The Name of the Wind and the Importance of Folklore in Fantasy

I recently finished reading The Name of the Wind, the first novel in Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicles series.  It is meta-fantasy at its finest in two senses; It is both a fantasy story within a fantasy story and a fantasy story about fantasy stories.  The frame story is told in third-person as Devan Lochees the Chronicler records the life of Kvothe, who has assumed the alias of Kote the innkeeper, and is hiding from his past.  The recounting of Kvothe’s past forms the central narrative of the novel and is appropriately told in first-person through his perspective.  Each novel of the series represents a day of Kvothe narrating his rise and fall for Chronicler to record.  Weaved throughout the frame and central narrative are additional sub-stories in the form of folkloric and mythic legends concerning the Fall of Myr Tarinel, the birth of the God Tehlu in the form of Menda, the Binding of the demon lord Encanis, the corruption of the hero Lanre into the Chandrian Halix, etc.  Folk songs such as Chandrian, Chandrian, Tinker Tanner, and The Lay of Sir Savien Traliard also feature prominently in the narrative given Kvothe’s heritage as a member of the gypsy-like Edema Ruh.      

Having finished the novel, I can see why the book has such a beloved following and it got me to thinking about what distinguishes the best fantasy stories above others.  I think it is relatively uncontroversial that the greatest appeal of the fantasy genre is the way in which we come to find ourselves in another world; more realistic fantasies make the illusion of being in that world more complete and coherent, making the narrative more engaging and appealing.  But then there is the question of what makes a fantasy narrative realistic and another merely fantastic and fanciful.  There are a variety of methods one can rely on to, some more controversial than others (grim-dark hyper-realism, for example).  Here I want to focus on only one method of realism that was both a central theme of The Name of the Wind and a method curiously underappreciated within much of fantasy: fantasy stories and folklore itself. 

It is important to recognize the difference between history and folklore or mythology in the fantasy setting.  Most fantasy series require elaborate histories as part of their world-building to give context to the events of the narrative, the motivations of the characters and the state of the world.  But providing the history of how the forest dwarves were emancipated from the tyranny of elven empire following the war with the giants of the southlands is not the same as providing a mythology for such beings.  Mythology and folklore are, in a sense, unhistorical narratives insofar as they necessarily occur prior to and outside of our mundane experience of time.  They deal with what is magical and divine in the world.  History may provide a narrative of events occurring over time in the world, but it does not explain the origins of the world itself or give any all encompassing meaning to history itself or our capacity to form historical narratives to begin with.   This is the purpose of gods in religion and mythology and even in the modern real world, the pull of mythological narratives remain inescapable to our thinking.  All the more reason for the inhabitants of medieval fantasies to inhabit a world saturated with myth.

We are thinking beings, searching for meaning in the world and our elaborate narratives of myth, folklore, religion and even fantasy itself, are a testament to this.  But meaning is interpretative, there is no immediacy between the mind and world; there is a gap between the way the world is and the stories we tell ourselves and one another about the world. This gap is exacerbated by the conflicting influence of maintaining codified cultural beliefs and rituals against the relentless advance of history.  Myths must change over time and find new interpretations if they are to continue to resonate within a culture.  If myth functions to explain the way of the world and our place and purpose within it, then changes in our world must be reflected back into the mythology.  Otherwise the myth loses its explanatory purpose.  This conflict between legend and reality is reflected in both the frame and central story arcs of The Name of the Wind.  In the central story, Kvothe is drawn to the University in order to research the nature of the Chandrian through their mythology, a mythology that is called into question over the course of the narrative.  In the frame story, the legend of Kvothe, The Kingkiller, is undermined by his own self-narration as he deconstructs his own rumored heroism.  Throughout Rothfuss’ novel we find ourselves thrust between myth and apparent fact and must draw our own interpretations about how to best navigate the gap, thus making for an engaging and entertaining fantasy story. 

Fantasy stories routinely appropriate the mythologies, folklores, and religions of diverse cultures in the creation of their secondary worlds.  For minority cultures, such appropriation is problematic, as I have argued in another essay, “Tolkein and the Reality of Fantasy's Failure With Racism.”  Such appropriation is so common in fantasy literature that it has become foundational to our expectation of the genre; one expects to read about dragons, elves, dwarves, angels, demons, centaurs, trolls, etc. in a fantasy story.  This has the ironic effect (and in the case of minority cultures, problematic effect) of disassociating such beings from their native mythological narratives and reducing them to an icon of fantastical literature.  But I digress.  The greater irony is, that for all the appropriation of real-world folklore into fantasy, there is very little folklore to be found fantasy worlds themselves.  A fantasy story might have griffins, but these are real griffins, not the griffins found in some native folklore among the peasantry. 

