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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Imperialism and Racism in Fantasy Novels?
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Currently I'm rereading one of my favourite books, Prince Caspian, when a statement by Trufflehunter struck me: "[Narnia] isn't a country for humans, but it's a country that needs a man to rule it," (or words to that effect; my apologies, but I don't have the text in front of me). It seems to me that that is the sort of comment that could have been made by a Victorian Brit about India, or many other places: "It's not a white man's country (lots of us die over there) but it needs to be ruled by a white man".
In his defence it could be argued that Lewis was a deliberately old fashioned sort of chap, who had grown up in the days of Empire, and that this had formed his attitudes. However, what about a modern American? Mercedes Lackey, in her Valdemar novels, creates an entire race of intelligent lizards who live in harmony with humans. However, these lizards do all the cooking, cleaning, mending and making of clothes without ever getting a major part to play in a story - but this is fine because they LOVE all that sort of stuff. From my point of view, again, this sounds uncomfortably like the rationalisation slave owners used: "They're perfectly happy doing all the menial work; it's what they're suited for".
Am I right in my interpretation of these details (and are there any more examples out there)? If I am, does this say anything about the widespread human failing to diminish others and put them in boxes that suit us, rather then them?
[ 28. January 2013, 23:47: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
It's partly why I gave up on reading fantasy and decided virtually murdering people was more enjoyable.
It is part of the human brain though, isn't it? We classify - we have to - animal approaching over there, is it dangerous, edible or safe to ignore? We need to decide and respond fast enough to escape, catch dinner or continue what we were doing before spotting possible dinner. In more primitive times, are you looking at someone in your tribe or family, another friendly tribe or an enemy?
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
And sexism.
I give you the Dragonriders of Pern; the original intention of the author was to explore what would happen if a group of settlers on an alien world had to form a symbiotic relationship with a local life form to survive. The idea is that the Dragonriders (people with telepathic ability) form bonds with their dragons and have to live apart from everyone else on the planet. Their society has changed radically, because the dragons have a different pecking order to the humans and the senior female gold dragon is the one all the other dragons in the group will obey, so her rider (the Weyrwoman) is the leader of the Weyr (=dragon city).
Except it doesn't work like that. It is clear from the events in 'Dragonquest', for example, that the Weyrleader (= rider of the senior male dragon) can impose his authority on the Weyrwoman and through her on the senior female dragon. The main difference (and it's a big one, considering the first books in the series were written in the 1960s) between the dragonriders and everyone else is that homosexual relationships are tolerated in the Weyrs and everyone pays lip service to the idea that the Weyrwoman outranks the Weyrleader.
To be fair, later books in the series tried to retro-fit a more egalitarian society onto the Pern we all know, but IMO they lost the plot when 'Masterharper' came out.
C J Cherryh takes the same basic idea (human-alien symbiosis) and shows what could be done with it in her Finisterre series.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
There's a blog called Ana Mardoll's Ramblings where she's been taking apart the Narnia novels from a feminist perspective, but also lingering over the imperialistic elements of the stories.
I'll never be able to read the Narnia books in the same way again (which is probably not altogether a bad thing). Also, if I do read them again, the writerly part of my brain will be spinning different plot lines out of the story so that it makes more sense!
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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Mockingale
Shipmate
# 16599
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Posted
Fantasy authors seem especially prone to stuffing their political views into their books. The "Sword of Truth" books by Terry Goodkind starts out good, but by the third book you realize that he keeps pushing this hamfisted libertarian "poor people are poor because they're lazy and helpless and useless, and therefore evil" narrative that is intensely off-putting.
Whatever, at least it reads better than Ayn Rand, I guess.
Posts: 679 | From: Connectilando | Registered: Aug 2011
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
McCaffrey tried again to look at cross species interactions in the Acorna series, but the same things get overlaid.
I did wonder about mentioning sexism, David Eddings and Raymond E Feist (The Magician) really do not write strong women.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
Fantasy authors seem especially prone to stuffing their political views into their books.
Call me old fashioned, but I thought that's what fantasy and SF were for.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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Mockingale
Shipmate
# 16599
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
Fantasy authors seem especially prone to stuffing their political views into their books.
