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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 2275283" data-attributes="member: 2205">To be semantically quibblish, that's not what I suggested, what I suggested was that the theory was formulated, and then applied to the work.  That doesn't mean you hadn't already read the work.But I'll take your word for it and accept that you got that interpretation out of the book upon first reading.  Me, I got nothing more than a rousing adventure story, much like his more or less contemporary writer Raphael Sabatini, but set in fantastic locations.  It still seems to me that the fact that ERB used fantastic locations is the primary driver of your interpretation of his writings as morality tales, and presumably your belief that Captain Blood is not one, even though the primary difference between them is nothing so much as late 1800s set on a fictional Mars vs. set during the heyday of Port Royale pirate Caribbean.If it's not, then you haven't given a very coherent definition of what is fantasy and what is not, then.  I still mainatin that being a morality tale with symbols representing abstract principles can occur in works other than fantasy, and works of fantasy may still eschew morality and symbolism altogether.  I also still fail to see why you so inextricably entwine morality tale and fantasy when the two are not deterministically related.  I'll agree that much of fantasy does indeed have symbolic visions of evil, or whatever, but I still do not agree that it must or that it fails to be fantasy.  Again, it's a case of using a subset of fantasy, and trying to define all of fantasy by the qualities of the subset.You haven't spent much time at all arguing about ERB's racial commentary, and I still hold out that you can't, because racism as we understand it was not defined in his time.  And I haven't made any comment on High Plains Drifter; heck, I haven't even seen that movie.Your misrepresenting me.  I didn't say that your interpretation of High Plains Drifter or ERB was absurd --I have no opinion on the first, and I disagree with the second and think that it's extremely unlikely, but I don't think it's absurd-- I think it's absurd that you define fantasy as being a morality tale, and that you're stretching examples beyond common sense to attempt to demonstrate that "grand theory."  I quibble with your details, but I don't really think they're absurd.  It's your grander theory that I think is absurd.Uh, no, I never did that.  You asked if I was even listening to you, implying that if I was, well, of course I would agree!  I didn't redefine any words you said.No, you did say that.  I still think it's out of left field, patently unlikely, and I don't agree with it, though.I already did.  It was escapist adventure fiction, as I said earlier.  Personally, I don't think ERB is the kind of author who really does well under an extremely critical analysis of the text, looking for deeper meaning, because I don't think there was much.Why should it?  Why does he have to be making moral commentary?Oh, that's right.  Because it's fantasy, and the way you define fantasy, it has to be making moral commentary.  So if ERB isn't making moral commentary, then your definition doesn't work.</blockquote>

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