alien and ahistorical moralities

[Mentat]

You are missing the point though. Intellectual it's something we can acknowledge happened. But it lacks any serious emotional impact because it's too divorced from our normal lives.

Something like sexism or wife-beating or the like, on the other hand, is an emotionally charged subject for people living right now.

You're right, I was missing the point. What you meant was it's not the setting but the amoral act, which we relate to if we have any familiarity with it (suffered it, known someone who has, seen it in the news...) and we don't if we haven't (like slavery). It's interesting how familiarity or PC is far more relevant than the actual seriousness of the crime, but I digress.

I think there's also a lot in the narrative which tricks our minds into finding things more or less acceptable. Pullo crushing the slave's head, for instance, is followed by his personal descent to hell: Vorenus disowns him, he drinks and gambles and is finally condemned to death, a fate which he accepts. This leads to the fantastic 'thirteenth' scene where Pullo is redeemed by his bravery (in killing yet more men...), and forgiven by Vorenus, the state and eventually Irene (and of course, the viewer...). Cicero's very Roman acceptance of death and the way Pullo sees it simply as work and pulls it off non-chalantly, distracting himself, and possibly the viewer, with Cicero's peach tree somehow make his murder easier to stomach for us.

[Datepalm]

Or, even more ambitiously, I would like it if Brandon's trip to Kings Landing was to (1) confront Rhaegar, possibly in a duel, and (2) kill Lyanna, in accordance with some Northern honour code. (These codes are alive and well in many societies today. Why not in the Westerosi North?) Ned of course would have taken over Brandon's responsibility and looked for Lyanna. In order to kill her, of course.

Victarion does this, murdering his adulterous wife (bare hands and all) and i'm not even sure hes meant to be entirely unsympathetic, and even characters like Asha never comment on it with any particular distaste that I can remember.

However, outside of fairly narrow eccentric differences ("Don't kill people with long range weapons") or questions of degree ("parental discipline extends to the light infliction of temporary pain") can you really imagine an uncritical (good) book that takes that on? Wholly sympathetic, unrepentant slave traders, wife beaters, etc?

[Mathis Waters]

However, outside of fairly narrow eccentric differences ("Don't kill people with long range weapons") or questions of degree ("parental discipline extends to the light infliction of temporary pain") can you really imagine an uncritical (good) book that takes that on? Wholly sympathetic, unrepentant slave traders, wife beaters, etc?

Yes, but only if "uncritical" is read as "nonjudgmental" and "wholly" as "otherwise wholly." (Can you imagine a good book that's uncritical in the general sense?)

[Happy Ent]

In some Inspector Morse episode, sergeant Lewis remarked off-hand on parenting that it wasn’t all that glamorous. I forget the details, but when he got how from work, he’d have so smack the kids about, or something like that.

I loved that. It reminded me that there’s a close-by, contemporary society (Britain) where children get routinely and unremarkably spanked “when Dad gets ’home”, and with full acceptance from society. So much that the squeaky-clean Lewis thinks nothing of it, and can mention it without it being a major plot point or tainting his character, and the screen writers don’t know that all of Scandinavia chokes on their Wasa. It would be unthinkable in the countries I’ve lived in, post Astrid Lindgren.

[wolverine]

A little off topic but I hate it when the morality and personality of a character in a historical setting is changed to match a modern morality so that the protagonist can be a more favorable person (I am looking at you Bernard Cornwell). It is really jarring and annoying to read anachronistic personalities placed for specific popularity purposes.

I would agree with the Titus Pullo reference and the fact that we can't associate with his violent actions. I think people would like Titus considerably less if he started beating Ireni (?) after he killed her fiance and married her.

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

To be clear, I wasn't thinking of anything as wacky as random killing being acceptable. More like something as different from agricultural or industrial civilization's moralities as they are from each other. The Culture is in fact a decent example.

Elric and the Melniboneans. The first book more or less begins with Elric observing a torture as is his imperial duty. And I suppose Severan of Book of the New Sun would also count.

