The Eiger Sanction

[chris_gerrib]

Apropos of nothing, I found myself thinking about diversity in fiction. One of the arguments against having non Straight White Males in fiction, especially historical fiction, is that the non-SWMs are "not representative" of the era.

Well, here's a fact - prior to the arrival of the Industrial Revolution in any given society, 90% of the population was engaged in subsistence agriculture. They were farmers and herdsmen, poor and living hand-to-mouth. Everybody else in the society, from kings to knights to wizards to the village blacksmith, everybody, fit in that other 10%. So, any non-farmer in fiction is inherently unrepresentative, and any other occupation would be even more unrepresentative, consisting of maybe 1% of the population. Maybe 1%.

Yet how many historical fictions have you read about farmers? Even if the main character starts as a farmer, something happens to make him leave the farm. In short, pretty much any piece of historical fiction you've ever read is "un-representative."

Here's the truth - all characters in fiction are unrepresentative. In the zombie apocalypse, 90% of humanity are dead and zombie-fied, yet the story is about the 10% who aren't. If the characters weren't exceptional when the story started, they become so over the length of the story.

In short, anybody trying to tell you that we should only have "representative" characters in fiction is offering to make change for a nine-dollar bill in threes.


(with apologies to The Eiger Sanction)

Comments

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

I'll second catsittingstill's comments.

I'll also point out that your are persistently missing the point. To restate - exceptional people exist, and we tell stories about exceptional people, not the Typical Joe.

[baron-waste.livejournal.com]

- Well, unless that's the point of the story; R Silverberg's “A Happy Day in 2381” comes to mind, as does T Disch's 334, where the story is about the society, not the individuals therein.  [Not coincidentally, both settings have crushingly high populations where individuality is steamrolled by sheer numbers.]

Having a character be exceptional is splendid.  Defining “exceptional” by identity politics is not.

[Lady Triệu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Tri%E1%BB%87u), “The Lady General clad in Golden Robe,” was exceptional.  Beaucoup exceptional.

"I'd like to ride storms, kill sharks in the open sea, drive out the aggressors, reconquer the country, undo the ties of serfdom, and never bend my back to be the concubine of whatever man."

She was indeed a non-white, non-Western non-male.  Triple Score!  But that's NOT why she was exceptional. … Or is it?]

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what your point is.

[baron-waste.livejournal.com]

Okay - stories are written about exceptional people.  Granted.  [I ought not to have mentioned the possible alternative in the same comment - that may be what confused you.]

Now, if you write of someone because that person kicked ass and took names, if that person's individual achievements and qualities make them exceptional - as by definition it would - that's fine and dandy.

If you classify that person as a what and not a who, if being a non-white, non-Western non-male is what makes that person “exceptional” in your book and thus worthy of writing about, that's defining “exceptional” by identity politics.

[James Earl Jones has expressed understandable annoyance at being called “a great black actor.”  “Why must they make the distinction?” he said.  “Why can I not simply be considered a great actor?”  Because that's not how the game is played.  If you're the right what, who you are personally takes second place.]

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Well of course a book about boring people who do and see nothing of interest is boring, no matter what the race etc of the characters may be.

I haven't found that the race of the characters affects that much. White-straight-male is done to death, of course, but it's still possible to come up with interesting plots that involve them. But by the same token, the werewolf book that was great with white-straight-males wouldn't become boring if it were done with black lesbians.

One of my musical friends once said "they still haven't come to an end of the tunes that can be written in C major." However it doesn't follow that there's something wrong with writing in D mixolydian, and I've come up with some very nice tunes that way.