Marion Zimmer Bradley is
dead. She cannot defend herself nor answer for her actions. This
makes her a pretty easy target. I'm not going to dispute the
allegations, in fact, I'm going to go over pieces from some of her
books that may have pointed to this fact. I've never read the
Darkover series, by the time I became a fan of her writing,
the length of that series was daunting and I quite frankly prefer
fantasy over science fiction. There are two fantasy series of hers
that I want to go over, the Avalon Saga
(which is still on-going as of 2009, thanks to the efforts of Diana
L. Paxson) and her Light
series.
I
think these two series have the most appeal to the modern Pagan
community, with Mists of Avalon
being one of the most influential pieces of fiction (it is often
touted as “my gateway to Paganism”).
Why
is Mists of Avalon
so popular? Well, it was released during the radical feminist
movement of the early 1980s- a feminine perspective on the Arthurian
Legends would, of course, sell well at that time. In addition,
feminism was already well-entrenched within the American Pagan
movement thanks to the influence of activists such as Starhawk and Z.
Budapest. That Mists of Avalon,
which showed a fictional Britain after the fall of Rome, became
popular with its focus on the female characters of the story is
really no surprise, especially considering its blatant demonization
of patriarchal Christianity that occurs within the book.
My
first Marion Zimmer Bradley book was not Mists of Avalon,
however, it was the second book within the Light
series: Witchlight.
I was already in my earliest dabblings with Witchcraft when my cousin
gave me this book (she saw the dust jacket with the witchy title and
the woman wandering the woods in a hippie dress and thought of me...
I wonder why?). Having read most of the Light
series and almost all of Marion Zimmer Bradley's contributions to the
Avalon Saga, I do
notice themes of distant or abusive parents (or abuse from those in a
parental role), rape and if not straight-up incest, at least
incestuous desires.
Much
of that is par for the course of the parts of Mists of
Avalon that come straight
from the Arthurian legends. You can't tell Arthur's story from any
perspective without themes of incest becoming involved. However, the
book takes it a bit far and adds things that were not part of the
original legends. The fact that royal parents are distant is a fact
one cannot even deny to this day; affairs of state have to come first
for the good of the country and its people. However, when Morgaine
was very small, Igraine took a very active role in raising her. This
only changed when Uther came into the picture and made Igraine his
High Queen. So busy was Igraine with her queenly duties that she
often foisted care of the infant Arthur on to her young daughter (who
could not have been older than seven at the time). So, not only does
Morgaine lose her father (abusive misogynist and would-be wife rapist
that he was), she also loses her mother to the crown and her own
childhood by having to help raise her brother. Arthur's memory of who
he thought his mother was from his toddler age (he was fostered
early, starting at age four rather than the usual age of seven) ends
up being a confused memory of Morgaine herself (he remembers his
mother having long dark hair, but Igraine's hair is red); so his
incestuous acts and later desire for his sister can also be seen as
Oedipal in context (and the confusing sister for mother is Bradley's
own and not part of the original myth).
Another
scene clearly shows a young Mordred eying his foster-mother Morgawse
with obvious lust (she is also his great aunt, being the sister to
Igraine). He was prepubescent at the time and Morgawse, who had
changed her clothing in front of him before, had not thought about it
until she saw how he was looking at her and decided that more privacy
would be in order for the future. Again, this idea is Bradley's own.
And
again, we have Gwenhwyfar's supposed half-brother (she claims her
father always denied his lineage) raping her to try to legitimize his
claim to her father's lands.
When
Morgaine confronts Viviane for making her have sex with her own
half-brother, Viviane says such things used to be common and there is
no shame it it. Morgaine's own subject of lust is Lancelot, who
happens to be Viviane's (who is Igraine and Morgawse's eldest sister)
youngest son, so he is her first cousin. Couple that with the
motherly role Viviane has in Morgaine's life as both mentor and
foster-mother, and her desire is only that much more incestuous. And
again, all of this is Bradley's creation, her choice in
story-telling, and has nothing to do with the legends.
