Oh the inhumanity!

[skip.knox]

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.

 

[Aspasia]

That's a really cool idea! It's funny, I usually include Elves or other non-human races, but I've always kept them pretty intrinsically human. It does make a huge difference if you take some common trait seen as a virtue, and completely change the interpretation for Elves, or Trolls, or whatever ... at the very least it'll make my Elves more interesting at present they rather bore me.

Definitely got me thinking about it. Thanks!

 

[Svrtnsse]

This is indeed a really good point, which I may very well be making use of - once I find the right spot to use it in.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Your post gave me a slightly different idea. Why not get rid of the humans all together? Why not have a story about elves and dwarves and whatever else, where humans don't exist? Then we could probably see a far more detailed take on these peoples / cultures. How they work, how they don't. Humans often end up - at least in my stories - a sort of everyman. A moderating influence, and also a POV that shows how the elves etc are different. Why not get rid of that completely and instead ask things like how do love and marriage vary between these two - and potentially other - cultures.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Terry Greer]

The concept of good and evil is perhaps too human centric - and far too biased towards a concept of morality that is simply not present in other creatures (although concept of 'fairness' has been demonstrated in dogs and apes).

I'm not saying morality should be avoided - just that its a dangerous assumption to think anthropomorphically about other animals (and that includes orcs).

Evil therefore possibly shouldn't even be considered as a concept, rather a more pragmatic - does it benefit me (or my kin) or not? A rather selfish sociopath-like approach.

This makes more sense - there's then no such thing as an orc (or whatever species) 'nation' just tribes and groups who look to their own tribe's safety as a priority. However to be fair this insular approach is also a human trait as well - as shown in the way nations look out for their own interests - not the best for mankind in general.

 

[Svrtnsse]

MY concern with messing about with morality etc is that if you do it too much it would alienate the reader. It's interesting as a thought experiment, but how far can you push it before it gets too weird?

The dwarfs in my setting have something that could be described as "hereditary memory". What that means is that all new dwarfs that are born share the memories of all dwarfs that have died before them.
One of the consequences of this is that dwarfs tend to stick rather closely to their ethical code. They don't want their descendants to remember their actions with shame. Similarly, dwarfs are avid explorers in that they want to see new things (lands, arts, cultures), so that they can bring home new and exciting memories when it's their time to pass on.

 

[Jabrosky]

If you want to make your humanoid species more distinct from Homo sapiens, you might want to consider that their biological differences could have an impact on their psychology and culture. For example, let's say orcs are obligatorily carnivorous whereas elves are vegan. We would expect from this that elves would be more likely to have plant cultivation and sedentary cultures than orcs who depend on hunting or herding mobile animals. It should be self-evident that sedentary cultivators of any species are going to have a fundamentally different culture from nomadic hunters or pastoralists. Orcs and elves could very well have the same level of intelligence, but certain other biological constraints have caused the two species to diverge from each other on a cultural as well as physical level.

That said, when you reach a human-like level of intelligence, you're probably going to have a lot of cultural and psychological variation within a species even within these biological constraints.. I believe that a major component of intelligence, maybe even the defining component, is cognitive malleability. You can't learn new things if you don't have the ability to process stimuli beyond your pre-programmed instincts. It is this enhanced neurological ability to learn beyond our instincts that has allowed humanity to adapt to a variety of circumstances (e.g. changing climates, or different habitats and ecosystems). Of course, differences in the circumstances that different humans experience leads to the rich cultural and psychological diversity which we're all familiar with. Give another species the same intelligence we have, and you'll probably observe a similar level of that diversity within it.

 

[ThinkerX]

I did something like this with the races in my world(s).

Goblin and Hobgoblin males outnumber females a hundred to one - or more. As such, the competition for breeding rights among the males is fierce, which leads to murder (internally) and raiding the neighbors of whatever race (externally). Homicide is not a serious offence in many Goblin/Hobgoblin society. Likewise, a goblin or hobgoblin who does land a female doesn't remain bound to her for life; only until the kids are eight years old (and fit to be released into the larger society). More, the offspring of these races are hatched from leathery eggs laid in groups by the females - from as few as one (a female) to as many as a couple dozen. This sort of society, 'love' doesn't enter into the picture. Closest is a sort of 'comradely' type relationship.

Yet goblin/hobgoblin society ranges from 'savage nomads' to 'highly sophisticated.'

I have elves on my world, though they are mostly at the fringes of things. Elves are descended from humans who were 'possessed' by alien spirits from some far off dimension. Because of this, elves have an otherworldly 'taint' about them, and are on good terms with spirit creatures ('fey'). However, they are trapped, doomed to remain in this dimension. Elves are borderline telepathic (mind to mind communication among themselves). Instead of books, they store memories in mystic globes. And they look for a way home, or to make this world more like their home (differing factions).

Rachasa are 'cat-people,' created by aliens from human and other stock many millennia ago as warriors. Their lives revolve around hunting and fighting; they find the very concept of 'commerce' absurd, sort of a game at best. They dwell in packs numbering anywhere from three to thirty; sometimes several packs will share space making for towns of sorts. They dislike fire, having a special position or caste dedicated to fire tending and smith work. Often they will recruit non-rachasa for fire related work.

And so on...

 

[skip.knox]

@psychotik: you can get rid of humans without having it need to be altogether. That is, you could have a region in your world populated by peoples of your choice, but who have no contact with humans. That way you could have what you envision and still have room for others. An island or separate continent would work for this. Oooh. Wouldn't a First Contact story be fun in that context?

@Terry Greer: an amoral approach works fine, but I wouldn't necessarily have all my peoples be modeled after animals. Some, certainly, and your points are germane there. But it'd also be interesting to pursue moralities structured in ways different from normal human culture. I can think of cannibalism as an example, but there must be others regarded as aberrant by most folks, but which could be exploited by the fantasy writer. IOW, I think there's plenty of room for all approaches.

@Jabrosky: following through on the biology logic is certainly one way to go. The main thing is to come up with an interesting system of emotions or values (or both!) that can add to one's invented world. Plenty of science fiction writers have done exactly what you describe (e.g., Left Hand of Darkness); it had struck me that relatively few fantasy writers had done so.