The Sword and Laser discussion

Hi,

The discussion about Muderbot's inherent humour led to a discussion of the male narrator (Kevin R. Free) who in my mind is completely wrong. This led me to think about the reader's assignment of gender onto Murderbot.

Murderbot has no biological sex and is mostly composed of inorganic parts. They have a composite human/machine brain and are clearly asexual. I personally have always coded Murderbot as a feminine character and always had a female voice in my head when reading the text (I will give my reasons at the end).

Most western societies have a default gender associated with particular professions (I went through training on this as part of diversity training). For example, soldier - male, nurse - female, this means you have to be very careful about use of pronouns when writing job ads to avoid discouraging people from applying as they do not fit the role.

One of the training exercises was to close your eyes and envision what a professor looks like. This did not work as I have Aphantasia which I learnt about in this group). So unless you are careful you will envision a given profession as having a gender. A side effect of the lack of a mind's eye is that my dreams are like radio plays so the voice is more important.

Since Murderbot is in a profession that is traditionally male I can see why it is encoded as masculine.

However I think the is a misunderstanding of the power dynamics at play. Consider Murderbot's background: they have no autonomy over their body, they are in a subservient position to others around them, they are designed to interact with clients in a non-threatening manner and are delighted to get clothing that has pockets. This all screams feminine to me. Of course this is also the slave master relationship as well but for much of our history slave/master is a valid way of viewing the male/female dynamic as well.

While the Murderbot books can be seen as a commentary and the way the modern workforce is developing where companies want workers to act like machines I think a better reading is on gender politics and bodily autonomy. Hence, the narrator should have been female or indeterminate.

Discuss...

Did we have a similar group discussion about Murderbot’s perceived gender a few years ago? Or was that in a different group?

Anyway, my takeaway was that Murderbot skewed ever so slightly female, like 51% feminine, 49% masculine, coming as close as possible to pure gender neutral status as any character I’ve ever encountered.

(Even clearly non-gendered characters like R2D2 feel male for some reason that I can’t adequately define. Maybe the Blob or the xenomorph of Alien are better examples.)

Maybe it’s the little things you mentioned, like pockets in clothes that make me feel that way. Wells has done a great job in creating a non-gender character but subtle small biases are coming through because she’s a woman.

Semi-related:

I’m in touch with my feminine side. By which I mean I own a pair of pants that don’t have pockets.

— Trike (@Trike) March 10, 2021

Although, aren’t soldiers also generally in a subservient position? I wonder if that muddies the water a bit regarding typically biased male-female roles.

For me personally, most of my teachers were women, including professors, and over my working life I have an even split of men and women as bosses, and my doctors are currently 75% women, so my life experience has mostly trained that bias out of me, but certainly not entirely.

When I first encountered the Murderbot series, it was in print. While reading, I kept thinking of Murderbot as female. I'd assumed because the author is female.

When I decided to listen to the novellas in preparation for Network Effect, I was surprised the narrator was male.

I can't recall if Murderbot's voice is described in the text. Can it change it's vocal range depending on circumstances? Or is it set at a kind of neutral tone?

Murderbot reminds me of HK-47 from Knights of the Old Republic. That's the voice I hear when I read these stories.

Chris wrote: "I can't recall if Murderbot's voice is described in the text. Can it change it's vocal range depending on circumstances? Or is it set at a kind of neutral tone?"

I don't recall anything about whether Murderbot could pitch it's voice, and I think if someone asked it to, it would say a variation on the line "you don't need to see my face, I'm not a sexbot."

M'bot can certainly modulate it's tone, it does that sometimes to calm stupid humans. Right at the beginning of the first book M'bot retracts their face-shield and uses a calm voice to talk a panicking scientist out of the animal pit. So from programming (and probably from media) I assume M'bot understands how it could sound more male or female, but chooses not to.

I've listened to many audiobooks with a female protagonist read by male narrators, so this wasn't jarring to me. I did assume Murderbot had a female body based on the author and the cover art, but Free's narration was still perfect.

