This is something that I am still steamed about due to staircase issues.
The argument was concerning Deerskin by Robin McKinley. The argument took place many, many years ago but I am still extremely aggravated about it. This is because I dwell. And also because their take was so off base and bizarre (and strongly influenced by certain aggravating philosophies where women are only victims, never also abusers–a philosophy that enrages me because of reasons).
Deerskin is a stunning variation/retelling of the Donkeyskin fairy tale. (You know, the one where the king wants to marry his daughter because his wife told him not to marry anyone who wasn’t pretty as she was, and apparently he decides his kid fits the requirement.) The person I was arguing with hated the book because it didn’t make sense to them that the queen was a malicious presence in the story after her death. If I recall correctly, they didn’t seem to understand–or believe–that the king and queen were equally abusive figures in this story. They felt that queen was innocent of all blame, and seemed completely unaware of the slow build up of neglect and abuse leading to the king abusing his daughter.
I did attempt to point this out to them! They did not believe me, because apparently, there was no evidence that the queen was abusive, and there was no evidence of abuse from the king either until he “suddenly” became obsessed with his daughter. Sadly, I was not able to explain to them sufficiently why they were wrong. See aforementioned reference to l‘esprit d’escalier. This right here is going to be me explaining in EXCRUCIATING DETAIL why they are very, very wrong, and hopefully exorcise the urge to still be aggravated about this years after the fact.
Now, from the beginning concerning this argument, the other person did not seem to understand that the king and queen were in fact abusive, or at least so self-absorbed and obsessed with each other that they could not be fit parents. The other person reasoned that since rich/noble/upper class people generally have other people raise their kids, that there was no abuse or neglect. They seemed to feel this despite the very clear, continually emphasized points that not only were the king and abusive, they had such a strong cult of personality that the entire household, if not the kingdom as a whole was an extremely toxic environment for the princess to grow up in.
In the story, the king and queen are extremely obsessed with each other, and their subjects are in turn obsessed with the king and queen. The princess is treated as adjacent to the Grand Romance the king and queen have created around themselves. They only view their daughter as an occasional prop or additional decoration. The princess is cared for by a single servant who is more interested in the king and queen’s Romance than she is with her charge.
McKinley makes it very clear about the nature of the abuse, and how it progresses from emotional abuse and neglect to a shift in the king’s obsession from the queen to his daughter. She has other characters notice how small and out of the way and dingy the princess’ living quarters are. She shows that the princess has few friends and is treated like an afterthought in regards to care and attention. She details the slow ramping up of the danger to the princess, and the way she’s subjected to victim blaming by her father’s court. McKinley even brings in a second royal family that is much more healthy, where the royal parents show an interest in the affairs and talents of their children to compare and contrast with Deerksin’s treatment by her parents.
But the person I argued with didn’t think this was abuse or a portrayal of abuse/neglect. Why I don’t know. Maybe they do the thing where you go “oh, this took place in the past, so xyz thing wasn’t a problem and therefore didn’t exist back then.” (Yes people do this. They are very annoying.) They were certainly doing the thing where you go “well, rich people have other people take care of their kids, so [child] couldn’t have been abused or neglected.”
Now the queen. The king and queen are so obsessed with each other and their perceived perfection that they can almost alter reality around themselves. This becomes apparent when the queen becomes ill, and then goes into a gradual decline that leads to her death. (She literally wills herself to death because she thinks some part of her beauty has faded.) She has a portrait made, before she dies. It’s the culmination of the Grand Romance/Obsession and the creating of it was absolutely traumatizing for the poor bastard portraitist who painted it.
The painting itself has a continual, malevolent presence, and is meant to represent the King’s obsession for his dead wife, and the queen’s obsession for the king. The portrait also represents the toxic, unhealthy obsession and the Grand Romance, and how insignificant the princess is considered next to this Grand Romance of the king and the beautiful queen. The supernaturally beautiful, malevolent painting is also sets up what will become the king’s unhealthy obsession for his daughter, as the princess begins to more closely resemble her mother. The painting is the gun you see in the beginning that’s going to go off later.
More bluntly: both the king and the queen were deeply and mutually obsessed with each other to the point of being a danger to self and others, and this is a world with magic so the goddamn painting is super haunted and cursed. And by haunted, I don’t necessarily mean by the literal ghost of the the queen. The painting is haunted by the Obsession. The palpable toxic presence of the Obsession that renders the princess’ home into a hostile, toxic environment she has to escape before she can find healing and eventual love and acceptance.
But the other person did not understand this, and seemed to feel there was “victim blaming” involved. The victim being the queen. Which uh. No. Just no.
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