Causes of War for Fantasy Writers

[Queshire]

I remember hearing that one of the goals with Lord of the Rings was to write a uniquely UK-y mythology similar to Beowulf. Of course that's hardly incompatible with other influences on the story.

 

[Finchbearer]

For sure Tolkien took influence from Anglo Saxon and Norse mythology and folklore, and he did a translation of Beowulf as part of his scholarly repertoire I believe. Many critics have cited that he must have been influenced by the war and I also believe he always denied that, but to me it’s clear and it’s there in the work, whether he subconsciously wrote that in we will never know. Although maybe Aldarion knows more about this side of things?

 

[Aldarion]

Did someone mention Lord of the Rings?

I’m pretty sure that Aldarion knows all about Lord of the Rings more than I will ever hope to, but for what it’s worth, my interpretation from it is was much about Tolkien creating a sort of allegory for the world wars and his viewpoint on them. The evil in Middle Earth reminds me of fascism, along with many other issues that would have been prevalent during Tolkien’s lifetime such as mass mechanisation, communism, destroying natural habitats in favour of industrialisation (think of the Ents with Tolkien being a huge fan of trees in real life) and many other destructive world events that created such cataclysmic change during the era in which he wrote. In other words he saw real war, and wrote his experiences and viewpoint into an epic fantasy series.

Tolkien himself very explicitly said that Lord of the Rings are by no means any sort of allegory for the Second World War. He was, however, quite open about his work being inspired by the First World War. For specific examples, Dead Marshes are a callback to scenes of dead bodies Tolkien saw in the mud of the Somme.

So Sauron is not Hitler at all. Rather, he is a representation of evil, and more importantly, of industrialization, urbanization and dehumanization which Tolkien saw first when it started destroying the village environments of his youth and then when he fought in the First World War.

 

[Genly]

I don't have much to add to Aldarion's very informative article. As he says, a good starting point for evil is ideology. Aldarion has outlined Sauron's ideology, his drive towards a kind of utopia that he believed only foolish people would oppose. He believed that he was wise, so he should rule, and his means to achieve this became steadily more brutal. To state the obvious, Hitler's ideology was a particularly extreme and narrowly defined form of white supremacy, an ideology that sadly was very prevalent in Europe in the thirties. That made it easier for him.

So, what twisted ideology drives a villain in a fantasy world? Once that is established, evil acts become a logical consequence of being prepared to implement that ideology and to impose it on others. Of course, there is still greed, glory, fear and revenge...

 

[Jackarandajam]

I don't have much to add to Aldarion's very informative article. As he says, a good starting point for evil is ideology. Aldarion has outlined Sauron's ideology, his drive towards a kind of utopia that he believed only foolish people would oppose. He believed that he was wise, so he should rule, and his means to achieve this became steadily more brutal. To state the obvious, Hitler's ideology was a particularly extreme and narrowly defined form of white supremacy, an ideology that sadly was very prevalent in Europe in the thirties. That made it easier for him.

So, what twisted ideology drives a villain in a fantasy world? Once that is established, evil acts become a logical consequence of being prepared to implement that ideology and to impose it on others. Of course, there is still greed, glory, fear and revenge...

I think power is always at the root. The more specific ideologies come in when the masses have to be convinced to agree. The mob.
The insanity of the masses is inspiring me alot lately; the influence of catch-phrases, the faulty logic slung around echo chambers... it doesn't matter what's true, it only matters that you can put forward what seems to be a problem, exacerbate it with propaganda, then draw a hazy "seems to me" kinda line between it and whatever state or people group is between you and more power.

Using that logic, the ideology behind war could be anything.

 

[Jackarandajam]

 

[Queshire]

I like looking at all the little levers that cause people to act as they will.

The Death Eaters in Harry Potter fill their role in the story just fine, but with just the setting information we're shown you could have some wizards who aren't happy that the home that's been in their family for generations now finds itself in the middle of a muggle suburb or aren't comfortable with how quickly the muggle world has been changing. You can then combine that with families on the level of the Malfoys seeing this as a chance to further cement their own power, and of course Voldemort's own power and dark charisma drawing those others in even as their actions glorify him in order to have things develop as they do in the story.

