Fantasy

[littlemanpoet]

Original question:

is it right, or acceptable, to demand that Fantasy shouldn't explore certain ideas - if those ideas challenge, or attack, certain values or beliefs?

It seems to me that the reverse of this question ought to be posed as well:
Is it right or acceptable to demand that Fantasy ought to explore certain ideas - if those ideas harmonize with contemporary values --- such as the horrors, cruelties, and brutality of war?

Good Fantasy convinces, bad Fantasy doesn't. But bad Fantasy isn't a 'threat' to Churches or political regimes, or to anyone's personal beliefs - because bad fantasy doesn't convince: it feels fake. Only good fantasy is a threat - because it does convince - of its 'reality', the possibility that a world like that is possible (if only logically possible).

Perhaps it would be more useful to say that good fantasy doesn't descend into polemics and bad fantasy might. Pullman breaks his own spell with polemics. So to my mind, fantasy is not the prolbem people think it is, except to the weakminded who want to be told what to accept and reject without having to think for themselves.

Does good fantasy have to be rooted in reality to work?

Fantasy cannot help but be rooted in reality. It's still a sun whether green or yellow or beige. So the question becomes, "How rooted in reality must a fantasy work be to work as believable (legitimate) fantasy?" Do the author's causes follow to believable results?

Of course, it could be (and has been) argued that Tolkien didn't write fantasy at all, but a romance, as he said himself.

Well, Tolkien's depiction of fantasy eschewed an explicit depiction of Evil.

It depends on what you mean. The banality of orcs is pretty graphically conveyed. The potency of the witch king and the evil of the Morgul valley come across powerfully. Perhaps what is meant here is the degree of explicitness; which is, of course, the author's prerogative.

But it still leaves us with evil & ugliness of war being presented as, if not 'good' at least glorious...

Every author makes choices. Tolkien chose to imply rather than rake through the squalor of it. Why desire the squalor?

Tolkien was not against war. Meriadoc's answer to Frodo in the Scouring of the Shire shows that. A war to defend home and community was not merely legitimate but virtuous; not to defend is to succumb to cowardice.

Tolkien's 'sin' is not that he fails to depict violent death in a graphic way - its that he goes to the other extreme & shows it as too clean & neat.

This is a demand for Tolkien to do in regard to war what Edmund Wilson demanded regarding sex. To show the horror, cruelty, and brutality of war, was not Tolkien's point.

In the end, Tolkien really doesn't need an excuse for his choices.

[davem]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Every author makes choices. Tolkien chose to imply rather than rake through the squalor of it. Why desire the squalor?

.

Because the squalor is true - just as much as the honour, glory & self-sacrifice - & none of those are merely 'implied'

[Gwathagor]

You can't expect an author to include everything just because it's true. At what point is there enough detail? The author is always going to leave SOMETHING out, regardless of how hard he tries to be totally "realistic." So, what is included is determined by the themes of the story. Tolkien chose to focus on some of the nobler aspects of war and left the nastier stuff up to our imaginations. Both are equally real and legitimate subjects.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Gwathagor

Tolkien chose to focus on some of the nobler aspects of war and left the nastier stuff up to our imaginations. Both are equally real and legitimate subjects.

But I'm asking why Tolkien made the choice he did, what effect that has on his readers & what if anything would have been different if he had made the other choice - as well as whether his choice was legitimate.

Oh, another point - where are the crippled, maimed & blinded veterans in LotR?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by davem

But I'm asking why Tolkien made the choice he did, what effect that has on his readers & what if anything would have been different if he had made the other choice - as well as whether his choice was legitimate.

Just chiming in - as for the second question: Of course his choice was legitimate. He is the author. His choice is always legitimate. And obviously, he made this choice - he wanted the narration to look in a certain way. G. Orwell wrote his 1984 with the intention to seem dystopian, and so it was. H.P. Lovecraft wrote his Call of Cthulhu in order to be terrifying, he felt no need to include the mundane way the world goes. Both were coming from some realistic background in the first place, but just to underline their main points: the impression they intended to give to the reader. So did Tolkien. He did not want his reader to see massacred hundreds of bodies. It simply did not fit his concept. People who read what he wrote have the right to pick these books just because it fits their taste. Somebody who does not like Orwell or Lovecraft, feeling them too pessimistic or frigtening or generally discomforting, can pick something else. Somebody who would think Tolkien lacks something important, can pick something else. There are enough authors (and not necessarily just belles-lettres) who portray the war far more "realistically".

