Bittercon: Historical Reality in Fantasy
Aug. 23rd, 2012 12:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
attackfishWhy have castles in the same world as dragons? How would having magic actually impact a feudal society? What roles would sorcerers really occupy in such a world?
I’m told this is a well worn topic, so I will begin by saying I’m relatively ignorant of the discussions that have already taken place. Most of the takes on this topic that I have seen have been primarily from a military angle, if you have dragon riders, what good is a high walled, unroofed fortress like a castle? If your average wizard can kill at a glance, what good is armor? Intentional or not, this is the direction in which most of the genre guides us. Much of fantasy is concerned with war, epic battles being one of the favorite topics, which makes military inconsistencies like these more obvious. As much as I love a good adventure, I’m more of an anthropology buff and politics buff than a military tactics buff, so I intend to take a slightly different tack.
Magic can be seen as an analog not only for military technology but for technology more generally, which has always been segregated by class. A feudal system, with its rigid class divisions, can only survive if technology, and infrastructure are distributed in such a way as to support it and make it necessary. If a kingdom has a strong communications network (scrying mirrors, long distance telepathy...) and a quick way to move people around (flight, teleportation...) then that kingdom’s king doesn’t need a bunch of lords and knights around to help him control his kingdom. In Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar books, because of this, though Valdemar has lords and Ladies, and relatively little modern industrialization, the political system is highly centralized, with the monarch holding most of the power, and her own band of highly mobile magic users circulating through the country to keep control.
And what about worlds where peasants are constantly being born with magic? How long would an inherited hierarchy last when people on the bottom rungs so frequently find themselves in possession of that much physical power? Does the system have permeability for magic users?
There are a number of ways to make magic reenforce a feudal hierarchy, if a writer decides that’s the direction they wish to go in. Magic could be born only within certain bloodlines, like in Robin Mckinley’s Damar books, where kelar is born only to members of the royal family. Magic could be something gained instead of inborn, either through some ritual or through long term study. Magic users could themselves become another form of nobility, much like the Medieval Catholic Church.
Authors could also start with a magic system and see where it leads them. Maybe magic being born unpredictably throughout the population leads to magic users each becoming small-time warlords, controlling villages and city-states. Maybe the authorities make a successful go at finding and killing magic users before they can use their power to uproot the system. Maybe nobody has magic inside, and power is centralized around rulers who hold magical artifacts. Maybe magic has made fields and crops so fertile that the bulk of the population no longer has to farm, and almost everyone lives in large cities. Maybe magic users have become godlike figures. Maybe one country has magic and another does not. Fantasy in no way binds us to historical accuracy, or even to drawing on the past, although fantasy writers often do.
How do yo think politics and culture would be shaped by magic? What kinds of magic systems would you like to see the consequences of explored? What books or series have you seen tat dealt with this topic well?
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bittercon the online convention for those of us who can't make it to any other kind, on a topic adapted from a panel at the 2012 Chicon, the text of which is quoted at the beginning of this post.
I’m told this is a well worn topic, so I will begin by saying I’m relatively ignorant of the discussions that have already taken place. Most of the takes on this topic that I have seen have been primarily from a military angle, if you have dragon riders, what good is a high walled, unroofed fortress like a castle? If your average wizard can kill at a glance, what good is armor? Intentional or not, this is the direction in which most of the genre guides us. Much of fantasy is concerned with war, epic battles being one of the favorite topics, which makes military inconsistencies like these more obvious. As much as I love a good adventure, I’m more of an anthropology buff and politics buff than a military tactics buff, so I intend to take a slightly different tack.
Magic can be seen as an analog not only for military technology but for technology more generally, which has always been segregated by class. A feudal system, with its rigid class divisions, can only survive if technology, and infrastructure are distributed in such a way as to support it and make it necessary. If a kingdom has a strong communications network (scrying mirrors, long distance telepathy...) and a quick way to move people around (flight, teleportation...) then that kingdom’s king doesn’t need a bunch of lords and knights around to help him control his kingdom. In Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar books, because of this, though Valdemar has lords and Ladies, and relatively little modern industrialization, the political system is highly centralized, with the monarch holding most of the power, and her own band of highly mobile magic users circulating through the country to keep control.
And what about worlds where peasants are constantly being born with magic? How long would an inherited hierarchy last when people on the bottom rungs so frequently find themselves in possession of that much physical power? Does the system have permeability for magic users?
There are a number of ways to make magic reenforce a feudal hierarchy, if a writer decides that’s the direction they wish to go in. Magic could be born only within certain bloodlines, like in Robin Mckinley’s Damar books, where kelar is born only to members of the royal family. Magic could be something gained instead of inborn, either through some ritual or through long term study. Magic users could themselves become another form of nobility, much like the Medieval Catholic Church.
Authors could also start with a magic system and see where it leads them. Maybe magic being born unpredictably throughout the population leads to magic users each becoming small-time warlords, controlling villages and city-states. Maybe the authorities make a successful go at finding and killing magic users before they can use their power to uproot the system. Maybe nobody has magic inside, and power is centralized around rulers who hold magical artifacts. Maybe magic has made fields and crops so fertile that the bulk of the population no longer has to farm, and almost everyone lives in large cities. Maybe magic users have become godlike figures. Maybe one country has magic and another does not. Fantasy in no way binds us to historical accuracy, or even to drawing on the past, although fantasy writers often do.
How do yo think politics and culture would be shaped by magic? What kinds of magic systems would you like to see the consequences of explored? What books or series have you seen tat dealt with this topic well?
Written for
bittercon the online convention for those of us who can't make it to any other kind, on a topic adapted from a panel at the 2012 Chicon, the text of which is quoted at the beginning of this post.
