Black Jewels: A Queen's Court
Jul. 6th, 2015 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beroli A Queen's Court can consist of up to thirteen circles. The First Circle must include twelve (Jeweled?) Blood males, one of whom is Master of the Guard, one of whom is Steward, and another of whom is either Consort or First Escort. That's all that's required; a Queen will have a Healer unless something is terribly wrong, and can stuff her First Circle with as many women and extra men as she pleases and have whoever she likes in the other Circles. Theoretically, she could maintain a minimal court with only twelve men in the First Circle and no further circles, but no competent Queen would try to do that. This is not as overtly sexist (there's still a ton of sexism there, which I'll get into as I go through the books) as it looks at first glance because of the nature of Blood instincts: Blood males need to serve. A Blood male who cannot find a Queen who is not a monster will willingly and knowingly kneel in front of a monster, sobbing and knowing that he'll probably be tortured later for not managing to look happy about it, by preference to serving no Queen at all.
Blood who are not Queens--both male and female--serve Queens; a court that doesn't have (for example) a Healer is crippled. (I don't actually know if Priestesses serve in Courts or not; Black Widows do.) Typically, a Court will have far more than twelve male and far more than twelve female members. The fact that a legitimate Court requires twelve Blood males is largely a point of nearly-irrelevant Protocol: if there's a Queen trying to set up a Court, she'll have more applicants than she knows what to do with, unless something is seriously wrong. A Queen would need to be someone Bishop was trying to subject to a plausibility-straining humiliation conga for her Court to break because only one man and no women would serve her. Not that I mean to foreshadow anything, or anything.
The number of ruling Queens is, for obvious reasons, limited by the territory available to be ruled. Each of the three Realms is made up of Territories, and each Territory is made up of Provinces. A Queen can serve in another Queen's court; a Province Queen serves that territory's Territory Queen, the Queen who rules a small village in a Province serves the Province Queen, or a Queen may serve a term of service in another Queen's court ruling nothing as training, but a Queen who never aspired to rule anything would be widely--and by the author--seen as defective. The Queen can dismiss anyone from her court--or have them summarily killed, for that matter--at any time.
It's obvious at a glance that there is no room for any form of transexuality or intersexuality in the extreme, total gender essentialism that underlies Bishop's magic system. Everyone is born with a penis or a vulva. Either comes with its own set of completely irresistible, undeniable instincts. End of chapter, end of book.
There are people who are attracted to their own sexes, or are asexual, in her world. This changes nothing magical: a lesbian Queen still needs a court that has twelve Blood males. For that Queen, it's as simple as always having a First Escort rather than a Consort; a Blood male who isn't attracted to women, on the other hand, will still feel the irresistible urge to serve in a Court, and may be ordered to perform sexual services for that Court's women while there. (Obviously, no good Queen would do this, but there are a lot of bad Queens.)
Even though women rule (except in one or two cases which I'll get into later...and yes, they are important), her world is thoroughly sexist. I'll get into the most extreme examples of sexism in...let me count...probably six novels and at least one book of short stories from now. (It's ironic that the things I most want to rant about are at the far end of the series, but the contrast is necessary.) Some I'll get to right away.
Because of a reaction I got to this, let me say one thing in the clearest possible terms: If you ever thought I was saying or implying that I thought the books depict a functional society, you were mistaken.
Blood who are not Queens--both male and female--serve Queens; a court that doesn't have (for example) a Healer is crippled. (I don't actually know if Priestesses serve in Courts or not; Black Widows do.) Typically, a Court will have far more than twelve male and far more than twelve female members. The fact that a legitimate Court requires twelve Blood males is largely a point of nearly-irrelevant Protocol: if there's a Queen trying to set up a Court, she'll have more applicants than she knows what to do with, unless something is seriously wrong. A Queen would need to be someone Bishop was trying to subject to a plausibility-straining humiliation conga for her Court to break because only one man and no women would serve her. Not that I mean to foreshadow anything, or anything.
The number of ruling Queens is, for obvious reasons, limited by the territory available to be ruled. Each of the three Realms is made up of Territories, and each Territory is made up of Provinces. A Queen can serve in another Queen's court; a Province Queen serves that territory's Territory Queen, the Queen who rules a small village in a Province serves the Province Queen, or a Queen may serve a term of service in another Queen's court ruling nothing as training, but a Queen who never aspired to rule anything would be widely--and by the author--seen as defective. The Queen can dismiss anyone from her court--or have them summarily killed, for that matter--at any time.
It's obvious at a glance that there is no room for any form of transexuality or intersexuality in the extreme, total gender essentialism that underlies Bishop's magic system. Everyone is born with a penis or a vulva. Either comes with its own set of completely irresistible, undeniable instincts. End of chapter, end of book.
There are people who are attracted to their own sexes, or are asexual, in her world. This changes nothing magical: a lesbian Queen still needs a court that has twelve Blood males. For that Queen, it's as simple as always having a First Escort rather than a Consort; a Blood male who isn't attracted to women, on the other hand, will still feel the irresistible urge to serve in a Court, and may be ordered to perform sexual services for that Court's women while there. (Obviously, no good Queen would do this, but there are a lot of bad Queens.)
Even though women rule (except in one or two cases which I'll get into later...and yes, they are important), her world is thoroughly sexist. I'll get into the most extreme examples of sexism in...let me count...probably six novels and at least one book of short stories from now. (It's ironic that the things I most want to rant about are at the far end of the series, but the contrast is necessary.) Some I'll get to right away.
Because of a reaction I got to this, let me say one thing in the clearest possible terms: If you ever thought I was saying or implying that I thought the books depict a functional society, you were mistaken.
