflies in our stomachs when he gives us flowers, but the villain can stir something far more primal in us. The thrill of danger, the intoxicating aroma of mystery, the dark charisma, and the ever alluring taste of the forbidden fruit. Villains possess these traits and then some. But surprisingly, I think the thing that gravitates us towards the villains, rather than the heroes, is this. Villains are essentially just broken heroes. They're the ones we identify with most, because it's in these broken heroes that we see not just what they've become, but who they once were, and how we can often become just like them.
Biggest red flag to me is anyone saying some media property "ruined an entire generation of women." I've heard men say the same about Ramona Flowers "ruining" women by making them quirky and cool which somehow caused them to lead on men who think they're Scott Pilgrim. Please grow up.
I read the first book years ago and not the second, but the thing I remember clearest about the books is a line from a dissection of book 2: "Next time you hear someone complaining about girls liking sparkly vampires, point out that in one of the most acclaimed novels of the 21st century, a faerie creature as old as time itself has her mind blown by the lovemaking prowess of a sixteen-year-old virgin."
Yeah, I think even the book fans who make arguments that at least parts of the Felurian story should be there, fully admit that the scene as a whole is cringe AF. It also comes out of NOWHERE and is super jarring on a readthrough. I'd say cut the whole thing, BUT it's tied inextricably to objectively the best/most interesting and important scene in the series where he talks to the Cthaeh.
That sounds incredibly unrealistic, was it a celibate creature as old as time? Because 16-year-old me didn't know shit to blow anyone's mind in any way.
The entire comversation about masculinity and parenting boys was really nice. I also have a son and have tried very hard not to teach him that hobbies, toys, clothes, etc... are gendered. He likes his nails being painted, he likes rainbows, he likes cars and trucks and tools. I could watch the two of you talk about feminism and deconstruction for a lot longer than the video.
I also have a nephew who loves painting his nails and doing his makeup and everything has rainbows, and he’s had kids his age tell him that he should just be trans because he likes “girl things.” If he were, then fine, but he even says that he’s not, and it’s frustrating that kids can’t just be allowed to like what they like without feeling pressured to conform one way or the other.
I help look after my nephew two days a week and I'm very careful to reinforce liking what he likes, without any gendered expectations. He likewise enjoys cars and trucks and tools and having his nails painted, aaaand I haven't asked but he probably likes rainbows too.
@@likepocketsjingling we got cling film for his window that blocks some heat and light, and as a bonus the pattern on it makes rainbows. It's been a huge hit.
my little cousin (he’s 9 now but at the time he was 7) saw me painting his sister’s nails and asked me to do his and so i did (he wanted black and blue) and then his grandma asked me to take it off after i was done bc she didn’t want his dad to see it :( it was such a bummer cuz he really liked it. i try to teach the young kids in my life that they can like what they like and that they can be who they wanna be. i wish young boys weren’t labeled as “gay” for wanting to have cool colors on their nails, because that’s all it is! it’s cool!
Such a specific gripe but the fact that he says that women wanting guys like Jareth has caused "a lot of harm" skeeves me out because I have a sneaking suspicion that he's saying women not dating him is harm, not that women might be ending up in abusive relationships or with dangerous partners. I could be wrong since I haven't seen the whole discussion, but ooooof it just... rubs me the wrong way
Also being nice doesn't automatically mean you 'deserve' a partner or something. People should be nice because it's the right way to treat others, end of.
Oh I just know that someone who really liked Labyrinth broke up with him and years of coping, shower thoughts, and waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night resulted in that really bizarre, specific world view.
Also; seeing Carlos - a man - talk about misogony in such a deeply understanding way that I've ONLY ever seen non-men do is so fucking beautiful. Like it's just- I'm so used to men being feminists in the "ofc I'm a feminist that's just common sense, I don't need to read a bunch about it" way that sorta removes the inherent misogony that EVERYONE in this society is raised with, and like,,, it's just so fucking amazing to see more men openly be feminist on Purpouse, actively learning about the subject and deconstructing the shit they've been raised with is really nice.
My fave movie is Labyrinth and I love it because it taught me bad men that claim to love me while treating me like crap and property ARE BAD and that they "have no power over me." The last confrontation in the movie ruins his entire premise.
I mean....to be fair he seems to understand that's the point of the film...but apparently thinks women are too dumb and driven by sex to see that??? Unclear, but honestly....it's worse this way.
Honestly, just put Carlos on any video anywhere and let him give a few minutes of some Real Talk to other men out there about how to free themselves from the tyranny of misogynist thinking. More representation of actual men doing their best to be the best feminists they can be can only be a good thing.
The fact that I’ve never head all this about Rothfuss but everyone praises him up and down is wild to me. Also, we need more men like Carlos in this world!
People praise his technical writing skills and worldbuilding, the skill (lack thereof) for writing women has pretty much universally mocked. People like Devi as a character, but the only dialogue I've ever heard about the other female characters is that Denna is basically a plotpoint, his female university friends are so un-notable that most people can't remember their name, and Auri is literally just an idealized tragic SA victim (almost certainly) who is a whimsical character for Kvothe to fix. And not to mention, the whole Felurian debacle is one of the most mocked parts of the entire story and comes of reading like some bizarre self-insert fantasy - some people argue that there are a few reasons to include it, but even those people say that it was gratuitously long and didn't need to be that long or detailed to accomplish those goals.
I have been a fact for a while, most of his fans know the guy is pretty much a smug asshole.. which is such a shame because the two books are defently amazing even tho he will most likely never finish the last book.
Talking about the whole “it feels good to be needed by a younger, attractive woman” thing and then how you mentioned it’s the dream of so many men to be older and wealthy and to have a younger woman dependent on them-I encountered this idea at a young age (19 or 20). I was at some function for young people and this dude was talking to my table which was comprised of entirely women and the topic was: “at what point do you consider settling and marrying someone who isn’t everything you want in a partner?” I said something like, “well, I want kids so I imagine I would consider it when that window is starting to close.” He nodded and agreed that made sense. I asked him when he would settle. This man had the audacity to look me in the eye and say, “well, I’m a guy, so I’ll never have to settle. I can always marry younger.” So I very sweetly replied, “oh, so I guess she’d be the one settling then!” The look on his face after is something I have framed and hung in a place of pride in my brain 😉 literally the best comeback of my life.
Having finished this entire video, I am immediately tossed back to the last time I was at WisCon and Rothfuss (with a child? I guess his!) came over to the gaming area where people were trying to get a game together. I said I would call my partner, who really likes board games, and tell him to come play if he wanted. I am a woman at a feminist science fiction and fantasy convention talking about MY partner, who I know personally! Rothfuss, who doesn't know my partner or me, in front of the ENTIRE room, proceeded to SHOUT at me about consent and not "forcing" people into things. He was loud and obnoxious and so obviously performing social justice and using it as a weapon against, I will reiterate, a WOMAN at a FEMINIST science fiction convention. He behaved this way toward me in 2019. Anyway, this is not the only story I have of him disrespecting women or women SFF writers who are his literal colleagues. He is not a safe person for women to associate with and I highly recommend avoiding him.
That CANNOT be why he thinks women are into Jareth, I’m LOSING MY MIND Like…I’m going to be real. Pat. Do you think a certain type of late 80s and 90s girl is fascinated by characters like Jareth and Sephiroth because they’re villains, or because the sexy villains were (and honestly kinda still are) the ones allowed to be androgynous and wear a metric ton of leather. Here’s a little test you can try. The next time you run into a woman whose a big Jareth fan, ask her if she’s familiar with Castlevania, and if she is, ask her who her favourite character is. It might be Dracula. It's probably not.
When you code your male characters as a little big feminine, because that's a long standing thing for some reason, but you fuck up because now they're hot 😂
These guys tend to think all women want the ultra macho guy who is super strong and mainly, when some of us were into J-rock androgynous dudes, guys with long hair and a more feminine vibe, also, people who are confident to break the binary and be comfortable in their own skin are hot.
As unhinged and stupid as Ruffuss speech was, he had a point when he said that having a powerful guy say "I'm gonna be your slave" ti them is an appealing fantasy to some women... I mean, look at the popularity of _Black Buttler,_ there's an appeal on having a dangerous and evil androgynous being swearing his undying loyalty to you, and he's correct that in real life the guy declaring that he will worship the ground you step in is almost always a manipulative liar, but real life is real life and fiction is fiction; and if a guy thinks that the purpose of escapist fiction is to show how your life _should_ be instead of a simple indulgence into how would it be to be in a certain cool situation, well, that's a *you* problem Patrick Ruffuss, not a women problem
@@Mario_Angel_Medina LOL I think a beautiful person of (insert preferred gender here) saying “I will be your slave” is an appealing fantasy to A LOT OF PEOPLE, not just women 😂
The wanting a woman to cling to a man because of a scary movie reminds me of when I was on the top of stadium bleachers with a “friend.” I don’t know how high up we were, but there was just a wobbly gate blocking us from falling off. I’m fine with heights as long as I’M the one that’s responsible for my balance/stability. But this “friend” took it upon himself to pick me up (I don’t remember why, but it had to do with something some guy we ran into said). I yelped - which wasn’t a typical fear response for me at the time - and clung on to him, digging my head into his shoulder, saying, “put me down.” And he didn’t, just smiled and kept holding me. Also reminds me of a time where (without any context.. deduce what you will) I stopped a guy because he was hurting me. He looked confused but proud and we talked about it, and it ended with me asking him, “do you want to hurt me?” And he said, “well, yeah.” !!!! Excuse me? 😅😭 (That’s something that you should usually talk about before hand. Not just go for it).
I don't know if anyone in the comments said this but the blogpost is basically choice feminism and he is demonstrating why that's not really a good enough concept of feminism. It appeals to people because it allows you to do whatever you want without actually thinking about the systems in place that perpetuate patriarchy and misogyny. Like yeah, women should be able to be stay at home wives if they want to, but nobody makes that choice in a vacuum and it's valid to interrogate that choice. And like nobody is a perfect feminist. Because we all have grown up in a society that needs feminism.
choice feminism also applies to libfems too! one search of “choice feminism lipstick alley” proves that it doesn’t just apply to stay at home moms 😂 it also applies to most of the people pushing hookup culture
The specific thing about this whole highschool crush girl story is sending me. Hes reacting to findiny out that a person he breifly knew in highschool is entirely different now and is interested in adult things... because she is simply now an adult. Shes a grown woman now, ofcourse she acts differently to her sixteen year old self, but this man who barely knew her acts as if she died. As if her growing into a complete woman was some sort of homcide on her as a person. She is no longer a child, and that is scary to him. That is deeply sad. This is why men like this man date so young, and throw the women away as soon as they age. Because to them a woman is dead if they do not appear as innocent children.
Felurian (the sex goddess) was so uncomfortable and I cringed through that whole section of the book, but the part that I still regularly rant about years later is the Adem(warrior women culture). He just uncritically switched the gender roles and made the women act like men, but not even real men, stereotypes of l men that only think about casual sex and fighting. And his fighting instructor is like oh you have a boner, let’s just have sex in the middle of practice to get it out of your system, and afterward she becomes basically an object that he uses for sex on a regular basis. A female warrior culture could be so cool, but instead he just made them wish fulfillment for men who want to have emotionless sex with strong women.
So disgusting men are disgusting and THEY are the emotionless ones I mean emotionless sex is one of the biggest desires of men because if a woman is as emotionless as the stereotypical man that means he will get no consequences of treating her like a s€x object
@@Phosophor Those tight leggings during a certain song made some girls aware of the difference between men and women. But yes, attractive, charismatic man who can sing and dance.
I have such a vivid memory of finishing The Name Of The Wind and telling my overeager friend that, yeah, it was fun, apart from the fact the author has no concept of what a woman is. And it’s a vivid memory because said friend was downright flabbergasted by my not at all spicy take. Thanks for the confirmation. My high school self is validated.
oh shit... i just bought the book and was so excited to get into it. legitimately wanted to for the past 2 years, and as a female (fantasy) author who writes primarily female protagonists that just breaks my heart,,,
@@caramelllllllllyou’ll have to read it to really get what Rothfuss does. It’s a specific sort of “deifies every woman but also resent them for the fantasy of them in my head” kind of misogyny. The protag is definitely a self-insert.
THE MIC DROP MOMENT FROM CARLOS I'M CACKLING. love when he pops up and gives me insight into healthy masculinity as someone who grew up with 0 examples of healthy masculinity in my own home.
Rothfuss mentions Labyrinth influencing women’s choices poorly? As if there weren’t a plethora of movies/comics around the same time teaching nerdy boys that the hot woman not liking them wasn’t just their preference and ok, but instead some fatal flaw on the woman, that men are just victims of because they’re the real ones. This nerdy ‘not like other guys’ nice guy routine is why I could never stand The Big Bang Theory
why did this guy start writing his own feminist theory from scratch instead of being like "hey, sorry if that comment came off as somehow anti-feminist. i like to cuddle with my dates when we go to the movies. i would never do it with a girl who wasn't up for it. i don't feel like that contradicts my feminism, but feel free to write again if there's something i'm missing." but no, he had to go Full Fedora Quirky Early 2010's Internet Writerman
Damn, are fedoras tainted? I've always dreamed of someday being stylish enough to wear one but I guess that dream is dead. Ah well, my head is probably too fat for me to be a Hat Guy anyway.
Right? Like he really, really went out of his way to use that analogy lol. He could have just said "studio changes to my beloved childhood classic feel like ordering my usual at my favourite coffee place only to realise with my first sip that they've completely changed the flavour." "Ever ordered a shirt online and when you take it out of the box, it's completely different to how it looked in the picture?" Literally anything else, really xD
As someone who a) never really enjoyed Rothfuss, b) is transmasc, and c) enjoyed Labyrinth while being raised female, I have a lot of thoughts about all this. And I really love the point you made around 28 minutes, that Labyrinth, and horror, and things like it are a safe space to navigate these thoughts and feelings. Especially as someone who's queer and with so many villains who were coded in that way throughout media, I do find villains very interesting (and a lot of people do, this isn't exclusive to the queer experience). Anyway, even with all this in mind, the idea that David Bowie in Labyrinth made it so I wouldn't love Patrick Rothfuss is the most incel thing I've ever heard. Especially with the way he writes women, with a such a strong conventionally male gaze. To say that women only end up hurt by toxic men because they enjoy characters written for the conventionally female gaze is bafflingly chauvinist, and very much victim-blaming. Also I love all these slam dunks Carlos is making on Rothfuss. They do my heart good, with how awful it is to listen to Rothfuss' takes on women and masculinity.
