Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 2192015" data-attributes="member: 5171">For you.So you'd be lumping in Conan, the Iliad, and the Three Musketeers as lousy because Conan has people being born in servitude and becoming powerful through their own work and strength instead of noble heritage, the Iliad portrays gay relationships in a non-negative way, and the Three Musketeers has an evil cardinal being devious and evil and trying to gain political power for the church?I think what it all eventually comes down to is the fact that the mythical and often misinterpreted Average Reader does not want historically accurate fantasy. If that were true, we'd have people tossing out books in disgust every time someone popped in full plate mail in a world that didn't have rifles.My guess, for all that it's worth, is that the Average Reader wants a fantasy novel that is an idealized fantasy version of the world they find familiar and comfortable, with swords and wizards added to taste. If you look at the early Arthurian myths, you see how they get co-opted to become more like the current people in power every time there's a power change in Britain. When the Normans took over, King Arthur suddenly had great rages -- which were stereotypical of the Norman rulers and which hadn't appeared in the mythology until then. (Also, Lancelot appeared, as a sort of French Mary Sue who more or less displaced Arthur as the cool dude in the Arthurian myths.) An old Anglo-Saxon king became a Norman-like king. Same deal when the United States rewrote large elements of Arthurian literature so that the Round Table now signified that everything was egalitarian and Arthur wanted things settled by trials and not duels -- turning it into a democracy for all intents and purposes, because that had become the thing to do.So given that historical accuracy isn't a big deal, I don't see what's wrong with putting politics that the writer likes into the book. If the readers are entertained, then they won't care -- and if the readers don't buy the books, then market correction pretty much takes care of the problem.None of which relates to the definition of "the well wrought tale", which seems to really mean "quasi-libertarian philosophy of killing things and taking their stuff and being ticked off about government and its unnecessary laws." Which is completely fine, although the name is a bit dodgy.It still comes down to "the politics that I don't like bother me when they appear in a story." Which is also fine, and probably true for almost everyone, but that's a bit different from "Stories shouldn't have be socially conscious or relate to the author's personal political viewpoint." That seems to be the point you're trying to make (and please correct me if I've misunderstood you), but the former -- you being bothered not by politics, but specifically by politics you dislike -- is what I'm actually getting from your posts.</blockquote>

Verification