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Are fantasy inherently safe and reactionary?

pmmg

Myth Weaver
I don't see anything wrong with anything Aldarion has said, only that is some parts among many. All of that can be true, while whole lot of other stuff can be true as well. I would stop short of calling everyone idoits, but then, maybe everyone is? It can be true that the Democracy is an illusion, while it is also true that people are giving up a portion of personal sovereignty return for some set of agreed upon rights. And also be true that democracy creates an illusion that the voters matter when individual votes don't matter much at all. It can also still be a better system than others. But there is good and bad in every system, so one should expect that whatever the bad, some will notice it, and what ever the good, some will praise it. It would bring me back to choose your filter...
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I would like very much if, regardless of the opinions expressed, they could be tied to the writing of fantasy. Otherwise, this is just reddit fodder, or at least Chit Chat.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
To return yet again to the OP, fantasy is (not are) not inherently safe and reactionary. Or it is.

Take either assumption. Now, what do we do with that? What does that mean for me as an author working on my current book? My own reaction is that it doesn't mean much one way or the other. The question and all possible replies has more to do with me as a reader; maybe it leads me to select or reject certain books to read. But as an author, I can only try to tell my story as best I know how to do, and terms like safe or reactionary don't help in that endeavor.
 

WooHooMan

Auror
I don't see anything wrong with anything Aldarion has said, only that is some parts among many. All of that can be true, while whole lot of other stuff can be true as well. I would stop short of calling everyone idoits, but then, maybe everyone is? It can be true that the Democracy is an illusion, while it is also true that people are giving up a portion of personal sovereignty return for some set of agreed upon rights. And also be true that democracy creates an illusion that the voters matter when individual votes don't matter much at all. It can also still be a better system than others. But there is good and bad in every system, so one should expect that whatever the bad, some will notice it, and what ever the good, some will praise it. It would bring me back to choose your filter...

The way I look at it: democracy means the majority is the ultimate power. Not all individual people, that would basically be anarchy.
In America, the constitution (or law, in general) is the ultimate authority. Not a perfect system but I trust written words more than I trust masses of people. Maybe that’s the writer part of me being biased.

This brings up a point though: most fantasy settings don’t really bring-in the rule of law as a factor in society. I guess because it’s a more modern idea: that those in power are subject to the rules of a constitution and they’re are checks and balances to ensure that all institutions stay within the limits set to them by the constitution.
Also, it makes for a better story to have the higher powers of a country being characters rather than concepts and laws.


To return yet again to the OP, fantasy is (not are) not inherently safe and reactionary. Or it is.

Take either assumption. Now, what do we do with that? What does that mean for me as an author working on my current book? My own reaction is that it doesn't mean much one way or the other.

Agreed but politically-charged internet discussions never end this cleanly.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
>most fantasy settings don’t really bring-in the rule of law as a factor in society.
Agreed, and I sort of understand why, but it's another place where writers miss opportunites to explore. Because laws were vitally important in traditional societies.

But pre-modern societies sometimes had a more subtle understanding of law than do we moderns. The Romans, for example, talked a lot about mores which we would translate more or less as custom. In the Middle Ages, too, there was widespread understanding that a society was regulated not only by law but also by tradition.

The word constitution serves as a good illustration. We think of a document, but the word itself just means how things are constituted. How they stand together. The Roman Constitution of the Republic, for example, was never a written thing, but everyone in Rome knew what it was, and yes that understanding was ... er ... flexible.

A medieval king was very much bound by tradition. Breaking custom--introducing "new laws"-- was in fact grounds for rebellion. Of course, if you were determined to rebel, that was an easy justification to claim.

But in terms of introducing conflict, such a traditional understanding of power is ever so much more interesting than the usual absolutist nonsense found in many fantasy novels, because it allows for ambiguity, opposing interpretations, and disastrous misunderstandings. The stuff of story.

All we poor moderns get is "broke the law".
 
James Clavell's brilliant Shogun contains the following exchange (paraphrased):

Toranaga: There is no justification for treason!
Blackthorne: Unless you win.

Toranaga stares, thunderstruck, then laughs uproariously.

Toranaga: Unless you win...yes, that is the only justification for treason.
 

Aldarion

Archmage
>most fantasy settings don’t really bring-in the rule of law as a factor in society.
Agreed, and I sort of understand why, but it's another place where writers miss opportunites to explore. Because laws were vitally important in traditional societies.

But pre-modern societies sometimes had a more subtle understanding of law than do we moderns. The Romans, for example, talked a lot about mores which we would translate more or less as custom. In the Middle Ages, too, there was widespread understanding that a society was regulated not only by law but also by tradition.

The word constitution serves as a good illustration. We think of a document, but the word itself just means how things are constituted. How they stand together. The Roman Constitution of the Republic, for example, was never a written thing, but everyone in Rome knew what it was, and yes that understanding was ... er ... flexible.

A medieval king was very much bound by tradition. Breaking custom--introducing "new laws"-- was in fact grounds for rebellion. Of course, if you were determined to rebel, that was an easy justification to claim.

But in terms of introducing conflict, such a traditional understanding of power is ever so much more interesting than the usual absolutist nonsense found in many fantasy novels, because it allows for ambiguity, opposing interpretations, and disastrous misunderstandings. The stuff of story.

