Three Comrades Go on a Quest (WisCon 31 panel)

67 Three Comrades Go On A Quest....

Politics, Race, Class, and Religion•Senate B• Saturday, 1:00-2:15 p.m.

So many of the traditional fantasy tropes rely upon distinctions either of class (princes/princesses, lost heirs to thrones, etc.) or that map quickly to class (the aristocracy of those who can use magic, say, lording it over those who can't.) How do we fix this? Who's already done the work that we can look to for examples, and what are the traps we want to avoid?

M: Janine Ellen Young, Leah Bobet, Laurie J. Marks, Meghan McCarron, Hilary Moon Murphy

Notes, reviews, etc.

• Jackie the view from now (other location)

Transcript

partial transcript by Laura Quilter

Janine Ellen Young (JEY) moderator

Leah Bobet (LB)

Laurie J. Marks (LJM)

Meghan McCarron (MM)

Hilary Moon Murphy (HMM)

... [came in late]

... orphans & foundlings

MM: why always have nobility on the quest

HMM - counterexample of a quest - Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett. people venturing into heart of faery to rescue a boy who is also the son of a baron. main character is the youngest shepherd's daughter. she is a witch. witchcraft is respected. it's a bunch of fairies after the revolution.

quests without royalty.

audience: closest example is in Terry Pratchett's Discworld, someone who is in fact the orphan, the foundling, the one true king - the protagonists decide that he would be entitled to be the king but we don't want a king and he doesn't want it so let's not tell anyone; let's carefully suppress the fact that the one true king is out there.

The Wizard of Oz. the scarecrow becomes the king - actually all three eventually become kings.

LJM: we have moved away from unquestioning acceptance of the idea that nobility in the group empowers us all ... we've moved maybe toward a meritocracy. i'm wondering if trading one class system for another if we're actually doing that.

LB: social realism requires class because every human society > 25 has pecking order. ... dispute w/ laurie marks.

LJM: in high fantasy / quest fantasy - the person annointed one

HMM - Mister Monday by Garth Nix - quest novel. plot coupons all the way. ...

Audience: kelly ? - that's dark fantasy because the rules change when you go into dark fantasy

LB - we need to define rules so we don't throw everything out

JEY - i agree

LB: what are we isolating here

JEY: the anointed king with a special power.

LJM: that doesn't work for me. the protagonist is chosen by the author and is necessarily "chosen". i think the key is being born into a class. ... it's the arbitrariness of birth. i don't have a problem with a person who has a power, the thing that's going to fix the problem ...

JEY: why Aragorn?

LJM: he's got the network. (he knows the people) ... Gandalf is essentially a king.

LB: there are storytelling elements. Joseph Campbell. think of where The Lord of the Rings came from - it's written out of british & that area of europe myth, and there's a tradition and a structure to that. a lot of what you're dealing with in folk tales is a break and a reintegration into society. ... it's only by coming together and working together that we can all fix the break and go back to our places.

MM: you can get rid of class but that's a kind of whitewashing. the other thing we're talking about is how if you do decide to have class b/c it does reflect reality and it has that mythic resonance that hollywood screenwriters like at least ... i think then your responsibility is not just to say "this is a story but not how i feel" but to take the politics in there and work with that and screw with it and explore how it plays out in ways that it observes.

ljm: that's what i want to say too - how do we subvert that.

hmm: that's why i like Terry Pratchett - subversive

jey to LB: what i wanted to ask you as an editor & bookseller. imagine a LOTR written without an Aragorn. the quest goes on with folks from the shire, wars, etc., but with no royalty. ... not a single foundling to be found. do you think that book would sell or do you think that readers really want that secret king in there somewhere.

LB: this is going to get not byzantine but long. when i was reading the description of this panel my bookseller self made a face & said that's silly. because there's a reason it's called traditional fantasy. people pick up books for various things. like with paranormal romance - you're not necessarily looking for something that's going to below your head off, you're looking for something that will hit those familiar posts. that's a lot of where people who read books will derive the pleasure. i think taking traditional fantasy & subverting it in terms of class but subverting it is impossible. you'll get different ... YA, some of the people who read mieville, but other qualities like his prose style.

? - Goblin Quest / Jim C. Hynes - quest w/out aristocracy -

HMM: there is aristocracy but it's stupid; the real hero is the goblin.

LB: you will get a different readership b/c you will not be fulfilling the narrative king of people who pick up Tolkien knock-offs

MM: here's my problem with that argument. I believe you - but i feel like so much stuff - we can talk gender roles etc. - I worked in LA from a screenwriters' perspective and you hear all the time "this is what the audience wants so we're going to give it to them" and that sucks

LB: i'm not saying don't do it - there's never "no market" for anything. there are markets for things you've never thought of. it's just not going to be the same market. so i think you have to recognize thwat that other group of people are looking for. because obviously there's a whole group of people here who are interested.

JEY: put on your writers panels. if you were imagining a fantasy that was classless - or at least not an aristocrat to be put on the throne - he's not there, aragorn is gone, what would you like to see, to read, to write?

