Fantasy

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Bb

Tolkien, much earlier than most of us, came face to face with contemplating the tentativeness of life and the certainty of his own death. In response, he seems to have devoted his creative life to exploring the quality of goodness and the preciousness of life.

Can he really do that thoroughly without showing us the true effects of war/violence though? We don't actually meet those little Hobbits from the Shire who lost their lives in the Battle of Bywater, and nor do we know how they lost their lives. They're just a faceless statistic written up on a memorial.

I know I'm going back to what davem has been arguing, but I do think that we aren't able to fully comprehend their sacrifice unless we either know a little of them or the way they died.

[davem]

This quote from crime novelist David Peace is maybe worth considering. He says:

"Crime is brutal, harrowing and devastating for everyone involved, and crime fiction should be every bit as brutal, harrowing and devastating as the violence of the reality it seeks to document. Anything less at best sanitises crime and its effects, at worst trivialises it. Anything more exploits other people's misery as purely vicarious entertainment. It is a very, very fine line."

Substitute 'war' for 'crime' here & we have a nice encapsulation of the argument:

"War is brutal, harrowing and devastating for everyone involved, and war fiction should be every bit as brutal, harrowing and devastating as the violence of the reality it seeks to document. Anything less at best sanitises war and its effects, at worst trivialises it. Anything more exploits other people's misery as purely vicarious entertainment. It is a very, very fine line."

[alatar]

Originally Posted by davem

"X is brutal, harrowing and devastating for everyone involved, and X fiction should be every bit as brutal, harrowing and devastating as the violence of the reality it seeks to document. Anything less at best sanitises X and its effects, at worst trivialises it. Anything more exploits other people's misery as purely vicarious entertainment. It is a very, very fine line."

Also substitute love, romance, child-rearing, changing nappies, discussing reality with a teenager, life, football, and discussing fantasy for X as well...

Even Steven King, known to be just a little on the verbose side, can't capture *everything*, to everyone's satisfaction and adequate to everyone's experience. There are, perhaps, hundreds upon hundreds of allusions in LotR to things British that I as a 'Merican have no appreciation for (like how best to refer to all things British). Should Tolkien have wasted extra pages to explain why anyone would care to smoke a pipe, drink tea when not ill or not iced, stay at an inn or eat at a pub (an interesting experience when I was there), or -gasp- farm?

P.S. Note to davem and Lalwendë: Had a dream the other night - must have been reading the Downs before falling off to sleep. Anyway, in a dream that was just a collection of odd thoughts, remember meeting your children, and saying hi, though that makes no sense at all.

[davem]

Originally Posted by alatar

Also substitute love, romance, child-rearing, changing nappies, discussing reality with a teenager, life, football, and discussing fantasy for X as well...

Even Steven King, known to be just a little on the verbose side, can't capture *everything*, to everyone's satisfaction and adequate to everyone's experience.

Its still a question of whether one depicts 'X' honestly, not whether one depicts it in graphic detail....

There are, perhaps, hundreds upon hundreds of allusions in LotR to things British that I as a 'Merican have no appreciation for (like how best to refer to all things British).

Allusions to things English, surely......

[alatar]

Originally Posted by davem

Its still a question of whether one depicts 'X' honestly, not whether one depicts it in graphic detail....

Much agreed. Rose Cotton had babies, and thankfully we're spared the details of little Elanor the Fair's entrance into the world. Or should we read about that as well?

Allusions to things English, surely......

I wasn't talking about our common language...but of that country Tolkien lived in (never knew that it was called Englishland ).

[davem]

Originally Posted by alatar

I wasn't talking about our common language...but of that country Tolkien lived in (never knew that it was called Englishland ).

Tolkien lived in England (from Engla Land, land of the Angelcynn -

England
From: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology | Date: 1996 | Author: | © The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology 1996, originally published by Oxford University Press 1996. (Hide copyright information) Copyright information

England OE. Engla land (orig.) country of the Angles (see ANGLE), (later) of the Germanic inhabitants of Great Britain; hence OFris. Angelond, OS. (Du.) Engeland, (O)HG., Icel., etc. England.
So English OE. englisċ pert. to the group of Germanic peoples known coll. as Angelcynn, lit. ‘race of Angles’; also adj. and sb., of their language. Hence Englishman OE. Englisċmon. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O27-England.html

)

[alatar]

Originally Posted by davem

Tolkien lived in England (from Engla Land, land of the Angelcynn

I'm very sorry; retention of such geographical knowledge will surely get me escorted to the border...and I'm not really that fond of the weather in Argentina.

alatar is off to have that last post removed from memory

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Can he really do that thoroughly without showing us the true effects of war/violence though? We don't actually meet those little Hobbits from the Shire who lost their lives in the Battle of Bywater, and nor do we know how they lost their lives. They're just a faceless statistic written up on a memorial.

