This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
True, I forgot this.
In general, I feel an urge to push back against the ‘rule-ification’ of fantasy. It’s become gospel that fantasy worlds should have systems with clear rules, and a certain amount of post-enlightenment tendency to assume that everything is explainable and amenable to engineering.
We can’t even engineer human social systems, or understand how brains work beyond very basic principles. Why would we be able to understand literal magic?
The world that has no recognizable rules would be incomprehensible for us. You can't have "magic" - at least fantasy type magic, with wizards, magic books, spells etc. - in such a world. Why would doing a gesture and saying "imperio!" produce any consistent result in such a world? Maybe once it would put a person under your control, another time it would turn them into a frog, and another time it would turn your own head into vanilla ice cream. How would you "teach" magic in such a setting? How would you explain this world to anybody and make them involved in it? Basically the only thing you can tell the reader is "any shit can happen shrug". People would be unable to emphasize with such a world and imagine themselves being part of it. The beings living in such a setting would certainly have very little in common with humans as we know them. Maybe H.P. Lovecraft would be able to work with it, but even his nightmare worlds have some rules.... We need rules because our own world has rules, so our brains would be unable to comprehend a world which doesn't work this way. And Rowling is certainly going with the standard here, her magic system is not chaotic, it is set up as having very definite rules - in fact, the whole plot of the series relies on the fact that the rules of magic work in certain way and even the most powerful wizard of all times, who worships power and does not have any moral limitations, is not able to overcome these rules and is ultimately undone by them. In that aspect, I think Rowling's world is more rule-based than ours - in our world, the laws of nature are morally neutral, but in Rowling's world the magic is not. The only problem is that her system was not consistently designed and has many logic flaws. Which is also common for fantasy worlds, so I don't really hold a grudge agains her for that, one just needs to understand we have an imperfect rule system here and deal with it.
Rules for magic give us an interface for magic.
It’s like teaching arithmetic to the youngest kids, then gradually explaining over the next fifteen years of Masters-track schooling how it works under the hood. Eventually you get top math-wizards inventing new types of numbers and functions named after them, because they need them to make X go widdershins into Y through a tensor, but only if it’s not imaginary otherwise you get a strange attractor set and that’s not ideal at all.
Rowling’s system is about this deeply connected energy flowing through most living things, and where other magical sapients get instinctive and powerful ways to use it, humans have to use tools like wands and words to reach an instinctive level beyond wild flailing. (Like mundane animals having fangs and claws and venom, but mundane humans have to make tools.) But once humans can do wandless wordless magic, they’re basically instinctively programming flows of raw magic and can just blow past boundaries the first year students think are immutable.
Then, some magics were modeled by geniuses after the instinctive magics of beasts and beings and so the restrictions don’t apply for those spells, and other magics are basically like having admin access so certain artificial restrictions interact differently with them, like the Hallows.
The “anything can happen” feel is meant to retain the wonder of high fantasy, while the “you can’t do that spell that way” is meant to retain the utility manipulation of low fantasy. I think she did a great job at letting both levels work together, at least for the genre-redefining work of urban fantasy/Roald Dahl pastiche/bildungsroman/YA fascism dystopia it evolved into.
That makes a lot of sense.
Thanks! That's a high compliment on a sensemaking forum.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I was thinking especially of Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising trilogy, and to a lesser extent of people like Dianna Wynne Jones or Alan Garner’s Weirdstone of Brisengamen.
The magic in the Dark of Rising isn’t chaotic, but we aren’t told the rules. Some of the characters (the Old Ones) know how things work but one of the big themes is that even though the Old Ones are on our side and appear normal most of the time, their true knowledge make them as distant from us as the stars in the heavens.
The magic works for the reader because it’s not arbitrary. The author is very careful that the magic feels right rather than thinks right. And many of the plot points are foreshadowed by a rhyme that runs through the whole series, so that people aren’t surprised when they turn up.
In general I think that old English fantasy tended to run much more heavily on imagery and allegory, and was generally written by students of ancient languages (Norse and Welsh, usually). Modern fantasy seems to be written by nerds and feels much more like engineering code (reaching an apogee in the LitRPG genre). None of this is bad, obviously, but I feel that something has been lost.
When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back:
Three from the circle, three from the track,
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.
Iron for the birthday, bronze carried long;
Wood from the burning, stone out of song;
Fire in the candle-ring, water from the thaw;
Six signs, the circle, and the grail gone before.
Fire on the mountain shall find the harp of gold,
Played to wake the sleepers, oldest of the old;
Power of the the Greenwitch, lost beneath the sea,
All shall find the light at last, silver on the tree.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link