In
one of the prequels to Mists of Avalon,
(most likely Lady of Avalon,
but I read it about a decade ago, having borrowed it from a library,
and can only go by what Wikipedia tells me of the characters in the
book to know it's the one I remember this bit from) we follow the
rise of Viviane. Viviane's mother, as High Priestess, is very distant
and sometimes unnecessarily cruel to her daughter, whom she is
preparing to take her place (of course, she doesn't bother to tell
Viviane that that is why she is being so hard on her until her mother
dies giving birth to Morgawse). Now, officially, Viviane was a child
of Beltane, meaning that no man could lay claim to be her father.
Viviane suspects its the highest druid, but as he does not remember
the ritual coupling due to ecstatic/trance circumstances, he cannot
claim or deny it. By ritual, the highest druid must be the one to
consecrate the new High Priestess. Viviane reminds the high druid
that he is, in all likelihood, her father and the act would be
incestuous. The man decides to call down the power of Talesien (and
in a sense, becomes Talesien's vessel forever, as he takes up the
role of The Merlin) and as Talesien, he performs the five-fold kiss.
Now, his body didn't change physically, just spiritually, so it can
still be seen as incest.
Then
there is the Light
series, a series that truly shows Bradley had access to occult
knowledge or else did extremely good research on the subject to gain
more than a rudimentary understanding. The first book follows Truth,
the daughter of Thorne Blackburn (a man who is blatantly modeled on
Crowley, Gardner and just a smidgeon of Cochran thrown in for
dramatic flair) as she seeks to learn about him and expose his
dubious nature. When she gets to the house where most of her father's
rituals took place, Truth finds a group of her father's acolytes
(both old and new) seeking to recreate his ritual cycle (in case the
Cochran clue didn't hit home, the final ritual did not go as planned
back when originally performed; Truth's mother died of a drug
overdose and her father disappeared). Their leader is a charismatic
young man only a few years older than Truth herself. He seems
interested in dating Truth, and as he doesn't seem to be unreasonable
to her as he claims to be more interested in the theory behind Thorne
Blackburn's rituals than expecting them to work “as advertized”,
she accepts. The leader's image he's projecting turns out to be
false, though, and he eventually tries to force himself on Truth as
part of the ritual (which is thankfully stopped by another member who
was just there investigating this guy and wasn't a true follower of
Thorne's at all). It turns out that this man is Truth's older
half-brother, Pilgrim(they were both born in the '60s and Thorne's
group was very much a product of the “free love” of the time.
Truth also has a younger half-sister). So, again, we see the theme of
abuse and ritual incest.
In
Witchlight, Winter
is a NY stockbroker suffering from what she thinks is burnout.
However, she begins to realize that she has very few memories from
before her institutionalization and even fewer from before her
mid-twenties. In an effort to regain her memories, she travels to her
old college, which also happens to house the institute of psychical
research Truth works for. Winter is also being plagued by a
poltergeist, which she learns from Truth is her own telekinetic
abilities working subconsciously, however there also seems to be an
entity trying to talk to her through the bodies of mutilated animals.
Truth (her eyes having been opened to the reality of magic in the
previous book) helps to uncover what the entity is and it is an
artificial elemental. Winter then scrambles to find out what it wants
and why it keeps attacking bigger and bigger animals. What she finds
out is that her college boyfriend was a magician practicing the
method of Blackburn; she, and a few other friends, were involved in
the group he ran. Just before graduation, Winter finds herself
pregnant and as her boyfriend's idea of taking care of the baby is to
get married and go on the road from state to state to work at
Renaissance Faires, she freaks out and leaves school for the solace
of home. The problem is, home is not a good place for Winter. Her
parents are cold, distant and at the very least mentally abusive. Her
mother convinces her to get an abortion and even takes her out of the
country to get it done so that if her boyfriend tries to visit and
convince her to keep the baby, he will not find her there. Winter's
coping mechanism is to block all of it out until the breakdown in her
mid-thirties that leads to her institutionalization. Most of the book
is spent with Winter trying to piece her life together and she
eventually confronts her parents for being the terrible pieces of
crap that they were. I have not read Gravelight,
the third book in the series, but as it follows Winter's brother, I
have to assume the parental influence is the same. Heartlight,
the final book seems to deviate from the trend, but probably only
because the main character is a man who never forms a romantic
attachment, but acts as a fatherly guide to several people through
the years.
