Joe Abercrombie defends gritty fantasy

[Joe Abercrombie]

Now this strikes me as an excellent response...

 

[Kissmequick]

That encapsulates a lot of what my post-convention-zombiefied-brain was trying to make coherent so I could post it....

Excellent post, thanks for linking it.

 

[Nerds_feather]

Agreed. A set of well-argued points. I particularly liked the final statement:

Grittiness has its place in fiction; as do representations of existing inequalities. But when we forget to examine why we think certain abuses are inevitable, or assume their universality – when we write about a particular prejudice, not to question, subvert or redefine it, but to confirm it as an inevitable, even integral aspect of human nature – then we’re not being realistic, but selective in our portrayal and understanding of reality.

One thing I'm not entirely clear on is this: if a hypothetical writer decided that he or she would write about an inherently unfair world because inequalities are universal (and they do appear close to it, at the least), then why would that need to necessarily have to manifest as race, gender or sexuality-based inequalities? Or is it that these often end up being the most likely inequalities authors present because those are the ones we are most familiar with in modern societies? That goes back to Saladin Ahmed's essay where he argues that the race problem he identifies in Game of Thrones is a reflection of real-world race problems in the US. An interesting set of questions...

 

[Brian G Turner]

the likelihood is that you’ll end up writing victimised and/or damaged women, sexist and homophobic social structures, racist characters and, as a likely corollary, racist stereotypes as automatic defaults; which means, in turn, that you run an extremely high risk of excluding even the possibility of undamaged, powerful women, LGBTQ and/or POC characters from the outset, because you’ve already decided that such people are fundamentally unrealistic.

I'm puzzled as to why "grittiness" should be perceived to be unable to encapsulate female, LGBT or PoC POV's sympathetically??

Surely the point of increased realism and a move away from traditional romanticism also includes - nay, demands - a need for writers, especially men, to challenge their inherent white male heteronormative preconceptions?

If "gritty" in speculative fiction has so far failed to address these issues in the mainstream, it is not because it is unable to handle them, merely that so far few authors have done so successfully, but that there is plenty more potential for the genre to do so.

(Or have I misunderstood a fundamental part of the argument?)

 

[Joe Abercrombie]

There is a certain level of accessibility for readers in portraying a fantasy world that is very much like our own and sexism and racism have been and continue to be pressing problems. Otherwise we probably wouldn't be so worried about seeing them in fantasy novels.

I think as well the fact that epic fantasy has for a long time taken a sort of patriarchal, authoritarian pseudo-europe as its base setting means there's a certain gravity to that approach now. You can take all kinds of other cues for setting, of course, but if you do it tends to become the most commented-on feature of what you're doing. There's a degree to which you're no longer working in the most obvious core form. Gritty fantasy holds the mirror up to classic fantasy, and so it naturally takes on many of its features.

 

[Nerds_feather]

I'm puzzled as to why "grittiness" should be perceived to be unable to encapsulate female, LGBT or PoC POV's sympathetically??

Surely the point of increased realism and a move away from traditional romanticism also includes - nay, demands - a need for writers, especially men, to challenge their inherent white male heteronormative preconceptions?

If "gritty" in speculative fiction has so far failed to address these issues in the mainstream, it is not because it is unable to handle them, merely that so far few authors have done so successfully, but that there is plenty more potential for the genre to do so.

(Or have I misunderstood a fundamental part of the argument?)

The argument is a little slippery, but I *think* it boils down to this:

• Grit is supposed to be realistic, but it focuses on the dark side of reality.
• Grit is typically written to reflect a "life is unfair, but let's not shy from that" perspective.
• Grit is typically written by straight white men, who may be keenly aware of that side reality but don't have the same experience of it as non-SWMs.
• As a result, they are probably (not definitely) going to reproduce the power relations of our world, even if they are also criticizing them.
• When this happens, non-SWM readers end up feeling powerless, victimized and disenchanted as they read the books, in a way that is fundamentally different from what SWMs take away from the books.

I'm not 100% sure that is the argument, but that's what I took away from it. She also seems to be saying that there's no reason why it *has* to work like this, only that it usually does.

