alien and ahistorical moralities

[Shryke]

Maybe part of the confusion here is that I'm conflating your opinions with Happy Ent's. He said that he wants to see certain behaviors, like domestic abuse, coming from heroes, in the interests of historical accuracy. If you just want to see difficult issues presented, I certainly agree that there's a place for that, but I'm hard-pressed to think of any sort of reprehensible behavior that isn't presented in fiction. If you think that the genre suffers from a lack of heroes engaging in such reprehensible behavior, then I don't agree with you at all.

Maybe another part is that I get the impression, from some of your posts, that you think your particular preferences are superior to everyone else's--as in, people for whom these issues are real and personal are somehow lesser because they don't especially want to encounter it in their fiction. OTOH, it could be that we all project that attitude once we start debating something.

But me and HE are saying basically the same thing. That it would be good/interesting to see protagonists (and not just protagonists) displaying less overtly modern behavior. Not in the interest of saying "This kind of behavior is good" but in the interest of showing that this kind of behavior happened/happens. (And it doesn't have to be sexism or domestic abuse. Some hot spicy racism would be so in line with normal fantasy works it kinda stands out as a sore thumb that it's not there more often.)

That this behavior is reprehensible is a moral judgment the modern reader put on it and often does kinda stand out as an anachronism within the setting. It's often not one the character (one would think) would display given the setting.

I can understand that people for whom these issues are personal would have issues with it. That's a good reason for those people not to read certain books. I just don't see that as a good reason for not having those books.

I mean, if someone has been the victim of a rape or sexual assault or the like, yeah, I think it's perfectly understandable that they might not want to read a story involving rape or someone getting raped or even someone raping (*cough*Thomas Covenant*cough*) or what have you.

But that's not reason to not write books where that stuff happens. And I think it's limiting to restrict yourself and not read works with that kind of stuff in it (though again I can understand if there's some sort of emotional trauma involved).

We as readers should be embracing more challenging literature. We should be demanding more challenging literature.

It seems like every epic fantasy I've read has found some sort of compromise, and that's basically what you have to do: it would hardly make sense to have a quasi-medieval hero espousing representative democracy and free speech, but it's probably impossible for a modern writer to really recreate the medieval mind, and even if you did, readers probably wouldn't like it. And let's stop pretending it's just about gender roles: it's also about superstition and violent religiosity, about extreme anti-Semitism, and a caste-based society and so on. And let's not pretend that if we just tweaked society a bit, fantasy would be an accurate portrayal of medieval life. Would you like to see more cholera epidemics as well?

YES! And all that stuff above too. It's not just the sexism, it's all of it. Let's see some variety, some lack of giant flaming anachronisms.

And this bolded part here is exactly what I think is part of the problem I'm talking about.

I think you say this because we talk about gender issues a lot, but it's simply not true. What Measure is a Mook is one of my most despised tropes, it just doesn't come up as much.

I don't see what your going for here. And I just picked the gender issue because it's been a point of discussion recently and was at the front of my mind. Any other thing that makes us modern readers uncomfortable is good too. I was commenting on the type of stuff that makes us uncomfortable. As I said in the other thread, I don't think it's a matter of "bad" so much as a matter of "personal". Heroes or Protagonists can do some truly bad shit so long as it's not something we could closely relate to or have been the victim of or the like.

[Shryke]

I guess what I'm wondering is: why? What do you actually get from reading fiction in which someone is describing a real historical or foreign attitude that they don't share? (As opposed to someone writing about their own culture or experiences, like most of mainstream fiction in any country.)

Is the simple act of feeling that moral dissonance what you're after? In which case, I guess I have a hard time wanting that on my own. Having friends who have been in abusive relationships, and knowing that there's always the possibility that I could be in one myself, for instance, makes it extremely unlikely that I would ever be able to sympathize with a "hero" who did this. I would find it neither entertaining, nor a particularly interesting or valuable intellectual exercise.

Maybe it's just that, from my privileged modern POV, there are an endless number of actual historical figures who I could read about, such as Thomas Jefferson, who displayed actual pre-modern attitudes and actually led pre-modern lives complete with good deeds and bad ones. What do I gain in reading fiction over history?

