Muttering to myself about one of the Night Land elements

[camwyn]

The rule in the original novel about going out of the Pyramid said men of 22 years or older who were sane, healthy, and of good character could be allowed to go out into the Night Land if they were adequately Prepared- but no women, ever. Reason was not given in the original novel. Two reasons were given as theories in John C. Wright's stories. One was that there was an identifying thing that only a human being with a human soul could do, speaking or telepathically sending the Master Word, and that if a woman was captured by the Forces of Evil she could be used to breed a half-human hybrid capable of using the Master Word. The other was that the Night Land's evil powers grew more cruel and subtle whenever a woman ventured into the Outer World, either because the spiritual strength of women (which was known to be greater than that of men) fed the Powers of Evil more strongly by its presence, or because the feminine nature was more sacred than the masculine and its desecration made for greater strength for the enemy.

The 'women can't go out because a captive woman would be used to breed half human hybrids' thing is nothing but 'men can't be raped' in a different form. The abhumans of the Night Land are depicted in Wright's own stories as having perfectly functional females, although the females are only mentioned in passing. The one woman other than Antigone in his stories who goes out gets captured, and something unspecified is 'done to her womb to permit her to conceive a nonhuman child'. If the powers of evil are capable of altering a woman to make her interbreed with the monsters they are just as capable of giving a captured man a case of priapism and throwing monstrous females at him until the desired result is achieved. It's probably simpler, frankly. Hodgson had the excuse of writing in Edwardian times. I don't know when Wright originally produced his stories, but it was long, long after that. I can't make the no-breeding explanation for the no-women rule make sense. It really is just 'women can be raped, but men can't' in prettier form.

The spiritual power one is a different story. The powers of the Night Land are as much of a danger to the human soul as they are to the human body; that's been part of the setting since day one. I don't know whether Hodgson straight out said that women in general have greater spiritual power than men in general, to be honest. I didn't get that far in the original text. I do know that Naani's Night Hearing is stronger than Andros', both in the original and in the Stoddard rewrite, but whether that can be extrapolated to all women and all men including those who don't have the Night Hearing, I can't say. We don't really have any particular corroboration of the claims in Cry of the Night-Hound (the Antigone story), either. Since Wright uses the original Hodgson as his source text rather than the Stoddard rewrite, the only woman depicted as leaving the Pyramid other than Naani prior to the time of Cry of the Night-Hound is the one who gets raped and forcibly bred in Wright's own story. And given that within two paragraphs of that comment about the Powers getting crueler and more subtle, the person Antigone is talking to freely admits that the historical record is deliberately being obscured to keep women from getting the idea that they should go out kind of... well, it doesn't really inspire confidence in any of their rationales or claims about anything else at all.

If there's other Night Land fanon about it, I haven't read it yet- I know there's a lot of other Night Land stories out there, they're on a website or collected in books, but I haven't read them. Stoddard's rewrite leaves the rule out entirely. There's a point in the novel when several hundred young people leave the Pyramid without the proper spiritual preparations and die as redshirts are wont to do. In the original Hodgson this is a group of young men; in the Stoddard, it's a group of young men and women. Stoddard doesn't indicate that anything different happens to the young women either spiritually or physically. His rewrite tends to leave out some of the more egregiously Victorian/Edwardian gender role stuff in general, although that's more on the societal level- Andros still has plenty of narration sequences where he thinks about the spiritual and romantic roles of men and women exactly the same way as in the Hodgson text.

I'm pretty sure when it comes down to it that the no-women-leave-the-Pyramid rule is a holdover from the original author's social expectations and beliefs about gender roles. I refuse to believe it's purely biological. Given that the societies of the Pyramid exist for millions of years, I doubt very much indeed whether every last one of them maintains exactly the same rules about women across the board. And I can't really see any society keeping up the level of deception necessary for the claims in Cry of the Night-Hound to work for that long, either. If- if- women in general all have greater spiritual power in general than men in this setting, it might make sense, but I have some trouble believing that's the case.

(I should note that none of the three Night Land authors I've read have touched in any way on trans* folk, nonbinary folk, or anyone with ambiguous genitalia. Hodgson had the excuse of writing in a time when polite society did not speak of such things. Stoddard wasn't trying to discuss gender roles except in a few bits where Naani and Andros pondered some of their past-life memories and went 'wait, why did people do things that way?' about the Victorian/Edwardian elements. I'm guessing Wright had no interest in the topic. Bear in mind that the population of the Last Redoubt is given as being in the millions in the original Hodgson, and is also cited as in the millions in Awake in the Night Land and Cry of the Night-Hound. It's in the hundred thousands by the time of Silence of the Night, but given that Silence of the Night's humans have achieved a machine-augmented hive mind with prenatal telepathic contact I'm guessing that there's been genetic modification and physical screening out the yin-yang, probably to produce children whose bodies match with their spirits if nothing else- anyway, point is, we're talking about population sizes big enough to have at least some individuals who don't necessarily ping as male body/mind/spirit, female body/mind/spirit, nothing else.)

If I do anything with the Night Land setting, whether it's stories or RP, I'm going to make a point of having some portion of the Rite of Preparation include spiritual testing and sounding to see whether an individual who wants to go Out is likely to be more vulnerable or more likely to feed the malign Powers even if adequately Prepared and protected by discipline. It makes more sense than the 'no woman, ever' rule. Reproductive concerns might possibly be addressed. I'm actually sort of inclined towards a post-menopausal protagonist of some kind at this point, because the idea of an old lady who has Seen Enough and is Not Impressed By Your Evil Nonsense taking on the terrors of the Night Land in order to rescue somebody or something of supreme importance to them is kind of appealing. I need to think about it some more, though.

Either way, the 'no women, ever' rule is kinda BS.

Comments

[silveraspen]

I'm pretty sure when it comes down to it that the no-women-leave-the-Pyramid rule is a holdover from the original author's social expectations and beliefs about gender roles.

I think you are probably 100% correct on that. It made me think of the Chronicles of the Lensmen, honestly, in that sort of well-intentioned-and-yet-WTF "women can't do this" regard.

I like your proposed solution!

[camwyn]

I'm willing to put up with a lot from Hodgson and view what he wrote through the lens of his time; Wright doesn't get the same kind of pass. If I'm to accept that a rule has existed in a society or string of societies for literally millions of years, I need a solid, believable, in-universe reason. Not vague theories or 'it's tradition'. Traditions don't last millions of years unchanged; they develop and expand or fall apart over time. If there was an across-the-board reason for the rule that made sense and was an incontrovertible fact of the setting, I'd put up with it- I wouldn't be happy, but I'd put up with it. Wright either couldn't or didn't care to come up with a solid reason- the bilge put forward in Cry of the Night Hound isn't solid enough to stand up to scrutiny.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm sticking with Stoddard on this.

[derien]

I'm actually sort of inclined towards a post-menopausal protagonist of some kind at this point, because the idea of an old lady who has Seen Enough and is Not Impressed By Your Evil Nonsense taking on the terrors of the Night Land in order to rescue somebody or something of supreme importance to them is kind of appealing.

I (of course) love this idea. (To be fair I would have loved it before I was post menopausal myself. ;)) This fandom is obviously ripe for some serious exploration. Some things just need to be poked with pointy sticks. ;)