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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 2275422" data-attributes="member: 4937">These are claims which you have made no attempt to back up.  You simply asking me to accept your word that it is merely escapist adventure fiction with no higher aspirations what so ever, and further that you ask me to accept your word over that of the evidence that I've presented to the contrary.  Your word against my senses.   Now there is a contest.  When I present quotations from the text which seem to be about something more than merely escapist adventure fiction (whatever that means), you fail to even address the text.  Instead, you dismiss me as reading into the text things which are not there, even though they aren't exactly complex symbolism, and despite the fact that I could back my interpretation of the text with quotations by the man about the subjects in question.   If its present in the text, and its present in the man, why is it so astounding to you that it was deliberately put there?To throw your method of debate back in your face, is it because ERB is about as lowbrow of fantasy as one can get, and if you can't make your claims stick here with a subject you consider yourself familiar with, then its highly unlikely that you would be able to make them stick anywhere?  So are you just going to continue digging in your heels, putting your hands over your eyes and going, "I can't see anything.  I just don't know what you are talking about."?  Or maybe you reject these claims merely because you don't want ERB's Barsoom books to be about anything, but it offends your view of the world?  Fine.  In the same way maybe you don't want to see why the the supernatural and the metaphysical are intrisically linked because it offends your view of the world, but if that's your reasoning you'll pardon me for not accepting your commentary as definitive.You know what the funny thing is?  The sort of satirical commentary I quoted in which an one institution stands for another institution, doesn't even prove my assertion about ERB's barsoom books in particular, much less fantasy in general.   But you don't understand that because you don't have a clue what actually would satisfy my definitions - even though you reject everything out of hand.  I only brought up the obvious moral instruction in ERB's books, because I thought it would be a good way of opening up people's minds to the fact that there might be something deeper going on even in the simpliest of low fantasy.  But foolish me, I underestimated people's powers to be obstinate, because I've spent the better part of the time since then arguing with people over the simple obvious facts and not what they actually mean.   It's as close to a factual literary analysis as a literary analysis can be that Gulliver's Travels is a satire.  It's as close to a factual literary analysis as a literary analysis can be that the religious cermonies and beliefs of the Tur worshipers is a satire.  One is like the other.  Nothing about those facts makes or breaks my larger argument, but since you treat that simple assertion as if it was flat-out absurd and provide no basis why whatsoever, I see no reason why I should care that you think my far more complex arguments are flat-out absurd.   In fact, since the sort of passages as the Tur worshiper passage occur all throughout the books, the fact that you don't see even that renders your larger rejection rather ubsurd.   It's like a blind man telling me I can't see and that I'm prepostrously arrogant for claiming that I can.   Fine.  Eat your straw and be happy escaping from reality.</blockquote>

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