(This not not apply to "alien" moralities that do not have historical or modern analogues, because of the extreme unlikelihood of anyone ever reading about life on the surface of a neutron star and suffering from it.)

I'm not saying books shouldn't be written. I am, however, questioning what the point of advocating for more of this is.

Because it'd be interesting? Because it'd be different? Because it would actually make sense? Because it wouldn't stick out like a sore fucking thumb the way a medieval society complete with copious amounts of institutional sexism is somehow populated almost exclusively by equality loving modernists does?*** (Seriously, who the fuck is doing all the oppressing if everyone is so fucking open minded?) For any number of other reasons?

And mostly: Cause why the fuck not?

And I was actually gonna bring up historical fiction/actual history, but you brought it up first. Which really makes me scratch my head.

If it's interesting to read about Thomas Jefferson, why isn't it also interesting to read about Toman Jefforsian who's mostly the same except in a fantastical version of history where North America is populated by Fairy Folk instead of Native Americans?

*** Funny thing is, for all people complain about WOT and gender stuff, I think it does do better then most things at handling this. The people with some occasionally weird but generally fairly egalitarian views on sex live in a society that is fairly egalitarian towards the sexes.

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

Shryke, it is clear that the discussion is somewhat muddled. To an extent, everyone is talking past each other. Happy Ent used the word hero, whereas we have primarily been talking about this subject as the protagonist. I do not think that the Kats are necessarily objecting to this sort of behavior in protagonists - although they are somewhat puzzled in the appeal of premodern/modern moral dissonance - but in heroes.

Of course, my own puzzlement is why the hero is incapable of having societal prejudices and obligations that necessitates this sort of premodern behavior. I do agree that I wish pre-modern heroes, while perhaps modern in orientation, would be less overt in their modernity and more pre-modern in their outlook.

What is gained from pre-modern moral dissonance? A better understanding of where we came from as human beings, what values remain consistent throughout human history, an appreciation for the gains of modernity, as well as social wrongs that remain present within modernity. Fantasy is romanticized. But the vast bulk of high fantasy takes place within a decidedly pre-modern setting. Yet why would people want to romanticize such a context with antiquated worldviews?

[Shryke]

Shryke, it is clear that the discussion is somewhat muddled. To an extent, everyone is talking past each other. Happy Ent used the word hero, whereas we have primarily been talking about this subject as the protagonist. I do not think that the Kats are necessarily objecting to this sort of behavior in protagonists - although they are somewhat puzzled in the appeal of premodern/modern moral dissonance - but in heroes.

Of course, my own puzzlement is why the hero is incapable of having societal prejudices and obligations that necessitates this sort of premodern behavior. I do agree that I wish pre-modern heroes, while perhaps modern in orientation, would be less overt in their modernity and more pre-modern in their outlook.

What is gained from pre-modern moral dissonance? A better understanding of where we came from as human beings, what values remain consistent throughout human history, an appreciation for the gains of modernity, as well as social wrongs that remain present within modernity. Fantasy is romanticized. But the vast bulk of high fantasy takes place within a decidedly pre-modern setting. Yet why would people want to romanticize such a context with antiquated worldviews?

I agree completely. And I to don't see how people with pre-modern views can't be heroes. I just use a more general term because I don't think it should be JUST the heroes.

[Liadin]

But that's not reason to not write books where that stuff happens. And I think it's limiting to restrict yourself and not read works with that kind of stuff in it (though again I can understand if there's some sort of emotional trauma involved).

It's not just about trauma though. I've never been involved with a guy like Theon, but reading his POV just enrages me. Which is fine when he's one character of many, but I can't imagine wanting to read a book all about him.

YES! And all that stuff above too. It's not just the sexism, it's all of it. Let's see some variety, some lack of giant flaming anachronisms.

I'd actually like to see a plague in fantasy too. The lack of them sticks out.

As far as the whole sexism/abuse thing: we were in agreement in a previous thread that it's silly to have sexist societies without actual sexists, but at the same time I don't think it's unrealistic to have a medieval society where the hero has what we would consider a good relationship with his wife. I do think epic fantasy authors need to choose between not having particularly sexist societies and having some sexists in the sympathetic cast, but if they choose the latter, that doesn't mean they need to be abusive. (And what about characters like Ned? It simply never comes up with him; he and Catelyn both understand their roles.)

