Pessimism vs Cynicism in fantasy

[The Marquis de Leech]

Thinking about a (hypothetical) Silmarillion adaptation, I ran into the issue of Túrin, and how his story may conceivably be a bit hard for the wider public to stomach, Game of Thrones or no Game of Thrones. That got me wondering if we can, in fact, distinguish between Martin-style darkness and Tolkien-style darkness, because while The Silmarillion features mass character death, incest, and bloodshed, it is not something I can imagine Martin writing. By the same token, A Song of Ice and Fire is not something I can imagine Tolkien writing. It's a matter of worldview - both authors treat darkness from different starting points.

After pondering it a bit more, I think the true distinction is between Tolkienian pessimism and Martinian cynicism. Tolkien treats history as a long defeat; his mythos engages in a thematic balancing act between sadness at the loss of magic in the world, and a determined acceptance that it cannot be any other way. It is simultaneously melancholy and hopeful. Martin, by contrast, expresses a much more cynical view - darkness arises not from theological underpinnings or a sort of teleological directive, but simply because human beings are often utter bastards.

Applying this distinction more broadly, I think it is possible to construct a two dimensional model for analysing modern fantasy: a pessimism/optimism axis, and a cynicism/idealism axis.

Crudely:

• Pessimism: Things are getting worse, and any victory will prove a mere respite.
• Optimism: Things are getting better, and any defeat will prove a temporary setback.
• Idealism: There is reason to place hope in people, even if they make mistakes.
• Cynicism: There is no reason to place hope in people, because they make mistakes.

This therefore creates four categories:

• Pessimistic Idealists
• Optimistic Idealists
• Pessimistic Cynics
• Optimistic Cynics

Pessimistic Idealists: This is the natural home of bittersweet endings and eucatastrophe, arising from an inherent tension between gloom and hope - to justify the former, you need to put your characters through hell, but to justify the latter you need to get them out of it, if only temporarily.

• J.R.R. Tolkien fits here, obviously - the darkness of Túrin is set against the light of Beren and Lúthien; the fading of the Elves speaks to Tolkien's pessimism, yet the destruction of the Ring through Grace speaks to his idealism.
• I would also place Stephen Donaldson here - while the likes of Thomas Covenant suffer immensely, the suffering derives from pessimism more than cynicism. Foul himself is profoundly cynical, persuading his foes to surrender to Despair (much like Tolkien's Sauron destroys Denethor, actually) - when Foul is defeated it is idealism that wins the day.
• Mervyn Peake would be another one. Buried beneath the grandiose gloom, Gormenghast is actually a rather idealistic piece - the fundamental human decency of Flay and Prunesquallor wins out against the bitter cynicism of Steerpike. On the other hand, Fuchsia's fate, along with the uncertainty facing Titus, leaves the situation decidedly bittersweet. There are good people in Peake, but a cloud hangs over their future.
• For a non-fantasy example, the historical fiction novels of Mika Waltari (The Egyptian, The Dark Angel, The Wanderer) also fit perfectly into this category, with their interest in portraying nobility in the face of inevitable defeat.

Optimistic Idealists: You tend to see more classical happy endings here - while authors in this category still make their characters suffer, when victory is achieved, it is an enduring victory. Malign fate is not going to pull the rug out from beneath our protagonists, not when they are on the right side of history as well as morality.

• J.K. Rowling largely fits here. I say largely, because while her optimism is not in question (things are getting better, and Pureblood Elitism is on its way out), I am not entirely sure that her view of human nature is Idealistic so much as oddly Calvinist - that people are innately good or bad based off predetermined outcomes. Still, if you work with the characters that are actual characters, rather than caricatures, the depiction of Snape's career shows that humans are worthy of hope.
• Jacqueline Carey is another interesting example. I put her here on the basis of her Kushiel books, where bona fide heroism is certainly rewarded, and after much tribulation, our admirable protagonists reach their happy ending. Alternatively, her Sundering duology is innately pessimistic - though seeing as it is a sort of commentary on The Lord of the Rings from the Witch-King's point of view, that rather goes with the territory.
• C.S. Lewis is an obvious fit. There is nothing of the Long Defeat about Narnia.
• Patrick Rothfuss is another curious one. I think The Kingkiller books as they currently stand certainly fit into this category - not only do we have our roguish protagonist come out on top, but having a supporting cast modelled off Hogwarts seems to rub off in other ways. Alternatively, we know that Kvothe will eventually become the downfallen shell of a man we meet in the framing story, so this is an Optimistic Idealist story destined for either pessimism or cynicism. Or both.
• Buried beneath the melancholy and melodrama, I feel Guy Gavriel Kay ultimately fits here too - just as Peake has disguised idealism, I think Kay has disguised optimism.