                

One reason for the absence of secondary-world folklore within fantasy may precisely be the pursuit of realism.  As stated above, the appeal of fantasy lies in its portrayal of impossible worlds as if they were actual worlds. If one wants to incorporate mythological creatures such as centaurs and hydras into their narrative, it would be distracting if not inconsistent for there to be a native folklore for them within the fantasy world as well.  They are supposed to be real in the way that a whale or elephant is real (with the possible addition of “magical” attributes), not mythological like their real-world representations are.  This is a simplistic understanding of folklore and mythology with a strict boundary made between mundane and magical beings and experiences.  Superstitions which attribute magical properties to ordinary animals such as cats, dogs, or birds are also a part of folklore and mythology.  This is entirely possible to do in a fantasy setting and even provides an opportunity to deconstruct tropes and subvert expectations regarding some of the commonplace fantasy creatures. 

                  
Imagine a medieval fantasy world in which the countryside peasantry is routinely harassed by what they call vampires: nocturnal flying creatures who feed on the blood of their livestock and occasionally their children.  Fearing for their lives in the face of such terrible creatures, the peasantry is intensely devoted to the teachings of their local religious orders.  Amongst these orders exists an elaborate demonology which has been codified over centuries; the creatures harassing the villages bear a superficial resemblance to one such class of demon, the vampire.  Out of such a demonology arose various superstitions regarding the vampire: that they could be kept at bay with faith in a holy relic, they could transform into and hide amongst one’s fellow villagers, that the light of the sun or sacred fire would kill them, etc.  The combination of a rising vampire population and reactionary religious zealotry amongst the villages becomes disruptive to commerce so the government sends a natural philosophy from the academy to investigate the rumors of demons.  After much astute observation and the dissection of a specimen, it is concluded that the vampire is naught be a grotesquely large variant of bat driven by starvation from their cave habitat due to the mining operations of the local villagers. 

                 

In terms of realism, this is a superior strategy to take with the appropriation of fantastical creatures; it simultaneously incorporates the mythological being into the world and provides it with an elaborate folklore system attributed to it on top of an underlying naturalized explanation for its existence.  Rothfuss takes this strategy himself in The Name of the Wind with the creature he calls a draccus.  Like the dragons of folklore most people mistake them for, the draccus is a fire-breathing reptile; but unlike the dragon, the draccus is an herbivore, cannot fly, and is relatively peaceful.  Devan Lochees provides a naturalistic account of the draccus in his text, The Mating Habits of the Common Draccus, which also serves to deconstruct the mythology of the dragon which the draccus inspired.  It seems that this text is not widely read, or known, in the world however since when a draccus is encountered in the story it is believed to be a dragon and then a demon by over-zealous peasants.  This is an interpretive approach to world-building which acknowledges the layered and conflicted interpretations of the world by the people that inhabit it.  It lends itself well to realistic fantasy since it parallels so closely the own way in which we form conflicting narratives to explain our experiences and give them meaning.            

                

Rothfuss doesn’t simply deconstruct the tired trope of the fantasy dragon but also succeeds in providing a deconstruction of the classic genre hero as well through the character Kvothe.  He is able to do so because Kvothe is the narrator of his own story and because, as Edema Ruh, he is intimately aware of the heroic folk-myths and legends of his own world.  In the first-person narrative, Kvothe is able to directly address the audience through Chronicler, reminding them that his own story is unlike that of the great men from the songs and legends.  This should be read not merely as Kvothe commenting about the high fantasy of his own world, but those found throughout the genre of our own world as well.  Epic heroes cannot tell their own narratives, especially not with the level of self-deprecation Kvothe exercises, but must have their tale told by other people in grand style.  As myths and legends, their stories must be timeless and told across generations, not narrated from within the time in history they live. 

Kvothe defies that by telling his own story to Chronicler, precisely to correct the exaggerated legends that have sprung up through gossip regarding his life’s adventures, trials and tragedies.  Kvothe is telling his own story precisely to divest himself of the heroism we expect of him.  Yet within the frame story in which Kvothe recounts his past, the world is in turmoil.  Demons walk the earth, a rebellion and war rage on, and Kvothe has gone into hiding because he blames himself partially responsible for this state of affairs.  Kvothe refuses to recognize himself as the hero, yet the world clearly needs him to be one.  Bast, Kvothe’s Fae companion and student who listens to his dialogue with Chronicler, recognizes this tension.  Bast confronts Chronicler and threatens him to guide Kvothe’s story towards the heroic, so that Kvothe can remember himself as Bast wants him to be remembered: as a hero.  Those like Bast who can only conceived of heroes in epic and perfect proportion may be the very burden of expectation which prevents our heroes from rising to the occasion when they need them most.  I will have to read the next book and wait for the third to see exactly what kind of a hero Kvothe was and may be again.   

