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If you really want to look at the rules that closely. Most of your unskilled populace will not be skilled enough to make money to afford the spell casting services of said priest as well as afford to feed themselves and their families while maintaining some form of room and board. Nothing says good aligned priest offer their services for free. If you want to ignore that, it's also cool.
It's economical and logical for them to waive such fees to some degree to keep small children from dying. Hell, it's basically required in order to have a Good Alignment, at least if the family can't pay.
However, going by the downtime rules from Ultimate Campaign, a farmer can, in fact, pay. A default farm, worked by a farmer from the NPC guide and, say, his or her spouse (who's busy taking care of the kids and doesn't count on income) earns roughly 10.2 Gold per day, and can convert that into capital to improve the farm if they like and are willing to earn less for a few days. Now, working 6 days a week, that's 3,182.4 GP in a year if they take it all in gold. That's before expenses, mind you. And feeding the animals, by my calculations, assuming a plow horse and a few other livestock costs something like 73 gold a year, for example (maybe more depending on number of livestock). I'm sure a bunch more goes for taxes, clothing, and so on...but, while the 150 gp for a Remove Disease is nearly 5% of his yearly income ($1000 to a family who makes a bit over $21k a year, for a comparison)...that's well within their price range for the life of their child.
And a +1 Sword is over half what he makes in a year. So...that sounds about right, thematically speaking.
Now, that's a farmer who owns their own farm. A day laborer with no place to call their own might make more like 1.9 Gold a day 5 days a week, and thus only 442gp a year. That's a much tighter budget to fit a Remove Disease under...but they could probably get a loan, tighten their belt, and manage to pay it off within the year. Of course, in an emergency either one's spouse could start pitching in, perhaps having relatives look after the kids, for another 442 gp per year. That'd almost certainly be unnecessary for the one who owns their own farm, but potentially very helpful for a day laborer.
That was a bit snarky on my part, and I'm sorry for that, but I understand where you are coming from. I just see a large disconnect between these parts of the 'rules' and the setting as presented in the biographies of NPC's, Fiction, and source books throughout the Paizo line.
Where, in what NPC's backstory, do you recall their siblings dying of illness? Or hell, anyone with any money at all dying of illness? Because I'm not coming up with anything...if you could give me an example or two, maybe I could respond better.
By the measure above, any spell above 0th level costs at least a day's wages (often much more, 4th level ones are 280, 5th level ones 450, 6th level ones 660 and so on...and those all require a trip to a city to boot). That's more than you spend on trivial things. You only spend on that kind of thing when it's important.
The clergy of good gods wouldn't stand by for instance and let a baby die if they could save it (that, by definition, isn't good). Besides, even if a poorer person can't pay money for a service, they still might be able to do some manual labor for the clergy, or offer some other form of barter or obligation in payment.
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Plus, providing services to your community is a good way to recruit for your god.
I agree of course Mikaze, but I don't think they should be so proficient at it that it negates the ability to tell a story:
A plague in Korvosa(Crimson Throne)
A drought affecting a seaside community(S&S)
Starving Erutaki villages at crown of the world(Jade Regent)
Miscarriage and deformity of Nualia's child.(Runelords)
My only point I was trying to make, is that looking to the rules for a clear answer of how a setting is portrayed I think most will find a disconnect between the two. Magic from all the 'communities' I listed above should have been able to fix said problems, by the book.
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Actually the church of Abadar does charge people for remove disease. That was a central point in Curse of the Crimson Throne. And as for availability of spells, I don't follow the Gamemastery Guide. Rather I use the listing of spellcasting on page 163 of the Core Rulebook, which is preferable to me. So in my games, you'd need to be in a small city to get Remove Disease. And even goodly clerics need to make money. Also, I do use a modified population counter for non-important NPC classes from the DMG 3.5.
As for overabundance of females in a setting, I don't get bothered. In my setting, it's about 50/50, with one leader as a transperson and one completely genderless (it's an alien :D). Admittedly, my gods are not 50/50, however, the influences make up for this with some of the female gods having more influential portfolios. I don't personally keep track of NPCs in my setting, rather, I make sure each one is high quality. One thing I do keep an eye of is my weird tendency to make magic villains female. It was pointed out to me once and looking back, I'd subconsciously just do it. So it's something I try not to do.