I don't see what your going for here. And I just picked the gender issue because it's been a point of discussion recently and was at the front of my mind. Any other thing that makes us modern readers uncomfortable is good too. I was commenting on the type of stuff that makes us uncomfortable. As I said in the other thread, I don't think it's a matter of "bad" so much as a matter of "personal". Heroes or Protagonists can do some truly bad shit so long as it's not something we could closely relate to or have been the victim of or the like.

My point was that I don't agree with that. Jaime's throwing Bran out the window and Tyrion's having Symeon killed are often used against them on the Board, and that's not personal for most people. I bring up the mook-slaughtering trope because it bothers me, although it's not something I can relate to personally.

What is gained from pre-modern moral dissonance? A better understanding of where we came from as human beings, what values remain consistent throughout human history, an appreciation for the gains of modernity, as well as social wrongs that remain present within modernity. Fantasy is romanticized. But the vast bulk of high fantasy takes place within a decidedly pre-modern setting. Yet why would people want to romanticize such a context with antiquated worldviews?

This seems a bit disingenuous to me. The sort of people who would read the kind of work you're advocating know how much better we have it than our ancestors. If you don't think fiction ought to portray heroes as admirable, why do you think fiction ought to teach us about our past?

Romanticization of the past is a fascinating topic on its own, but a lot of it is just convenience.

[Kat]

Perhaps we should table this particular point of discussion until we are more certain whether or not HE intends "hero" or "protagonist."

Well, HE did say he wanted the "good guys" to do things that modern writers look askance on without being subject to the author's judgement in the text. I took that to mean "hero", but my point still stands for protagonists in general.

Historically speaking, Thomas Jefferson is incredibly modern.

I know? But he was the first person I thought of who is considered a "hero" to many (like nearly the entire population of the U.S. and then some), mostly for his intellectual and professional pursuits, but who was still a slaveholder, and modern fiction does not look kindly upon slaveholders. (See: Dany's entire storyline.)

I was thinking about this thread more since my last post and decided....eh. Maybe for some people, having fantasy heroes actually be giant assholes by today's standards might be a worthwhile intellectual exercise for some people. I have never romanticized pre-modern time periods in my own head, and I find the concept of monarchs and secret monarchs to be a bit eyeroll-worthy, but IMHO some people could use a good dose of realism.

But then I recall the number of people on this forum who consider Gregor Clegane such a badass that he's a fun character to them. :worried:

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

This seems a bit disingenuous to me. The sort of people who would read the kind of work you're advocating know how much better we have it than our ancestors. If you don't think fiction ought to portray heroes as admirable, why do you think fiction ought to teach us about our past?

I think that heroes should be portrayed as admirable. I do not think that premodern fantasy heroes should be as lopsidedly modern in morality and prejudices as they are, but I do not mind them having modern inclinations. And even admirable people have their prejudices and vices that stem from their contextual Sitz im Leben.

But is it any more disingenuous than writing works filled with moral anachronisms despite knowing otherwise? Is the truth and ugliness of the human past something that should be ignored and pretended away? Do you remember our discussion on fantasy conventions? It's time to break the mold. This breaks convention. It is one of the final frontiers. The people advocating this may know this, but that does not mean that everyone does. Despite knowing of the premodern world, the appeal is reading the art of how the author achieves this through the story that she/he tells and their wordcraft. What themes do they use? What premodern conventions are in place? How does the protagonist use their agency to their achieve objectives through not entirely modern means and mindsets? What do they value? Why do they value these things? We can read premodern literary works with premodern characters all the time, yet we rarely get the chance to explore their minds or seeing them doing things in the modern manner of novels.

I am reminded of Southern Renaissance writers. In the wake of the Southern Antebellum, they wrote about the ills of Southern society that did not match the prevailing attitudes of Southern romanticism of the past. Now in high fantasy, we stand in a similar state. High fantasy romanticizes premodern worlds while extolling modern virtues. It's incongruous. That to me is disingenuous. The reasons why these two poles are aligned do not matter so much as its continued prevalence, as well as the bizarre opposition to deviating from this norm. It has become a whimsical form of escapism. Yet the daunting implications of premodernity in fantasy are rarely exposed for how jarring they truly are. Sure you can have a modern character rebelling against a premodern society, but that decidedly modern character will stick out like a sore thumb. But where are the heroes with antiquated values that clash with our own, where we pull for them not because they match modern values, but because they are just somewhat closer than the rest of the cast?