The Name of the Wind represents the best the fantasy genre has to offer simultaneously providing a compelling narrative, subverting the expectations of the fantasy genre itself, and critiquing our unrealistic indulgence in fantasy.  Fantasy needs realism, because our real world needs fantasy.  Fantasy allows us to creatively engage with our inherited ideological myths and legends, recognizing that much of what we consider to be history, to be truth, is itself a fantasy written by someone in power and for their own interest.  Yet one must not escape the fantasies of this world into the fantasies of another written world.  Realistic fantasy wards against such escapism by subverting the wish-fulfillment and idillyic nature some expect of the genre.  One form of realism is for the fantasy world to struggle with its own myths and legends, and to acknowledge the gap between stories and the world.  Such fantasy divests us of our expectations and limitations of this world, yet refuses to provide us a pacifying alternative to escape into. Fantasy cannot provide the answers to reality, but it can give us a perspective on reality from which we might better see the solutions in our own world.  We must, like Kvothe, tell the stories of our own lives; we must not allow them to be written for us, whether under the guise of history or fantasy, by others with power over us.  Perhaps the most heroic thing to do is to admit that history is not heroic and perfect, yet nevertheless strive for a more perfect world.         

Mad Max and the Ideology of Masculinity

What a lovely film. Last night I saw George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road and was enthralled by the post-apocalyptic action movie. The film is essentially an extended car chase, punctuated only by brief opportunities find what hope and strength remains among the ruins of the old world. It is visually arresting, populated with malformed and tormented characters, absurd and monstrous vehicles and yes, absolutely, a feminist critique of the hyper-masculine brutality that inhabits the post-apocalyptic genre. In Fury Road the women are as brutal and capable as the men. But unlike their masculine counterparts, their brutality has a purpose beyond itself. The hyper-masculine antagonists reinforce the status-quo through cycles of violence depravity and resource deprivation. In contrast, the female protagonists exercise violence only in order to revolutionize society to a state where it will no longer be necessary to kill in order to survive. Not only does the film depict women as equal to men, but it ensures that they fight for that very equality to be shared across society, if we can call what remains of humanity a society.        

I have always loved the post-apocalyptic genre of book or film for its speculation on how people will endure the collapse of society and how they will rebuild a new one amidst the ruins of the old world order. Yet problematic to the genre is its frequent collapse into a spectacle of violence, sanctioned by the scarcity of resources. Casual and brutal violence is routinely exchanged between characters as they compete for resources in the wastelands of the post-apocalyptic world. Consider the last season of AMC’s The Walking Dead in which Rick displayed little conscientious objections to violently overthrowing a fellow community in order to preserve what resources it provided. Even after the end of the world, the violent logic of capitalism endures proving that it is indeed “easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” Fury Road confronts this imaginative flaw within the genre through a feminist perspective while sustaining all the engrossing grotesquerie, madness and grit we adore post-apocalyptic worlds for.

The villain, Immortan Joe hordes the precious resource of water and enslaves people to serve his will. Men either serve as industrial laborers are indoctrinated into his person War Boy cult, believing that a violent and glorious death will send them to Valhalla while women are raped to provide him with offspring or are milked like livestock for their “mother’s milk.” This is society stripped bare of humanity, reduced to the lust for power and driven by the fear of starvation; be it from lack of food, water, or meaningful death. This is a hyper-masculine, hyper-capitalist society of the post-apocalypse if there ever was one, where everyone is dehumanized into a resource within the economy of scarcity: women are reduced to their breasts and wombs, men into blood and hired muscle. Even Tom Hardy’s Max, the expected hero of the film, is a mere “blood bag” for a good portion of the film; he lives only to sustain the War Boys on their mad chase after Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa into the desert wastes. As Tom Hardy’s Max narrates, he is “a man reduced to a single instinct: survival.” Quite the emasculated, deconstruction of the hero we expect from the genre.