If you really want to look at the rules that closely. Most of your unskilled populace will not be skilled enough to make money to afford the spell casting services of said priest as well as afford to feed themselves and their families while maintaining some form of room and board. Nothing says good aligned priest offer their services for free. If you want to ignore that, it's also cool.It's economical and logical for them to waive such fees to some degree to keep small children from dying. Hell, it's basically required in order to have a Good Alignment, at least if the family can't pay.
I agree completely, I was only arguing that the rules are a toolset for a GM to use to run a game. I don't think it is what anyone would say perfectly represents the setting of Golarion.
Also, sorry, didn't mean to take this off topic like this.
I don't think a day laborer could get a loan. No credit or collateral. Maybe they'd throw themselves into indentured servitude. Though if they did, I'd imagine they'd be a lot more unfair than loans of this day an age. Charging high amounts of payments with high interests because they can, just to force the person into indentured servitude...
...I now have a good NPC background.
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Responses on AP Stuff:
A plague in Korvosa(Crimson Throne)
I did a population demographics thing one time. Going by that, Korvosa (at over 18000 people) has 231 or so people of 5th level plus, total. Of those, how many are Clerics or others who can cast Remove Disease? Rounding up we'll say a full sixth of them. Thirty eight Clerics (or others). Maybe add in another 20 or so 7th level+ Adepts if you're being generous. That's...not nearly enough to stop that particular plague given the virulence, morbidity, multiple and ongoing infection vectors, and all the other problems.
A drought affecting a seaside community(S&S)
I haven't read this one, but Control Weather is the only thing I can think of to stop a drought. Do they have a 13th level caster willing to burn a 7th level spell a day to make them not have a drought? If not...this isn't a good counterargument. Create Water does mean they likely won't die of thirst...but won't do much for the surrounding area in the long term.
Starving Erutaki villages at crown of the world(Jade Regent)
Haven't read this one either. But you say village, so, what 200 people at most? Maybe (if there are more than 60 of them) one who can cast Create Food and Water a max of three times a day for a total of enough food to feed...45 people (and 30 with two castings is more likely). So not enough to live on. Not for everybody. And that's if they have a Cleric rather than an Oracle who lacks that spell or some other not-as-useful guy (which, in fairness, is pretty likely, Clerics are common).
Miscarriage and deformity of Nualia's child.(Runelords)
Uh...miscarriage doesn't fall under, um, any spell I can think of short of something like Limited Wish to stop. Nor is deformity cured by anything except maybe Wish or Miracle (or maybe Regenerate if your GM is generous).
So...I don't see how the kind of spellcasting laid out in the settlement rules would prevent any of those situations.
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Actually the church of Abadar does charge people for remove disease. That was a central point in Curse of the Crimson Throne.
Well of course the church of Abadar charges, but his priests aren't exactly typical in rural areas, and the LN god of merchants isn't a good barometer for the behavior of the priests of Good Gods.
And as for availability of spells, I don't follow the Gamemastery Guide. Rather I use the listing of spellcasting on page 163 of the Core Rulebook, which is preferable to me. So in my games, you'd need to be in a small city to get Remove Disease. And even goodly clerics need to make money. Also, I do use a modified population counter for non-important NPC classes from the DMG 3.5.
That's certainly your right. But...those aren't the default assumptions of Golarion.
I don't think a day laborer could get a loan. No credit or collateral. Maybe they'd throw themselves into indentured servitude. Though if they did, I'd imagine they'd be a lot more unfair than loans of this day an age. Charging high amounts of payments with high interests because they can, just to force the person into indentured servitude...
...I now have a good NPC background.
Sczarni will always give you a loan, man. ;)
More seriously, I was assuming a somewhat rural setting, where he'd likely have a relative or two who might give a loan. In a big city...it'd be harder, no doubt, but there'd also be more options for people to turn to. I'd head straight for the Church of Sarenrae if it were me.