It is the same as asking if, in a children's tale of Little Red Riding Hood, the author is legitimate not to include the fact that somebody eaten by a wolf won't probably look very good after climbing out of somebody's stomach, not to speak of the poor beast itself.

Fantasy is fantasy mainly just because it is not that tightly bound by reality, and in contrary to other genres of literature, the author is not only allowed to, but one can almost say, expected to make up things on his own. Any book you write is biased by your point of view anyway, even if you tried to be super-realistic: even if you were writing a book about some real historical event, with the perfect historical circumstances and all, you will be putting some of your own personality into it. And as an author, you are expected to! (And speaking of that, even if you were a historian writing a history book, you will do that, however hard you tried to be objective. But that's another thing.)

As for what we gain (a reply to a question davem posted a few posts ago): It always depends on a reader anyway in which way he reacts to the book. Of course this one book he reads is not the only one book in the world, so the views presented by it are not crucial to one's reception of reality. Somebody just wants to relax and not think about the real war-slaughter at all, so he grabs Tolkien instead of something else.

If you ask, does not one get too idealistic/heroic/whatever view of war from the books? Perhaps, or I would rather say, if he already has one, it won't break it for him. But that's all it will do. So, it won't influence his point of view, in my opinion: it will just keep it steady on where it is. (For I don't think a person who knows about the blinded veterans and whatnot would be suddenly convinced, after reading LotR, that they don't exist.)

P.S. I admit I haven't been following the whole discussion... so apologies if I am not quite "up to date" or reacting from some "out-of-topic" perspective... just been reading this and decided to, erm, *looks up at the not exactly short post* chime in...

[davem]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Just chiming in - as for the second question: Of course his choice was legitimate. He is the author. His choice is always legitimate.

And if the book was a racist fantasy which presented non-whites as subhuman would that also be legitimate? Is any kind of presentation of any kind of subject legitimate, or are there certain limits, certain requirements - & are those requirements merely temporal/societal?

Fantasy is fantasy mainly just because it is not that tightly bound by reality, and in contrary to other genres of literature, the author is not only allowed to, but one can almost say, expected to make up things on his own.

Ok....let's say that in LotR as it is Tolkien was to introduce a scene in which Gimli struck Sam on the head with his axe, with all his strength, & Sam simply laughed it off & the narrator added the wry comment 'Sam was known in Hobbiton for his thick skull'. No other explanation - no hidden mithril cap or magical protection supplied by Gandalf - would we accept that, or would it break the spell? I'd suggest it would do exactly that, because Tolkien has carefully set out the rules of his world & in that world a Hobbit's skull is not harder than an Orc's. If Gimli's ability to dispatch an Orc with a single blow of his axe is to be accepted then the same kind of blow cannot be allowed to simply disturb a couple of hairs on a Hobbit's head.

Do people in M-e die in the same way as people in the primary world? Do they survive war blinded & maimed? Do their body parts have to be gathered up for disposal? Does that aspect of war exist in M-e or does it not? My suggested answer would be 'Not for every reader'. Some readers will assume those things & 'see' them as they read the story, but other readers won't. Some will deny the existence of those things in M-e, & someone suggests they 'must have happened even if Tolkien doesn't mention them specifically' they will state very clearly 'No they didn't, because Tolkien was writing a tale 'purged of the gross' - the blood, vomit & excrement, the howling of the dying, all the unpleasant aspect of war didn't happen in M-e.

And yet, from many of the 'opposing' posts there seems to be a belief that that kind of thing did occur - its just 'implied' by Tolkien, implied subtly enough that those who want to ignore it can do so.....yet, if they acknowledge its existence (however obliquely it appears) why do they only feel comfortable if it can be safely ignored? If it happened why do they not want to know about it? Is it not as 'real' as the stars above the northern mists or the golden hair of Galadriel?

Originally Posted by obloquy

What Points?

Ok...if you read back through the posts by other people which contain quotes from me in little boxes, which are followed by responses to those quotes, well, those boxed quotes are the points I'm making. Apologies for any confusion.