Furiosa, however, is not here reduced to Max’s romantic (sexual) object of interest, as are female characters in action-oriented genres, but she is his equal and the central protagonist of the film. Max is positioned in the literal passenger seat of the narrative, frequently dependent upon Furiosa for his survival and subservient to her command, as she drives them onward towards salvation and redemption. Not since Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley have we seen a female character with this much presence and power on display in a male dominated genre of film. Of Joe’s emancipated brides, a few stand out. She is literally taking on the patriarchy of Immortan Joe: seeking to liberate his breeder-brides and return them to her own lost matriarchal band, the Vulvani. Together they hope to defeat Immortan Joe and take his Citadel for themselves, sharing its resources openly and hoping to plant the seeds, literal and metaphorical, for a more peaceful and prosperous future. Subtle, this movie is not. But the end of the world rarely is. 

Yet it appears that the idea that water is a human right, women are more than resources, and are just as self-sufficient and driven as men is too controversial for some. Aaron Clarey, writing for MRA blog Return of Kings in a post titled “Why You Should Not Go See ‘Mad Max: Feminist Road'” says he “ fears that male viewers of the film will be “duped by explosions, fire tornadoes, and desert raiders into seeing what is guaranteed to be nothing more than feminist propaganda, while at the same time being insulted AND tricked into viewing a piece of American culture ruined and rewritten right in front of their very eyes.” Never mind that Mad Max is an Australian franchise. Men’s Right Activists aren’t known for the concern for honesty. Clarey is convinced that this film is “the vehicle by which [Hollywood] are guaranteed to force a lecture on feminism down your throat. This is the Trojan Horse feminists and Hollywood leftists will use to (vainly) insists on the trope women are equal to men in all things, including physique, strength and logic. And this is the subterfuge they will use to blur the lines between masculinity and femininity, further ruining women for men, and men for women.” The feminism of Fury Road will not undermine anyone's capacity to enjoy the other sex, but it will make explicit that women's enjoyment of men is not synonymous with men enjoying women as mere things. 

Ironically, Clarey’s anxiety over the emasculation of his beloved franchise necessitates the belittlement of men. Men, Clarey warns, will be “duped” by the spectacle of violence, apparently too dim-witted to pick up on the message of the film; a film franchise which George Miller has apparently ruined through the apparent betrayal of his own masculinity. Clarey ignores that it is Miller’s own franchise. Apparently men only have agency insofar as that agency is only devoted to the cause of “heterosexual, masculine men.” Otherwise, they are fraternal traitors. In order to sustain the ill-conceived illusion that men are simultaneously superior to women, yet threatened by feminist films, the MRA movement reduces men to a pathetic caricature of itself.  Fury Road is aware of this contradiction inherent in patriarchy and critiques it throughout the film. Patriarchy promises masculine empowerment but actually confines men to cycles of self-destructive violence. Like Immortan Joe’s army of War Boys (War boys, not men), who crave immortality through a violent vehicular death, Clarey and fellow MRAs sacrifice their own integrity for the illusion of victory.    

The complaint that the film is an exercise in feminist propaganda is misleading because it depicts feminism as an ideology foreign, if not incompatible, with the genre and as a narrative we must be seduced into. The status quo of patriarchy which is pervasive in media, especially in the action oriented genres of science fiction and fantasy, needs no propaganda for its ideology. Or rather, since every form of media is an ideologically constrained representation of reality, it is dishonest to qualify some as propaganda or others as not. Fury Road, sans Furiosa and her rebellious and revolutionary feminism, would be just as propagandistic as actual film with her in it; albeit many would fail to recognize this since they assume that men are entitled to the genre more than women much as it is believed that men are entitled to most everything before women. Critics are even less entitled to this complaint given that the film genre is fantastical, not historical. Of course it is not realistic, since the assumed reality of patriarchy is the problem. When an ideology is so entrenched in one's understanding of reality, it may take the exaggerated proportions of fantasy to provide an effect critique of that ideological content.  Thankfully the apocalypse of Fury Road has not yet times occurred. But if men are unwilling to confront the violence of patriarchy in the way the film does, the end may eventually come. As one character in the film rhetorically asks: “Who killed the world?” we can only answer: men. If society is a patriarchy, then the apocalyptic collapse of the world belongs to revolutionary feminists, not reactionary misogynists.      


