I mean, basically it means reality as you've lived it for your whole life was all a lie. I'd never get over that. Maybe it's because almost all my fandoms are sci fi or fantasy, though I rather think not.
Hmmm -- most of what I watch/read is SF and fantasy, too, but I don't know if I'd have the "what I believed is a lie" reaction or not. I think I would have trouble with the writer-impulse in my brain, though; I'd probably start to think about myself as if I were a character in the story, which is the inverse of what I really ought to be doing. (That would probably last until the first time I tried to do something heroic and nearly got killed. Then I go run and hide in a hole.)
Anyway, as cool as being a dragonrider or having a Companion would be, just think of all the complications. Your sex life, for one. When dragons and Companions get randy . . .
Are you aware of A Companion to Wolves, by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette? It takes on exactly that issue, the whole motif of telepathic animal companions and their human partners getting it on when the companions mate, and has a field day romping through the actual problems that would result. In fact, it's specifically a response to the "green rider problem" of Pern -- riders mate when their dragons do + green dragons let themselves get caught over and over again during their mating flights + green riders, unlike queen riders, are men = a whole lotta homosexual rape. Which McCaffrey kind of swept under the rug. And having it telepathically forced upon both human participants by their companions doesn't make it okay, whether it's straight or gay.
(Er, you maybe shouldn't read the novel if you want to retain any love for scenes that play the companion-sex dynamic as unproblematically fun. Like Lessa and F'lar.)
I do sorta love the meta beginning of Arrows of the Queen, with Talia being all, "I want to be part of a story!" It's cheap, and yet it still works on me.
I'm convinced Mercedes Lackey somehow has a pipeline straight into the twelve-year-old girl id. Because my god, Valdemar, it is crack.
no subject
Hmmm -- most of what I watch/read is SF and fantasy, too, but I don't know if I'd have the "what I believed is a lie" reaction or not. I think I would have trouble with the writer-impulse in my brain, though; I'd probably start to think about myself as if I were a character in the story, which is the inverse of what I really ought to be doing. (That would probably last until the first time I tried to do something heroic and nearly got killed. Then I go run and hide in a hole.)
Anyway, as cool as being a dragonrider or having a Companion would be, just think of all the complications. Your sex life, for one. When dragons and Companions get randy . . .
Are you aware of A Companion to Wolves, by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette? It takes on exactly that issue, the whole motif of telepathic animal companions and their human partners getting it on when the companions mate, and has a field day romping through the actual problems that would result. In fact, it's specifically a response to the "green rider problem" of Pern -- riders mate when their dragons do + green dragons let themselves get caught over and over again during their mating flights + green riders, unlike queen riders, are men = a whole lotta homosexual rape. Which McCaffrey kind of swept under the rug. And having it telepathically forced upon both human participants by their companions doesn't make it okay, whether it's straight or gay.
(Er, you maybe shouldn't read the novel if you want to retain any love for scenes that play the companion-sex dynamic as unproblematically fun. Like Lessa and F'lar.)
I do sorta love the meta beginning of Arrows of the Queen, with Talia being all, "I want to be part of a story!" It's cheap, and yet it still works on me.
I'm convinced Mercedes Lackey somehow has a pipeline straight into the twelve-year-old girl id. Because my god, Valdemar, it is crack.