Class, Heroism and mobility

[Galactus]

For those non-Americans on the board, John Stossel is a prominant American journalist and libertarian.

A number of years back he did a TV broadcast where he complained that in most movies the villains were usually a rich capitalists of some sort.

In my own viewing experiences I have also noticed that in many movies the greedy entrepreneur is displayed in a somewhat negative light. Like in slasher movies, where characters who partake of promiscuity, drugs, or alcohol usually meet bad ends, the man who intends to make a profit usually meets a gruesome demise.

Ah, but you see it is usually a conflict *within* the system: Putting the honest, self-made, hard-working entrepreneur against his greedy, cheating opponent who usually inherited his wealth.

So the narrative is in fact legitimizing the capitalist system.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Galactus,

So the narrative is in fact legitimizing the capitalist system.

It would be illigitimate for someone who invented a commercially viable fusion reactor to benefit from their invention?

[Datepalm]

I'd prefer a humble scullery maid who goes off to be a hero and then comes back and leads a worker's revolution overthrowing the repressive class-system... :hat:

Thats...the plot of my in progress completely stuck half-written novel. Seriously, my main character is an illiterate scullery maid.

But...the whole story is about how she learns to read and do a bunch of other stuff. Its a narrative reality that the lives of the working class are just not interesting. (And thats whats wrong with capitalism, lest I seem to be justifying it, but thats a bit besides the point.) The idea that there simply are and are always going to be have's and have-nots seems to be so deeply ingrained that very few people are writing fantasy worlds where upper class progress/origin isn't neccessary for the story (not to mention desirable for the characters). I'm trying to think of science fiction now - star trek seems pretty class-less.

[Jon AS]

star trek seems pretty class-less.

Sure, it seems that way. But we all know that behind that shiny propaganda facade the Federation is an oppressive fascist state!

A friend of mine and I used to have fun pointing out all the little details in various episodes that hint at this. Those "hints" were of course completely involuntary and just results of writers not quite thinking through the wider implications of something they came up with for a one-off episode, but there were quite a lot of them. I just wish I could remember even one right now...

[infinite009]

Isn't there a Buddhist, maybe Hindu, belief of something along the lines that basic struggles to survive get in the way of higher intellectual or spiritual pursuits. So basically you can't train to be batman or spend time pondering good vs. evil and all that when you're working two jobs to feed yourself and pay rent.

People born into privelage (sp) get more of a choice on how to spend their time. That's why you get all the spoiled little rich cokeheads chock full of personality disorders, but at the same time the people who realize that they got kinda lucky and see it as an opportunity to help others.

[Bellis]

star trek seems pretty class-less.

I think there are inherent advantages to being vanilla human in the Star Trek Federation.

I know what you say, that this is a vessel of exploration, and that your mission is to discover new worlds. That's what the Spanish said... and the Dutch, and the Portuguese... - Sam Clemens in Time's Arrow II (ref. IMDB)

[Lord of Rhinos]

Anyone want to give me a definition of working class? I can think of dozens of heroes that might be considered working class.

Oh, and for anyone interested here is a essay explaining why the Federal is a communist society The Federation is Marxist

Frankly, I don't see what the big issue is. Working class heroes are used all the time in fantasy, but by the end of the story they are no longer working class. However, in many cases this happens at the very end of the story (Simon in Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn comes to mind). In other words, I don't see how you can read these stories as "working class people can't be heroes".

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Tarant,

You're missing Galactus's point. It's not that someone from the working class can't be a hero, it's that the person from the working class who is a hero rarely remains in the working class. I believe it offends his notion of equality of condition.

:P

[Datepalm]

I think there are inherent advantages to being vanilla human in the Star Trek Federation.

I know what you say, that this is a vessel of exploration, and that your mission is to discover new worlds. That's what the Spanish said... and the Dutch, and the Portuguese... - Sam Clemens in Time's Arrow II (ref. IMDB)

ST has plenty of fodder for imperialism, but not a lot of strict class issues, within federation society. Maybe some in DS9, particulalry around Quarks bar - Was it Nog who became the first ferengi in starfleet? It definitely seemed like we were supposed to view his joining SF as a step up in life, and his dad and his girlfired (Leeta?) were maybe some of the only characters you could be expected to think of as "working class". Bashere, particularly around the revelation he'd been genetically improved, seems to have some kind of wealthy background (and somewhat immoral, ofcourse, but also rather decadent and wastrelly - something about tennis there, IIRC) though its never clear in Star trek economics how thats measured.

Wow. I remember way more about ds9 than I thought.

I don't recall anything of the sort in TNG (which I didnt see that much of) or in Voyager, which had some room for it, with the Maquis.

I'm not sure about the federation being human dominated - though i'm really not certain - I think its argued that it isn't all that mixed - ships, stations and planets are mostly this, or mostly that, with a minority of other species on something like exchange programs. I could be making this up out of thin air though.

ETA: to end the ST derail - how about Hobb's Fitz? At least as of the end of the first trilogy, theres neither fame nor fortune there. But IIRC he was also sort of miserable. Didn't get the girl and so on.

