Doggone it!

[michelel72]

Ronon Dex. That sharp-looking guy in my icon there.

He's a big, powerful man, yes. He's a man of few and casual words rather than eloquence. He's got big, distinctive hair. He's often impulsive, and revenge and anger are often strong motivations for him.

Can we please, please, please quit comparing him to a dog?

I've seen that comparison four times in the past week. He's described as being like a dog in some fashion (usually as a compliment of his loyalty or description of his protective position); he's always the only one described that way. If it were more rare, and if anyone else in these stories ever got compared to an animal at all** (much less a dog in particular) I don't think I'd be annoyed ... but it's not, and they're not. And since his skin is slightly darker*** than that of his two male teammates, I can't help wondering if there are noxious race factors at play. I grew up in the US Deep South; trust me, "darker-skinned man" as "dog" is probably not a connotation you really want to invoke in your casual (and solitary) similes.

Just ... please. Find some other way to describe the guy, okay? I know the whole "Conan" thing is overdone, for example, but that one's meta-funny now! Or describe the whole team as different kinds of dog! Something!

** Except the occasional comparison of Rodney McKay to a screeching monkey, of course. And all animal-transformation fics excepted; those are something else entirely and tend to spread the animal associations out fairly among the various characters.++
*** The actor is half-Hawaiian [ETA:], half German/Irish/Native American.
++ ETA 13 June: So of course, today alone, I encountered three different stories — one from last year that I had been planning for a rec list, one from two weeks ago that I just got around to reading, one from 2005 — that instead compare John Sheppard to a dog. Figures.

Comments

[rodo]

Is it just me or is complimenting someone on being loyal like a dog ... kind of not a compliment? I mean, dogs can't help being loyal, but humans choose to be, so that comparison would reduce the person to an animal that just can't help being what it is. That's the reason why I don't actually think of that comparison as a compliment.

I also think Ronon is more of a bear.

[michelel72]

I entirely agree — the comparison removes any thought or responsibility from Ronon's choice to work with the expedition. I should have put "compliment" in scare quotes, really.

And I started to say that Ronon strikes me more as a bear, but equating him to any animal has started to make me uncomfortable at this point, so I just skipped it. But yeah, if you're describing the team/expedition in terms of animals they resemble, I'd go for bear with Ronon, I think.

[lady_ganesh]

I think it's especially unpleasant considering how often non-white people in Western societies have been described as/considered non-human.

[noracharles]

I've ranted about this before, but I'm not going to let that stop me. Ronon Dex makes me unhappy. The way he was written on the show was racist and horrible, and fic tends to either retransmit that treatment uncritically, magnify it or erase him all together.

I have read very few fics that reclaimed Ronon and fleshed him out, and I've searched high and low. I think I've read three Ronon fics that I truly enjoyed, one of them was the Canadian fic (don't remember the title or author), and the others I don't remember well enough to describe them.

It's gotten so bad that I just avoid fics that feature Ronon. It's not worth the nausea.

[kutsuwamushi]

The way he was written on the show was racist and horrible

Stargate: Atlantis just got steadily worse as the seasons went on for issues like this. Ronon Dex makes me happy, but only until I remember how the show treated Ronon and Teyla. I was so burned by the end of it that I haven't even tried to give the new Universe spin-off a shot. Just no longer interested.

Have you read Fourteen Years by Hth? It's one of the better Ronon fics out there, I think. One thing that makes it different is that it's from Ronon's point of view. It's slash, though, if you're not into that.

[noracharles]

Thank you very much for the rec! :-D

I do enjoy slash, and I like Hth's work a lot. Glancing at it I think I have read it, but I'm glad to be reminded of it, and to second your rec :-)

[michelel72]

I know what you mean about the show. You'd think they might have seen what they had done by the time they had Ronon and Teal'c meet, but no. Gah.

I like to think that I've handled him passably well in my fics, but more importantly, I truly hope that if I haven't, someone will tell me. I want to do better than canon at the very, very least. (I haven't yet written a fic with him as the primary character, but recent conversations have made me wonder if I could pull off a serious post-Trinity fic focused on him ....)

[noracharles]

Ugh, that horrible Ronon / Teal'c scene. Arguing with words is too confusing and stressful for poor Ronon! He needs to hit something! Yuck.

I don't know if I've read any of your fic, I'm not good with names. At least you're trying, so that's better than most people right there.

[kelmendi]

I think I've read three Ronon fics that I truly enjoyed, one of them was the Canadian fic (don't remember the title or author), and the others I don't remember well enough to describe them.

Do you mean copperbadge's My Home And Native Land? I love that story. And yes, one of the few good Ronon stories in SGA.

[noracharles]

That's the one! Thank you :-)

[anselajonlafic]

The only character in any fandom that I would compare to a dog is Abarai Renji, and that's because it's canon that he thinks of himself as a stray dog.

Ronon Dex is not Abarai Renji. Therefore dog comparisons should be left out.

[michelel72]

Hear, hear. (I took a second to think if there are any characters I would compare to a dog, and the only one I came up with is James Wilson — relative to House — because he takes the abuse and just keeps coming back. But he's far more complex than that, and it's really not a great idea anyway.)

[dancesontrains]

Nothing about your rant surprises me. :6

[kutsuwamushi]

That is kind of disturbing. I'm glad I haven't run across it before. There is all sorts of problematic aspects to comparing a character of color to a dog, if he's the only one being treated that way. Especially if it's a trend, rather than just a cute line in a single fic.

Ronon Dex is more like a cat, anyway. Dogs are brainlessly loyal to whoever picks them up. Ronon chooses his loyalty and doesn't obey mindlessly; he obeys (most of the time) because he's made friends and they're fighting against a common enemy.

[michelel72]

Yeah, I didn't really keep track of it at first, beyond a twitch; I thought I might be reading something into the text that honestly wasn't there. But it made me pay better attention to how the rest of the team was described, if at all, and got me to notice how gratuitous the comparisons often were. I don't know if it's one of those selective attention things; I read fics from across the last six years pretty much at random, and I might just have hit a spate by random selection, but. Troubling.

And ... I know, right? I mean, the "loyalty" of dogs is stereotypically unconditional. Ronon has specifically chosen to ally himself to the expedition and to protect his teammates; the fact that he made and keeps making that choice is far more powerful, I'd think. I like the cat analogy, if you're going to compare team members to animals — I have seven of 'em, so I know how much of a rush getting a cat to actually pay attention to you can be. Heh.

[kutsuwamushi]

I have seven of 'em

so jelus

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[caelieth]

Re: Sorry, couldn't resist.

[michelel72]

(see icon)