Relativism in fantasy fiction
Filed under Soapbox on March 17, 2009
Tagged: character motivation, fantasy fiction, relativism
A common praise I hear of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series is its “realism.” Take this recent comment from a mailing list I subscribe to:
By real, I mean that there is no good or evil, everyone has a motive for his or her actions….
That isn’t realism, that’s relativism, and I think relativism has no place in fantasy fiction.
Now, I need to make the following disclaimer before I continue: I have not read Martin. As such, I will not be speaking directly to his work because I cannot judge whether the above comment is an accurate assessment or not. Whether Martin is an example of relativism is irrelevant to this discussion, however.
The power of fantasy fiction is in its ability to provide social commentary in a context that lacks the historical and cultural baggage we’re familiar with. This context is more than just fantastical creatures and magic, it includes a clear definition of Good and Evil. It is that clarity that allows fantasy fiction to be a mirror we can hold up to our own world.
Good and Evil as absolute Truths does not mean fantasy fiction can’t include complex characters with motives for everything they do. A hero breaks the law because it was the oppressive law of a dark lord or because he is giving in to his darker impulses, but establishes a just law in its place or performs a noble deed to redeem themselves. These choices and motivations have no impact without strong poles of Good and Evil.
Creating those poles requires painting motivations in the correct light. We, the writers, have to place a judgment upon them. That judgment may be relative to our own experience, but it is not relative in the reality we constructed for the purposes of the story.
Relativism seeks to dissemble truths because of personal experience and culture. This philosophy strips fantasy fiction of its power, and I protest its inclusion in the genre. What about you? Do you think relativism has a positive or negative impact on fantasy fiction?
March 17th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
I think that fantasy’s greatest advantage is that there doesn’t have to be good or evil, and that it’s world by world that the decisions are made; the creation of worlds can be an excellent excuse to test what a world might be like if its ‘right’ isn’t the same as our ‘right’, or if there are multiple ‘rights’ clashing on a daily basis. In fantasy we can see races with fluid gender, worlds with alternate physics, places where a facet of magic has turned the social system into something we’d find completely alien; why not, then, could there be a place in which “Good” doesn’t necessarily mean altruism, in which the life of one may well be more important than the life of many, in which it is morally superior to take the path of most security rather than taking on the path of most potential damage?
Every society should have its own moral compass–some worlds might even work in such a way that most societies’ compasses will point in approximately the same direction. But to limit that to a morality that agrees with our own stifles many of the possibilities inherent in worldbuilding.
Ravyn´s last blog post was Ten War Options for the Non-Warlike Character, Part 2
March 17th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
But even if you change the direction the compass points you still haven’t gotten away from the concept of good and evil.
Jeff Draper´s last blog post was Hunter Brown and the Secret of the Shadow
March 17th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
I would say that one of the strengths of fantasy worlds and the fantasy genre is that you can create a world where right and wrong differ greatly from our own world and beliefs. By making the differences a completely acceptable part of society, you further distance your world from the world your reader lives in.
The moral beliefs of the author probably sneak their way in subconsciously. I recently realized that I’d done this in my world of Quaeth, where desertion of the army is a crime worse than rape or murder. This is a pivotal plot point, but stems from my inner belief that oathbreakers are the worst sorts of people. Most of the people in Quaeth share my sentiment. They would be more likely to turn in a deserter than a rapist.
By rearranging the priority of your world’s values, even slightly, I suppose you create a place where your reader has to change their values, just for a small while, in order to fully immerse themselves in your world. Kind of went on a bit of a tangent here, but I think it makes a little sense.
March 17th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
@Jeff: Not necessarily. I’ve messed a lot with places where society’s overall direction would be something that qualifies as ‘evil’, and ‘good’ is going to get you looked at funny at best. Or ones that, like Kia said, have different cardinal offenses. One of my best characters is loyal to a fault, and overall comes across as what many people would consider good–but at the same time she’s also downright vicious, and her background in intelligence gathering means it takes a lot to get past her idea of what’s unacceptable. (I think it comes down to “If I’ve been trained to resist it should it happen to me, I’m allowed to dish it out.”) I’m not sure she’d make near as much sense in a world that did the same sort of good and evil we’re prone to.