Interesting perspective on remembrance there. You might pause to consider the responses to the Viet Nam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. and then the responses to the statue built to satisfy those who demand realism in art.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Interesting perspective on remembrance there. You might pause to consider the responses to the Viet Nam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. and then the responses to the statue built to satisfy those who demand realism in art.

Ah, but then there are also Banksy's photo-realistic 'additions' to brutalist concrete buildings, aren't there?

Originally Posted by davem

Tolkien lived in England (from Engla Land, land of the Angelcynn

I always thought "Engla land" was a term penned by Keith Allen for the New Order/England World Cup Squad song World In Motion

Originally Posted by alatar

Also substitute love, romance, child-rearing, changing nappies, discussing reality with a teenager, life, football, and discussing fantasy for X as well...

But nappy changing isn't a big 'theme' of the text is it? If you are trying to 'teach' your audience about something then it helps to emphasise that lesson, I find, with good examples. So if Tolkien was trying to teach us about how War is a bad and brutal thing, then shouldn't he show us it is brutal, either by describing the brutality or by showing how war tends to kill those we have got to know and care for. He doesn't do either of those (not many 'good' characters do die, after all) - I don't mind which he chose, but it would have helped.

So then that begs a question - was he trying to teach us any kind of lesson at all?

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

So then that begs a question - was he trying to teach us any kind of lesson at all?

Exactly! Maybe he skipped over all of the real life gore and mud because he wanted to, maybe not so much in the way of the lesson, show a world where even war wasn't as ugly, and that the good prevail, and that hope springs eternal.

And isn't that what fantasy's all about? Escape from reality?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by alatar

Exactly! Maybe he skipped over all of the real life gore and mud because he wanted to, maybe not so much in the way of the lesson, show a world where even war wasn't as ugly, and that the good prevail, and that hope springs eternal.

And isn't that what fantasy's all about? Escape from reality?

But if war wasn't that ugly, then this sets up all kinds of moral cans of worms. Doesn't it?

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

But if war wasn't that ugly, then this sets up all kinds of moral cans of worms. Doesn't it?

Are we back to talking about romance? Surely at least one of my daughters will end up dating or even marrying a troll, who, unlike Beren or Aragorn, will treat her poorly, if hopefully nothing worse.

Maybe the books should be printed with disclaimers such as:

This is a fiction/fantasy book, and the characters and events herein do not accurately represent reality as most know it - your experiences may vary.

[Lalwendë]

Hmmm, just that if we have a book (or any other kind of Art or entertainment) which shows war as 'not that bad, really', then hasn't it crossed a boundary? Even in video games where you can hack, slash and do what you like with glee, there isn't any sense that doing this stuff is in any way alright. It always hurts somebody.

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

I like that disclaimer, alatar. When it comes to depictions of "realism," I don't need graphic details of word or image to understand the reality. When I hear that a bomb struck a building full of people, for instance, I don't need to be told the details of what happened to the building and their bodies to know the kind of carnage that ensued, and feel horrified by it. Perhaps other people do. In fantasy, I might need to be told what the effects of a magic "blast" may be, since magic can operate under whatever laws the author wants, and have the results the author desires. But Tolkien's battles were not written as magical battles, and thus I can reasonably presume that their brutality and the results would be much the same as similarly fought battles in the real world.

As to the kind of story Tolkien was attempting to tell, in letter 183, he says:

In The Lord of the Rings the conflict is not basically about 'freedom', though that is naturally involved. It is about God, and His sole right to divine honour.

