Well, that wasn't very pleasant. Nothing like a nasty flu to throw me off my intended schedule. At least the dizziness and vertigo have finally abated.
And very soon, I have a very special feature that I've been wanting to share for months. But for now? The notes I'd intended for Monday, before this latest bout of yuck hit.
* * *
Royalty,
Nobles, Beggars, and Thieves
Niko
Brooks, Kyle M. Perkins, David B. Coe, Alexandra Christian
A discussion of race, class, and economic assumptions in epic fantasy
Lowport: A book about people
in a spaceport, the underclass, folks not represented
When you’re writing the work
that you write, do you consciously look for ways to work in those characters
who are less well-represented in fantasy, or generally focused on kings,
queens, shapers, and movers, because that’s where the epic action is?
NB: Wrote about what it would be like to have someone who isn’t
nobility, and how it could shape how the king and people ruling act and rule.
Could the leaders have someone who’s not part of the yes men, telling it
straight to them and not trying to please them?
KP: The noble action is there, but you do need the people on the bottom
to establish the foundation, and work up. Without them, you have nothing, and
the people at the top have nothing to lean on. Having the underdog stories is
beneficial. If you don’t include them, they don’t exist and your characters who
are noble have nothing to fall back on. They help round out the story,
establish the universe.
AC: Anytime that you’re writing about a new world, you have to know who
those people are, understand the background of how those people work. Those
stories interest her more than the ones about the kings and the queens. And if
she is interested in the king or queen, they’re always reluctant characters.
More interested in the underdog characters.
DBC: Has a history background. The new wave when he was studying was
social history. No longer about great people doing great deeds. Needed as
historians to get back to the lives of the people who were living the world
every day, even if they weren’t shaping them. But they’re boring as hell. So
writing stories about things happening that leads to the destruction of life as
your characters know it, don’t we risk diminishing the stakes in our books by
focusing on the lives of the “little people” rather than those who control the
major events?
AC: Likes that in Tolkien, small people can change the world. That’s
what people enjoy in an epic fantasy, little people making a difference. The
idea that they can change and shape.
DB: The four hobbits in Lord of
the Rings are the little people, but really it’s a story about great people
doing great things, and the four hobbits thrown in as characters we can relate
to.
NB: Yes, but with the little characters, how do these big meta events
and major changes affect them, too?
There’s a difference between cinematic
text and literary text. With Lord of the
Rings, in the book, the corruption trickled down even to Hobbiton. That
didn’t happen in the movies. The hobbits realize how narrowly the world escaped
complete destruction, and everything would have been fine and no one would have
known. Which is more realistic?
KP: Modern perspective: the concept of the little person making changes
that can make the large aspect change in the world, but then we have our lives.
How much would we be affected? Would the hobbits have continued to remain
blissfully unaware if they didn’t go? How small people react to big events, and
what happens up top, affects and impacts the world as well.
Audience Question: The Higher-ups
make decisions based on power. Little people make decisions that affect their
community. Why are the little people stories so effective?
DBC: Even the smallest person’s decisions can have deeply powerful
effect on events. The decisions that Gandalf et al make are big decisions that
affect the whole world, but all of these are made after Bilbo found a ring and
lied about it. One person can do something that has ramifications beyond that.
Rosa Parks was highly educated and an activist, so her decision to sit at the
front of the bus was an informed and conscious step. But it’s something that’s
been highly romanticised.
AC: We can relate to these characters. It is a romantic idea, very
loosely based in reality, but that’s what people read for. To escape, to have a
world they can completely lose themselves.
Audience question: In the book The Age of Reason: The earth slows its
pace, an apocalypse is happening, and the main character experiencing this is
who the story is told through. Why are we focused on this one young girl? So is
the story better told from her perspective or someone who has a level of power?
Audience member: Likewise, literary classics are about normal people
thrown into weird, strange situations and how they handle them. How can we
translate this to fantasy?
DB: It can and has been done.
NB: Multiple times. Christopher Paolini, Eragon. The idea that we don’t have these decision making powers,
either, so we relate to this. We make up the majority of the population, so we
relate to them very much. The underdogs are us.