I think there's just alot of people who don't like reading that kind of thing. They don't like to read about people who they are supposed to cheer for not being people they can agree with and like. (You see it sometimes with complaints that people didn't like book X because they didn't like the protagonist.)

Novels are not about cheering for characters, but about exploring the human person and culture.

Honestly, kind of like Happy Ent, I would occasionally like to see a fantasy book that attempts to reconstruct pre-modern virtues, values, and morality as normative behavior for all of the characters involved. I want to see pre-modern protagonists aspiring to a pre-modern ethical codes, let's say inspired by ancient Near Eastern law codes and ethics. This does not mean that we have to hate the character or be unable to identify with them, but rather we are constantly reminded about how alien the societal convention itself is to modern readers. Sure it's jarring, but that's frequently what fiction writers do. They shake readers up about certain realities and societal conventions. We can still identify with the character's anger and frustration - what makes them human - but then we are alienated by the accepted societal conventions that surround that human element.

The characters could still have certain modern tendencies, but living in a pre-modern world would dictate the societal conventions that constrain their behavior. Furthermore, their modern tendencies would be construed as odd, out of place, or something foreign to be eliminated or discouraged. The same is certainly true for many books of non-speculative fiction. Elizabeth Bennett has certain modern tendencies and inclinations, but she still possesses values and outlooks befitting her contemporary culture. Even in contemporaneous Euro-American society we are held to certain moral and ethical expectations. We are morally corrupt failures when we fail to live up to the expectations of modern morality. Yet in fantasy, characters are frequently rewarded by authors for possessing modern views.

I don't know that spanking his kids when they really misbehave would turn Ned into an anti-hero. But, "corporal punishment" on anyone over the age of about 11, whether your spouse or your kids, is definitely problematic. Isn't the idea behind spanking to get the message across to a kid who isn't going to get the message effectively any other way? Whereas, once you reach a certain age, a swat on the butt doesn't make that much difference; you either start actually beating people or you find some other way to get them to do what you want. And I don't think modern readers would, or should, like/respect a protagonist who beats up on the weaker members of his family.

It would be problematic if it's an ethic endorsed by the author.

[jurble]

You know what has good moral dissonance? 1001 Nights, I love the story where the man and his father-in-law kill his wife because he thought she had an affair with a black slave put her in a closet and toss her into the Tigris, but when the truth comes out that the slave lied (because he was untrustworthy black slave, duh) , they have the slave put death, and Harun Al-Rashid forgives the men for the murder, because knowing what they had known, they were in the right.

[Liadin]

What I'm getting out of this thread is that several boarders want to see more moral dissonance. Which.... tastes differ, and all that.... but when I started that thread a little while back about how much liking the protagonists affects people's enjoyment of a book (answer: only somewhat, in this self-selecting group) nearly everyone to address the issue said that moral dissonance is a problem for them. If we see a main character doing something morally repugnant, we want to know that the author doesn't think it's okay.

Or, are you looking for more books like The Good Earth, that portray a foreign mentality in a rather detached way (because the author doesn't think that much of the protagonist, but has him acting in a way that's realistic for his culture)?

[Kat]

You know, it's kind of irritating that people can consider historical realism a fun, intellectual exercise, but I imagine it's a little different if you're someone who has actively experienced, say, being beaten or raped by someone who just doesn't give a toss about it, in the mindset of the characters that some people here are advocating for.

Then fiction no longer becomes a fun, intellectual exercise, but something that really, really sucks, potentially triggering PTSD. I know that graphic violence is already prevalent in a lot of books. Many people avoid them for that reason already.

It's swell to think about how much better modern life is than history. But really? A lot of people don't just consider reading about it mildly unpleasant/disturbing.

I'm not going to say "don't write about it ever". But since books don't come with trigger warnings on the cover, I would never feel like it was my place to say that I want to see more realistically portrayed, everyday violence, of the sort that people today still experience and still get fucked up by. As koolkat and Shryke mentioned, this is not merely a historical occurrence, and wanting to read about it more just for historical realism is a problematic POV if one doesn't check their privilege.