Pessimistic Cynics: The world is shit, and people are shit - pessimistic cynicism is the natural home of the Grimdark sub-genre. It has all the gloom one associates with the Pessimistic Idealists, but has a much more bleak view of human nature.

• George R.R. Martin obviously fits here, at least so far as A Song of Ice and Fire is concerned. "You win or you die," and "life is not a song," are thoroughly cynical sentiments that drive into us the inadequacy of idealism (just ask Sansa Stark about that). Meanwhile, the failure of humans to have prepared for the oncoming winter, and the tendency for good works and good people to come to naught also betray a pessimistic worldview. On the other hand, Martin's brand of pessimistic cynicism is also accompanied by a strange romanticism, a melancholy appreciation of beauty in the world, and his attempt to reconstruct at least some idealist concepts stops his work from stamping the reader's face into the mud altogether.
• Joe Abercrombie lacks even Martin's residual romanticism, to the point where existence in his world feels like a cruel cosmic joke (though it isn't - there is nothing cosmic about it. It's simply people being horrible to each other, with brutality begetting brutality). The First Law trilogy accordingly revolves around the conclusion that there is nothing anyone can really do to escape this cycle of oppression and bastardry, complete with one of Glotka's former victims finding his own place as a torturer.
• Richard Morgan's The Steel Remains combines Abercrombie-level cynicism with an in-your-face approach to portraying the protagonist's sexuality.
• R. Scott Bakker puts a different spin on this - rather than straying into Martin-style existentialism or into the realm of nihilism, he posits a setting which is pessimistic, cynical, and yet also inherently full of meaning. Eärwa has objective damnation and Old Testament-style morality, with all that entails - and given that the plot features the Anti-Christ battling Lovecraftian Space Horrors, the story is unswervingly bleak.

Optimistic Cynics: At first sight, this seems an inherently odd category: how can one believe the worst of people, yet also think things are getting better? One solution may be found in the Winston Churchill line about the United States doing the right thing when all other options have been exhausted - the idea that fundamentally flawed people can still (eventually) blunder around in the right direction.

• Terry Pratchett is the best exponent of this, I think. That is not to say that Discworld characters are portrayed as bad people - they're not - but rather their flaws are at a level where they become comically endearing (and, of course, things invariably end happily). Pratchett's thematic lectures, where they are present, also emphasise that treating people as things is the real problem with evil - in other words, a positive and morally correct outcome depends on these flawed people being free to blunder around on their own.
• Lord Dunsany's short stories frequently end with a little ironic barb directed at the protagonist, but it remains playful, rather than cruel. Moreover, if one contrasts Dunsany's portrayal of the environment with Tolkien's, Dunsany is by far the more optimistic, suggesting that humanity's negative effects will not endure forever.
• Clark Ashton Smith is a debatable one. He is unquestionably cynical in his portrayal of individual characters, but in his descriptions and settings, Smith revels in decadence to such an extent that one cannot really call it pessimistic in the true sense. Yes, Zothique is a dying continent, beneath a dying red sun, but there is a strange allure to these far-future hedonistic sorceries. Even with his more macabre subject matter, Smith tries to enchant you, rather than repulse you - there is nothing Grimdark here.
• With his Dying Earth setting heavily influenced by both Dunsany and Smith, I would put Jack Vance here too.

This two-dimensional framework is, of course, flawed: there are plenty of authors whom I would seriously struggle to place (including myself, though perhaps that is just me being too close to the material). I think, however, that it works as a crude starting point for looking at how different fantasy authors can invoke different sentiments depending on their underlying approach. As I have argued above, there is a significant difference between pessimistic darkness and cynical darkness, which in turn shapes what we as readers take away from a "depressing" story.