Call me old fashioned, but I thought that's what fantasy and SF were for.
Sci-fi certainly. I don't think that novels set in alternate universes with wizards and elves and things need to be advertisements for Ron Paul.
Posts: 679 | From: Connectilando | Registered: Aug 2011
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
Fantasy authors seem especially prone to stuffing their political views into their books.
Call me old fashioned, but I thought that's what fantasy and SF were for.
You've not read any since the 70's have you.
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
Fantasy authors seem especially prone to stuffing their political views into their books.
Call me old fashioned, but I thought that's what fantasy and SF were for.
You've not read any since the 70's have you.
I must admit my own preference is for the period from the optimistic, imperialistic 1950s to the drug-fuelled ramblings of the early 70s. But I'd be surprised if contemporary writing didn't betray its writers' political views (assuming they have any). Scottish Nationalism in Iain M Banks, perhaps?
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Currently I'm rereading one of my favourite books, Prince Caspian, when a statement by Trufflehunter struck me: "[Narnia] isn't a country for humans, but it's a country that needs a man to rule it," (or words to that effect; my apologies, but I don't have the text in front of me). It seems to me that that is the sort of comment that could have been made by a Victorian Brit about India, or many other places: "It's not a white man's country (lots of us die over there) but it needs to be ruled by a white man".
In his defence it could be argued that Lewis was a deliberately old fashioned sort of chap, who had grown up in the days of Empire, and that this had formed his attitudes. However, what about a modern American? Mercedes Lackey, in her Valdemar novels, creates an entire race of intelligent lizards who live in harmony with humans. However, these lizards do all the cooking, cleaning, mending and making of clothes without ever getting a major part to play in a story - but this is fine because they LOVE all that sort of stuff. From my point of view, again, this sounds uncomfortably like the rationalisation slave owners used: "They're perfectly happy doing all the menial work; it's what they're suited for".
Am I right in my interpretation of these details (and are there any more examples out there)? If I am, does this say anything about the widespread human failing to diminish others and put them in boxes that suit us, rather then them?
It would indeed be terribly wrong if the story had started with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the 'start' of the kings and queens of Narnia but in actual fact this is how Aslan created the world to be and placed King Frank and Queen Helen in charge of the entire created order.
It's not that man has colonised Narnia like the white man colonised Africa. He was the ordained and accepted regent-ruler (under Aslan) from day one.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
Isn't the truth that all literature, and perhaps all art, is problematic in some way?
I haven't read much SF or fantasy for years. But I demolish cheap detective, mystery, crime and adventure fiction. Many of the attitudes described are pretty horrible. And even reading some of those things can make you feel a bit grubby, like peering through a keyhole into someone else's private life or grief.
I've just been reading some stuff about the 18th century Quakers, and how many different things they disapproved of. Music, dance and drama were in the 'frowned upon' moral categories. Largely it seems because they were a waste of time that you could be using to apply yourself to something more uplifting or godly or useful. If you were found to be *shock, horror* learning music or dance you could be sanctioned by the Monthly Meeting.
I have to say that these things make me come over all Aristotelian. On the one hand I think it is possible to be adversely affected by things I read, so I can see an argument for rejecting specific things or a class of things on this basis. But then I can also see the massive benefits there are to life from music and art and literature. For me, virtue must lie somewhere in the middle.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
CK: quote:
I did wonder about mentioning sexism, David Eddings and Raymond E Feist (The Magician) really do not write strong women.
OTOH, Adrian Tchaikovsky (the Shadows of the Apt series) and - surprisingly - Simon R. Green do female characters fairly well. Tchaikovsky is also grappling with the question of Empire but doesn't seem to think empires are good. Most of his protagonists are people fighting for independence from the Evil Imperialists.
I rather like K.E. Mills' Rogue Agent series myself. Good female characters there, though it seems to lean towards the 'empires-are-good' school of thought. Of course that could simply be because it is mimicking a period of history when imperialism was not (yet) a dirty word.
And kings/queens may be good or bad, but most fantasy worlds have them. Bad kings may be overthrown but are usually replaced with Good Kings (or queens) rather than republics. Anti-monarchists had better choose a different genre.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Bad kings may be overthrown but are usually replaced with Good Kings (or queens) rather than republics. Anti-monarchists had better choose a different genre.
