Seems Like Someone's Rooting for the Wrong Side - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

davem · 03-10-2007, 06:23 AM

Macalaure I could accept your points in relation to evil people in this world - someone who sympathises with a suicide bomber, or an axe murderer come to that, would have serious issues. I just don't see that it applies to a reader who sympathises with a figure in a fantasy novel.

There does seem almost to be a kind of equivalence implied between, say, the destruction of Gondolin & the bombing of Hiroshima - so that a reader who was to say 'I think the destruction of Gondolin was cool - those Orcs showed those smug Elves what for!' was to get the response 'Well, I suppose you think it was fine for terrorists to destroy the Twin Towers then, huh?' The two events have no connection - well, I'd like to see anyone provide a one-to-one correlation between the events.

It seems to me that anyone who did respond to such a reader by accusing them of supporting the destruction of the Twin Towers is confusing fantasy & reality, & worse, demanding that others do the same thing. There is no primary world equivalent of Gondolin, of Morgoth, of Smaug, of the Ring - setting aside 'applicability' which an entirely personal response - so how one can relate secondary world events & characters to the primary world in a way that a) elicits general agreement & b) makes any kind of logical sense is beyond me.

In the same way the idea that 'the thought behind the events (torturing a real human being & torturing an Elf - or a pixie) is the 'same' because both involve the thought of torture is completely illogical (not to say irrational).

Last night i watched a couple of episodes of South Park. In both Kenny was killed - in the first he had his head split in half by a boomerang which Wendy had thrown from the top of a stockade which the girls had built to stop the boys infecting them with STD's. In the second he died when a girder broke off Cartman's Roller Coaster & skewered him. And it was funny in both cases - because Kenny is a cartoon character. If I'd seen a news report about such things happening to a real 8 year old I wouldn't have thought it was funny, because I can distinguish between fantasy/imagination & reality. I don't find real children being killed funny but I find a cartoon character being killed in spectacular & inventive ways to be funny. And no matter how many times I saw Kenny being killed I would never become immunised against feeling horror & sadness when I heard of a real child being killed. Why? Because a fantasy character is not a real person. Because the thought of killing a fantasy character is not the same as the thought of killing a real person. To claim any similarities between the two makes no logical sense.

03-10-2007, 06:23 AM	#11
davem Illustrious Ulair Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties Posts: 4,240	Macalaure I could accept your points in relation to evil people in this world - someone who sympathises with a suicide bomber, or an axe murderer come to that, would have serious issues. I just don't see that it applies to a reader who sympathises with a figure in a fantasy novel. There does seem almost to be a kind of equivalence implied between, say, the destruction of Gondolin & the bombing of Hiroshima - so that a reader who was to say 'I think the destruction of Gondolin was cool - those Orcs showed those smug Elves what for!' was to get the response 'Well, I suppose you think it was fine for terrorists to destroy the Twin Towers then, huh?' The two events have no connection - well, I'd like to see anyone provide a one-to-one correlation between the events. It seems to me that anyone who did respond to such a reader by accusing them of supporting the destruction of the Twin Towers is confusing fantasy & reality, & worse, demanding that others do the same thing. There is no primary world equivalent of Gondolin, of Morgoth, of Smaug, of the Ring - setting aside 'applicability' which an entirely personal response - so how one can relate secondary world events & characters to the primary world in a way that a) elicits general agreement & b) makes any kind of logical sense is beyond me. In the same way the idea that 'the thought behind the events (torturing a real human being & torturing an Elf - or a pixie) is the 'same' because both involve the thought of torture is completely illogical (not to say irrational). Last night i watched a couple of episodes of South Park. In both Kenny was killed - in the first he had his head split in half by a boomerang which Wendy had thrown from the top of a stockade which the girls had built to stop the boys infecting them with STD's. In the second he died when a girder broke off Cartman's Roller Coaster & skewered him. And it was funny in both cases - because Kenny is a cartoon character. If I'd seen a news report about such things happening to a real 8 year old I wouldn't have thought it was funny, because I can distinguish between fantasy/imagination & reality. I don't find real children being killed funny but I find a cartoon character being killed in spectacular & inventive ways to be funny. And no matter how many times I saw Kenny being killed I would never become immunised against feeling horror & sadness when I heard of a real child being killed. Why? Because a fantasy character is not a real person. Because the thought of killing a fantasy character is not the same as the thought of killing a real person. To claim any similarities between the two makes no logical sense. __________________ “Everything was an object. If you killed a dwarf you could use it as a weapon – it was no different to other large heavy objects."