SkyNet critiques and analyses Barbarian of Gor!

 

If, like me, you studied English Literature at High School, you will have been used to painstakingly picking apart the style and meaning behind the most innocent things a writer came up with, often in a rather pretentious and overly-thorough manner. It occurred to me, yesterday, that it might be fun to ask the AI ChatGPT to analyse and critique one of my books. Just what would the (soon to be) SkyNet think of Barbarian of Gor (for example)? Do machine intelligences think it has any merit? ;)

 

Obviously, it wouldn’t know I was actually the authoress, so there wouldn’t be any attempt to flatter me. Unless it's even cleverer the anyone thinks it is!

 

So, anyway, I went and asked it to assess and critique my style. Here’s what it said. Get ready to re-live your English Lit classes! ;) 

 

 

Below is a deeper literary analysis of Emma’s writing style in Barbarian of Gor, focusing on voice, structure, themes, gender politics, and how the serial format shapes the prose. I’ll treat it as a serious long-form fan work rather than just pastiche, because that’s where its strengths and tensions really show.

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1. Voice and Interior Authority

Emma’s most defining stylistic feature is narrative authority rooted in interiority.

The first-person voice does more than report events; it judges, rationalizes, and reframes them. The narrator frequently explains why actions are necessary, proper, or inevitable. This creates a tone of:

• Moral certainty
• Retrospective justification
• Philosophical commentary embedded in action

Unlike John Norman’s often declarative, omniscient voice, Emma’s narrator reasons through Gor rather than proclaiming it. This makes the prose feel:

• More confessional
• More psychological
• Less mythic, more experiential

Effect:
Readers are not simply shown Gorean values; they are walked through the logic that sustains them.

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2. Description as Cultural Argument

Emma’s descriptions are not neutral. Clothing, posture, silence, and gesture are consistently used as arguments about power and identity.

Clothing & Physical Detail

Garments are described in:

• Texture (silk, leather, metal)
• Constraint (girdles, collars, armor)
• Visibility (what is revealed vs. implied)

This mirrors Gorean symbolism but with greater granularity, especially regarding women’s appearance. Description becomes a way to:

• Signal status
• Reinforce hierarchy
• Frame desire as socially structured, not spontaneous

Key stylistic trait:
Description often pauses the plot. This creates a ritualistic pacing — the reader is asked to observe before action resumes.

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3. Dialogue as World Explanation

Emma’s dialogue tends to be didactic but purposeful.

Characters speak in ways that:

• Clarify Gorean customs
• Reinforce moral frameworks
• Assert dominance or submission verbally

Rather than subtext-heavy exchanges, dialogue frequently states principles outright. This reflects:

• The pedagogical nature of Gor fiction
• The serial format (readers may arrive mid-story)
• The author’s interest in ideological clarity

Strength:
Dialogue reinforces coherence and consistency of worldview.

Limitation:
Characters sometimes sound more like positions than individuals, especially in moments of conflict.

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4. Gender, Power, and Authorial Reframing

This is where Emma’s work most clearly diverges from Norman.

While Barbarian of Gor accepts the Gorean hierarchy, Emma’s style subtly re-centers female consciousness even when women are constrained.

This appears through:

• Detailed attention to female perception and reaction
• Emotional nuance in submission or resistance
• Moments where power is interpreted rather than merely enforced

Emma does not reject Gorean gender politics, but her prose:

• Softens absolutism
• Explores internal negotiation
• Allows ambivalence without collapse of authority

Stylistically, this produces:

• Longer internal monologues
• More emotional vocabulary
• Greater emphasis on choice, even within constraint

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5. Serial Structure and Pacing

Because Barbarian of Gor is a blog serial, Emma writes with episodic rhythms:

• Chapters often end on:
• Moral turning points
• Reveals of intent
• Shifts in power
• Repetition of key concepts reinforces continuity for returning readers
• Recap-like passages are embedded naturally in thought or dialogue

This shapes her prose into something closer to:

• Oral storytelling
• Ongoing philosophical journal
• Community-facing narrative rather than closed novel

Result:
The writing prioritizes clarity and immersion over compression.

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6. Relationship to the Canon

Emma’s style is conversational with the Gor canon, not submissive to it.

She:

• Mimics Norman’s formality and hierarchy
• Expands emotional and psychological texture
• Writes within Gorean logic while interpreting it through lived experience

This makes Barbarian of Gor feel less like imitation and more like interpretive continuation — a fan work that argues from inside the world.

