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sobriqueHaving read an article by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
theferrett about porn, and dehumanizing. Has set me to thinking about
some of what he said.
The thought that I latched onto, was the one about fantasies. And to completely digress away from porn, and on to characters and dehumanization:
I read Science Fiction and Fantasy. I play roleplay games.
I had a little trouble explaining this to my family.
Because it's "not real", "just escapism".
Of course it is. This is the whole point. Just because a Fantasy book is a little less subtle about the fact that it isn't the real world. Your average action film is also 'not real' it's just got a little more of the real world in the setting.
Fantasy and Sci-Fi is, contrary to popular belief, not about 'Magic' or 'Technology'. The best science fiction is the ones that aren't about science. After all, the best explanations you make of technology at best will be dated, at worst are completely wrong and impossible. There's actually not all that much difference between the two genres. In one, there's typically a medieval setting, in the other, futuristic.
The two genres are less about magic and/or tech, and more about being a thought experiment. What if we took the world, and made it fundamentally different. In a magical setting, there would most likely never be technology. After all, if you can accomplish things with spells, then you don't need electricity, internal combustion, firearms etc.
In a Sci-fi setting, we typically have more questions. About spaceflight, and how would that affect our society. Or if we could see the future, what changes would that mean. Robots have already made fundamental differences to how certain things work, but what if we were to get more advanced.
The importance is, that despite 'future tech' or 'magic', the nature of humanity remains the same. There are still heros, there is still adversity, there are still those of great wisdom. The difference is simply in the scale of it. More conventional fiction is still that, it's just set in a place that happens to exist.
In reading a book, or watching a film, we are called upon to suspend our disbelief. There's remarkably few films that are real time, so the 'boring bits' are cut. So the long journey is mostly glossed over, and travel is quick.
At the end of the day, this is really no different to sci-fi hyperspace, or magical teleportation, or the cutting of a long journey.
Very rarely do you get sci-fi where magic (yes, that's deliberate :))is able to change a person mentally. Oh, there's spells that control, and technology that forces behaviour. But they never alter the underlying. The desire for freedom, love and happiness.
When watching a film, or indeed any conflict, you decide who you want to win. The process of 'dehumanizing' the bad guys, and 'simplifying' the good guys is simply to cut short this process, and help you enjoy the film. After all, it takes much longer than two hours to get to know someone well. So the film writers and directors simplify this process. In a book, there's more room to develop the character. So you often get a little less dehumanizing going on. But at the end of the day, the book is still about the triumph of a hero. So it's important to the story that you don't start questioning the hero's morality.
There's a few exceptions. One of the reasons I really enjoyed George R. R. Martin, was that he'd gone a long way with his characters. It was quite a unique style, with no one protagonist. And he seemed to take a perverse amusement from taking the 'bad guy' and telling their story, and develop their motivation. And so whilst a load of the characters were complete bastards, there was none of this 'evil for evil's sake' that you get. They alway had reasons for their actions. For example, one of the characters loved his sister. In the incestuous sense. Once you find out that snippet, a whole bunch of the things he did become much clearer, if not exactly nice.
I personally believe, that reading fantastic stories, and 'getting in to them' is an expansion of the mind. If you're suspending disbelief, then just for a while, you're allowing anything to be possible.
In believing anything to be possible, you then make it so.
Sometimes I even believe this of the 'real' world.
theferrett about porn, and dehumanizing. Has set me to thinking aboutsome of what he said.
The thought that I latched onto, was the one about fantasies. And to completely digress away from porn, and on to characters and dehumanization:
I read Science Fiction and Fantasy. I play roleplay games.
I had a little trouble explaining this to my family.
Because it's "not real", "just escapism".
Of course it is. This is the whole point. Just because a Fantasy book is a little less subtle about the fact that it isn't the real world. Your average action film is also 'not real' it's just got a little more of the real world in the setting.
Fantasy and Sci-Fi is, contrary to popular belief, not about 'Magic' or 'Technology'. The best science fiction is the ones that aren't about science. After all, the best explanations you make of technology at best will be dated, at worst are completely wrong and impossible. There's actually not all that much difference between the two genres. In one, there's typically a medieval setting, in the other, futuristic.
The two genres are less about magic and/or tech, and more about being a thought experiment. What if we took the world, and made it fundamentally different. In a magical setting, there would most likely never be technology. After all, if you can accomplish things with spells, then you don't need electricity, internal combustion, firearms etc.
In a Sci-fi setting, we typically have more questions. About spaceflight, and how would that affect our society. Or if we could see the future, what changes would that mean. Robots have already made fundamental differences to how certain things work, but what if we were to get more advanced.
The importance is, that despite 'future tech' or 'magic', the nature of humanity remains the same. There are still heros, there is still adversity, there are still those of great wisdom. The difference is simply in the scale of it. More conventional fiction is still that, it's just set in a place that happens to exist.
In reading a book, or watching a film, we are called upon to suspend our disbelief. There's remarkably few films that are real time, so the 'boring bits' are cut. So the long journey is mostly glossed over, and travel is quick.
At the end of the day, this is really no different to sci-fi hyperspace, or magical teleportation, or the cutting of a long journey.
Very rarely do you get sci-fi where magic (yes, that's deliberate :))is able to change a person mentally. Oh, there's spells that control, and technology that forces behaviour. But they never alter the underlying. The desire for freedom, love and happiness.
When watching a film, or indeed any conflict, you decide who you want to win. The process of 'dehumanizing' the bad guys, and 'simplifying' the good guys is simply to cut short this process, and help you enjoy the film. After all, it takes much longer than two hours to get to know someone well. So the film writers and directors simplify this process. In a book, there's more room to develop the character. So you often get a little less dehumanizing going on. But at the end of the day, the book is still about the triumph of a hero. So it's important to the story that you don't start questioning the hero's morality.
There's a few exceptions. One of the reasons I really enjoyed George R. R. Martin, was that he'd gone a long way with his characters. It was quite a unique style, with no one protagonist. And he seemed to take a perverse amusement from taking the 'bad guy' and telling their story, and develop their motivation. And so whilst a load of the characters were complete bastards, there was none of this 'evil for evil's sake' that you get. They alway had reasons for their actions. For example, one of the characters loved his sister. In the incestuous sense. Once you find out that snippet, a whole bunch of the things he did become much clearer, if not exactly nice.
I personally believe, that reading fantastic stories, and 'getting in to them' is an expansion of the mind. If you're suspending disbelief, then just for a while, you're allowing anything to be possible.
In believing anything to be possible, you then make it so.
Sometimes I even believe this of the 'real' world.
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-09 08:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-09 01:24 pm (UTC)