Further thoughts: race as a literary device

I went to the theater this weekend after stumbling upon a movie review by an author for whose views I have tremendous respect. The film in question: District 9. I never saw any advertisements for this film, nor even heard about it before reading the review. But once I'd finished the article I was determined to see it and was not disappointed.

I'll not go into a plot synopsis here (Latham details it much better than I could); suffice it to say, though, District 9 is a film about racism. I was awed at how, as I watched the persecution of aliens during its run, I was constantly reminded of the horrors of our own history. It was not so long ago that we treated our fellow human beings this way. In some ways, we still do.

One particular scene that struck me was when Wikus, an agent of a private military chosen to serve eviction notices to the aliens living in District 9, discovers a shack full of Prawn eggs. He details what an exciting find it is, then proceeds to kill the eggs, burning down the shack around it, laughing as he hears the screams of the prawn larva. As I watched that scene, I admit, I almost cried. And then I began to wonder: why was it so powerful to see the slaughter of something so repulsive, so emphatically inhuman?

The purpose of non-human life in good fiction is solely to reflect humanity in a distilled form. Whether it's the alien wretches of District 9 showing us the poor and destitute of Africa or the etherial elves of Tolkien showing us the beauty and potential of a race in harmony with the earth, we are always looking into a mirror. When we see the friendship of Legolas and Gimli, we see the reconciliation of the traditional and the mystical. When we see the journey of Frodo we see the cost of goodness. When we hear the cries of the alien larva, we hear the cries of children of the genocides in Rwanda and Uganda.

We see both the beautiful and the wretched reflected in the depictions of non-humans in fiction. We want to embrace some and ignore the rest, like Ebenezer Scrooge, happy to see the merry-making, but begging the Ghost of Christmas Present to remove Ingorance and Want from our sight. But it's essential that we look at both and not forsake one for the other. Humanity is a beautiful thing, but it is also a terrible one. It is only in seeing ourselves in the mirror that we can examine who we truly are and how we might grow. Good fiction will constantly hold that mirror up.

Influences, Part 4

Technology never solved any of our real problems. The moment we squash one, another pops up. We praise ourselves for defeating polio only to see the disease morph and avoid our vaccines. We congratulate ourselves on decreasing the amount of backbreaking work present in our daily lives only to fear heart disease and obesity. We thwart terrorist attacks only to infringe on personal liberties. Beyond that, we just use our new sciences to fuel our old fires of hatred.

The advent of modernism, I think, demonstrated this extremely clearly. Remember the eugenics movement? This "science" was used to perpetuate racism and to shirk off social responsibility. Its most disastrous use was its role in the Holocaust, when it was used to "prove" the inferiority of Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals, among others. Those who assumed these people were inferior determined the genetic traits they didn't want society to have, rounded up those who represented them, and quarantined or killed them. Were they simply weeding out undesirable elements as the cold logic of science dictated? Or were they using flawed logic that supported their hatred? Germany had already begun to hate Jews and gypsies before eugenics made its appearance on the scientific state, so it seems the use of eugenics to prove the inferiority of the Jews was quite convenient.

Peace, it seems, never comes to man. We've fought countless wars and yet can never quench our thirst for violence. World War I was called by some "the war to end all wars". It didn't of course. Today we find ourselves mired in combat with those in the Middle East who simply want to rule themselves instead of being at the mercy of every other nation in a tumultuous region, or being sliced up and handed over to oil companies. We generate doctrines of hate against those who want the same thing as America wanted when it declared its independence from England: freedom from oppressive lands across the sea. We cry for (nuclear!) war against Iran simply because they hate us, yet we think we are justified in our hatred towards them. Despite all this, rather than settle our differences with words and thoughtful understanding, tools we have had since the dawn of man, we rush to kill others with our new weapons of war.

If I say I want Shadows & Silver to be realistic, it's because the real world offers the epic, tragic conflict of which fantasy novelists can only dream. Reality, then, is the primary influence on my fiction.

Influences, Part 3

Today we'll tackle some of the influences on Shadows & Silver's style. Remember, theme (what we have mostly talked about thus far) is what you want to say; style is how you say it. I've already made the basic stylistic decision of having this setting be one of early industrial technology and have decided that this is one of the primary causes of the discouragement on which the main theme hinges. While I could rant on and on about how technology has made us forget our spiritual selves, I'll summarize with this statement: we err when we attempt to solve our problems with technological knowledge because we treat symptoms rather than the cause. I may explain a little later what I mean by this, but for now we'll see what has influenced me in my concept of the destructiveness of technology.

