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[shamanicshaymin]

This article is making me think about certain story-telling elements.

I don't necessarily agree with everything, but it does bring up some interesting points. Like how the "fantasy" elements in fantasy novels are usually depicted as "ZOMG-SOOOOO-MUCH BETTER!!11!1" than the real world, aka "boring ol' reality." The Hero's Journey has lately become a tale of leaving the "banal" world behind and embracing the supernatural. The author argues that this is the hero's way of "refusing to grow up."

Where I disagree is that while a Hero's Journey doesn't always have a "return," it doesn't mean that they're bashing reality. Take two of Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tales, "Thumbelina" and "The Little Mermaid." Thumbelina doesn't go back to her mom, and the mermaid doesn't go back to sea. But they're still bildungsromans in that they're newly formed "adults" trying to find their place in the world, with varying degrees of success. Thumbelina (and Disney's Ariel) make it, but the original mermaid wasn't so lucky. Their journeys are about finding a place they can return to.

That said, there's the treatment of adults, teens, and children in stories, and why I feel so alienated from a lot of YA and children's books lately.

There's this pervading feeling I'm getting that adults = bad, children = good. I know, I know, Adults Are Useless has been around since the beginning of time, but bear with me here. There's a lot of conflicting messages in society that vary from "Jesus, grow up." and "Childhood is the most magical age! I wish I were a kid again!" Hell, I've indulged a lot in the latter thinking. As a kid, I went back and forth between wanting to grow up or staying young forever. I'm almost 25 and I feel like I act younger than my age, and I don't know if it's a good or bad thing. I'm uncertain of who I am and I don't know everything like an adult "should." So when I read a YA or children's book that says, "Ugh, adults are stiff and unimaginative scum who are too old to understand anything, children are pure and awesome and know things older people can't possibly conceive!" I feel like a bunch of kids are frowning and pushing me off their sandbox saying, "Go away, you're grown up. We don't want you here anymore."

I'm not sure if I got the impression that adults were evil as a kid. When I was reading Dahl's books, the mean adults were punished because they were assholes, not necessarily because they were adults. You still had adults like Miss Honey and the Narrator's Grandmother from "The Witches" to look up, and I'm certain the bugs in "James and the Giant Peach" were grown-ups who adopted James. In Narnia, the adults weren't oblivious so much that I got to share a secret that only the Pevensies and I know. (That said, Lewis's dismissal of Susan in the last book pissed me off. How dare she try to build a life outside of Narnia, especially after the tragedy that befell her family!) In fact, through life, I got the impression that adults and children were capable of both good and evil.

I think that's part of why I love Lord of the Flies so much. Golding had the guts to say that not only can kids be bullies, they can be downright sadistic due to their undeveloped empathy. From what I learned in psychology, children have a "ME ME ME" mindset that makes it hard for them to understand complex emotions or see themselves in "another person's shoes." They're extremely literal. I still haven't finished reading Peter Pan, but I get a creepy vibe from Book!Peter because of his inability to grow up. To quote a review of the book: "Barrie loves the Child, but he does not hide its foolishness, its selfishness, its ignorance. The Child in this is almost pre-moral. They have some understanding of villainy, but do not grasp the virtue of a hero. Barrie deems a key attribute to being a child as being heartless." Hell, Battle Royale is engaging for me because it's about a bunch of high schoolers and the various "adult" choices they have to make against a violent dystopia.

While working on my novel, I found myself dealing a lot with the subject of childhood, nostalgia and growing up. In a way, a child who stops playing with a toy is an allegory for a toy beginning "adulthood." Eventually, you will be outgrown, and stop being played with. There's absolutely no stopping this, and that's okay. Now you have the freedom to learn, explore and grow, and that journey is never-ending. It's not easy, but life has its balance of ups and downs, and all of them worth experiencing. The book is about Ann & Andy's life after Marcella, and what happens to them. Maybe the novel is my way of helping myself adjust to adulthood and finally discover my place in the world. Hm.

DON'T MIND ME, JUST BABBLING.

Comments

[tropicsbear]

I actually think children can be much more cruel than adults. Adults sometimes restrain themselves because of morals, etc., but kids can be horrible for such small reasons.

[sarajayechan]

There's a lot of conflicting messages in society that vary from "Jesus, grow up." and "Childhood is the most magical age! I wish I were a kid again!"

God, I know. It's kind of annoying to be told "if you still watch cartoons or like toys past age 12 you're a failure as a grown-up" one minute and "adults suck, children are pure and innocent" the next. D: God forbid a fully grown adult do things like grocery shop and clean the house and then take a break to watch Tiny Toons. :P

I'm not sure if I got the impression that adults were evil as a kid. When I was reading Dahl's books, the mean adults were punished because they were assholes, not necessarily because they were adults.

