azurelunatic | From 05:08 PM Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Read "Virgins", the Outlander story, for the second time -- I think it may have been in two different collections, or something? In any case, I read it a second time, and it seemed a lot more anti-semitic on the second read, more so than on the first (plenty). It absolutely depicted antisemetism, which is a thing that Jews in Europe have been facing since forever. The main problem of the story was banditry. And it turned out that the person behind the banditry was a young woman eloping against her father's wishes, who wished to gather wealth that wouldn't go away when her husband lost his lands and therefore his main source of income when he converted in order to marry her. This is treated as her embodying the moneygrubbing, backstabbing stereotypes, and ew. Yuck.

This falls on the wrong side of my preferences for Historically Accurate Assholery in escapist fiction. The series has already accumulated strikes for situations involving Black people, Chinese, and gays. I'm far enough into this thing that I may sunk-cost my way through it via the library, but I can't recommend that anyone else pick it up or spend money directly.