Both this and Bennett's piece remind me of a recent moment of collective familial outrage in which the other-wise critics of Pop Culture Happy Hour were answering the question "Which television world would you choose to live in?" and _two_ of them answered "Westeros." (Obviously our answer was Star Trek:TNG, but I think you know that already....) But this also invokes Mary Renault's lovely and lesser-known book "The Mask of Apollo," which is about the real-life historical moment in which the philosopher Plato thought he had a chance to make the wealthy and prosperous city of Syracuse into the Ideal City ruled by the perfect philosopher-king - and he blew it completely, in part because he was an outsider coming in and telling people what to do and in part because his king-candidate was neither very talented nor very enthusiastic about the philosophy. Which is all to say that Plato and Aristotle, who are responsible for _A Lot_, really helped inflict this whole notion of "all we need is the Right King" onto Western culture. Yet they, two very thoughtful dudes, both ultimately failed in their kingmaking projects, even though Aristotle lucked into having an extremely talented, ridiculously charismatic, smart protege in the form of Alexander the Great - who still got himself poisoned at 33 after being responsible for the deaths of over 1 million people. There is no Best Possible system. If you're lucky you get FDR, _and you still get Japanese internment camps and an unstable succession and racism baked into the new social safety net._
WESTEROS?? Westeros! The mind boggles! I remember being in the audience when someone asked China Mieville if he'd go through a portal into the world of his books and his answer was, basically: "are you *kidding*, I would *die*".
I recently finished Ada Palmer's Inventing the Renaissance—funny and helpful corrective to see one vein of the Renaissance Humanist project go "man if we just educated princes in the classical virtues and made them read a lot of Latin there would be peace or at least things would be much better" (a position to which I am sympathetic!) and a hundred fifty years later Machiavelli chimes "um, besties! it turns out! no!"
No perfect system, and yet: we can always strive to improve what's around us—which is easier to do when we can see clearly what is there...
Tangentially from the Le Guin reference - it's really struck me, rereading some of her work over the last few years, how often her stories' climaxes involve passing through a wilderness, literal or metaphorical, where there's nothing to do *but* grapple with those big questions of identity and who you are in adversity.
A Wizard of Earthsea does it quite obviously out in the open sea, and indeed is probably the one where it's most explicitly the character going into the wilderness *so that* he can face himself without distractions or danger to anyone else; but as well as its sequels exploring the same idea, we have the glacier in The Left Hand of Darkness (interesting for being *two* people alone together in the wilderness) and the famine in The Dispossessed doing very much the same narrative purpose.
I think there's a lot to grapple with on this topic in particular in the way her work tends to make that knowledge-of-self come from struggle and hardship, as well as confrontation, and the way solitude ties into that. No real conclusion from me here but I think there's some meat to this.
The return of kings, indeed. It's interesting that Tolkien, who wrote a book that pretty heavily subverts the hero's journey, could not resist putting a little king return in there, as a treat. It's a very powerful myth, and one it's so natural to, well, return to.
I've started reading Ulysses, inspired by my Dublin trip, and did a little prep for the book -- read the intro to the edition we have at our place, and watched a YT video that my mom recommended that sort of sets the context for the story. It's cool to see Joyce so deeply break down one of the prototypical Return of Kings stories as to render the story itself almost irrelevant, meaningless. And yet, I don't think any of us wants to think of life in terms of Joyce's novel, not most of the time any way -- we like structure, we like simplicity. We like tension, I suppose. You mention many of the examples (Broken Earth is a particularly good one; I've only read the first two books, but I can see the shape of the return, which takes on a new meaning in a fundamentally broken world). Weird fiction adds tension by having the Returner be a horrible monster, and having the protagonists (fruitlessly, or almost fruitlessly) try to block its return. Over and over, we want the familiar trope with a surprising twist.
I can't help but think of society in the real world the same way. There are indeed strong social forces clamoring for the return of a Real Life King all over the world, but when he (inevitably, he) returns, the reality is far different, and not as pleasant, as the dream, even to the most ardent dreamers -- I think we're seeing that now. One of the strengths of representative government is, in a sense, it allows The People to tell a different story when they're tired of the current one. Not always a pleasant story, and no guarantee of a happy ending, but as you say better than the alternative, when one person tells a story on their own, and everyone else has to listen.
Have you read Gareth Hanrahan's Lands of the Firstborn? The most recent book just came out last week, I think, so I imagine you might not have had a chance to get to it. I think the last book really wrestles with this question of people without broader power producing lasting things. Or even people WITH power. The first two books can teeter on the precipice of nihilism, so if nihilism is not your thing it might be a tough read, but I think the last book really sticks the landing for the whole series. I'm sure you've got all the time in the world with a kiddo and your own writing to do, but I recommend them!
