sigh...

[pastwatcher]

now that all this unpleasantness has been brought up, I am for the first time unhappy with my own Livejournal screenname.

Comments

[lord-codfish.livejournal.com]

It is certainly not at all controversial to say that one is a fan of OSC's *works*. If that were the issue, the debate would be much more clear-cut. This isn't Leni Riefenstahl we're talking about.

Which is to say, probably not worth sweating it. :)

[brokenwndw.livejournal.com]

Hm. Personally, independent of the controversy surrounding Card as a person and public figure, I've found that every time I reread a section of Ender's Game (admittedly the only work of his I've read) I like it less. It seems to strain credulity more (yes, it's science fiction, but it attempts to portray real humans with real human minds and souls, and the more I read the less I buy it), and the writing quality seems poorer.

But that's just a matter of opinion.

Separately, I definitely sympathize with the people who are upset about this situation. Heck, I don't care at all about guests-- I don't read that much that's not electronic, and don't get too deeply into anything I read anywhere-- and I'm not gay; but even so I'm a bit put off by the thought of going to Vericon now. (Not enough to not go, I think. :-)) Something about the mental juxtaposition of the concept of bigotry (it's not just bad, mmkay; it's bad) and the phrase "of honor".

[novalis.livejournal.com]

Have you read John Kessel's article about Ender's Game?

[brokenwndw.livejournal.com]

I have now. (Thanks!) And while the article focuses on other issues from the ones that have been causing me to dislike Ender's Game as time passes, it makes good points, most of which I agree with.

Morality is complicated, even if you believe that it starts from simple things. Card clearly doesn't understand this.

[lord-codfish.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, but that's a matter of taste and not politics. (Heck, my Yahoo handle is derived in large part from the Star Control games, and I certainly won't claim - having just replayed SC3 - that they are at all perfect.)

[brokenwndw.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure. I'm not complaining about Quirk's screen name-- although I do understand and sympathize with any discomfort she now has. (That is, I'm not saying that she should be uncomfortable with it, but I'm definitely not saying she's not justified in so being. If that makes any sense. :-))

[novalis.livejournal.com]

I'm opposed to honoring OSC at Vericon, but I agree with lord_codfish.

[brokenwndw.livejournal.com]

As an aside, this is one of the reasons my online handles have always been made from whole cloth... I can be fairly sure I won't have a reason to regret the choice later. (Well, I do kind of regret onethreeseven, but that's for practical reasons... I always have to clarify when I give people my email address verbally. It's like Slashdot, only more annoying.)

[pastwatcher]

Yeah, I adopted it mainly because the idea of being able to watch the past is one that resonates with me much more strongly than with other people, in general. So without the book, I might have done a similar LJ name, but with different phrasing. So I don't actually regret it, after all.