Responses on AP Stuff:
Fair enough,
We obviously have different tastes in our version of the setting, but that is why it is fun. Right? :)
I perhaps look too closely at existing real world societies that Paizo based their fictitious cultures off of for guidance on how to fill in the gaps. I blame myself getting old and running out of creativity! :P
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Also, sorry, didn't mean to take this off topic like this.
You're gonna carry that weight. ;)
But agreed on not wanting all those stories blocked by easy access to magic. It can be a bit of a tricky juggling act to have some of that cake and eat it too. :)
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Fair enough,
We obviously have different tastes in our version of the setting, but that is why it is fun. Right? :)
Totally. My point has never been that the way I play is better, or even that I advocate it. My point was that that's the set of assumptions behind the default setting and thus the ones you need to bear in mind for determining whether the gender equality/balance/roles presented are reasonable.
I perhaps look too closely at existing real world societies that Paizo based their fictitious cultures off of for guidance on how to fill in the gaps. I blame myself getting old and running out of creativity! :P
Personally, I think that real-world equivalents are excellent sources of inspiration...just filtered through a lens of what amounts to modern medical care or a bit better (via magic) and a few other notable spellcasting services being available.
But agreed on not wanting all those stories blocked by easy access to magic. It can be a bit of a tricky juggling act to have some of that cake and eat it too. :)
I actually agree, too. I just don't think ready magic blocks those kind of stories any more than ready access to technology blocks them in real life. There's all sorts of possible resources to fix Problem X, but not all of them are always gonna be available to everyone.
I do have to disagree on one point.
A default farm, worked by a farmer from the NPC guide and, say, his or her spouse (who's busy taking care of the kids and doesn't count on income) earns roughly 10.2 Gold per day, and can convert that into capital to improve the farm if they like and are willing to earn less for a few days.
In medieval times, as unrealistic as it sounds, women were expected to work the farm as well. She was not a housewife expected to cook and clean and nothing else. In fairness, a lot of the most heavy tasks, like manually plowing if they didn't have an appropriate animal, would be done by only men and women were still expected to cook. Housewives are only really common in an urbanized setting where food is grown not purchased. Pre-mid-20th century farming life is vastly different from the average lifestyle today, even modern farming lifestyles that rely on machines and artificial fertilizers. This didn't make peasant women necessarily equal but it meant that if she lived on a farm, she was expected to work and contribute to income. For anyone interested in making a sheltered, never-worked-a-day-in-her-life female character, a noblewoman would worked better assuming you're trying to put historical accuracy into the game. (works better for homebrews than Golarion)
Your calculations could still be correct because a medieval family pooled its labors to make one income from the land they all worked. There's no reason to believe Golarion would be different in this case.
Im ferferring to more the setting having mostly women in desirable positions of power (not so much 50/50).I think DM Beckett's point of view might be coming from reading/playing the APs and modules more than diving into the campaign setting material. As has been proved in the Male Romance Options thread and as James Jacobs has affirmed is intentional, the average party of PCs is going to meet many more allied females in positions of importance than males. That makes Golarion seem a more female-dominated setting than the 50-50 mix that goes on in the background, where the PCs aren't actively adventuring.
For example, the mayors of Sandpoint and Heldren are women. Cheliax, Irissen, Korvosa, and Mendev all have queens; Minkai has an empress. Even the one Venture Captain who has featured prominently in an AP was female. While I'm sure there are equal numbers of kings and other male leaders in the setting, they haven't played as central a role to the APs as the female leaders have, by design. I mean, yeah, the Land of the Linnorm Kings and there's only one woman there, but I don't believe there has been an AP or module where the PCs have gotten up close and personal with any of them.
I think that's right. Making most of the leadership NPCs actually encountered by PCs female naturally gives an impression the societies tend towards being gynocratic. I was a bit surprised that Asmodeus is apparently patriarchal(!), given that most of the prominent Chelish NPCs in the APs are female I'd have thought the reverse.