[Galactus]

Fitz isn't exactly working class either. Burrich would be a better example, but then again, he's not The Hero is he?

EDIT: Nevere is actually interesting. He actuall moves *downwards* socially (although it ends on a note that he might get back up again)

[Datepalm]

Fitz isn't exactly working class either. Burrich would be a better example, but then again, he's not The Hero is he?

EDIT: Nevere is actually interesting. He actuall moves *downwards* socially (although it ends on a note that he might get back up again)

:blush: I have no memory whatsoever of Nevere.

Fitz definitely benefits by being a royal bastard, but in most ways he has it pretty harsh - for all his service he still ends up pretty far from the nobility. (Most fantasy books seem to go by a sort of fuedal (inaccurately so! I know!) system rather than a really wealth based one - probably the worst thing to be in fantasy is a rich merchant*.) Most of the characters that are most important to him (Molly, Burrich, even the Fool, sort of) are working class and he gets less benefits, and advances less, than for example Jon Snow. Noble Bastards - the eaten yet whole cake of class in fantasy literature?

*the only exception I can think of, of the top of my head, is in The Painted Man by Peter Brett, which is mostly set in a city not among the nobility, with a lot of various guilds and craftsmen who shamlessly make nice profits (including from life-saving necessities they seem to have monopolies over) but are still sympathetic, by and large.

[Galactus]

Oh, he's clearly an outcast and doesen't have it easy. Just because you're a part of the upper class doesen't mean you have it easy :P

But still, he's clearly a part of that class. Even if on the fringes of it. He dines with nobles and his marriage is considered for political reasons, he is well (if somewhat haphazardly) educated, he moves in the world of nobles rather seamlessly.

[Datepalm]

Oh, he's clearly an outcast and doesen't have it easy. Just because you're a part of the upper class doesen't mean you have it easy :P

But still, he's clearly a part of that class. Even if on the fringes of it. He dines with nobles and his marriage is considered for political reasons, he is well (if somewhat haphazardly) educated, he moves in the world of nobles rather seamlessly.

:blush: He gets married? I should probably stop discussing these books now, since I remember them so poorly.

I agree he gets benefits by being who he is - but he dosen't do much advancing, is my point. For all he spends the books with kings and queens he ends up living in a little hut writing his memoirs. He starts out illegitimate fringe nobility, and thats where he ends. (I think. I could be misremebering completely.) Still, point taken that he's not really an example of working class hero at all.

[delete this account pls]

Thinking of examples in sci-fi; Richard Morgan's Kovacs trilogy springs to mind. Very much a working class hero who rises briefly to a position of privilege and respect (before the books start) but has since fallen back again and now operates as a criminal and a mercenary. And a revolutionary!

[GenlyAi]

To me the real problem is with the social mobility side of this discussion.

Not because there's anything wrong with becoming a prince or whatever, but it's not like dude's becoming a prince due to his own hard work. He's usually becoming a prince because that shit was promised.

The Belgariad, ASOIAF (presumably), LOTR, most any book that starts out with a farmboy, bastard, or Viggo Mortensen ends up with a prince. The whole "prophesy tells that the true king will return, and all will be right with the land" is totally a regressive throwback all the way back to the divine right of kings. Obviously we don't need to worry about the divine right of kings, as such, but it legitimizes the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of those who have it, because they're the best ones to wield it.

[Lord of Rhinos]

Ser Scot,

I was actually referring to this:

But the thing is, I think this has some unfortunate implications. Mainly that there seems to be a logic that working-class people cannot be heroes. (apart from Spidey most other exceptions tends to be explicitly political works, ironically either very conservative or socialist) For the first example it's obvious, but for the second on the implication is that if you are a hero you will be rewarded and brought "out". Not only is this kind of skeevy on the "heroes always gets rewarded" thing (which I'm not that fond of) but the underlying assumption seems to be that you can't be a hero and working class at the same time.

Does anyone see what I'm saying?

Because I don't think it follows very well. Many heroes end their story as upper class but that's the end of the story. Simon in MST spends almost the entire series lower class. It is only at the very end he is elevated. While it can certainly be read that "great acts of heroism leads to great rewards", I don't really see the implication that the working class can't be heroic. After all, we've just read 3000 pages of a working class joe being heroic.

I'm still wondering what definition of working class is being used in this discussion because it tends to be such a slippery term. I can think of many superheroes that would qualify as working class, depending on definition, and most Urban fantasy protagonists could qualify.

[Arthmail]

I think there is an inherint flaw in this reasoning. The idea that, for whatever reason, if the scullery maid doesn't want to go back to being that is somehow wrong is sort of bone headed. As an example, i'll use the real life circumstances of one of my favorite shows, Band of Brothers. If you look at the accounts of these guys afterwords, they mostly went on to have successful careers after the war. Carwood Lipton went on to become a milllionare. Why? Well, he went from NCO to officer with a battlefield comission. What that says to me is that he worked his ass off to get into the Airborn, then to get to Sgt. Then he worked equallly as hard during the war, was rewarded for it, and carried those traits onto his next stage in life.

