Fantasy

[ArathornJax]

In thinking of this, I haver wondered by the writers of fantasy get away with so much. I believe it is because readers of fantasy are willing to suspend the "rules" and as such I don't think that most readers are worried about what happens. The general reader doesn't worry about how long a man or woman could wield a 5lb or a 50lb sword, or that it won't penetrate armor etc. What they care about is how the hero or heroine overcome the problems or obstacles they face and win the day. The reader wants to suspend their own time in reality and escape somewhere else. I think this is also evident in the world today with the rise of video games and other uses of technology. Perhaps then we have to ask why do so many people want to suspend the reality of this world and escape to another?

I think another thing that we have to acknowledge is that any author includes something of themselves in their writing. Tolkien did. Though he went about to create a myth for England, he infused into the story elements and themes that were at the core of who he was. Whether a conscience decision or unconscience decision, it occurs. Thus even a writer who is not using fantasy to relate a certain view or point, still does to some extent.

Finally I believe that fantasy is so important for so many people for a variety of reasons. But one of them is that fantasy explores the human condition, in ways that are opposite of daily life or reality. In fantasy, good eventually overcomes evil, wrongs are made right, and people are able to become more than what they are, they become better. I think that differs from the real world where evil truly does win and reigns at times and in places in the world. Fantasy then gives or provides to us something to believe in, that people can rise above and be better then they are. This is counter to the reality of life, where we the struggle is to come to terms with who we are, the good and the bad. Fantasy allows each of us to explore the human condition in a safe way, without having to face the reality of our world and ourselves. It inspires us to become more than what we are, hopefully inspiring us to become better than what we are.

[davem]

Dragging this one up because of a recent article in The Times on the Battle of Towton, Palm Sunday 1461 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/tra...ffset=0&page=1

Its a long piece, but well worth reading. The important bit for this discussion is the depiction of the battle.

It (the Longbow) was slowly replaced by gunpowder . Any terrified peasant could point and pull a trigger, but it took a lifetime of aching, deforming practice to muscle up the 100lb of tug needed to draw a yew bow to dispatch a cloth yard of willow-shafted, goose-feathered, bodkin-tipped arrow 200 yards through plate, through chain, through leather and linen and prayers, into a man’s gizzard. The longbow was the most lethally efficient dealer of death on European battlefields until the invention of rifling and the Gatling gun.

The archers stepped forward and together chucked up what they call the “arrow storm”. An English archer could fire 15 to 20 arrows in a minute – that’s what made the opening moments of battle so horrific. The eclipse of arrows would have crossed high in the frozen air, and in that moment Edward and the House of York had their touch of luck. The thick, stinging curtain of snow slashed the faces of the Lancastrian line, making it difficult to aim or judge distance, pushing their arrows short. And it carried the arrows of York further and deeper into the Lancastrian line. God howled and cracked for Edward that morning, searing the cheeks and freezing the eyes of Lancaster.

The metal-detectors have found the long, broad trench of bodkin points, showing where the first appalling fusillade was loosed. Emptying their own quivers, they began firing back the arrows wasted by their enemies. There may have been half a million arrows fired in 10 minutes that day – the largest longbow shafting in history.

...So the two armies, screaming obscenities or just howling like mad dogs, slithered together and joined one of the most hellish experiences of human ingenuity: a medieval battle in the snow.

At the front line there is little room for swashbuckling or dainty footwork. This is a match of thud and stab. The weapons of choice are daggers and maces. Men with iron sallets buckled to the backs of their necks, so they can’t be yanked forward to offer a spine stab, stare wide-eyed through slits, straining and flailing with short, maddened blows and ache-tensed muscles into the faces of men inches in front of them.

There was a lot of armour about in 1461.

Most men would have had some form of head protection and bits of plate, but the most common protection was a stab vest made from layers of linen sewn together that might deaden the blow, absorb a spent point or a fisted poniard. But this wasn’t about killing the opponent. It was about putting the man in front of you down – on the ground. He’d be dead in seconds.

The most common injuries are to the head and neck, and death must often have come by way of suffocation – the air squeezed from your body under the weight of men behind you, jammed in the mangle of battle. The pressure and the impetus came from the army that wasn’t yet fighting shoving and heaving.

