Dominant Themes in the Genre: Why War?
An unexpected meditation on war in popular media. Why is it so prevalent, especially in SF, which is supposed to envision futures diferent from our present? Is war a given for fantasy, which was birthed in monarchy, weaned on knightly valor and raised on the viscitudes of the battlefield?
April 5th, 2004 at 12:07 pm
War has always been popular in fiction of all genres. "The Iliad" is a glorified war story. "The Odyssey" glorifies the soldier’s return from the battle of Troy.
But there are some really quite repellent tendencies in American SF to glorify all things military, and that’s among the most popular bestsellers of all time: STARSHIP TROOPERS ("only soldiers should have the right to vote!") and ENDER’S GAME ("push the button and blow up an alien planet! You’re a hero, kid!").
I can picture two reasons why these books are so popular:
A) Gung-Ho politics. Deep down, Americans feel terribly guilty about all those dead Native Americans, Vietnamese and the blowing up of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The guilt is a redeeming trait, but it’s a burden too. So as a sort of overcompensation, the military must be glorified — even in the fictional wars of science-fiction.
B) Personal insecurity. By using "aliens" as symbolic straw men for the real-life enemy you fear (Communists, Arabs, Germans, foreigners, whatever), the insecure reader can "kill them all" and not feel guilty about it.
-A.R. Yngve
P.S.: You can read my serialized anti-war SF novel THE ARGUS PROJECT for free here:
http://yngve.bravehost.com/aboutargusproject.html
April 5th, 2004 at 2:03 pm
<blockquote>But there are some really quite repellent tendencies in American SF to glorify all things military, and that’s among the most popular bestsellers of all time: STARSHIP TROOPERS ("only soldiers should have the right to vote!") and ENDER’S GAME ("push the button and blow up an alien planet! You’re a hero, kid!").</blockquote>
ok, i’m gonna have to start of by saying that as long as we humans experience conflict (and last i checked there was at least one or two wars and quite a few undeclared ones going on), our art is going to reflect our need to work through that and try to come to terms with it.
secondly, since both books you mentioned are on my list of favorites, i’ll try to rebut.
starship troopers was over the top, but he tried to make the point of ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’. Similar experiments (switzerland i believe requires military service from all citizens, and has one of the lowest crime rates ever, possibly from the fact that every citizen is trained to use a machine gun…) have worked suprisingly well. this is not to say that i agree that enfranchisement should be allowed only to those who serve in the military, but i think i could get behind an initiative requiring a few days of public service each year that you are registered to vote.
i almost think that part of the reason that voter turn-outs in the U.S. are so low, especially for the young (like me) is that it’s ‘free’. nothing free can be valuable. and until you come to really understand and appreciate the costs and sacrifices that OTHERS paid and that you might still pay, it’s hard to appreciate it fully. a story like that may not change your mind, but it certainly will challenge you to find your own ideas about service to a country.
and as for enders game, much of the story was ender’s deep knowledge that he was exactly the opposite of a hero, despite the acclaim his actions earned that fueled the resolution of the story. it’s only through his ‘act of atonement’, offered by the alien race in question (choosing to protect the dormant queen and find her a place to grow), that the true end of the story becomes apparent. ender realizes that humanity isn’t quite ready to play nice with others, but hopes to try to guide and teach until it can do so, thus leading into the concept of ’speaker for the dead’ with his actions.
i guess i just didn’t get out of those books what you seemed to have gotten.
—
-Rob
littlebrother@brotherjames.net
www.brotherjames.net
May 19th, 2004 at 6:42 pm
I’m definitely with Rob on interpreting Starship Troopers and Ender’s Game; though, I’d add that Troopers is also making the argument that civics are a requirement for military service. In Heinlein’s fantasy world, everyone fighting first knows why they are fighting and, with the choice to soldier happily consistent with their civic/ethical beliefs (theory), off they go to kill, justifications well in hand. Now that is a fantasy! In the real world U.S., for example, urban poverty and a failed inner city education system has as much to do with people joining the military as anything else.
But pulling the discussion back to the original questions: why is war so prevelant in Sci Fi and Fantasy? Also, why does sci-fi seem to glorify war? Finally, are fantasy stories and war inextricable?
I think the last question is easiest to address: no. Plenty of good fantasies have no war in them at all. But they ALL have conflict. Very few stories (if any) move without it. Since speculative fiction (and fantasy in particular) tends toward the epic, the metaphorical, and the larger then life; it kind of makes sense that warfare is a frequent visitor to the pages of fantasy.