[Pitchwife]

Before I come to davem's central question, I'd like to address two not-quite-so-central points that came up during the course of this discussion.

1. The matter of Sam and the trees. I think this needs to be considered in its original context. The passage you're referring to (at the beginning of The Grey Havens) deals with Sam being busy repairing the damages done to the Shire by Sharkey and his ruffians - such as tearing down the new Shirriff-houses, restoring Bagshot Row etc. To me it's quite clear that the trees were the worst loss and damage only as far as this kind of (reparable) devastation is concerned, and I don't think we're justified in concluding from this that Sam cared more for felled trees than he did for slain hobbits. True, we're not told about his feelings for the victims of the battle of Bywater, and you might argue that this is a flaw. On the other hand, the hobbits at least had a choice and a chance to defend themselves, while trees (outside of Fangorn and maybe the Old Forest) had not.

2.

By offering us an unsympathetic foe Tolkien is able to have his heroes kill thousands of them with impunity & never suffer the inconvenience of having to ask if what they're doing is right, face the possiblity that they have 'sinned', or, most importantly in this context, show them any respect.

Gandalf in The Siege of Gondor to Denethor:

And for me, I pity even his [=Sauron's] slaves.

And Faramir, Gandalf's pupil, in The Window on the West:

I would not snare even an orc with a falsehood.

Also, there is the matter of Éomer dismounting and fighting Uglúk sword to sword at the edge of Fangorn, which has been interpreted on another thread as E. recognizing and honouring valour even in an Orc. Spare hints, but worth considering.
The point, as I see it, is that the heroes of LotR had war forced upon them. The Orcs and other slaves of Sauron's were there, they were attacking the free peoples, and assuming as a given that they were not to be parleyed with (being driven by Sauron's malice), they had to be fought - which doesn't mean that at least some of our heroes (such as Gandalf and those educated by him) didn't regret the necessary killing.

Now to the central question: Should Tolkien have depicted the gruesome side of war more realistically, and how does his failure to do so shape our attitude towards war?
Speaking from personal experience, davem, I have to say that during my first (and second, and third, and probably fourth) reading of LotR, I read the battle scenes very much like you did - sanitized heroicism. Oddly, however, I didn't get the idea from them that war was something good and glorious (actually, I was busy demonstrating for nuclear disarmament and protesting against Pershing-II's at the time). I guess what impressed me most was the fact that it wasn't heroic deeds on the battlefield that won the War of the Ring and saved the world but the sacrifice of a single unarmed hobbit - showing that valour and bravery are not confined to the context of actual warfare.
I think a big part of the problem is inherited from the classic heroic literature that Tolkien was trying to emulate. As far as I remember, we don't see much gore and squalor in the Iliad or the Nibelungenlied, either. The problem, to me, seems to be that T tried to write an epic romance, but in the form of a novel that would appeal to mid or late 20th century readers. Obviously he succeeded to a considerable degree (or we wouldn't be here discussing this), but it may be debatable whether he succeeded completely.
Some modern (=post-Tolkien) fantasy writers have tried to improve on LotR in their depiction of battle-scenes, and I think it's worth the attempt. Robert Jordan, for instance (whatever may be said against him), does a good job at this (as you might expect from a Vietnam veteran), not neglecting the psychological impact of war on his characters, either. (If there are any RJ readers here, I'm thinking of the 'reaction shot' from Perrin's perspective after the battle of Dumai's Wells at the beginning of A Crown of Swords, among many others.) On the other hand, one of my issues with RJ is that while we're getting a fair impression of what his heroes are fighting against, he's not so good at showing us what they are fighting for - no Lothlorien, no White Tower of Ecthelion, no Rivendell, no Tom Bombadil & Goldberry, not even the homely comfort of hobbit life in the Shire.
Which makes me think - maybe Tolkien refused to wallow in the mire of realistic battle-scenes because he felt they would detract from or weaken the impression of the good that was more important to him to describe. On the other hand, the contrast might have made the beauty & glory of Middle-Earth more poignant. But I think it would have been an incredible feat to get both sides right, and maybe we'll just have to accept that our Professor, however much we may admire his achievement, had his limitations as a writer, just like anybody else.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by davem

And if the book was a racist fantasy which presented non-whites as subhuman would that also be legitimate? Is any kind of presentation of any kind of subject legitimate, or are there certain limits, certain requirements - & are those requirements merely temporal/societal?