Both this and Bennett's piece remind me of a recent moment of collective familial outrage in which the other-wise critics of Pop Culture Happy Hour were answering the question "Which television world would you choose to live in?" and _two_ of them answered "Westeros." (Obviously our answer was Star Trek:TNG, but I think you know that already....) But this also invokes Mary Renault's lovely and lesser-known book "The Mask of Apollo," which is about the real-life historical moment in which the philosopher Plato thought he had a chance to make the wealthy and prosperous city of Syracuse into the Ideal City ruled by the perfect philosopher-king - and he blew it completely, in part because he was an outsider coming in and telling people what to do and in part because his king-candidate was neither very talented nor very enthusiastic about the philosophy. Which is all to say that Plato and Aristotle, who are responsible for _A Lot_, really helped inflict this whole notion of "all we need is the Right King" onto Western culture. Yet they, two very thoughtful dudes, both ultimately failed in their kingmaking projects, even though Aristotle lucked into having an extremely talented, ridiculously charismatic, smart protege in the form of Alexander the Great - who still got himself poisoned at 33 after being responsible for the deaths of over 1 million people. There is no Best Possible system. If you're lucky you get FDR, _and you still get Japanese internment camps and an unstable succession and racism baked into the new social safety net._
WESTEROS?? Westeros! The mind boggles! I remember being in the audience when someone asked China Mieville if he'd go through a portal into the world of his books and his answer was, basically: "are you *kidding*, I would *die*".
I recently finished Ada Palmer's Inventing the Renaissance—funny and helpful corrective to see one vein of the Renaissance Humanist project go "man if we just educated princes in the classical virtues and made them read a lot of Latin there would be peace or at least things would be much better" (a position to which I am sympathetic!) and a hundred fifty years later Machiavelli chimes "um, besties! it turns out! no!"
No perfect system, and yet: we can always strive to improve what's around us—which is easier to do when we can see clearly what is there...
Tangentially from the Le Guin reference - it's really struck me, rereading some of her work over the last few years, how often her stories' climaxes involve passing through a wilderness, literal or metaphorical, where there's nothing to do *but* grapple with those big questions of identity and who you are in adversity.
A Wizard of Earthsea does it quite obviously out in the open sea, and indeed is probably the one where it's most explicitly the character going into the wilderness *so that* he can face himself without distractions or danger to anyone else; but as well as its sequels exploring the same idea, we have the glacier in The Left Hand of Darkness (interesting for being *two* people alone together in the wilderness) and the famine in The Dispossessed doing very much the same narrative purpose.
I think there's a lot to grapple with on this topic in particular in the way her work tends to make that knowledge-of-self come from struggle and hardship, as well as confrontation, and the way solitude ties into that. No real conclusion from me here but I think there's some meat to this.
The return of kings, indeed. It's interesting that Tolkien, who wrote a book that pretty heavily subverts the hero's journey, could not resist putting a little king return in there, as a treat. It's a very powerful myth, and one it's so natural to, well, return to.
I've started reading Ulysses, inspired by my Dublin trip, and did a little prep for the book -- read the intro to the edition we have at our place, and watched a YT video that my mom recommended that sort of sets the context for the story. It's cool to see Joyce so deeply break down one of the prototypical Return of Kings stories as to render the story itself almost irrelevant, meaningless. And yet, I don't think any of us wants to think of life in terms of Joyce's novel, not most of the time any way -- we like structure, we like simplicity. We like tension, I suppose. You mention many of the examples (Broken Earth is a particularly good one; I've only read the first two books, but I can see the shape of the return, which takes on a new meaning in a fundamentally broken world). Weird fiction adds tension by having the Returner be a horrible monster, and having the protagonists (fruitlessly, or almost fruitlessly) try to block its return. Over and over, we want the familiar trope with a surprising twist.
I can't help but think of society in the real world the same way. There are indeed strong social forces clamoring for the return of a Real Life King all over the world, but when he (inevitably, he) returns, the reality is far different, and not as pleasant, as the dream, even to the most ardent dreamers -- I think we're seeing that now. One of the strengths of representative government is, in a sense, it allows The People to tell a different story when they're tired of the current one. Not always a pleasant story, and no guarantee of a happy ending, but as you say better than the alternative, when one person tells a story on their own, and everyone else has to listen.
Have you read Gareth Hanrahan's Lands of the Firstborn? The most recent book just came out last week, I think, so I imagine you might not have had a chance to get to it. I think the last book really wrestles with this question of people without broader power producing lasting things. Or even people WITH power. The first two books can teeter on the precipice of nihilism, so if nihilism is not your thing it might be a tough read, but I think the last book really sticks the landing for the whole series. I'm sure you've got all the time in the world with a kiddo and your own writing to do, but I recommend them!