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Comments
I'm not saying all fantasy should be that way, but there's room for more idyllic stuff next to the unpleasant.
Despite everything, I still think that the main purpose of art is art in itself. While raising awareness on injustice is certainly welcome, it should never conflict with the primary goal, and heavyhanded, unsubtle moralizing tends to ruin the story. There is a reason why social realist literature generally isn't held in very high regard, and the reason is that its purely didactical approach to the work's theme automatically destroys any depth the work may have.
But there are so many OTHER ways to portray a shitty world, though.
When portraying a shitty world, there is ALWAYS something that would make someone uncomfortable. If we take all of it away, it isn't a shitty world anymore.
Honestly, I'd be more concerned with works that portray modern Earth as having really offensive everyday gender attitudes or whatever than with works that do so in fantasy worlds.
...you know, I think calling "medieval fantasy where women are treated like shit" cliche is kind of narrow.
It would be more "medieval fantasy" is cliche.
Hello, my name is Flyboy. Who are you, and where have you been? It must be nothing like reality, I'll say.
Hmmm, I dunno. Got any specific examples?
Can you provide an example? Because believe me, reality is probably much worse than whatever fairy tale you think is the truth.
On this whole "medieval fiction" thing, I also find that a lot of post-modern interpretation of the period is ridiculously cynical. It doesn't surprise me, mind, after the altogether too generous interpretations presented by Victorian historians and the general tendency of people to collectively move towards extremes of interpretations. But still. It bothers me. I very, very much doubt medieval life was as nasty as George R.R. Martin portrays it as. That's kind of just stupid, ridiculous levels of dark sometimes.
^ And what special experience has brought you to that conclusion? A good handful of us are older and more experienced than yourself, and others come from different conditions. Juan and Milos, for instance, live in developing nations and neither are as negative as you are. Nova's been through some pretty horrific stuff, and I've seen some friends in some pretty awful places. Hell, there was a time I thought I might have to kill someone because I was afraid and trapped in an abandoned industrial building and expecting said person to come with violence on their mind.
Collectively, we have seen some shit. Pretty minor shit compared to some, but all the same, we're well enough acquainted with reality to make our own observations and comment on the bad and good.
Look, you're a teenager. Nothing against teenagers in particular, because some of you guys are my favourite people and many of you haven't hit the 2-0 yet. But in most cases, there's not a whole lot of life experience there. I'm only 22, and I have a lot to learn about a lot of different stuff. And I admit it, like many of the people here who are younger than me. And I will always trust the wisdom of those who admit the gaps in their knowledge over those who claim to know so much with so little experience. People who are willing to learn are interested in knowing the truth of matters, so I can trust people who admit to the holes in their knowledge to provide me with what truth they have with as little bias as possible.
The thing is, Flyboy, you're, what? Seventeen? Eighteen? And you're talking like a conspiracy theorist -- "whatever fairy tale you think is the truth" -- and I can't help but doubt your perspective when you seem so completely convinced of your own knowledge when it's set against much more rounded perspectives from wiser people. And you're setting yourself for a fall. Trust me on this one. Because those so convinced of themselves so young have little reason to try and improve, and that was one of the biggest mistakes of my own teen years. Some humility will make you stronger and wiser.
The Stormlight Archives has extreme gender segregation. Only men are allowed to be soldiers, for example; while only women are allowed to be scholars and scribes. Kaladin, one of the main characters, is occasionally looked down upon by everyone because of his training as a surgeon at the hands of his father because it is seen as an 'unmanly' talent, even though he is also an extremely skilled soldier. (Unless I'm misremembering this one, as it might have been a class issue rather than a gender segregation issue. My other points still stand, though.)
The segregation is so extreme that... well, here's a quote from the author himself.
I don't think Tom Hansen is a mysoginistic nice guy but he does have feelings of entitlement. Like the blind-date, he is not only not caring about the girl he was set up with, when she provides detached insight on his problem he just dismissed it for his own bittered interpretation. He grows out of it for sure, but his idea of true love does steem for the way women are portrayed in fiction, at least the "one true love" girl archetype.