This article is also available at A Feast For Nerds 

Game of Thrones and Fidelity to Fictional Worlds

The fifth season of A Game of Thrones, HBO’s television series based on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series, has just begun.  Four episodes in and this season has already made dramatic departures from the book series it was based upon.  (SPOILERS) In this season so far, Mance Rayder and Barriston Selmy have died and Jamie Lannister has traveled to Dorne while Sansa Stark has followed Petyr Baelish to Winterfell (END SPOILERS).  In previous seasons I was upset when a character from the books I found fascinating, like Lady Stoneheart or Coldhands, was cut from the show.  Now characters are not merely being cut from the show, but are being killed off in it while their literary counter-parts continue to live (for now).  Cutting secondary characters, especially in the later books, could be excused as necessary to create a tighter narrative for the show to follow.  But killing off characters in the show, after they have already been introduced into the narrative, can dramatically alter the plot if they are still alive in the book series.  If a character is killed off within the story of the show but has thus far continued to live in the books, there is concern that this either reveals that ultimate significance to the book series to be minimal or can split the two series down increasingly different paths.    

Only time will tell what the consequences these changes will wrought for the divergent narratives of the television and book series.  But regardless of how divided the world shared by the books and show become, it appears that the changes in the television series this season is already making significant divisions in the overall fan-base.  This is not simply a division between those that prefer one series, television or book, over the other but is also a division between how those series should relate to one another.  It is a difference of opinion regarding the relationship between fictional worlds, their audience, and their creators.  There are those that believe that the television series should reflect the book series as closely as the medium can, and there are those that believe that the television series should be allowed to diverge from its literary parent.  I am sympathetic to the latter, but with certain limitations in mind.  

Given that both series focus upon the same pseudo-medieval world, I believe that the show should follow the books in its world-building.  To my knowledge the show has done this quite well and it must if fans of the book series are to identify the world in the show with the literary world that first captured their interest.  Changing the background lore of the television series undermines the impression that it shares its world with its literary predecessor and betrays the George RR Martin’s vision that made the television series possible.  Dorne should not be erased from the map, or dragons replaced with griffon.  That said, I believe that the television show is entitled to flesh out the lore or invent some of its own, so long as it does not contradict the canon established before.  The world of the show must reflect that of the books, but that does not mean that we must view the world in the show with the same detail and from the same perspective as that of the books.  Having the series in a televised media allows the audience an opportunity to see more of the world and in a degree of detail impossible to capture through the exercise of one’s imagination.         

The world of the show is populated more or less with the same cast of characters from the book series.  If it involved a radically different cast of characters set within the same world, it would be a spin-off series and not a reflection of the book series itself. It is important that the identity of the characters be maintained relative to the world they inhabit; Oberyn should be from Dorne and not Braavos, Tyrion should be one of three Lannister heirs, Ned should be of House Stark and not House Bolton, etc.  As the most dynamic and emotionally engaging aspects of the world, these characters need to remain true to George RR Martin; to change their history, identity and personality, is to deprive fans of the perspectives that shaped their vision of Martin’s world.  Changes to their appearance are less significant insofar as they appear consistent with their characterization and place within the world; Tyrion should not have the body of a Dothraki or John Snow the appearance of a Targaryen (even if he is a unknowing member of their bloodline).  Changes to secondary characters are of secondary importance, but such changes can still be understandably upsetting to fans of them since they are characters to whom attachments and expectations are formed.             

With the world and its cast of characters following the precedent set in the book series more or less, the show characters can interact with one another and appropriately suffer fates that deviate significantly from their counter book counterparts.  Although their identities are fixed within the world, their actions could always be otherwise insofar as these actions are consistent with those identities.  This allows the show the greatest freedom to correct flawed characterization from the books but also runs the greatest risk of alienating fan expectations.  When Ser Barriston was apparently killed off in the last episode, it was upsetting because he has not (yet) died within the book series. However, the enjoyment of Martin’s world is derived from upsetting such expectations; the untimely death of a character or a character making a decision we did not predict from the books not only provides the show with unique content but also keeps it consistent with the torturous unpredictability that makes Martin’s writing so engaging.  The overall story-arcs of characters, especially major ones such as John Snow or Arya Stark, should remain consistent with the books overall but minor changes to them or major changes to minor character arcs provide new opportunities for drama.  Reading the books is no guarantee that one will not be surprised by the show, and that is necessary if the show is to be engaging on its own. 