Nowhere is my point better made than in mainstream fantasy. Most of these works deal with generic medieval worlds where the conflicts are easily separated into us versus them, good versus evil. The hero is a shining knight going to rescue a fair maiden in distress. Or perhaps he is an outcast from an evil society who has thrown off the ways of his people. Regardless, the world of the Middle Ages is highly romanticized. Is that bad? No. If anything, it supports the idealistic view of the world that I'd like to promote in my work, even if it's the sort of idealism you just conjure up so the horrors of the real world don't drive you insane.

The height of this romanticism can be found in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, which captures, in the struggle of the hobbits to destroy the One Ring, the necessity of throwing off the evils of modern society. Tolkien's work, while heavily influenced by Germanic and Norse folklore, was largely a reaction to Industrialization, culminating in the catastrophes of the second World War (hence the theme of the book, "How can the world return to the way it was after so much bad has happened?"). Though the Ring was destroyed, its influence was not removed from Middle Earth. Even the beautiful Shire was corrupted. We can liken the Ring to many modern ills, and many have done so. From Nazism to the atomic bomb, it's all been suggested. But for Tolkien, the Ring represented the machine and the way of life machines represent. He watched as England's lovely rural countryside was replaced by smokestacks billowing clouds of wretched smog, and all he could think of were the orcs tearing down trees and building their machines of war. How he wished we could return to the age when magic and beauty were bountiful, when men's lives were not dictated by the clanking of cogs and the beating of war drums!

I want Shadows & Silver to model this, to truly show the disease technology brings upon the world. And yet, there is so much good that it brings. It increases production, raises the standards of living, and increases health. Well, it does when it's used responsibly. But in the last hundred years we have seen our world racked with war, and the greatest advances of our time are those things designed as weapons. This is because technology is a means to an end, and if we devote ourselves to the end of obtaining wealth and power, then technology will only serve to increase our misery. The key, then, is to keep a spirit of childlike idealism, to use technology in a way that benefits mankind as a whole, to ignore our own selfish desires, and to hold the hope for a brighter tomorrow. In Shadows & Silver, as in our world, few are so enlightened.

Influences, Part 2

Last time I posted a fairly lengthy observation on how to incorporate influences from other works into your setting, but I ran out of time to write out some of the influences I want to incorporate into my setting. Let's do that now.

One of the basic elements I want in my setting is that of a gritty environment in which realism is practically forced on its denizens. The reason for this is that it causes the reader to retreat into idealism as a natural reaction: when he sees tragedy, he will immediately wonder why the characters simply treat it as the way of life. For the game world, it also ensures that players will have a goal: make things better (if not for others, then for themselves). People in this world may want life to get better, but no one expects it to. Part of grit is the realization that things can always get worse.

Now what works do I know of that show this sort of setting? The first that comes to mind is the game The Witcher, based on a series of novels by Andrzej Sapkowski. While I haven't been able to play it yet (damn that bugged system requirements check!), it shows a world similar to the one I'd like to model. The primary theme is that there is no black and white morality, that everything exists in shades of grey. This is a large leap from most fantasy, and it's something I've already stated that I would like to portray. One of the primary ways in which The Witcher shows the shades of grey in the world is with the deceitfulness of appearances. Just because someone looks monstrous doesn't mean he is evil, and just because he is beautiful doesn't mean he is good. People have realistic desires, goals, and behaviors that can't be quantified with a simple good/evil alignment. Another way in which The Witcher supports this theme is through the pragmatic approach to life Geralt must embrace. The world is a hard place, full of suffering and fear, and he does what he must to stay alive; sometimes that means hurting others to get what he needs.

I can apply both of these concepts to my setting. Sure, characters in the setting (or players in the game world) may choose to look at the world as one of absolutes, but that doesn't mean it's how things are. The world is gritty, and you've got to fight for your place in it because the universe isn't going to spontaneously reward you for longsuffering. Trying to swing the balance of the world in favor of good or evil yields unexpected consequences, because the world isn't run by forces of good or evil. The human desire to compartmentalize everything that goes on will lead to frustration and disillusionment once characters realize the world only exists in shades of grey. Whether the reader (or player) also becomes disillusioned is up to him.

Another work that has influenced me a lot is the anime series Fullmetal Alchemist. The mantra of the series is the law of Equivalent Exchange:

"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange."