Hah! Guess what I've just written...
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
Lewis was pretty notoriously sexist, even by the standards of his own time. I have heard, however, that his marriage ended up moderating that impulse in him.
Fantasy isn't necessarily racist, but sloppy writing lends itself to such sentiments. The fantasy genre relies on certain motifs that make it a lightning rod for racism. Different races in these books not only look different, but actually are different. That right there is pretty ominous- why can't there be a crass elf or an urbane dwarf? Why not a gentle orc?
Also, the main character has to be normal, in the reader's terms, so that one has something to identify with in a fantastic setting. Then this normal is good, and he fights an evil Other that is different and ugly and usually sexually depraved.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It would indeed be terribly wrong if the story had started with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the 'start' of the kings and queens of Narnia but in actual fact this is how Aslan created the world to be and placed King Frank and Queen Helen in charge of the entire created order.
It's not that man has colonised Narnia like the white man colonised Africa. He was the ordained and accepted regent-ruler (under Aslan) from day one.
In short Narnia was objectively set up to be Jim-Crow style racist.
Aslan might not be a tame lion, but he isn't a useful one either. Or a nice one or a good one. He is perfectly content to have the Narnians butchered - and only bothers to stir himself for the Pevensies.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
I think a big part of it is the idea of "guilt-free killing". That if you make the enemy faceless bad guys you can have Your Big Hero killing them without second thoughts. And there are a lot of power fantasies mixed up with the Fantasy genre from the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Iliad onwards. Power fantasies with faceless bad guys you can kill end up looking imperialistic and racist.
Oh, for anyone interested Ana Mardoll's deconstruction of Narnia
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And there are a lot of power fantasies mixed up with the Fantasy genre from the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Iliad onwards. Power fantasies with faceless bad guys you can kill end up looking imperialistic and racist.
Saying that the ancient Assyrians and Greeks were racist imperialists (ditto probably everyone with a written history, including the Egyptians, Israelites, the Norse, Chinese, Japanese, and for all I know, the Mayans) isn't either telling us anything new or particularly nuanced.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Mudfrog: quote:
It would indeed be terribly wrong if the story had started with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the 'start' of the kings and queens of Narnia but in actual fact this is how Aslan created the world to be and placed King Frank and Queen Helen in charge of the entire created order.
It's not that man has colonised Narnia like the white man colonised Africa. He was the ordained and accepted regent-ruler (under Aslan) from day one.
But that sounds very like the justification for having an Empire. Remember "the white man's burden"? It was our responsibility to look after (ie rip off) the poor helpless black/brown/whatever races because God had placed us over them to guide and help (rip off). And what Justinian said.
Jane R - interested in your comments about Pern. I read a lot of the earlier novels, before finally abandoning them, and don't remember anything about homosexuality. Where it does it crop up?
More generally, we are all products of our time, so Lewis may well have been influenced by the imperialism around him. On the other hand, my guess is that McCaffrey would be horrified by the thought that she was promulgating sexism, or Lackey racism. Is there something about fantasy that encourages dark parts of ourselves to emerge, along with all the fun stuff?
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
On Pern the Weyrs have a fair bit of homosexuality - amongst the green and blue dragon riders various. It's not spelled out that obviously because a lot of children read them, but it's definitely there.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It would indeed be terribly wrong if the story had started with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the 'start' of the kings and queens of Narnia but in actual fact this is how Aslan created the world to be and placed King Frank and Queen Helen in charge of the entire created order.
It's not that man has colonised Narnia like the white man colonised Africa. He was the ordained and accepted regent-ruler (under Aslan) from day one.
In short Narnia was objectively set up to be Jim-Crow style racist.
Kind of puts me in mind of a passage from Texas' Declaration of the Causes of Secession:
quote:
. . . the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.
In short, your enslavement is for your own good and God put us in charge.
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Fantasy isn't necessarily racist, but sloppy writing lends itself to such sentiments. The fantasy genre relies on certain motifs that make it a lightning rod for racism. Different races in these books not only look different, but actually are different. That right there is pretty ominous- why can't there be a crass elf or an urbane dwarf? Why not a gentle orc?
