Fantasy

[davem]

Yes - as I acknowledged before, the Orcs behave like Orcs - they do nasty things to the good guys, but the good guys are never Orkish. The ugliness of a medieval battle rarely enters the pages of Tolkien. & when it does, it is surrounded with a golden poetic glow:

all the valiant Men of Hador were slain in a heap; and the Orcs hewed their heads and piled them as a mound of gold in the sunset.

[Mister Underhill]

You might as well critique Michelango for his failure to depict the "real" human form, or Shakespeare for lying about the way people "really" talk.

[Andsigil]

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill

You might as well critique Michelango for his failure to depict the "real" human form, or Shakespeare for lying about the way people "really" talk.

Agreed.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill

You might as well critique Michelango for his failure to depict the "real" human form, or Shakespeare for lying about the way people "really" talk.

But what we're discussing is the reality of 'medieval' warfare (setting aside the fact that a number of (minor, admittedly) Shakespearean characters do speak naturalistically) & the question remains whether a writer of fantasy has an obligation to reflect the reality of battle (among other things) honestly. Men in battle, when the adrenalin is pumping & their friends are being cut down beside them, do horrible things & death at the pointy end of an arrow or the blunt end of a battle-hammer, or with lungs full of bloody mud is horrible & not at all poetic.

So. Is the fact that Tolkien was writing a fantasy novel, set in a 'Secondary' reality, enough of an excuse for avoiding (or at least toning down) the truth - especially when there is a risk of misleading the reader into believing that such things didn't happen? Should a novel about war, whether a 'fantasy' novel or not, honestly reflect the facts about war?

Or, as Tolkien himself stated:

Fantasy, of course, starts out with an advantage: arresting strangeness. But that advantage has been turned against it, and has contributed to its disrepute. Many people dislike being “arrested.” They dislike any meddling with the Primary World, or such small glimpses of it as are familiar to them. They, therefore, stupidly and even maliciously confound Fantasy with Dreaming, in which there is no Art; and with mental disorders, in which there is not even control: with delusion and hallucination. But the error or malice, engendered by disquiet and consequent dislike, is not the only cause of this confusion. Fantasy has also an essential drawback: it is difficult to achieve. Fantasy may be, as I think, not less but more sub-creative; but at any rate it is found in practice that “the inner consistency of reality” is more difficult to produce, the more unlike are the images and the rearrangements of primary material to the actual arrangements of the Primary World. It is easier to produce this kind of “reality” with more “sober” material. Fantasy thus, too often, remains undeveloped; it is and has been used frivolously, or only half-seriously, or merely for decoration: it remains merely “fanciful.” Anyone inheriting the fantastic device of human language can say the green sun. Many can then imagine or picture it. But that is not enough—though it may already be a more potent thing than many a “thumbnail sketch” or “transcript of life” that receives literary praise. To make a Secondary World inside which the green sun will be credible, commanding Secondary Belief, will probably require labour and thought, and will certainly demand a special skill, a kind of elvish craft. Few attempt such difficult tasks. But when they are attempted and in any degree accomplished then we have a rare achievement of Art: indeed narrative art, story-making in its primary and most potent mode. (On Fairy Stories)

There is a requirement that fantasy not be used 'frivolously' or 'only half-seriously'. However 'fantastic' the world created it must be treated seriously & honestly. He further states:

Fantasy does not blur the sharp outlines of the real world; for it depends on them.

Or does it? Should it? Should fantasy be the ultimate escape, allowing an author the freedom to do as he wishes with the raw material of the primary world, & with the products of his imagination - he can, if he wishes create a world where the sun in green, where death on a battlefield is clean & neat, or where 'God' is a senile control freak - or absolutely anything he or she wants, because 'its fantasy' & anything is permitted. But not if it 'depends on the sharp outlines of the real world' as Tolkien himself states is vital.

[skip spence]

Originally Posted by davem

Yes - as I acknowledged before, the Orcs behave like Orcs - they do nasty things to the good guys, but the good guys are never Orkish. The ugliness of a medieval battle rarely enters the pages of Tolkien. & when it does, it is surrounded with a golden poetic glow:

I get your point and agree partially too (though I don't agree that an author should be criticised for being poetic). It's true that we never get any direct descriptions of the ugly deeds of the good guys but that they occur nonetheless is easy to perceive. Here's another quote from the Silmarillion regarding the Third Battle:

...they defeated the servants of Morgoth, and pursuing them across Ard-Galen destroyed them utterly, to the least and last, within sight of Angband's gates.

They destroyed them to 'the least and last'... That must have been a brutal slaughter of the Orcs and within sight of Angband's gates too, for all their mates to watch. And don't tell me that they didn't plea for mercy towards the end, when the battle already was lost and they were routed by the vicious Noldor. Nevertheless, they were slaughtered without mercy, every single one of them. Was that really necessary?