Variation on an Atheist's Meme

[RVM45]

I have a General Question.

Have you ever heard The Atheist Question:

"Why Doesn't God Heal Amputees?"

Just let me inject:

As a Believer, that question only rates a "NEC" for "Not EVEN Close".

BUT;

"Why are SF/Phantasy Authors so reluctant to heal Amputees?"

The TV shows "Highlander"; "Buffy" & "Angel"; "Forever Night"—actually, I don't think any of the TV Vampires regenerate...

Just finished reading the "Game of Thrones" series. There are at least five characters—seeing any one of them come into a source of regeneration would be very satisfying...

Forgive my poor memory for names:

Theon; Jaime the king's guard: the boy with the severed spine: Strong Belwas; any one (or more) of The Unsullied—Even the Onion Knight...

I'd give pretty good odds that not a single "Game of Thrones" character will regenerate.

The remember the "Kane" books by Karl Edward Wagner?

Kane is specifically said to repair ANY Injury—at noticably faster than human healing speed—to get Kane back to his Default State ASAP...

But Wagner carefully avoided Kane ever losing Arm, Leg, Eye or Whatever—or even calling to mind a past occasion where he had regenerated.

And if anyone read "Half-Passed Human" I was thoroughly disgusted at the centuries old Dog "Dan" limping off of the Cyber-Deity space ship with his one back leg and tail still paralyzed...

A Cyber-Deity can't regenerate a bit of spinal tissue?

{And Wolverine is spared beaucoup limb regenerations by his uncuttable Adamantium Skeleton.}

What is the deal here?


.....RVM45

 

[thaddeus6th]

Funny you should mention this. In my book-after-next at least one of my characters will have lost an arm but use a metal replacement crafted by the mages (who are believed to be 'touched by the Divine'). That's not direct healing by a god (and the mages charge), but it's reasonably close.

 

[chopper]

IMO, (and doing this with sleep in my eyes, so this is by neccessity a sweeping overview) good storytelling inflicts wounds on characters as a consequence of their actions; or it gives them a barrier that must be overcome to show the strength of their character. look at Glokta in The First Law, who is far from the "pitiable cripple" he physically resembles. or else it shows that people with any kind of disability are just as valid as Conanananan and his ilk.

likewise then, removing that disability via magic must be done for a reason, not purely to reset the status quo. give Jaime Lannister his hand back with a tah-dah and sparkly lights? well, that invalidates that storyline. might as well wave that wand and reattach Ned Stark's head so he can vanquish the Lannisters singlehandedly.

i'd argue that many religious types believe that god does not heal because it is up to the person to overcome their disability* (through faith in themselves in the real world, not through faith in [random_deity_generator=Ganesh]). so why would a writer want to heal his/her characters if it would not make any sense in the story to do so?

(pauses for more tea and toast)


*but obviously this cannot be proved one way or the other.

 

[Mouse]

What chopper said.

I have never heard that 'atheist's question' in my life. Ever.

Why would you heal your amputees in your novel? It's stupid. I stopped reading the Amber books when matey grew his own eyeballs back.

 

[Boneman]

I was going to mention the Amber Chronicles, but Mouse got there first... I found it excellent storytelling, and the ability of the Princes and Princesses of Amber to heal themsleves was IMHO pretty well portrayed. And someone gets a cybernetic forearm from a Spirit world which works pretty well, when their own is chopped off.

I'd say it's in the storytelling that this (underused) trope will flourish or not. And I'd have to say it's the SciFi writers who should be investigating this - there is already work on regenerating limbs using magnetic fields, so in a hundrd years or a hundred centuries in the future it should be commonplace - assuming mankind is still around, then. In Dune, they grew whole bodies from a few cells...

 

[Gumboot]

*cough* Star Wars *cough*

 

[Gumboot]

"Why are SF/Phantasy Authors so reluctant to heal Amputees?"

The TV shows "Highlander"; "Buffy" & "Angel"; "Forever Night"—actually, I don't think any of the TV Vampires regenerate...

Well, in Highlander in particular it would be rather problematic if amputees could be healed, given the premise.

The vampires in the "Buffyverse" certainly regenerate (a number of season story arcs revolved around it). Can't speak for Forever Night because I've never heard of it.

Just finished reading the "Game of Thrones" series. There are at least five characters—seeing any one of them come into a source of regeneration would be very satisfying...

Forgive my poor memory for names:

Theon; Jaime the king's guard: the boy with the severed spine: Strong Belwas; any one (or more) of The Unsullied—Even the Onion Knight...

I'd give pretty good odds that not a single "Game of Thrones" character will regenerate.

