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crosspost: why I don't like the dragon argument [March 2013]
Sometimes, it seems like every discussion about how fantasy (especially high fantasy) tends to be focused on white, straight dudes rehashes the exact same points:
Person A: It’s just being historically accurate!
Person B: …there are dragons.
Person A: Yes, but–
Person B: DRAGONS.
There’s some variation depending on which work comes up in discussion, but the basic rebuttal is “the setting includes something that blatantly diverges from the basic laws of reality; therefore, there’s no reason not to diverge from reality in much smaller matters.” I do understand it, but I … um, don’t agree. And I actually dislike it quite a lot.
The thing is, it’s treated as completely irrefutable by the people who make it and/or do agree with it. Yet I suspect that it’s very unlikely to succeed with the people it’s aimed at (not me), for the same reason it doesn’t work for me.
As I see it, including fanciful elements in a story makes it more important to feel otherwise realistic, not less. The more dragons and wizards and such that a story has, the more it needs to be anchored in reality—less with things on the level of “laws of physics” (though layering on changes there does heighten the sense of unfamiliarity) and more with with the smaller, more significant stuff that resonates with the living experience of real people.
And the thing is, women/poc/lgbt folk are real people. They are not comparable to dragons, bizarre, impossible creatures from the realm of Faerie, they are right here in the real world, and have always been right here. There’s no reason for them not to show up in, say, an alternate version of late medieval England (+ dragons), since they existed in actual medieval England. So when people go “all my main characters are straight white men because ACCURACY,” the main offense is a white-washed, heterocentric, patriarchal view of history, rather than an author’s desire to keep their fantastic setting firmly attached to reality.
HOWEVER.
I do think it’s really suspicious that there are so many premises of the ‘how would people be affected if reality were different in [x] way, but otherwise recognizable’ variety, and it virtually never includes ‘hey! suppose gender equality evolved as the dragon invasion forced every fit adult into combat.’
We can have worlds where everyone’s careers are decided in infancy by the astrological signs at the moment of their birth, or where secret enclaves of mutant humans live among us, unseen by the normal world, or where social psychology can predict the future with pinpoint accuracy, but the associated breaks from reality rarely seem to include gender or racial or other kinds of equality, even where it’d be perfectly likely to exist. It’s not that ‘it’s fantasy, reality need not apply’ but that it’s significant which aspects of reality are commonly broken and which are treated as indestructible.
And “you don’t need historical accuracy because you have dragons” does not really address any of that at all.
Person A: It’s just being historically accurate!
Person B: …there are dragons.
Person A: Yes, but–
Person B: DRAGONS.
There’s some variation depending on which work comes up in discussion, but the basic rebuttal is “the setting includes something that blatantly diverges from the basic laws of reality; therefore, there’s no reason not to diverge from reality in much smaller matters.” I do understand it, but I … um, don’t agree. And I actually dislike it quite a lot.
The thing is, it’s treated as completely irrefutable by the people who make it and/or do agree with it. Yet I suspect that it’s very unlikely to succeed with the people it’s aimed at (not me), for the same reason it doesn’t work for me.
As I see it, including fanciful elements in a story makes it more important to feel otherwise realistic, not less. The more dragons and wizards and such that a story has, the more it needs to be anchored in reality—less with things on the level of “laws of physics” (though layering on changes there does heighten the sense of unfamiliarity) and more with with the smaller, more significant stuff that resonates with the living experience of real people.
And the thing is, women/poc/lgbt folk are real people. They are not comparable to dragons, bizarre, impossible creatures from the realm of Faerie, they are right here in the real world, and have always been right here. There’s no reason for them not to show up in, say, an alternate version of late medieval England (+ dragons), since they existed in actual medieval England. So when people go “all my main characters are straight white men because ACCURACY,” the main offense is a white-washed, heterocentric, patriarchal view of history, rather than an author’s desire to keep their fantastic setting firmly attached to reality.
HOWEVER.
I do think it’s really suspicious that there are so many premises of the ‘how would people be affected if reality were different in [x] way, but otherwise recognizable’ variety, and it virtually never includes ‘hey! suppose gender equality evolved as the dragon invasion forced every fit adult into combat.’
We can have worlds where everyone’s careers are decided in infancy by the astrological signs at the moment of their birth, or where secret enclaves of mutant humans live among us, unseen by the normal world, or where social psychology can predict the future with pinpoint accuracy, but the associated breaks from reality rarely seem to include gender or racial or other kinds of equality, even where it’d be perfectly likely to exist. It’s not that ‘it’s fantasy, reality need not apply’ but that it’s significant which aspects of reality are commonly broken and which are treated as indestructible.
And “you don’t need historical accuracy because you have dragons” does not really address any of that at all.
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- The dragon one is particularly grating, but I don't care for any "if that's the case, then what about x" arguments in this case. Any argument that comes down to "okay but you're not being accurate in xyz ways" gives up ground as far as the fundamental wrongness of the premise is concerned. There should be no okay but, even implicitly. The idea that minorities and active women didn't exist in the medieval world can't be accepted, at all.
- Also, I most often hear that argument with the assumption that everyone would have missing teeth if it were Being Accurate, or that everyone would be a plague survivor/victim—"Okay, but historically, X would have smallpox scars and be missing five teeth, so..." It usually seems like a pretty lazy appeal to the most stereotypical, generalized ideas of the medieval world.
- I'm not particularly thrilled about being placed on a par with disease and disfigurement, either.
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I thought of it more as an illustration of selective realism, i.e. that the writers aren't interested in realism (which could be smallpox, or something else that isn't generically medieval and yet also not truly representative) but rather in explicitly pretending that women and POC didn't exist in major roles or as leaders, etc.
I wouldn't want to be equated with smallpox either!
That said, I'm not super familiar with a lot of the arguments that go into the period drama fantasy au space since most of my fannish stuff is either actual period dramas or space fantasy + science fiction (where appeals to smallpox and dragons aren't the argument vehicles of choice).
There should be no okay but, even implicitly.
And yeah, that. That too!
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I do get the selective realism argument (or rather, """realism""")—it's just an issue that isn't well-suited to analogies. I do suspect that a lot of the people making it may not realize that the people they're arguing with are factually wrong all the way down, and that's where the implicit concession comes from.
And yeah, that. That too!
Three cheers for Team No Concessions! :)
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Which is why it's good to have good posts on this!
Three cheers for Team No Concessions! :)
We should make t-shirts!
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I think it's possible that it comes from the same "all stories should have happy endings" place? At least, I've generally seen those arguments most often coming from the same people.