Didn't the gender thing come up in discussions of The Light Brigade? People who read it in print thought Dietz was male, but the audiobook has two female narrators, so those that listened knew going in that the protagonist was a woman.

Murderbot clearly states, in All Systems Red, that it finds sex scenes in its entertainments boring and that it has no gender or sex parts:

I’d watched three episodes of Sanctuary Moon and was fast forwarding through a sex scene when Dr. Mensah sent me some images through the feed. (I don’t have any gender or sex-related parts (if a construct has those you’re a sexbot in a brothel, not a murderbot) so maybe that’s why I find sex scenes boring. Though I think that even if I did have sex-related parts I would find them boring.)

And we learn later that SecUnits are a fusion of cloned human parts and artificial parts.

There's nothing in the text to tell us how SecUnits presents themselves and from everything I've read, it doesn't seem like Murderbot, at least, even considers the question.

If pushed, I would say I have viewed Murderbot as a medium built male but that's my bias. I tend to interpret characters who are not described as like myself and, well, I'm a guy.

I'd bet that if we were casting a movie, it would be best to have an androgynous look that could be a flat chested female (since I interpret the above quote about no 'gender parts' as being no breasts as well as no genitalia) or a slight to medium build male.

Frankly, all of the above sociological speculation is more about the reader than the text.

Iain wrote: "Hi,

The discussion about Muderbot's inherent humour led to a discussion of the male narrator (Kevin R. Free) who in my mind is completely wrong. This led me to think about the reader's assignment ..."

I find it interesting and pretty annoying that an explicitly agender character is being assigned a gender to such a degree that people are actually upset about the narrator being male.

Also, given that Murderbot was manufactored by a corporation I would not at all be surprised to find out that it's made to look stereotypically male. It is after all supposed to be a "big scary SecUnit."

Leesa wrote: "I've listened to many audiobooks with a female protagonist read by male narrators, so this wasn't jarring to me. I did assume Murderbot had a female body based on the author and the cover art, but ..."

I do remember The Light Brigade's gender discussion.

It could have been interesting for them to choose different narrators but everything about Murderbot is selected to make them seem less murdery... so I wonder how the humans hear MB's voice.

Personally, I'd prefer a melodious male voice any day. :D

Julia wrote: "big scary SecUnit"

I think the "big scary" component of SecUnit is their armor and the mirrored helmet. The armor can be as intimidating as desired, but the SecUnit inside need not be big or scary.

Mark wrote: "Julia wrote: "big scary SecUnit"

I think the "big scary" component of SecUnit is their armor and the mirrored helmet. The armor can be as intimidating as desired, but the SecUnit inside need not b..."

Come on. You have 2 SecUnits before you. Both are armed. One is 5'0', slight build. The other is 6'2" with a muscular build.

Those are not equally intimidating.

As Julia points out and as I noted too, Murderbot doesn't 'identify' as human much less as male or female.

I mean, people can and should imagine Murderbot however it suits them but saying a narrator is right or wrong in any objective fashion is silly.

Rick wrote:

"I mean, people can and should imagine Murderbot however it suits them but saying a narrator is right or wrong in any objective fashion is silly."

This kind of misses the point.

1) A narrator, just like a film version of a book can get in the way of your own imagined Universe. This is the joy of a book, you get to create the characters as you envision them (OK, so they are a formless faceless code because I can't :-)

2) The default gender assignment based on professions is part of the deeply discriminatory setup of our current society. Questioning is not silly.

SecBots do not need to be scary. They need to be effective. They are body guards and fast and brutal response is the requirement. This does not require size (in most cases it is contraindicated).

I find this very interesting, and have struggled with my internal voice on Murderbot a lot. Because as I am male, my internal voice is male as well, and that feels wrong for Murderbot. Not having listened to it I can believe that Mr. Free did a great job, but I personally would have chosen a female voice. M'Bot is clearly genderneutral, but the author is female, so I guess this would catch her voice better. But that is my preference.
Also also, we have more than enough male representation.