It would be certainly legitimate. And now before you are shocked, let me explain.

The difference is between the legitimity and legality, if we can call it this way. You are legitimate to do something as long as you were given the option and power to do so. And the author was given both. Whatever he chooses to do with it is another thing.

His, and only his choice is, whether he reveres some authority, or is aware of his responsibility; as he holds, at least particularly, a responsibility for the others who are going to read his books. My opinion is of course that he should have in mind mainly the people who are going to read what he wrote. But that is not in relation just to himself and his own ego, but to any other subjects which are around him. An egoistic writer can write anything he wishes, of course later he would face the consequences (even in a simple example, let's say if he writes a racist books and publishes them, he can be jailed. But actually, I would rather put it on the level that he should care about those who read his books - if they are harmed by it - becoming racists - that is something he should not want to do, as that's the worst way, when you can harm somebody else by your writing). If he sat at home and wrote just for himself, nobody else but him would read it, he is not going to harm anybody - except himself. (And that also means something. Although, now we could start about how his cultivating some bad habits will eventually become a strong part of his personality and will therefore influence everybody he is in contact with. But that would be probably already getting too off-topic.) But if he does not care still - it is his choice.

But, back to the original question of yours again: Do you think the need to introduce maimed and blinded veterans is a thing which a writer who is conscious of his readers should put in there? Even though the main purpose of his book is not to make them aware of all the horrors war causes?

Ok....let's say that in LotR as it is Tolkien was to introduce a scene in which Gimli struck Sam on the head with his axe, with all his strength, & Sam simply laughed it off & the narrator added the wry comment 'Sam was known in Hobbiton for his thick skull'. No other explanation - no hidden mithril cap or magical protection supplied by Gandalf - would we accept that, or would it break the spell? I'd suggest it would do exactly that, because Tolkien has carefully set out the rules of his world & in that world a Hobbit's skull is not harder than an Orc's. If Gimli's ability to dispatch an Orc with a single blow of his axe is to be accepted then the same kind of blow cannot be allowed to simply disturb a couple of hairs on a Hobbit's head.

But you say it yourself: Tolkien has set certain rules of his world, and therefore, he won't introduce the scene with Gimli hitting him and Sam merely laughing. So what's the point?

Do people in M-e die in the same way as people in the primary world? Do they survive war blinded & maimed? Do their body parts have to be gathered up for disposal? Does that aspect of war exist in M-e or does it not? My suggested answer would be 'Not for every reader'. Some readers will assume those things & 'see' them as they read the story, but other readers won't. Some will deny the existence of those things in M-e, & someone suggests they 'must have happened even if Tolkien doesn't mention them specifically' they will state very clearly 'No they didn't, because Tolkien was writing a tale 'purged of the gross' - the blood, vomit & excrement, the howling of the dying, all the unpleasant aspect of war didn't happen in M-e.

And yet, from many of the 'opposing' posts there seems to be a belief that that kind of thing did occur - its just 'implied' by Tolkien, implied subtly enough that those who want to ignore it can do so.....yet, if they acknowledge its existence (however obliquely it appears) why do they only feel comfortable if it can be safely ignored? If it happened why do they not want to know about it? Is it not as 'real' as the stars above the northern mists or the golden hair of Galadriel?

Indeed, you said it. Not for every reader. I am just reminded of my discussion with a certain 'Downer whether there are gays in Middle-Earth. Pretty much the same case, in my opinion (although, of course, this subject is not addressed by Tolkien at all).

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

Speaking from personal experience, davem, I have to say that during my first (and second, and third, and probably fourth) reading of LotR, I read the battle scenes very much like you did - sanitized heroicism. Oddly, however, I didn't get the idea from them that war was something good and glorious (actually, I was busy demonstrating for nuclear disarmament and protesting against Pershing-II's at the time).

And this is one important point I had in mind. Relatedly: It happens to me often that I read books about something, and even though the author writes about something, it does not mean I accept it! That would be a pretty bad way of doing it, wouldn't it?