LJM: first of all the people who end up being in charge would be there reluctantly.

JEY: why is that?

LJM: because the sort of people who want to have power are the sort of people who shouldn't

JEY: don't say the B word (the audience broke out and talked about Bush)

LJM: extreme example. it's not that it's impossible to get good leaders but my sense is that the best leaders are the ones who are incredibly self-critical, always doubting their own actions, and a combination of doubt & humility is the necessary component of effective leadership for me. b/c it's a quality of character not just for human beings but for people in fantasy stories that is much too rare and in fact is quite - it's the sort of thing that doesn't occur to us to admire, especially in our current cultural climate, there's a confidence in a person who knows they're right ... it's terrifying.

HMM: while I agree that a certain amount of doubt is probably useful, I would also like to see the ability to come to a painful decision because it's no good to be doubting and be trapped ... there has to be a quality of decisiveness in with the doubt ... for stories that I like to read as well as to write, I like the subversive stuff, and ... I find it interesting YA one of the areas I read a lot - i'm a children's librarian. YA is one of the most experimental places for fantasy right now. why is it that children who haven't experienced these tropes and shouldn't be sick of them the way I am ... while the adult market is completely stuck.

MM: I went on a slightly different direction. I literally imagined LOTR without Aragorn and I saw a bunch of people trying to destroy the ring and being thwarted constantly by the people who are in power. that's where I would see this going but that's also my politics. especially since there's this powerful thing they're trying to get rid of. ... trying to see the little guy sticking it to the man, the man is like no way, the little guy is like it's going in the volcano.

LB: I agree with that.

LB: as taking it literally I'm a little uncomfortable, it feels like whitewashing, people talk about smashing patriarchy - people talk about smashing the patriarchy not the patriarch. you can't just remove it because that has implications ... i like to read subversion, people reading ... to my contrary anarchic soul ... i will read a lot of fractured fairy tales ... happily ever after what happens five years later when the dishes are dirty ... more fruitful to twist those tropes and see where they crack. we aren't living in a utopia yet there's a table over there and I can't reach.

LJM: do the tropes have to be there in order to be subverted. in the mind of the reader -- they don't have to be there in the story in my opinion. ... more like satire ...

interrupt: LB: I think it depends on tone.

LJM: if there absence is the point, it's more like subversion, and both things are pretty good.

... it's not necessarily absence

HMM: Jim Hines' Goblin Quest.

LB: Shannon Hale's Princess Academy - everyone go out and pay money for that right now. that's the socialist revolution right there. ... one of the fantasy novels where status quo changes.

HMM:

audience: i keep trying to imagine a quest with two brothers from various units and there has to be a caucus every morning. psychologically it's nice to have authoritative structures b/c real democracy & federated syndicalist stuff is messy.

LJM: it brings to my mind one of my favorite books of all time The Dazzle of Day / Molly Gloss ... it's a quest for the place to live. it has an egalitarian society in which the big decision is how to make a decision when everything is uncertain

SMC in the audience - The Dispossessed

JEY - comment

LJM: ... it can't just be find the magical object because that's so much linked to ... the sword in the stone and someone has to pick it up and it's always the anointed one. so it seems your

audience (Deb Mensinger) - (promoting LJM's books) - Sure, I'm married to her, but they're still great. (yes they are--Laura Quilter) (LJM watches with affectionate tolerance, maybe some embarrassment)

audience / dragon lady (Laura Sincher) - I think publishers think there's profitability in the YA market

LJM: it's not just profitability, I think it's palatability in the editorial staff. and depending on the sales rep - how to tell the sales rep what it is and it has to be similar to all the other things

JEY: it's a mix of editors and bookstores - i don't want to get too much into this - but the big bookstores make it more Hollywood

HMM: is YA market different because 70% of hardcover sales are to libraries? ... also because YA sales are dependent on awards. nobody in sf cares about awards except maybe hugo.

LB: there are several factors here. no one ...

HMM: experiments

LB: in brief here's why from my limited perspective. publishers & editors catering to what is seen to be the established taste. if you read LOTR at a young enough age you're ruined. your brain has formed stories in a particular way. ... there's no such thing as a genre demarcation in YA. there's no such thing as dirty fantasy in YA. so there's a lot of books for kids. it's an accepted truth in our society that kids reading anything is good because it's not those video games.

aud: unless you live in the south

aud/laura sincher - unless it's Harry Potter

LB: yes Harry Potter made it easier

JEY: we're done with this topic

aud (eric?) : i think it's strange - all about epic quest in tradition of Tolkien but that whole tradition goes back to nationalistic epics. before that most fantasies seem to be satire & subversive political allegory. Alice in Wonderland & Gulliver's Travels. even the 2nd Oz has "restore the princess" but the princess is a girl trapped in the body of a boy but the scarecrow has to convince tip that he wants to be a girl and girl army has taken over oz.