Well no, since there's no indication that magic in Westeros can be used to heal (bring the dead back to life, yes, but their wounds aren't healed). In fact at one point Arya explicitly asks Thoros if he can reconnect a man's head to his body, and he says he can't.

What is the deal here?

I suspect chopper has the right of it; the loss of a limb or other debilitating injury (such as blinding) is a powerful symbol representing the "cost" of victory on the heroes. It predates the fantasy genre considerably, featuring frequently in the myths and legends of many cultures. With the first modern fantasy novel, Tolkien made quite a point of what the quest to destroy the ring had cost Frodo, despite "winning".

Anything that reverses the inflicted injury basically undermine's the hero's sacrifice and the importance of their achievement. If nothing else, it's frankly just terrible storytelling.

And of course, if you want to avoid your hero enjoying miraculous healing, you can't very well have other characters going off and losing limbs only to have them grown back again by some benevolent deity, because then the reader (Atheist or not) is immediately going to ask "If he grew back Stuart the Elf's ear why doesn't he heal Alfrondo's sight?"

A hero (in narrative terms) is a character who has every opportunity to turn back, but chooses instead to press on knowing what that might cost them. If you negate the cost, you negate their heroism.

 

[Tyburn]

What about Star Trek?

In Insurrection, the planet's youth-giving treknobabblon radiation made Lt. LaForge's eyes grow back, even though he did have some rather nifty cyber-eyes which did a better job than his visor.

I'm currently thinking there must have been a point at which his re-growing eyes must have popped the implants out - that would have been embarrassing over dinner.

 

[Sander]

There are, of course, exceptions. Elysium, the film, made the idea of machines capable of healing anything a core part of its premise -- but it still worked, because access to that technology was severely limited. That's one way to go about it.

The problem with being able to heal anything isn't just that you can't inflict lasting physical wounds on your characters, but it's also that it removes a certain risk from (violent) encounters. Why would I care about this intense fight when the author isn't going to kill off his point of view character, and any non-lethal damage can be repaired easily?

Of course, skilled writers can turn premises like this into fascinating stories. Planescape: Torment comes to mind, which at times felt like a novel in videogame form. But it requires that you find tension and sacrifice on another plane than the physical, which can be a limiting factor.

 

[RVM45]

In "Buffy" there was a "Hook-Handed" Vampire as well as a couple one-eyed Vampires.

Also, when the Crazy Slayer cut Spike's Hand's off, Angel went to some pains to get him the best Surgeons to sew them back on.

To be "Immortal" and not to be able to regenerate seems particularly distressing.

In "Highlander" an Immortal absolutely couldn't die except by beheading...

So if I poured gasoline on him and set him on fire...

Or cut his heart and liver out, they would regenerate—but not a hand...

Gagging at Gnats.

If I were a "Highlander" style immortal, one place you'd never find me would be on a battlefield amongst explosives.

When I was at Purdue in the Mid-70s some of the Scientists would post copies of their latest research on the door to their offices or along the hallway in the immediate vicinity.

Made for an interesting way to pass time between classes.

Anyway, you may know that half-grown Tadpoles regenerate, but that most full-grown frogs do not.

One Professor was regenerating frog legs with hormones and mild electrical stimulation. He was amputating Rat Limbs at the elbow and getting three-quarter length Deformed Flippers—including quite a bit of Bone Regrowth.

Don't know his name.

Obviously something derailed his research. I'd have expected something from that quarter by now.

As for the George RR Martin story...

Magic in that World is rather Feeble, but it is in a state of Growing Ever Stronger.

{For those who believe in Evolution: A horse or a Giraffe that loses a leg will perish long before it could grow a new one, making any hypothetical ability to heal irrelevant an of no survival value...}

If I were sending Human's to colonize new worlds and could modify genes to fit, Regeneration would be a top priority.



.....RVM45

 

[Rolynd]

.......

 

[chopper]

Gagging at Gnats.

um... nope, lost me there.

{For those who believe in Evolution: A horse or a Giraffe that loses a leg will perish long before it could grow a new one, making any hypothetical ability to heal irrelevant an of no survival value...}

...and lost me there too. sorry. where do horses come into the argument? (quite aside from the fact that you don't have to believe in evolution: it's a fact.)

A hero (in narrative terms) is a character who has every opportunity to turn back, but chooses instead to press on knowing what that might cost them. If you negate the cost, you negate their heroism.

gumboot: darn right.

 

[Sapheron]

I'm leaping in on the mention of Planescape: Torment. With a fully immortal main character who regenerates absolutely everything it pretty much goes against the rules here. But in this case it's also used as a story device and is one of the main focuses of the plot.