[Andorion]

An interesting idea, and one that certainly has merit. I have not read all the authors you refer to here, but such an axis of analysis could potentially be used to examine fantasy.

Where would you place the Grimdark authors? I am not very familiar with all of them, but Mark Lawrence would despite appearances probably be in the Optimistic Cynics group.

Where would you place Steven Erikson? Malazan is very complex, thematically speaking, but Erikson has repeatedly decried nihilism and spoken of compassion and hope.

I think Matthew Stover would be in the pessimistic cynic department.

[Pilusmagnus]

I don't think placing George R.R. Martin as a pessimistic cynic is as obvious as you claim. The main problem with classifying him is that we don't have the ending of ASOIAF yet, and there's reason to believe that it will show humanity achieving peace, even if it is a temporary one. And in any case that is where the TV show is going.

I'm not familiar with Martin's other works, but he claims to be a pacifist and he has said in an interview that he believed that abolishing war was maybe possible. So although he definitely is a cynic, I wouldn't know whether to make him an optimist or a pessimist, at least as far as ASOIAF is concerned.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Pilusmagnus said:

I don't think placing George R.R. Martin as a pessimistic cynic is as obvious as you claim. The main problem with classifying him is that we don't have the ending of ASOIAF yet, and there's reason to believe that it will show humanity achieving peace, even if it is a temporary one. And in any case that is where the TV show is going.

I'm not familiar with Martin's other works, but he claims to be a pacifist and he has said in an interview that he believed that abolishing war was maybe possible. So although he definitely is a cynic, I wouldn't know whether to make him an optimist or a pessimist, at least as far as ASOIAF is concerned.

 

In Reading GRRM’s other work I think he is more romantic than cynical.

[Traverys]

I find your thoughts and categories really interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if you get a few responses from people that scoff at the idea of trying to classify or categorize. Some people are really resistant to that kind of things (anti-labeling).

You clarified your definitions were crude, but I think it would help if you tried at formal definitions. Cynicism has a spectrum of meanings, from the pursuit of moral virtue (Greeks) to "people are purely motivated by self-interest." For example, there are few ways to define pessimism:

1. Emotional (psychological) -- The worst always happens; "glass half-empty"
2. Philosophical  -- (the few stances I can think of)
   1. Pessimism about the unattainability of happiness (Greeks): Humans are only happy when they get what they don't have, and once we have it the happiness runs out quickly.
   2. Pessimism regarding the burden of time: We are the one species on Earth that is born aware of what our eventual fate will be (i.e., death) and we can do nothing to change it.
   3. Pessimism about progress in history (Rousseau): While things may seem to be getting better (e.g., better healthcare as science progresses), the fact is that we're just as bad off as we were before, if not worse. History is thus ironic.
   4. Pessimism about the mismatch between humans and their environment (Camus): Man searches for meaning in a world where it can't be found or sustained (also called absurdity)
3. Cultural -- Usually a proposed decline in civilization; tends to be more politically motivated (by reactionaries) than philosophically motivated. I usually associate it with episodes of "moral panic" that tend to pop up in societies. Think about the Satanist Cult scares of the 80s and 90s; "A 1996 investigation of more than 12,000 allegations of satanic, ritual and religious abuse resulted in no cases that were considered factual or corroborated."

I would say your current definition aligns with Rousseau.

I'm glad you mentioned GRRM's romanticism, which is an odd thing that mixes into his writing. However, I tend to think of romanticism and idealism as similar concepts... The "happy" moments of triumph in ASoIaF are so powerful because they're juxtaposed against a crapsack (pessimisitic/cynic) world. His storyline certainly instills in the reader a sense of pessimism and cynicism, but I'm not willing to say that he's both for some reason. Like I said above, I'd need clearer definitions to take a stance.

As someone else mentioned, I imagine GRRM's ending will really clarify for us where he falls on these proposed dichotomies. My best guess is that while, through great loss and sacrifice, mankind survives and prevails, the person sitting on the throne will just be more of the same. Or they will bring a few years of prosperity but things will revert back to "business as usual" crapsack world once they die and their heir inherits.

