|
How can I answer this question - not being an American?
Well, it has been said that ‘reality is for people who can’t handle science fiction’ & I suppose one could add that ‘science fiction is for people who can’t handle fantasy’.
Sf is a kind of middle ground between reality & fantasy - Sf writers seem to feel a need to base their stories in the known & provable - well, provable in terms of known scientific theories. If an sf writer has a dragon in his/jher story they would have to ‘explain’ how it could be that a lizard could have fly & breathe fire. The explanation would be necessary if the story was to be sf - if they didn’t have such an explanation it wouldn’t be science fiction.
So, fantasy requires a leap of faith (in the author), & at the least a suspension of disbelief. The fantasy writer says ‘In this story there are dragons - if you cannot accept that, go away. I will not explain how they ‘work’ - how they fly & breathe fire. All I will say is that there are flying, fire breathing dragons in this story.
‘Here be Dragons’ produces two responses in readers (as it did in those who saw the words on old maps). Some will want to avoid such things, others will seek them out. And that’s not a matter of the potential danger involved. Those who would seek out the dragons would, I guess, seek them out even if they knew of the danger - in fact, the danger would be part of the attraction.
Are Americans (& Canadians) afraid of dragons? Are they afraid of monsters? And if they are, would that lead them to avoid them or seek to destroy them? I am afraid of dragons, but I’d love to see one. In fact, I think i’d sacrifice a great deal to see one (perhaps I’d be sacrificing myself).
The dragon is a subtle foe. It is wise & magical. So, are Americans afraid of those things - wisdom & magic? What did Le Guin mean? Afraid of dragons! With all those guns & bombs, & all those computers?
The dragon - raw, uncontrolled (uncontrollable) nature - for what is more natural than a dragon. No, its not just merely natural, its super/hyper/ultra-natural. Why, I bet that all those bullets, & bombs (& computers) would just bounce off a dragon.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
What is being subverted here? What values are being endangered? Will the dragon eat Mom and the Apple pie both?
I suppose there were early maps which showed the Americas as a vast blank space, with nothing but pictures of dragons & the location of El Dorado. But then, why would all those proto-Americans go there if they were afraid of such things?
Or have Americans become too settled, too lacking in the pioneer spirit, too much like hobbits (perhaps ‘an invasion of dragons would do them good’)?
What do dragons (or the idea of them) subvert? The idea that we can make ourselves totally safe? The idea that we can be completely in control? That everything can be regulated & our world made just like the Shire?
The dragon makes us powerless. Just in its presence. Just by the fact that it exists.
Its that fact that makes them so frightening (& so alluring). We are helpless in the face of raw nature - which is why we’re drawn to it, I suppose. Fantasy subverts all the things which separate us from our true selves - our egos, our desire to be in control, to have everything explained (away). It says ‘Here be Dragons. Here be mysteries. Here be things you’ll never understand, never account for, never (really)know. Here, in this place, you’re an ignorant child, not an all wise, all knowing, all controlling ‘grown up’.
In Faerie the fear of Dragons is the beginning of wisdom.
|