Disclaimer: my opinions, my opinions, my opinions. Peace and love on planet Earth.
Reading Walter Scott's Ivanhoe currently and just out of curiosity searched some opinions on plot and characters and I am massivley disappointed by:
1. Rowena slander??? I was expecting the general public's hatred towards the female character that was the "less spicy" one out of the two but still, the way people (including William Thackeray) talk about her you'd think she was Bella Swan from Twilight, but worse. Even though the author clearly did not want to focus on her much, she's still a great character to me, just based on the canonical facts alone. (She knows her mind, is not prejudiced against Jews like the very prejudiced, strict man who brought her up, and even if Scott says these traits were the products of Cedric pampering Rowena and never refusing her, it is clear that he does refuse her and that she has very little say in her own life, and despite that, she's her own person with her own opinions. She waits for the man she she loves with full loyalty and devotion, knowing that it's most likely going to cost her the only family she has known.)
2. The need to mention Rebecca's beauty in almost every sentence. You have a character that is brave, resourceful and compassionate, and that defies the stereotypes of Scott's time and manages to make the best out of dire situations. When you have someone that impressive why would you go back to mentioning her appearance and charm as if those are the things that ultimately make her worthy of attention. And the Ivanhoe x Rebecca thing is beyond unnecessary and I am (not) sorry folks but I do not get why so many people want them together. Can a man not respect a woman without being attracted to her. Although why am I surprised by this, the novel was written by a man after all. Besides, one of the most impressive things about Rebecca is her fearless faith in her God, and to make her give up something that's so integral to her character in order to feed into a male(Wilfred)-centered love triangle would feel extremely dissapointing. The amount of focus on that that we did get already feels very disappointing, it just feels wrong. Also, we got how beautiful Rebecca was when Prince John (rasict AND entitled) favored her beauty over Rowena's. The way he describes her after that gets more and more racist, in a way. And on that note
3. How Scott manages to be racist towards/prejudiced against every effing ethnicity, even the freaking Saxons. A lot of the time the tone of the novel feels like a nerdy man mansplaining English history, even though it's basically a crossover fanfic between legends and history. But the thing with mansplainers is that they are often tragically wrong because their need to explain overrides their judgement and perception, so we get distored views projected on characters with potential instead, who become vessels for the author's prejudice, or for strereotypes. And it's especially painful when characters had so much genuine potential, like they did in this novel.
4. How in the beginning I was so glad I had two very distinct, different but memorable female characters that I could kind of see myself in (doing better than like 90% of classic fiction), but I did not get that. I got Rowena vs Rebecca comparison in the big 2026 (or whatever year, it's still this century). Oh wow, "bland" vs "spicy" women compared constantly, how original.
5. THE NERDY SEGWAYS INTO HISTORY OR CONTEMPORARY STUFF. STOP. They're not annoying all the time but they mostly just take me out of the narrative and into the mind of a man with very fixed opinions/vision.
6. (I got spoiled on this one) That Wilfred's decision to marry Rowena seems like the matter of honor (him keeping his word/promise) more than a decision made out of chemistry/love. Idk guys I've only read a bit more than the half of the novel (3/5 I'd say) but according to internet, apparently, he liked Rebecca more. If that is true, I want all the "Rowena does not deserve Wilfred" people to shut up forever. They should kind of shut up even if that is not true. Please do not spoil me any more I want to read on my own. 👀
Anyways, I still really like this book and cannot wait to read more. I read that post by someone here who said that the book should be called "Gurth and Wamba's great big adventure" or something like that lol and I agree. Them, Robin Hood and his merry men are by far the best part in it. I kind of wish that the book was a Robin hood fanfiction starring them but then again I am a sucker for that time period in England in general, and I love the whole aesthetic of knights and chivalry and political complexity of it, i yearned for a good old-fashioned somewhat romantic adventure with knights and I'm not too dissapointed 🙃. But the real romance was the bromance between Gurth and Wamba all along.
Also I have guessed that the black knight was Richard the Lionheart lol he though he was sneaky.
As i said, I have not finished reading it so I might not have the full context yet, I just felt really compelled to write this.
