Fantasy

[davem]

Perhaps, in spite of what Tolkien states in Mythopoea, Fantasy (in the sense of creating a Secondary World) is about creating a world in your own image - one where the woods are peopled by Elves, where the gods walk, & where battles are simple, straightforward affairs of good against evil & where those on the side of right ultimately win out.

(Or where 'God' is a senile, useless spirit from whom humanity can attain liberation in order to be free to build the 'Republic of Heaven'). Perhaps it really is no more than wish-fulfilment, however an author attempts to justify it with philosophical/theological theorising. The likes of Towton never happened in M-e because Tolkien didn't want it to. Which means that no fantasy (Secondary World) is superior to any other (other than in the quality of its creation, & its believability). To argue that Middle-earth is in someway 'superior' to the world(s) of HDM in a moral or ethical sense is pointless, because both Secondary Worlds are ultimately simply the head trips of their respective creators. Setting limits/restrictions on what may be included in a fantasy world is ultimately to attempt to set limits on what a human being feels he or she lacks. Both Tolkien & Pullman are responding to a perceived 'wrongness'/lack in the Primary world by creating a Secondary World in which that wrongness is put right.

And yet, the question still remains - do writers of Fantasy have an obligation to reflect certain Primary World realities (from the horrors of war to the dangers of smoking)?

[Lalwendë]

For whatever reason Tolkien chose not to be overly graphic in his descriptions of war in Lord of the Rings, but you can't say the same is true of all his work; Children of Hurin is pretty graphic and brutal. I'd say he utilised lightness of touch when writing battle scenes in LotR, our horror at death comes more from being invested in the characters who are hurt, lost or killed.

As for writing of good/evil wars, the War of the Ring is neither, it is simply a war of survival, a war in which, if you do not stand up and fight will certainly result in death or thralldom.

The writer does not have to be overly graphic to portray horrors, they merely have to be just graphic enough. If anyone has had the uncomfortable experience of reading The Road they will know what I mean - in that there are a couple of simple scenes which are not overly described but which are so utterly horrific you cannot scrub them out of your head. Tolkien does the same thing - it's enough to have the Witch King threaten Eowyn with some barely sketched horror or to mention a few of the Orcs' fighting methods to have the skin crawling. He doesn't need to go further.

Originally Posted by davem

And yet, the question still remains - do writers of Fantasy have an obligation to reflect certain Primary World realities (from the horrors of war to the dangers of smoking)?

They can and should do exactly as they please or it ceases to be fantasy The very idea of setting limits on it is vile.

[Bêthberry]

If one accepts the statement I quoted above--that poetry never lies because it never affirms anything--and if one accepts that by poetry Spenser meant all literature--then the answer would be simple. A fantasy writer, as a writer of all literary forms, is bound only by the quality of his or her sub-creation, by the aesthetic demands required to create a 'great reading'. 'Lies' just doesn't cut it in this perspective. In fact, I would suggest that the Mythopoeia poem isn't about lies at all but about the quality of sub-creation, that creativity and artistic vision has its own drummer and is not beholdin' to any other kind of vision.

The problem for Tolkien arises, I think, when he elaborates upon his Legendarium by calling it a prehistory of our world. That then invites comparisons between Middle-earth in the Third Age, First Age, Second Age, etc, with our world. The denizens of the earlier ages are similar to mythological types in other early world literatures. What Tolkien appears to have been wanting to depict, at least in LotR, is the 'moment' when that mythological world fades away into a world more in conformity with our 'Seventh Age.' It is the time when the elves, dwarves, dragons, orcs fade away, even though Tolkien suggests that hobbits still exist with a highly developed ability to hide from our view. It is possible that his difficulty in writing or completing stories for the Fourth Age relates to this loss, that the really inspiring aspect for him was the waning of this mythological time.