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I do have to disagree on one point.A default farm, worked by a farmer from the NPC guide and, say, his or her spouse (who's busy taking care of the kids and doesn't count on income) earns roughly 10.2 Gold per day, and can convert that into capital to improve the farm if they like and are willing to earn less for a few days.In medieval times, as unrealistic as it sounds, women were expected to work the farm as well. She was not a housewife expected to cook and clean and nothing else. In fairness, a lot of the most heavy tasks, like manually plowing if they didn't have an appropriate animal, would be done by only men and women were still expected to cook. Housewives are only really common in an urbanized setting where food is grown not purchased. Pre-mid-20th century farming life is vastly different from the average lifestyle today, even modern farming lifestyles that rely on machines and artificial fertilizers. This didn't make peasant women necessarily equal but it meant that if she lived on a farm, she was expected to work and contribute to income. For anyone interested in making a sheltered, never-worked-a-day-in-her-life female character, a noblewoman would worked better assuming you're trying to put historical accuracy into the game. (works better for homebrews than Golarion)
Your calculations could still be correct because a medieval family pooled its labors to make one income from the land they all worked. There's no reason to believe Golarion would be different in this case.
Two things:
#1: Maybe you're right. That'd up the amount to 12.1 gp per day assuming the two both used identical stats. And thus add 592.8 gp per year.
#2: I find it amusing, and more than a bit sad in the context of this thread, that you assumed the non-working parent was female. I did too, for a moment, then realized how unfortunate that was, and explicitly edited the whole thing to make all references gender-neutral. Which makes the assumption, simultaneously sad and amusing.
a good part of the reason married women didn't "work" in pre-modern times is that running the household, taking care of the kids, preparing food, making and mending clothing and all the other things that were needed just to keep going were pretty much a full time job before all the modern conveniences. That would include some of the farmwork, but more the parts that were closer to "feeding the family" than making an income.
Of course, if your farm...
I don't disagree necessarily. My point was more that medieval peasants didn't work for an "income" really. Both sexes worked for the ability to live, pay taxes, and little more. The woman did work the farm and therefore contributed to the one "income" of a house.
Children worked plenty, too, on a subsistence level. Seriously, child labor laws just weren't even a thing.
It randomly occurred to me that today that Skyrim featured gender parity.
Whether this was an intentional inclusion or simply to reduce the workload of building such a huge world is sort of aside because it was presented so normally and without issue, it took me this long to notice it.
Same sex marriage was a non-issue too, though, so maybe they did do it on purpose :)
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Children worked plenty, too, on a subsistence level. Seriously, child labor laws just weren't even a thing.
In a lot of the modern world, it still isn't a thing.
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Children worked plenty, too, on a subsistence level. Seriously, child labor laws just weren't even a thing.In a lot of the modern world, it still isn't a thing.
Oh hush you. Don't you know we live in enlightened times? By the way, I'm writing this response on a phone built by near slave labor while wearing clothes probably assembled by children. I wonder what alignment that makes me. But I digress...
To put my previous point more succinctly, good fantasy storytelling should challenge our moral worldview. I think erasing sexism from a setting entirely whitewashes a fantastic opportunity for a group of adults to explore and discuss it. Here's where I geek out completely: good D&D is an artform. Good art should challenge you, not just be an escape.
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To put my previous point more succinctly, good fantasy storytelling should challenge our moral worldview. I think erasing sexism from a setting entirely whitewashes a fantastic opportunity for a group of adults to explore and discuss it. Here's where I geek out completely: good D&D is an artform. Good art should challenge you, not just be an escape.
I don't necessarily disagree. But as everything from Amiri's backstory, to Drow, to Kotschie the Deathless shows...Golarion has quite a bit of sexism if you want to explore it. It's just not everywhere.
And going with the art analogy, a work can become muddled if there are too many conflicting themes. What if you want to explore one (or six) that have nothing to do with sexism? The current setting allows that without having to either break verisimilitude or include an element of sexism thus muddling the work. A setting with nearly universal institutionalized sexism does not.
And finally, while the art analogy can be valid...you're starting to descend into 'One-True-Way-ism'. Some people do play RPGs simply as a form of escapism. Why shouldn't their play style be as catered to as yours?
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To put my previous point more succinctly, good fantasy storytelling should challenge our moral worldview. I think erasing sexism from a setting entirely whitewashes a fantastic opportunity for a group of adults to explore and discuss it. Here's where I geek out completely: good D&D is an artform. Good art should challenge you, not just be an escape.OTOH, safe spaces are important in art too.