I came here as a queer, nonbinary person to say thank you for integrating discussion of the horror genre and how it provides a safer and creative space for queer people to explore desire, pleasure, and our own identities. I am not a huge fan at all of the way PR writes women, though I do enjoy his writing and think the Auri novella is some exquisite prose, but yeah…honestly not super surprising he’s got some of these opinions of women given what’s in his books.
I always find it so funny when men are like "women want BAD BOYS!" like, now? Like 9/10 women liking those characters like that they LOOK like a badass. Just buy a cooler jacket, dude 🙄
I genuinely think that the reason Rothfuss makes all the example characters men instead of women (Bast, leaders at the uni, the first person he meets at the warrior group, etc.) is because he (Rothfuss) thinks that if those were female characters, how could Kvothe not be attracted to them?! Wouldn't that get in the way??? And mess with his true love manic pixie dream girl??? How could a man have so many women in his life and not want to get with all of them????? Thank you for this video. I have admired Patrick for a lot of years and was simply too young and ignorant to realize these issues. I'm glad I have a much clearer picture now. When I saw the title before the thumbnail, I thought this was going to be about how he got people to donate money for charity with a reward being a reveal of the first chapter of the third book, then he got mad when people were upset when he started joking about not actually following through, and then....never actually followed through. I would love a continuing series on this author in particular, if you're up for it. Also, I am LIVING for this moment: CARLOS: If only they had the will to change. *DROPS MIC*
It was so refreshing to just listen to Carlos speak on this topic because the men that I know just don't articulate like this or even try to understand the feminine perspective on feminism
@@ReadswithRachel I love anything with Carlos. As a young Gen Xer, the scary thing is that this author dude is how men my age were “feminist men” back in the 80s/90s. This was somehow better than their dads had done, yet…not really believing anything they said that was even minimally feminist sounding.
16:19 I'm also stuck on the implicit misogyny in his syntax. Instead of stating that "men and women are equal," he says, "women are worth as much as men." This implies that men are inately worthy (i.e., better), while women must be made worthy (i.e., raised to their level). It just feels cringey to me. (P.S. I specifically remember reading this blog post when it came out because my partner at the time was a fan. I see it sooo much differently now, a decade+ down the road...)
🤯 exactly! It's about worth, an inherent value that women can possibly achieve. Because who *exactly* decides who is "worthy"? It implies that a value system starts at regular human being a man.
I have been a huge fan of Rothfuss and his work for years. This video has seriously changed how I view him and myself. Thank you so much for making your wonderful videos!
Just started the video but that 1st clip took me back to when people acted as if Kvothe wasn't a self-insert when he made a "not all men" type of response in one of the books. The fact that Rothfuss is still so pressed about the exact same thing, all these years later, is... telling, to say the least.
Yeah I think everybody low-key knows Kvothe is what would normally be a gary-stu self-insert fantasy surrounded by a genuinely excellently written story and world which props him up. Kvothe himself is pretty terrible and about as much of a mary sue as you can get.
"i'm not in a space where i have patience for implicit or explicit misogyny. i'm not able to ignore it like i used to. it was something as a woman that i was expected to take and now i'm like, 'oh i actually can expect more out of my books!' what a concept." this is how i treat the media i consume now. i have zero tolerance for bigotry in my books and, if i don't dnf a book entirely, i dock stars as i see fit instead of being generous and like "this was how it was back then and [insert oppressor here] couldn't help it" like i used to. patrick rothfuss always came off to me as another joss whedon-he abuses his power and exploits women & bipoc just to become a feminist cult icon. they talk over those groups and speak for us instead of stepping to the side and using their platform to boost our voices like an actual ally would. thank you for including your convo with carlos because it exactly pinpointed why white men artists (especially in the fantasy genre) like patrick rothfuss, george rr martin, and andrzej sapkowski make bipoc women like me uncomfortable. also where'd you get your 'women run shit!' shirt. that's sick.
I haven't read Game of Thrones, but it always strikes me as weird when a male author is told he writes female characters well and instead of responding with something like, "Oh, thanks, I hope I continue to do so!" and leaving it at that, they start positioning themselves as Mega-Feminist Icons and patting themselves on the back for the good, important work they're doing on behalf of women everywhere. Especially if they're on stage in front of an audience. Just feels like empty, pandering cheer-baiting.
I'm actually currently reading The Wise Man's Fear, my brother lent it to me. I kinda find his writing difficult to keep focus on so it's a slog. But since Labyrinth is my all time favourite movie - and when I was a kid I totally wanted to marry the Goblin King - I resent the idea that liking something in fantasy ruined me. I loved him as a kid because I didn't understand what he was really saying. Now , as an adult, I despise toxic romance interests and abuse masquerading as love. Plus there is this one part in Name of the Wind where *SPOILER* he's comparing Denna to a flower and I was immediately like "no young man speaks like that. It's a very Milady moment." And in the same book when the teacher is harsh on the men who come late to class and then coos over the girl, only to basically tell her to close her legs and then says something like "now the gates of hell are closed we can begin" and I almost DNFed it right then and there. Kvothe gives me incel vibes sometimes. Plus he's EXTREMELY STUPID for someone who is supposed to be so smart...I can tolerate misogyny in my books, because fiction reflects the real world, but it's quite easy to tell when someone is writing misogyny because of world-building, or because the author has a chip on their shoulder.
I absolutely was that young person myself if I'm being honest. Because I was growing up abused and there at least was an upside with what he was proposing. The movie Labyrinth wasn't the problem, it was growing up in an environment that completely messed up my sense of self/self worth. I haven't ended up hurt/used because of the movie Labyrinth, it's because of the conditions that I grew up in. It's crazy for someone to try to ignore the multiple layers that may exist or push off the responsibility of abusers on a freaking movie and the people being abused. Absolutely unhinged.
@@chaossmith3864 It's no different from blaming video games or music for literally anything bad because clearly art is the only thing that can influence a person to do good or bad, absolutely nothing else.
As a Trans Masc Puerto Rican person who was raised by a very sexist father, I loved listening to Carlos talk about his deconstruction of gender and the way he was raised.
My first serious boyfriend did something unwanted to me while driving and pulling his Emergency Brake because he said he could condition me to associate fear with sexual desire.
@@Topdoggie7it’s a common abuser tactic: they want to manipulate you to react exactly the way they want to everything. My thing, for example, is that I hate tickling. I don’t associate it with feeling good and having a good time, I associate it with pain. My ex’s thing was to “microdose” me on tickling by doing it in little increments every day until I would start to enjoy it. It didn’t work, shockingly /s
I think a lot of men don't understand what it's like to read a book or watch a movie and feel it be actively hostile to you. I can never divorce that feeling from my enjoyment of a book, no matter how great it otherwise might be. I wanted to read these books a few years ago, but then decided against it when I saw commentary on how it treats women. Happily, I can spend my time reading books written by women, which is not a guarantee that they won't be sexist, but my odds feel better like that! Really loved the discussion on masculinity with Carlos!
His immaturity in what he finds romantic makes me wonder if he stopped getting attention from the women he wanted early in adulthood and that's why he still holds on to that memory of Scream and still talks about being with a young women and wanting to feel needed. I've known so many guys like this who felt like they held women up and were all about strong women in their media and their best women friends (who they secretly pined over), but as soon as you started talking about their ideal relationships/romantic partners/etc, it got weird. Like he would say women don't need to be SAHM but he would want to make sure his wife could do it because he secretly loves antiquated gender roles. Or not letting a women friend walk back to her car alone even if she tells him she's fine because he understands what women go through. It is what Carlos said about wanting his masculinity confirmed by how women need him. Guys like this are always so sensitive to really weird things because they define their whole self through the reflection of other's behavior towards them. If my friend likes me to walk her to her car, then I am trustworthy (vs actually being trustworthy just because he is). Or his wife needing him to provide means he has daily value to her so she will love and stay with him. Then when women don't want these things that he's offered, it's not due to independence, it's due to toxic attraction to lesser men. No, dude, we can feel the toxicity you are trying to cover in yourself by white knighting.
Also, I hated David Bowie's character from the beginning and didn't get the purpose of the movie at all because I couldn't suspend my disbelief long enough to accept that a super powerful fae king would need that level of coercion to land the minor he wanted. Grooming would have been way more effective according to everything we know about reality.
Two things: first I love how sweet you and your husband are together and how Carlos truly understands what he’s saying and isn’t just spouting off nonsense like some (most) other men would do Second: I’m an art Ed major and we actually talked a lot about bell hooks and her impact on education and I was so hyped when she came up and I wanted to share
I looked into sexism in The Wise Man's Fear a while back and thought I could add a few more examples to this conversation. I see a lot of people defending sexist books as oh, the male main character is just "flawed" (The Dresden Files is also a great example of this). I think it's telling how much sexism is build into the worldbuilding, where the "flawed" male main character's viewpoint has no weight. Marie Brennan's* post did a great job addressing this, but we also see an example in the Ademre, a matriarchal, sexually liberated society that seems quite empowering for woman, right? But it doesn't feel like an organic matriarchal society, but rather a straight man's fantasy of one. It really stood out to me that the Ademre didn't know how women get pregnant from having sex, because no Ademre women would willingly stop having sex with men for long enough to find out. So apparently this society has no lesbian, asexual, and low libido women or women who don't have sex with men for a time for whatever reason. All the women in this society have to be sexually available for straight men (ie the protagonist) at all times, which is not realistic considering the diversity of women that exist in real life. While doing some googling, I found a reddit post that describes more issues with the way they are written, namely that the Ademre are "catering to the idea that men are at the mercy of their sexuality and women relieve them". I think a lot of male fans of the series see a matriarchy or a “strong/powerful female character” and think that means it can’t be sexist. But if a female character is only strong or powerful in so far that it makes her more sexually appealing to the male main character…that’s still sexist. Relatedly, I don’t care how much a man “reveres” a woman or puts her on a pedestal. If he can’t see her as a human being, he’s being sexist. There's also a number of sexist quotes in the story that go unchallenged. For example “Each woman is like an instrument, waiting to be learned, loved, and finely played, to have at last her own true music made. Some might take offense at this way of seeing things, not understanding how a trouper views his music. They might think I degrade women. They might consider me callous, or boorish, or crude. But those people do not understand love, or music, or me” (Wise Man’s Fear). So comparing people to an instrument in inherently objectifying and really gross. It reduces women to an object that men take pleasure in instead of human beings with individual personalities, wants, and needs. Once again, it ignores the fact that asexual/aromantic and lesbian women or women with no desire to be sexually or romantically available to men exist. Women are reduced to what they are worth to men. Rothfuss even admits that people will find this offensive (because it is), and those people (ie many women) just aren't smart enough to get it, which makes the quote even worse. This sort of thinking does seem to be a pattern in Rothfuss's behavior online (as shown in the video), so I think it's safe to say this isn't just Kvothe talking. I'd also suggest checking out Rothfuss's goodreads author page, where he feels the need to brag about being "skilled lover of women" and an "advisor for the college feminists [and] a sorority" which is also...odd. *Also, I'm not sure if people know this, but Marie Brennan is a great feminist fantasy author to check out! I've enjoyed her Memoirs of Lady Trent Series, and she along with Alyc Helms wrote The Mask of Mirrors under the name MA Carrick that Rachel recommended.
I am the biggest idiot on earth for not realizing Marie Brennan from the blog was the same Marie Brennan who is part of the MA Carrick duo. My god. I am dense.
Lol I don't want to be played with I'm a person I hate Rothfuss but I also hate a lot of straight girlies Rothfuss has a lot of female defenders on reddit most of them straight and big pick-me's
Oh my God, that quote made me wonder whether he'd ever known a woman in real life, and also whether he's ever played an instrument, ever. Or even talked to a musician. God, it's infuriating that I still like the book. Especially with how BAD the Ademre world building is..... WTF
My step-father's and my brother's favourite colour is pink. They wear it all the time, both their rooms are painted in pink. Kids at school used to make fun of me because "your dad wears pink! He wears girl colours". And I am so glad I grew up in a family where colours weren't assigned to gender. And yet, I still had to take years to overcome my own bias. I used to claim I hated pink, just because I thought that would make me more masculine. Now I like pink. I hate yellow tho lmao
I also hate yellow. There are certain times it's ok but for the most part I don't care for it. My favorite color is blue, not really one specific shade but various ones.
My high school econ teacher (this was the 90's) used to wear pink shirts. And often a tie designed to look like a salmon. I don't know why I feel the need to mention it, but I do.
The average woman: oh boy if I don’t get m*rdered on this date, I’ll consider him a keeper! Carlos: [has calm, deep, and positive discussions about feminism with his wife] The average woman: ...wait, men can do that?????? No but seriously, I’m so glad you have a partner like that. You deserve it!! I really enjoyed the video, can’t wait for the other ten parts that dear old Patrick is going to require 😭😂
A classmate convinced me to read this series because she practically worshipped Patrick Rothfuss. She always checked his blog and loved everything he wrote. So, I read it and every time I picked it up it literally put me to sleep. Looking at the composition of his writing style, it is so slow and his sentences run on, and often, very often, had lots of purple prose with comparisons (metaphors, similes) that didn't actually compare anything. I really couldn't like the main character because everything just happened to Kvothe, the character really didn't have any agency. And as a woman, none of the women in that story seemed appealing or relatable to me or any woman I know. In my master's course of fiction writing at Oxford, we were asked to each bring a piece of writing we like so the professors, professional authors and screenwriters in the industry, can evaluate the passage and teach us why it works. And this classmate brought Name of the Wind, read the first paragraph, and every professor was sincerely confused. They had never heard of this book series, and this is Oxford (home to the best Fantasy writers like Tolkien and C.S. Lewis) and they ripped it to shreds as to what not to do to write a book.