Of course, it is always dangerous (cf. author's responsibility) when you write something, as many people can easily accept something without their own thinking just when they read about it. However, still, it is not only the author's intention that makes the final picture. And even if the author had the best intentions in mind, no book is foolproof, as it is also subject to the reader's interpretation.

[obloquy]

Do people in M-e die in the same way as people in the primary world? Do they survive war blinded & maimed? Do their body parts have to be gathered up for disposal? Does that aspect of war exist in M-e or does it not? My suggested answer would be 'Not for every reader'. Some readers will assume those things & 'see' them as they read the story, but other readers won't. Some will deny the existence of those things in M-e, & someone suggests they 'must have happened even if Tolkien doesn't mention them specifically' they will state very clearly 'No they didn't, because Tolkien was writing a tale 'purged of the gross' - the blood, vomit & excrement, the howling of the dying, all the unpleasant aspect of war didn't happen in M-e.

Sure, there are evidently some irrational, thoughtless people who will choose to believe there is some kind of magical prevention of grisliness in Middle-earth. But most of us will have the sense to recognize that Tolkien's characters are flesh-and-blood. Not only do they have sex, defecate, and probably pop zits, they also have their flesh torn and their bones crushed in war--and their arteries severed, and their eyes pierced by arrows, and their limbs removed from their bodies, etc. etc.

If an author writes that a character slaughtered a pig for his guests, it does not make sense for him to explicate the details (the kill, the bleeding, the gutting, the roasting, the piglets left behind) unless he is interested in making a point about the slaughter of livestock. If he does not provide these details, what simpleton would imagine that no such details took place? Similarly, just because you did not understand what happens in medieval warfare when you first read Tolkien does not mean that Tolkien's description was dishonest in any way. Of course people in Middle-earth had their intestines ripped out and died screaming and clawing at the ground. It is implied by the presence of warfare itself.

Again, the problem is your own.

[Rumil]

This debate brings me (oddly) back to the reason I disliked the A-Team (stay with me here, on-topic soon!).

OK the A-Team was all jolly good fun adventure stuff, good guys, bad guys, making AFVs out of tin cans and sticky-backed plastic, but it always rather worried me that nobody got shot. In every other scene thousands of rounds were blatted off between the protagonists, but nobody was killed or even bled a little bit. I even remember a scene where a helicopter crashed into a 300-foot cliff, blew up and smashed into the ground, then the crew got out of the wreck and staggered around slightly dazed but none the worse for their certain-death encounter.

In a series aimed at kids and teenagers in the USA, where guns are commonplace, it seemed frankly dangerous to have a show with lots of gunfights but no dire consequences.

In a way you might say the same of Tolkien's battles but there is not the same sense of immediacy. Youngsters may, in terrible cases, fool about with guns with fatal consequences, but I think few will raise an orcish army and march on their foes' citadel.

Thinking back to old films, war stories etc. from the 40s-50s period, it seems common that battle deaths are treated unrealistically. Cowboys bite the dust with nothing more than 'Ah ya got me', fighter pilots say 'Ginger got the chop old man' and move on. Did JRRT write the way he did because the mores of the times were against gruesome reality or because he wished LoTR to be 'purged of the gross', I don't know, maybe a bit of both?

Certainly he did include more realism in Turin's tale, including plenty of maimed and wounded, battle-madness and cowardice. But this he did not publish.

Tolkien's battles are usually (not, I'll agree, always) written from the Historian's lofty standpoint, featuring more of the wide overview and deeds of commanders than the mud and blood experience of the Poor Bloody Infantry. If we go 'in-book' we find that our authors (the hobbits) are mostly not involved in the fighting in the great battles. Bilbo gets knocked out, Merry probably has his eyes tight shut during the charge of the Rohirrim, then the Witch King showdown takes him out of the battle. Pippin gets squashed into unconsiousness under a troll. The Battle of Bywater is probably written by Frodo who was not involved in the fighting apart from getting the hobbits to spare the surrendering ruffians.

Therefore the battle sections are mostly what was told second-hand to the hobbits by Gandalf, Aragorn etc. I think they would not feel the need to burden the cheery halflings with the true brutality. Who's to say they'd be wrong?