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

What I'm getting out of this thread is that several boarders want to see more moral dissonance. Which.... tastes differ, and all that.... but when I started that thread a little while back about how much liking the protagonists affects people's enjoyment of a book (answer: only somewhat, in this self-selecting group) nearly everyone to address the issue said that moral dissonance is a problem for them. If we see a main character doing something morally repugnant, we want to know that the author doesn't think it's okay.

People may want likable protagonists to make escapism easier, but the protagonist does not need to be likable. Many times in fiction, protagonists are only passingly likable as characters. Readers need to develop some measure of empathy with the protagonist. There is a difference.

Or, are you looking for more books like The Good Earth, that portray a foreign mentality in a rather detached way (because the author doesn't think that much of the protagonist, but has him acting in a way that's realistic for his culture)?

That works for me. But most novels express the values of their contemporary culture. In most cases of fiction, the author either provides tacit support for or against these values.

In the book Things Fall Apart, the protagonist from tribal Africa is of questionable moral integrity. His mindset is foreign me. He is a dick. But the reader sympathizes with his doomed struggle to preserve the old ways of his culture, an environment which allowed him to be successful and gives meaning to his life, in the face of European colonialism. Achilles is also of a morally questionable pre-modern nature, but most modern readers support his actions in the Iliad.

Most fantasy takes place in the midst of imaginary worlds that are supposed to use faux pre-modern set-ups. Yet the values of the protagonists or the cultural setting are frequently anything but pre-modern, or are purposefully set up as pre-modern strawmen for the protagonist to overcome. There has been a recent trend towards more "grim 'n' gritty" fantasy with lower scale magic and/or more historically accurate pseudo-settings. But most fantasy authors have yet to grasp that difference in cultural mindset and worldviews that separate pre-modernity and modernity. They do not want to write about it, because of how it seemingly disturbs the modern sensibilities. Modern morality never tragically loses to pre-modern morality in fantasy. I do appreciate Bakker's attempt to accomplish this task despite his questionable success at this endeavor.

As people have repeatedly raised in this thread: the HBO Rome Mini-series. The characters all act upon pre-modern values and assumptions that modern audiences find morally questionable. There is definitely moral dissonance. But amidst it all, the characters are still human and we can empathize with those human qualities and concerns that we share with the characters. We understand the source of Titus Pullo's anger when he finds out that the woman he loves is surprisingly engaged to another. We find it morally questionable that he reacts to this by brutally killing him. And we are perhaps more alarmed that his friend Lucius Vorenius is more upset that Pullo killed his property than by the fact that Pullo killed someone. Yet these behaviors are perfectly consistent, and dare I say expected, with the pre-modern context of the Classical Period. Moreover, the modern audience still grieves for Titus Pullo.

[Mad Monkey]

A little off topic but I hate it when the morality and personality of a character in a historical setting is changed to match a modern morality so that the protagonist can be a more favorable person (I am looking at you Bernard Cornwell). It is really jarring and annoying to read anachronistic personalities placed for specific popularity purposes.

Me too. It's even more annoying than when authors try to transplant random bits from historical or modern cultures into their fantasy world, insisting that a character who behaves like he's from modern Afghanistan is somehow a more realistic Martian than a character who behaves like he's from modern Scandinavia (generic examples here).

Victarion does this, murdering his adulterous wife (bare hands and all) and i'm not even sure hes meant to be entirely unsympathetic, and even characters like Asha never comment on it with any particular distaste that I can remember.

Really? I always wanted to kick his ass. The wife-murder was bad enough, but the constant whining was really grating. It made it seem like he was actually ashamed of what he did, by trying to displace the "blame" for the allegedly righteous act onto Euron Greyjoy. This reminds me of something that a modern DV offender might say; they understand that their behavior is shameful, but because they can't or don't want to change it, they transfer the blame/responsibility for their actions onto someone else.

[lynxx]

It's hard to think outside the box. Would you consider Heinlein's "Starship Troopers?"

The only people allowed to vote had gone through military service. They were apparently the only ones interested in government, knowing the issues.

A compulsory civics class in high school was invariably taught by a veteran.

Parents were publicly flogged for their children's misbehavior.

