Talk:Songmaster

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Article Grading: The following comments were left by the quality and importance raters: (edit) This article is beyond a stub, it has thematic descriptions, but there is more that could be said about the major themes. There is a paucity of citable literary criticism, though. I put in just about all I could find when I added the cover. As for importance, it is considered one of Orson Scott Card's more significant works and he is on just about everyone's top 20 Science Fiction writer lists. So at least mid importance. It's no Stranger in a Strange Land but an important work. (I admit bias, it's a favourite of mine, and I have read it multiple times, and did some of the editing here) ++Lar: t/c 21:13, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Pedophile theme

I am not sure I agree with the addition of this novel to category:Novels with a pedophile theme [1]... comments? ++Lar: t/c 21:05, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Homosexuality in Songmaster

I thought I'd note the author's perspective on this theme. Extracted from the long essay "The Hypocrites of Homosexuality" at his website. He writes:

Recently on Prodigy's "Card, Orson Scott" topic, one participant wrote a brief message saying that it really bothered him when I made the main character of Songmaster, Ansset, a homosexual; the message-writer used the word "abomination" to refer to homosexuality. The responses from others online were understanding even when in firm disagreement. Several pointed out that while the character of Josef was a homosexual, the character of Ansset was not. One wrote affirming the sympathy that I obviously had for homosexuals, and warning the original letter-writer of "homophobia." I could not leave the discussion that way without a reply.

Concerning the discussion of homosexuality in Songmaster, I must agree with those who held that Ansset "was" not a homosexual, though he engaged (or attempted to engage) in homosexual acts. As Kinsey pointed out, most American males (and many American females), even as long ago as the 1950s, had SOME kind of same-sex sexual gratification or experience. Engaging in homosexual behavior one time does not mean that you have that as your inevitable destiny.

Science has barely scratched the surface of the question of how much of our behavior has a genetic source and how much is environmental.... [long nature vs. nurture discussion cut]

All of which brings us back to my novel Songmaster. In dealing with Ansset, a beautiful, artistic child in the highest circles of power, the question of both pederasty and homosexuality had to be dealt with, because both would come up. I can think of few power-cultures in human history where they have not! I think think that may be because those who seek power tend to be inclined to self-gratification and to domination of others through sexual as well as other kinds of intercourse, and since power cultures are usually male-dominated, a beautiful but vulnerable male is going to find that most domination and exploitation come from men. There's more to it than that, I'm sure, but one thing was unavoidable: Ansset was going to be approached.

I could have used the "child molester" idea and made it a moral monster who used him -- but I had other monsters using him when they trained him to be an assassin, and I had loaded them up with enough burdens in the story. Besides, I thought of the many homosexuals I had known, and while a few of them (about the normal proportion among human males) were nasty and vicious and domineering, the majority (again the normal proportion) were decent and kind and meant well in their dealings with others.

So in creating Josef, I tried to show him as a good man with desires that, in the case of Ansset, he had no intention of acting on. Neither of them set out to have a seduction scene. But Josef, for whatever reasons, looked upon men as potential sexual partners and this was going to color his relationship with Ansset, even by avoidance, exactly as heterosexual men find that their desire for women colors their relationships even with women they do not intend to approach sexually. Ansset responded, not to his own sexual desires, but to Josef's unspoken need for him. And in the process, he learned exactly how much he had been forced to sacrifice in order to become a Songbird. Josef, too, was treated with the viciousness that evil people too often use toward those who are really no danger to them at all; some people, when they see that someone is truly helpless, become more cruel (as the Rodney King videotape and the subsequent footage of rioters beating innocent passersby all demonstrated).

[...]

What the novel offers is a treatment of characters who share, between them, a forbidden act that took place because of hunger on one side, compassion on the other, and genuine love and friendship on both parts. I was not trying to show that homosexuality was "beautiful" or "natural" -- in fact, sex of any kind is likely to be "beautiful" only to the participants, and it is hard to make a case for the naturalness of such an obviously counter-evolutionary trend as same-sex mating. Those issues were irrelevant. The friendship between Ansset and Josef was the beautiful and natural thing, even if it eventually led them on a mutually self-destructive path. [...]

DanB†DanD 18:28, 18 December 2006 (UTC)