I haven't read Rothfuss but like every fantasy novel or movie or TV series that have a rabid fandom always seems, to me, to be quite poorly written. I checked out of Game of Thrones in the pilot when the characters started being like, "You, brother, are blah blah blah blah" "Ah yes, but you, sister, blah blah blah blah". But I guess for a lot of people the appeal of fantasy is that nobody behaves or talks like real human beings? That's the "escapist" part of it maybe?
And the first book was supposedly heavily edited so I wonder how bad it was before an editor got to work on it? That also might explain why he never finished the third book? I mean, it takes talent to not finish a trilogy.
When will these people understand that just because women like something fictional doesn't correlate directly to their real life? Like why is this always a discussion about women, and never men, being influenced by fiction? By Rothfuss's logic there should have been a severe uptick of domestic abuse cases when women, who loved Labyrinth, grew up.
Honestly, it kind of comes off to me like men see the fictional women they create all the time in media and expect that unrealistic standard in real life and so they expect women follow the same principle and are also not be able to separate fiction and reality. That's why you see any realistic portrayal of a woman in video games being bombarded by men shitting on it for being "pandering" or making a woman "look like a man" because they aren't 2" waist, giant boobed, 2 dimensional characters with lip gloss and perfect hair even thought they live in an apocalypse.
@@RebaMedia the more I think about it, the more I realize Ruthffuss (and many other authors and readers) are into escapist fantasy not only to escape the mundane reality but especifically to indulge in how they would like their lives to be, so they can't fathom that somebody could love when something happens in fiction but hate it when it happens in reality: because for them it would be a literal dream come true that their fantasies happened in reality
Ok that is just straight up wrong on many levels. Men have been criticized a lot for what kind of fiction they enjoy. Men being called potential murderes and rapist because they play certain violent games. Men being called incels because they enjoy more nerdy stuff or even generates for liking stuff like anime. Not saying woman don't get judged by what they enjoy unfairly by what they enjoy just that it's both genders that do it
@@davidfrederiksen3185 Dude Men aren't the only ones who play video games or like nerdy stuff/anime, women have been into that stuff this entire time. For instance, it's famously known that the original Star Trek fandom was mostly women. Also that shit is main stream now. The video games = violence rhetoric was always stupid and is barely even a conversation nowadays. Also the point of this convo, is "wanting something in fiction vs not wanting it in reality", not "people being mean bc of things people like". That's an entirely different conversation and is moving the goal post. Rothfuss thinks having two (way too young for him) women grabbing him in in a movie theatre bc they're scared is something that actually happens, when that isn't really prevalent in real life. It IS prevalent in movies/tv though and has been pushed as a trope in media for decades to the point that people think it happens a lot, or at least want it to happen. Women wouldn't ACTUALLY want a Goblin King who steals children and is for sure evil, because that irl is terrifying. But is able to be explored safely in fantasy land.
@@RebaMedia I definitely agree that men aren't the only ones who are nerdy but they are definitely the ones that have been openly judged the most. Yes woman are very active in gaming today are the most prevalent in certain genres that actually aren't really called nerdy or accused of making someone a certain type of person because they enjoy something in fiction. And no I disagree the post I responded to mention that men don't get judged for what they like in fiction Wich I argued wasn't true at all
"If he's not going to finish the series, I'm not going to finish the book" we love our petty mom "Who said that??" "Patrick" "Oh *visible disgust*" we also love our feminist dad
10:35 god....how on earth did he make one of the greatest first date ideas sound CREEPY??? Horror movies and roller/ice skating can be great early dates-because yes, someone may want to hold on to the person next to them, or they may need a hand to help balance. So these date options can... provide very natural opportunities to initiate very basic physical touch more easily. Which for some, is a part of how they flirt. But DONT MAKE IT WEIRD. Like, as a pretty radically feminist lesbian, I also have used those as first dates for that reason. It helps you get over that hurdle of having the girl you like want to hold your hand-if youre socially awkward, that can be nerve wracking to initiate. And yes, Im butch/transmasc, so I do like to be "manly" and provide comfort in that way at times-when a girl wants it. Its affirming to me. But no one *has* to seek me for comfort. There are plenty of ways I can seek similar moments of gender euphoria. So...this means that wanting them to "cling to you desperately for comfort" is just demeaning and gross-it takes it from a cute date idea and a smooth way to maybe get to hold hands with the person you like, to something far far more predatory.
Carlos is incredibly well-spoken and thoughtful, and all of his commentary feels completely genuine. What an incredibly intelligent, compassionate, and caring man. He’s out here raising the bar for men everywhere. Would absolutely love to hear the two of you lead more discussions about feminism and masculinity, because this style of video where the two of you discuss a case study and share your thoughts is honestly incredibly helpful and informative to listen to.
Something I don't like about Rothfuss is that whenever confronted about his lack of female representation he deflects it by blaming it on the fact that other fantasy books he read didn't have women, which, while that may be true (and is a discussion in of itself,) is still a pretty stupid point because you are in charge of writing your books, just because other books did (or didn't) do something doesn't mean you have to copy them.
The comparison is especially striking when you compare with Brandon Sanderson. He acknowledges the lack of female representation in Mistborn Era 1 (except for Vin of course) and since then, has constantly improved, with some of his most recent works paricularly standing out like Tress of the Emerald Sea.
I just.... can't get over the way he describes "our" "hypothetical" highschool crush bc like,,, wdym all you loved about her is gone? She's a pornstar, that doesn't mean she's not smart or a geek or interesting anymore, like what?????? Just the way he so openly tells on himself about how he views women. When they're covered up he's free to think of them the way he wants, the way she'd be in bed is exactly what he'd like and she'd like Totally laugh at his jokes bc she reads books like him and is shy like him and that makes her worth something. But the second her body becomes something that he can't fantasize about because he knows what she'd look like she's suddenly just not a person anymore. Suddenly she's for Everyone and not just for Him. It's so, so, SO fucking gross.
Very, very gross. So she has a new job (hobby?) and it suddenly impedes her ability to get a Star Wars joke? No, of course not. Because it never was about the shared interests or nerdy jokes or her as a person. By constructing this narrative the way he does, Pat is telling on himself.
@@myepictbr6968 Legit, but no it's totally Jareth's fault that no girls want him. Couldn't POSSIBLY be bc of something HE'S doing, because that would require some honest self-reflection and we can't have that now can we./sarcasm/not-directed-at-ye
I think he used the 'visual' of the woman being different from his past view of her, because he was relating it back to a movie, which is a visual medium. It was a really cringe-inducing tirade, and a weirdly specific metaphor, but I feel inferring that he hates sex-work based off of it is a reach. Judging a book by it's cover and all that, I believe it was just eliciting a feeling of like, "Wow, she seems much different than how I remember." But because the dude is/was a little pervy, he got waaaay too carried away.
@@FangTehWolf The conceit of this metaphor doesn’t work unless one assumes that the woman who is doing sex work is somehow “lesser” than the one who doesn’t. Try to mentally flip it: I knew this cool girl who was very confident and liberated and did sex work, but I’ve meet her 10 years later and she is a tradwife now. Does this metaphor work? After all, it also offers great “visual” contrast. To me, it doesn’t for reasons I outlined above.
@myepictbr6968 see, that's where i would disagree. Nowhere in his rambling fantasy did he deem her lesser. Just different. Not the same as remembered, etc. I actually think the flipped version is more jarring, even, somehow.
@@AntirisDark why can’t you make books for specific genders? If one specific group has an on going problem it makes sense that someone, from that group, is able to use that insight to help rectify the problem.
i’m not even a fan but i did read the name of the wind (a long time ago) and i liked it, but at the time i didn’t notice anything in it (i was like… twelve) so I’m very curious to go back to it. i really liked the stormdancer books by jay kristoff when i was that age too and I didn’t realize how questionable they were until a couple of years ago. edit: just got to minutes 7-8 and what the fuck. not only is blaming misogyny on women liking male villains stupid and baseless but it’s also legitimately heinous in the sense that it blames abused women for their trauma saying that it was caused by liking FICTIONAL CHARACTERS instead of. yknow. actual flesh and bone abusers
The clip where he talks about Labyrinth is also so victim blame-y. He's essentially saying that women end up in abusive relationships because they're choosing the wrong men, and not because of a myriad of other factors that are beyond said women's control. As if every abuser is a Jareth, out there flaunting how bad of a guy they are and laying out every horrible thing they're going to do, when in reality they look like just anyone. In fact, plenty of abusers are indistinguishable from Patrick himself: middle aged dudes, nerdy, calling themselves "nice guys" and "feminists", just happening to seek out younger women for no particular reason. So no, women don't end up in abusive relationships because David Bowie made them choose the wrong people. They end up in abusive relationships because they gave someone a go, and they couldn't have known that someone would be abusive.
I cried a little watching this. I've never had a conversation with a man about feminism, with him actually *understanding* and letting me talk. But seeing Carlos talking about this kind of theme with a certain level of awareness gave me hope. You're very lucky, having him as a friend and a husband 😢. Lots of love to you both❤
I heard about this guy when his books became popular. At the time I was under the misconception that male-fantasy-writer = Bad Woman Representation. The moment he said "WoMeN dOnT lIkE mE cAuSe DaViD bOwIe Is HoT! WaAaAah!" I was a little smug because I was right about the books and disappointed he is the prime example that wouldn't have changed younger me's mind.
criticism regarding bowie actively being a sexual predator towards teenage girls as a grown man? valid. criticism against bowie because he was the villain in a movie once and now women won't date you so that's bowies fault? NOT valid. jfc patrick 🤦🏻♀️ why is he like this omg the incel enegery that man radiates
I might be misremembering, but I recall an episode of the podcast 'Writing Excuses' in which Mary Robinette Kowal called him out for a misogynistic analogy. He seems to have a habit of reducing women to metaphors and emphasizing the contrast b/w things via a Madonna-Whore analogy. I think in this particular episode he said that the difference between a simple/archetypical vs complex character is like the difference between a fling with a dark eyed woman vs the lady you marry. He claimed that both are equally important for a good novel and for a good life, something crazy like that. I’ll have to go search for the episode.
Found it - episode 15.04: Revision with Patrick Rothfuss, around 21:30-24:10. He does accept the correction and assures her that he won’t make the analogy again, so there’s that. I hope he has actively worked to dismantle the sexist ideologies that underpin his strange analogies. But, this podcast episode was posted Jan 2020 and now he’s ranting about Bowie, so who knows. @@amberdawn868
6:45-6:55 That was actually only a small part of Sarah's development. The overall lesson she had to learn is that she can't shut herself away in a fantasy , can't shut the real world out.
You don't know how long I've been waiting for this video to be made. THANK YOU! -I've- been called sexist for trying to talk about how NotW's portrayal of women is sexist. I am so sick and tired of fantasy authors who don't seem to view women as human beings, who exist for other reasons than to supply men with affection and/or sex. And I'm sick of fans putting on blinders and refusing to engage with the conversation, thinking that if you enjoy a work of fiction you must endorse all of its content and defend it to the death. Love your channel Rachel, you're doing great work, love hear Carlos talk from his point of view at times as well. Cheers!
I do love his prose. I will admit that. However, he gets so weird with women. I could enjoy name of the wind, but when we get a society of warrior women that is a matriarchy, yet doesn't understand basic women's health, I start doubting my own enjoyment.
"I do love his prose. I will admit that. However, he gets so weird with women." SAME. Like i vividly remember being blown away by NOTW and his ability to describe things, especially music, in a way that made me feel like i was experiencing new colors. But...the women? OOF
I love you talking about raising your sons to be comfortable and confident in themselves regardless what the outside world tries to force on them. And that you block out their names, its wonderful to see influencers protecting their kids privacy
Where are the single Carlos' of the world?? For real tho, you've got yourself an awesome partner, Rachel. It's so refreshing to hear calm, intelligent conversation on this topic between a woman and a man. I've never been a fan of NOTW. It put me to sleep the 3 times I tried reading it. Then once the charity fiasco happened I put off trying a 4th time and donated all my books of his. Now it's just a cringe fest.
I know I'm fixating on one little detail but... I cannot believe that Rothfuss went on that bizarre reminiscence about women clinging to him while watching the original SCREAM. Like... did he just get his manful chest clawed during that movie or did he pay attention to how the main antagonist is a disgusting misogynist who would probably make the same argument he's making about wanting attractive young women with him at a horror movie (and who was also way into the madonna/whore dichotomy). Not the good guy, Rothfuss, the antagonist! It just seems like a feminist would've picked that up while watching the movie, idk.
Ew, him saying "f me red lipstick" reminded me of my mom telling my older sister she couldn't wear red nailpolish cuz red was an "adult" color. Like... the hell u mean adult color??????