Also, the main character has to be normal, in the reader's terms, so that one has something to identify with in a fantastic setting. Then this normal is good, and he fights an evil Other that is different and ugly and usually sexually depraved.
I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. One of the markers of fantasy writing is usually the quasi-mediæval setting, typically complete with noble bloodlines or extraordinary abilities. In short, the basic premise of most fantasy writing is that a certain subset of characters (usually the protagonists) actually are inherently superior to everyone else in some way or another (magical ability, bloodline, whatever). This is a bit different than most science fiction, where the big differences between our world and the world portrayed is usually some kind of technology that works just fine for everyone, regardless of their bloodline. There are, of course certain scifi novels that deal with superhuman characters, but they're usually treated in a much more morally ambiguous way than is typical in their fantasy counterparts.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
But I'd be surprised if contemporary writing didn't betray its writers' political views (assuming they have any). Scottish Nationalism in Iain M Banks, perhaps?
More like left-wing libertarianism And the same goes for Ken MacLeod and China Mieville. All three of them a hell of a lot better writers than Ann McAffrey or Raymond E Fiest or Terry Carr. And all very well worth reading.
You want non-imperialist sf there is plenty out there! Ursula le Guin (one of the greatest writers in the language in my opinion) seems to be no fan of kings and has lots of strong women. I think Marge Piercy and Margaret Atwood (who sometimes pretends not to be an SF) writer weren't exactly writing patriarchal racist revenge fantasies either.
I have, I confess, got a big pile of so-far unopened books waiting to be read, including SF and fantasy novels by Liz Williams, Kari Sperring, and Jane, er, my memory is going, I can sort-of remember the cover.... And there is Roz Kaveney's book, and a couopel by Gwyneth Jones I haven't read yet. I have a vague idea of those writer's politics, and I somehow suspect that there won't be a lot of unexamined imperialism in the books when I get round to them, which I am looking forward to.
Fantasy isn't all about alternative histories with superhero aristocracies speaking in cod Elizabethan English. Not that there is anything wrong with those when they are good. As Tolkien is but most of his imitators are not.
[ 26. October 2012, 15:30: Message edited by: ken ]
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned the Earthsea trilogy of novels by LeGuin. (She has written more about that world since then.) In the first book, we find an archipelago world without an overall government. By the end of the third book, Earthsea has a king for the first time in many years.
Although LeGuin is often regarded as a feminist author, most of the characters are male and the magic in the stories is mostly in the hands of males. The school on Roke is all male.
I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from all this. (I do think it is interesting to see such books as influences on the Harry Potter books.)
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
I think a big part of it is the idea of "guilt-free killing".
Tolkien's Orcs, certainly were that.
quote:
Oh, for anyone interested Ana Mardoll's deconstruction of Narnia
Is hilarious! Thanks for the link. I think I'm going to have to read it all. It took me a while to find the first post in the series but its here
But I have a single three-word answer to most of these criticisms of fantasy as a genre and of classic children's books, and particularly classic fantasy books for children.
Diana. Wynne. Jones.
I'll repeat them because they are worth remembering:
"Diana" "Wynne" "Jones".
![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
Edith Nesbit and Joan Aiken are pretty good too... ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
Fantasy authors seem especially prone to stuffing their political views into their books.
Call me old fashioned, but I thought that's what fantasy and SF were for.
Sci-fi certainly. I don't think that novels set in alternate universes with wizards and elves and things need to be advertisements for Ron Paul.
Well, Tairy Goodkind is particularly graceless and awful. The books are stuffed full of gratuitous torture scenes, and the black-hat characters are EEEE-VILLL with no motivations that make any sense.
And my God, have you ever read an interview with the man? He must have been picked on continuously all the way through high school, because wish-fulfillment and overcompensation pour off everything he says like...I dunno, like an overworked fantasy metaphor.