What i'm trying to say is that whatever drove them to those acts of heroism in the first place, an underlying foundation would have to be the willingness to work hard to achieve their goals. Unless they come back from whatever they were doing a broken and blasted shell, why the hell would they suddenly forget the work ethic that allowed them to accomplish what they did? Likely, seeing all that they could accomplish, why accept anything less. And at the moment of triumph, it is very likely that those around them would seek to reward them for doing a job well done. The motivations for the reward may be nothing more than a political move to be closer to the hero of the hour, but it seems unlikely that the hero would say..."No, thank you. I will not accept the Duchy of Hoity-Toity and all of its accompanying honours and privelages. I would prefer to go back to mucking horses and living in abject poverty. Thanks though."

Also, as has been said, i don't buy the farm boy learning to become a master swordsman only a year after having been found, the rest of his life consisting of navel gazing and chasing the local skirt. So it seems more likely that the hero is of a group of people more inclined to do what needs to be done.

The whole "prophesy tells that the true king will return, and all will be right with the land" is totally a regressive throwback all the way back to the divine right of kings. : Or you could stop looking into so deeply and accept that it gives a certain aura to the story. A feeling of legend, if you will. I personally don't want to see it all the time, but the idea that its solely some pretext for the divine right of kings is wrong.

[Errant Bard]

For me, there is no problem with the idea that those with power, perseverance, courage, charisma and will to use their skills (sung heroes, in short) end up as leaders/rulers/upper class, if they were not already in these spheres.

What I have a problem with, and it's linked, is the ubiquitous idea seemingly inherent to anything fantasy-ish (comic books included) that these positive traits are rare, inherited and allow for such discrepancies in individual possibilities that they make environment irrelevant. Learning, experience and hard work seldom work in fantasy, but teenagers save the world and become tyrants kings of it. It implies that social rank is dependant on birth, and it's a throwback to the days of royalty (even if you want to call that "aura of legend", it's still the same thing). We killed our nobles, their blood runs as red as ours, and rulers are never young idiots, no matter how much potential they have.

The other point, maybe more minor, is that the typical fantasy actually validates the iniquitous social structure in place, even with great power nobody breaks it. If someone is a working class hero, what he will do is move up the ladder but actually keep what made him miserable in the beginning totally in place. The young street urchin never becomes George Washington, he always becomes George III (only, he's good, you see), the scullery maid never leads a revolution, she just integrates with the power in place.

It is something that I appreciate in works like A Song of Ice and Fire, that they implement a downward or a sideways progression for some of their noble heroes, that there are actually some forms of schooling and experience that means something, that different means of government coexist in the world, and that not every hero has the same agenda regarding social structure. Alas, they still have the gifted by the gods teenager messiahs that are totally better at anything than the crumbling old fools that did it all their lives, and the unfortunate implications that the quality of one's birth determines his worth. (taking ASOIAF, we'll get a spectacularly broken aesop regarding this when we learn that the male teenager lead isn't actually really someone from somewhat low extraction that ended up succeeding, but really the son of a king)

[jurble]

Actually, while the nobility tended to pretend that, they really weren't. Nobel families rarely lasted more than three generations, so in order to get people to do all the jobs that could only be done by nobles there was a pretty steady, if small, influx of new blood into the nobility.

The static nobility we usually think of didn't really come into existence until the 19th century, at the same time as they were losing all practical relevance.

Indeed, nobility during the Middle Ages actually served a useful purpose, as administrators and as the trained military force.

But yeah, from the perspective of a peasant, the world would suck. The most a peasant could hope for would be a peasant revolution or something, and subsequently be crushed beneath the heals of a trained army. Peasants as heros can work, but the character in the novel would have to catch a series of really lucky breaks to make it so. the Best peasant as hero possibility is, peasant escapes from the country, goes to a city, becomes a merchant and becomes rich. Or is valiant in battle and promoted to nobility. Otherwise social mobility is non-existent outside of military progression or joining a merchant class.

For serfs, it is even worse, they're legally prevented from ever moving on ever.

So for social mobility, for some sort of reward for the character, it's easier for them to be nobles, or at least gentry.

Imagine a peasant saves a lord's child from a bandit attack, he's commended, maybe and taken into the household of the Lord. That's as far as he gets. If the setting is medieval India, it'd be worse, a low caste or outcast person, saves the life of some lord's kid, the kid has to be ritually cleaned for having been defiled by low caste hands, and the low caste/outcast has his hands cut off.

Imagine a member of the gentry or nobility saves the lord's child, he's now friends with that lord, and that lord owes him a debt of honor, and that noble can now, possibly, rely on that lord in aid in his upcoming battle/war/hero's quest.

Basically, the Middle Ages sucked. I mean swords are awesome. But they seriously were a terrible, terrible time to live.

[AverageGuy]

Didn't Spider-Man start off trying to make money with his powers? As did Booster Gold, who also failed. I think the point's always been that altruism should be rewarded, and so it is in the comfortable fantasy world (meaning it's not truly altruism, but let's not go there), often taking the appearance of material rewards. If they don't get the money, they get the girl or the status. I think the only heroes who don't really get anything are the man with no name types, and I don't know if we really see them outside of westerns.