Actors you hate because of their personal lives

[Rick_Kitchen]

And this is not even dealing with what I’ve heard about the appalling misogyny in Martin’s Game of Thrones series. Or must I actually read every depressing rapetastic female character arc from passive victim to murderous psycho-bitch before I can dare be disgusted with an author. If you have a correction to make to my impression, make it. Accusing me of not having a mind of my own does not lend authority to your defense of Martin.

Arya and Brielle and Meera Reed and the Sand Snakes would disagree with you.

[Johnny_Angel]

@Rick_Kitchen

Arya and Brielle and Meera Reed and the Sand Snakes would disagree with you.

I take it these are characters who don’t fit that pattern, and demonstrate the author’s willingness not to abuse or vilify every woman in his stories?

[Gukumatz]

@Johnny_Angel

I take it these are characters who don’t fit that pattern, and demonstrate the author’s willingness not to abuse or vilify every woman in his stories?

Bit off topic, but I’d say so, sure. Granted, there’s 2 books still left to be written, but at least Arya rank highly among my favourite strong female fiction characters. Reminds me of Ellie from the Last Of Us, if you ever played that. Not saying his world is pink and fluffy for female characters, it’s not by a long shot, but it feels more like a function of the setting than the injection of a creepy author’s desires. (Unlike, say, Terry Goodkind.)

Back on topic, finding out that he was an ardent Tea Party, anti-SSM nutjob who essentially coined the GamerGate hashtag has ruined Adam Baldwin for me completely.

[Gyrate]

@Johnny_Angel

I myself don’t know about his personal life, but some descriptions of events in his Wild Cards books has put me off of ever getting into his books. Specifically, he had a villain who stole other people’s super powers by anally raping them. I don’t know that I want to read what else this guy has been jizzing into a keyboard.

Heh. In the TV show Misfits one character gains the power to remove the superpowers of others by having sex with them. IIRC in at least two instances he saves the day by anally raping someone.

It was a wacky show. The protagonists ended up killing a lot of people, often inadvertently.

[Broomstick]

@Johnny_Angel

Well, no I don’t actually. But I’ve been judging him based on what I was told was his writing. Are you telling me that Martin was not in fact the author of the super ass-rape stories?

Nope - quick bit of internet research shows the creator of Edward St. John Latham, aka “Prime”, was one Lewis Shiner.

The contents of a book were described to me, and I took those contents to speak poorly of its author. The term “letting other people decide” refers to a different kind of mental exercise unless you believe no one has agency to interpret information who has not personally experienced the gathering of the relevant data.

The problem here is not that you got input from someone else, but that someone else gave you incorrect data. Errors include

1. said character doesn’t steal powers, he grants them
2. rape did not occur, although there are plenty of issues with an older man having anal sex with teenagers, runaways, and prostitutes
3. George R.R. Martin was not, in fact, the author of the character in question

Now, I can understand you taking the input of someone you know in real life over some stranger on the internet, but in this case your friend was in error.

Accusing me of not having a mind of my own does not lend authority to your defense of Martin.

I wasn’t defending Martin, I was correcting the wrong information you were given. If you chose to hate GRRM based on Game of Thrones I’m OK with that, as he is the actual author of that series.

[Johnny_Angel]

@Broomstick

I wasn’t defending Martin, I was correcting the wrong information you were given. If you chose to hate GRRM based on Game of Thrones I’m OK with that, as he is the actual author of that series.

The situation you describe is different. Thanks. I’ll temper my dismissal of the author accordingly.

I don’t generally think we should simply avoid the erotic or even just its dark side. There is a difference between not shying away from the imminence of the threat of rape for female characters in a dangerous world and “Jesus, this really is a thing with this guy”. And one starts to make assumptions about the actual author…

[typoink]

@Horatio_Hellpop

Mayim Bialik is an odd case. A PhD who doesn’t vaccinate her children (I’m not sure how absolute she is on this, if she just avoids a specific vaccine or what) but doesn’t advise anybody else on the subject one way or the other. I really like her on BBT, but if I had kids, a play date would be out of the question.

An acquaintance of mine who was a contemporary at UCLA has told me that Bialik was handheld through her Ph.D work and that it was “common knowledge” in the department that she was walked through the process at least partly because it was seen as “good PR” for science. Could be sour grapes, but said acquaintance isn’t the gossipy / snipe-y type in general.

I mean, I can’t blame somebody for letting other people help them if the offer is there, but it definitely skews my view of her. Especially when she’s held up to bolster the “nerd cred” of BBT so often.