The show is its own narrative of Martin’s work as it should be if it is to be entertaining on its own.  If it copied the books entirely it would merely be a substitute for one’s imagination and not an opportunity for (relatively) original story-telling.  One should not judge the show on the basis of its fidelity, or lack thereof, to Martin’s work but judge it according to its own self-respect and consistency.  Yes, Ser Barriston and Mance Rayder did not (yet) die in the books, but does it make sense for them to die in the storyline of the show? I think it might.  The books and show should be read side-by-side not one on top of the other; their consistencies should be considered complimentary and reflective of an overall unity of world and story.  The books provide a map for the show, with the same world and routes and destinations in story.  But what we encounter on our journey in the show may not match up exactly with what was written on the map of the books and we may deviate occasionally from the map as alternative routes in the story become available.          

The problem is that George RR Martin is still writing the map of books for the show to follow and the show is rapidly advancing on what he has written so far and may even surpass some of it.  It is convenient to say that the show should respect the canon of the books when that canon is closed and can be appreciated as a totality one can add to.  But when Martin is still adding to that body of literature, the liberties deemed legitimate for the show to take become complicated since they can possibly reveal the outcome of events in the books prior to the books reaching them or contradict the world-building of the books to come later.  Fans rightly fear that the death of Mance Rayder or the removal of Coldhands from the show render these characters insignificant to the future and overall plot of the book series or may influence Martin’s own writing by forcing him down paths taken by the show.  From what I have read, the show creators have been in communication with Martin and are aware of the overall and end vision he has for his series and they intend to respect that in the show, even if they get to it before him.  It is this communication that hopefully ensures that the show remains true to the canon of the word in Martin’s mind before he himself is able to put it into words upon a page.     

Speaking generally now, fantasy fiction derived from a predecessor, regardless of the media of either, should remain consistent with the world-building of its predecessor.  This is necessary if we are to believe that each reflects the same world.  If it is a matter of translation between media, television to book or vice versa, the characters should remain consistent across media as well.  If these are changed significantly from their original vision, then one is merely appriopriating the names and imagery of one media, making one’s own vision more appealing by exploiting the expectations of a pre-established fan base.  Although Martin himself has criticized fan-fiction, I believe that it can be a sign of respect fan’s have towards the world and characters established by the original creator.  It may be the honest desire to extend the horizon of the fantasy world further and see its beloved characters off on further adventures rather than a mere lazy exercise in creativity.  Fantasy literature is greatest when it presents the illusion of being a world of its own and is sustained by people writing and reading about it; the more people doing so, and the more the fictional world lives through them, transcending the limits of any single imagination.  What greater sign that people consider your world to be real than the desire of people to see it extended beyond one author and one form of representation.  It is only because people believe so deeply in Martin's world that they believe it can be envisioned on television or in videogames.                   

Fantasy, History and Authenticity

When medieval fantasies, such as the A Song of Ice and Fire series, are criticizes for being excessively violent, misogynistic and orientalist, fans of such stories tend to respond that the world simply was that way.  Far from being a criticism of the text, such questionable tendencies are seen by some fans as signs of realism and therefore deserve literary merit, not condemnation.  It is readily apparent however that this is a rather odd response in the face of such criticism.  When exactly was the world that way, and what world are they in fact referring to?  It is doubtful that they are referring to their own world history, since dragons, elves and wizards, and other fantasy tropes cannot seriously be considered historical phenomenon.  Even if one does believe in the existence of such beings to some extent, they can only ever be taken seriously as mythological, not historical, beings; their history is timeless and not subject to historical analysis or criticism. 

Only by subtracting away the fantasy elements of the story, could one possibly make a connection between the fantasy world of the text and our own world history.  Dragon slaying knights are historically accurate because they resemble the knights of medieval Europe in code and conduct, dragon slaying aside.  But our conception of past history is dubious and often ideologically constrained, limiting our view of the past.  Not only is it constrained by our present interest in the past but it is also limited by the source material through which we understand the past; if we only understand the medieval time period through European sources it is no wondering that it reflects and retains the prejudices of that place and time.  Yet if one is not referring to our own world, but the world of the fantasy story itself, the criticism of its world-building can always be pushed back further. 

No matter how deep the author builds the history of their world to justify its current condition, one can always ask why the world was built that particular way.  Merely giving the world a deeper history does not negate the justification for that world history in its entirety.  Like a God questioned about the nature of the world they created, an author is responsible for the form their world and story take; it cannot be excused as a projection of past history or as a mere creation of the imagination.  The former route ignores the way in which we imaginatively construct the past; the latter fails to recognize that we are ultimately responsible for the worlds we create, not matter the amount of explanation we pour into them, and that our literary worlds reflect our self.  No matter how much authors build their fictional worlds, they are not merely worlds unto themselves, but are stories that they have intended to focus on with a message threaded through the narrative.  Even if Westeros did exist, there would still be the question as to why it is worth writing about, why the stories of morally abominable individuals is worth giving voice to.  And if their stories are told, there is the further question of how such narratives reflect upon the image of their creator.

