The Problem With Minotaur

At the beginning of this week, I was unfortunately caught up in a bit of hoo-ha on tumblr. It came about because I very casually mentioned a character in Down From The Tower who happened to be a female Minotaur, and a few people took exception to that.

Before I knew what had happened, I was being accused of cultural appropriation for using a Greek myth and altering it by changing the “established” gender from male to female. It spiralled then to some very bizarre finger pointing and eventually “white people shouldn’t write non-white characters” at which point I tapped out.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been accused of cultural appropriation, and I daresay it won’t be the last, but since the posts are still being shared with commentary and opinions from lots of other people, and I’m being bombarded by messages about it, I’ve decided it would be a good idea for me to lay out exactly how I feel about the accusations being levied at me.

It’s taken me this long because I’ve been trying to think of a polite way to say I don’t care. Nothing has presented itself, so instead, I’m just going to say, quite bluntly: I don’t care.

I could sit here and write a huge post about how much work and research I put into writing respectfully and knowledgeably about other cultures. I could tell you that the last thing I ever want to do is offend anyone. I could bust a gut trying to find different and careful ways to say that cultural appropriation doesn’t mean white people can only write about white culture; it actually means when you take a culture, strip it back to the bits you find aesthetically pleasing, play dress up with it, and lay claim to it as your own.

But I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to, because I’m tired and I’m fed up, and as I’ve said numerous times the past few days, I’m going to get dragged for whatever I write, so I may as well just do my best and please myself. I almost packed up writing altogether because I tried to please everyone when I wrote The Redwood War series. All I got out of that was the realisation that people are never happy, as well as a series I used to love making me cringe whenever I look at it now. It was a hard lesson to learn, but the price of bending over backwards to please readers was way too steep for what it yielded in the end. I won’t make that mistake again.

If someone can come to me with a rational argument that I shouldn’t be using Greek myths, then, by all means, let me know and I’ll change it. But you’d best be gunning for Rick Riordan, JK Rowling, and all the other, less accessible authors out there who have used mythology from other cultures in their work, too.

I’m just a nobody author out here trying to write stories I like, have fun doing it, and use what little platform I have to give the best representation I can manage. That’s all. These kinds of incidents occasionally make me wonder why I even bother, but I’m going to bother anyway, come hell or high water. Because I want to, because it’s right to, and because I’m a stubborn, hard-headed baggage who doesn’t know when to quit.

The bottom line is this: love it or hate it, it’s up to you, but know that unless there’s a legitimate issue with my creative choices, I really don’t give a flying hoolie.