...It snowed all that Palm Sunday. The thick snow deadened the noise of dying whimpers and cawing crows, the shocked and exhausted soldiers too stupefied or disgusted to pursue the rout, the carters and baggage-train servants, the prostitutes and local peasants scuttling up the ridge to harvest the dead, fires being lit for porridge and to mull wine, the breath of the living pluming in the crepuscular white light like small, ardent prayers of gratitude.

You won't find that sort of thing in Tolkien. But should we? Tolkien avoids graphic depictions of actual warfare, but are we to imagine the horrors of Towton taking place in Middle-earth? Or are the battles there 'fantasy' battles? Tolkien placed a high value on 'Escape' as a function of fantasy literature, but is it not dangerous (or at least seriously misleading) to romanticise Towton into Pelennor Fields?

Or to put it another way - Tolkien cast a 'Faery' glamour over the woods & hills & peopled his world with gods, Elves & monsters, & I think we're better for being exposed to that vision. But are we better for his casting that same glamour over the battlefield?

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by davem

Its a long piece, but well worth reading. The important bit for this discussion is the depiction of the battle.

You're right, that's an excellent description of Towton (and medieval battle in general). The biggest battle ever to be fought on English soil is also one of the least known.

Originally Posted by davem

You won't find that sort of thing in Tolkien. But should we? Tolkien avoids graphic depictions of actual warfare, but are we to imagine the horrors of Towton taking place in Middle-earth? Or are the battles there 'fantasy' battles? Tolkien placed a high value on 'Escape' as a function of fantasy literature, but is it not dangerous (or at least seriously misleading) to romanticise Towton into Pelennor Fields?

Or to put it another way - Tolkien cast a 'Faery' glamour over the woods & hills & peopled his world with gods, Elves & monsters, & I think we're better for being exposed to that vision. But are we better for his casting that same glamour over the battlefield?

One could say that Tolkien was not one to glorify war (although his works are full of it); however, let us say rather that he minimized the savagery of war in his decriptions of battles (to the point at the Battle of Five Armies we miss the action nearly altogether). I think this harkens back to Tolkien being more of a chivalric, rather than modern writer. We don't see great big bloody scenes with arms and legs lopped off in Sir Walter Scott either (although Tolstoy painted some grim pictures).

Is it misleading and dangerous? Well, I suppose in giving a romanticized picture of battle Tolkien might not have been doing anyone any favors, but then again offering a truly graphic and horrifying depiction of battle might have precluded me from reading his books to my children (just like I won't let them see Schindler's List until they have reached an age where they can comprehend the enormity and true terror of that important film).

I suppose it all depends on the audience you wish to reach.

[davem]

Its less a matter of graphic depictions of violence in war, more of the fact that death in battle in M-e is depicted (in the main - there are odd exceptions) as glorious, as tragic, certainly as heroic - but virtually never as being as ugly, dirty & sick as death in medieval battle actually was. But is that OK, as 'its fantasy'?

EDIT.

I think this brings up a number of questions as regards Tolkien's attitude to warfare - is he saying via his depiction of battles in his fiction 'This is what medieval warfare was like.' ?(clearly wrong - medieval battles were not such 'chivalrous' affairs), or is he saying 'This is what battles ought to be like.' ?(big moral question there - should violent death be presented in such an 'uplifting' way?). Or is he simply saying 'This is how battles are fought in my fantasy world.'? Why would Tolkien, who had seen real death in battle (he referred to the 'animal horror' of the Somme) want to present battle in such a 'sanitised' way? And do we excuse him because he wrote 'fantasy'? When does fantasy become lying?

(yes, I am being provocative.....)

[Bêthberry]

Well, Tolkien's depiction of fantasy eschewed an explicit depiction of Evil. We don't get much explication of Sauraman, of how he fell to his power-tripping ways, nor really of his alleged magnificant eloquence (Gandalf's verba jousting with him not withstanding). Most of LotR focusses on the members of the Fellowship and their efforts and their response to Evil. Perhaps Tolkien's sanitised battle scenes are part of this deliberate decision not to focus upon evil but upon what is required by those who choose good.