 

[Ursa major]

I think the statement with which I'd have most trouble in that Foz Meadows piece is:

Which is where grimdark tends to fall down for me, and why eliding the genre’s political dimensions is especially problematic: grittiness is only a selective view of reality, not the whole picture

but only because all fictional - and factual and (especially) "factual" - views of reality are going to be selective, almost by definition.

The quoted text (written by Aaron Bady) immediately before that seems to recognise this, at least implicitly:

Anti-romanticism is all the more ideological because it pretends to have no ideology, to be the “plain truth” that demonstrates the falsity of romantic visions

although I don't recall any recent book I've read claiming a lack of ideology, or "claiming" anything, really. (And even if it did, I like to make my own mind up about where an author might be coming from.) There is never going to be “plain truth”, not in a comprehensive way, because, even in real life, even if one believes that there is an omnipotent viewpoint, we humans don't get to see it (and wouldn't be capable of much making sense of so much information).

Which brings me to a issue associated with the current way novels are written, i.e. first person or close third person.

If one's PoV characters are unpleasant and consort with people (or whatever**) like themselves, it's hard to see how one can ever give a rounded view of the world in which those PoV characters live. Worse, one's PoV characters may be unable to recognise examples where their slanted world view isn't applicable, because they can't conceive of, say, a strong-willed woman who hasn't become that way due to some appalling personal/sexual incident (to use a stereotype). After all, if the upstanding, middle-class (not to say privileged) author cannot see beyond the stereotype, how can some half-psychopath character be expected to do so?

I suppose there are a number of ways to address this dilemma, including:

1. not making the narrative so close that it depends entirely on the unpleasant PoV characters' world views (which may be difficult where first person is being used);
2. letting one or more PoV characters come to realise how limited their world view has been previously;
3. using a variety of PoV's and properly*** integrate those with sensibilities closer to that of the unbiased, colour-blind, gender-blind, whatever-blind reader/critic into the narrative.

but all of them will depend on how well they're written (which seems to be true of most things). Most of all, authors, readers and critics have to understand that a modern novel without an omniscient narrative view cannot really deliver the a comprehnsive view, let alone the “plain truth”: it's all just a collection of one or more points of view.


All of which leads to a question: Is it an author's duty to always created a well-rounded story, or the reader's to accept that there is a (possibly nicer****) world beyond the story being told.

(By the way, although I think the human psyche seems to need to set up the concept of the other, there's no reason for the stereotypical examples - race, gender, class, nationality, religion - to be used. Be imaginative: invent your own, new prejudices. )



** - In SFF, characters may not actually be people.

*** - Properly, that is, rather than making them a cypher for the author's sensibilities, or a get-out-of-jail card to be used when critics point out the appalling behaviour and views of the (presumably) main characters.

**** - So that, for instance, we know the average small American town doesn't have as many incidents of murder and manslaughter as Cabot Cove, and that Oxford isn't, in reality, the murder capital of the UK.

 

[Southern Geologist]

Excellent post, all around. That said...

If women hadn't complained so much about the way we're portrayed in fantasy, it'd probably still be us for the chain mail bikinis, waiting for the Hero to save us with his manly manly man love before we swoon into his arms and that's our lot, liek it or lump it.

This made me think of this.


(Sorry, you may all return to your very enjoyable serious discussion.)

 

[HareBrain]

This struck me as important in the article Joe linked to, and I think it's a shame the blog's author didn't follow it up at all.

Yes, there’s pain and despair and suffering, but not exclusively, and when you make grit a synonym for realism – when you make an active, narrative decision to privilege specific, familiar types of grimness as universals – then you’re not just denying the fullness of reality; you’re promoting a version of it that’s inherently hostile to the personhood and interests of the majority of people on the planet.

If that were the case, then it would justify a criticism of (or complaint about) this kind of story setting: that it risks making the real world worse.

But are such books really doing such "promoting", and if they were, would it actually have any effect on readers' perceptions of the real world and the way in which they relate to it and the various groups of people within it?

 

[Kissmequick]

I'm puzzled as to why "grittiness" should be perceived to be unable to encapsulate female, LGBT or PoC POV's sympathetically??

For me the point is: it's not inherently unable, but that inability does seem to be the default. Some authors then say this is due to 'realism'.

