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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 2274165" data-attributes="member: 2205">Anti-racist?  ERB?  That's all well and good to point out that he says the red and green men of Mars should get along, but you ignore where he paints the red men of Earth with a broad brush as uncouth savages, and "the only good Injun is a dead Injun" mentality.  He did the same for black Africans and Arabs in other books, particularly the Tarzan ones.I think that's another example of you having the message already in mind, and then forcing an interpretation out of the work rather that reading the works first and then finding the messages that actually are there.  Not that that's inconsistent with your attempt to define all fantasy as a morality tale, but it's just as quixotic and absurd.I don't see what your point is, or how it relates to fantasy.  Even accepting for the moment your position that ERB was essentially writing a handbook for would-be gentlemen, complete with sample perfect gentleman John Carter, and fantastic setting to keep the audience's attention, we still have the problem that your forcing an interpretation on the books that could just as easily be forced on any book.  Is Jack Ryan the ideal American patriot, and A Clear and Present Danger a morality tale?  Is Keyser Soze the ideal criminal mastermind and The Usual Suspects a morality tale?  If not, I can't see how they differ from your analysis of John Carter.  And if so, I can't see how they are not fantasy instead of, respectively, a technothriller and a psychological thriller.Although you denied it when S'mon paraphrased your argument as such, I don't see how this isn't exactly what you are doing; any protagonist with any desirable quality becomes a role model, and no matter how obliquely, or even against the intentions of the author!, the story becomes a morality play based on the characteristics of the protagonist.  Then, you conveniently only look at fantasy stories, apply this twisted forcing of your model to them, and then say, voila!  I've defined fantasy! while also conveniently ignoring the fact that your definition could just as easily apply to many --in fact, most-- stories, including those that nobody accepts as fantasy.I'm rather startled that you can profess that as well -- ERB was a pulp writer, and his stories were very harshly criticized in his own time as being exceptionally racy, and not grounded in the morality of the time.Yeah, but nothing you have said has done that either; unless you're now willing to admit most works of fiction ever written.</blockquote>

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