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I lean toward giving the author the benefit of the doubt here. In the context of the societies being portrayed by the books, these behaviours may be normalized
by antihipocrat 4y ago
I lean toward giving the author the benefit of the doubt here.
In the context of the societies being portrayed by the books, these behaviours may be normalized. The same goes for within the context of the personality of particular characters.
It doesn't necessarily mean that the author agrees with them. Personally I'd prefer that authors in general be free to write fiction without having their creativity diminished by worrying about whether a reader is going to think that the author holds the same view.
- n4r9 4y agoYes and no. You can sometimes take a decent guess at an author's inner motivations by looking at repeated themes. Heinlein was notoriously fixated on sexuality, and increasingly on child sex and incest as the years went on. MiaHM is apparently one of the tamer reads, though I have basically given up on him after reading three of his novels. Another classic trope of his is the "hyper-competent" man, who is incredibly self-assured, is smarter and can do everything better than the average person. Hard to say exactly what drives this, but my guess is it's either a superiority (I'm better than these fools) or inferiority (I wish I was better than these people) complex.
- antihipocrat 4y agoI agree, for some authors it can be hard not guess at their state of mind after reading several of their books. The hyper competent man trope is fairly ubiquitous, maybe part of what drives this one is pandering to the target audience.
- lazide 4y agoIt’s also pretty convenient in a story - the protagonist (if said hyper competent) doesn’t hit roadblocks they can’t overcome eventually, regardless of what they run across. And who wouldn’t want to be hyper competent in everything?