Interesting Links for 25-08-2022

[andrewducker]

1. Historical Accuracy and Fantasy

(tags:fantasy history writing )

2. The Sandman Is the Biggest Streaming Show on the Planet

(tags:sandman TV )

3. How ordinary, or even good, people can become radicalised

(tags:bigotry LGBT transgender )

4. Sewage in sea: French appeal to EU over UK discharges of waste

(tags:waste france uk water )

5. LGBTQ+ YA genre rises in popularity despite uptick in book bans

(tags:lgbt publishing books censorship )

Comments

[nancylebov]

3. There were some things that were a little off about the Harry Potter books, but nothing nearly as nasty as Rowling's anti-trans material.

[simont]

#5: are they sure they mean despite, and not because of?

The age group that YA books are aimed at is surely proverbially the one that is more inclined to do a thing if you forbid it, after all.

[danieldwilliam]

1) More generally on this I recently read Avar Gat's War and Human Civilisation and the first part of that convinced me that human beings in a state of nature are intrinsically pretty unpleasant mostly to each other humans. Very much so during the hunter-gather phase of human pre-history and to a slightly lesser (or perhaps just different) extent after the agrarian Neolithic revolution and thhat this unpleasantness has only been diminished by the on-going processes of civilation and abundence.

I'm entirely open to the argument that if you are writing speculative fiction you are not beholden to "historical accuracy" but I think if you are creating a world where the economic system is agrarian then I think you need to have considered how and why humans are not incentived to be nasty to each other. Or to soften my stance, stories about how and why humans in agrarian societies are fundamentally inclined to the violent control of resources would be interesting speculative fiction.

[andrewducker]

It depends very much on what you choose to focus on and write about. Are you writing five page paeans to dysentery, or are you choosing to focus on the things you think make the best story?

There's a distinct lack of rape in The Lord of The Rings, and I don't remember it suffering from that.

So sure, include some, if you choose to. But remember that it's a choice, and think about why you're doing so and what you're trying to say.

[danieldwilliam]

That choice of focus is, um, obviously an authorial choice for sure.

Although the Lord of Rings could be viewed as a plot driven by the security dilemma and how that is deformed in agrarian societies as represented by the One Ring.

[calimac]

1) I find the idea that you don't have to worry about accuracy because it's fantasy to be disingenuous. "It doesn't matter if my heroes ride horses that can run 500 miles in 3 days: it's a fantasy!" "I don't have to worry about carrying supplies: it's a fantasy!"

No: realism in those elements not specifically designated as fantastic helps ground your fantasy and make it believable to the reader.

Now as far as historical accuracy is concerned, its relevance to a fictional history is to ensure that you're depicting naturalistic human behavior. Given a situation parallel to one existing in primary-world history, people are going to react the way they did then, or you need to work out why they didn't. If you want a medievalish society that isn't misogynistic, you can do that, but if you don't work out how and why they overcame that, it will look unreal and your story will lose its grounding.

What this discussion has been going off onto is two different matters: 1) the actual historical accuracy of "historical accuracy" arguments; 2) completeness. It's not necessary to depict everything, particularly if you're writing a romance rather than a novel. The Lord of the Rings is very careful about the logistics of movement; when its horses are magical it says so; and it mostly - not entirely! there are some hidden references! - leaves out potty breaks because it's just not necessary for the story.

[adrian_turtle]

I agree that it can be frighteningly easy for a decent person to be lured into supporting evil. Propaganda is powerful. Lonely people can fall among evil companions all too easily. People who are frightened and confused don't think clearly, and it's easy to lie to them.

I don't think JK Rowling is a good example of a good person who was lured into radicalism. 25 years ago, she wrote about destiny being determined by birth. Like Orson Scott Card, she wrote stories about how if somebody's birth was right, no amount of bad actions can make them a bad person. It's a very common setup for fantasy. I grew up believing it, myself. But I really think I had to stop believing it to become a decent person.

[haggis]

I remember being really confused by the SPEW storyline in Goblet Of Fire. Hermione and Harry discover that the wizarding world has a hidden underclass of slaves. Hermione's reaction is treated as being OTT and cringeworthy. I kept thinking that I was missing something but the seeds of JKR's bigotry were always there

[haggis]

I am more forgiving of the biologically determined Chosen One trope because it is really common in fantasy literature and really appeals to teenagers feeling misunderstood.

Similarly the deep veins of fatphobia and misogyny in her work because those things are so common in society. But the SPEW thing was so directly against the general moral consensus, where we all like to picture ourselves as fighting against slavery and oppression, that it really stuck out to me.

[anna_wing]

It has been a long time since I read Goblet of Fire, but I remember thinking that the wizarding world's response to Hermione's attempts to help the house-elves was very realistic. Hermione is a very young, very naive individual in a society profoundly alien to her, about which she knows very little, and in which her status is very low; she is trying to challenge a deeply ingrained cultural practice of that society, because of her personal values that that society does not share. Of course she would be mocked and ridiculed.

[naath]

the world in general, sure, but her friends too?