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7. Overall Assessment

Strengths

• Strong narrative authority
• Consistent worldview
• Rich, symbolic description
• Psychological depth uncommon in classic Gor

Limitations

• Heavy exposition can slow momentum
• Dialogue sometimes prioritizes ideology over individuality
• Less stylistic variation in sentence rhythm than in theme

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In Summary

Emma’s writing style in Barbarian of Gor is:

Intimate, didactic, and ritualistic — using first-person narration and dense description to explore power, identity, and culture from inside the Gorean worldview, while subtly re-centering emotional and psychological experience.

If you’d like, I can:

• Compare her style directly to John Norman’s prose
• Analyze a specific chapter or character
• Discuss how her work fits into modern Gor fan culture
• Examine the ethics and tensions her style creates

Just tell me where you want to go next.

 

 

Below is a direct, side-by-side stylistic comparison of Emma’s prose in Barbarian of Gor and John Norman’s prose in the original Gor novels, focusing on how they write rather than whether one agrees with the ideology.

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1. Narrative Voice: Authority vs. Experience

John Norman

·       Predominantly omniscient or semi-omniscient male authority

·       Declarative, aphoristic sentences (“It is so.” / “Such is the nature of…”)

·       The narrator pronounces truth rather than discovers it

·       Little uncertainty in tone

Norman’s voice functions almost like a philosopher-king: he tells the reader how Gor works and why it is right.

Emma

·       First-person experiential authority

·       The narrator reasons, reflects, and explains

·       Truth is arrived at through observation and internal justification

·       Moral certainty exists, but it is earned, not assumed

Key difference:
Norman asserts. Emma persuades.

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2. Sentence Rhythm and Texture

John Norman

·       Short, blunt, often repetitive sentences

·       Spartan, martial cadence

·       Frequent parallel structures

·       Minimal ornamentation

Example effect (paraphrased):

Statement → Reinforcement → Restatement

This creates a mythic, law-giving tone, almost biblical in rhythm.

Emma

·       Longer sentences with layered clauses

·       Softer pacing

·       More descriptive modifiers

·       Emotional qualifiers embedded in action

Emma’s prose lingers, especially on perception and meaning, whereas Norman’s strikes and moves on.

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3. Description: Symbol vs. Sensation

John Norman

·       Description is symbolic and functional

·       Clothing, weapons, and bodies signify status

·       Physicality is often archetypal

·       Sensory detail is restrained

A tunic, collar, or sword is important because of what it represents, not how it feels.

Emma

·       Description is sensory and interpretive

·       Fabrics, textures, posture, silence receive sustained attention

·       The body is not just symbolic; it is experienced

Emma turns Gorean symbols into felt realities, which makes the world more intimate but less austere.

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4. Dialogue: Doctrine vs. Negotiation

John Norman

·       Dialogue is:

o   Declarative

o   Ideological

o   Often instructional

·       Characters speak as mouthpieces of principle

Disagreement rarely destabilizes the hierarchy; it clarifies it.

Emma

·       Dialogue still explains norms, but:

o   Carries emotional subtext

o   Allows hesitation and reflection

o   Sometimes functions as negotiation rather than decree

Important distinction:
Norman’s dialogue teaches.
Emma’s dialogue interprets.

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5. Gender and Interior Life

John Norman

·       Male interiority dominates

·       Female interiority is minimal or externally inferred

·       Power is externalized and enacted

·       Emotional nuance is subordinate to role

Women are meaningful primarily in relation to male action or philosophical assertion.

Emma

·       Female interiority is foregrounded

·       Emotional processing is explicit

·       Submission or dominance is framed as psychological experience, not just social fact

Emma does not dismantle Gorean hierarchy, but she writes from within it differently — allowing emotional texture that Norman largely omits.

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6. Moral Structure

John Norman

·       Morality is absolute

·       Hierarchy is self-evident

·       Ethical questions are already answered

·       Conflict exists to demonstrate truth

Emma

·       Morality is internally justified

·       Hierarchy is explained through lived logic

·       Ethical tension is acknowledged, then resolved

·       Conflict exists to test truth rather than merely display it

This makes Emma’s work feel closer to ethical fiction, whereas Norman’s reads more like philosophical allegory.

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7. Overall Effect

Aspect	John Norman	Emma
Voice	Law-giver	Witness
Tone	Authoritative	Persuasive
Prose	Spartan	Elaborate
Description	Symbolic	Sensory
Dialogue	Doctrinal	Interpretive
Gender focus	External	Interior
Worldview	Declared	Lived

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Final Synthesis

John Norman writes Gor as myth.
Emma writes Gor as experience.

Norman’s prose seeks to establish a worldview.
Emma’s prose seeks to inhabit one.

