Illusion of Full Understanding towards LGBT People
At first it seems to be that Darkover series is very progressive about LGBT people. Even in the books from the seventies – like The World Wreckers and The Forbidden Tower – you have homosexual and bisexual positive characters. You have Regis and Danilo, you have Andrew and Damon, who love not only their wives, but each other, too. You have hermaphrodites chieri. You have emmasca (people usually of half-chieri origin) whose sex would stay neuter or came out during puberty. In later books you have lesbian marriages among Renunciates and the pairing of Roderic (Marguerida’s second son) and Niall, his friend from the Guards. Pretty progressive? Not as much as you think. Ok, we should appreciate that Bradley portrayed non-hetero and non-binary people without any visible bias. But from modern perspective, many of her LGBT characters are quite stereotypical. Except Regis and Danilo, other non-hetero relationships often suit into seme-uke cliche.
In The World Wreckers one of the main themes is the love between Terran David and chieri Keral. Keral is one of the youngest in xir race and never had encounteted humans before. Xe is hermaphrodite, but during the time of sexual arousal xe changes into a female of course. And then gots pregnant. Xe is shy and delicate, and never had had sex before. Innocent Virgin and an Experienced Man from harlequins so much. Or uke and seme. Anyway, it is just stereotypical. I have two main problems with this relationship. At first, even if David declares that he loves Keral no matter what gender or sex xe is, they have sex as a male and a female. Can’t David be pan- or bisexual? At second, it seems to me that in this book Bradley wasn’t able to imagine a non-stereotypical love relationship with a non-binary person. Keral is described as beautiful, shy and delicate like a very stereotypical female character. The same applies to xir first sexual experiences, and xir pregnancy. Non-binary people do not need to resemble exactly men or exactly women. Not to mention that women are so shy and inexperienced only in some victorian-age fantasies. Can’t Keral just be brave and talkactive, or anything not ukeish?
In The Forbidden Tower there is a bit similar pattern. Andrew is a big and strong man, firm and decisive. He had worked on many planets as a some kind of bodyguard or a soldier. At first, he is scarred of being attracted towards men, too. Damon is thin and not tall. He is described as a man with scholar look, and he had never been good as a warrior. So, you see, we have a strong one and a weak one, a big one and a small one. Seme and uke so much.
When I’ll read The Heritage of Hastur, I let you now if similar cliches are present in relation between Regis and Danilo.
And what about The Alton Gift, and Roderic and his boyfriend? They are marginal characters. The main Love Story is the triangle between Domenic, Illona and his moody cousin Alanna (then Alanna – after pages of teenage drama – comes to think that she can’t really love Domenic, and allows him to stay with Illona, besides). And the whole love of Roderic and Niall seems to come down to “I am a homosexual, please parents, accept that I probably won’t have any kids.” And guess what? It is revealed literally at the end of the book. Complex and true portrait of two men’ love so much.
And one more thing, too. Except chieri and emmasca, there is no non-binary people in the books. I have problem with it because both these group are born non-binary. What Darkover series lacks is a wholly human character who would discover xir non-binary identity on xir own, who wouldn’t be incined to it by biology.
Racism Hidden and Explicit
I don’t think that there is an obligatory to put all the human races into your universum. Do not misunderstood me. I think that non-white people – after centuries of colonialism and discrimination – deserve complex and interesting portrayal. That is why I enjoy Earthsea and Seven Kennings so much, with their mixed cultures and unobvious inspirations from many civilisations and historical periods. But I think that some authors – like C. S. Lewis and David Eddings – just should not have put people of color into their books. Because they did it in stereotypical and harmful way. And to some extent, it applies also to Darkover series. Not to mention even that colonists were only of Celtic and Spaniard (only Spanish, not even South American) origins.
In the whole series, they are only three non-white characters, from Terra. They are all black, and only two of them is somehow important. One appears in The World Wreckers and two in Rediscovery, the cooperation with Mercedes Lackey (maybe people of color were Lackey’ idea?). And of course red-haired and light-skinned Comyns (racist and Aryan race undercurrents so much… Really, it does not look just only as inspiration by stereotypical Celtic redheads) are sooo much surprised seeing brown-skinned people in Rediscovery. And what we have in this particular book? The only significant non-white character is Ysaye Barnes. She is thirty-years-old virgin and computer maniac from fanatically religious family. This mix is just… Strange. Maybe Bradley intended to make a non-stereotypical character, but somehow all the queerness of Ysaye is a cliche, too. Besides, I don’t like Rediscovery because of all its inconsistencies (Marguerida’s mother would bear her somehow at the age of ninety, if we consider this book’s chronology reliable) and because of Kermiac Aldaran. Stereotypical, damned womanizer. Among all the womanizers depicted in fantasy books, only Guy Gavriel Kay’s characters did I find more irritable.
The second black-skinned character from The World Wreckers falls in love with a half-chieri, mischevious former prostitute, and that is the main plot about him. No comments.
Racists undercurrents (even if equally unawared) are present also when it comes to the native Darkovan species.
Chieri, as some kind of local elves, are often portrayed as superior and more subtle to the people. All the other natives – small trailmen, bird-like Ya-men, cralmacs, Catmen, Forge Folk- are portrayed as inferior to humans, and often as the hostile ones. This hostility is especially highlighted in The Winds of Darkover and in The Spell Sword (part of The Forbidden Circle story). In the first book, people from the Alton lands are fightning against Ya-men. But the most important part of this book is the seizure of the Storn castle by a bandit called Brynat Scarface (I can’t stop seeing him as Tony Montana, sorry). Brynat’s people are evil, ugly and terrible. And guess why? Because they are of mixed origin. Poor aristocrats seized by people of mixed origin… Gone With The Wind so much. And if you are curious, dangerous and mysterious Sharra is the goddess of the Forge Folk. The same Sharra who, trapped in the matrix, would destroy Caer Donn city in The Heritage of Hastur. Remember, beliefs of the natives are vicious!
In The Spell Sword, we don’t acknowledge anything about Catmen’ culture. They are only depicted as the main antagonists who torment the Altons’ lands and who must be defeated. They are Evil! because the had kidnapped Callista and because they want to use the matrix powers independently.
And poor trailmen. They are described almost as monkeys. They are furry and they live on trees. They are afraid of fire and then the Good Illuminated People (in The Star of Danger) teach them how to make it and how to controll it. And in The Planet Savers there is not only rape culture, but pure nazism too. The trailmen are – indirectly – the cause of fever which streak Darkover for each 49 years. And our lovely doctor Allison suggests exterminating trailmen, and there will be no problem. No, his is not considered mad or evil. Only neurotic and not especially nice. Allison? You are fascist, racist asshole.
And there are kyrri, too. They serve at Towers because they like serving people. Oh yeah…
And cralmacs… At least they are described with a bit of compassion in Stormqueen!, as they are the result of laran genetic experiments. But such compassion is nothing in comparison to the all racist, pro-colonialist, patronizing and negative descriptions of other non-human species in Darkover books. It might be better that non-humans are rarely featured in the later books. At least, there is no additional bias to the previous ones.
Maybe Catmen just wanted their land backs. Maybe humans were more cruel towards the natives than it was admitted in the series. But not, the whole issue of different species and races is described in Darkover books usually from only one perspective. From perspective of white privileged humans.
Left Hand of Fiction 