Richard Morgan, in his grittier-than-thou The Steel Remains series, works against the racist/imperialist tendency in fantasy, as does Steven Erikson in his Malazan books. I have to admit that I don't find those tendencies to be deal-breakers, as long as the books are well-conceived and -written, but I certainly understand how others can feel like throwing books across the room.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
Posts: 2512 | From: Oakland, CA | Registered: Feb 2008
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
McCaffrey tried again to look at cross species interactions in the Acorna series, but the same things get overlaid.
I did wonder about mentioning sexism, David Eddings and Raymond E Feist (The Magician) really do not write strong women.
Ursula Le Guin wrote some exceptionally grateful fantasies with thought-provoking social commentary (The Dispossessed, The Left hand of Darkness) using the Science Fantasy genre. Mind you she was criticised in some quarters for using male pronouns in describing her ambisexual characters, which proves you can't please everyone, even when your stuff is very good. The critics seem to have missed the entire point of her creation of ambisexual characters - but that's another story.
George R R Martin (Game of Thrones) has plenty of very strong women characters (plus a very strong dwarf ...) Plus loads of sex and violence and political intrigue oozing out of every page. Plus the odd dragon and quite a lot of walking dead. I wonder how all that will look in a few years time? I suppose his use of "dwarf" will encourage some folks to criticise his vocabulary (rather as Ursula le Guin was criticised).
I don't think the fantasy genre per se is particularly prone to authors with imperialist or racist attitudes. It's true that lots of earlier imaginative and creative writers were people of their times. If those times gave a certain respectability to attitudes we now criticise, justifiably, that's not unexpected is it?
It's impossible to read literature from an earlier age without bumping up against this sort of issue. Attitudes change. I hope nobody is implying that there is mileage in producing some kind of Index Expurgatorious for fantasy novels. If you do find some mileage in that kind of thinking, I recommend Fahrenheit 451.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Bad kings may be overthrown but are usually replaced with Good Kings (or queens) rather than republics. Anti-monarchists had better choose a different genre.
In Court of the Air, after their version of the civil war, the monarchy is restored but at the accession of every new monarch they remove his arms (literally) so that he can never raise a hand against his people again. It's not a full republic but a pretty extreme check and balance of a constitutional monarchy, with the king surgically turned into an impotent figurehead. This sounds a bit like wish-fulfilment for anti-monarchists!
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
AIUI - based on the Space Trilogy and one of his articles that I've forgotten the name of - CS Lewis thought the world was naturally intended to be hierarchical, in a Platonic 'chain of being' kind of way.
He thought that the Fall had messed this up, so that in actual fact you couldn't put someone at the top of a hierarchy without the risk of them abusing it. Consequently he saw equal rights and democracy as necessary to protect people from the ravages of sin.
Out of the Silent Planet, for example, is very anti-imperialist (the evil scientist Weston is roundly condemned for trying to colonise Mars), even though it also has one of the alien races defending the idea of a cosmic pyramid of authority.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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Badger Lady
Shipmate
# 13453
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Posted
On the Narnia books, I remember even as a (darked haired; half- Asian) child finding the Horse and His Boy quite disturbing. Almost all the 'good' characters were white and blond. All the baddies were dark haired, dark skinned and (even to my superficial reading) based on Arabs/Muslims. I stopped reading the Narnia books after that.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
You missed Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising series and Alan Garner.
Well I could turn this thread into a list of sf and fantasy and children's books I like... but it would be very, very, long!
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Bran Stark
Shipmate
# 15252
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It would indeed be terribly wrong if the story had started with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the 'start' of the kings and queens of Narnia but in actual fact this is how Aslan created the world to be and placed King Frank and Queen Helen in charge of the entire created order.
It's not that man has colonised Narnia like the white man colonised Africa. He was the ordained and accepted regent-ruler (under Aslan) from day one.
But of course Frank and Helen weren't part of the original plan from BEFORE day one... they only show up at the Creation thanks to Uncle Andrew's evil schemes. Adam's race is placed on the thrones of Narnia to undo the harm caused by this disruption. It's more of a curse than a reward. But a felix culpa, of course.
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IN SOVIET ЯUSSIA, SIGNATUЯE ЯEAD YOU!
Posts: 304 | Registered: Oct 2009
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
Norman Spinrad wrote an essay, "The Emperor of Everything," deconstructing the quasi-Nietzschean, imperialist/fascist tendency in fantasy and SF (taking Star Wars as the archetype). Well worth reading.
