Monosylabik said:
Well, I might have mislead you a bit there Arch. Sure, epic fantasy (remember that's the subgenre we're focussing on here) might not have a big impact, but I *think* this thread is about exploring what the possible importance of epic fantasy is in society, which is distinct from assuming it necessarily has an impact. I was trying to make the point that it seems to be important only to a significant minority rather than the whole of society, which probably doesn't contribute anything to the discussion. I'm still not sure what No-Dog meant by "opening up possibilities", but (and at the risk of further rationalising this thread) I now think he means that we should be discussing critical theories that make an argument as to whether epic fantasy *should* have any importantant role in society (for good or bad), as opposed to whether it *does* have an important role. For me, the problem is that I don't see epic fantasy as some sort of unified entity. I think there are great books that are epic fantasies, but far more that are awful ones. So when discussing epic fantasy in this thread, are we taking the literature at its highest? Also, I have a problem with No-Dog saying that authorial intention is not relevant, because with a topic like this, where we're covering the whole, nebulous melting-pot of epic fantasy literature, it's hard to incorporate specific texts into our theories. So what are our reference points?
Ah, Okay...I have misunderstood what the purpose of the thread was. The word 'should' is a difficult one to place into the context of social relevance in regards to Epic Fantasy. Should indicates a requirement of some sort. So does that mean that all fantasy authors have to design works of Epic Fantasy to be socially relevant ? Furthermore, what exact type of social relevance 'should' be discussed. The problem with the word 'should' is that it is subjective. You can approach it from so many different angles. For example, one person might think Epic Fantasy 'should' have religious undertones. But a person such as myself, that cannot stand religion, would completely argue against that. There is not a should, or a should not in regards to what an author decides to do when creating a piece of work. If they choose to involve some sort of socially relevant undertone, that is their choice and their right. If they choose to address nothing that is socially relevant to our current world situation, that is also their right. At the end of the day it is ultimately up to the author to decide what direction they want to take. Then it falls on the reader to decide if what they have read has any significance to today's world or has impacted them personally, on a social level.
I simply do not feel that science fiction or fantasy literature has the ability to promote and facilitate social change on a profoundly large scale. As someone already brought up, the amount of the populus that reads sci fi or fantasy is in the minority. So the people you would be impacting, would be a very small amount of people, and therefore the mass populus remains uneffected. To promote and facilitate large scale change you have to use numerous mediums, tv, newspapers, websites, public radio, activism, and yes, literature. But the literature must be designed to appeal and be accessable to a much larger portion of the population. I love fantasy literature, and respect science fiction literature. But both I think, particularly sci fi, have bigger impacts in the film medium. I say this because of one simple fact, the majority of people are too lazy to actually pick up a book. If you are trying to make a direct, large scale social impact through literature, you have to be careful not to get to complex or to metaphoric in your approach, because quite frankly you will end up loosing alot of your audience. That might sound rude, but it is a fact. To get people to think outside the box, you need to bring them along slowly. Tossing complex, multi-faceted concepts at the masses is the complete wrong way to facilitate change. Build with easier, more direct concepts to understand, concepts from which other, more complex and complicated concepts can be built upon.
Michael Moore is a great example of an activist that gets people thinking. Now most people have either one of two reactions to Moore, you either love him or you hate him. Or, to state it in a different way, you agree with him, or agree with certain points he brings up or you think he is full of crap. But he gets people thinking. And that is important. 'Fahrenheit 9/11' is a perfect example of getting people thinking. It was strategically released close to the upcoming elections, and it got people thinking. And who knows, if its a close presidential race, which it probably will be, maybe some people who saw the movie were swayed a bit, thought a little more about the issue, and therefore maybe their vote is swayed(hopefully to Kerry
) and maybe those few votes, or even that one vote, changes the outcome of the election. So in that sort of situation/example, a change would have helped been facilitated because of a movie in some sense.
To sum all this up, I simply think the subject matter dealt with in science fiction and in some fantasy literature is too complex and the amount of readers of the genres to small to facilitate any sort of broad, large scale social change or impact. It certainly can have a small scale impact, and who knows, maybe that one individual who is impacted may then start to try to promote change to others, and so on and so. So at the grass root level, ya never know. It's certainly not an impossibility. Someone might just come along, write a piece of fantasy that shakes the very foundations of modern social and cultural thought. And if that does happen, I will applaud and smile. I just don't see that happening. But I would love to be proved wrong.
Peace
Arch