Well, I've just finished reading Exit Strategy, so it's time to dive into Network Effect and check out the audiobook narrator. I guess if I really don't like his interpretation, I can always read the ebook instead, but it might be interesting to hear someone who sounds different from how Murderbot sounds in my head.

While I know I have biases, I like to think the fact that I know I have them, helps tamp them down a bit. But I will admit that while reading the first 4 ebooks I did picture and hear a more male figure. It was mostly robotic, especially in voice, when not trying to blend in, but had a male leaning. This was probably due to both how I pictured it carrying out its role as a security officer, and the fact of self envisioning. This mental picture was developed very early on in the first book, and really never changed in my mind.

It has been interesting reading others perspectives on this.

Started listening to the audiobook this afternoon and I'm actually really enjoying Kevin R Free's narration. His voice doesn't sound much like how Murderbot sounds in my head, but he really brings out the dry humour. I think he was a good choice of narrator, although I still think it would have been cool to be given a choice of narrators, as with John Scalzi's Lock In and Head On.
[For those who are unfamiliar with those books, the protagonist is a paralysed human who interacts with the world using a robotic avatar. Their gender is never specified and the audiobooks are available in two versions, one narrated by Wil Wheaton, and one by Amber Benson.]

Iain wrote: "This kind of misses the point.

1) A narrator, just like a film version of a book can get in the way of your own imagined Universe. This is the joy of a book, you get to create the characters as you envision them (OK, so they are a formless faceless code because I can't :-)

2) The default gender assignment based on professions is part of the deeply discriminatory setup of our current society. Questioning is not silly."

While questioning the assumptions of gender aren't silly, after all Murderbot is agender (doesn't have any gender). What bothers me is the assumption that a male-sounding narrator can't be a woman and a female-sounding narrator can't be a man and that both of them can't be a gender not on the binary or no gender at all. And *that* bothers me since it excludes the bodies (and voices) that trans and intersex people have.

Which leads me to my question "why did you feel the need to assign a gender to an agender character? And why were you so bothered by the voice not matching your *assumed* gender so much."

Ruth wrote: "Started listening to the audiobook this afternoon and I'm actually really enjoying Kevin R Free's narration. His voice doesn't sound much like how Murderbot sounds in my head, but he really brings ..."

I love the idea and bought Amber Benson's version originally, unfortunately, I couldn't stand her as a narrator so switch over to Will Wheaton.

I wonder if it’s possible to have the book read by Q, the genderless voice assistant.

https://youtu.be/kRauhbZqJCY

Trike wrote: "I wonder if it’s possible to have the book read by Q, the genderless voice assistant.

https://youtu.be/kRauhbZqJCY"

That would be even better and how do I get that for my voice-over on my phone is my first thought.

They could have also have found a non-binary or agender voice actor who'd had voice training for the genderless/non-binary sounding voice.

Iain wrote: " A narrator, just like a film version of a book can get in the way of your own imagined Universe. This is the joy of a book, you get to create the characters as you envision them (OK, so they are a formless faceless code because I can't :-) ..."


Then read the book traditionally? I mean, you're complaining about a narrator affecting how you imagine the character(s) but that's an unavoidable effect of the medium. That effect can be positive or negative, but of course a narrator will affect how you imagine a character. I don't understand that as a complaint when you've chosen to listen to the book.

And my point about size is that humans will mostly view size as a proxy for power presuming the person being evaluated is in shape, etc. Of course, you're right that there's no practical reason to project this to SecUnits who could be 5 foot nothing and still amazingly deadly.

Finally, bring whatever sociological interpretation to the work that you want, of course. That's part of the fun of being a reader. But it's also appropriate to question whether your interpretations are in the text or are your biases. That's part of discussion of such things.

To me, the nature of Murderbot is part of why the humor works so well. It's genuinely Other while being relatable and so we can identify with parts of its discomfort and confusion while still getting a character who can stand outside of us and comment on our foibles.

I am fascinated by this discussion.