So,
I am saddened that this excellent writer (you cannot deny that she
wrote well) was a monster; but on closer inspection of the themes
within her writing (which do make for great character development and
story telling and feel believable given the eras in which the stories
take place) I can't say I'm as shocked as my fellow Pagans.
I
would say to vilify her and never buy her books, if her books were
meant to be used as spiritual guidelines, but they're not, they're
fiction. I know a great number of Pagans follow what I tend to call
“Mists of Avalonism” (I've even seen whole groups that based
their practices around this) and have built their spiritual practice
based on the religious system created for the novel. The problem is,
it's a novel. It was never intended for use as a spiritual guidebook.
If you call yourself Pagan and based all of your beliefs and
practices solely upon what you got out of the Avalon Saga
and now you feel dirty and ashamed and don't know if you're Pagan
anymore - good-bye. I honestly can't say how Pagan you were to begin
with if what sparked your interest in the religion did not lead you
to read non-fiction books on Pagan paths, or history, or mythology,
or folklore. If Mists of Avalon
was just your starting off point and you did do further research and
began practicing because of both influences, maybe you need to
reevaluate just how important the novel was, but you don't need to
throw everything out, and you can grow and learn to better discern
what you choose to guide you and who your guides will be.
Marion
Zimmer Bradley was not a Pagan author, but the person who
collaborated with her and continued the Avalon Saga
after her death, Diana L Paxson, is. Paxson is a member of the Troth
and has written books on Asatru, runelore and trance-states (in
addition to being a pretty popular mainstream fantasy writer; her
White Raven, a take
on the tale of Tristan and Isolde, was quite excellent). I don't
know how much Paxson knew Bradley outside their collaborations, or if
she had any clue about what was happening in Bradley's private life.
It will be interesting to see how and if Paxson responds to the
allegations against the woman she probably owes a good portion of her
own fame to.
I
want to stress - hating someone does not mean you have to hate their
art. The best art can come from the psychologically disturbed. Joan
Crawford (now more famous for being Mommy Dearest than for her acting
career) was a great actress. Roman Polansky (convicted statutory
rapist) is a great director (and added to his tragedy is that his
wife and unborn child were victims of Charles Manson), as is Woody
Allen (he married his adopted step-daughter after divorcing her
mother, Mia Farrow, and is somehow both claustrophobic and
agoraphobic). Based on what I read in On the Road,
Jack Kerouac is a misogynist; he's a wonderful writer and it's
masterfully written, but it makes me angry to read it, as does much
of what Hemingway writes. “Hills Like White Elephants” (a short
story about a man forcing his mistress to have an abortion), comes to
mind, but I still like how he writes. Aleister Crowley did not treat
his lovers very kindly as a rule, but he is still one of the best
authorities on occult matters (people still buy and reference his
works sixty-seven years after his death). I would say buy their works
second hand, as no part of your payment goes to their royalties. And
if they're dead, don't stress that you're somehow supporting them,
you're more supporting their publishing companies and maybe their
descendents at this point (and really, in the case of Bradley, as her
children were her victims, one could argue you should buy more of her
books to help support them).
The
main lesson here is not to put people on pedestals. We're all human,
all flawed. Anyone given enough scrutiny will shows cracks (the
paparazzi have proven that more than a few times now). Don't idolize
human beings. Any one of us could be wolves in sheep's clothing; and
even sheep have teeth and some have horns.