Back on topic, I find the combinations of Optimistic Cynics and Pessimistic Idealists to be the most interesting to consider. I haven't read any Pratchett before, but I actually started Guards! Guards! yesterday, so I will keep this in mind while I read.

[Altherion]

8 hours ago, Pilusmagnus said:

I don't think placing George R.R. Martin as a pessimistic cynic is as obvious as you claim. The main problem with classifying him is that we don't have the ending of ASOIAF yet, and there's reason to believe that it will show humanity achieving peace, even if it is a temporary one. And in any case that is where the TV show is going.

Right. And in fact I would generalize this: it does not make sense to apply this framework to unfinished works because almost every story will have points where it looks like the bad guys are winning. If all somebody knew of Star Wars was Rogue One, they'd have a very different idea of which category to place it in than those who watched the whole series.

[C.T. Phipps]

I honestly disagree with the premise. I don't think Tolkien's view of the world is actually all that pessmistic as while the decline from the Age of Old to the Age of New is something people make a lot of it, the reign of Aragorn is implied to be a restoration of much of what was lost with the White Tree regrown and a new age of man.

As for Martin, I think Jon and Daenerys are going to be the big heroes. It's just we're continually "tricked" by the narrative. Ned Stark isn't the protagonist, he's Uncle Ben. Rob Stark isn't the protagonist, he's Boromir.

 

[williamjm]

14 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Pessimistic Idealists: This is the natural home of bittersweet endings and eucatastrophe, arising from an inherent tension between gloom and hope - to justify the former, you need to put your characters through hell, but to justify the latter you need to get them out of it, if only temporarily.

 

• For a non-fantasy example, the historical fiction novels of Mika Waltari (The Egyptian, The Dark Angel, The Wanderer) also fit perfectly into this category, with their interest in portraying nobility in the face of inevitable defeat.

 

I think maybe David Mitchell's work might fall into this category - the line from Cloud Atlas about good works being a drop in the ocean, but an ocean being made of drops seems to illustrate this. You probably can't save the world, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

12 hours ago, Andorion said:

Where would you place Steven Erikson? Malazan is very complex, thematically speaking, but Erikson has repeatedly decried nihilism and spoken of compassion and hope.

I think there's certainly idealism and optimism in the story even in characters that don't initially appear idealistic and the grand plot of the series could be seen as a contest between optimism and pessimism.

[Callan S.]

I'd say Tolkien is mystical learned helplessnes - 'it's getting bad because theology/teleology, can't do anything about it'

With Martin, you could well be doing the classic 'mistake skepticism as being cynicism'

The skeptic still cares. The cynic is like the Joker. 

[Darth Richard II]

Mmmm I have to ask, how much of Baker have you read?

[The Marquis de Leech]

 

2 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Mmmm I have to ask, how much of Baker have you read?

I'll confess I've only read up to The Great Ordeal. And yes, this brings in the problem other people have cited - casting a judging eye (ha ha...) over the work before I've got my hands on all of it.

[The Marquis de Leech]

21 hours ago, Andorion said:

An interesting idea, and one that certainly has merit. I have not read all the authors you refer to here, but such an axis of analysis could potentially be used to examine fantasy.

Where would you place the Grimdark authors? I am not very familiar with all of them, but Mark Lawrence would despite appearances probably be in the Optimistic Cynics group.

Where would you place Steven Erikson? Malazan is very complex, thematically speaking, but Erikson has repeatedly decried nihilism and spoken of compassion and hope.

I think Matthew Stover would be in the pessimistic cynic department.

Grimdark is inherently pessimistic cynical, I think, though as mentioned, some authors are damn difficult to place.

Having only read Malazan up to Reaper's Gale (which I loathed), I'd be inclined to put Erikson as an optimistic cynic (more cynic than optimist, perhaps).

[The Marquis de Leech]

On Martin's romanticism - I personally interpret that as a case of him wanting to believe, but not actually believing. If that makes sense. His short stories With Morning Comes Mistfall, and The Way of Cross and Dragon, portray the more idealistic position as being fundamentally more attractive, but at the same time the cynic position represents the cold truth.