Romanticization of the past is a fascinating topic on its own, but a lot of it is just convenience.

I agree. Perhaps for later. The frequent romanticizing of the past is one of the reasons why I think that fantasy as a genre leans conservatively.

I was thinking about this thread more since my last post and decided....eh. Maybe for some people, having fantasy heroes actually be giant assholes by today's standards might be a worthwhile intellectual exercise for some people. I have never romanticized pre-modern time periods in my own head, and I find the concept of monarchs and secret monarchs to be a bit eyeroll-worthy, but IMHO some people could use a good dose of realism.

But then I recall the number of people on this forum who consider Gregor Clegane such a badass that he's a fun character to them. :worried:

We talked about that in the Bakker and Women thread: the Archie Bunker effect.

[Liadin]

But is it any more disingenuous than writing works filled with moral anachronisms despite knowing otherwise? Is the truth and ugliness of the human past something that should be ignored and pretended away? Do you remember our discussion on fantasy conventions? It's time to break the mold. This breaks convention. It is one of the final frontiers. The people advocating this may know this, but that does not mean that everyone does. Despite knowing of the premodern world, the appeal is reading the art of how the author achieves this through the story that she/he tells and their wordcraft.

Good rhetoric, but what does this actually mean?

One of the reasons I've been so skeptical in this thread is because "pre-modern values" were defined up-front as "the man of the house beating his wife and children, without anyone looking askance." Or, more broadly, these sorts of discussions tend to define them as "treating women badly, having slaves, and being a monarchist." And that stuff.... not only is it not fun, but it's been done to death, in historical fiction if not in fantasy. Anybody who's never read a book where "good" characters were unrepetant slaveholders or sexists needs to be introduced to the classics (we've already mentioned a few), and of course fantasy is rife with monarchists.

So, I do think there's a lot to be said for writing characters with value systems different from our own, but do something that's actually, y'know, different. Instead of the classic scene where everybody's upset because the newborn baby is a girl, focus on medieval religion/superstition, or on xenophobia. Talk about anti-Semitism, or really go out on a limb and talk about the treatment of the mentally disabled or something. Or focus on family relationships, grown children's responsibilities to their parents, or kinship networks, or monasteries and convents. Or have a cholera epidemic. Or something obscure that I don't even know about.

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

Good rhetoric, but what does this actually mean?

One of the reasons I've been so skeptical in this thread is because "pre-modern values" were defined up-front as "the man of the house beating his wife and children, without anyone looking askance." Or, more broadly, these sorts of discussions tend to define them as "treating women badly, having slaves, and being a monarchist." And that stuff.... not only is it not fun, but it's been done to death, in historical fiction if not in fantasy. Anybody who's never read a book where "good" characters were unrepetant slaveholders or sexists needs to be introduced to the classics (we've already mentioned a few), and of course fantasy is rife with monarchists.

So, I do think there's a lot to be said for writing characters with value systems different from our own, but do something that's actually, y'know, different. Instead of the classic scene where everybody's upset because the newborn baby is a girl, focus on medieval religion/superstition, or on xenophobia. Talk about anti-Semitism, or really go out on a limb and talk about the treatment of the mentally disabled or something. Or focus on family relationships, grown children's responsibilities to their parents, or kinship networks, or monasteries and convents. Or have a cholera epidemic. Or something obscure that I don't even know about.