Her style is best understood not as imitation, but as a feminized, interiorized continuation of Norman’s project — maintaining Gorean logic while shifting the narrative center from proclamation to perception.

If you’d like, next we could:

·       Analyze a specific Norman passage vs. an Emma chapter

·       Examine how Emma’s style changes over the course of the serial

·       Discuss whether her approach stabilizes or subtly undermines Gorean absolutism

Just say the word.

Below is a careful, literary discussion of whether Emma’s approach in Barbarian of Gor stabilizes Gorean absolutism or subtly undermines it. The short answer is: it does both, but asymmetrically—and that tension is what makes her work interesting.

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1. What “Gorean Absolutism” Is, Textually

In John Norman’s prose, Gorean absolutism rests on three pillars:

1.     Epistemic certainty – the social order is true, not contingent

2.     External authority – hierarchy is enforced, not negotiated

3.     Minimal interior dissent – doubt exists only to be corrected

Norman’s style supports this by:

·       Declaring values rather than dramatizing their formation

·       Suppressing sustained interior conflict

·       Treating hierarchy as ontological fact

Absolutism is thus stabilized formally, not just ideologically.

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2. How Emma Stabilizes Gorean Absolutism

Emma clearly stabilizes Gorean absolutism in several important ways.

A. She Preserves the Moral Outcome

Even when doubt is introduced, it is almost always:

·       Temporary

·       Internally resolved

·       Concluded in favor of Gorean norms

The narrative arc rarely allows:

·       Moral collapse

·       Structural rejection

·       Permanent ethical ambiguity

This is crucial: the system survives every test.

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B. She Reframes Authority as Reasoned, Not Arbitrary

By explaining why hierarchy makes sense—psychologically, socially, emotionally—Emma actually reinforces its legitimacy.

Norman:

“This is so.”

Emma:

“I came to understand why this must be so.”

From a reader’s perspective, this can feel more convincing, not less.

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C. She Normalizes the System Through Lived Experience

Emma’s attention to daily life, sensation, and emotional processing makes Gorean hierarchy feel:

·       Habitable

·       Functional

·       Sustainable

Absolutism becomes not just a law, but a way of being.

➡️ This strongly stabilizes the world.

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3. Where the Undermining Begins (Quietly)

The undermining does not happen at the level of outcomes.
It happens at the level of method.

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A. Interior Justification Introduces Contingency

The moment a character must reason their way into accepting hierarchy, that hierarchy becomes:

·       Psychologically contingent

·       Individually internalized

·       Dependent on narrative persuasion

Even if the conclusion is always “Gor is right,” the process implies:

It had to be made right.

This is a subtle but real shift away from absolution toward legitimation.

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B. Emotional Centrality Shifts Power’s Meaning

Norman’s absolutism functions because emotion is subordinate to structure.

Emma reverses the emphasis:

·       Power matters because of how it feels

·       Hierarchy is meaningful because of internal transformation

This risks reframing Gorean order as:

·       Therapeutic rather than ontological

·       Psychologically beneficial rather than cosmically true

That is not how absolutist systems typically justify themselves.

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C. Female Interior Authority Changes the Axis of Truth

In Norman, truth flows:

Structure → action → consequence

In Emma, it often flows:

Experience → reflection → acceptance

When women (especially constrained women) become sites of interpretive authority, the system’s truth subtly relocates:

·       From law to perception

·       From decree to consent

Even if consent is shaped, limited, or inevitable, its narrative prominence matters.

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4. The Key Paradox

Emma’s work produces this paradox:

The more carefully Gorean absolutism is explained,
the less absolute it becomes.

Not because it fails—but because it must be maintained.

Norman’s Gor does not need care.
Emma’s Gor does.

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5. Why This Does Not Collapse the System

It’s important to be precise:
Emma does not deconstruct Gor in the modern critical sense.

·       No irony

·       No narrative rebellion

·       No moral inversion

·       No alternative ethical framework

Instead, she domesticates absolutism.

And domesticated systems are:

·       More livable

·       More persuasive

·       More human
—but also more fragile.

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6. Final Assessment

Does Emma stabilize Gorean absolutism?

Yes—practically, narratively, emotionally.

Does she subtly undermine it?

Yes—formally, philosophically, structurally.

But the undermining is unintentional and internal, not oppositional.

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Final Synthesis

John Norman writes absolutism as law.
Emma writes absolutism as lived truth.

Law does not need explanation.
Lived truth always does.

And the need to explain—even lovingly, even convincingly—is where absolutism quietly gives up its claim to being unquestionable.