There's this thing that some male authors do, where they are convinced they are just romantizing women. That their representation of women is glowing, complimentary; an exaggeration, yes, but an ultimately flattering one. But it rarely comes across that way? Its more like they're holding up a picture and saying "This is how I see you!" but in reality its how they see their own ideal concept of a woman. I don't expect all men to write perfectly nuanced women (or vice a versa), and I have absolutely no problem with books that are geared more towards men. There are niches everywhere, and almost every niche deserves to be filled! Some male authors write women and you can tell they don't really understand them (which is okay) but it doesn't bother me. Sometimes its even a little charming. And yet with others it does. And I often can't pin down why. But other times, I definitely can. Like there was this one book (I can't remember much about it, sorry) with a female protaganist. And the representation wasn't perfect but it was okay. Then this scene happened (again, can't remember the particulars) where the protag was with a large group of women, some kind of magical thing happened and every woman in the room instantly got their period. Boom. Heavy, immediate flow. Straight up hemorrhage. To a woman it would be horrifying. But there was this bizzare, vaguely erotic undertone that freaked teenage me right out of my chair and right off the series as a whole. Especially considering that was dedicated to and written for his daughter
Oh no. Back when his first book came out, it was much praised. People also loved the second one. And then we all got tired of waiting for the third one, not unlike we did for the next ASoIaF book. Rothfuss has made many a post about depression and fear causing him to second guess himself and take much longer on the book than he wanted. But then this kept going on. And on and on. Then there was the post where he promised to post a chapter from the third book if a fund raising goal was met, which it was. He proceeded to not post the chapter as promised. Then there were further teases that never amounted to anything. Some baiting and switching too. Posts that seemed to hint we were going to finally get some news about the third book only to be told about yet another charity thing. Charities are well and good, but nearly all his posts had to do with them and it always felt like he was tricking everyone into reading about and possibly donating to them what with all those pre-posts where he made it sound like he was going to talk about book three instead. It got really old. Many of us moved on and decided we did not care any longer if the final book came out. Now to see he was worse than we thought, well that is disappointing indeed. It is a shame. His books had some problems to be sure, but they were still enjoyable. Now…well, this commenter, at least, is not going to be reading the final book. If it should ever come out. And that seems as unlikely as ever.
I tried reading _The Name of the Wind,_ but honestly it left me cold. I couldn’t figure out why Kvothe was so broke when he was a master musician. Like, get a regular gig at a tavern, dude! Hell, get a regular gig at a brothel. Maybe there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for his not doing so that I missed? I also didn’t care for the few women characters he had. I didn’t read the second book, but given what I’ve heard about the second book, I’m okay with it. I read a review which described the breathless awe with which Felurian discovers Kvothe was a virgin and nearly threw up. Also, what the fuck was he talking about with Labyrinth? Sure, the Goblin King was hot, but he was clearly not trustworthy, and Sarah knew it. I don’t know how much clearer they could have made the paradox in “fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave.”
It's like he got the part about how women have legitimate fear and anxiety about unknown men because of the behavior of men as a whole, but then played an uno reverse card and concluded it's actually women's fault because we encourage that behavior??
I only know about the controversy where he promised to write and post ONE chapter from his third book if his fans donated to a certain charity event, and the amount was far exceeded. It’s been like two years now and he still hasn’t posted that ONE chapter. So... I can’t wait to learn what else he did 😂😭
That one was so bad they stopped doing yearly fundraiser. From what I remember when the goal was reached Rothfuss tried to get out of publishing the chapter by making another stretch goal and saying it was all or nothing, but his employees made him change it (that additional stretch goal was also reached though). I know people complain about Martin not finishing ASoIaF, but at least we know he wrote something because he released around 10 chapters from Winds of Winter. And he didn't sell them to his fans and ditch without delivering. Rothfuss mentioned in one of his blog posts wanting to make a blog post about the situation with the chapter but did he? No. I don't know how people still believe he'll deliver the last book when he can't deliver a blog post.
Not to defend Rothfuss, but isn't the fact that a lot of money was donated to a charity ultimately a net good? Even if it was founded on a lie or a lapsed promise?
@erich6073 Definitely, but this will cause people to mistrust charity events and will make them less likely to donate to charity in the future. Plus, like the other comment above notes, Rothfuss had to stop doing the yearly fundraiser because he didn’t deliver, meaning charities are missing out on a chunk of money due to his negligence. Also, if you make someone pay for something and you don’t deliver, that’s a scam, which can result in a lawsuit, which can result in the money having to be refunded. Most people aren’t going to be dicks and demand refunds from a charity... but they are entitled to one, at the very least morally, but maybe also legally. That isn’t even touching the fact that they likely paid way more than one chapter would be worth, or even an entire book 😅
Ah yes, the famous film Labyrinth, so famous and influential that it couldn’t even make back half of its $25 million budget at the domestic box office, but was the favourite of all the girls Patrick’s age (it came out when he was 13) because they couldn’t resist 40 year old David Bowie in a bad wig. And that bad wig influenced their dating choices forever and ever.
I think Rothfuss just always picks weird women and that's why he feels so frustrated he has no taste Edit: And then he blames the women HE chose for it like tf they didn't ask
If we go with what character types made significant cultural impact around that time, women wanted Patrick Swayze from Dirty Dancing or Leo from Titanic. Both profoundly decent human beings defined by the respect they showed to their romantic interests.
I have never seen the movie and didn't even know what it was despite being in the right demographic. I feel like that is proof enough by contradiction that he is full of it.
Watching you and carlos talk about masculinity and raising your kids was just so heartwarming. The future is bright with people/parents like you around.
i just KNOW your guys' kids are in such good hands and they will be great people when they're older. i dont plan on being a parent but it gives me hope to see people being good and educated parents to combat the way our parents were with us.
I’ve seen so many of these Authors Behaving Badly videos where your face reads as “I’m over this shit,” (rightfully so), but it was really sweet to see you smile and laugh with your spouse. The two of you should do more video discussions!
Shout out to Ridge for sponsoring today's video. Use my link ridge.com/readswithrachel to get up to 30% off through December 20th and enter free for a chance to win a Ridge bundle worth $4,000.
“Women won’t date me because they are Labyrinth fans” is the most fantastical content to come out of Rothfuss in years.
Imagine being threatened by a man who returned to the moon.
Correlation not causation roth 😅😅😅😅😅😅
I don't think that's the exact quote
@@Wally-pu2hh I was paraphrasing.
Especially as he's married to Sarah. You would have thought he would keep such opinions quiet...
Or...get this idea. He might have been talking about a type of man....not himself.
Imagine looking at people who thought David Bowie was hot in Labrynth and coming to ANY OTHER CONCLUSION than people think David Bowie was hot in Labrynth.
I would have stopped him at some point. I wouldn't have allowed him to insult me like that lol.
Not to mention thinking that the appeal of bad boys started only after Labyrinth. Even if he’s never read Jane Austen, who certainly peppered her work with obvious warnings about falling for them, and often some nice wish-fulfilment with them getting their comeuppance, there are decades of pre-Labyrinth movies, books, and songs on the theme.
@@barbararowley6077 Also, often the appeal of bad boys is not that they are necessarily bad and more that they are "prohibited" and you can become the special person to whom he is good, also this not seem to be confined to heterosexuality, because I exclusively read lesbian books and the ice queens and the bad girls are everywhere.
Ikr? Even as someone who - in hindsight - doesn't even like that movie, can appreciate how he looked. Without it getting any more complicated than that.
also with labyrinth fully NOT being a romance movie but a movie about growing up he just...assumed that because women thought David Bowie looked hot that those women were also viewing/treating it as a romance or whatever
This guy has never seen Labyrinth, just the bulge and got a bit of envy going on.
If he had he would have realised that the film is a feminist text.
You beat the Goblin King by seeing through all his glamour and realising just what a piece of crap he really is.
You beat him literally with the words "For my will is as strong as yours, and my kindom is as great. You have no power over me." You beat him by knowing you are his equal and just as powerful in your own right. As soon as that happens he has to bow to you and let you go home. She saved her brother, not through conflict, but by learning her true self-worth.
Not that I'm knocking the bulge. Gay guy here who grew up with that movie and, yeah, he was one of my awakenings as well.
The only reason the message works is because of the bulge! If Jareth were less attractive, it would be hard to believe Sarah was tempted.
seems to me like rothfuss thinks women who watched the movie were too stupid to understand the message of the film, if he’s saying it contributed to a generation of women who chose to date “bad boys” instead of so-called “good guys” like him.
This has nothing to do with the feminist aspect of the conversation but I saw Labyrinth in a movie theater over the summer and there were times when the audience was straight-up laughing at just how prominent that codpiece is on a thirty-foot-high screen. Like it's almost morally questionable to have that codpiece on the same set as a sixteen-year-old actress.
It's also worth noting Jennifer Connelly was 14 when cast into the role and so Labyrinth, while not perfect, does have the undertones of fairy tales like Red Riding Hood of minors/girls encountering predatorial men who promise them things that are too good to be true. That is a narrative that I think Coraline does perhaps better than most other pieces for children imo.
It's been awhile since I've seen the movie but yea now that I think back you are right.
Patrick's takeaway should've been that women think men with dramatic eyeshadow, fantastical hair and cunty clothes is hot, not that women want a Goblin King that doubles as a kiddie snatcher.
Women love men that are addicted to serving cunt. It's a fact of life.
This is the comment I was looking for.
All women want is Jack Sparrow. Or Astarion 😂
Whenever a man makes incel declarations about women, and throws LABRYNTH in somehow factual is mind blowing. Loved Labrynth, didn't marry a baby stealing goblin king...
Same!😂😂😂
I love Astarion from Baldurs gate 3 and my boyfriend is not a sadomasochistic vampire rogue 😂
@@Virgo117 Not with that attitude. Be the change you want to be! There's still time for him to BECOME a vampire elf!
But seriously I agree 🤣
honestly, you're not living your best life.
@singingman2025 I'm also willing to bet that people are attracted to bad boys/girls/enbys not because of their abusiveness it's can be other traits, charisma, looks, intelligence, tenderness or how they act around other characters that make them shine like a crazy diamond.
I do love Harrow from Gideon the ninth because she is a bitch to everyone.
I have seen so many bad takes about Labyrinth from dudes who have no idea what a metaphor is. They didn't make the Goblin King sexy by accident, wtf. It's a movie about growing up. The character represents a teenage girl's desires and fears about the adult world, including adult sexuality. The film isn't subtle about this at all, the Goblin King is a literal fantasy created by the protagonist that she eventually realizes she has control over.
There's something just incredibly irritating about taking a story literally ABOUT a female protagonist realizing she has agency in her life and being like "women who watched this movie were hypnotized by David Bowie's tight pants into dating bad boys instead of nice guys like me".
That's a weird take. That is the same idea of subtext telling people things but most people don't realize subtext is not as complex as they give it credit for. Once you involve people in subtext is very quickly loses the power that subtext actually has because subtext does not communicate complex ideas well and humans are by definition complex.
I think you are spot on with the breakdown of what the movie was actually about.
It's WILD. Like her interactions with Jar are so limited because the movie is not about him or even Them, it is of Her & her relationship to herself. Like "how he treats her" & im like. "You could delete Jareth from the movie & it still works"
When my younger sister was a bookseller in high school, this guy was going to do a signing at her store. The store manager (an older woman) took all of the younger girls aside and told them not only that they wouldn't be working the event, but she strongly warned them not to attend. She didn't clarify when they asked why, but it has always stuck with me and made me wonder.
I find it weird when the author tries to say Labyrinth 'teaches' women to want bad boys... Like, did we watch the same movie? David Bowie even drugs Sarah with that peach and by the end of the movie is gaslighting her about how much he did for her and she should be grateful for his mercy, but she looks him dead in the eye and says, "You have no power over me." The magic is shattered and she goes home. She's still allowed to fantasize for comfort as the other characters from the fantasy world are in her room and say, "Should you ever need us, for any reason at all." She's allowed to fantasize and the movie even says as much, but again, it's HER fantasy and she has all the power. Once she decided she was done, it was over.
At least, it's how I read the movie. Also I'm asexual as hell and didn't end up looking for 'bad boys' IRL, just in fantasy! XD Cause again, perfectly safe, and I choose when it ends.
Honestly the healthiest take I've read on the whole "women want bad boys/villains" argument. Don't get me wrong, I do think there are some pieces of media that try to pass off abuse as romance (50 Shades is just one example) and that can be dangerous for young people who don't know any better, but healthily daydreaming about fictional men (especially villains) is just that: it's healthy and you're in control of it.
Also whattup fellow Ace 🖤🩶🤍💜
I feel exactly the same way!
Fellow ace here, and I completely agree with this!
Giving Patrick Ruffuss more fairness that he desserves, he did say the moral of _Laberinth_ was that girls should reject guys like Jareth, he just accused a big porcentage of the women of his generation of getting the wrong message from the movie 🙄
@@Mario_Angel_MedinaYou know us susceptible women missing the moral and looking for goblin kings in tights IRL! Damn! 😂 I missed out.
Whew. I'm a survivor of abusive relationships at a young age and can identify a few pieces of media that did contribute to me not being able to recognize/even romanticizing red flags, but Labyrinth (one of my favorite movies growing up) is 100% not one of them. And even if it was, it's so fucking weird and gross for him to see women going through toxic relationships mainly as a frustrating obstacle for him, rather than having any empathy for what they went through.
Also, most traumatized women don't just eliminate all men as options even though it's "not their fault." If they don't want to be with you because of things they've been through in their past, they usually 1. just aren't ready for a relationship yet and need to heal more, and/or 2. you're displaying red flags that they've seen before. Even if you're not "as bad as her ex," you should still do some introspection into how you treated her, whether you respected her boundaries, and why she may not feel safe with you.
And to clarify - definitely not saying any media CAUSED me to get into abusive relationships, just that if you're already vulnerable like I was (young, insecure, depressed, socially isolated, etc), being exposed to media that depicts abusive behavior as romantic/acceptable - ie. Colleen Hoover - definitely doesn't help you recognize possibly abusive situations.
I just think is weird, not in that situation. And while yes david bowie singing is sexy, like she does take her brother and does leave. Because him kidnapping her brother is bad. The only weird song might be him having fun with the baby?! But thats with the baby. And a movie having him being hot and tempting but her choosing responsibility is, , like not bad in representation?!
Also people sexualize the weirdest characters. Like makima from chainsawman is by some apeatently, and she is in story, its a point she is bad. Dunno maybe they need a domme? And thats fantasy. Even if she is red flag incarnate in story.
I also think eople didnt like draco, or snape, in leatherpants, but alan rickman and tom felton, two wholesome actors. So fantasies have layers too and , its really condecending blaming david bowie for playing a how tempting goblin?!
