Quote:
Originally Posted by davem
You realise how long it is since you've regularly posted when you try & rep people & find you can't ...anyway..
One argument is that the only responsibility a fantasy writer has is to create a convincing secondary world, internally consistent & true to its own laws, but.. what if a writer does their job so well that they convince a reader that war is cool & exciting & that, if death results it is a beautiful & poignant thing, rather than ugly & dirty butchery? Or that smoking is an entirely safe activity?
Is a writer of Fantasy literature absolved of any responsibility for such things, in the way a writer of other kinds of fiction is not?
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Allow me to amplify on Tolkien a bit, and then I will reply directly.
As I inferred in a previous post, perhaps the time period in which Tolkien was writing precluded such graphic presentations of reality (whether in a fantasy or fictional presentation). Editorial boards and censors certainly were more prevalent than they are now (consider the present ludicrous movie rating system as the afterbirth of more stringent earlier censorship). James Joyce's Ulysses, first published in its entirety in 1922 was banned in the U.S. as pornographic and obscene (although nowadays it is merely annoying), which a district court judge didn't overrule until 1932.
If one looks at the movies of the time period, the sanitization is near complete in regards to war represented in films (Douglas Fairbanks or Errol Flynn's blades are not even required to puncture their enemies' bodies to cause instantaneous death). Ethically speaking, wholesale lopping of heads and body parts was forbidden during most of the first half of the 20th century, and it seems certain Tolkien would have to subscribe to some level of self-control in the matter of graphic presentation (even though, as Alatar pointed out, there is the head-lobbing of the orcs at Minas Tirith).
Another classic fantasy of the 1st half of the 20th Century, The Once and Future King by T.H. White, also doesn't dwell on gorgets being knit to necks by axes or knights struggling on with arrows through their testicles or through their cheeks or noses (as detailed in the chronicles of Dom Pero Nino, a famous 15th century Castilian knight). The time period and the taste of the readership (or perhaps more so the taste of the censorship) must be taken into account for the level of graphic violence or sexuality presented in a novel (or movie).
Now, to your posits, davem.
I don't believe the writer of a fantasy (or fiction) is bound to present factual data in a graphic manner, nor is a writer bound by a sense of morality or ethics to maintain an idealized view of 'the good' or the 'correct' because such ideas are transient and relative even geographically and individually during any specific era. The writer may present truths or lies depending on his/her perspective in an effort to sway the reader to their point of view, or may try to impress upon the reader an altered vision of reality based on the author's perception, whether for political, religious or emotional ends, or a writer may simply create based on their personal convictions and store of knowledge and not care at all if what is published meets anyone else's criteria.
During WWI H.G. Wells referred to Germany as 'Kiplingistic', obviously equating the Kaiser's roughshod imperialism in terms of Kipling's jingoistic glory of war. I mention that because I saw you posted a poem elsewhere on this forum regarding the death of Kipling's son in WWI. Who then was right, Wells, with his aversion to senseless war and foolhardy glory, or Kipling's reverence of righteous war and patriotism?
So, in the end, a writer is not absolved nor seeks absolution for what he writes, his work is accepted or not accepted on whether or not it is read. There are many works of literature that were derisively panned or ignominously ignored during an author's lifetime that are now considered classics, and conversely, many great classics are now considered tedious, overwrought and dated. In the end, most writers who cater directly to an audience are viewed as hacks, while authors who followed their own convictions are considered visionary. *shrugs*