Another example: Use of Weapons by Mr Banks has a guy being decapitated and surviving.

 

[prizzley]

"Why are SF/Phantasy Authors so reluctant to heal Amputees?"

Because regrowing full body parts isn't healing, it's creating. If your characters can do that, they can create new beings. Fine, if that's what you want them to do, but it creates a whole new set of ethical and practical problems. For instance what if you get it wrong?

 

[Montero]

Because regrowing full body parts isn't healing, it's creating. If your characters can do that, they can create new beings. Fine, if that's what you want them to do, but it creates a whole new set of ethical and practical problems. For instance what if you get it wrong?

I am not entirely convinced that growing replacement limbs or organs is creating in the same sense that creating a new individual is creating.

Examining this further
At our current state of medical knowledge, we know that healthy livers can regenerate by themselves. So someone can donate part of their liver to someone else, and then their own liver re-generates.
There is a lot of research going on regarding the growing of specialised cells on matrices, with the idea of someone who needs a new heart, kidney, whatever could have it grown from their own cells rather than needing a donor. They would then not have all the problems of rejection and have to take rejection meds for the rest of their lives.

Arms have been transplanted from donors (not live donors obviously) and made functional through surgery. Again there is rejection med problems, so if a new arm could be grown in the same ways as a new organ from the person's cells (obviously a much more challenging task) then again that would be beneficial.

Growing the organs/limb in situ, would avoid surgery and surgical complications.
Yes there would be other complications that would have to be overcome along the way, as there is with any new medical advance. We already have medical regulation, trials etc, so the framework is there that any writer could use to project how things could be in the future.

To me, there is a very big step from what is basically creating and installing replacement parts, to creating an intelligent being by the same process.

There has been cloning tried - Dolly the sheep - but that was via inserting different cells in a sheep's egg and implanting it in a ewe's uterus. So that strikes me as a different methodology compared to growing new organs for a person from a person's own cells, either in the test tube or in the person's body.


Incidentally, Lois McMaster Bujold has this kind of technology in her Vorkosigan books (though it doesn't actually ever mention amputees as such). There is the regrowth of organs to replace damaged ones and the same with skin for burns victims.
One set of bad guys practice the creation of clone bodies for life extension and that is an ongoing issue in a small way in the series. Not to mention some of the other possibilities of advanced genetic manipulation.


Currently re-watching Buffy, btw, and vampires do have faster healing powers. No actual regeneration, but none has as yet lost a limb.
In True Blood the vampire's blood provides advance healing if drunk by humans.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Because heroism that doesn't cost anything is worthless.

It's as unsatisfying as a story that ends with "it was all a dream/virtual reality".

 

[MstrTal]

{And Wolverine is spared beaucoup limb regenerations by his uncuttable Adamantium Skeleton.}

What is the deal here?


.....RVM45

Actually in the 80's or 90's Wolverine did have a fully body regeneration. It was in the Encron Crystal arch. He regenerated from a single drop of blood. Of course the massive amount of energy from the crystal acted to briefly enhance his healing factor.

Also in one of the series of books set in the Forgotten Realms one character regenerates all of her flesh after being skinned and another regrows an arm. Also in the Highlander tv series one of McClouds (former) friends was burnt at the stake during the Inquisition and eventually healed his scars to appear physically normal. Well until Duncan cut his head off.

In the Honor Harrington series the only reason she has cybernetic prosthesis is because something in her body rejects regeneration. At least that is how it is explained after she looses her hand. So it does happen in fantasy it is just vary sporadic.

 

[ZombieWife]

Jaime Lannister is a great example. The losing of an appendage is what helped his character arc along. It also perpetuates the rules of the series: bad stuff can happen to anyone. Not all endings are happy.

You have a world where people can get limbs chopped off and regrown, then you're pretty much training your reader to say, "Hmm, I guess there's no real risk in this world. Oh look! A giant eagle is pecking a character's eye out. (yawn) It'll grow back."

Some would argue that resurrection functions the same way. If death is not final then you're going to be facing a constant uphill battle to amp up certain conflicts where life and death are real possible outcomes.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Surely it's about the challenge. Amputees competing against fully functioning others. I mean in real life (avoiding the whole unfortunate mess about him shooting his girlfriend) would Oscar Pistorius (blade runner) rate any sort of a thought if it wasn't for the fact of his missing limbs? But the fact that he has two missing legs and yet runs on blades almost as fast as the world's best on legs makes him a story.

In the same way Corum of the Silver Hand (Moorcock) is made special by having an artificial hand and overcoming his limitations. If his hand had grown back in the second trilogy would he still have been the hero he was?

Cheers, Greg.