@@marocat4749 I totally agree! Just because people find a character attractive, doesn't mean that the media itself is portraying that character in a favorable way. He's just a villain who happens to be sexy/seductive lol. Imo, nothing about Labyrinth would influence young people to seek out partners who treat them badly.
There is the scene of him dancing with Sarah, but that just feels like her being drawn in by his charm while also finding him frightening. It's aesthetically really cool, but you still obviously root for Sarah to save her brother and get home. And like you said, that's literally the main point of the movie.
I think the reasons women found David Bowie's character in Labyrinth attractive are simple and twofold.
1. He's just a good looking guy.
But most importantly
2. We all have a fascination with villains. Take a look at all the classic fairy tales we grew up with, it's traditional and expected for the swooning damsel to be swept up and rescued by the dashing, do-gooder prince or the brave knight from the evil wizard or dragon's lair. Traditional, and boring.
Let's be honest, no one is interested in the dashing prince/knight, because he's exactly what you'd expect him to be. He's chivalrous, handsome, and clean, but he doesn't exude that sense of sheer, dangerous eroticism that villains often do. The prince/knight may put butterflies in our stomachs when he gives us flowers, but the villain can stir something far more primal in us. The thrill of danger, the intoxicating aroma of mystery, the dark charisma, and the ever alluring taste of the forbidden fruit. Villains possess these traits and then some.
But surprisingly, I think the thing that gravitates us towards the villains, rather than the heroes, is this. Villains are essentially just broken heroes. They're the ones we identify with most, because it's in these broken heroes that we see not just what they've become, but who they once were, and how we can often become just like them.
Love actually; toxic AF. Labyrinth - empowering AF. Sarah realizes she’d Jared’s *equal*. And that strips him of his power to hold her and the baby.
Biggest red flag to me is anyone saying some media property "ruined an entire generation of women." I've heard men say the same about Ramona Flowers "ruining" women by making them quirky and cool which somehow caused them to lead on men who think they're Scott Pilgrim. Please grow up.
I read the first book years ago and not the second, but the thing I remember clearest about the books is a line from a dissection of book 2: "Next time you hear someone complaining about girls liking sparkly vampires, point out that in one of the most acclaimed novels of the 21st century, a faerie creature as old as time itself has her mind blown by the lovemaking prowess of a sixteen-year-old virgin."
Holy shit this is disturbing and also VERY telling.
Yeah, I think even the book fans who make arguments that at least parts of the Felurian story should be there, fully admit that the scene as a whole is cringe AF. It also comes out of NOWHERE and is super jarring on a readthrough. I'd say cut the whole thing, BUT it's tied inextricably to objectively the best/most interesting and important scene in the series where he talks to the Cthaeh.
That sounds incredibly unrealistic, was it a celibate creature as old as time? Because 16-year-old me didn't know shit to blow anyone's mind in any way.
@@bluester7177she was the goddess of sex. So, yeeeaaaah.
OMG. I DNF'd The Name of the Wind. Are you serious about that happening?!
The entire comversation about masculinity and parenting boys was really nice. I also have a son and have tried very hard not to teach him that hobbies, toys, clothes, etc... are gendered. He likes his nails being painted, he likes rainbows, he likes cars and trucks and tools.
I could watch the two of you talk about feminism and deconstruction for a lot longer than the video.
This brings me so much joy 😭💕
I also have a nephew who loves painting his nails and doing his makeup and everything has rainbows, and he’s had kids his age tell him that he should just be trans because he likes “girl things.” If he were, then fine, but he even says that he’s not, and it’s frustrating that kids can’t just be allowed to like what they like without feeling pressured to conform one way or the other.
I help look after my nephew two days a week and I'm very careful to reinforce liking what he likes, without any gendered expectations. He likewise enjoys cars and trucks and tools and having his nails painted, aaaand I haven't asked but he probably likes rainbows too.
@@likepocketsjingling we got cling film for his window that blocks some heat and light, and as a bonus the pattern on it makes rainbows. It's been a huge hit.
my little cousin (he’s 9 now but at the time he was 7) saw me painting his sister’s nails and asked me to do his and so i did (he wanted black and blue) and then his grandma asked me to take it off after i was done bc she didn’t want his dad to see it :( it was such a bummer cuz he really liked it.
i try to teach the young kids in my life that they can like what they like and that they can be who they wanna be.
i wish young boys weren’t labeled as “gay” for wanting to have cool colors on their nails, because that’s all it is! it’s cool!
Such a specific gripe but the fact that he says that women wanting guys like Jareth has caused "a lot of harm" skeeves me out because I have a sneaking suspicion that he's saying women not dating him is harm, not that women might be ending up in abusive relationships or with dangerous partners. I could be wrong since I haven't seen the whole discussion, but ooooof it just... rubs me the wrong way
Yeah you're so right, he's framing it as "it's made women not want to date me" and not "women are getting into abusive relationships"
Also being nice doesn't automatically mean you 'deserve' a partner or something. People should be nice because it's the right way to treat others, end of.
Exactly! He's more concerned about him getting dates rather the potential for women taking away the wrong message
Oh I just know that someone who really liked Labyrinth broke up with him and years of coping, shower thoughts, and waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night resulted in that really bizarre, specific world view.
Probably, after that text about his high school crush, I think anything is possible.
the whole hobbit movie/geek girl rant went on for so long i genuinely forgot it was a hobbit movie analogy
I'm only 8 minutes in but already learned that David Bowie is solely responsible for misogyny. What a guy.
I always knew he was an icon but I didnt know, he was the reason Rothfuss is single. David Bowie's cultural impact >>>>
/sarcasm
lmao underrated comment
Also; seeing Carlos - a man - talk about misogony in such a deeply understanding way that I've ONLY ever seen non-men do is so fucking beautiful. Like it's just- I'm so used to men being feminists in the "ofc I'm a feminist that's just common sense, I don't need to read a bunch about it" way that sorta removes the inherent misogony that EVERYONE in this society is raised with, and like,,, it's just so fucking amazing to see more men openly be feminist on Purpouse, actively learning about the subject and deconstructing the shit they've been raised with is really nice.
Literally! The standard!
My fave movie is Labyrinth and I love it because it taught me bad men that claim to love me while treating me like crap and property ARE BAD and that they "have no power over me." The last confrontation in the movie ruins his entire premise.
YES. Same.
Good luck with your mental health journey.
@@therainman7777???
I mean....to be fair he seems to understand that's the point of the film...but apparently thinks women are too dumb and driven by sex to see that??? Unclear, but honestly....it's worse this way.
Rachel: "He's so happy"
Carlos: *Looks like he's regretting his life*
Basically him in that moment: 🎶 Hello darkness my old friend🎶
no but carlos' deadpan commentary during the weird essay pat wrote about the porn girl sent me straight into orbit
I love how much yall love him
@@ReadswithRachel Seriously, Carlos for Prom King.
Carlos read him! It was killing me when he said "that's so specific " about the story! 😂 I was thinking the same thing
Honestly, just put Carlos on any video anywhere and let him give a few minutes of some Real Talk to other men out there about how to free themselves from the tyranny of misogynist thinking. More representation of actual men doing their best to be the best feminists they can be can only be a good thing.
The fact that I’ve never head all this about Rothfuss but everyone praises him up and down is wild to me. Also, we need more men like Carlos in this world!
Also, I hope you and your family are doing well and everyone is happy and healthy ❤
People praise his technical writing skills and worldbuilding, the skill (lack thereof) for writing women has pretty much universally mocked. People like Devi as a character, but the only dialogue I've ever heard about the other female characters is that Denna is basically a plotpoint, his female university friends are so un-notable that most people can't remember their name, and Auri is literally just an idealized tragic SA victim (almost certainly) who is a whimsical character for Kvothe to fix. And not to mention, the whole Felurian debacle is one of the most mocked parts of the entire story and comes of reading like some bizarre self-insert fantasy - some people argue that there are a few reasons to include it, but even those people say that it was gratuitously long and didn't need to be that long or detailed to accomplish those goals.
@@danielbroome5690I was sent into orbit when Kvothe was describing Vashet's natural scent as "sex"
I've only heard of him as a "papa bear" and a good guy, it's quite disappointing being how wrong all that was
I have been a fact for a while, most of his fans know the guy is pretty much a smug asshole.. which is such a shame because the two books are defently amazing even tho he will most likely never finish the last book.
Talking about the whole “it feels good to be needed by a younger, attractive woman” thing and then how you mentioned it’s the dream of so many men to be older and wealthy and to have a younger woman dependent on them-I encountered this idea at a young age (19 or 20). I was at some function for young people and this dude was talking to my table which was comprised of entirely women and the topic was: “at what point do you consider settling and marrying someone who isn’t everything you want in a partner?” I said something like, “well, I want kids so I imagine I would consider it when that window is starting to close.” He nodded and agreed that made sense. I asked him when he would settle. This man had the audacity to look me in the eye and say, “well, I’m a guy, so I’ll never have to settle. I can always marry younger.” So I very sweetly replied, “oh, so I guess she’d be the one settling then!” The look on his face after is something I have framed and hung in a place of pride in my brain 😉 literally the best comeback of my life.
That is an amazing comeback! His attitude is so gross and prevalent.
I hate men as a lesbian glad I don't want them the majority is like that and unicorns are rare...
High five!🤘
Having finished this entire video, I am immediately tossed back to the last time I was at WisCon and Rothfuss (with a child? I guess his!) came over to the gaming area where people were trying to get a game together. I said I would call my partner, who really likes board games, and tell him to come play if he wanted. I am a woman at a feminist science fiction and fantasy convention talking about MY partner, who I know personally! Rothfuss, who doesn't know my partner or me, in front of the ENTIRE room, proceeded to SHOUT at me about consent and not "forcing" people into things. He was loud and obnoxious and so obviously performing social justice and using it as a weapon against, I will reiterate, a WOMAN at a FEMINIST science fiction convention. He behaved this way toward me in 2019.
Anyway, this is not the only story I have of him disrespecting women or women SFF writers who are his literal colleagues. He is not a safe person for women to associate with and I highly recommend avoiding him.
That CANNOT be why he thinks women are into Jareth, I’m LOSING MY MIND
Like…I’m going to be real. Pat. Do you think a certain type of late 80s and 90s girl is fascinated by characters like Jareth and Sephiroth because they’re villains, or because the sexy villains were (and honestly kinda still are) the ones allowed to be androgynous and wear a metric ton of leather.
Here’s a little test you can try. The next time you run into a woman whose a big Jareth fan, ask her if she’s familiar with Castlevania, and if she is, ask her who her favourite character is. It might be Dracula. It's probably not.
When you code your male characters as a little big feminine, because that's a long standing thing for some reason, but you fuck up because now they're hot 😂
These guys tend to think all women want the ultra macho guy who is super strong and mainly, when some of us were into J-rock androgynous dudes, guys with long hair and a more feminine vibe, also, people who are confident to break the binary and be comfortable in their own skin are hot.
Lmaooo this is so legit
As unhinged and stupid as Ruffuss speech was, he had a point when he said that having a powerful guy say "I'm gonna be your slave" ti them is an appealing fantasy to some women... I mean, look at the popularity of _Black Buttler,_ there's an appeal on having a dangerous and evil androgynous being swearing his undying loyalty to you, and he's correct that in real life the guy declaring that he will worship the ground you step in is almost always a manipulative liar, but real life is real life and fiction is fiction; and if a guy thinks that the purpose of escapist fiction is to show how your life _should_ be instead of a simple indulgence into how would it be to be in a certain cool situation, well, that's a *you* problem Patrick Ruffuss, not a women problem
@@Mario_Angel_Medina LOL I think a beautiful person of (insert preferred gender here) saying “I will be your slave” is an appealing fantasy to A LOT OF PEOPLE, not just women 😂
The wanting a woman to cling to a man because of a scary movie reminds me of when I was on the top of stadium bleachers with a “friend.” I don’t know how high up we were, but there was just a wobbly gate blocking us from falling off. I’m fine with heights as long as I’M the one that’s responsible for my balance/stability. But this “friend” took it upon himself to pick me up (I don’t remember why, but it had to do with something some guy we ran into said). I yelped - which wasn’t a typical fear response for me at the time - and clung on to him, digging my head into his shoulder, saying, “put me down.” And he didn’t, just smiled and kept holding me.
Also reminds me of a time where (without any context.. deduce what you will) I stopped a guy because he was hurting me. He looked confused but proud and we talked about it, and it ended with me asking him, “do you want to hurt me?” And he said, “well, yeah.” !!!! Excuse me? 😅😭 (That’s something that you should usually talk about before hand. Not just go for it).
Oh my god that last part. My jaw is on the floor.
I don't know if anyone in the comments said this but the blogpost is basically choice feminism and he is demonstrating why that's not really a good enough concept of feminism. It appeals to people because it allows you to do whatever you want without actually thinking about the systems in place that perpetuate patriarchy and misogyny.
Like yeah, women should be able to be stay at home wives if they want to, but nobody makes that choice in a vacuum and it's valid to interrogate that choice.
And like nobody is a perfect feminist. Because we all have grown up in a society that needs feminism.
GREAT point
Oh this hits the nail right on the head!
choice feminism also applies to libfems too! one search of “choice feminism lipstick alley” proves that it doesn’t just apply to stay at home moms 😂 it also applies to most of the people pushing hookup culture
The specific thing about this whole highschool crush girl story is sending me. Hes reacting to findiny out that a person he breifly knew in highschool is entirely different now and is interested in adult things... because she is simply now an adult. Shes a grown woman now, ofcourse she acts differently to her sixteen year old self, but this man who barely knew her acts as if she died. As if her growing into a complete woman was some sort of homcide on her as a person. She is no longer a child, and that is scary to him. That is deeply sad. This is why men like this man date so young, and throw the women away as soon as they age. Because to them a woman is dead if they do not appear as innocent children.