DBC: And we relate to the underdog not just because they’re they little
guy, it’s the little guy with the hidden power, nobility, or talent. If they
could be that, then we could, too. (Harry Potter, King Arthur, etc). Something
about taking the ordinary person and having them face these big problems that
speaks to us.
DBC: It doesn’t have to be the kid who think she’s ordinary and then
becomes this special person. They can be just an ordinary guy doing ordinary
things.
Aud: It’s about the feat, too, not just the cataclysmic event. We’re
just focusing on one point of view. Choosing that hero makes the difference.
AC: Everything in The Shining
is told through the child’s eyes (Danny’s), and it makes everything more
intense.
NB: Especially in apocalypses, one of the concepts is, how do we save
future generations?
AC: Could be why we have such a fascination with YA right now.
DBC: In the movie Hero with
Dustin Hoffman and Andy Garcia, DH was a bum and a grouch but he saves a bunch
of people, but then goes back to being a bum. The point of this panel: does a
hero have to look like a king, or can they be a young street urchin living on
their own and trying to make it? How can we reconcile heroism with having
higher stakes involved?
AC: As a second-grade teacher, taught fairy tales: and the idea that
you can always tell the princess because she’s pretty, and the villain because
he’s ugly. We’ve reversed that and we’re fascinated with doing that.
NB: Yet we still have fascination with the perfect hero.
AC: Superman is boring.
DBC: More people would go to Iron Man because of Tony Stark’s snark.
BB: There will still be a population who wants the perfect heroes.
AC: Writes romance, so she sees those stereotypes. But asked her fans,
and many want to see people with disabilities.
KP: The hero’s evolving from the perfect sculpture to someone we want
to relate more to.
AC: It comes and goes in phases. Right now we’re getting back to that
flawed thing. Maybe because we as a society feel flawed?
Audience comment: Even Superman doesn’t entirely understand humanity,
and is damaged.
DBC: Now he is. He didn’t used to be.
Audience member: Even bad characters have to have good elements to
them, and vice verse. The perfect doesn’t exist anywhere.
NB: There is a physical aspect to it as well. There’s a mold and a look
that we still want to fit into.
Audience member: People want more diversity. That we’re having this
conversation matters. We want to see the Spikes, too. Diversity not just in the
writers, but the main characters, is good.
DBC: It’s hard to look at Legolas and see any flaws. The good
characters are white bread, and the bad ones are evil incarnate. You can find
examples of it.
Audience member: Fantasy is growing up, now we’re seeing more complex
characters.
DBC: Stephen R. Donaldson wrote Thomas Covenant. The books are difficult
reads and he’s a disgusting character, but he’s the prototype for the
interesting antihero. It can be these guys who are dark as hell and do heroic
things, and it changed his view of fantasy.
AC: Michael Moorcock’s Elric books. A scarred-up albino. He’s not
necessarily a hero, he’s just trying to get through.
Audience Question: In the same
vein: making thieves and assassins the hero or protagonist? Is there a way to
make the murderer the protagonist and still have them do awful things?
AC: Dexter.
NB: Someone born to be a killer uses his skills to keep others safe: Weapon of Flesh.
AC: Remember, nobody is the villain of their own story. You have to
write from the pov of the character you’re writing from. Maybe the person in
your story isn’t necessarily a good person, but they accidentally do good
things.
DBC: In his Winds of the
Forelands – he has an assassin character, working at odds from the protagonist,
but still a sympathetic character because he disguises himself by wandering
around as a traveling musician, because he loves music. He [DBC] spent time
working on the character for this reason. It’s about showing human beings doing
what they do even if it’s against what your protagonist believes.
Audience Question: But to make people
want to root for him, want them to succeed, you have to find some connectivity
with that character. How can you manage it?
DB: That’s Thomas Covenant. He’s an awful person, but in the end you
want to root for him because he’s trying to save the world.
AC: The Joker. A deplorable human being. He sticks with us, and people
love him.
Audience member: You have to have a fantastic villain to make the hero
strong enough to fight them.
Audience question: But are they just
victims of their circumstances doing what they can to survive?
AC: Everybody has the capacity to be good.
Audience member: Breaking Bad.
AC: There’s a certain amount of escapism in wanting to do all the
terrible things. Maybe that’s why the Joker and Breaking Bad can do that.
KP: Office Space, too.