Half the fun of dealing with a fantasy world is having one’s perceptions of what’s right and what’s not stretched or messed with a bit. Why lose that?
Ravyn´s last blog post was Ten War Options for the Non-Warlike Character, Part 2
March 17th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
I wasn’t suggesting that the definition of Good and Evil had to match what we’re familiar with in our world. My point was that there has to be a defined Good and Evil in order for fantasy fiction to act as a mirror in which we can examine our own moral compass. That mirror may be of the funhouse variety, but it’s still composed of boundaries that shape the image we’re looking at. Relativism erases those boundaries.
March 19th, 2009 at 11:23 am
First of all, I’ll saw we have a different definition of fantasy.
Having a central theme of (capitalized) Good versus (capitalized) Evil is not a requirement. By that, I mean all the forces in a story are lined up on one side or the other (usually humans and elves on one side and orcs and trolls on the other). This is never the case in the real world. Nations can ally one moment and go to war the next for reasons that seem justifiable and logical. See England and France over the last two centuries for text book examples.
As a fan of Martin, I’ll step up to clarify the “realism” from his books, which is different from the relativism you describe.
The idea that every character is a shade of gray has its roots in the idea that the villian is the hero of his own story. If written well, the villian’s motives do not stem from a desire to do Evil, but are well developed motives from his point of view. That’s not to say what he does is not evil. He just has reasons for doing it other than to twirl his mustache and cackle. If you present him as Absolute Evil and then expect your reader to acccept that what he does is not evil because of his reasons, then that is relativism.
Now, back to Martin. He gets praise for “realism” because he gives glimpses of all sides of the political sides in the game of the noble houses to win the throne. To use a Dune allusion, Harkonnen is not all bad and Atreides not all good. Both houses have people doing things for “good” and things that can readily be called evil. And these good (and bad) people are at odds with the good and bad people from the opposing houses. Drama ensues.
Beneath these very human struggles is an underlying conflict that is almost invisible in the first book of Good and Evil forces at work in the world, which will soon take center stage over the petty squabbles over a throne. (at least I think they are Good and Evil…
)
How is this not relative? When someone does an evil thing, we are not told it’s not evil because the person’s perspective. When a knight takes a baby and smashes its head against the wall (something told through a flashback), no one says, well Gregor was beaten as a child by his father so the act of killing a baby is not a evil to him. All sides agree it’s detestable.
And Kameron, go pick up Game of Thrones. I don’t think it’ll be your favorite book by any means because it is a bit dark at times and I think the language may put you off, but Martin’s characterization is something to study if nothing else. If you continue with the series past Thrones, you’ll be amazed at how a character I loathed and considered unredeemable in book 1 is now a favorite by book 4, and is in fact on the road to being redeemed. That is good writing to pull that off in a realistic fashion.
March 19th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Thanks for the clarification on Martin, Stuart.
I was pretty confident that Martin wasn’t employing relativism, but that the author of the comment I quoted was not accurate in his equating of well-developed motivation with the lack of good and evil.
I’d also like to try to clarify my stance one more time. Think of Good and Evil as the extreme poles on a continuum. I fully expect characters to move along that continuum as the story progresses. That is what good authors do, and what allows us to identify with characters because that is what we see in real life. A character can’t fall or be redeemed unless those poles are defined and constant, however. In my definition of fantasy fiction, those poles are required. The philosophy of relativism removes those poles.
March 21st, 2009 at 3:35 pm
the last paragraph in your post is a powerful statement and, as far as I’m concerned, a true one. Probably even capitalized as True
the philosophy of relativism is a damaging one. The power of any great literature, fantasy included, is that it can examine the continuum of Good to Evil, the myriad of human motivations littering that spread, and make judgements based on character actions. Or, through a more Socratic method, allow the reader to come to that same judgement on his/her own via much exquisite writing and leading and guiding.
good post.
Alex Moore´s last blog post was Rescued from the Shelf: A Certain Slant of Light