I'm male and I envision Murderbot as masculine in appearance. In fact, I envision them as Repairman Jack from F. Paul Wilson's novels - a generic masculine human of average height and weight that you'd complete forget you saw because they don't stand out at all and blend in to the crowd or background.

I'll have to pay more attention to my reading (of anything). I can't recall how I assign a voice to characters a I read. I'm not even sure I do assign them a voice in my head unless the text describes their voice, or it's a character I've seen or heard before in audio or video and sometimes not even then in either case.

I think it's kind of cool that readers can read their own take into the stories as to how Murderbot looks and sounds.

Julia wrote: "Trike wrote: "I wonder if it’s possible to have the book read by Q, the genderless voice assistant.

https://youtu.be/kRauhbZqJCY"

That would be even better and how do I get that for my voice-over..."

An interesting point - while I am enjoying Kevin R Free’s narration, perhaps a non-binary narrator would have been a good choice to fully represent Murderbot’s non-gendered-ness. I am not personally aware of any established NB audiobook narrators, but one of my other podcasts, Our Opinions Are Correct, is presented by non-binary science fiction author Annalee Newitz (who I think was interviewed on S&L a few years ago talking about their book Autonomous) and I can imagine them doing a good job of reading Murderbot.
Perhaps in an ideal world, we’d have THREE different options for the audiobook: Kevin R Free, Annalee Newitz, and a woman narrator (my choice would probably be Mary Robinette Kowal because I love her readings of her own Lady Astronaut books so much).

Rick wrote: "Then read the book traditionally? I mean, you're complaining about a narrator affecting how you imagine the character(s) but that's an unavoidable effect of the medium. That effect can be positive or negative, but of course a narrator will affect how you imagine a character. I don't understand that as a complaint when you've chosen to listen to the book."

You're assuming that everyone can read books the traditional way and that's not true. There are plenty of reasons why some don't or can't read books via their eyes. Being blind or having dyslexia are two good examples.

So perhaps don't assume that reading the audiobook format is a choice?

Mark wrote: "Julia wrote: "big scary SecUnit"

I think the "big scary" component of SecUnit is their armor and the mirrored helmet. The armor can be as intimidating as desired, but the SecUnit inside need not b..."

Another component of SecUnit's scariness is how they are portrayed in the in-universe media, especially rogue SecUnits.

When I read the novellas I was picturing Murderbot as looking like Robocop. So even though I knew it was non-gendered, I thought of it as having a male voice and physique.

I haven't heard the audiobook version so may have been skewed to the way they presented it, if I had.

I'm listening to the audiobooks. I never consciously associated any specific gender to Murderbot. I do think the narrator sounds robotic (as per one of my posts above).

I am enjoying this discussion.

I continuously noticed everyone referring to Murderbot as it. I assumed a more masculine voice because the this is a designed being. Male voices are just more intimidating in general than most female voices. I didn't picture any other gender specific characteristics though. Just functional.

Kirsten wrote: "I continuously noticed everyone referring to Murderbot as it. I assumed a more masculine voice because the this is a designed being. Male voices are just more intimidating in general than most fema..."

I don't think that SecBots are supposed to be intimidating (those are military bots).

The SecBots are in the room protecting clients and have to blend in.

I've always envisioned Murderbot as slightly more female than male. It's not about imposing size, it's about technologically enhanced senses and weaponry. For me Murderbot is about five foot six, medium build, blends into the background until it's time to take action.

Mentally tho, I've always thought of Murderbot as being like the "Disaster Girl" meme.

Kirsten wrote: "I continuously noticed everyone referring to Murderbot as it. I assumed a more masculine voice because the this is a designed being. Male voices are just more intimidating in general than most female voices..."

You’ve never been yelled at by my mom.

My Mom is 5 ft nothing and my high school friends still respect her!. Maybe it can change based on situation?

Iain wrote: "Kirsten wrote: "I continuously noticed everyone referring to Murderbot as it. I assumed a more masculine voice because the this is a designed being. Male voices are just more intimidating in genera..."