Being able to use your RPG as a way to explore sexism (or racism or other prejudices) is great - if that's what you want to do. If that's what you want to do in this particular game with this particular character.It's a lot less great if every female character you play has to struggle to overcome sexism. (Or if every non-white character has to deal with racism. Or if every LDBTQ character faces prejudice.) Having room to play a female character who gets to face the same struggles that male characters do without having to overcome prejudice as well is also important.
In fact, exploring the implications of a world without sexism can just as valid as an artform and just as challenging. After all, even the decrease in sexism we've seen even in just my lifetime is plenty challenging for many in the real world. How much more a world where equality has always been the way.
This.
Yes, it's very easy to say, "Well, art should challenge you and not just be an escape!" when you're talking about challenges that you personally don't usually face.
Escapism is an important component of why people play games (or enjoy any sort of entertainment, for that matter). A piece of art can include real-world-style challenges to comment on them and examine them, certainly. The Handmaid's Tale paints a portrait of a super-misogynistic society in order to condemn it.
But here's the thing: it's a great book and I'm glad I read it. Do I want every book I read to be like that? Hell no.
When RPGs are art, they're still collaborative art. And while it's great that you want to explore the implications of sexism in your game, other people playing with you might not want to have to be subjected to the same crap in-game that they deal with in real life. "Exploring and discussing sexism" in a fantasy RPG might sound like a controlled, safe way to do it when you're coming at it from the perspective of someone who's not slogging through it every day.
But honestly, if I showed up for a game, and the GM announced that the setting was sexist and if I wanted to play a female character I'd have to deal with that, it wouldn't just feel wearying and not at all fun--it would feel pretty condescending, as well. And I would immediately NOPE NOPE NOPE my way right out of there.
Plus, we're not just talking about storytelling, here. We're talking about interactive storytelling. And that puts different ethical challenges in front of the storyteller. Storytelling as we've known it for millennia generally assumes a passive audience. And that's why it's a good tool, a useful tool, a safe tool for teaching and discussing and exploring terrible things. Stories can elicit powerful empathic responses (see this fascinating piece on the neurochemistry of storytelling), but they also allow us space to consider things carefully because there is still distance between us and the people in the story.
RPGs and other forms of interactive storytelling require an active audience (and, in fact, the players are both audience and storytellers themselves). Stuff isn't happening to people on a screen or a page -- it's happening to a character that you created, you invested in, and you are animating. You're expected to respond, in real time, in front of other people, to what's happening to your character. It's not the same as stuff actually happening to you, but it's a lot closer than stuff happening to a movie or a book character.
Navigating that, as a storyteller, is really hard when you're dealing with things that may be uncomfortable or traumatic for players. (Heck, a lot of diversity trainers, HR people, etc. are moving away from using roleplaying exercises in group settings because they end up doing more harm than good, and sometimes reinforcing the very norms they're supposed to be fighting.)
The point being -- if you want to try to do that, and everyone who's playing with you is cool with it, do whatever you want. But in a larger context of setting creation, I'm far less interested in using the setting to comment on sexism than I am having it be fun, accessible, and welcoming to the largest number of people.
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Most people play games to have fun and escape from the s%+# we deal with in the real world. As soon as you throw that real world s~#~ in there, it can cease to be fun for people that deal with it.
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Why can't the setting challenge the assumptions of sexists instead?
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Jessica, I appreciate your response, and I wish I was a little less hungover so I could respond in kind, so I'll keep this brief.
Yes, it's very easy to say, "Well, art should challenge you and not just be an escape!" when you're talking about challenges that you personally don't usually face
My tone was strident, but you're assuming too much about me. I also include occasional homophobia in my campaigns (one of the -isms from my earlier post), a trait I find confusing and often repugnant, but which I'm also careful to not use to demonize an NPC when I have them express it. They can be homophobic and a valiant, kind, moral person. As a gay man I find them interesting to portray, and I think my players appreciate that I'm building a campaign populated by complex, realistic people. More to the point, I'm not afraid to make myself uncomfortable.