I am not entirely sure how this conflicts with what I am advocating for in my posts. I do not think anyone apart from Happy Ent is advocating for heroic wife-beating. I think most have noted the irregularity of their absence in pre-modern fantasy contexts where you would expect them. Where has premodern moral dissonance, let alone wife-beating, been done to death in fantasy? Fantasy frequently approves of monarchists, but primarily monarchists with anachronistic modern values. <_<

I have occasionally mused over writing an ancient Near Eastern-inspired fantasy novel, as opposed to adding another superfluous pseudo-Medieval Europe setting to a market already saturated by it. And I wanted to do much of what we talked about here: show premodern mindsets, norms and values, focus not on farmboys, grandiose kings or cataclysmic wars but on the human struggles within a priestly/wizard family household, and explore Biblical/Near Eastern motifs from historiographical texts (e.g., land, family, marriage, infertility and barrenness, inheritance, birth rights, gender roles and sexuality, etc.) but with magic of course. A Biblical Pride & Prejudice fantasy novel, if you will.

[Liadin]

I am not entirely sure how this conflicts with what I am advocating for in my posts. I do not think anyone apart from Happy Ent is advocating for heroic wife-beating. I think most have noted the irregularity of their absence in pre-modern fantasy contexts where you would expect them. Where has premodern moral dissonance, let alone wife-beating, been done to death in fantasy? Fantasy frequently approves of monarchists, but primarily monarchists with anachronistic modern values. <_<

It may not contradict what you've been advocating, but at the beginning of the discussion HE defined "pre-modern morals" as "heroic wife-beating" and much of the discussion has been centered around the advisability of that. At any rate, I'll grant you that it's more common in historical fiction than fantasy, but it crops up a fair bit in fantasy too--just, we're not meant to like the characters who do it, which is what HE took issue with. So for me at least, reading another abuse scene--only this time we're supposed to like the perpetrator--would be nothing new as far as content, and extremely aggravating wrt viewpoint. And I've already read a whole bunch of non-fantasy books where the pre-modern protagonist treated his wife quite poorly by modern standards if not rising to the level of abuse, and.... meh. I've no interest in reading more books focusing on that.

I have occasionally mused over writing an ancient Near Eastern-inspired fantasy novel, as opposed to adding another superfluous pseudo-Medieval Europe setting to a market already saturated by it. And I wanted to do much of what we talked about here: show premodern mindsets, norms and values, focus not on farmboys, grandiose kings or cataclysmic wars but on the human struggles within a priestly/wizard family household, and explore Biblical/Near Eastern motifs from historiographical texts (e.g., land, family, marriage, infertility and barrenness, inheritance, birth rights, gender roles and sexuality, etc.) but with magic of course. A Biblical Pride & Prejudice fantasy novel, if you will.

I'd read that.

Seriously people. Why is it that people on this board come up with such interesting-sounding ideas for fantasy novels and yet everything that gets published features farmboys, hidden heirs, talking animals and (dread! horror!) prophecies? Why does nobody ever run with these ideas?

[Shryke]

It may not contradict what you've been advocating, but at the beginning of the discussion HE defined "pre-modern morals" as "heroic wife-beating" and much of the discussion has been centered around the advisability of that. At any rate, I'll grant you that it's more common in historical fiction than fantasy, but it crops up a fair bit in fantasy too--just, we're not meant to like the characters who do it, which is what HE took issue with. So for me at least, reading another abuse scene--only this time we're supposed to like the perpetrator--would be nothing new as far as content, and extremely aggravating wrt viewpoint. And I've already read a whole bunch of non-fantasy books where the pre-modern protagonist treated his wife quite poorly by modern standards if not rising to the level of abuse, and.... meh. I've no interest in reading more books focusing on that.

I think you are focusing far too much on the specific example HE gave and ignoring the general thrust of his idea.

[Red Sun]

I have spend a few times yesterday, thinking about this topic, and I wondered how much you can write a pre-modern thinking without in some ways recycling and condoning the power structures. If you take the wife-beating example, it's not as if it was okay even in pre-modern times to beat your wife for nothing. Even when the people in the neighbourhood would probably not have interfered, they wouldn't have considered the wife-beater a good person. But it was considered okay to beat the wife for being "uppity", when her behaviour made her husband lose face or when she didn't fulfill the expectations of her as a woman. Even though, wife-beating is not considered okay today (in our Western society), some of these arguments are still reasons for violence from men against women (or against men who diverge from certain norms of masculinity). If certain forms of violence or certain prejudices are portrayed as belonging normaly to a certain mindset, a modern writer has to be very careful to not dehumanise, other or victimise people who are already dehumanised, othered or victimised very often in our narratives.