Felurian (the sex goddess) was so uncomfortable and I cringed through that whole section of the book, but the part that I still regularly rant about years later is the Adem(warrior women culture). He just uncritically switched the gender roles and made the women act like men, but not even real men, stereotypes of l men that only think about casual sex and fighting. And his fighting instructor is like oh you have a boner, let’s just have sex in the middle of practice to get it out of your system, and afterward she becomes basically an object that he uses for sex on a regular basis. A female warrior culture could be so cool, but instead he just made them wish fulfillment for men who want to have emotionless sex with strong women.
So disgusting men are disgusting and THEY are the emotionless ones I mean emotionless sex is one of the biggest desires of men because if a woman is as emotionless as the stereotypical man that means he will get no consequences of treating her like a s€x object
The snu snu effect
I KNOW I COULD RANT FOREVER ABOUT THIS
it's such lazy world-building. He put NO thought into how that would affect the culture.
I was particularly put off by equating different women the MC had been with to instruments.
Thank you, yes 100%! And them not realizing that pregnancy comes from sex was so weird too!
Ppl think David Bowie was hot in labyrinth because David Bowie was hot. Nothing more, nothing less.
@@Phosophor Those tight leggings during a certain song made some girls aware of the difference between men and women. But yes, attractive, charismatic man who can sing and dance.
I have such a vivid memory of finishing The Name Of The Wind and telling my overeager friend that, yeah, it was fun, apart from the fact the author has no concept of what a woman is. And it’s a vivid memory because said friend was downright flabbergasted by my not at all spicy take.
Thanks for the confirmation. My high school self is validated.
Dude I feel this😭 people did not understand why I didn’t think it’s a masterpiece lol
yes! felt the same way. i don’t think theres anything wrong with sex work but when its the only profession women have in fantasy it gets old :/
oh shit... i just bought the book and was so excited to get into it. legitimately wanted to for the past 2 years, and as a female (fantasy) author who writes primarily female protagonists that just breaks my heart,,,
@@caramelllllllllyou’ll have to read it to really get what Rothfuss does. It’s a specific sort of “deifies every woman but also resent them for the fantasy of them in my head” kind of misogyny. The protag is definitely a self-insert.
@@BlackXSunlight URK. time to go back to reading discworld again, then.
THE MIC DROP MOMENT FROM CARLOS I'M CACKLING. love when he pops up and gives me insight into healthy masculinity as someone who grew up with 0 examples of healthy masculinity in my own home.
Rothfuss mentions Labyrinth influencing women’s choices poorly? As if there weren’t a plethora of movies/comics around the same time teaching nerdy boys that the hot woman not liking them wasn’t just their preference and ok, but instead some fatal flaw on the woman, that men are just victims of because they’re the real ones.
This nerdy ‘not like other guys’ nice guy routine is why I could never stand The Big Bang Theory
Rothfuss is the right generation to have Revenge of the Nerds as part of his zeitgeist.
I can’t fathom people who think Big Bang Theory is a pro-geek show
Exactly. A trope that is aptly portrayed in the character of Hal from Megamind.
Oh damn. He figured us out! We don't want nice guys. We want sparkly goblin kings.
I know this is beside the point, but if Kvothe were a female main character, soooo many dudes out there would be criticizing her for being a Mary Sue.
To be fair, there're many people criticizing Kvothe for being a Gary Stu
I knew Rothfuss had some issues with misogyny in his novels, but that clip made my jaw DROP
why did this guy start writing his own feminist theory from scratch instead of being like "hey, sorry if that comment came off as somehow anti-feminist. i like to cuddle with my dates when we go to the movies. i would never do it with a girl who wasn't up for it. i don't feel like that contradicts my feminism, but feel free to write again if there's something i'm missing."
but no, he had to go Full Fedora Quirky Early 2010's Internet Writerman
Damn, are fedoras tainted? I've always dreamed of someday being stylish enough to wear one but I guess that dream is dead. Ah well, my head is probably too fat for me to be a Hat Guy anyway.
@@erich6073 Definitely tainted. (Huh-huh, we said “taint”.)
YES, THIS
My thoughts exactly. 😂
@@erich6073 at this point it's been so long i think you can get away with it, especially if you style it well. live your Hat Guy dreams
"what the fuck does that have to do with hobbits" had me HOWLING LMAOOO never change you guys.
Right? Like he really, really went out of his way to use that analogy lol. He could have just said "studio changes to my beloved childhood classic feel like ordering my usual at my favourite coffee place only to realise with my first sip that they've completely changed the flavour." "Ever ordered a shirt online and when you take it out of the box, it's completely different to how it looked in the picture?" Literally anything else, really xD
As someone who a) never really enjoyed Rothfuss, b) is transmasc, and c) enjoyed Labyrinth while being raised female, I have a lot of thoughts about all this. And I really love the point you made around 28 minutes, that Labyrinth, and horror, and things like it are a safe space to navigate these thoughts and feelings. Especially as someone who's queer and with so many villains who were coded in that way throughout media, I do find villains very interesting (and a lot of people do, this isn't exclusive to the queer experience).
Anyway, even with all this in mind, the idea that David Bowie in Labyrinth made it so I wouldn't love Patrick Rothfuss is the most incel thing I've ever heard. Especially with the way he writes women, with a such a strong conventionally male gaze. To say that women only end up hurt by toxic men because they enjoy characters written for the conventionally female gaze is bafflingly chauvinist, and very much victim-blaming.
Also I love all these slam dunks Carlos is making on Rothfuss. They do my heart good, with how awful it is to listen to Rothfuss' takes on women and masculinity.
I came here as a queer, nonbinary person to say thank you for integrating discussion of the horror genre and how it provides a safer and creative space for queer people to explore desire, pleasure, and our own identities. I am not a huge fan at all of the way PR writes women, though I do enjoy his writing and think the Auri novella is some exquisite prose, but yeah…honestly not super surprising he’s got some of these opinions of women given what’s in his books.
I always find it so funny when men are like "women want BAD BOYS!" like, now? Like 9/10 women liking those characters like that they LOOK like a badass. Just buy a cooler jacket, dude 🙄
I genuinely think that the reason Rothfuss makes all the example characters men instead of women (Bast, leaders at the uni, the first person he meets at the warrior group, etc.) is because he (Rothfuss) thinks that if those were female characters, how could Kvothe not be attracted to them?! Wouldn't that get in the way??? And mess with his true love manic pixie dream girl??? How could a man have so many women in his life and not want to get with all of them?????
Thank you for this video. I have admired Patrick for a lot of years and was simply too young and ignorant to realize these issues. I'm glad I have a much clearer picture now. When I saw the title before the thumbnail, I thought this was going to be about how he got people to donate money for charity with a reward being a reveal of the first chapter of the third book, then he got mad when people were upset when he started joking about not actually following through, and then....never actually followed through. I would love a continuing series on this author in particular, if you're up for it.
Also, I am LIVING for this moment:
CARLOS: If only they had the will to change.
*DROPS MIC*
Jareth in Labyrinth: "Just fear me, love me and I will be your slave."
9-year-old female me: "Ok he's cute but nah."
Give women some freaking credit.
It was so refreshing to just listen to Carlos speak on this topic because the men that I know just don't articulate like this or even try to understand the feminine perspective on feminism
Can you two do even more videos talking about feminism and deconstruction? What a great discussion!
Omg I would love to. I’m so glad they’re enjoyable to watch
@@ReadswithRachelthey’re amazing you both are so well spoken!!
@@ReadswithRachel I love anything with Carlos. As a young Gen Xer, the scary thing is that this author dude is how men my age were “feminist men” back in the 80s/90s. This was somehow better than their dads had done, yet…not really believing anything they said that was even minimally feminist sounding.
Seconding this!! Carlos is so articulate about unlearning patriarchy and masculinity and it's super helpful to hear from him and his viewpoint.
@@Kimberly_Sparkles doing the barest minimum to acceptably get laid
16:19 I'm also stuck on the implicit misogyny in his syntax. Instead of stating that "men and women are equal," he says, "women are worth as much as men." This implies that men are inately worthy (i.e., better), while women must be made worthy (i.e., raised to their level). It just feels cringey to me.
(P.S. I specifically remember reading this blog post when it came out because my partner at the time was a fan. I see it sooo much differently now, a decade+ down the road...)
I couldn’t articulate what was bothering me about him using the word “worth” but YES you nailed it
I was was wondering why that bothered me too - something felt off and I couldn't place it. Good eye! XD
This is such a good point! Thank you for pointing that out.
🤯 exactly! It's about worth, an inherent value that women can possibly achieve. Because who *exactly* decides who is "worthy"? It implies that a value system starts at regular human being a man.
Yes, I said "uh, you missed" at that part
I have survived DV and it is so healing to watch you and your husband have a respectful conversation. Thank you. It made me cry my eyes out.
I’m so glad. Thank you for being here.
I have been a huge fan of Rothfuss and his work for years. This video has seriously changed how I view him and myself. Thank you so much for making your wonderful videos!
Wow, I appreciate you listening so much!
When Rothfuss talked about wanting hot young women to cling to him, he was (still is?) a college professor.
The way he's still so free about sharing his sexist analogies makes me feel so bad for anyone who has him as a teacher.
Just started the video but that 1st clip took me back to when people acted as if Kvothe wasn't a self-insert when he made a "not all men" type of response in one of the books. The fact that Rothfuss is still so pressed about the exact same thing, all these years later, is... telling, to say the least.
Yeah I think everybody low-key knows Kvothe is what would normally be a gary-stu self-insert fantasy surrounded by a genuinely excellently written story and world which props him up. Kvothe himself is pretty terrible and about as much of a mary sue as you can get.
Even Kote is a self-insert. Think about it. 😂
"i'm not in a space where i have patience for implicit or explicit misogyny. i'm not able to ignore it like i used to. it was something as a woman that i was expected to take and now i'm like, 'oh i actually can expect more out of my books!' what a concept." this is how i treat the media i consume now. i have zero tolerance for bigotry in my books and, if i don't dnf a book entirely, i dock stars as i see fit instead of being generous and like "this was how it was back then and [insert oppressor here] couldn't help it" like i used to. patrick rothfuss always came off to me as another joss whedon-he abuses his power and exploits women & bipoc just to become a feminist cult icon. they talk over those groups and speak for us instead of stepping to the side and using their platform to boost our voices like an actual ally would. thank you for including your convo with carlos because it exactly pinpointed why white men artists (especially in the fantasy genre) like patrick rothfuss, george rr martin, and andrzej sapkowski make bipoc women like me uncomfortable. also where'd you get your 'women run shit!' shirt. that's sick.
I haven't read Game of Thrones, but it always strikes me as weird when a male author is told he writes female characters well and instead of responding with something like, "Oh, thanks, I hope I continue to do so!" and leaving it at that, they start positioning themselves as Mega-Feminist Icons and patting themselves on the back for the good, important work they're doing on behalf of women everywhere. Especially if they're on stage in front of an audience. Just feels like empty, pandering cheer-baiting.
The view that women cannot separate fiction from reality feels similar to how some people believe violent video games are what cause school shootings.
Kinda true though.
I'm actually currently reading The Wise Man's Fear, my brother lent it to me. I kinda find his writing difficult to keep focus on so it's a slog. But since Labyrinth is my all time favourite movie - and when I was a kid I totally wanted to marry the Goblin King - I resent the idea that liking something in fantasy ruined me. I loved him as a kid because I didn't understand what he was really saying. Now , as an adult, I despise toxic romance interests and abuse masquerading as love. Plus there is this one part in Name of the Wind where *SPOILER* he's comparing Denna to a flower and I was immediately like "no young man speaks like that. It's a very Milady moment." And in the same book when the teacher is harsh on the men who come late to class and then coos over the girl, only to basically tell her to close her legs and then says something like "now the gates of hell are closed we can begin" and I almost DNFed it right then and there. Kvothe gives me incel vibes sometimes. Plus he's EXTREMELY STUPID for someone who is supposed to be so smart...I can tolerate misogyny in my books, because fiction reflects the real world, but it's quite easy to tell when someone is writing misogyny because of world-building, or because the author has a chip on their shoulder.
I absolutely was that young person myself if I'm being honest.
Because I was growing up abused and there at least was an upside with what he was proposing.
The movie Labyrinth wasn't the problem, it was growing up in an environment that completely messed up my sense of self/self worth. I haven't ended up hurt/used because of the movie Labyrinth, it's because of the conditions that I grew up in.
It's crazy for someone to try to ignore the multiple layers that may exist or push off the responsibility of abusers on a freaking movie and the people being abused. Absolutely unhinged.
@@chaossmith3864 It's no different from blaming video games or music for literally anything bad because clearly art is the only thing that can influence a person to do good or bad, absolutely nothing else.
As a Trans Masc Puerto Rican person who was raised by a very sexist father, I loved listening to Carlos talk about his deconstruction of gender and the way he was raised.
My first serious boyfriend did something unwanted to me while driving and pulling his Emergency Brake because he said he could condition me to associate fear with sexual desire.
Oh my GOD what an awful thing to even think. I’m so sorry this happened to you.
That sounds so frightening! Glad he's past-tense.
How does that even work? Sounds like just more fear no arousal.
I'm so sorry he did that, I hope you're well!
@@Topdoggie7it’s a common abuser tactic: they want to manipulate you to react exactly the way they want to everything. My thing, for example, is that I hate tickling. I don’t associate it with feeling good and having a good time, I associate it with pain. My ex’s thing was to “microdose” me on tickling by doing it in little increments every day until I would start to enjoy it. It didn’t work, shockingly /s
I think a lot of men don't understand what it's like to read a book or watch a movie and feel it be actively hostile to you. I can never divorce that feeling from my enjoyment of a book, no matter how great it otherwise might be. I wanted to read these books a few years ago, but then decided against it when I saw commentary on how it treats women. Happily, I can spend my time reading books written by women, which is not a guarantee that they won't be sexist, but my odds feel better like that! Really loved the discussion on masculinity with Carlos!