On your mention of The Handmaid's Tale, I'm a huge fan of Margaret Atwood, especially Oryx and Crake and The Blind Assassin, but THT is a book I could only read once. I had the flu the first time I saw the movie, and made for some spectacular nightmares, but I digress. I hope you brought up that book as a worse case scenario rather than probable inspiration for my kind of game. I'm not sadistic.
I try my best to tailor my campaigns to the mix of personalities I know will be coming to the table every week. The majority of them are women and many of them are close friends, so we've all come to trust each other and enjoy the experience that this style of DMing offers. They tell me they like my games, and they keep coming back year after year, so I trust that I'm not being too heavy handed. Yes, it's not for everyone, but it is for a group of 35-ish people, which gives me the confidence to say I understand and welcome the challenges of interactive storytelling.
I do agree with you that, with product design, a lighter, escapist tone is a boon to reaching a larger audience and promoting accessible fun. It's good business. But the conversation isn't just about Golarion as written, it's about Golarion as lived, through our various treatments of the material.
Somewhat off-topic, but the debate about "Evil Matriarchies x Good Matriarchies" back in the... 3rd page or so got me thinking: Does anyone know of a "Good Patriarchy" in Fantasy/Sci-Fi settings? I've tried to recall some, and I've come out mostly empty-handed. Most Good societies are presented as gender-equal - At most, we see gender-restricted military or religious orders. The few who aren't gender-equal tend to be Matriarchal.
The only "Good Patriarchal" society I've managed to think of are the Dwarves.
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It's also probably less common now than back in the day, but just to cite the most obvious example: Tolkien. Not just the Dwarves, where the women essentially don't appear,but the Hobbits, the Men, both Rohan and the Dunedain, and even the elves - with Galadriel being the exception that proves the rule.
Wut? Tolkien was very explicit about the Free peoples of Middle-Earth not being chauvinist. One particular essay, Laws and Customs of the Eldar (LACE for short) stands out. Tolkien not only mentions that all "matters of labor and play" can be pursued by Elvish men and women without difference, but also says that there's no difference in strength or speed among them - At least until Elven women get pregnant. That's kinda big even by today's standards.
Among the Humans, we have had ruling Queens. In fact, one of the factors that helped good old Númenor go down the sink was a man usurping the throne form one of them (Tar-Míriel). The Rohirrim had their Shieldmaidens.
Then we have Morwen, Melian, Aredhel... And the fact that the most revered "deities" in the setting (Elbereth for the Elves and Airen for the Humans) were women.
Galadriel was no exception. She was part of a rule. People only believe that because LotR is the most they've read from Tolkien.
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Eowyn rode disguised because Theoden specifically ordered her to stay with their people, to eventually rule if anything happened to him and Eored, not because she couldn't fight as a woman. But this is getting too far off topic. So:
If Tolkien described his societies as gender equal, they are gender equal, and as such, not Patriarchal. Even if the actual tales don't feature female elven warriors (Because Tolkien was still a man of his time, and a conservative at that), we know for a fact that there was no societal rule against them, and no social prejudice. If there are no gender roles (other than the logical child-rearing), if Elven women are actually free to do as they please to the point of ignoring their brothers and Kings (As Aredhel did), if women can be leaders and commanders and this is not treated as exceptional or rare(Like the Numenorean Queens, or even Morwen herself, who was a leader figure for the House of Hador and not simply a "wife and mother")... Then they are not patriarchal societies. It's as simple as that.
And my question stands. Other than stereotypical Dwarves, I can't think of a "Good Patriarchy" - And "Good" is the operative word here.
P.S.: Because this little detail irks me - Aredhel was not forced into marriage. She came to regret her choice later, and left with her son, but she married Eol of her own free will. Eol's "enchantments" only attracted (And eventually trapped) her to the forest, so they could meet - Not that different from what Melian did.