As people have said, it's not universal. there's LeGuin, of course, and also most of the contemporary urban fantasy writers like Charles DeLint, Neil Gaiman, and Emma Bull. My favorite Bull novel (co-authored with Steven Brust, is Freedom and Necessity a fantasy about socialist revolutionaries in early 19th-century Europe.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Mind you she was criticised in some quarters for using male pronouns in describing her ambisexual characters, which proves you can't please everyone, even when your stuff is very good. The critics seem to have missed the entire point of her creation of ambisexual characters - but that's another story.
Le Guin came to agree with the criticisms for what it's worth. The point being that while in theory they're asexual the story does very little to help you imaginatively take it in. Le Guin wrote a later short story in which she used 'she' for her ambiguous character, which makes the point - the reader doesn't react the same way.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
That right there is pretty ominous- why can't there be a crass elf or an urbane dwarf? Why not a gentle orc?
My first D&D character was a pacifist half-orc. Pissed everyone off.
Adeodatus, funnily enough, I prefer just about exactly the eras of sci-fi and fantasy you do-- could it be because it was a time when writers were actively challenging tropes and ideas in society that hadn't really been challenged?
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Its odd how it hides in plain sight, I specifically remember suddenly realising that the federation in Startrek is effectively a military dictatorship with an empire - prime directive or not they are forever radically changing other people's worlds.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Badger Lady:
On the Narnia books, I remember even as a (darked haired; half- Asian) child finding the Horse and His Boy quite disturbing. Almost all the 'good' characters were white and blond. All the baddies were dark haired, dark skinned and (even to my superficial reading) based on Arabs/Muslims. I stopped reading the Narnia books after that.
Aravis, the heroine, is dark haired, dark skinned, etc. And Susan, who allowed herself to be flattered into a situation dangerous to her family and country, is white (not sure about blonde).
I agree in the main, though--and I'm afraid it's because he wanted an exotic setting and grabbed for one reminiscent of an Ottoman Empire that never was. Complete with hair, skin, etc. Which was perhaps a bit lazy of him, and should have been handled better.
Regarding Helen and Frank, as was pointed out upthread, the whole Narnian set up was intended from the beginning to be ruled by human beings, as the traditional head of the animal kingdom. In standard medieval/Ren thought, human beings were the link between the animal world and the spiritual world, being embodied (like animals) but rational (like angels, archangels, and whatever else might be in that realm). Therefore they were rightly regarded as the caretakers of the animal kingdom (and rightly condescended to by the angels, who are naturally above us in the scale of being, and to every one of whom we are by nature junior).
An analogy might be the highest grade of students in a particular school--senior to all the other students, but junior not only to the teachers but to every student in the next higher division of education (say, high school).
You'll notice, too, that Lewis does not regard just any human being as an appropriate ruler for Narnia. The Telmarines are usurpers, not proper rulers, even though they are human. Neither Jill nor Eustace (or even Polly or Digory) are given ruling authority. At most they are given honorary titles, and that in the afterlife!
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Harry Potter is surely pretty commendable from the imperialism and racism perspective.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Its odd how it hides in plain sight, I specifically remember suddenly realising that the federation in Startrek is effectively a military dictatorship with an empire - prime directive or not they are forever radically changing other people's worlds.
Some of this is POV bias. We're only ever shown the Federation via the operation of its military (Starfleet).
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
Harry Potter has a whole raft of its own issues.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
True, but it comes across that way whenever they link back to earth for any kind of direction too.
[ETA re Startrek]
[ 26. October 2012, 20:29: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
What annoys me is when places/races/species are quite clearly drawn from Earth. Eg Babylon 5 where you have the Japanesey type aliens, the Russian type aliens etc
And I really enjoyed Joe Abercrombie's first two books of the first law trilogy - but then magic effectively turned out to be the equivalent of nuclear technology, and the books since are just recreating bits of earth. Now the next one is called the Red Country - so he has found the USA then. Very disappointing.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
What annoys me is when places/races/species are quite clearly drawn from Earth. Eg Babylon 5 where you have the Japanesey type aliens, the Russian type aliens etc
And the whole Star Trek franchise eas even worse. The aliens are just humans with makeup on.