His immaturity in what he finds romantic makes me wonder if he stopped getting attention from the women he wanted early in adulthood and that's why he still holds on to that memory of Scream and still talks about being with a young women and wanting to feel needed. I've known so many guys like this who felt like they held women up and were all about strong women in their media and their best women friends (who they secretly pined over), but as soon as you started talking about their ideal relationships/romantic partners/etc, it got weird. Like he would say women don't need to be SAHM but he would want to make sure his wife could do it because he secretly loves antiquated gender roles. Or not letting a women friend walk back to her car alone even if she tells him she's fine because he understands what women go through. It is what Carlos said about wanting his masculinity confirmed by how women need him. Guys like this are always so sensitive to really weird things because they define their whole self through the reflection of other's behavior towards them. If my friend likes me to walk her to her car, then I am trustworthy (vs actually being trustworthy just because he is). Or his wife needing him to provide means he has daily value to her so she will love and stay with him. Then when women don't want these things that he's offered, it's not due to independence, it's due to toxic attraction to lesser men. No, dude, we can feel the toxicity you are trying to cover in yourself by white knighting.
Also, I hated David Bowie's character from the beginning and didn't get the purpose of the movie at all because I couldn't suspend my disbelief long enough to accept that a super powerful fae king would need that level of coercion to land the minor he wanted. Grooming would have been way more effective according to everything we know about reality.
@@kaitlinhogan9072Lol same I also didn't like it because of that and maybe because I am not into m*n
Two things: first I love how sweet you and your husband are together and how Carlos truly understands what he’s saying and isn’t just spouting off nonsense like some (most) other men would do
Second: I’m an art Ed major and we actually talked a lot about bell hooks and her impact on education and I was so hyped when she came up and I wanted to share
I looked into sexism in The Wise Man's Fear a while back and thought I could add a few more examples to this conversation.
I see a lot of people defending sexist books as oh, the male main character is just "flawed" (The Dresden Files is also a great example of this). I think it's telling how much sexism is build into the worldbuilding, where the "flawed" male main character's viewpoint has no weight. Marie Brennan's* post did a great job addressing this, but we also see an example in the Ademre, a matriarchal, sexually liberated society that seems quite empowering for woman, right? But it doesn't feel like an organic matriarchal society, but rather a straight man's fantasy of one. It really stood out to me that the Ademre didn't know how women get pregnant from having sex, because no Ademre women would willingly stop having sex with men for long enough to find out. So apparently this society has no lesbian, asexual, and low libido women or women who don't have sex with men for a time for whatever reason. All the women in this society have to be sexually available for straight men (ie the protagonist) at all times, which is not realistic considering the diversity of women that exist in real life. While doing some googling, I found a reddit post that describes more issues with the way they are written, namely that the Ademre are "catering to the idea that men are at the mercy of their sexuality and women relieve them". I think a lot of male fans of the series see a matriarchy or a “strong/powerful female character” and think that means it can’t be sexist. But if a female character is only strong or powerful in so far that it makes her more sexually appealing to the male main character…that’s still sexist. Relatedly, I don’t care how much a man “reveres” a woman or puts her on a pedestal. If he can’t see her as a human being, he’s being sexist.
There's also a number of sexist quotes in the story that go unchallenged. For example “Each woman is like an instrument, waiting to be learned, loved, and finely played, to have at last her own true music made. Some might take offense at this way of seeing things, not understanding how a trouper views his music. They might think I degrade women. They might consider me callous, or boorish, or crude. But those people do not understand love, or music, or me” (Wise Man’s Fear). So comparing people to an instrument in inherently objectifying and really gross. It reduces women to an object that men take pleasure in instead of human beings with individual personalities, wants, and needs. Once again, it ignores the fact that asexual/aromantic and lesbian women or women with no desire to be sexually or romantically available to men exist. Women are reduced to what they are worth to men. Rothfuss even admits that people will find this offensive (because it is), and those people (ie many women) just aren't smart enough to get it, which makes the quote even worse. This sort of thinking does seem to be a pattern in Rothfuss's behavior online (as shown in the video), so I think it's safe to say this isn't just Kvothe talking. I'd also suggest checking out Rothfuss's goodreads author page, where he feels the need to brag about being "skilled lover of women" and an "advisor for the college feminists [and] a sorority" which is also...odd.
*Also, I'm not sure if people know this, but Marie Brennan is a great feminist fantasy author to check out! I've enjoyed her Memoirs of Lady Trent Series, and she along with Alyc Helms wrote The Mask of Mirrors under the name MA Carrick that Rachel recommended.
I am the biggest idiot on earth for not realizing Marie Brennan from the blog was the same Marie Brennan who is part of the MA Carrick duo. My god. I am dense.
Lol I don't want to be played with I'm a person I hate Rothfuss but I also hate a lot of straight girlies Rothfuss has a lot of female defenders on reddit most of them straight and big pick-me's
Well I hope you're both happy (I've just bought Mask of Mirrors 😅)
I AM happy
Oh my God, that quote made me wonder whether he'd ever known a woman in real life, and also whether he's ever played an instrument, ever. Or even talked to a musician. God, it's infuriating that I still like the book. Especially with how BAD the Ademre world building is..... WTF
My step-father's and my brother's favourite colour is pink. They wear it all the time, both their rooms are painted in pink. Kids at school used to make fun of me because "your dad wears pink! He wears girl colours". And I am so glad I grew up in a family where colours weren't assigned to gender. And yet, I still had to take years to overcome my own bias. I used to claim I hated pink, just because I thought that would make me more masculine. Now I like pink. I hate yellow tho lmao
YOU DON'T HAVE TO INSULT YELLOW TO ELEVATE PINK
@@erich6073 FUCK YELLOW
I also hate yellow. There are certain times it's ok but for the most part I don't care for it.
My favorite color is blue, not really one specific shade but various ones.
My high school econ teacher (this was the 90's) used to wear pink shirts. And often a tie designed to look like a salmon. I don't know why I feel the need to mention it, but I do.
@@kbird6208that sounds pretty rad, ngl
The average woman: oh boy if I don’t get m*rdered on this date, I’ll consider him a keeper!
Carlos: [has calm, deep, and positive discussions about feminism with his wife]
The average woman: ...wait, men can do that??????
No but seriously, I’m so glad you have a partner like that. You deserve it!! I really enjoyed the video, can’t wait for the other ten parts that dear old Patrick is going to require 😭😂
A classmate convinced me to read this series because she practically worshipped Patrick Rothfuss. She always checked his blog and loved everything he wrote. So, I read it and every time I picked it up it literally put me to sleep. Looking at the composition of his writing style, it is so slow and his sentences run on, and often, very often, had lots of purple prose with comparisons (metaphors, similes) that didn't actually compare anything. I really couldn't like the main character because everything just happened to Kvothe, the character really didn't have any agency. And as a woman, none of the women in that story seemed appealing or relatable to me or any woman I know. In my master's course of fiction writing at Oxford, we were asked to each bring a piece of writing we like so the professors, professional authors and screenwriters in the industry, can evaluate the passage and teach us why it works. And this classmate brought Name of the Wind, read the first paragraph, and every professor was sincerely confused. They had never heard of this book series, and this is Oxford (home to the best Fantasy writers like Tolkien and C.S. Lewis) and they ripped it to shreds as to what not to do to write a book.
This made me laugh like a new secret pleasure was hidden away inside me.
I haven't read Rothfuss but like every fantasy novel or movie or TV series that have a rabid fandom always seems, to me, to be quite poorly written. I checked out of Game of Thrones in the pilot when the characters started being like, "You, brother, are blah blah blah blah" "Ah yes, but you, sister, blah blah blah blah". But I guess for a lot of people the appeal of fantasy is that nobody behaves or talks like real human beings? That's the "escapist" part of it maybe?
And the first book was supposedly heavily edited so I wonder how bad it was before an editor got to work on it? That also might explain why he never finished the third book? I mean, it takes talent to not finish a trilogy.
When will these people understand that just because women like something fictional doesn't correlate directly to their real life? Like why is this always a discussion about women, and never men, being influenced by fiction?
By Rothfuss's logic there should have been a severe uptick of domestic abuse cases when women, who loved Labyrinth, grew up.
Honestly, it kind of comes off to me like men see the fictional women they create all the time in media and expect that unrealistic standard in real life and so they expect women follow the same principle and are also not be able to separate fiction and reality.
That's why you see any realistic portrayal of a woman in video games being bombarded by men shitting on it for being "pandering" or making a woman "look like a man" because they aren't 2" waist, giant boobed, 2 dimensional characters with lip gloss and perfect hair even thought they live in an apocalypse.
@@RebaMedia the more I think about it, the more I realize Ruthffuss (and many other authors and readers) are into escapist fantasy not only to escape the mundane reality but especifically to indulge in how they would like their lives to be, so they can't fathom that somebody could love when something happens in fiction but hate it when it happens in reality: because for them it would be a literal dream come true that their fantasies happened in reality
Ok that is just straight up wrong on many levels. Men have been criticized a lot for what kind of fiction they enjoy. Men being called potential murderes and rapist because they play certain violent games. Men being called incels because they enjoy more nerdy stuff or even generates for liking stuff like anime. Not saying woman don't get judged by what they enjoy unfairly by what they enjoy just that it's both genders that do it
@@davidfrederiksen3185 Dude Men aren't the only ones who play video games or like nerdy stuff/anime, women have been into that stuff this entire time. For instance, it's famously known that the original Star Trek fandom was mostly women. Also that shit is main stream now. The video games = violence rhetoric was always stupid and is barely even a conversation nowadays.
Also the point of this convo, is "wanting something in fiction vs not wanting it in reality", not "people being mean bc of things people like". That's an entirely different conversation and is moving the goal post.
Rothfuss thinks having two (way too young for him) women grabbing him in in a movie theatre bc they're scared is something that actually happens, when that isn't really prevalent in real life. It IS prevalent in movies/tv though and has been pushed as a trope in media for decades to the point that people think it happens a lot, or at least want it to happen.
Women wouldn't ACTUALLY want a Goblin King who steals children and is for sure evil, because that irl is terrifying. But is able to be explored safely in fantasy land.
@@RebaMedia I definitely agree that men aren't the only ones who are nerdy but they are definitely the ones that have been openly judged the most. Yes woman are very active in gaming today are the most prevalent in certain genres that actually aren't really called nerdy or accused of making someone a certain type of person because they enjoy something in fiction.
And no I disagree the post I responded to mention that men don't get judged for what they like in fiction Wich I argued wasn't true at all
"If he's not going to finish the series, I'm not going to finish the book" we love our petty mom
"Who said that??" "Patrick" "Oh *visible disgust*" we also love our feminist dad
10:35 god....how on earth did he make one of the greatest first date ideas sound CREEPY??? Horror movies and roller/ice skating can be great early dates-because yes, someone may want to hold on to the person next to them, or they may need a hand to help balance. So these date options can... provide very natural opportunities to initiate very basic physical touch more easily. Which for some, is a part of how they flirt. But DONT MAKE IT WEIRD.
Like, as a pretty radically feminist lesbian, I also have used those as first dates for that reason. It helps you get over that hurdle of having the girl you like want to hold your hand-if youre socially awkward, that can be nerve wracking to initiate. And yes, Im butch/transmasc, so I do like to be "manly" and provide comfort in that way at times-when a girl wants it. Its affirming to me. But no one *has* to seek me for comfort. There are plenty of ways I can seek similar moments of gender euphoria.
So...this means that wanting them to "cling to you desperately for comfort" is just demeaning and gross-it takes it from a cute date idea and a smooth way to maybe get to hold hands with the person you like, to something far far more predatory.
Carlos is incredibly well-spoken and thoughtful, and all of his commentary feels completely genuine. What an incredibly intelligent, compassionate, and caring man. He’s out here raising the bar for men everywhere. Would absolutely love to hear the two of you lead more discussions about feminism and masculinity, because this style of video where the two of you discuss a case study and share your thoughts is honestly incredibly helpful and informative to listen to.
#TeamCarlosTheFeministDad
"The Labrnynth is the reason women end up in abusive relationships and the problem is how it affects me" is a wild statement
Something I don't like about Rothfuss is that whenever confronted about his lack of female representation he deflects it by blaming it on the fact that other fantasy books he read didn't have women, which, while that may be true (and is a discussion in of itself,) is still a pretty stupid point because you are in charge of writing your books, just because other books did (or didn't) do something doesn't mean you have to copy them.
The comparison is especially striking when you compare with Brandon Sanderson. He acknowledges the lack of female representation in Mistborn Era 1 (except for Vin of course) and since then, has constantly improved, with some of his most recent works paricularly standing out like Tress of the Emerald Sea.
I just.... can't get over the way he describes "our" "hypothetical" highschool crush bc like,,, wdym all you loved about her is gone? She's a pornstar, that doesn't mean she's not smart or a geek or interesting anymore, like what??????
Just the way he so openly tells on himself about how he views women. When they're covered up he's free to think of them the way he wants, the way she'd be in bed is exactly what he'd like and she'd like Totally laugh at his jokes bc she reads books like him and is shy like him and that makes her worth something. But the second her body becomes something that he can't fantasize about because he knows what she'd look like she's suddenly just not a person anymore. Suddenly she's for Everyone and not just for Him.
It's so, so, SO fucking gross.
Very, very gross. So she has a new job (hobby?) and it suddenly impedes her ability to get a Star Wars joke? No, of course not. Because it never was about the shared interests or nerdy jokes or her as a person.
By constructing this narrative the way he does, Pat is telling on himself.
@@myepictbr6968 Legit, but no it's totally Jareth's fault that no girls want him. Couldn't POSSIBLY be bc of something HE'S doing, because that would require some honest self-reflection and we can't have that now can we./sarcasm/not-directed-at-ye
I think he used the 'visual' of the woman being different from his past view of her, because he was relating it back to a movie, which is a visual medium. It was a really cringe-inducing tirade, and a weirdly specific metaphor, but I feel inferring that he hates sex-work based off of it is a reach. Judging a book by it's cover and all that, I believe it was just eliciting a feeling of like, "Wow, she seems much different than how I remember." But because the dude is/was a little pervy, he got waaaay too carried away.