In fantasy, one is ultimately responsible for the fictional world one has created.  One cannot absolve one’s self through reliance upon faux historical authenticity since one is creating their own history for their fictional world.  But it is crucial to consider that fantasy worlds are not merely written into being but are also read into being.  After all, they are written to be read.  We as readers are responsible for the worlds we read about, and we must critically engage the genre as readers; if the author is not excused by merely saying that is the way this world or this people is, the reader is not permitted to accept the world as that way or its people as that way.  Literature, even and especially fantasy literature, is never simply about its own self contained world since it is written and read within the imaginative confines of this world that we live in.  Even though we may never be able to escape our world through fantasy, we are able to reflect back upon it from an imagined vantage point, unencumbered by the burden of our historically-mediated identities.  We can confront the injustices of violence, misogyny and orientalism when we are willing to break away from conformity to our prejudicial histories and to fantasize about the possibilities open to people.  

Through fantasy we can confront the injustices of our world precisely because we do not have to conform to the historical expectations of this world and the way it constrains our identity.  One writes and reads fantasy literature, not even pseudo-historic fantasy, in relation to our history but the history of the fantasy genre itself.  Each new work should be written and read in critical conversation with the genre’s history, not merely to improve upon the inherited flaws of the fantasy genre itself but to give us a fantastic perspective from which we can improve upon the flawed world we have inherited and inhabit.  One steps outside of our limited world through the literature of fantasy, not to escape this world, but to better perceive it. 

Fans of fantasy are criticized for not living in the real world and being deluded by their imaginations and not appreciating real history, but I think this only applies to immature members of the community.  Mature writers and readers of fantasy recognize that what we think of as real history is itself a fantasy written into our identities by various ideologies.  But if history is fantasy then perhaps the fantasy genre can, if not provide us with an alternative history, at least provide us with the means to understand how our historical narratives constrain our identities and prejudice us against others.  Fantasy might not conform to history but that hardly means it doesn’t appreciate or critically engage with history.  Fantasy fans are not inauthentic because they do not conform to history, they are authentic precisely because they make their identity for themselves and do not need it imposed upon them.  Fantasy fans know that their favorite fantasies are just stories; it is everyone else that is ignorant that they are living in the greatest fantasy of all, the delusional monolith of History. 

Occult Science Fiction, an Original Sub-Genre?

A great deal of my blog has been devoted to examining how the science fiction and fantasy genre’s can progress, by both internalizing more progressive political ideals and by progressing beyond recycling the exhausted binary of medieval-oriented fantasy and future-oriented science fiction.  Fantasy does not have to simply be about wizards, castles elves and dragon nor does science fiction need to be committed to robots, aliens, scientists and space-ships.  I think it is perfectly legitimate to have a futuristic fantasy story and equally permissible to have a medieval science fiction narrative.  What distinguishes the two genres is not the historical period in which they are situated (fantasy is in the past while science fiction is in the future), nor even the rationale of their world-building (fantasy is magical and irrational while science fiction is scientific and rational). 

What I do think distinguishes the two genres from one another is how we understand the history of their world in relation to our own.  If we can construct a narrative “bridge” from our world-history to the imagined history within the text, then the story is science fiction; but if the world-history of the text cannot be reconciled with our own history, then the story is a fantasy.  I have addressed this in significantly greater detail in my essay “Subversive Speculation of the Future of Scientific andFantastic Speculative Fiction.”  In this essay I want to briefly detail a unique and unexplored (to my knowledge) sub-genre of science fiction that deviates from the standard model.

I believe the standard model of science fiction to be future oriented and revolve around the imagery of aliens, spaceships, experiments, robotics, space exploration, human augmentation, genetic modification, etc.  Not only is such imagery (near) future-oriented but it is also externally-oriented in the sense that the genre is about going out into the world and exploring new worlds and experimenting with as-yet-understood phenomenon.  Even when the world-building lacks scientific credibility and could more accurately be described as pseudo-scientific sci-fi magic (nano-bot magic, genetics magic, alien techno-magic, etc) I still believe that the genre narrative tends to revolve around exploring and experimenting with the world.  I believe that one can incorporate such a focus onto any historical time period and one could still consider the story science fiction proper. 