...I imagine it was that bad, actually.
Just not consistently. So, some days it might be kind of sort of not entirely abjectly awful. And then on other days somebody conquered you and raped all your women and burned all your guys and yeah bad day.
Unless you're rich. Then maybe you'd have good days! Depending on how many serfs you had to push around, of course.
^^^ Yeah, but that's a fantasy example. INUH was talking about over-the-top portrayals of social injustice in the real world.
disregard what i said, i misintepreted the flow of conversation
>...I imagine it was that bad, actually.
From a lot of accounts it depends where. Living in Persia in ancient times was pretty nice for example, contrary to what Frank Miller and Zak Snyder will tell you.
That's true, but "medieval" usually refers to Europe, and Persia isn't really "medieval" either way, time period-wise.
I've heard that North American native cultures weren't so bad either, though.
Except for the free medical care provided by the Church. Pretty primitive medical care, but hell, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Also, the unprecedented level of women's empowerment within a male-dominated feudal society.
Also, the lack of racism.
And the lack of slavery, which is a pretty big deal in that timeframe.
Also, it's Europe, so crop harvests are pretty bountiful and farm animals have plenty of live on.
Also, chivalry, which was far from a joke and actually taken pretty seriously by a significant amount of people. Pretty much as evidenced by the fact that it took off in the first place, and was considered to have "died" by the Renaissance.
Most of medieval life was actually very domestic, far from the regular warfare depicted in popular media.
But see, this is what I'm talking about. I'm no expert historian, but I have and continue to dedicate time to medieval history through a variety of facets, going as micro-scale as individual martial arts. As much as modern popular media loves to cast the medieval period darkly, I've yet to find any solid evidence that suggests such hatefulness was actually a dominant behaviour during the timeframe.
Medieval life was by no means all sunshine and lollipops, but there's just no conceivable way that it was constant violence and backstabbing, either. Hell, a huge amount of that period basically operated on the honour system, to use modern parlance.
Stopped clock. A broken clock is not necessarily ever right.
Well, assume this broken clock still has it hands, so it will still be correct twice each day.
Not if it's broken such as its' hands tick only once every two seconds where a working clock would tick once a second.
Just like sexism this is only relatively speaking. Europeans still didn't like people with non-white skin colors, it was just they didn't like them because they were foreigners rather than because they thought they were inherently inferior.
^^ In that case, the clock would still be correct once per a day instead of twice.
I think.
Still.
^ As far as my reading's taken me, dislike of foreigners had little to anything to do with skin colour. An Italian in France would be as liable to come under scrutiny as a North African or Arab. Ergo, it's not really a race thing, but a politics thing -- a person is first and foremost loyal to the interests of their birthplace, especially. That's more likely to be the territory one was born in than even the wider kingdom.
Then there's stuff like Crusader armies allowing Muslim nobles to keep their lands (and, I believe, the reverse is true). This was really not a timeframe when race was a highly relevant factor.
Lack of racism? Medieval Europe was amazingly antisemitic and antiislamic.
Also, there was slavery in Southern and Eastern Europe.
Whereas a stopped clock is right twice a day. Therefore, stopped clocks are better.
You see? Logic.
I was with you except for the lack of racism and the lack of slavery, Alex. While Slavery wasn't anywhere the thing it was in Colonial America, and the crusades certainly weren't particularly racially just to the Middel Eastern people.
You could always just buy a working clock, or get new batteries, or something. Which shows that time is not money, because money is actually superior to time. LOGIC!
^^ The age of colonialism is more Renaissance than the Middle Ags, I think.
Or just have a second clock on hand.
But then it's right all day, not just twice a day.
Which defeats the metaphor.
I thought I already defeated the metaphor by stating that you could buy a new clock.
And defeated both the metaphor and logic by saying money > time.
yes, spitting in the face of a concept counts as defeating it, shut up
and don't you tell me that concepts don't have faces. that's just what they want you to believe, because it's convenient for their agenda
guy, i think all that studying fried my brain. Or maybe it's just that caffeinated V8 I've been having.