But also... the line between Rin and Murderbot becomes blurred once it becomes obvious (though not directly stated) that Murderbot and Rin are the same person. I'm not trying to be argumentative. I just remember stumbling a little over that part trying to figure out if MB was revealing something.
As someone who hasn’t re-read, I can’t even remember this situation. It seems like a leap that one tiny note in one of many stories could sway someone to this conclusion. The more obv is that people want (even subconsciously) MB to be gendered and so they read everything through their POV.
Agree that many readers apply preconceived notions of gender to their reading of MB. But that is to be expected. Wells invites us into a world that reimagines gender identity and readers bring their conception of gender to their reading of the books, and find their conception challenged. (1/2)
This is a good thing and is what great literature does. It gets us to rethink what how we see the world. But it is not necessarily a simple process for every reader and you get bumps in understanding like this one. I'm just trying to explain what I see as a complex process of reading. (2/2)
I assumed MB chose a female “supervisor. because its ‘favorite human’ (Mensah) is female.
MB admires, likes & trusts her, so it made absolute sense to me that the ‘absolutely no-sex-parts (gross!)’ character would make that choice.
that's active if not deliberate misreading at that point, if the source is ONE gendered reference to a made-up supervisor vs the Entire Rest Of The Series ☠️😒😱
I don't know where we've stumbled in teaching reading but the comprehension part seems to have fallen off. Or maybe text-based public conversation has revealed misreadings that earlier would have been confined to school essays or people's heads.
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MB admires, likes & trusts her, so it made absolute sense to me that the ‘absolutely no-sex-parts (gross!)’ character would make that choice.
Answered this one pretty conclusively by outrageously quoting the author’s own words.