There has been a trend in recent years for science fiction to become more near-future focused, exploring more the implications of more mundane technological and scientific advances for our future just over the horizon.  But one could even extend this logic back into past history.  Some forms of the steam-punk aesthetic and alternative history stories would fit into this form.  For example, what if the inventive mind of Leonardo Da Vinci had resulted in a Renaissance-era technological revolution which significantly altered the course of history there-after?  But such stories need not even be alternative history but could also be stories of hidden history: stories made possible because they occupy discrete spaces in our history that do not upset the order of our historical narrative.  For example, what if aliens crash-landed in medieval Europe and existed briefly among rural villagers who interpreted them to be angels (or demons).  Unfortunately the villages die after being exposed to an alien disease harbored by one of the aliens and fearing further contamination of the human population, the aliens hastily escape back into space.  Because the story closes with no wider consequences for our history it could be considered a part of history hidden from our awareness and thus would not be a truly alternative history of our world. 

This approach to history as one of layers is often employed in the urban-fantasy sub-genre of fantasy.  Situated within some contemporary cityscape (it seems like it is almost always London), there is a magical world hidden from the mundane population with its own history weaving around our own.  Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, China Mieville’s Kraken and JK Rowling’s Harry Potter come to mind as some of the most popular examples within this sub-genre.  Since these fantasy stories occur within our world, they are not secondary world fantasies.  This is true despite the inclusion of magic, a force that deviates from our understanding of the world we inhabit, since the magic of the world is hidden from the wider population.  The story serves as a secret glimpse with the narrative following an individual privileged with exposure to that magical world.  This world, in which you are reading this blog essay, could be that world, if only you could discover the magic occluded from your perception.  In the same way, the world is not truly alternative history, regardless of the inclusion of impossible magical elements, since the history and magic of the secret world are alike occult to the general population.  If the elves or vampires were walking around the city for everyone to see as is the case in some other forms of urban-fantasy then we would be dealing with a magical alternative-history of our world if not a secondary world entirely. 

Now transfer this logic of a hidden world within our contemporary environment from a fantasy setting to a science fiction one and you have the sub-genre of science fiction I am working to define.  For lack of better words, it will be called occult science fiction.  Rather than trolls living in secret in the sewers of Los Angeles or wizards working magic behind closed doors in New York City, there are robots and aliens living and working amongst us without our knowledge.  The future imagined by science fiction is already here, we simply are not aware that it is going on around us. 

A series that may come to mind for this sort of world-building is the Matrix trilogy of films since the world we think we inhabit is actually a computer simulation we are enslaved by for the benefit of sentient machines.  Yet this is an imperfect representation of what I am trying to convey since the trilogy reduces our world to a mere illusion and since it is revealed that the real world takes place in what we would recognize as the future relative to the world portrayed in the computer simulation.  A better example would be the Men in Black series of films since it involves a contemporary setting with aliens coexisting with humanity in secret except for the clandestine Men in Black agency which possesses technology far more advanced than we would consider possible.  In Men in Black the contemporary city is real, but there is an entire history of aliens on our planet hidden from us; the world, and its history, is far deeper and stranger than we understand it to be. 

As with all sub-genres, they occupy a niche that makes them revolve around more specific imagery appealing to a more specific audience.  Occult sci-fi is best focused upon technological advances that can be concealed from the general population and would thus likely incorporate some form of nano-technology, cloaking field or polymorphic capability.  Because such technology is concealed from the general population, the question arises as to why it is concealed and the narrative could be weaved around issues of technocratic or alien conspiracies, the dangers of technological progress or widespread proliferation of technology, and the conflict between the privacy and security of information.  Occult science fiction neither recognizes the world of science-fiction as a far-future possibility nor accepts technological advances in wide-ranging availability in our near future but portrays a disparity already present within our world that has been hidden from us. 

Perhaps the genre standard for science fiction is itself a tool of alien overlords or corporate and government elites to manage us.  If we focus upon the future as the site new technologies and hold onto the hope that such advances will be made widely available to us, then perhaps we will overlook the way in which technology controls us now and has shaped our perception of our own history, hiding its own influence from us.  Perhaps we will ignore that history and technology may progress without us and that the failure to question the narratives provided to us by those in power renders us impotent to their control.  Or perhaps such concerns merely make for entertaining, if not paranoid, speculation.  Either way, I see this as an open possibility for the science fiction genre to explore and experiment with further, and given that the focus of so much of the genre is exploration and experimentation I believe such progress to be inevitable.  Especially if economic and technological disparity increases along with government surveillance and dissatisfaction with those in power, I believe just such a sub-genre may become a refuge to escape into.