As this letter is a response to W. H. Auden's review of RotK, it is long and has many things to say; in particular, Tolkien writes at some length about good and evil, motivations, and such. But he ends the letter with an interesting observation:

So I feel that the fiddle-faddle in reviews, and correspondence about them, as to whether my 'good people' were kind and merciful and gave quarter (in fact they do), or not, is quite beside the point. Some critics seem determined to represent me as a simple-minded adolescent, inspired with, say, a With-the-flag-to-Pretoria spirit, and willfully distort what is said in my tale. I have not that spirit, and it does not appear in the story. The figure of Denethor alone is enough to show this; but I have not made any of the peoples on the 'right' side, Hobbits, Rohirrim, Men of Dale or Gondor, any better than men have been, or are, or can be. Mine is not an 'imaginary' world, but an imaginary historical moment on 'Middle-earth' -- which is our habitation.

[davem]

Originally Posted by alatar

Exactly! Maybe he skipped over all of the real life gore and mud because he wanted to, maybe not so much in the way of the lesson, show a world where even war wasn't as ugly, and that the good prevail, and that hope springs eternal.

And isn't that what fantasy's all about? Escape from reality?

And Tolkien's opinion:

Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific verity. On the contrary. The keener and the clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make. If men were ever in a state in which they did not want to know or could not perceive truth (facts or evidence), then Fantasy would languish until they were cured. If they ever get into that state (it would not seem at all impossible), Fantasy will perish, and become Morbid Delusion. For creative Fantasy is founded upon the hard recognition that things are so in the world as it appears under the sun; on a recognition of fact, but not a slavery to it. So upon logic was founded the nonsense that displays itself in the tales and rhymes of Lewis Carroll. If men really could not distinguish between frogs and men, fairy-stories about frog-kings would not have arisen. OFS

For Tolkien fantasy is not an 'anything goes' genre. It has its basis in, is founded on, primary world reality. It does not reject scientific fact - where it departs from them it does so for logical reasons -

"If men were ever in a state in which they did not want to know or could not perceive truth (facts or evidence), then Fantasy would languish until they were cured. If they ever get into that state (it would not seem at all impossible), Fantasy will perish, and become Morbid Delusion."

Tolkienian fantasy has its basis in cold hard facts - it is not an anything goes genre. If it was he would not have spent so much of his life creating Middle-earth. Hence, when such 'cold, hard facts' are omitted they are omitted for a reason. A world 'where war isn't ugly' is a world which is not based on the 'cold hard facts' that Tolkien insists on. In fact, such a world is exactly the kind of 'morbid delusion' that he condemns.

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.OFS

Originally Posted by Ibrîniðilpathânezel

I like that disclaimer, alatar. When it comes to depictions of "realism," I don't need graphic details of word or image to understand the reality. When I hear that a bomb struck a building full of people, for instance, I don't need to be told the details of what happened to the building and their bodies to know the kind of carnage that ensued, and feel horrified by it. Perhaps other people do.

But what if a writer included such an event in his story, but implied that the people died quickly & peacefully, & left behind neat, unmutilated corpses?

One can certainly write about an invented world where Pixies ride around on purple unicorns & the sun shines all day long & no-one is ever unhappy. And that would be 'fantasy' as well. But it wouldn't be Tolkienian fantasy. When one chooses to write about war, about battlefields, about men killing each other, then doesn't one have (if one is writing Tolkienian fantasy, with its roots in cold hard facts & 'the perception of scientific verity' & where if the sun is green its green-ness must be given a justification) an obligation to ground that killing & dying in cold hard facts as well?

[alatar]

Originally Posted by davem

For Tolkien fantasy is not an 'anything goes' genre. It has its basis in, is founded on, primary world reality. It does not reject scientific fact - where it departs from them it does so for logical reasons

Understood.

Tolkienian fantasy has its basis in cold hard facts - it is not an anything goes genre. If it was he would not have spent so much of his life creating Middle-earth. Hence, when such 'cold, hard facts' are omitted they are omitted for a reason. A world 'where war isn't ugly' is a world which is not based on the 'cold hard facts' that Tolkien insists on. In fact, such a world is exactly the kind of 'morbid delusion' that he condemns.

Show me once (I'm probably setting myself up for a big dose of stupid ) where any character, especially an elf, voids itself of what cannot be digested, metabolized or is the product of symbiotic bacteria in the gut, if you know what I'm saying. Sure is a lot of eatin' and drinkin' in Tolkien's world, yet his light never shines on the subsequent requisite activity. Think that we all know that it's there, but somehow don't mind that it was left to our imagining.

