“Why Pete Doesn’t Love Saga As Much As Everyone Else: Part 5 (I don’t actually know which part this is, but who cares?)
In this episode: Having Cake AND Eating It
Something that’s really good about Saga is that it’s strange, and it’s a universe that does look pretty different from our own. The way things work, it’s different. The creatures, they’re different.
But the letdown of this is that sometimes things are exactly the same as they are in our universe, and that’s kind of weird.
Take this volume. In which we have a 3-person family where the mom is a centaur, the dad is a human, and their son is a centaur, but his torso is sort of in the middle of his horse body, where a person would ride. Someone thought that one out a little, and that small, unmentioned physical detail makes the world more interesting and real.
But. When it comes to an issue like a transgender character, things are exactly the same in the Saga universe. Being transgender means the same thing in Saga that it does in our universe. It takes a child to say, “I have horns and wings. I’m curious, but I don’t think you’re a monster.” Which you would think would be closer to the attitude of more folks in the Saga universe. For example, if you’re a TV-head robot man whose hand turns into a gun, how uppity could you be about a totally different species having a penis or not? If you can do actual magic, like Harry Potter shit crossed with being a cold-blooded killer, where’s the shock and awe of meeting someone who’s transgender? You just encountered a centaur family. Which means a humanoid dude was banging the horse half of a woman centaur (I mean, I assume. I don’t know much about centaur physiology). You were hanging out with a meerkat wearing a polo shirt. Your planet is headed towards what looks like a giant dead space baby. The boundaries of “weird” are so different in this universe that I have some trouble understanding why something like being transgender raises a brow.
And don’t get me wrong. It’s not a morality thing. I don’t think the issue is that I have is the treatment of a transgender character as unusual. What I’m saying is that I think Saga does some picking and choosing so it can make points about our world, but it comes off as a little lazy because the context doesn’t really work.
For example, women seem to occupy a similar role in the Saga universe, lots like what they do in most of our societies. Women’s history seems to be similar to women’s history in our world. Which doesn’t really make sense to me. The role of women seems to be the case on most planets, across the entire Saga universe, which seems a little unlikely. That’s not necessarily true amongst different species on Earth, so why would it be true across a vast universe of different creatures?
I think the answer is because they want to talk about issues. To be a dick about it for a second, it seems to exist so Saga can use a quote like, “It doesn’t matter who started it or what it’s really about…war usually ends up sucking most for women. Even when we’re not fighting the battles ourselves, we somehow always end up with the lion’s share of the suffering.” I’m not going to argue about the point, nor the difference between death and suffering. I just want to say that it seems that sometimes Saga is more gender egalitarian, when it suits the story. It seems that women characters are often combat veterans. But sometimes, when it suits the story, women occupy a role more traditional to our world.
Wealth and power, religion, gender power differentials, the role of war, all of these things kinda work the same in a universe that is not bound by the same rules. And maybe that’s the point, if I was going to let the book off the hook, maybe the point is that people are small-minded and even with access to a vast universe, we’ll still fight over some tiny planet or dislike someone for having a wang when, from what we can tell, they shouldn’t have one (god knows whether or not a giant topless spider-woman should have a penis or not. I don’t think I could muster the energy to get all uppity about it).
If I was going to let the book off a little more, I think I’d have to admit that you have to have some parallels as a given in order for the story to make any sense.
If I was going to…keep the book on the hook? Does that phrase work that way? If I was going to keep the book on the hook, I’d say that when socio-political things work exactly the same as they do in our world, and when they rely heavily on my knowledge of Earth/human society to make sense of what’s happening, it stands out a bit.
It seems to work for a lot of people, and that’s cool. I don’t think that’s bad. Just another entry in this series that nobody asked for, Why Pete Doesn’t Love Saga As Much As Everyone Else.
Merged review:
Why Pete Doesn’t Love Saga As Much As Everyone Else: Part 5 (I don’t actually know which part this is, but who cares?)
In this episode: Having Cake AND Eating It
Something that’s really good about Saga is that it’s strange, and it’s a universe that does look pretty different from our own. The way things work, it’s different. The creatures, they’re different.
But the letdown of this is that sometimes things are exactly the same as they are in our universe, and that’s kind of weird.
Take this volume. In which we have a 3-person family where the mom is a centaur, the dad is a human, and their son is a centaur, but his torso is sort of in the middle of his horse body, where a person would ride. Someone thought that one out a little, and that small, unmentioned physical detail makes the world more interesting and real.
But. When it comes to an issue like a transgender character, things are exactly the same in the Saga universe. Being transgender means the same thing in Saga that it does in our universe. It takes a child to say, “I have horns and wings. I’m curious, but I don’t think you’re a monster.” Which you would think would be closer to the attitude of more folks in the Saga universe. For example, if you’re a TV-head robot man whose hand turns into a gun, how uppity could you be about a totally different species having a penis or not? If you can do actual magic, like Harry Potter shit crossed with being a cold-blooded killer, where’s the shock and awe of meeting someone who’s transgender? You just encountered a centaur family. Which means a humanoid dude was banging the horse half of a woman centaur (I mean, I assume. I don’t know much about centaur physiology). You were hanging out with a meerkat wearing a polo shirt. Your planet is headed towards what looks like a giant dead space baby. The boundaries of “weird” are so different in this universe that I have some trouble understanding why something like being transgender raises a brow.
And don’t get me wrong. It’s not a morality thing. I don’t think the issue is that I have is the treatment of a transgender character as unusual. What I’m saying is that I think Saga does some picking and choosing so it can make points about our world, but it comes off as a little lazy because the context doesn’t really work.
For example, women seem to occupy a similar role in the Saga universe, lots like what they do in most of our societies. Women’s history seems to be similar to women’s history in our world. Which doesn’t really make sense to me. The role of women seems to be the case on most planets, across the entire Saga universe, which seems a little unlikely. That’s not necessarily true amongst different species on Earth, so why would it be true across a vast universe of different creatures?
I think the answer is because they want to talk about issues. To be a dick about it for a second, it seems to exist so Saga can use a quote like, “It doesn’t matter who started it or what it’s really about…war usually ends up sucking most for women. Even when we’re not fighting the battles ourselves, we somehow always end up with the lion’s share of the suffering.” I’m not going to argue about the point, nor the difference between death and suffering. I just want to say that it seems that sometimes Saga is more gender egalitarian, when it suits the story. It seems that women characters are often combat veterans. But sometimes, when it suits the story, women occupy a role more traditional to our world.
Wealth and power, religion, gender power differentials, the role of war, all of these things kinda work the same in a universe that is not bound by the same rules. And maybe that’s the point, if I was going to let the book off the hook, maybe the point is that people are small-minded and even with access to a vast universe, we’ll still fight over some tiny planet or dislike someone for having a wang when, from what we can tell, they shouldn’t have one (god knows whether or not a giant topless spider-woman should have a penis or not. I don’t think I could muster the energy to get all uppity about it).
If I was going to let the book off a little more, I think I’d have to admit that you have to have some parallels as a given in order for the story to make any sense.
If I was going to…keep the book on the hook? Does that phrase work that way? If I was going to keep the book on the hook, I’d say that when socio-political things work exactly the same as they do in our world, and when they rely heavily on my knowledge of Earth/human society to make sense of what’s happening, it stands out a bit.
It seems to work for a lot of people, and that’s cool. I don’t think that’s bad. Just another entry in this series that nobody asked for, Why Pete Doesn’t Love Saga As Much As Everyone Else.”