Therumancer said:
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So, as far as I can tell, the actual content of your post is:
A) You think that it isn't unreasonable for someone to go into battle in their anachronistic swimwear, and are either philosophically or morally opposed to backing this assertion with actual evidence.
B) You think the plot spackle John Norman uses to hold his rambling misogynist discourses and rape porn together is pretty well-written. Ooookaaay, then.
A: It's not unreasonable depending on the tech level. Ideally in heading into battle when armor isn't practical for climate or anatomical reasons your going to want something like tights, a Gi, or whatever else. If that's not availible then going out there in minimal clothing is the way to go.
B: You've obviously never read John Norman or know much about him. Your basic attitude seems to be that because he's gotten a bad rap for writing anti-feminist erotica (well most of it) that everything else associated with him and his writing must also be bad by definition. The guy sold something like 12 million books for a reason, and is considered to be one of the masters of modern fantasy because his work was hugely inspirational, especially the first few which were more straightforward works of fantasy.
Basically, to dismiss Norman is like dismisisng Howard, Moorcock, Tolkien, and others. You might not find his overall message to your liking (and it's irrelevent to this discussion) but he does deserve credit on a number of levels.
Indeed being one of the fantasy masters is the whole reason while I read him. As someone who actually knows what they are talking about, I can say that the point where he really was when Tarl gets himself raped, broken, and becomes Bosk Of Port Karr, and you find out that the whole thing was set up by the guys he was working for "because he was too arrogant" which more or less in this case mean "for the lulz" before anyone used that term. After which the brilliant moments happened, but became further and further between, as it seemed to mostly turn into a non-stop emo bondage fantasy. I personally gave up about the time he decided to leave Elizabeth Caldwell as a slave instead of rescueing her. At that point I kind of decided everything that made the series good was gone, and the protaganist was just a reprehensible jerk, beyond any hope of redemption no matter how badly he had been betrayed.
I can understand why you, and other people think what you do, and your right. Out of like 20 books, they start to go down hill after like #3, and I think I got as far as #8 before I decided it had turned into schlock. That doesn't mean I will not acknowlege what he did right, or that his first few books were decent enough to at least let me give him that much of a chance.
I see John Norman as being less of a rape-philsopher, and more of an angry Emo kid before his time, who started using his writing to vicariously vent through fantastic analogies. Even as a pirate he had this guy called Samos who was another agent of the Priest Kings which originally acted as a counterpoint to Tarl, by showing how far above some of these slimes he still was... when he started outdoing Samos, that was when the stories really lost what soul they had to me.
At any rate, I suggest actually reading them, and making your own desicians, not just going by what other people have told you. If you have read them, I'd imagine you probably picked up one of the middle books and kind of went "WTF" which is what a lot of people seem to have done. To really see the potential and why he got as much credit as he did, you'd have to start from the beginning.
