The current thread on writing a romance story, which included a caveat from one that there be no supernatural creatures involved, got me thinking first about romance in non-humans and then about other aspects of psyche and culture. For the most part, we make our non-humans quite human, and most of us are aware of this. Orcs are humans with the nice parts removed. So are most "monsters" -- they are more or less interchangeable except at the physical level. Most of the "good" races are human with some trait emphasized (intellectuality, greed, honor).
What's love got to do with it? Well, how do orcs fall in love? Or elves or sprites or giants, for that matter? Is it exactly the same? If not, how might it vary?
I immediately thought of the Roman attitude toward love, which is that it's a form of madness. The one in love is pitied, not admired, and love not only has nothing to do with marriage, it *should not* have anything to do with it. What if this were literally true? What if love, in some particular race, really was a kind of madness? This could work with orcs and the orc-like, but it'd be fun with a cerebral, detached sort of race like elves (I'm sticking with stereotypes for illustration purposes). While I'm familiar with Roman culture, I don't know about others; I wonder if there are other takes on love besides the Western one.
Or take hate. Here I think of the vendetta. In some cultures, vendettas lasted for generations and were the basis on which politics were built. It could make ogres or trolls, which might otherwise be overwhelmingly dangerous, at least manageable, because they go to war with one another more often than they war with humans.
One could go through a whole thesaurus full of emotions doing this. Ethics provide another fertile ground. Rather than have a race be evil, have a race redefine "good" in alarming and disruptive ways. I think of the Spartans, who taught their boys to steal, but only when in service of the army. It'd be interesting to think about what an evil race regards as evil.
I'm going to pursue this on my own, for Altearth, but I thought I'd throw this out in case it catches sparks in somebody else's tinder as well.
What's love got to do with it? Well, how do orcs fall in love? Or elves or sprites or giants, for that matter? Is it exactly the same? If not, how might it vary?
I immediately thought of the Roman attitude toward love, which is that it's a form of madness. The one in love is pitied, not admired, and love not only has nothing to do with marriage, it *should not* have anything to do with it. What if this were literally true? What if love, in some particular race, really was a kind of madness? This could work with orcs and the orc-like, but it'd be fun with a cerebral, detached sort of race like elves (I'm sticking with stereotypes for illustration purposes). While I'm familiar with Roman culture, I don't know about others; I wonder if there are other takes on love besides the Western one.
Or take hate. Here I think of the vendetta. In some cultures, vendettas lasted for generations and were the basis on which politics were built. It could make ogres or trolls, which might otherwise be overwhelmingly dangerous, at least manageable, because they go to war with one another more often than they war with humans.
One could go through a whole thesaurus full of emotions doing this. Ethics provide another fertile ground. Rather than have a race be evil, have a race redefine "good" in alarming and disruptive ways. I think of the Spartans, who taught their boys to steal, but only when in service of the army. It'd be interesting to think about what an evil race regards as evil.
I'm going to pursue this on my own, for Altearth, but I thought I'd throw this out in case it catches sparks in somebody else's tinder as well.