For Tolkien, a world perspective which does not allow for wonder, imagination, creativity, the ferment of ideas, as much as a moral stance which allows one to differentiate among the Lobelias, Frodos, Boromirs, Grimas, and Gollems, must remain essential. It is a perspective which grants constant vigilance against human error, which recognises that humans are so prone to aspects of power that they can easily fall into error. That concept of human psychology is absent from much in "progressive thought" that grants to mankind--usually the males of the species--the absolute right to totally dominate other human beings and the natural world. One doesn't need idealism or God or gods to understand that humans are prone to their own self satisfaction which can have disasterous consequences. In fact, Tolkien's poem Mythopoeia suggests that when men replace God/the gods with their own pitiful power tripping--"head tripping" in davem's words-- by thinking that a name is what makes a thing exist, they fall into error. This might not be a caution against human willfulness which Pullman acknowledges, but the baddies in Pullman are every bit as prone to this Tolkien error as any villian in Tolkien.

There's enough evidence in our Primary world, from environmental abuse to domestic abuse to technological abuse of knowledge to suggest that a world view which asks us to question our own claims to power/divinity is not writing fantasy as wish fulfilment. Sometimes, it is easier to see things in front of our own noses if they are coloured to appear different. That then puts the 'onus' as it were, on the reader to interpret.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

There's enough evidence in our Primary world, from environmental abuse to domestic abuse to technological abuse of knowledge to suggest that a world view which asks us to question our own claims to power/divinity is not writing fantasy as wish fulfilment. Sometimes, it is easier to see. That then puts the 'onus' as it were, on the reader to interpret.

Tolkien does ask us to question our own claims to power. He also offers 'answers', solutions, responses, which, while they may work well in his world, may not work in ours - may in fact have the opposite effect. A fantasy writer can indeed show us "things in front of our own noses if they are coloured to appear different" but his offered solutions may make things worse rather than better if put into practice in our world. The Shire may be a bucolic idyll wherein we may all secretly wish to dwell but no Hobbit ever died of lung cancer or cirrhosis - we can have the Shire as our solution to the Primary World evils of the desire for power & environmental destruction....but not exactly Tolkien's Shire, which is a Fantasy. In fact, there was a housing development in Bend, Oregon, called The Shire, with houses 'inspired' by Tolkien's creation - its just gone bankrupt due to the credit crunch (don't think they had those in Middle-earth....). There's no lung cancer, cirrhosis or credit crunch in M-e for the same reason there's no animal butchery like Towton in its wars (or homosexuality for that matter) because its Tolkien's fantasy & he controls what exists in that world. Tolkien is the gatekeeper. Certainly some of the horrors of the Primary World have echoes in the Secondary - but by no means all of them. And when they find place there it is in the form Tolkien wishes them to have & the solution of them is Tolkien's own & works in his world not so much for logical reasons but because he says it does.

But that's because its a Fantasy & so anything can happen. Yet smoking does cause cancer, excessive drinking does result in alcoholism & death, & if you go to war & arm yourselves with swords, maces, daggers, spears & arrows you get ugly bloody butchery not noble death rounded out with beautiful speaches a la Boromir & Theoden,

Perhaps the best response to the question I posed is that a writer of fantasy should be free to create any kind of world, include in ot anything he or she wishes, explore any kind of idea, however 'offensive' to some - but that the onus is on the reader to be able to separate fact from fantasy & realise that the fantasy world may tell them little or nothing, may even (while it is not a 'lie' in itself) lie about the reader's own world.

Or at least that the best one I can come up with at the moment....

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by davem

Perhaps the best response to the question I posed is that a writer of fantasy should be free to create any kind of world, include in ot anything he or she wishes, explore any kind of idea, however 'offensive' to some - but that the onus is on the reader to be able to separate fact from fantasy & realise that the fantasy world may tell them little or nothing, may even (while it is not a 'lie' in itself) lie about the reader's own world.

Or at least that the best one I can come up with at the moment....

Some readers do not want to separate fact from fiction And while that might be funny when you get people who live their lives as though they really are Klingons, Hobbits or centurions or whatever, it does have a dark side. Plus a lot of people believe everything they read a bit too easily.