[Andorion]

12 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I honestly disagree with the premise. I don't think Tolkien's view of the world is actually all that pessmistic as while the decline from the Age of Old to the Age of New is something people make a lot of it, the reign of Aragorn is implied to be a restoration of much of what was lost with the White Tree regrown and a new age of man.

As for Martin, I think Jon and Daenerys are going to be the big heroes. It's just we're continually "tricked" by the narrative. Ned Stark isn't the protagonist, he's Uncle Ben. Rob Stark isn't the protagonist, he's Boromir.

 

Is it a true restoration though? Aragorn and Arwen's marriage is highly symbolic in the way it brings together the blood of Numenor, Earandil, and the greater Elven lineages, but one thing that was repeated time and time again was that something very old, and very precious was lost and it cannot be recovered. I think the desertion of the great Elven lands of Lorien and Rivendell point to this. Also It was mentioned several times in the text how Gondor is more like Rohan than Numenor now. Also the idea of a slow but inevitable loss of that which had gone before is consistent with the Scouring of the Shire and the idea of never being able to truly return home.

[Jo498]

Sticking to the classification for now, it is interesting that the "pessimist cynics" are a fairly recent phenomenon whereas the pre-Tolkien fantasy (or those like Vance who are quite close to their style) is often "optimistically cynical", a stance that seems to have become rare. Pratchett fits to some extent but he has quite a bit of idealism as well. Many of his characters are "fundamentally decent" and one could maybe blame him that he sometimes seems too naive (or optimistic) to realize that if people are basically decent and compassionate or not is dependent on conditions often not in their power.

Some of the older fantasy (e.g Howard and Rucker Eddison) seem to me even more "neutral" than the classification suggests. Theirs is a "static" world like the one of the Homeric heroes without transcendental hope but without any fall from grace either and no great developments towards damnation or salvation (I'd guess that some them get this stance via the Nietzschean view of archaic/heroic ideals). Maybe "optimist fatalist" could fit them. A "pessimist fatalist" book is Anderson's "The broken sword" which I find darker and better than any so-called grimdark I read.

I think the "grimdark" and many of the pessimist cynics tend to overegg the pudding and often fail to produce real tragedy because they are so cynical and either don't take themselves and their characters seriously (Abercrombie) or too seriously (Bakker). Like a splatter movie that is not really terrifying but becomes ridiculous.

[Nabarg]

I also would have thought Erikson some kind of cynic when I read the first Malazan books, but I would say Toll the Hounds and Crippled God is pessimistic idealist, or maybe even optimistic idealist. There is cynisism of a kind, but actually it can be considered misderection.

[Vaughn]

3 hours ago, Andorion said:

Is it a true restoration though? Aragorn and Arwen's marriage is highly symbolic in the way it brings together the blood of Numenor, Earandil, and the greater Elven lineages, but one thing that was repeated time and time again was that something very old, and very precious was lost and it cannot be recovered. I think the desertion of the great Elven lands of Lorien and Rivendell point to this. Also It was mentioned several times in the text how Gondor is more like Rohan than Numenor now. Also the idea of a slow but inevitable loss of that which had gone before is consistent with the Scouring of the Shire and the idea of never being able to truly return home.

I agree with this. The subtext at the end is that reign Aragorn is the beginning of a new era where the ancient magic of the elves and the West fade from the world, leaving it to be just a mundane world of men. The world is going to be fine but the peaks of beauty and art and wonder are diminished forever. 

like you can still get pizza, but it's only Pizza Hut pizza now. 

 

This is kind of what happens in the 'Taran' series too, right? All the magical beings leave at the end? 

[C.T. Phipps]

8 hours ago, Andorion said:

Is it a true restoration though? Aragorn and Arwen's marriage is highly symbolic in the way it brings together the blood of Numenor, Earandil, and the greater Elven lineages, but one thing that was repeated time and time again was that something very old, and very precious was lost and it cannot be recovered. I think the desertion of the great Elven lands of Lorien and Rivendell point to this. Also It was mentioned several times in the text how Gondor is more like Rohan than Numenor now. Also the idea of a slow but inevitable loss of that which had gone before is consistent with the Scouring of the Shire and the idea of never being able to truly return home.