Its not just the special effects budgets - books do it as well, far too many of them. Sometimes you get odd mixtures - CJ Cherryh has some brilliant aliens, but oithers that are obviously human. And as she is a much better writer than most I keep on making up backstories that woudl allow the human-like species to share a common ancestry somehow.
Another plus for le Guin. Her characters are pretty much all humans yet there is more diversity in them than in all of Star Trek's plastic aliens. But then she is a genius
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Yes, it bugs the heck out of me when you get a good fantasy series going and suddenly it all turns into Earth Part II. If I wanted to read half-baked politics,...
I'd be certifiable. Never mind.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
And the whole Star Trek franchise eas even worse. The aliens are just humans with makeup on.
Ah yes, Rubber Forehead Aliens!
quote:
Gene Roddenberry gave more reasons for this in an interview once. Budget constraints aside, if you try to make aliens look completely alien, you'll firstly make them look ridiculous (cf. Doctor Who), and secondly make it doubly hard for the actor playing the alien to do anything mildly resembling acting. This has actually been isolated to extremely specific requirements: if an audience can't see an actor's eyes or mouth, their ability to empathize with or emotionally invest in that character is significantly impaired. This is one reason why mooks, especially SF mooks like the Cylons or the Imperial Stormtroopers, are so often uniformed in face-obscuring helmets.
This is obvioulsly a constraint of working in a visual medium. The written word is not restricted in this way.
[ 26. October 2012, 21:17: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I specifically remember suddenly realising that the federation in Startrek is effectively a military dictatorship with an empire - prime directive or not they are forever radically changing other people's worlds.
Some of this is POV bias. We're only ever shown the Federation via the operation of its military (Starfleet).
The Federation is a fictional entity - there's nothing more to it than the point of view. Or to put it another way, Star Trek treats the military as by definition the most interesting point of view in the set up and the one with the most illuminating insight. You can have stories with unreliable narrators (in which the unreliability is meant to be interesting), but nothing in the original series suggests that Star Trek is that kind of series.
I'm not aware of any evidence in the original series of Starfleet reporting to any civilian body. (Or in any other series, but that's because I stopped watching after the first series of NG.)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
That right there is pretty ominous- why can't there be a crass elf or an urbane dwarf? Why not a gentle orc?
My first D&D character was a pacifist half-orc. Pissed everyone off.
D&D is a game about exploring, adventuring, and killing things and taking their stuff. Playing a pacifist anything in D&D is refusing to engage with the game in the same way refusing to build houses in Monopoly would be - but D&D is also cooperative, so you're letting the whole team down.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Oh my god, I am such an asshole. ![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif)
Seriously, did you get that it was my "first" character"? I didn't know how the game worked!
Plus which, the DM was brilliant and figured out ways to allow me to contribute without killing anyone. (I got really good at disarming/ disabling folk.) Because he understood the game was about fantasy, and that meant he was in control of the boundaries.
I ended up making other characters, but by golly your comment makes me really glad I had a capable DM who was willing to guide me, rather than shame me.
[ETA: and flexible, fun-loving game mates as well.]
[And D&D is NOTHING like Monopoly.]
[ 26. October 2012, 22:09: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
This is one reason why mooks, especially SF mooks like the Cylons or the Imperial Stormtroopers, are so often uniformed in face-obscuring helmets.
This is obvioulsly a constraint of working in a visual medium. The written word is not restricted in this way.
I might just disagree with you there. If something which doesn't share human morphology or human emotions, how does the author show that it's happy, or sad, or angry?
Obviously, it can be described as "It flared its neck frills and attacked", so that the reader associates a flared neck frill with anger, but the further you go away from what we know, it becomes progressively more difficult. We communicate vast amounts of information using facial expressions, body posture, gestures, even where we're looking - but so does everything else.
Also, Judge Dredd.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned the Earthsea trilogy of novels by LeGuin.
Ged - the hero of Wizard of Earthsea - has red/brown skin; but the book I had as a child had a white guy on the cover.
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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