I think this is also covered by the concept "privilege". It is a privilege to use other people's suffering as a cerebral exercise, but it doesn't mean that a writer from a modern Western country can only write about our modern Western experience. However, he or she has to be very careful with their tropes, because the baggage of Western narratives is quite heavy and most of time, the audience or the writers are barely aware that they recycle the same old dehumanising tropes. Maybe, stories are not for educating people, but it doesn't mean that they don't feed into or support a certain worldview.

[Kat]

Thinking about this further, I would probably have less of a problem with some of these examples of pre-modern attitudes if the POV weren't the hero, or protagonist. Maybe in general, a note on the whole realism thing, nearly everyone of some of these time periods would have been disempowered because of their class, sex, both, or a multitude of other reasons. Why focus only on the empowered (nobles, men, etc.)? This goes back to the whole "why not write female characters" thing where people want historical realism in some regards, but don't actually want to deal with all the people who don't have a lot of power.

Are there ways to deal with disempowered characters in (presumably 'realistic historical' SFF) interesting ways such that not every plot is either a farmboy becoming king, or an uprising? I'd be interested to see if people can think of good examples for this. (The first one who pops into my head is Sansa, but she's still a noble.

[TheValyrianDragonlord]

We often scoff at the whole farmboy who becomes king not just because it's a shitty overdone trope but also because it's absurd and unrealistic. Most characters we read about are from the aristocratic or warrior class, mainly because they plausibly have the kind of agency that allows them to do cool interesting stuff like save the world and overthrow the evil dark lord.

Like kat, I'm interested to know if there's a fantasy novel that features 'disempowered' or just normal people with less agency as interesting characters. Could there ever be a fantasy novel like Jonathan Franzen's the Corrections? Or high priest zadok's fantasy pride and prejudice?

Would fantasy readers/publishers be receptive to such novels? Or do the expectations and tropes of the genre exert too strong a pull for something like that to exist?

[Lummel]

Thinking about this further, I would probably have less of a problem with some of these examples of pre-modern attitudes if the POV weren't the hero, or protagonist. Maybe in general, a note on the whole realism thing, nearly everyone of some of these time periods would have been disempowered because of their class, sex, both, or a multitude of other reasons. Why focus only on the empowered (nobles, men, etc.)? This goes back to the whole "why not write female characters" thing where people want historical realism in some regards, but don't actually want to deal with all the people who don't have a lot of power.

Are there ways to deal with disempowered characters in (presumably 'realistic historical' SFF) interesting ways such that not every plot is either a farmboy becoming king, or an uprising? I'd be interested to see if people can think of good examples for this. (The first one who pops into my head is Sansa, but she's still a noble.

OK, but as an author why would you do this in a fantasy setting, wouldn't you naturally tell that story in a historical setting. In other words how does a fantasy setting help you in telling this story?

Also following on from Red Sun's point, if you are creating characters and you want them to be understanable to the reader and the reader to be sympathetic to them then you probably don't want to stick an alien morality or worldview between the reader and the character, or if you do, you would look to be very careful or subtle in how you do it.

[Shryke]

I think there's definitely a place for it. And to some extent I think there's already some examples of the idea.

The Name of The Wind, off the top of my head, is very slice-of-fantasy-life. It hints at larger shit, but the essential narrative of the first book is just some guys life, albeit a fairly smart one.

And I think of stuff like The Lies of Locke Lamora and really, if you cut out the James Bond Villain-esque plot from the end and leave it as just gang warfare in fantasy Venice, I don't see it losing any of it's appeal.

And that's just from the epic-fantasy-esque section. I'm sure someone with better knowledge could pull out quite a few books of this sort.

But there's always going to be a certain amount of "These are important people" going on because, as said above, important people are the ones that do interesting shit. Even Elizabeth Bennett was an aristocrat after all.

That said, I certainly would find Historical Fantasy about more "mundane" shit quite fascinating to read. Maybe a civil war or a who inherits the throne crisis or even just a few nasty years in some Duchy or someone growing up as a minor noble in some fantasy kingdom. Although, books largely about politics though, I think, tend to be alot harder to write. Which may be why there's less of them.

But shit, take the Others out of ASOIAF and it'd still be a very interesting book about a massive civil war in a fantasy kingdom.