All we poor moderns get is "broke the law".

I think that is another consequence of misunderstanding of nature of rule in premodern societies. I have all too often found statements to the effect that "Byzantine Empire was an absolutist monarchy" or similar. But, as you have noted, that is not true. Emperor did have power to introduce new laws. But that power was not unlimited: he was very much bound by the tradition, by custom, by morals and by possibility of rebellion (Byzantines were rather fond of those...). Which means that, despite external appearance of an absolutist or at least authoritarian monarchy, the Empire's internal workings were, at most, those of a parliamentary monarchy, if not an outright democracy.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
Honestly, I don't very often think of the Byzantine Empire, so I don't think I would likely be confused on them one way or another. Ultimately, I think every ruler is something less than absolute. If any of them upset enough of the wrong people, they wont stay in power very long. Poetically, I've seen a number of works liken leadership to a cage that cant be escaped. I suspect there is truth to that. While it may seem one has a lot of power, their power is almost certainly limited by what their culture and people will accept.
 
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Aldarion

Archmage
Honestly, I don't very often think of the Byzantine Empire, so I don't think I would likely be confused on them one way or another. Ultimately, I think every ruler is something less than absolute. If any of them upset enough of the wrong people, they wont stay in power very long. Poetically, I've seen a number of works liken leadership to a cage that cant be escaped. I suspect there is truth to that. While it may seem one has a lot of power, there power is almost certainly limited by what their culture and people will accept.

Byzantine Empire was just an example, because I am most familiar with it. But same could be said for all monarchies, especially those before Renaissance/Humanism and consequential absolutism. Middle Ages were, in general, not just in Byzantine Empire, one of less authoritarian eras of human history, simply due to lack of administrative ability required for authoritarianism.

EDIT: Problem with feudal societies, and unlike Byzantine Empire, was that there were numerous low-level lords who could, in fact, enforce their rule; but these statelets were extremely numerous, and rulers were not too safe, so there were still limits to degree of opression they could emplox. But I cannot say for sure how much of an impact that had, as I am much more familiar with Byzantine Empire than with Western Europe.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
A distinction should be made between claims and practice, and also between authority and power. In many medieval kingdoms it was widely understood that kingship was divinely ordained, which is to say that kingship itself as an institution was something that God had put here on Earth for good governance. It didn't mean this or that king had a divinely-sanctioned claim to the throne, but that the existence of thrones was approved by God. This of course implied nothing about the extent of royal power.

How much power a king could yield was largely regulated by custom as expressed by a competing riot of voices from the nobiity. Kings naturally always claimed to have the right to exercise more power, while nobles tended to try to limit the king's reach. Especially as it applied to themselves. As the Middle Ages went on, the claims to power by kings went up and out. Their practical reach did expand, but this proceeded erratically, depending much on the nature of the king and circumstances of his rule, and it should be kept in mind that this whole dynamic of authority and power, claims and practice, was playing out at the level of dukes and counts and other nobles as well, and even in some cities. It's not like kings were the only ones reaching.

The connection to divinity could have interesting consequences, though. If kingship were divinely ordained, what did it imply when kingship was in some way limited? Was that an affront to God? This was not a theoretical question, for messing with the divine order had direct consequences on worldly order. So, for example, the struggle between popes and kings (and emperors) was viewed as having profound impact all across society. Viewing it as "just power politics" grievously misunderstands the players and the stakes.

Desperately trying to return to the OP, I still can't find a way to believe fantasy is inherently safe or reactionary. But the nature of the understanding of the Middle Ages by most authors can lead them to create worlds that are little more than cartoons of the past. It may or may not be safe, but it's familiar and easy, and that's nothing to sneeze at when you're trying to churn out three books a year for your series.
 
Desperately trying to return to the OP, I still can't find a way to believe fantasy is inherently safe or reactionary.
The phrase "safe and reactionary" was a bit confusing. I simply meant that fantasy is less opinionated on Big Issues than science-fiction. Which it looks like you kinda agree on:
the nature of the understanding of the Middle Ages by most authors can lead them to create worlds that are little more than cartoons of the past. It may or may not be safe, but it's familiar and easy
that's nothing to sneeze at when you're trying to churn out three books a year for your series.
I did NOT mean to attack any fantasy series. Sorry if it came off that way. In my OP, I should probably have added a paragraph about how much respect I have for pure fantasy escapism. I discovered fantasy a long time before I had any ideas about politics, so to me, the core of fantasy is that childlike escape to the world of D&D. Yet, as an adult, even if I still have this pure vision of fantasy, I also know that there is a political reality beyond that. So naturally, I can't help bringing focus to this notable absence.
 

Yora

Maester
As a generalization, I think that seems very likely.

I feel that most science fiction really looks like the whole creation process started with someone wanting to write about an issue. There seems to be little sci-fi that feels like it was created with the intention of "I like lasers".
In contrast, there seems to be much more fantasy that is primarily interested in aesthetics and atmosphere and not really sure what it wants to say, if anything.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
>I did NOT mean to attack any fantasy series. Sorry if it came off that way.
It absolutely did not strike me that way. Sorry if I gave that impression.
 
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