@@FangTehWolf The conceit of this metaphor doesn’t work unless one assumes that the woman who is doing sex work is somehow “lesser” than the one who doesn’t. Try to mentally flip it: I knew this cool girl who was very confident and liberated and did sex work, but I’ve meet her 10 years later and she is a tradwife now. Does this metaphor work? After all, it also offers great “visual” contrast. To me, it doesn’t for reasons I outlined above.
@myepictbr6968 see, that's where i would disagree. Nowhere in his rambling fantasy did he deem her lesser. Just different. Not the same as remembered, etc. I actually think the flipped version is more jarring, even, somehow.
PSA for men: be like Rachel’s husband.
Be an man.
“Be an man”
Title of his future book
why not "be a good person"? why are we gendering the idea of being a decent human being?
@@AntirisDark why can’t you make books for specific genders? If one specific group has an on going problem it makes sense that someone, from that group, is able to use that insight to help rectify the problem.
@@AntirisDark also if you want a book like that Rachel recommends bell hooks.
@@ReadswithRachel Carlos cooking channel when, by the way? People would literally eat it up. 🤣
i’m not even a fan but i did read the name of the wind (a long time ago) and i liked it, but at the time i didn’t notice anything in it (i was like… twelve) so I’m very curious to go back to it. i really liked the stormdancer books by jay kristoff when i was that age too and I didn’t realize how questionable they were until a couple of years ago.
edit: just got to minutes 7-8 and what the fuck. not only is blaming misogyny on women liking male villains stupid and baseless but it’s also legitimately heinous in the sense that it blames abused women for their trauma saying that it was caused by liking FICTIONAL CHARACTERS instead of. yknow. actual flesh and bone abusers
The clip where he talks about Labyrinth is also so victim blame-y. He's essentially saying that women end up in abusive relationships because they're choosing the wrong men, and not because of a myriad of other factors that are beyond said women's control. As if every abuser is a Jareth, out there flaunting how bad of a guy they are and laying out every horrible thing they're going to do, when in reality they look like just anyone. In fact, plenty of abusers are indistinguishable from Patrick himself: middle aged dudes, nerdy, calling themselves "nice guys" and "feminists", just happening to seek out younger women for no particular reason.
So no, women don't end up in abusive relationships because David Bowie made them choose the wrong people. They end up in abusive relationships because they gave someone a go, and they couldn't have known that someone would be abusive.
He swindled his fans out of $300,000 promising us that chapter we never got
That whole thing by itself is going to have to be its own video. A total mess.
@@ReadswithRachel I look to it ! I refuse to read Doors Of Stone if we ever get it even tho I actually loved the first two books.
I cried a little watching this. I've never had a conversation with a man about feminism, with him actually *understanding* and letting me talk. But seeing Carlos talking about this kind of theme with a certain level of awareness gave me hope.
You're very lucky, having him as a friend and a husband 😢.
Lots of love to you both❤
I heard about this guy when his books became popular. At the time I was under the misconception that male-fantasy-writer = Bad Woman Representation. The moment he said "WoMeN dOnT lIkE mE cAuSe DaViD bOwIe Is HoT! WaAaAah!" I was a little smug because I was right about the books and disappointed he is the prime example that wouldn't have changed younger me's mind.
It’s very interesting to me that he picked “you don’t have to be a stay at home mom” as his argument, instead of “you don’t have to have kids”.
criticism regarding bowie actively being a sexual predator towards teenage girls as a grown man? valid.
criticism against bowie because he was the villain in a movie once and now women won't date you so that's bowies fault? NOT valid.
jfc patrick 🤦🏻♀️ why is he like this omg the incel enegery that man radiates
You just have to read his books to find that out. The main prog radiates strong incel energy too
Honestly he needs to focus less on finding a woman and more on finishing his last book.
I still can't believe that the blog post is real. I hope he never gets over his writing slump
As a writer, that is the worst curse you can cast on someone(and in this case I hope it works!)
I might be misremembering, but I recall an episode of the podcast 'Writing Excuses' in which Mary Robinette Kowal called him out for a misogynistic analogy. He seems to have a habit of reducing women to metaphors and emphasizing the contrast b/w things via a Madonna-Whore analogy. I think in this particular episode he said that the difference between a simple/archetypical vs complex character is like the difference between a fling with a dark eyed woman vs the lady you marry. He claimed that both are equally important for a good novel and for a good life, something crazy like that. I’ll have to go search for the episode.
Oh I love that podcast, I would be so very curious to hear which episode number that is
Found it - episode 15.04: Revision with Patrick Rothfuss, around 21:30-24:10. He does accept the correction and assures her that he won’t make the analogy again, so there’s that. I hope he has actively worked to dismantle the sexist ideologies that underpin his strange analogies. But, this podcast episode was posted Jan 2020 and now he’s ranting about Bowie, so who knows. @@amberdawn868
@@amberdawn868it was season 15 episode 4!
6:45-6:55 That was actually only a small part of Sarah's development. The overall lesson she had to learn is that she can't shut herself away in a fantasy , can't shut the real world out.
I love all the Carlos comments but the “She has a hobby? Mad asf about a hobby.” At 35:23 killed me 😭
You don't know how long I've been waiting for this video to be made. THANK YOU! -I've- been called sexist for trying to talk about how NotW's portrayal of women is sexist. I am so sick and tired of fantasy authors who don't seem to view women as human beings, who exist for other reasons than to supply men with affection and/or sex. And I'm sick of fans putting on blinders and refusing to engage with the conversation, thinking that if you enjoy a work of fiction you must endorse all of its content and defend it to the death. Love your channel Rachel, you're doing great work, love hear Carlos talk from his point of view at times as well. Cheers!
I do love his prose. I will admit that. However, he gets so weird with women. I could enjoy name of the wind, but when we get a society of warrior women that is a matriarchy, yet doesn't understand basic women's health, I start doubting my own enjoyment.
"I do love his prose. I will admit that. However, he gets so weird with women."
SAME. Like i vividly remember being blown away by NOTW and his ability to describe things, especially music, in a way that made me feel like i was experiencing new colors. But...the women? OOF
He's just like Murakami in this regard
I love you talking about raising your sons to be comfortable and confident in themselves regardless what the outside world tries to force on them. And that you block out their names, its wonderful to see influencers protecting their kids privacy
that p*rn site monologue had me in PHYSICAL anguish and confusion. he could’ve wrote that in a diary and locked it away. burning it would be cool too.
Lmaoooo for real
Bring back diaries!
Where are the single Carlos' of the world?? For real tho, you've got yourself an awesome partner, Rachel. It's so refreshing to hear calm, intelligent conversation on this topic between a woman and a man. I've never been a fan of NOTW. It put me to sleep the 3 times I tried reading it. Then once the charity fiasco happened I put off trying a 4th time and donated all my books of his. Now it's just a cringe fest.
I know I'm fixating on one little detail but... I cannot believe that Rothfuss went on that bizarre reminiscence about women clinging to him while watching the original SCREAM. Like... did he just get his manful chest clawed during that movie or did he pay attention to how the main antagonist is a disgusting misogynist who would probably make the same argument he's making about wanting attractive young women with him at a horror movie (and who was also way into the madonna/whore dichotomy). Not the good guy, Rothfuss, the antagonist! It just seems like a feminist would've picked that up while watching the movie, idk.
Ew, him saying "f me red lipstick" reminded me of my mom telling my older sister she couldn't wear red nailpolish cuz red was an "adult" color. Like... the hell u mean adult color??????
Colors have gender and age now, apparently!
*puts on best mansplaining voice* He's calling her a whore, you see.
I was told the same thing as a kid. I just wanted red nails for Christmas but nope that was too grown
The way Carlos's lips pursed so tight when you said it was a series popular among men just says "Oh, here we go."
There's this thing that some male authors do, where they are convinced they are just romantizing women. That their representation of women is glowing, complimentary; an exaggeration, yes, but an ultimately flattering one. But it rarely comes across that way? Its more like they're holding up a picture and saying "This is how I see you!" but in reality its how they see their own ideal concept of a woman. I don't expect all men to write perfectly nuanced women (or vice a versa), and I have absolutely no problem with books that are geared more towards men. There are niches everywhere, and almost every niche deserves to be filled! Some male authors write women and you can tell they don't really understand them (which is okay) but it doesn't bother me. Sometimes its even a little charming. And yet with others it does. And I often can't pin down why.
But other times, I definitely can.
Like there was this one book (I can't remember much about it, sorry) with a female protaganist. And the representation wasn't perfect but it was okay. Then this scene happened (again, can't remember the particulars) where the protag was with a large group of women, some kind of magical thing happened and every woman in the room instantly got their period. Boom. Heavy, immediate flow. Straight up hemorrhage. To a woman it would be horrifying. But there was this bizzare, vaguely erotic undertone that freaked teenage me right out of my chair and right off the series as a whole. Especially considering that was dedicated to and written for his daughter
Oh no. Back when his first book came out, it was much praised. People also loved the second one. And then we all got tired of waiting for the third one, not unlike we did for the next ASoIaF book. Rothfuss has made many a post about depression and fear causing him to second guess himself and take much longer on the book than he wanted. But then this kept going on. And on and on. Then there was the post where he promised to post a chapter from the third book if a fund raising goal was met, which it was. He proceeded to not post the chapter as promised. Then there were further teases that never amounted to anything. Some baiting and switching too. Posts that seemed to hint we were going to finally get some news about the third book only to be told about yet another charity thing. Charities are well and good, but nearly all his posts had to do with them and it always felt like he was tricking everyone into reading about and possibly donating to them what with all those pre-posts where he made it sound like he was going to talk about book three instead.
It got
really
old.
Many of us moved on and decided we did not care any longer if the final book came out. Now to see he was worse than we thought, well that is disappointing indeed. It is a shame. His books had some problems to be sure, but they were still enjoyable. Now…well, this commenter, at least, is not going to be reading the final book.
If it should ever come out.
And that seems as unlikely as ever.
I tried reading _The Name of the Wind,_ but honestly it left me cold. I couldn’t figure out why Kvothe was so broke when he was a master musician. Like, get a regular gig at a tavern, dude! Hell, get a regular gig at a brothel. Maybe there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for his not doing so that I missed? I also didn’t care for the few women characters he had. I didn’t read the second book, but given what I’ve heard about the second book, I’m okay with it. I read a review which described the breathless awe with which Felurian discovers Kvothe was a virgin and nearly threw up.
Also, what the fuck was he talking about with Labyrinth? Sure, the Goblin King was hot, but he was clearly not trustworthy, and Sarah knew it. I don’t know how much clearer they could have made the paradox in “fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave.”
It's like he got the part about how women have legitimate fear and anxiety about unknown men because of the behavior of men as a whole, but then played an uno reverse card and concluded it's actually women's fault because we encourage that behavior??
I have been waiting for someone to make this video for a long time. Thank you for being the one who did it.
34:01 Carlos never even read Name of the Wind, and he’s still asking, “Who hurt him?”
I only know about the controversy where he promised to write and post ONE chapter from his third book if his fans donated to a certain charity event, and the amount was far exceeded. It’s been like two years now and he still hasn’t posted that ONE chapter. So... I can’t wait to learn what else he did 😂😭
Oh wow 🙈😂
That one was so bad they stopped doing yearly fundraiser.
From what I remember when the goal was reached Rothfuss tried to get out of publishing the chapter by making another stretch goal and saying it was all or nothing, but his employees made him change it (that additional stretch goal was also reached though). I know people complain about Martin not finishing ASoIaF, but at least we know he wrote something because he released around 10 chapters from Winds of Winter. And he didn't sell them to his fans and ditch without delivering.
Rothfuss mentioned in one of his blog posts wanting to make a blog post about the situation with the chapter but did he? No. I don't know how people still believe he'll deliver the last book when he can't deliver a blog post.
Not to defend Rothfuss, but isn't the fact that a lot of money was donated to a charity ultimately a net good? Even if it was founded on a lie or a lapsed promise?
@erich6073 Definitely, but this will cause people to mistrust charity events and will make them less likely to donate to charity in the future. Plus, like the other comment above notes, Rothfuss had to stop doing the yearly fundraiser because he didn’t deliver, meaning charities are missing out on a chunk of money due to his negligence.
Also, if you make someone pay for something and you don’t deliver, that’s a scam, which can result in a lawsuit, which can result in the money having to be refunded. Most people aren’t going to be dicks and demand refunds from a charity... but they are entitled to one, at the very least morally, but maybe also legally. That isn’t even touching the fact that they likely paid way more than one chapter would be worth, or even an entire book 😅
Ah yes, the famous film Labyrinth, so famous and influential that it couldn’t even make back half of its $25 million budget at the domestic box office, but was the favourite of all the girls Patrick’s age (it came out when he was 13) because they couldn’t resist 40 year old David Bowie in a bad wig. And that bad wig influenced their dating choices forever and ever.
I think Rothfuss just always picks weird women and that's why he feels so frustrated he has no taste
Edit: And then he blames the women HE chose for it like tf they didn't ask
If we go with what character types made significant cultural impact around that time, women wanted Patrick Swayze from Dirty Dancing or Leo from Titanic. Both profoundly decent human beings defined by the respect they showed to their romantic interests.
I have never seen the movie and didn't even know what it was despite being in the right demographic. I feel like that is proof enough by contradiction that he is full of it.
Watching you and carlos talk about masculinity and raising your kids was just so heartwarming. The future is bright with people/parents like you around.
i just KNOW your guys' kids are in such good hands and they will be great people when they're older. i dont plan on being a parent but it gives me hope to see people being good and educated parents to combat the way our parents were with us.
god I wish I was eloquent enough to fully break down on how insane his take on Labyrinth is
I’ve seen so many of these Authors Behaving Badly videos where your face reads as “I’m over this shit,” (rightfully so), but it was really sweet to see you smile and laugh with your spouse. The two of you should do more video discussions!