Of course this was simply Heinlein being polemical.

[Happy Ent]

The only people allowed to vote had gone through military service.

IIRC, this is false. Military service is one way to get the franchise. (I could be wrong.)

[Happy Ent]

I do appreciate Bakker's attempt to accomplish this task despite his questionable success at this endeavor.

I don’t think Bakker’s a good example of this, for all his virtues. His heroes (Esmi, Akka) are very, very modern, and Kellhus is a symbol of modernism.

The characters with pre-modern mindsets (for example, those who treat their slaves as slaves) are Conphas and the Scarlet Spires dude. Or Cnaiür. Antagonists or anti-heroes.

Akka gets some slaves in book 4, but he seems to treat them as if they were on big family.

[Mathis Waters]

I don’t think Bakker’s a good example of this, for all his virtues. His heroes (Esmi, Akka) are very, very modern, and Kellhus is a symbol of modernism.

The characters with pre-modern mindsets (for example, those who treat their slaves as slaves) are Conphas and the Scarlet Spires dude. Or Cnaiür. Antagonists or anti-heroes.

Akka gets some slaves in book 4, but he seems to treat them as if they were on big family.

I'm not at all far along, but Proyas seems both sympathetic and pre-modern.

[Dr Spoon]

A good example seems to be homosexuality. Up till extremely recently, most people would simply have regarded it as deeply wrong. You can see this in The Big Sleep, which in many ways is a very moral book but would probably be pretty offensive to a gay reader. That's probably forgivable because it echoes the feeling of the time it was written, but I think few modern people would feel it was moral or accurate.

Then again there have been societies where sexual rules have been not just more liberal but very different to now. Take the attitudes of Ancient Greece or the Victorian idea of "romantic friendships": they're just not like what we have now, or like a restricted version of now either.

For the writers the easiest thing is probably not to deal with difficult areas at all, because making your previously heroic lead character a wife-beater and yet still keeping him heroic is probably taking on a lot of extra work for not much gain (and will make some people unhappy, as Kat suggests, which means you'd lose readers and get bad press). I've certainly heard a writer of Regency romances say "Write what you like, just don't mention the slaves".

[Galactus]

Another point is that, well, if you make a character different enough morally well, he ceases to be a hero.

DOesen't man he can't be an interesting protagonist, but he's no longer a hero.

[Liadin]

In the book Things Fall Apart, the protagonist from tribal Africa is of questionable moral integrity. His mindset is foreign me. He is a dick. But the reader sympathizes with his doomed struggle to preserve the old ways of his culture, an environment which allowed him to be successful and gives meaning to his life, in the face of European colonialism.

See, I didn't empathize with that character at all. He was a dick. It was a good book, but I didn't feel for the character. Same with Victarion, and Theon.

I second Kat's post, a lot of this really is about privilege. To take a non-gender-related example: I can read and enjoy Gone With the Wind, setting aside my views about slavery and empathizing with Scarlett's predicament. My ability to detach there doesn't make me awesome or intellectual, though. It's basically the definition of white privilege: this stuff doesn't affect me as much in a book because of my life experiences, because I'm not personally affected by it. I'm not especially proud of that. And if contemporary authors are going to portray slaveholders in their work, I think it's quite acceptable to choose as a protagonist someone who's uncomfortable with slavery or who treats their slaves unusually well.

[Stalker]

Really? I always wanted to kick his ass. The wife-murder was bad enough, but the constant whining was really grating. It made it seem like he was actually ashamed of what he did, by trying to displace the "blame" for the allegedly righteous act onto Euron Greyjoy. This reminds me of something that a modern DV offender might say; they understand that their behavior is shameful, but because they can't or don't want to change it, they transfer the blame/responsibility for their actions onto someone else.

I think you have it backwards. Victarion's motivation is the opposite; he doesn't want to do it otherwise, but his personality is such that he feels a strong duty to follow society's expectation. Ie. it would be shameful for him to not kill his wife.

[Shryke]

Privileged? Seriously?

White Male Privileged now includes reading certain kinds of books?

Fucking christ.... :rolleyes: