World View, Reality and an Air of Mystery

[Mara Edgerton]

A friend and I were comparing and contrasting two very different shows last night: the horror film The Conjuring and the latest episode of the TV western Longmire. (Election Day, if you're a fan.)

I've been looking forward to The Conjuring. I know it's based on a Christian world view--and a particular sort of Christianity that accepts exorcisms and such--and the fact that I'm not a Christian made it all the more enticing. Come on: draw me into a different world view. Give me a new perspective.

Well, my chum isn't a Christian either. She had the same expectations, but in her opinion the movie failed. The Christian world view wasn't the issue, she said. It was the way, in her opinion, the movie tried to sell itself as representing hard-core reality. This is based on a true story, the movie seemed to be screaming at her. This is how reality works! An especially hard sell, she thought, when the film took egregious liberties with historic events like the Salem Witch Trials.

This latest episode of Longmire also calls upon a spirituality that's different from ours: the main character, Walt Longmire, is heavily influenced by traditional Cheyenne practices. Meanwhile, he and his friend Henry Standing Bear tackle issues of karma, justice and atonement--but arguably in a problematic, skewered way. (Are the sins of the parents really visited on their children in dramatic fashion? Should a father pay for his grown son's crimes? Can extra-legal atonement make up for an act of vigilantism?) And yet, I thought the episode was brilliant: it worked for me.

Why? My friend and I decided that the Longmire episode worked because it didn't try to sell itself as hardcore reality. We didn't have to buy that karma, justice and atonement work this way: we just had to buy that Walt thinks they do. It's not even clear if his BFF Henry completely agrees with him--but he groks Walt's viewpoint. And that makes it easier for the viewer to do the same. (Huh. If Henry's willing to go along with this, then I guess I am too.)

So here's the insight we took away: in fiction, it's much easier to sell the audience on 'this is how a particular character views reality' than on 'this is how reality works.'

That gave us pause, because we're both world builders creating fantasy lands and magic systems or warping the known world into an urban fantasy model. To some extent won't we have to say 'this is how reality works in this world'? And won't we have to trust our readers to suspend disbelief as they enter a world that's explicitly different than their own?

Yes. And yet I think we both worked our way to the idea that an air of mystery is not a bad thing. I'm interested in how magic works in a given world--but I'm even more interested in how a particular character thinks it works. I'm interested in how a particular people came to be in a given world--but I'm even more interested in how their mythos says they came to be, and what they make of that mythos.

A sense of mystery, I think, allows the readers to decide for themselves whether the characters are right, wrong or somewhere in between.

Any thoughts on this? I'm still grappling with it, so I'd love to hear what other people make of it.

 

[wordwalker]

Excellent theory.

In a lot of ways, it ties into the principle that all writing works by how the pieces relate to each other; plenty of stories have worked by openly admitting they're biased characters (or unusual situations!) and this is just how they have to deal with things. Admitting there might be alternate facts, or other moral views or such, both emphasizes how specific the tale is and adds the depth "So what are the other sides to it?" --great water-cooler talk for fans, or material for sequels.

And I agree, "real" too often becomes a gimmick, especially for cheap horror. Don't just say it's real, can't they use the details to make it feel part of the real world?

This might be an advantage with more epic fantasy. When you have millennia of mystic history and legends being told and mis-told (we had a great post a while back about how Skyrim's full of lorebooks that contradict each other, because people do that), the setting makes it easy to say there are wheels beyond the wheels you see today, and they may or may not come back to bite you. Contemporary settings are often about rushing through their history rather than exploring it, so characters may have to make the same decisions but in a hurry: "Maybe demons are all Hindu instead of Christian, but Christian rites are all I've got and they seem to be working."

Which still works... if it's done right.

 

[CAL9000]

This is something I realized not to long ago and I strive to not only include it in my characters, but also in how I build my world(s). As "the creator" I need to know how and why stuff works in my world, but my characters don't, and neither does my reader unless I deem it important for the story. Why does Group A's magic work the way it does, well, according to Group A its blahblah reason. Group B, however, explains it as blahblah reason. This makes characters and cultures real/believable.

 

[Daichungak]

Something I have seen a lot on this and other writing forums is authors trying to explain how their magic or politics or feudal system etc. etc. work in their imaginary world, while at the same time trying to shoehorn their idea into our world's physics, politics etc. As writers of fantasy we are allowed extreme latitude in creating “reality” and as long as we are consistent and believable within the framework we create, anything goes.

I'm interested in how magic works in a given world--but I'm even more interested in how a particular character thinks it works. I'm interested in how a particular people came to be in a given world--but I'm even more interested in how their mythos says they came to be, and what they make of that mythos.

Exactly!