At the same time, it is worth thinking about how war has been 'covered' in history. How often in history has it been said that war has been glorified in order to persuade men to fight--pro patria gloria and all that? Hasn't it been an element of the twentieth century that people began to examine, acknowledge, publicise just how horrible battle is? Or perhaps that began with the American Civil War? Look at all the public monuments to war and see the difference between tradition monuments and modern ones. Perhaps this is Tolkien's traditionalism coming to effect and his distaste for the modern emphasis on ugliness.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Perhaps Tolkien's sanitised battle scenes are part of this deliberate decision not to focus upon evil but upon what is required by those who choose good.

.....Perhaps this is Tolkien's traditionalism coming to effect and his distaste for the modern emphasis on ugliness.

But it still leaves us with evil & ugliness of war being presented as, if not 'good' at least glorious...

Does aesthetics justify lies? Tolkien knew first hand what death on the battlefield was like ('animal horror') & yet do we get that from his stories?

Or are we meant to? Do his Elves, Men (& Orcs) die suffocating in mud & choking in their own blood -

death must often have come by way of suffocation – the air squeezed from your body under the weight of men behind you, jammed in the mangle of battle. The pressure and the impetus came from the army that wasn’t yet fighting shoving and heaving.

, do they butcher each other

The weapons of choice are daggers and maces. Men with iron sallets buckled to the backs of their necks, so they can’t be yanked forward to offer a spine stab, stare wide-eyed through slits, straining and flailing with short, maddened blows and ache-tensed muscles into the faces of men inches in front of them.

but Tolkien, for aesthetic reasons, chose not to mention it?

In short, are the battles in M-e as gross & brutal as Towton but the horrors glossed over by Tolkien so as not to shock or traumatise the reader, or, in his 'Secondary World' are those aspects of war absent? Are Tolkien's battles 'fantasy' battles or real ones - & can he justify such 'fantasy' battles, where grief, loss & 'pain' are undeniably present as well as glory & chivalry, but where the real ugliness & brutality of war

the two armies, screaming obscenities or just howling like mad dogs, slithered together

are absent?

How would a reader with no knowledge of actual warfare (either by personal experience or by historical study) take Tolkien's battles - does Tolkien actually contribute to the pro patria gloria idea - intentionally or otherwise? Yet if he does, is that OK because he's writing fantasy?

[bilbo_baggins]

Originally Posted by davem

How would a reader with no knowledge of actual warfare (either by personal experience or by historical study) take Tolkien's battles - does Tolkien actually contribute to the pro patria gloria idea - intentionally or otherwise? Yet if he does, is that OK because he's writing fantasy?

I have to say I believe that Tolkien's depiction of battles do contribute to idea of pro gloria patriae in the minds of fresh readers. Whether this is intentional is not as easily answered... honestly I have no clue. Obviously, Tolkien did not include the grossly vivid concepts of battle that he had personally witnessed, but I believe that he did not mean to intentionally delude younger readers into believing battle to be a purely beautiful and noble event, either.

Contributing to the idea of noble war is not wrong in any way. Some might take offence at the possible delusion of otherwise ignorant readers, but there are many poems, classical and modern, that glorify battle (although the trend in modern poetry seems to paint a truthful picture of battle). Just because Tolkien's genre is fantasy does not change his right as an author to depict battle in any way he pleases. In fact, if the reader would only understand that it is fantasy, then the author should logically be given even more liberty to "lie" about such things.

Originally Posted by davem

...When does fantasy become lying?

Isn't fantasy the epitome of lying? All fantasy lies at some basic level, and I don't believe that lying about wars or battles somehow changes the premise of fantasy, or the justification of lying in that genre. You could say that at some point, fantasy becomes absurdity, but introducing nobility in a battle scene is not absurd, by any means.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

Its less a matter of graphic depictions of violence in war, more of the fact that death in battle in M-e is depicted (in the main - there are odd exceptions) as glorious, as tragic, certainly as heroic - but virtually never as being as ugly, dirty & sick as death in medieval battle actually was. But is that OK, as 'its fantasy'?

EDIT.