That suggests to me that to usefully answer these questions we need to differentiate between war in fiction that serves a thematic purpose and the ‘…repellent…glorification of all things military….’
I mean, how many books have you read that are really saying nothing but "Tra la la, it’s a fine and jolly thing to sail the spaceways la la indiscriminately slaughtering all I find, because I’m a Space Soldier lalala…" Such stories would merely be a kind of pornography of violence, of interest only to serial killers or other sociopaths.
Even the most blatantly vapid Space Opera (BVSO) is more complex than that. At the very least BVSO has no choice but to place the Jolly Space Soldier in a social context (usually imperial, frequently and unoriginally anglocentric), thereby addressing–if only accidentally and tangentially–things like the role of war in society; conflict between societies; the kind of individual psychology that allows a person to interpret various social needs as an adequate justification for burning bloody holes in other people and then sleep at night; etc.
Of course a book can do a good, thorough job exploring such themes, or a lousy, superficial one. But an individual author’s depth and/or competence is different from the questions we’re discussing.
Personally I suspect that if sci fi and fantasy are glorifying anything, they are glorifying moral clarity. Sci-fi and fantasy tend to play to the yearning for definitive answers, the wish fulfillment-romance humans have with simple–therefore actionable–ethical solutions. If there is no ambiguity about the ‘enemy’ being ‘evil’ then of course you go stomp their guts out–and then you be damn proud of it. The only thing stopping you would be your own courage. And, really, on an individual level, don’t we all wish we had the courage, the skill and the power to smite evil? Right wrongs? Correct injustices? Don’t we wish it was all clear and maybe even console ourselves that the lack of clarity is the only reason we don’t act? In the Western world, I suspect fiction that empowers us to be a vicarious soldier of good reconciles a deep vigilante-like need to battle injustice with an equally deep-rooted belief in the rule of law.
In essence, perhaps the focus on war in fantasy and sci-fi is a symptom of our own impotence in the face of real moral quandries or a temporary antidote to a pervasive sense of helplessness about ever doing anything that meaningfully makes the world a better place.
In our fiction, now — there we can make a difference! Or at least we can make a difference vicariously, after our protagonist’s great sufferings and mighty efforts.
To the extent that such stories buoy us up and fund our strength to make difficult choices in the real-world, spur us to contribute to causes, or otherwise to fight real-world injustice–hurrah!
To the extent that such stories explore the real meanings of conflict between societies and the genuine, nigh-irreconcilable hatreds that fuel the clashes of cultures; to the extent they examine the social influences (or even our genetic) woven into the hearts of individuals such that we can be successfully called by the State to kill our brothers and sisters; or question whether war can be useful to the species as a whole; or wonder when, precisely, in our day-to-day lives violence is called for and/or justified (if ever)–now there’s a story!
But to the extent that novels trivialize the systematic murder that we label warfare; or blind us to the real, unresolved issues that the human animal has balancing ethics with violence — well then: bad story, bad story! Whack! Kick! Grrrr. Punch!
May 28th, 2004 at 4:59 pm
The dominance of War in fnatasy is pervasive. Even Jackson’s take on the much loved "Lord of the Rings" gets voyeurist on the war part. Battles–which occupied a mere sliver of Tolkien’s narrative–take up an impressive percentage of the screen time in the theatrical release.
In Tolkien’s narrative, war is inflicted on the good and peaceful by the evil, greedy and grasping. It is the natural order for orcs, where the pastoral is the natural order for hobbits.
Jackson’s rendering of LotR makes the battle scenes the emotional anchor. Remove battle and what do you have left? A weak love triangle with Aragorn at the center; a sketch of a father’s love for his daughter (Elrond and Arwen); the humorous sidekicks Gimli and Legolas; the incredibly cute Gollum; the cryptic relationship between Sam and Frodo; Denethor’s twisted love for his sons Boromir and Faramir and of course, delivering the ring to Mount Doom.
Its this "other stuff" that people have been buying the books for the last 40 years: honor, loyalty, love, valor not just under arms. Yet its this "other suff" that is so weakened in Jackson’s LotR that I don’t think the movie would hold up well without all of the flashy fighting.
So it’s interesting that what has been most adapted by all of the Tolkienesque works is battle.
Best regards,
Alan