How long a walk was it from Rivendell to the Bridge in the Mines of Moria? Was the Balrog brought down by magic or halitosis? Sure, Gollum is said to have stank, but me I'd rather be upwind of the Nine Walkers after such a long trip as well.

But you're going to tell me that, along with the dying moaning soldier lying om the Pelennor in blood, offal and other words whose meanings I'm not quite sure of, you thought about other biological realities of any or many of the main characters?

Now I get what y'all are saying, seeing that maybe, just maybe, Tolkien was glorifying war because he wasn't gorifying it. But maybe that's you. Me, the scene where Sam sees the dead man in Ithilien speaks loudly.

And just how much better was Jackson's depiction? Would anyone be more or less 'rah-rah' after watching the movies (which depict a few suffering souls) or reading the books?

[davem]

Originally Posted by alatar

And just how much better was Jackson's depiction? Would anyone be more or less 'rah-rah' after watching the movies (which depict a few suffering souls) or reading the books?

Remember what I posted earlier -

"War is brutal, harrowing and devastating for everyone involved, and war fiction should be every bit as brutal, harrowing and devastating as the violence of the reality it seeks to document. Anything less at best sanitises war and its effects, at worst trivialises it. Anything more exploits other people's misery as purely vicarious entertainment. It is a very, very fine line."

I'd say Tolkien too often falls to the former side of the line, Jackson too often to the latter.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by davem

But what if a writer included such an event in his story, but implied that the people died quickly & peacefully, & left behind neat, unmutilated corpses?

Consider that in Tolkien's world, unlike our own, Men (i.e. humans), like other creatures in his world, started off in a state much above where we find ourselves today. Think about it - the Edain lived much longer than we could ever hope (at this present time), could fight with and alongside magical creatures, and some, if they stayed true, at the end of their days could lay down their lives in peace, giving back the gift.

We in this world have trodden a different course, where we now live longer than ever before, live and maybe one day even fight alongside seemingly magical technologies, and can, if legally available, lay down our lives peaceable at the end of our days. It was not always so.

So if in Tolkien world we have devolved from the heroes of old, and if the ability to lay down one's life was previously available, how do we know that the soldiery in, say, the Third Age, when fatally injured on the battle, just 'turned off,' after uttering some pro-Gondorian salute?

"May the King return!"

These soldiers may have not enough of the pure blood to die when at home, but in extremis, like after being hacked half to death by some orcs with less-than-sharp implements, would find the ability within (or maybe Eru would grant the ability at that moment, or maybe they would hear Ulmo telling them how to do it in all of the perspiration around).

It is we, less noble and possible intermingled with orcs - genetically or psychologically - that in later years have cried out and moaned upon the battlefield.

[davem]

Originally Posted by alatar

So if in Tolkien world we have devolved from the heroes of old, and if the ability to lay down one's life was previously available, how do we know that the soldiery in, say, the Third Age, when fatally injured on the battle, just 'turned off,' after uttering some pro-Gondorian salute?

"May the King return!"

.

Because Tolkien never mentions anything of the sort. One might as well offer up the explanation that Earedel hovered invisibly over the battlefields & teleported the corpses off the field. Or that lots of carnivorous butterflies alighted on the bodies & ate them.

What you're doing, it seems to me, is inventing an 'explanation' for which there's no textual support in order to avoid the difficulties in the story. The simplest explanation is that Tolkien decided not to deal with the actual, unpleasant realities of warfare (& other things) because he didn't want such things in his story. The question is whether he was justified in doing that?

And further, if Tolkien is justified in doing that, because he is 'subcreating' a secondary world, how can one condemn, say, Philip Pullman for presenting us with a God who is a senile old fake, or any writer creating a secondary world in which black people are sub-human, rape is fun for all concerned, or mass murder of jews is a moral act?

OK - I've taken extreme examples there, but that's what it comes down to - does the fantasy genre permit any degree of 'invention' on a writer's part? I'm fairly sure that many who would defend Tolkien's right to omit the 'unpleasant' realities of death in battle in Middle-earth, would condemn Pullman's depiction of God - not simply as 'offensive' but also as untrue....

Because, we either say that fantasy as a genre allows total freedom to a writer to depict any kind of world they wish & we, as readers, must not question that right, or we accept that we do have a right to question the choices a writer of fantasy makes, the omissions & inclusions.