They also need to be a threat to anyone who might be a threat to their clients or anyone that the clients want to threaten. This is why I've always thought that SecUnits might look intimidating. I'd also thought that that intimidation given how awful the Corporation Rim is was probably based on some really sexist assumptions.

Throughout the series we get hints about Murderbot’s physical form. Murderbot is taller than a number of humans, and SecUnits are taller than ComfortUnits, the latter of which are designed specifically to interact in a companionable way with people. At one point Murderbot steals a uniform and has to find a guard who is big enough, implying it’s on the bigger side of average.

Spoiler: (view spoiler)[When Murderbot alters its physical form via surgery in order to go incognito, it removes several centimeters from its legs so it can better blend in with humans. (hide spoiler)]

Being tall doesn’t always equate with male. There are lots of very tall women. Actresses like Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones, Star Wars) is 6’3”, while Elizabeth Debicki (Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Tenet) is 6’2”.

Here is Christie with Emilia Clarke:



Debicki with Margot Robbie:

I’ve listened to all the novellas and novels as well as read them and didn’t find the narrator off-putting myself. I have always pictured SecUnit like a lot of active military I’ve met; on the higher end of 5 feet, not overly muscled but more wiry than built. Androgynous shoulders and hips, because the books say no primary or secondary sexual identifiers. Murderbot is a bit shorter because of augmentations made to them, but not short because that would cause problems for it doing it’s job. As would being much taller than 6 feet or being massive in any way.

I’d also note that the voice actor has been with the series from the beginning and multi-casting is something John Scalzi can get because he sells consistently, but novellas rarely get the same support novels do.

Pictures of Gwendoline Christie in fabulous evening gowns towering over her co-stars are my favourite type of pictures!

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&...

There’s that great one of her and Sophie Turner making Kit Harington look like a tiny munchkin. Makes me smile every time I see it.

Sorry, what were we talking about again?
Oh yeah, Murderbot.

@skip you make a good point about the costs of audiobook production - and of course, it’s easy to forget now that the first Murderbot novella wasn’t necessarily expected to make much of a splash. I was just imagining an ideal-world scenario.

Nils wrote: "Because as I am male, my internal voice is male as well"

Okay, slightly off topic, but does that mean your internal voice is always your own?

I ask because my boss once insisted that, when we read, we are always hearing our own voice, but that isn't the case for me at all. My internal voice, and the voices I 'hear' when reading are entirely fluid, and the 'voice in my head' that I most associate with being 'me' is fairly gender neutral. Sometimes they are the voices of real people. Neil Gaiman reads to me sometimes, which is pleasant as I find his voice very soothing. There is also a more female voice with an accent that shifts between a soft Scottish broch and Northern Irish.

I agree with Leesa that the narrator of an audio book doesn't dictate character gender, to me. The idea of having male and female versions of an audiobook seems a little absurd to me, since it seems to suggest you can't hear female in the male voice, or vice versa when I definitely can.

When imagining Murderbot's face, I picture someone androgynous, a little like a non binary person I saw recently on the cover of a magazine, topless yet ridiculously covering their nipples because apparently non binary nipples are just as scandalous as female ones (makes me wonder if folk would cover the nips of a trans woman or man who never had surgery, but the ridiculousness of sexualising the part of female anatomy that is the same on any gender is not a discussion for here, I guess).

All this said, despite them clearly identifying as having no gender, I couldn't help myself from thinking of murderbot as female. I think this is just my default for 'tall, armoured robot type' which may say something about the media I consume. I have to remind myself not to refer to Murderbot with female pronouns.

Ruth (tilltab) Ashworth wrote: "I agree with Leesa that the narrator of an audio book doesn't dictate character gender, to me. The idea of having male and female versions of an audiobook seems a little absurd, since it seems to suggest you can't hear female in the male voice, or vice versa when I definitely can."

The narrator doesn’t dictate my mental image, either, but I’m not going to claim absurdity for people whose experience differs. It’s entirely believable that there is an audio equivalent to aphantasia, whereby someone finds it impossible to imagine a female character when the story is told by a man.

