Social Critique in Fiction

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Social Critique in Fiction

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Jaxyon posted:

The 1960's wasn't ready for time travel incest fantasies, but by god Heinlein had the courage to bring it to them.

Sci-fi: Hypothetically It Would Be Okay To Have Sex With A Robot Dog
Fantasy: Hypothetically It Would Be OK To Wage Racial Holy War

# ¿ Nov 19, 2021 20:26

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 16:50

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

DarklyDreaming posted:

Warcraft is kinda weird in that it views racial holy war as "Bad" but also seems to view it as an inevitable course of nature whenever there's "Us" and "Them"

It also includes a ton of instances where the writers clearly don't realize that's what they've written, so it's treated as cool/awesome/just. There are basically the racial holy wars that are treated as bad (the ones targeting player factions), and the ones that target everyone else, which the writers clearly do not even think about. Which is kind of their whole deal, not thinking their ideas through to their conclusions. "Orcs aren't just savage beasts, they're regular people. Anyway, please go kill these savages".

Gumball Gumption posted:

Warcraft might be one of the best examples of how you can't make a anti-war war movie. The whole message is that war is hell and the conflict is stupid and they shouldn't be fighting. But between storyteller incompetence and the need for it to be an endless franchise it just constantly glorifies racial holy war.

I feel like it's more down to storyteller incompetence than a necessity of an endless franchise. Obviously the story needs some sort of violent conflict, given the gameplay, but you don't have to go so far as to glorify racial holy war. First step to not having that be the focus would probably be getting rid of the active participants/supporters of real life racial holy war in leadership positions though.

DarklyDreaming posted:

Sci-fi addendum: Hypothetically It is ok to pay a homeless person to remote pilot them into having sex with a malfunctioning robot

Also it's youtube but that link is super not safe for work, just warnin' everybody now

The NSFW part is the hobo getting killed.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2021 21:39

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Antifa Turkeesian posted:

About Dune, I get that the larger book series might critique things like dynastic rule and cool intrigue with nobility etc, but the first book validates eugenics by showing that it works and makes the great man model of history look cool by showing that it works. Herbert might criticize those ideas elsewhere, but I think you have to admit that the first book thinks they�re interesting because it�s all about them. And nobody would read or enjoy it if the truth of the novel were contained in another novel.

It�s not like Bladerunner where the operation of the world constitutes a critique of capitalism as it grinds its characters into hopeless misery. Dune is a successful hero�s journey where a good aristocrat trained in noblesse oblige discovers the will to power. Feudalism itself isn�t a problem other than that some of the nobles are jealous of the one that is too pure of heart.

I�m ok being contradicted on this, as it�s been 15 years since I read it. The new movie is pretty and very much about being a vibe.

I haven't read the book, but isn't the eugenics program extremely long-running? That it produced someone capable of affecting great change could just as well be random chance, rather than a thousand years of effort actually succeeding. Not sure how you'd even show great man theory working. Like, the existence of individuals with what appears to be a massive impact on the course of history isn't proof of the theory in reality, so how do you "prove" it in fiction?

# ¿ Nov 22, 2021 16:59

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Isn't it 50% of all life? I feel like not limiting the thing to 50% of sapient life or something, which would sorta make sense, has to be part of the conversation. Like, were they afraid that anything but a flat rate culling across the board would encourage people to think too much about resource use? "Thanos snaps the top consumers responsible for 50% of consumption into dust" would be a very different movie.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2021 20:46

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Social Critique in Fiction