“Afraid of dragons”

[Bêthberry]

Now don't go blaming davem, Fordim. "Dragons" is in your thread title.

This is a wonderful discussion, Everyone. I have been following this with great interest trying to find time to get my post in! Rather than tinker with small parts of what each of you say, I would like simply to offer some general thoughts.

Going back first to Beowulf and his dragon. My understanding of this early poem is that it reflects a culture and society which is very close to destruction. There is little safety and security in this world, and the forces of assault are very threatening. Yet something about the art form provides a way for this terror of the wild, the unknown, the frightening to be contained and controlled. Within the classic form of literature--using Aristotle as an example--the climax of the action was followed by a denouement or resolution. People could experience their fears of difference, of the unknown, and then safely see those fears resolved and contained managably. In a society which lived precariously, social order was an essential value, for it implied security, safety, longevity. Dragons, then, represented forces which were threatening but which could be contained.

Fast forward now to the twentieth century, when social order has become so well constructed and managed, so controlled and contained, that the machine has almost taken over. In this situation, the dragons of fantasy--I would say of Science Fiction as well, for as Fordim shows when he quotes LeQuin, the word favoured by writers now is Speculative Fiction, which does away with the old dichotomy which hampered many writers of fantasy and science fiction-- provide a different kind of emotion effect. (It's just that most book stores haven't got around to listening to the authors yet!)

In this situation, with social control so tight and secure, dragons represent something else. They represent everything "other", everything not of the machine. And often they--read, fantasy--show how the containment and control and security of the machine is false and should be undercut, overthrown, or at least rethought. Thus, fantasy, unlike classic art, does not scare us in order to show us how "all's right with the world" in the end. It shakes us up to suggest that we need to think far more consciously, reflect far more seriously, about the world we live in. Because mankind has so much more control over his environment now than he did a thousand or two thousand years ago, our art needs to make us aware of some truths about that control.

I am of course speaking mainly of Western culture. Most cultures in our world do not know the extent of control which the machine has placed on western culture.

This is, I think, where Tolkien, despite his 'conservatism' can be seen as subversive. His ethos is to fight against the forms of control which The Machine represents; he chooses to offer in its place an idealised view of past society where the individual person and a moral standard (rather than a standard of efficiency or control) succeeds. Yet that vision is not in itself absolute, for he incorporates 'the inevitable defeat' and many reservations over mankind's hubris, a hubris which is can be found as much in the past as in the present, of course. I think Child is right to point out that Tolkien's vision might be 'traditional' but it is one that has never really been tried historically.

After suffering countless interruptions, I really must go and apologise for infelicities and inaccuracies of expression. I have grossly simplified and generalised.