The quirks of human physiology and especially of our brains means that we all experience life slightly differently. It’s like that old saw of, “What if what I see as blue you see as red, but we just call it the same word because that’s what we were taught?” It doesn’t have to be as extreme as all that, but color blindness exists and there are several variations of it. Maybe gendered voices operate the same way.

An accident of my youth has rendered me mostly oblivious to the odor of ammonia. I can sorta smell it, but it’s incredibly faint. Which works out well in my capacity as an animal rescue volunteer, because ammonia is one of the key ingredients that makes urine stink. So I have a lesser reaction to hoarding situations or cleaning the pens of incontinent animals. But many perfumes give me an instant headache and certain flowery ones trigger a debilitating migraine.

If I’m experiencing such a widely ranging response to scents which are related, I can easily see how someone would experience sounds and voices differently.

Trike wrote: "The narrator doesn’t dictate my mental image, either, but I’m not going to claim absurdity for people whose experience differs.."

You're right. I added a 'to me' to that sensence, since that is what I actually meant, and didn't intend to imply that other experiences are not valid. :)

My first impression of Murderbot skewed slightly fem, I think because I had recently been watching the show Dark Matter, which featured a female Android character. But as I kept reading, my mental image became more neutral/androgynous. Kind of a Saskia De Brauw type, if anyone knows who that is.

Molly wrote: "My first impression of Murderbot skewed slightly fem, I think because I had recently been watching the show Dark Matter, which featured a female Android character. But as I kept reading, my mental ..."

What a shame that Dark Matter's while good all through out, only got great in that last season, just before it ended.

There are some interesting things here about sex, gender and appearances.

Murderbot need not present as any gender, but that doesn't imply a particular gender or the lack thereof.
Murderbot doesn't care about sex, but that only implies that murderbot is Ace not any particular gender.
Murderbot can project a voice that is intimidating, but that also doesn't imply a gender and has more to do with what makes the communication effective.

This reminds me of a con panel with Mark Hamill where a fan asked if Luke Skywalker was gay. Hamill said that if you wanted him to be gay, then he's gay.

I think the same is true here. Murderbot is painted as Ace and neuter. If in the theater of your, you apply your own desires and biases. If you want Murderbot to be female, then she's female, etc.

Like Tassie Dave, I saw Robocop even though that fit was sloppy.

I disagree that you can assign Murderbot whatever gender you want. Since Murderbot is explicitly Agender (it puts NA in the gender portion of the form) this feels to me like saying it's okay to view a female character as male if you want.

If we're talking about how it presents, sure, since we really don't have any real idea what it looks like, other than tall.

I'm curious if the Agender is being missed by some people because they're unfamilar with it or because they didn't read all of the books in the series?

If anyone wants more information of Agender: https://gender.wikia.org/wiki/Agender

Thanks for the nuance - the second to last paragraph should say "If you want Murderbot to present as female/male/neuter in your mind, then they present as female/male/neuter."

Yeah, that sounds better. Thanks.

John (Nevets) wrote: "Molly wrote: "My first impression of Murderbot skewed slightly fem, I think because I had recently been watching the show Dark Matter, which featured a female Android character. But as I kept readi..."

I know, right? I was bummed. Small misfit crew in outer space is my favorite genre, and there's just not enough of it out in TV land. I'll just sit here eagerly awaiting more Expanse episodes.

Murderbot's voice and build for me has always been that of Jeffrey Donovan, playing the character Michael Westen in "Burn Notice", the right amount of smart and snark....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXivF...

Fresno Bob wrote: "Murderbot's voice and build for me has always been that of Jeffrey Donovan, playing the character Michael Westen in "Burn Notice", the right amount of smart and snark....

https://www.youtube.com/w..."

You know what? I can see that. I may have to do a re-read (again) to see if I can hear the Michael Weston voice.

Fresno Bob wrote: "Murderbot's voice and build for me has always been that of Jeffrey Donovan, playing the character Michael Westen in "Burn Notice", the right amount of smart and snark....

https://www.youtube.com/w..."

Should Bruce Campbell play ART?