All that comes doen to greed, fear and glory, but it's multiple interwoven threads that inevitably lead in the same direction.

 

[skip.knox]

There are at least a couple of levels to this matter of motivation and justification. One is the national level (I'll let that term stand for everything from a tribe to a modern nation-state). Most of Aldarion's article addresses that level. But a second is the personal level. Each individual person has reasons why they go to war, why they volunteer, why they don't resist the draft, why they don't desert once in service. Each person has their own justifications not only for the actions taken by their commanders, but the actions taken by they themselves.

Beyond soldiers, non-combatants likewise have reasons why they support the war effort, which may or may not align neatly with the justifications given formally at the national level. The interplay between these can make for any number of interesting stories. A Prayer for Owen Meany comes to mind.

Now I'm thinking about orcs and humans and elves and the rest. Would they all have the same kind of justifications, the same kinds of motivations? It's more interesting to suppose they differed in some ways. Maybe orcs are always thinking in terms of expansion, conquest. War doesn't need excusing. But maybe with humans, self-defense is usually seen as more acceptable than open greed. (remember, fantasy humans don't need to be exactly like real humans) There's some room there for some imagination. And, per the above, within any group there's room for individual variations--always a good source of conflict. Conflict within war!

 

[Aldarion]

There are at least a couple of levels to this matter of motivation and justification. One is the national level (I'll let that term stand for everything from a tribe to a modern nation-state). Most of Aldarion's article addresses that level. But a second is the personal level. Each individual person has reasons why they go to war, why they volunteer, why they don't resist the draft, why they don't desert once in service. Each person has their own justifications not only for the actions taken by their commanders, but the actions taken by they themselves.

Beyond soldiers, non-combatants likewise have reasons why they support the war effort, which may or may not align neatly with the justifications given formally at the national level. The interplay between these can make for any number of interesting stories. A Prayer for Owen Meany comes to mind.

Now I'm thinking about orcs and humans and elves and the rest. Would they all have the same kind of justifications, the same kinds of motivations? It's more interesting to suppose they differed in some ways. Maybe orcs are always thinking in terms of expansion, conquest. War doesn't need excusing. But maybe with humans, self-defense is usually seen as more acceptable than open greed. (remember, fantasy humans don't need to be exactly like real humans) There's some room there for some imagination. And, per the above, within any group there's room for individual variations--always a good source of conflict. Conflict within war!

True, but these are not really all that relevant for why wars start. Besides, for most people, the sole reason why they participate in the war effort is "I was told so by the authorities". People are not quick to question authorities, much less resist them, and I have found that even people who say they do, have in fact merely chosen a different authority to mindlessly follow.

 

[Gurkhal]

Very interesting discussion in this thread.

For myself I usually find the concept of an undefined evil to be to, well, impersonal or unengaging to read and write about and so I try to make it more personal, defined and engaging. This means that the evil/"evil" to oppose in one story is not per necessity very related to the evil/"evil" to oppose in another story.

But then again I personally find that conflicting interests, misguided people and flawed understanding makes for better conflicts to depict and explore than "evil" does. That don't mean I can't enjoy a well executed good-vs-evil story. But I don't prefer to write, what I think is, classical good-vs-evil stories.

 

[Richard Edwards]

What your writing about is what Tolkien's world was at that time. The communistic rule was born by the desire to get rid of thr Czars. Have the people rule over themselves. All should work. The desire to make things that can allow us to move more readily. Automibles. The fear of communism taking over the world. By the western nations.
Tolkien was also refering to the anceint world, when the roman empire and the church's popes send solideirs into the eastern world to have them become ruled by the other rulers, who were not there originally. The roman's borrowed knowledge from the other people to have their library to grow in size. So, they were wiser than the other kingdoms there. The rulers are able to allow the people to be ruled by them.

We do not think, w e act. ON the occassiin we amke mistakes as we do withe ach other. REiligious wars have been attacked by the others