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Eowyn rode disguised because Theoden specifically ordered her to stay with their people, to eventually rule if anything happened to him and Eored, not because she couldn't fight as a woman. But this is getting too far off topic. So:
If Tolkien described his societies as gender equal, they are gender equal, and as such, not Patriarchal. Even if the actual tales don't feature female elven warriors (Because Tolkien was still a man of his time, and a conservative at that), we know for a fact that there was no societal rule against them, and no social prejudice. If there are no gender roles (other than the logical child-rearing), if Elven women are actually free to do as they please to the point of ignoring their brothers and Kings (As Aredhel did), if women can be leaders and commanders and this is not treated as exceptional or rare(Like the Numenorean Queens, or even Morwen herself, who was a leader figure for the House of Hador and not simply a "wife and mother")... Then they are not patriarchal societies. It's as simple as that.
And my question stands. Other than stereotypical Dwarves, I can't think of a "Good Patriarchy" - And "Good" is the operative word here.
P.S.: Because this little detail irks me - Aredhel was not forced into marriage. She came to regret her choice later, and left with her son, but she married Eol of her own free will. Eol's "enchantments" only attracted (And eventually trapped) her to the forest, so they could meet - Not that different from what Melian did.
When there are very few female characters in his most popular work, and most of them are in the background, when most women gain their rulership status through marriage rather than in their own right, when sons are heirs and daughters are not, when the one major female character with any power (Galadriel) is almost completely passive, when the point of view characters are all male with one exception (Eowyn), hell, when your humans are referred to not as "humans" but as "Men," etc. your society is patriarchal. Having a few female deities doesn't change that. Tolkien's a great writer, and I give him something of a pass because he and the other Inklings probably couldn't help but imbibe deeply of the sexism (and outright misogyny) that was the order of the day at Oxford, but that doesn't mean anyone should ignore how marginalized women are in his work.
And patriarchal societies have been portrayed as good through most of literary history, because, with few exceptions, they're the only societies portrayed. So, good and bad, we're looking predominantly at patriarchies. (There's been a shift in the last 30 or so years as fantasy's begun to grabble with that, but it's still there.)
Portrayals of good patriarchal societies in fantasy? Off the top of my head (the biggest difficulty I have is in thinking of societies portrayed as good):
The Alorns in the work of David Eddings.
Camelot under Arthur.
The Danes in Beowulf.
Piers Anthony's Xanth (seems mostly portrayed as good).
Landover.
Pern (become the leader by raping the Weyrlady! but in general the dragonriders are portrayed as good).
And, of course, there's Thomas More's Utopia.
When there are very few female characters in his most popular work, and most of them are in the background, when most women gain their rulership status through marriage rather than in their own right, when sons are heirs and daughters are not, when the one major female character with any power (Galadriel) is almost completely passive, when the point of view characters are all male with one exception (Eowyn), hell, when your humans are referred to not as "humans" but as "Men," etc. your...Eowyn rode disguised because Theoden specifically ordered her to stay with their people, to eventually rule if anything happened to him and Eored, not because she couldn't fight as a woman. But this is getting too far off topic. So:
If Tolkien described his societies as gender equal, they are gender equal, and as such, not Patriarchal. Even if the actual tales don't feature female elven warriors (Because Tolkien was still a man of his time, and a conservative at that), we know for a fact that there was no societal rule against them, and no social prejudice. If there are no gender roles (other than the logical child-rearing), if Elven women are actually free to do as they please to the point of ignoring their brothers and Kings (As Aredhel did), if women can be leaders and commanders and this is not treated as exceptional or rare(Like the Numenorean Queens, or even Morwen herself, who was a leader figure for the House of Hador and not simply a "wife and mother")... Then they are not patriarchal societies. It's as simple as that.
And my question stands. Other than stereotypical Dwarves, I can't think of a "Good Patriarchy" - And "Good" is the operative word here.
P.S.: Because this little detail irks me - Aredhel was not forced into marriage. She came to regret her choice later, and left with her son, but she married Eol of her own free will. Eol's "enchantments" only attracted (And eventually trapped) her to the forest, so they could meet - Not that different from what Melian did.
One little quibble with that. Referring to Humans as "Men" wasn't about their gender. "Man" is a perfectly acceptable shorthand for mankind and doesn't necessarily denote gender. One could argue that the base root of the word "man" being used to refer to humanity in general is sexist but that makes the people who developed the language sexist, not necessarily Tolkien. I have no evidence that his intentions were sexist so any sexism would be unintentional. I know it's Wikipedia but it has some interesting information on the issue.
