Fantasy

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Galadriel

I should not think so. After all, George R.R. Martin (why is his name so darn LONG?) has pretty much come up with a fantasy that has more blood, gore, dishonesty, sex, rape, etc. than any other till date (correct me if I am wrong). I believe moral ideas can (and to a certain extent, should) be challenged to the extent that people can stretch their minds a little, but not so much as to actually encourage people to start killing each other

Fantasy may be the 'purest' use of human imagination, but that is not to say it is completely pure. We base fantasy on reality, mainly because it would take up too much time and effort to make up a billion new rules for the story. Whether it is 'right' to set limits on it is debatable, but it certainly would be very hard to not put limits on it! Also, some people might find the prospect of reading books about talking jam-tarts a little disconcerting.

You know, I am quite confused here. It seems to me that the one making "demands" and setting "limits" on fantasy has been– davem himself. Wasn't his main argument in fact that writers should feel obliged to depict certain topics only in a particular "approved" way? Did he suddenly switch sides, or what?

–I will say this on the subject of fictional violence in general: I don't think any camp gets to take the moral high ground. "All graphic, all the time" is hardly some kind of default "righteous" position. Someone can argue that buckets of gore in a story will teach the audience just how bad violence is...sure... but then someone else can come along and argue that all it will do is harden them and perhaps give them a taste for it– or is pandering to a taste already there. Not saying I necessarily agree with this point of view, either, but I think it's about as valid as the other. (Which is to say, I'm not sure that either is all that valid.)

Me? Oh, I don't know, I think mostly people just like what they like– and sometimes feel the need to construct elaborate moral and theoretical frameworks to justify it.

[littlemanpoet]

People will read what they want to read, will think what they want to think, and will do what they want to do with it.

Although the latter is the domain that society obviously has real concern about since what is done affects others, said society may decide that it has a vested interest in prevention of those things it deems worth stopping, and may take measures to discourage thinking about such things.

Obviously, if someone never is exposed to sado-masochism, rape, murder, you name it, his chances of thinking about it are greatly reduced, and thus his chances of acting on it are as well. Each society has to decide for itself where to draw the line. And you can bet that in a free society, someone is going to "raise cain" no matter where the line is drawn.

[Nerwen]

Look, lmp, I really don't know how influenced people are by what they see or read– I don't think it's just a "monkey see, monkey do" thing. I'm just pointing out that the case for the moral superiority of depicting violence as graphically as possible isn't exactly water-tight either.

After all, when even spambots are using an argument, you might want to rethink...

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Look, lmp, I really don't know how influenced people are by what they see or read– I don't think it's just a "monkey see, monkey do" thing. I'm just pointing out that the case for the moral superiority of depicting violence as graphically as possible isn't exactly water-tight either.

Actually, I agree.

Well said, Blantyr

[blantyr]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

People will read what they want to read, will think what they want to think, and will do what they want to do with it.

Although the latter is the domain that society obviously has real concern about since what is done affects others, said society may decide that it has a vested interest in prevention of those things it deems worth stopping, and may take measures to discourage thinking about such things.

Obviously, if someone never is exposed to sado-masochism, rape, murder, you name it, his chances of thinking about it are greatly reduced, and thus his chances of acting on it are as well. Each society has to decide for itself where to draw the line. And you can bet that in a free society, someone is going to "raise cain" no matter where the line is drawn.

I'd also note that both artists and audience have their own visions and world views on how various realities work or ought to work. Tolkien knew what he was doing. He walked his own line between the beauty of fairie and the ugliness of war. How does one measure the distance between Lorien and the Dead Marshes? I'm not going to second guess that line. This isn't to say that other writers and other audiences don't have other themes.