Subject: I don't think you're wrong
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Posted on: 2019-10-02 22:20:00 UTC

About McCaffrey peaking before the end, I mean. I haven't read Skies, but Dolphins clearly ends up in the... well, sort of in the B material, as it were. It's not like I dislike it, but it's not the best that's been done.

On the otherhand, Dolphins was published before Eye and Masterharper, which I loooove. So... well, maybe not.

As for Dragonflight... okay, I... the thing is... I... do like it. Sort of. My relationship with that book is complicated. There's a lot there that'd great, but it also just feels flawed, and just... not quite done yet. For a lot of reasons. I dunno. That's really just me.

But then there's Dragonseye. Which I really definitely have to re-read. The thing is, I remember reaally liking Dragonseye, but I'm worried that's just a result of the difference between expectations and reality.

Because I had been dreading reading Dragonseye. I thought it would be really painful for me to finish it. Why? Because one notable thing about Dragonseye is that it spends some time being written from the perspective of a Green Rider.

Pop quiz: You can only bring up one subject in fandom. Which do you pick to get a rise out of Thoth the fastest?

Answer: Green Riders in Pern.

The full implications are insane. And stupid. And McCaffrey didn't know what she was doing, definitely didn't think it through, and had some mental models regarding the subject that science has since shown to be flat wrong (And I suspect science had shown them flat wrong then too, but I don't want to judge). Any actual explanation for how Green Riders work (and, in addition, how there were so many of them in the several eras when girls weren't Searched) is an exercise in contortion and I can't think of one that isn't riddled with plotholes, scientifically inaccurate and implausible, just flat-out offensive, or all three.

Pern fans probably know most of what I'm obliquely referring to here but I'm not getting into it in depth because we'll be here all day if I do. Nobody needs another Rage Against The Green Dragons And McCaffrey from me, and the Pern fandom has collectively done a lot to try and patch over the many, many problems with what McCaffrey did when they write fan works. Well, the worst of them anyways.

But for the rest of you, suffice to say that this was my issue: Dragonseye was really the first time McCaffrey tried to write a gay character in Pern (they'd existed prior to this, we just hadn't seen much of them).

Why was I dreading this? because I emphatically didn't trust McCaffrey to do it!. Not well. Not as anything other than another stereotype... eurrgh.

But, as it turns out, I was wrong. P'tero and M'leng are more or less well-written, have a sense of personality, and just generally seem to be pretty solid characters.

And despite this being so minor and insignificant as to be essentially meaningless in the grand scheme of things, that kind of overshadowed the rest of Dragonseye for me. Sure, it didn't matter, but it was a big deal to me personally. Especially when I read that book—just as I was still coming to grips with my own sexuality.

Once again, I seem to have rather lost where I was going. Best to stop here, then...

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