While this is one and the most popular interpretation, I also note that I always felt Tolkien felt the change was not only necessary but a good thing. The High Elves and the Rings they made with Sauron were going against the will of the Valar as well as Eru to settle in Middle Earth to begin with as well as using powerful magic to preserve things against the passage of time. Gondor may not be Numenor but Faramir also stated the Rohan had gone from being barbarians to being more like the people of Gondor. So it's not a case of everything going down but some things going up.

Basically, when I was in my Tolkien studies class, I always felt the "Things were great and now are getting progressively worse forever" was something of a misreading.

Part of this I suspect is my belief that Tolkien scholars have forever been measuring characters against the Elves and Old Numenorians as the "ideal" of mankind when that was always a mistake. They were great and grandiose but the Hobbits were always the best and most-happy.

To use a religious line, "The meek inherit the Earth not the grand."

And that was never a bad thing.

[polishgenius]

On 10/12/2017 at 11:44 AM, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

J.K. Rowling largely fits here. I say largely, because while her optimism is not in question (things are getting better, and Pureblood Elitism is on its way out), I am not entirely sure that her view of human nature is Idealistic so much as oddly Calvinist - that people are innately good or bad based off predetermined outcomes. Still, if you work with the characters that are actual characters, rather than caricatures, the depiction of Snape's career shows that humans are worthy of hope.

It's not part of her fantasy, obviously, which largely fits what you say, but I wouldn't paint Rowling herself as either an optimist or an idealist, because despite some notes of both, A Casual Vacancy is both very depressing and one of the most breathtakingly cynical things I've ever read. It is absolutely savage.


 

 

21 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I honestly disagree with the premise. I don't think Tolkien's view of the world is actually all that pessmistic as while the decline from the Age of Old to the Age of New is something people make a lot of it, the reign of Aragorn is implied to be a restoration of much of what was lost with the White Tree regrown and a new age of man.

 

Yeah, but Tolkien started writing a sequel to LotR but had to cancel it because he realised he was making it too depressing. I dunno quite what that says about his worldview, but it isn't 'optimist'.
There's also 'The Sea-Bell', also titled 'Frodo's Dreme', which puts an even darker spin than we already had with the suicide allergories on Frodo's ending.



 

 

8 hours ago, Nabarg said:

I also would have thought Erikson some kind of cynic when I read the first Malazan books, but I would say Toll the Hounds and Crippled God is pessimistic idealist, or maybe even optimistic idealist. There is cynisism of a kind, but actually it can be considered misderection.

Erikson strikes me as someone who is an idealist about individuals but enormously cynical about nations and such social structures, but overall the tone of the series is definitely one of a kind of snarky idealism.

[C.T. Phipps]

Mind you, there's two ways of reading that with Tolkien stopping a sequel that he viewed as too depressing.

1. His view of the world was not optimistic (believable with a World War followed by his son fighting in a World War even worse)

2. He didn't want to ruin the bittersweet ending of TLOTR the way The Force Awakens did Return of the Jedi.

Mind you, I always have kept the headcanon Frodo died of depression (however you want to frame it) versus went physically to Heaven with Bilbo.

Re: Rowling

I actually tend to take the view Rowling has a somewhat cynical view of class and society which bleeds over into the children's books. Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic as a whole are highly traditionalist as well as conservative organizations which run a great deal on inertia.

This inertia proceeds to shape the individuals it gets into its mits who rarely are able to rebel out of the program its created. The scary thing about Rowlings writings is if you do take the world-building entirely serious (which I actually don't think you should as quite a bit of it is clearly just made for fun) then it has a thoroughly Pink Floyd "Another Brick in the Wall" sense.

Children are supposed to be fit into their neat little slots and grow up to be exactly the way they're selected to be.

Mind you, I take an entirely anti-Alan Moore view in my conclusions (who had the same view of the Potter novels) in that Potter's world rewards REBELLION against this system. Harry, Hermione, and Ron are people who refuse to be bottled by the system even as it tries to keep them in its confines.

It's just people think of the Gryfindors as the establishment when the Slytherin are.