But there are many sides to any reality. Even in a heavily misogynistic society, not every woman would be raped. In a society where everyone is bad, then men too would have similar experiences, be damaged in the same way, surely? etc etc. So why not show that, and call that realism too? (shifty not answering it answer: because that'll be deemed 'unrealistic' by certain sectors of the readership. Mostly SWM....and I won't go any further or I may grind away my teeth)

This isn't to say that you can't write an unrelenting world, or women that are damaged (I certainly have a time or two, but also I've written plenty that aren't). Just something to keep in mind as it's a trend that seems to have no sign of ending.

If you're showing reality, it doesn't have to be that single dimensional one. Wouldn't it be better if it were a multi dimensional reality? (Which is perfactly possible to show in first/close third, with a little thought. Because it doesn't have to be condoned in the narrative, even if your POV is a ******* from hell)

 

[Joe Abercrombie]

I think there are a couple of leaps in the argument that don't totally convince.

One is that by portraying a misogynistic or racist or otherwise horrible world you're necessarily promoting or contributing to those things in reality. To return to the 1984 analogy (pathetic or not), you have there a portrayal of totalitarianism that is anything but a promotion of it (not that it's prevented some readers coming to that conclusion, mind you). Closer to home, and I hope people will forgive an example of my own but it's one I'm familiar with, The Heroes is a book about war but I don't think I've ever read a review that doesn't see it as an anti-war book. It may be that gritty writing often trots these things out lazily or superficially as part of the default worldbuilding, but I don't think that necessarily has to be so.

Related to that, I think it's perfectly possible within sexist or racist worlds to write a full range of women and POC characters, and then see how they react to their circumstances. Isn't it necessary to some degree to do that if you're to investigate racism or sexism at all? It may well be that gritty fantasy often fails to do that or falls short in the attempt, but I don't know that that's inevitable.

The argument that gritty claims to be the one and only reality also seems something of a straw man. Does anyone really claim that? More often it's that grittiness feels honest to readers because it tackles aspects of life that Tolkien and imitators didn't want to look at. One tool in the toolbox, as I've tiresomely said elsewhere.

I'm also a bit confused about the descriptors. It used to be 'grimdark' was a pejorative for stuff one didn't like because it was too extreme or superficial, now it seems it's being used for grittiness more generally, so some people seem to say you can have good or bad grimdark. But then you get something like:

"in grimdark, it’s not just graphic sex, but the graphic rape or assault of women by men, or sex which objectifies women; it’s not just swearing, but swearing which derives its offensiveness from treating women’s bodies, habits and gender as undesirable, or which reinforces racism and homophobia; it’s not just violence, but violence against the othered."

Which I don't think actually describes my stuff particularly. But am I grimdark or not? Maybe it depends who you ask...

But yeah, I think Francis is entirely right that having this stuff in mind and thinking about how you tackle these issues as a writer is an eminently healthy thing to do. And that there's just no drawback to having the fullest possible range of characters in your book. That is making your fantastical world more like the real world. That is good writing. Having repetitive, one-dimensional characters and setups is not a cause anyone needs to be fighting for.

 

[randomfromamber]

Actually, my first thought on reading that post was to roll my eyes in annoyance. What I took away from her argument (and I might have read it completely wrong) boils down to: nope, if you write dark stuff, there is no question in her mind that you pretty much are going to be misogynistic, racist and homophobic.

I have so many problems with that piece that it would take me far more time than I wish to take to respond to it, but here are a few points.

She goes on a lot in various different terms about grittiness being "only a selective view of reality, not the whole picture".

Well, every book ever written is a selective view of the world.

"Not unsurprisingly, therefore, many SFF readers – especially those who are female, POC and/or LGBTQ – are going to object to your definition of reality, not just as you’ve elected to apply it in an SFFnal context, but as an effective commentary on them, personally: because when you contend that realistic worldbuilding requires the inclusion of certain specific inequalities in order to count as realistic, you’re simultaneously asserting that such inequalities are inherent to reality – that a story cannot be honest, or your characters believably human, if there aren’t mechanisms in place to keep women oppressed, POC othered and LGBTQ persons invisible."