[Morthoron]

Excellent points, Obloquoy and Rumil, but since davem is in a rather obstinate mood, I don't think it much matters what can be said that hasn't already been reiterated several times in various forms throughout this circumlocutious thread. As I reviewed this discussion, I found myself going over the literal litany of points I made previously in regard to davem's objection/supposition/query about the lack of graphic/realistic violence in Lord of the Rings. It seems none of them suffice; ergo, I will merely repost the Compleat Catalogue of Copious Counterpoints for your edification.

And so, here we have a veritable laundry lists of reasons -- culled patiently from my posts -- as to why Tolkien did not dwell on graphic violence in his most famous novel. For those who wish conciseness, here are bullet points:

1. Tolkien subscribed to a classical representation of war that precludes the gross. He offered a 'dignified' presentation of a a fierce faery epic in the medieval mold (like TH White's Once and Future King, or its precursor Le Mort D'Arthur), which purges the utterly gross from its heroes, and does not dwell on the true mayhem and obscene violence that was medieval war.

2. The time period in which Tolkien was writing precluded such graphic presentations of reality (whether in a fantasy or fictional presentation in books or movies). And it is indisputable that there was heavier censorship and higher moral codes at the time.

3. The hope attendant in Tolkien's religion precluded him from falling prey to the cynicism of many of his literary peers who survived WWI.

4. We really don't see such presentations of graphic violence in fantasy literature until the late 1960's and 1970's (like Stephen Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant), or in films of a medieval nature even later on, like Braveheart (if you remember Excalibur from the 70's, it rarely even displays any blood on those ultra-shiny metal coifs).

5. I doubt very much that Tolkien's work would find its way into grade school (or primary school) libraries if he dwelt on clumps of brains and clots of hair and sodden buttocks like Sassoon. It is the restrained nature of the presentation that allows it to be enjoyed by eight year-olds and eighty year-olds alike.

6. At least two of the most important battles (to the plot, at least) are the Battle of Five Armies and the Battle before the Black Gates. In both cases, the battles are interrupted before they get heavy (in one, Bilbo is knocked unconscious, and the other Pippin is smothered beneath a troll). The actual battle scenes are described later under much more favorable circumstances. In any case, Hobbits are purported to be the principal authors of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and therefore were not directly involved in as much combat in comparison to other main characters.

7. The plot centers on the noble heroes (even Samwise the Everyman is Jack in the Beanstalk, for all intents and purposes), and the crises and eucatastophe are fairy tale in quality (a quest, a ring, the destruction of an immortal evil, etc.). Tolkien was strident, almost vehement, that LotR was not allegorical to WWI or WWII, and for good reason. It has nothing to do with real world conflicts; rather, it has everything to do with Faery and a rousing tale on the grand scale.

8. LotR was written initially as a sequel to The Hobbit, as required by his publishers. Tolkien, of course, pushed the envelope in his own inimitable manner, and forced through integral elements of his own beloved mythology. The Hobbit was always a children's book, and whereas LotR is less so, it is still within the realm of being read to children without requiring censors and expletive deletions.

9. His prose was considered archaic in style even when it was first published (and almost alien to the bulk of fiction produced in the 40's and 50's). Such attention to classical form leads inevitably to the death speeches (Shakespeare's plays are chock full of them), the lack of viciousness and sanguineness in the noble characters (like Aragorn or Faramir), the inevitable fall of evil characters, and the many tragic heroes in Tolkien's work that follow the Greek example (Turin and Boromir as prime examples). There is nothing 'modern' in Tolkien's writing.

10. And finally, adding graphic realism to Lord of the Rings would not necessarily make it better, make it more interesting, or more endearing. Again, in order to emphasize what should be obvious, it would eliminate any preteen reader from the book's near universal demographic appeal; and thus, the element of wonder and timeless appeal of the books would be sadly diminished.

P.S. Here's another: compare Lord of the Rings to the Silmarillion. The Sil is much darker, violent and Oedipal, but it is still purged of the gross in a classical manner. Nevertheless, The Silmarillion, an early Tolkien work, was not published until 1977 when such a tale (or series of tales) could find a readership that perhaps it could not have reached had it been published prior to Lord of the Rings. In any case, Tolkien's publishers did not show much enthusiasm regarding the project. They wanted The Hobbit II, not Hurin impregnating his sister.