In Defense of Escapist Fiction

aka "we all know the world is full of chance and anarchy, so yes, it's true to life for characters to die randomly, but newsflash! the genre's called fantasy, it's meant to be unrealistic"*

On my main blog I've once talked about (link) how I stopped reading Feast for Crows halfway through and lost most my interest in Game of Thrones, because it's so dark and depressing and nothing good ever happens (there's a TV Trope for that, too, "Darkness Induced Apathy"). And even though it's gotten somewhat better in season 6, you can still see that it won't end well at all. So reading and watching GoT doesn't really make me happy, it doesn't really fulfill the reason I consume fiction anymore. I personally like to escape my everyday problems, anxieties and pains into fictional worlds. And if the fictional world is filled with even more horror and agony than what I read in the newspaper everyday then sometimes I just can't take it anymore.

Not everything needs to be gritty and dark and realistic. I live in reality (I presume)! Sometimes I don't want realism, I want escapism! I want a world that's better and easier, where the good guys win in the end and there is a clear objective, an honorable goal to work towards. Sometimes I just want to see the characters I've learned to care about live and receive the happy ending they deserve. Sometimes I want to know that there's a way things can be just and that fighting for goodness is not in vain.

Don't get me wrong, realism, too, definitely has its merits and a lot of fiction I greatly enjoy would rather stop in the middle of a sentence than present us with a happy ending. But in my core I long for stories that end well, because the world I live in deely unsettles me from time to time and I need to escape to somewhere where I am safe.

Satori just wants things to be good and nice for once


* That's my favorite line from the EpicRapBattle between George R.R. Martin and JRR Tolkien. Watch here.

Oryx & Crake discussion questions

We held a lesson on Oryx & Crake where we discussed some questions that I will share with you right now.

Introductory Questions:
What kind of genre does the book belong to?
What kind of protagonist is Snowman? Can we trust what he's telling us?
What kind of society do we find in 'Oryx and Crake'?

Genetic Engineering:
Where do we find Genetic Engineering in the book?
What connotations does Genetic Engineering have in the book?
What are the drawbacks and the advantages of Genetic Engineering as mentioned in the novel?

Consumerism and Capitalism:
Who holds the power in society?

Old World vs. New World:
How does the Old World differentiate from the New World?
Can we see differences in the language? What role does language play?
What sort of values were important in the Old World? How did this change over time?

Identity:
Who is the Self, who the Other?
Can religious themes be identified?

 Of course I also have answers to all of these questions, but that's not the purpose of this post. Maybe I will take up one or two of these questions and elaborate on them further.