In that respect, fantasy can be a dangerous thing. Tolkien was free to describe his battles how he liked, and he chose to leave them lightly described and the reader free to make up his/her own mind about how they worked. Course, that does mean that you can get stupid people who think "Wow, running round with swords is coooool" and then actually doing just that and hurting others (just as you get stupid people who think Grand Theft Auto is also something to recreate in the real world).

But why should the author's Art have to be changed just because some people are stupid? Or even because down the line, his books might be read by a whole generation of people who had no direct experience of the horrors of war (remembering that Tolkien and his generation knew full well how nasty war was and had no need of a graphic description as they lived it every night in their nightmares)?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

Tolkien does ask us to question our own claims to power. He also offers 'answers', solutions, responses, which, while they may work well in his world, may not work in ours - may in fact have the opposite effect. A fantasy writer can indeed show us "things in front of our own noses if they are coloured to appear different" but his offered solutions may make things worse rather than better if put into practice in our world. The Shire may be a bucolic idyll wherein we may all secretly wish to dwell but no Hobbit ever died of lung cancer or cirrhosis - we can have the Shire as our solution to the Primary World evils of the desire for power & environmental destruction....but not exactly Tolkien's Shire, which is a Fantasy. In fact, there was a housing development in Bend, Oregon, called The Shire, with houses 'inspired' by Tolkien's creation - its just gone bankrupt due to the credit crunch (don't think they had those in Middle-earth....). There's no lung cancer, cirrhosis or credit crunch in M-e for the same reason there's no animal butchery like Towton in its wars (or homosexuality for that matter) because its Tolkien's fantasy & he controls what exists in that world. Tolkien is the gatekeeper. Certainly some of the horrors of the Primary World have echoes in the Secondary - but by no means all of them. And when they find place there it is in the form Tolkien wishes them to have & the solution of them is Tolkien's own & works in his world not so much for logical reasons but because he says it does.

But that's because its a Fantasy & so anything can happen. Yet smoking does cause cancer, excessive drinking does result in alcoholism & death, & if you go to war & arm yourselves with swords, maces, daggers, spears & arrows you get ugly bloody butchery not noble death rounded out with beautiful speaches a la Boromir & Theoden,

Perhaps the best response to the question I posed is that a writer of fantasy should be free to create any kind of world, include in ot anything he or she wishes, explore any kind of idea, however 'offensive' to some - but that the onus is on the reader to be able to separate fact from fantasy & realise that the fantasy world may tell them little or nothing, may even (while it is not a 'lie' in itself) lie about the reader's own world.

Or at least that the best one I can come up with at the moment....

Essentially, your complaint that fantasy isn't realistic is a complaint that has been lodged against all forms of literature, particularly by those with an ideological axe to grint. Remember Plato's complaint about poets and how he dealt with them? Think of the Vatican's list of proscribed books. Or think of how political correctness has developed out of quite legitimate complaints (in themselves, when addressed to conditions in the Primary World).

Rather than bowlderizing literature or censoring it or calling down fatwahs upon authors who violate ideas of the Primary Realm, perhaps it is well to remember that literature, as with all art, exists to delight and to instruct. If people choose, as Lal has said, to be more delighted than instructed, that is the freedom allowed in a democratic Primary World. As is the freedom allowed to complain about the sub-created world. It all just works to develope human communication.

by the by, just in the interests of clarity, I notice that the quotation you attribute to me in your post, davem, is not a completely correct transcription. My original sentence read:

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

There's enough evidence in our Primary world, from environmental abuse to domestic abuse to technological abuse of knowledge to suggest that a world view which asks us to question our own claims to power/divinity is not writing fantasy as wish fulfilment. Sometimes, it is easier to see things in front of our own noses if they are coloured to appear different. That then puts the 'onus' as it were, on the reader to interpret.

Must have been an incomplete c&p.