Right. Because, in reality, those mechanisms don't exist, of course. So the only "honest" stories are ones where racism, homophobia, misogyny, social inadequacies (have I covered everything?) simply don't occur. That doesn't seem...well, realistic to me.

Personally, I feel that the only honesty the writer owes to their potential readers is to write the best story they can; and I would argue that it's not about the world you paint, it's about how you choose to make your characters interact with that world, what their story is in that particular context, which side of the mechanism they are on, so to speak.

Having said that, I do think that sometimes, it doesn't really matter what the story is a writer has chosen to write: some people will check it against a checklist of what I will call - for lack of a better term - PC requirements, and the story - and by extension, the writer - will fail. Eye of the beholder and all that.

 

[Kissmequick]

Okay, personal opinion wassname incoming

A lot is in the subtext, and that is where things get really subjective.

I don't, myself, think that most gritty/grimdark/whateveryouwantocallit promote that world view, but they may reinforce a mindset that is already there, and fail to challenge that mindset.

It comes down to how the author handles it. Taking an extreme - the Gor books. I think, because of how it is presented, yes they do promote misogyny. Or at least present it as a Not Bad Thing

Other books show that It Is Bad, by using deeply flawed '-ist' characters and not condoning what they are doing in the narrative(like Joe says, using war to show that war is bad).


And that's cool and good, and I do it myself (so, naturally I think it's a good thing to do!), though it won't necessarily come across that way to everyone. Because readers bring their own stuff to the table when the read - we all do. And what reads to me as, frex, 'racist guy is shown to be bad' is going to come across to someone else in a different way. As an author, I can't control that. And that is, probably, where a lot of complaints come from and I still see no problem with people complaining (if they complain about my work - and some have - then I didn't do my job properly for them at least and I should learn from that)

I CAN control how I present things, and do my best to say show a sexist learning his mistakes, or to make sure my narrative subtext isn't gleefully saying 'yeah, coool!' when someone does something reprehensible.


I think my problem with the whole area is that 'oh, but it's realistic' warcry (not from Joe, I have to say, who is, as usual, very thoughtful with his answers and makes me feel like he's listening to the argument even if he disagrees.) is that it is rather dismissive of very real concerns. It's a cop out, and it stops discussion.

Something might be realistic, but if what I've written bothers enough of a proportion of my readers (because, let's face it, there's always someone who won't like your books) I have to consider that what I've done hasn't lived up to what I wanted it to do. And change that going forwards.

Right. Because, in reality, those mechanisms don't exist, of course. So the only "honest" stories are ones where racism, homophobia, misogyny, social inadequacies (have I covered everything?) simply don't occur. That doesn't seem...well, realistic to me.

See, for me that was pretty much the opposite of what she was saying. And another example of people reading the same things and taking different things from it because of who they, the reader, are.

 

[randomfromamber]

See, for me that was pretty much the opposite of what she was saying. And another example of people reading the same things and taking different things from it because of who they, the reader, are.

Just a quick note here - I was being sarcastic (or attempting to), so maybe it didn't come across the way it might otherwise have. [Note to self: don't do that on the internet.] Sorry.

Let's see if this is clearer:
"because when you contend that realistic worldbuilding requires the inclusion of certain specific inequalities in order to count as realistic, you’re simultaneously asserting that such inequalities are inherent to reality"

Yes, I would contend that realistic worldbuilding CAN require the inclusion of certain specific inequalities in order to count as realistic (I say can rather than should, because so much depends on the story you want to tell). Yes, by doing so, I'm simultaneously asserting that such inequalities are inherent to reality (or my view of it, at any rate). The way I read her statement is that she implies this is a bad thing in itself. I disagree, I think it all depends on where a writer is going with their set up. As Joe said above

Related to that, I think it's perfectly possible within sexist or racist worlds to write a full range of women and POC characters, and then see how they react to their circumstances. Isn't it necessary to some degree to do that if you're to investigate racism or sexism at all? It may well be that gritty fantasy often fails to do that or falls short in the attempt, but I don't know that that's inevitable.

But it's entirely possible that I read her point completely the wrong way.