I wish I'd been that lucky. XD; Or less impressionable. For a long time I was exposed to BSC books where Mallory's parents were OMG SO OPPRESSIVE to her for not letting her dress like a Bratz doll or saying "no" to contacts or a nose job for medical reasons. Or Full House and 7th Heaven and Fresh Prince where the young teenage daughter "wasn't allowed to have a figure" or wear makeup or look at boys because OVERPROTECTIVE DADS ARE FUNNY LOL. Plus my own mom could be a little strict about food and TV and bedtimes so I came away acting like a stereotypical "omg so oppressed" brat for some of my teen years. XD;

As for kids...I've also heard that some kids can be sensitive and worry about animals and give hugs, but I know just as many, even more, can be monsters. So I'm never sure what to think.

[redwoodalchan]

One thing to keep in mind about children, which seems to get lost on a lot of authors, is that they're people just like adults. Their personalities can be just about anything, but they often have less empathy and the like because they simply haven't learnt that much yet.

The issue that I take with a lot of fantasy these days is not so much that adults are evil and children are good (though there is also that--see Twilight, for example, where Bella wangsts about getting older than nineteen) but that the protagonist and others as special as they are are the only ones that really matter. Again, to use Twilight as an example, only Bella and her vampire and werewolf friends matter; the ordinary people around her can be killed without due comment. Which seems like a profoundly childish view, if you think about it--kind of like how little babies think they and their mothers are the only people in the world.

I guess what I'm getting at is, even putting aside the idea that adults=bad and children=good there seems to be a glorification of childishness, not just in bad fantasy but in bad writing in general. If you look at 50 Shades of Grey, for example, it's really about a woman who acts like a twelve-year-old and a man who's abusive because he throws childish tantrums whenever he doesn't get his way.

...Yeah, I may have to follow up on this train of thought in a proper post.

[shamanicshaymin]

One thing to keep in mind about children, which seems to get lost on a lot of authors, is that they're people just like adults. Their personalities can be just about anything, but they often have less empathy and the like because they simply haven't learnt that much yet.

Oh, I'm well aware of that. That's why I'm saying children shouldn't be held up as the ultimate paragon of good.

Again, to use Twilight as an example, only Bella and her vampire and werewolf friends matter; the ordinary people around her can be killed without due comment.

Oh, I'm not arguing about that. Harry Potter seemed like a poor example to use though, mainly because of the way Harry was raised. To quote from what I said on LJ:

"The reason Harry doesn't focus much on the Muggle world? A. Third-person limited, so we only see what Harry sees and thinks about. B. There's nothing for him there. Dursleys aside, he had no friends at school and was constantly bullied. My memories about the first book are fuzzy, but aside from magic and Quidditch, Harry was terrible at sports and not much good at anything. He's either treated like crap or everyone pretends he doesn't exist. Of course he's not going to think much about the Muggle world while he's at Hogwarts, especially with more pressing matters like, oh, VOLDEMORT and trying to keep the people who DO care about him safe and alive.

That said, have you read Coraline by Neil Gaiman? Now there's one example where the fantasy world isn't as glorious as one expects, and that there's plenty of amazing non-magical things in the "real" world if you kept an open mind.

[redwoodalchan]

Well, I completely get that it isn't Harry's fault he's acting the way he does. But I do think it's the author's fault that the closest thing to "normal" people we get in the entire series are the hero's abusers. It's not just that Harry's disregarding ordinary people, it's that the author brushes them aside as well. And it would be one thing if it were just Harry but nobody he meets in the wizarding world seems to feel any differently, and this is never addressed. Even the most sympathetic wizards treat non-magic people as though they're beneath their notice, when they're not going on about how they're boring or stupid for getting by without magic. If you think about it, Bella in Twilight unironically believes that she's a victim of the pitiful humans who don't see how superior she is, and that the best thing in the world for her would be to become the strongest, fastest, bestest ninja vampire ever. Does that fact that we only get her perspective mean that we have to agree with her on that score?

I haven't read Coraline but I may have to now. It seems like the kind of fantasy book I'd actually want to read.

[shamanicshaymin]

What about Arthur Weasley, who's fascinated by Muggles? The (albeit optional) Muggle Studies course? Then there's Muggle-borns, and I'm certain that Hermione would be concerned about her parents. I don't know, I just get the impression from HP that it's a fantasy book. If we wanted to read about the Muggle world, we got a billion other books for that. While I agree that books don't explore Muggle-Wizard relations as much as I'd like, they're still books about the wizarding world, with its warts and all.