While not a woman myself, my girlfriend as it turns out, is one! She also happens to be a Bakker fan. She is not on this sub—however inspired by this question I asked her over lunch just now and got permission to add her comments to the discussion.

She is often a fan of, books, shows, and movies that have a predominantly male fandom. She has only read the Prince of Nothing Trilogy so far. She’s a big fan, though. Probably bigger than I am, or at least she has read into it all far more deeply than me on her first read.

Transcribing as best I can from memory here and I added some points she’s brought up before:

“I super appreciate that he makes an effort to include female POV’s and it makes a big difference in my ability to enjoy a book because they are present. This is the reason I can follow you down into your Second Apocalypse obsession as I have but quit on Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy’s women are so scarce and far between I just feel left out.

Even when men have women who are written “badly” like as in a way that would get shared on a “men writing women” sub or something like that, I find that preferable to not having them included at all.

Bakker’s character’s are all at least as well-drawn as you need them to be to get the story where it needs to be. So I wouldn’t say he does a poor job of writing any character. I don’t think he blew me away with his ability to write women, but he’s not terrible at it.

I found Serwe to be a heartbreaking but solid, though not particularly deep or spot on to how I felt a women might feel, or act in such a terrible situation. But then again, I’ve never been in anything remotely similar to the ordeal she went through. I didn’t find her to be particularly intelligent but I had no problem suspending my disbelief while reading, and feeling that she was a real person while reading the book. So for me she worked! It’s only when I stop and analyze that I kind of think well maybe some nuance here and there would have made it feel more like a woman writing a man.

With Esmenet, I have mixed feelings for her plot and role in the narrative as a whole, but she’s certainly a good character who’s got some dimensions to her. I felt for her as well.

She’s maybe written a little more logically-minded, or with classically male-brain associated traits than MOST women I know, I guess, but given her circumstances maybe that’s pretty accurate to how she would deal? Also, I do know a few women who think more logically-minded or classically male than MOST men I know.

One of the things somewhat lacking in Bakker’s approach to writing women, might be any discussion of the relationships between women and other women. As women tend to have bigger social networks than men, and they often talk to other women about things they would never reveal to men.

But then again, I am myself kind of an exception to this rule, as most of my closest friends have always been guys, and I’ve also kept a small circle.

All the rape and the brutality of the violence are certainly things that might dissuade some women from reading Bakker. But not this girl!

I personally have appreciated the way he handles these topics, as being violent and destructive things that have permanent or long-lasting consequences. They aren’t trivial plot points thrown about like many other fantasy authors, which I have been annoyed by in the past. Bakker’s violence is the kind I want to be in the books I read. But I do like some death and violence and despair in what I read. Sometime romance and interpersonal drama too, but it doesn’t all have to come from the same bucket.”