But equivalency goes beyond just a law of alchemy. It's something that applies to everything in the world. If you want something, you've got to give something up. It's a dark message throughout the series; happiness comes at a terrible cost. Towards the end, the Elric brothers realize that the law doesn't seem to always be satisfied. Many people suffer loss with no reward, pain with no pleasure, sorrow with no happiness. Ultimately, though, their idealism wins out:

"The world isn't perfect, and the law is incomplete. Equivalent Exchange doesn't encompass everything that goes on here. But I still choose to believe in its principle: that all things do come at a price. That there's an ebb, and a flow, a cycle. That the pain we went through did have a reward and that anyone who's determined and perseveres will get something of value in return, even if it's not what they expected."

I like this concept because it represents a question that always comes up when people get discouraged. People often ask, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" or "Why am I still poor when I've worked so hard?" Belief, whether conscious or no, in a law of Equivalent Exchange always leaves people discouraged when they don't get the results they wished for. I like that after all the Elric brothers come through in the series, they still arrive at an idealistic conclusion. It's what I'd like to see happen with the characters in my stories.

So how have these themes influenced my setting? Well, I know that the world is a dark and gritty place where you have to struggle to survive. The problem is, you're not always rewarded for your efforts - at least, not in the way you expect. Those who keep hope, though, may see a higher purpose if they look long and hard enough, and they'll realize that all their suffering was not in vain. Of course, that happy ending is reserved for those who persevere in spite of all the horrid things that happen, those who maintain their idealism in the face of discouragement.

Next time we'll look at some more influences, specifically those that affect the style rather than theme.

Influences, Part 1

It is said that imitation is the highest form of flattery. In writing, you often want to pay homage to those who have created works you love. Figuring out how not to plagiarize can be tricky, though, and if you're not careful, you'll end up with a derivative work.

Take the following book concepts, for instance. In the first, a young farm boy who was raised by his uncle finds that he is destined to revive an ancient warrior caste that once brought peace and justice to all lands. The caste was betrayed, as he finds out, by his own father, a fellow warrior, at the behest of one who has now been made emperor. It's up to the farm boy turned hero to right the wrongs and overcome his father's failure. In the second, a fellowship of humans, elves, and dwarves has to keep an evil overlord from capturing an artifact that they miraculously stole from him. In the third, a world is protected by dragon-riding knights who have telepathic links to their mounts.

Know the stories? If you guessed Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and the Dragonriders of Pern... you're wrong. It's one story called Eragon, written by Christopher Paolini, a boy who apparently has no concept of original storylines. Remarkably, it has succeeded in the marketplace, and has even had a movie made from it. So if it was so successful, why should anyone try to come up with an original idea if they can model Paolini and rehash all the story elements they like best?

The answer is simple. These stories have nothing to say. They only pander to readers that care nothing about message and want only a diversion for a few hours while they read. If you want to simply provide an escape, go with the tried and true. But if you want people to remember what you said, you'd better be saying something important, something people have never heard before, or that they have never heard in the way you want to say it.

How, then, do you avoid Paolini's mistake? One key is to focus on themes rather than plots. Remember, a theme is a message you are trying to communicate; a plot is a conflict that is resolved in the work. Themes are inherently more important than plots because they deal with conflicts that go beyond the storyline of the work. For example, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest deals with the conflict of independent man versus the "Combine," socialist conformists. The work goes far beyond whether or not McMurphy can overcome Nurse Ratched; it asks the readers if they can overcome society's pressures. One need not rely on the plot and stylistic devices of Kesey's work to write a similar work. The key lies in the theme.

Decide what themes beyond your primary message you want to address. What works express these themes? How do they do it? How well do they do it? (If you are having trouble deciding on the themes, think of some works that you treasure. What themes are these works expressing that cause you to love them so much? The Lord of the Rings deals with corruption and redemption in its subplot of Gollum and Frodo's interaction. In Fullmetal Alchemist, the Elric brothers are frequently confronted with the cost of power. Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea deals with the battle against the self.) List the differences and similarities in the ways these works handle your chosen themes. What methods resonate the most in your mind? How can you improve on such thematic devices or suit them to your work? How can you make them work toward a unified story?

This is a lot to think about, and I've barely even begun to sift through the massive number of works I want to emulate. Next time we'll follow this method I've laid out and work through some of the stories I want to influence my writing.