The Case for An Alternative to Bright
Feb. 13th, 2018 07:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeastI've given some thought to how Bright fails as a meditation on racism and bigotry. I am not the only one to do so. For a far better explanation of the failures, please see Lindsay Ellis's video essay on the topic*. Or, you can also see the What Went Wrong installment on the movie from Wisecrack**. Both express failures of philosophy and Lindsay goes into the failures of world-building as well.
For the purpose of having a world with different demographics to be subject of various kinds of prejudice, bigotry, social expectation, etc., I present a work of S. Andrew Swan. Dragons of the Cuyahoga
Before that, let me go into what might appear to be a better option but has too much important failure to apply. "The Moreau Quartet" is set in a near-future semi-cyberpunk world. The premise is that, at some point between the time of the book's writing and 2053, humanity gained massive capacities of genetic engineering. For a time, one big use was the creation of genetically engineered near-human-but-not-human soldiers that were based in animals. These humanoid creations were called "Moreaus" and those who were the humans that were the result of this genetic engineering would be called "Franks".
The fictional allusions point to a big element of the setting. Though, through hard work, the "Moreaus" were eventually granted human rights and even declared, by the Pope, to have souls, they remain a second class citizen. The "Franks" have even less cultural position.
It's a good series and I would encourage you to read the books, starting with Forests of the Night. But, the major reason why I don't go there for an exploration of the subtler elements of racism is that both the "Moreaus" and the "Franks" legitimately have greater physical capacities than humans. The main character of the first and last books is a tiger-Moreau, having both the engineered abilities meant for a soldier on the field and some of the physical capacities of a tiger (including the advanced sense of smell), really has both greater physical capacity and greater aggression than an average human he would meet.
This isn't an incapable place to explore such things. It's just that there's an inherent boundary that limits the applicability. It can be useful, but only up to a point.
Where I think there's better potential is in the setting of the two-book compilation "Dragons and Dwarves". Both Dragons of the Cuyahoga and Dwarves of Whiskey Island imagine a world in which Cleveland, Ohio had, nearly at random, seen the opening of a portal from a world of magic. The portal remained open, leaking that magic into this world, but only to a radius of around Cleveland, Ohio. The cause of the portal was various entities, some of whom were dependent upon the magic for their continued survival, fleeing persecution in that other realm.
The first book is a murder mystery in which the murder victim was a black dragon... and dragons are a hugely powerful deal in this book. The USA didn't grant them the rights of people, but Cleveland did, granting them the ability to incorporate and own corporations that could, then, own things outside of Cleveland, giving them the ability to amass great wealth. That is in addition to their great physical and supernatural power.
The main character is an investigative reporter in Cleveland. He likes to avoid "Fuzzy Gnome" stories (that is, fluff pieces focused on magic or magic creatures). But, that seems to only be about avoiding the fluff pieces. Instead, he has to investigate into the lives and politics of Cleveland, which includes the seemingly immortal dragons, elven police officers, dwarves, etc. Not only does Cleveland have to adjust to them, they have to adjust to a world of equal rights and a nation of laws rather than men.
There are only two books in the series, and those are quick mysteries which give you just enough to know that these are set within a bigger world. And, while "The Moreau Quartet" more directly deals with the topics, I think the world of "Dragons and Dwarves" has the greater potential.
Dragons and Dwarves certainly has what Bright wanted. It has a world in which the bigotries native to our own culture have a natural place. There's no need for an entire alternate history and not only Mexico to exist but there to have been an Alamo to remember and descendants of Mexico to be the recipients of racism exactly matching our own. (Really, I mean that's an alternate history so ill-thought-out that you need far more thinking-through just to figure out how that happened.) At the same time, it brings in ethnicities entirely foreign to our world (including elves and dwarves, though I don't recall the books explicitly mentioning orcs).
So, we have both the more familiar bigotries and the foriegn bigotries against which we can compare and contrast. Why is there this stereotype of dwarves when so few actually live up to the stereotype? I'm sure the elves can explain it... except any deeper look at those explanations shows that they're more just-so stories than real origins. And, that's when they have an explanation at all.
My proposal would be a series based after a movie starting with Dragons of the Cuyahoga. We would follow Kline, the investigative reporter. The character in the book is divorced with his wife taking the daughter all the way to California, but Kline isn't grizzled or angry. He's regularly involved via telecommunications and, in his work, a professional. This gives him the ability and the motivation to explore the immigrating world along with us.
This gives an opportunity to explore all aspects of both cultures and subcultures and to do so with both more subtlety and, simply put, better thinking than Bright even attempted.
Oh, and I would still enjoy expanding on "The Moreau Quartet". While I don't think it can really explore bigotry, for the aforementioned reasons, I would still really enjoy seeing it as the setting of a roleplaying game. Because, common man... it's just cool!