" – that a story cannot be honest, or your characters believably human, if there aren’t mechanisms in place to keep women oppressed, POC othered and LGBTQ persons invisible."

Again, it's precisely because these mechanism exists that it usually makes for a more interesting story, as far as I'm concerned, if they are used and examined (although, again, so much depends on the actual story).

And I very much felt that her piece didn't really acknowledge that.

By the way, I agree with all the arguments Joe has put forward, and with everything you yourself have said. Just to put things in context.

 

[Kissmequick]

Being a naturally sarcastic person, you'd think I'd have picked that up. I blame the Convention Crud that is fogging my head!

Yes, I would contend that realistic worldbuilding CAN require the inclusion of certain specific inequalities in order to count as realistic (I say can rather than should, because so much depends on the story you want to tell). Yes, by doing so, I'm simultaneously asserting that such inequalities are inherent to reality (or my view of it, at any rate). The way I read her statement is that she implies this is a bad thing in itself. I disagree, I think it all depends on where a writer is going with their set up. As Joe said above

Ofc it CAN. For me, the article is wondering why it seems that it has to. Because, well, because so many do include it as 'realistic'. And not many don't. Because it is equally as realistic to have, frex, a strong independent woman in a misogynistic society. For her to have power even (look at some historical ladies, or more recently, some female politicians who came into power even though they lived/live in a male dominated society.) It's just as realistic to have a woman who isn't raped in such a society as it is to have one who has been (depending on the society, more so tbh) So, to me, it's not that some books have these things in, just that it seems to be accepted as the default. And - in some quarters at least - it's decried as unrealistic if a woman hasn't been raped. Which just boggles my tiny little mind....

 

[Mark_Lawrence]

Now this strikes me as an excellent response...

Well it certainly changes the debate. None of Nerd's list of things people object to in grit are referenced. Now it's entirely about representation of gender and minorities.

I see complaints about graphic sex, graphic rape, and swearing that targets women...

I can't recall reading any graphic sex or graphic rape in a fantasy book. I guess GRRM has (consensual) sex scenes that some might consider graphic (I don't from memory consider them very graphic). In fact the only rape scene I've ever read in a fantasy book with any level of detail/graphic element was 30+ years ago in Lord Foul's Bane - definitely unsettling but not graphic.

I have of course seen no end of graphic violence.

[here I'm taking graphic to mean what it normally means a clear vivid picture of what's happening - mechanical detail.]

On the swearing front - I can't think of any examples but I may have missed them.

+++++++

The anti-grit argument now seems to become a political one about representation that could be levelled at any section of fantasy.

Genuine question here: I've not read them so I don't know. I'm just plucking Sanderson and Rothfuss as examples of hugely well-selling non-gritty fantasy authors. Are their books set in worlds that meet all these requirements on gender equality, diversity, etc?

 

[Kissmequick]

I don't think the graphic (consensual) sex is a problem per se. But graphic rape...yeah, maybe I'm unlucky in my choice of books? I'd really rather unread a couple of them (especially the unicorn horn dildo one...)

And there doesn't have to be graphic rape for the whole issue to be thorny, or for a book's portrayal of women to be problematic.

And that's not entirely what people are complaining about, I don't think, it's just the discussion has moved there, as these things do.

The anti-grit argument now seems to become a political one about representation that could be levelled at any section of fantasy.

Perhaps it's just more obvious in the grittier ones.

 

[JoanDrake]

There are some few ancient and dark ages historicals that deal with LGBTQ. There's The Persian Boy by Mary Renault (which is YA as well), Raptor by Gary Jennings, and Pope Joan by Donna Cross. Can anyone think of any more?.

 

[Mark_Lawrence]

I don't think the graphic (consensual) sex is a problem per se. But graphic rape...yeah, maybe I'm unlucky in my choice of books? I'd really rather unread a couple of them (especially the unicorn horn dildo one...)

Unicorns don't tend to be a sign of gritty realism...

 

[Kissmequick]

Unicorns don't tend to be a sign of gritty realism...

Depends where you're inserting their horn....you don't think raping someone with one is gritty? My point remains - graphic rape is out there, and it's not rare (though perhaps becoming rarer). And rarely does the graphicness, often done in loving detail, actually further the story.