I have no disagreement with your other points.
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when most women gain their rulership status through marriage rather than in their own right, when sons are heirs and daughters are not, when the one major female character with any power (Galadriel) is almost completely passive, when the point of view characters are all male with one exception (Eowyn), hell, when your humans are referred to not as "humans" but as "Men," etc. your society is patriarchal [...]
Except all of this directly contradicts everything that Tolkien wrote.
I mean, I understand begrudging Tolkien not including more influential women in in Lord of the Rings, even if, in his circumstances, it was to be expected. But you can't say a society is "patriarchal" just because you don't see many women in a fictional work. "Patriarchy" refers to a society where mechanisms are put in place to enforce strict gender roles that ultimately favor men, and where women don't have much say except through her male relatives, and this is not the case among the Free Peoples of Middle Earth. Tolkien didn't manage to represent it into his published novels as well as he intended, but it's there in his notes. They're not "patriarchal". That word has a specific meaning.
And patriarchal societies have been portrayed as good through most of literary history, because, with few exceptions, they're the only societies portrayed. So, good and bad, we're looking predominantly at patriarchies. (There's been a shift in the last 30 or so years as fantasy's begun to grabble with that, but it's still there.)
Portrayals of good patriarchal societies in fantasy? Off the top of my head (the biggest difficulty I have is in thinking of societies portrayed as good)
Patriarchal societies are the most portrayed in fiction, yes. However, I argue most of them would fall squarely on "Neutral" territory. The "Good" I'm looking for here is the strict "Good" of the alignment system.
That being said, I don't know as much about some of those you mentioned, so I'm looking them up.
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One little quibble with that. Referring to Humans as "Men" wasn't about their gender. "Man" is a perfectly acceptable shorthand for mankind and doesn't necessarily denote gender.
Yeah,.... no. "Man" is not acceptable shorthand for humanity today precisely because it does denote gender; the fact that Tolkien belonged to an earlier generation that didn't recognize this is unfortunate but doesn't make it acceptable.
There's actually a lot of lab work about how people perceive sexist language, and, yes, when you use gender-denotative language to describe people, it affects their understanding, even when historical linguists would argue that it's simply the traditional "generic" sense.
Sorry Patrick, but quoting Expanded Appendix to Additional Letters doesn' t change a thing about the fact that Tolkien was tales about men, written for men. Like GRRM said, Tolkien was a great writer, who simply wrote things adequate to his times.
I won't dispute that. However, as I said,words have meanings. You can't say that the societies were "patriarchal" just because Tolkien was more comfortable writing about men instead of women - You have to analyse what he wrote about his societies, and you can only find that on the Expanded Appendix to Additional Letters.
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Except all of this directly contradicts everything that Tolkien wrote.[...]
when most women gain their rulership status through marriage rather than in their own right, when sons are heirs and daughters are not, when the one major female character with any power (Galadriel) is almost completely passive, when the point of view characters are all male with one exception (Eowyn), hell, when your humans are referred to not as "humans" but as "Men," etc. your society is patriarchal [...]
Everything except the works of his with which anyone is actually familiar?
Part of the issue here is that when Tolkien writes about the society, he says that it's gender-neutral. But when he actually writes the society, the society that is expressed is, as Jessica pointed out, very patriarchal.
TVTropes has an interesting article about informed attributes, when the writing about someone or something mentions an attribute that never actually shows up -- a character who is ostensibly an expert musician but who never plays or sings a note on-stage, for example. Moriarity, the arch-villian who never actually committed an evil or even morally dubious action. The highly trained stormtroopers ("only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise") that can't hit anything they shoot at in the entire Star Wars trilogy. Et cetera.
Tolkien's world is a good example of "informed gender-neutrality." Because while he may have written about it -- in something that no one has read -- he sure didn't actually write it.
However, as used by an author in a time when it was acceptable it doesn't imply anything about the society or world to which he's referring.
<sarcasm>No, of course not. We can't infer anything about a world with exactly one female human who gets a significant amount of screen time, who has to disguise herself as a man to be able to accomplish what she wants, from the fact that the author used sexist language to describe that world.</sarcasm>