LJM: the fact that our genre continues to embrace nobility even if it lets it have a different skin color or gender - the idea of nobility in a non-class sense "he has a nobility of spirit" - this wish fulfillment is one reason we read fantasy, certainly not the only reason - the trick is to deliver the goods - and yet not end up emphasizing the old, the rote acceptance of this sort of hierarchical thing.

JEY: fantasy novels - wish fulfillment that whoever it is will be good on the throne. that is the wish fulfillment - that we don't have to go through the hassle. so much easier if it was about there's the mark on the forehead, they're the one.

HMM, LB ... (missed it)

LB - there's more - it gets broader than that quickly. i think the fantasy in SF/fantasy is having your innate specialness recognized. ... we're just expressing specialness by the guy who has the footwashers and the most money.

HMM: Barbara Hambly - mad king and his wife goes on a quest. he has no interest (in her); he has a gay lover on the side. dealt with real royalty. One of my problems is that fantasy royalty is so unreal. so many of real royalty were fucked up. ... i would love to see fantasy with real royalty, the real problems that real royalty often have.

LJM: i have a hard time believing that a person born into a sheltered & in many ways privileged life is going to have what it takes to be a great leader. On the other hand it's equally hard for me to believe that someone born to a fishmonger is going to be a greater leader. ... but looking for an alternate model for the quest story. when i was working on Fire Logic a long time ago now and very much wanting to have a different model and having a terrible time ... a huge influence on me was going to WisCon and getting to know some of the people who make WisCon happen. and the concom became a kind of model for a group quest fantasy in which there are people in charge, they often are reluctant volunteers, and there is a group effort to make a thing happen, and i have to think it's probably not that interesting a story, from the perspective of the individuals frantically killing themselves to make something happen, probably very interesting to see it work but from plot perhaps not interesting ... but i've taken a lot from seeing that. ... that there is a heroism there that is and should be made visible and turned into heroic fantasy.

aud (Georgie Schnobrich if i recall correctly): three thoughts brief. queens or other people in the past didn't necessarily lead a sheltered life. if they could run their own household they had leadership skills but weren't necessarily allowed to see it. there's another trope I see - the army movie, the war buddy movie. for many years they had stereotyped sets of soldiers they thought would fit together and create interesting story and interesting dialog. and I wonder if the classes in traditional fantasy re somebody's more simplistic way of doing that. and as for traditional - isn't the hobbit?

HMM: he doesn't count because the dwarf's royalty is minor.

aud (Orange Mike) - hilary was talking about genuine royals and how badly they can screw up. Katherine Kurtz' deryni novels - there's one in which they find & restore the true king and it turns the true king who they dragged out of the monastery was good at being a monk but a bad king and screws up country's history for centuries to come.

HMM; she does a fabulous job at real aristocracy because her aristocrats run the gamut ...

aud: favorite novel - guy trying to protect his younger brother who's very weak - Watership Down. not noble.

aud: Suzy McKee Charnas - the reluctant leader would be killed right away

LJM: ... everyone agrees that person should not have it. it's a cultural value ...

LB: what is the purpose - Charles Finley. good writing advice if there's something bad ask what it does write. what is the whitewash b&w idea of heroic fantasy doing right and how can we take it and twist it

JEY: I think it's giving people their fantasy of the magical leader.

HMM: I read those books for the seedy thief character.

LB: how do we evolve this subgenre to say more than the corner it's in?

aud: I think we're talking about the difference between literal and figurative. how to translate American desire to be transformed. we don't see real royalty because what's really interesting is the metaphorical royalty.

aud comment - maybe what we need to look at it is as a whole rather than the separate parts. as a reader you project yourself on each of the parts and imagine yourself as each of those characters

LJM: or perhaps a composite.

LB: almost stokeresque like the goth character

aud (lady in green) - democracy as basis for a quest. all examples were science fiction not fantasy.

aud (David Emerson) - why fantasy - because fantasy is child of fairy tale & saga and rooted in past and past is harder to change than future. future you can imagine The Dispossessed or Mars - going somewhere and creating something new. fantasy is based on things that are old.

MM - but at some point these things were happening in the past where there was anarchism. etc. - but there's not a straight line of tradition from Viking sagas to Tor's list this fall.

JEY: final comments from panel.

LJM: stunned silence. read my book that's my comment.

MM: the idea of specialness and the specialness of class. even when we're talking about royals being fucked up there's so much about how bad they are. maybe ... what is specialness and if specialness is class, watch how you do that in your writing and your assumptions that you read.

HMM: a lot of my points have already been said. ... go for the subversive stuff. send fan letters thru the publishers so it gets to the publishers. so the publishers can see there is a market for subversive stuff. I really think that's the only way to get more of it out there honestly.

LB: I think it's out there and it's coming out and the head's coming out of this very very new kind of high fantasy. and but it's going to be a totally different genre. it's going to be the little singularity of heroic fantasy and maybe it will not bear any relation to what's come before. so .. as writers and readers to have that expectation ... so we should be open to that. keep an open mind.