* https://youtu.be/gLOxQxMnEz8
** https://youtu.be/IHy6iXcj004
For the purpose of having a world with different demographics to be subject of various kinds of prejudice, bigotry, social expectation, etc., I present a work of S. Andrew Swan. Dragons of the Cuyahoga
Before that, let me go into what might appear to be a better option but has too much important failure to apply. "The Moreau Quartet" is set in a near-future semi-cyberpunk world. The premise is that, at some point between the time of the book's writing and 2053, humanity gained massive capacities of genetic engineering. For a time, one big use was the creation of genetically engineered near-human-but-not-human soldiers that were based in animals. These humanoid creations were called "Moreaus" and those who were the humans that were the result of this genetic engineering would be called "Franks".
The fictional allusions point to a big element of the setting. Though, through hard work, the "Moreaus" were eventually granted human rights and even declared, by the Pope, to have souls, they remain a second class citizen. The "Franks" have even less cultural position.
It's a good series and I would encourage you to read the books, starting with Forests of the Night. But, the major reason why I don't go there for an exploration of the subtler elements of racism is that both the "Moreaus" and the "Franks" legitimately have greater physical capacities than humans. The main character of the first and last books is a tiger-Moreau, having both the engineered abilities meant for a soldier on the field and some of the physical capacities of a tiger (including the advanced sense of smell), really has both greater physical capacity and greater aggression than an average human he would meet.
This isn't an incapable place to explore such things. It's just that there's an inherent boundary that limits the applicability. It can be useful, but only up to a point.
Where I think there's better potential is in the setting of the two-book compilation "Dragons and Dwarves". Both Dragons of the Cuyahoga and Dwarves of Whiskey Island imagine a world in which Cleveland, Ohio had, nearly at random, seen the opening of a portal from a world of magic. The portal remained open, leaking that magic into this world, but only to a radius of around Cleveland, Ohio. The cause of the portal was various entities, some of whom were dependent upon the magic for their continued survival, fleeing persecution in that other realm.
The first book is a murder mystery in which the murder victim was a black dragon... and dragons are a hugely powerful deal in this book. The USA didn't grant them the rights of people, but Cleveland did, granting them the ability to incorporate and own corporations that could, then, own things outside of Cleveland, giving them the ability to amass great wealth. That is in addition to their great physical and supernatural power.
The main character is an investigative reporter in Cleveland. He likes to avoid "Fuzzy Gnome" stories (that is, fluff pieces focused on magic or magic creatures). But, that seems to only be about avoiding the fluff pieces. Instead, he has to investigate into the lives and politics of Cleveland, which includes the seemingly immortal dragons, elven police officers, dwarves, etc. Not only does Cleveland have to adjust to them, they have to adjust to a world of equal rights and a nation of laws rather than men.
There are only two books in the series, and those are quick mysteries which give you just enough to know that these are set within a bigger world. And, while "The Moreau Quartet" more directly deals with the topics, I think the world of "Dragons and Dwarves" has the greater potential.
Dragons and Dwarves certainly has what Bright wanted. It has a world in which the bigotries native to our own culture have a natural place. There's no need for an entire alternate history and not only Mexico to exist but there to have been an Alamo to remember and descendants of Mexico to be the recipients of racism exactly matching our own. (Really, I mean that's an alternate history so ill-thought-out that you need far more thinking-through just to figure out how that happened.) At the same time, it brings in ethnicities entirely foreign to our world (including elves and dwarves, though I don't recall the books explicitly mentioning orcs).
So, we have both the more familiar bigotries and the foriegn bigotries against which we can compare and contrast. Why is there this stereotype of dwarves when so few actually live up to the stereotype? I'm sure the elves can explain it... except any deeper look at those explanations shows that they're more just-so stories than real origins. And, that's when they have an explanation at all.
My proposal would be a series based after a movie starting with Dragons of the Cuyahoga. We would follow Kline, the investigative reporter. The character in the book is divorced with his wife taking the daughter all the way to California, but Kline isn't grizzled or angry. He's regularly involved via telecommunications and, in his work, a professional. This gives him the ability and the motivation to explore the immigrating world along with us.
This gives an opportunity to explore all aspects of both cultures and subcultures and to do so with both more subtlety and, simply put, better thinking than Bright even attempted.
Oh, and I would still enjoy expanding on "The Moreau Quartet". While I don't think it can really explore bigotry, for the aforementioned reasons, I would still really enjoy seeing it as the setting of a roleplaying game. Because, common man... it's just cool!
* https://youtu.be/gLOxQxMnEz8
** https://youtu.be/IHy6iXcj004