[Happy Ent]

Are there ways to deal with disempowered characters in (presumably 'realistic historical' SFF) interesting ways such that not every plot is either a farmboy becoming king, or an uprising? I'd be interested to see if people can think of good examples for this. (The first one who pops into my head is Sansa, but she's still a noble.

Serwë in Bakker’s Prince of Nothing. I think she’s amazingly well realised and would hold her up as a shining example of writing such a character. I’ve never read anything like it. It was deeply uncomfortable and extremely rewarding. One of the best characters in fantasy I can think of.

[Mathis Waters]

I actually dislike the protagonist/antagonist distinction, conceptually. My favorite stories are those where all sides of a conflict get substantial viewpoint representation.

I think the easiest way - or at least what I'd be writing if I had the discipline to be a writer - would be to focus on ordinary, oppressed people in fantasy would be the Tolstoy route: assume at the outset that the big events are just the unfolding of vast, inhuman social processes, and make the story itself about how people deal with their changing world. Pick people from all social positions and sides of a conflict and jump heads. It would be a feast for those of us whose primary interest in sff is worldbuilding. Kim Stanley Robinson does a lot of this.

Count me in as another person who would read the Near Eastern fantasy proposed above.

[Liadin]

Thinking about this further, I would probably have less of a problem with some of these examples of pre-modern attitudes if the POV weren't the hero, or protagonist. Maybe in general, a note on the whole realism thing, nearly everyone of some of these time periods would have been disempowered because of their class, sex, both, or a multitude of other reasons. Why focus only on the empowered (nobles, men, etc.)? This goes back to the whole "why not write female characters" thing where people want historical realism in some regards, but don't actually want to deal with all the people who don't have a lot of power.

Are there ways to deal with disempowered characters in (presumably 'realistic historical' SFF) interesting ways such that not every plot is either a farmboy becoming king, or an uprising? I'd be interested to see if people can think of good examples for this. (The first one who pops into my head is Sansa, but she's still a noble.

Excellent point.

Read Sarah Micklem's Firethorn. Seriously. The main character is a woman, and lower-class, and sometimes it's a little bit frustrating because she has so little power in society, but it's an excellent book. And gritty fantasy.

Would you count Robin Hobb here? Her main characters tend not to be rulers although they still have a fair bit of freedom in their activities. I wouldn't say it's a really strong example of foreign value systems though.

Something like LoLL--does that count just because Locke isn't a ruler? He's still rich and can do whatever he wants. And again, I don't see the value system there as being extremely different from our own.

[williamjm]

We often scoff at the whole farmboy who becomes king not just because it's a shitty overdone trope but also because it's absurd and unrealistic. Most characters we read about are from the aristocratic or warrior class, mainly because they plausibly have the kind of agency that allows them to do cool interesting stuff like save the world and overthrow the evil dark lord.

Like kat, I'm interested to know if there's a fantasy novel that features 'disempowered' or just normal people with less agency as interesting characters.

There are a few examples of fantasy novels with heroes who are just 'normal' people who aren't nobles or powerful sorcerers or mighty warriors. For example, Tim Powers tends to use people with ordinary professions as his heroes, an accountant in On Stranger Tides or a literature professor in The Anubis Gates. Another example might be Raymond Feist's Rise of Merchant Prince where the protagonist is originally a simple village boy and the main plot of the book is about him becoming a successful merchant - admittedly in the background there are plenty of examples of more cliched fantasy characters.

Thinking about it, often fantasy novels with protagonists from 'normal' backgrounds seem to be from the sub-genre where someone from our world is transported to a fantasy world - such as Fionavar, Tomas Covenant, Three Hearts and Three Lions or The Subtle Knife. Of course, in some cases they do end up being aristocrats or great warriors in the fantasy world, but not always. I can't immediately think of any examples where a "real world" protagonist transported to a fantasy world happens to be from an upper-class background even if the fantasy world they travel to might be (apparently) largely populated by aristocrats.

Of course, this is only answering the second part of your request about characters from "normal" backgrounds, I wouldn't really say any of the characters are "disempowered", with the possible exception of Covenant and even he isn't disempowered in the fantasy world, just in the real world.