I think this brings up a number of questions as regards Tolkien's attitude to warfare - is he saying via his depiction of battles in his fiction 'This is what medieval warfare was like.' ?(clearly wrong - medieval battles were not such 'chivalrous' affairs), or is he saying 'This is what battles ought to be like.' ?(big moral question there - should violent death be presented in such an 'uplifting' way?). Or is he simply saying 'This is how battles are fought in my fantasy world.'? Why would Tolkien, who had seen real death in battle (he referred to the 'animal horror' of the Somme) want to present battle in such a 'sanitised' way? And do we excuse him because he wrote 'fantasy'? When does fantasy become lying?

(yes, I am being provocative.....)

Yes, even though you were/are being mischieviously provocative, perhaps davem you might wish to consider writing a paper on Tolkien and war in response to this call for papers which Estelyn posted on her LJ:

Originally Posted by Estelyn Strider

Next year's Tolkien Seminar will be in Hanover, Germany, April 24 - 26. The topic will be: 'Violence, Conflict and War in Tolkien'. For anyone interested in presenting a lecture, here is the Call for Papers: http://www.tolkiengesellschaft.de/deutsche-tolkien-gesellschaft/tolkien-seminar-2/tolkien-seminar-2009/"

To make the link work: Call for papers on Violence, Conflict and War in Tolkien

I'm sure you would make a stellar contributor, davem.

[davem]

Hmm - don't know that I've either the time or the energy at the moment - however, I did find this interesting piece about Tolkien & his Somme experiences (which I linked to on another thread, but seems relevant here) http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/in...&pagename=Arts

[alatar]

Fantasy is a certain means of saying something that you don't think would go over well if stated directly. Fantasy is the sugar that makes the medicine go down, and as an author, you may see the world (or just yourself) as needing to take the medicine. You add a few elves and princesses, castles and dragons, and suddenly you have all of the necessary parts to carry your message.

This link sarcastically lays out the formula for writing successful fantasy.

My other favorite author, though more a scifi than fantasy writer, once said,

Originally Posted by Frank Herbert, commenting about the long term effects of the fluoridated water 'experiment'

I'm working on a book that I'll publish next year. It's called "The Dosadi Experiment." It concerns a massive psychological experiment on a large population without their informed consent. The implications are all around us. You see, you can do this in science fiction because you're talking about another world, another people. It's way over there. (laughs) The reality comes back later.

Note that this way of saying one thing while meaning something more important is used in more than just fantasy writings. A partial-preteristic view of the Christian Book of Revelation by John of Patmos (Also called 'the Apocalypse of John') uses what I would call flowery language to describe the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 AD by the Romans under Nero. One could not write such a book with the Romans hanging about, but could if the Romans were "Babylon" and "the beast;" your intended audience would know of whom you spoke, and the authorities would be none the wiser.


Regarding war, maybe Tolkien thought that his and following generations would know about the horrors of war first or second hand, and so why then fill in the details when persons imaginings/knowledge would work better. Or maybe he wanted to leave that horror behind and yet depict battles. Our family had a great uncle who participated in the battles in WWII, and he never spoke about what had happened to him 'over there.' He obviously didn't want to remember or reminisce about that, and that always struck me, as boys always brag about how tough they are, how many fights they'd been in, and how gross it all was. This man, in his silence, said much about the horror, and me only a child.

Did Tolkien consider this same thing, sanitizing his wars (albeit he did have the orcs toss 'head shot' over the walls of Minas Tirith) so that readers could fill in the gaps from the silence? Did he think that his readers would reject the addition of 'reality' into a fantasy text? How would it have helped knowing that Theoden's spleen was lying next to him, and that the King was slowing asphyxiating from his collapsed/punctured lungs etc?

Not sure what is meant by, "that poetry never lies because it never affirms anything;" regardless, this topic begs noting that famous (or infamous) poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Charge of the Light Brigade.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Just makes me want to jump upon a horse and ride into a valley surrounded by enemy cannon (or is it canon?), all due to some 'issue' with my commander, whether he was confused, angry, stupid, etc, and so get the joy of watching my fellows get their heads shot from their bodies, bodies blown into too large of pieces (I can still see the man that I spoke to, and not just bits), and pieces of flesh and bones that now will feed the worms...

My father had me watch the 1930's film version of All Quiet on the Western Front (not a particularly gory film) before the government banned it again just so I could get a different take on war. Rah rah!